Change of Heart (10 page)

So. Arms—tied. Legs—tied. Body—freezing cold. Not much to work with. Suddenly, I notice the sliver of light peeking through at the bridge of my nose. Hope flares in my chest. I shake my head back and forth, trying to slip the blindfold free. It starts to fall. Encouraged, I shake harder. The heavy cloth drops to my neck.

I blink a few times against the sudden brightness. Then, as my vision returns, I take stock of my surroundings.

I’m in some type of storage room. Metal shelves stocked with cardboard boxes surround me. I squint, trying to make out the labels on them.
Mott’s Clamato.
I frown, confused. My eyes move to another box.
Grade-A Fresh Beef Patties
.

Then it hits me. This isn’t a storage room. It’s a walk-in, commercial freezer.

How the hell did I end up here? I look down at myself. I’m seated on a dark wooden chair, like the type you’d find in a seedy bar. The straps holding my legs in place are those plastic handcuffs that are impossible to remove without a knife. My breath mists in front of my face as I try to turn my head around to get a look at my arms. But there’s a pipe behind me that prevents me from doing so. I try to scoot forward to get away from it, but the chair doesn’t move. Obviously. It’s tied to the pipe.

A noise in front of me jerks my head toward the door. The handle starts to turn downward. A sickening mix of apprehension and fear roil in my stomach.

The hinges groan as the heavy door swings inward. Two men walk in.

I recognize the first one immediately. He’s the same gaunt, skinny man who had looked at me through the window of the Lincoln. He’s wearing a crisp, beige suit with a black shirt underneath. The light casts a white crown on his bald head. His eyes are small, dark, and dangerous. They flicker over me. When he sees I’m awake, a slight smile forms on his lips. It’s a bloodless smile that doesn’t touch his eyes. It makes me want to recoil and look away, but I’m determined not to let him see my fear.

I meet his gaze and hold it instead, defiant to my very core. His brows raise in brief amusement, and if anything, that sickening smile deepens. Looking at his face is like viewing a walking corpse. He steps to the side, still holding that silent smile, and lets his companion through.

The second man is a hulking, thickset thug with the face and body of a bear. His lumbering bulk shifts heavily as he moves, and his deep, wide chest speaks of slabs of muscle underneath. A black beard obscures half his face, a sharp contrast to the clean-shaven, bald appearance of the first man.

The two seem polar opposites. Whereas the man with the smile clearly takes care in the precision of his dress, this one does not. He looks as disheveled as if he’d just stumbled out of the woods. His black, leather jacket is rumpled, his jeans plain and threadbare, and his army boots worn and caked with mud. Could he be the one who broke down Rich’s door?

He grunts as he walks into the room, then chuckles and crosses his arms. “So,” he says as the door closes behind him. “It looks like the sister is up, yes?”

I can’t quite place his accent. It’s thick and heavy, just like the rest of him. What had he call me? “The sister?” Why?

I open my mouth to speak, but when I try to form the words, I realize that my tongue is still wooden from the sedative. The noise I make comes out as a pitiful mumble.

This seems to amuse the bigger man. He grins at his friend, and steps toward me. As he nears, I smell the mix of cheap beer and tobacco wafting from his body. It’s revolting.

“Let’s see what the little bird has to say, yes?” He kneels down beside me, so his face is level with mine. The stench of his breath is sickening. He cocks his head to one side, a crude smile on his face. “Are you scared, little girl?”

I try to respond. The words come out in an incoherent gurgle. He smiles again, and brings one hand up to brush hairy knuckles against my cheek. I squirm away in disgust, but his other hand darts up to catch the roots of my hair. He forces my face toward his.

“You are scared, yes,” he says in his deep bass. He looks me up and down like an insect specimen on a display board. I struggle against his grip, but that only makes him hold me tighter.

All my calm abandons me as I understand the futility of my predicament. I’m strapped to a chair, only semi-coherent from whatever drug is in my system. I’m alone in a cold room with two terrifying men. I can’t even do so much as scream. I have absolutely no idea what’s going on or why I’m here. I don’t know what these men want or why Rich has betrayed me. All I know is fear. Horrible, gut-wrenching fear.

My breathing becomes fast again. I can hear the blood pounding in my ears. I’m no idiot. I know a hopeless situation when I see one. This is like being dropped into a cage with two starving wolves—with raw venison steaks tied to your body. I start shaking, whether from the cold, or from the fear, I can’t say. There is no fucking room in my mind for calm anymore!

“Oh, there, there. Hush, hush.” The man runs the back of his fingers along the side of my jaw. “We’re not going to do anything to you. Not as long as you play along, yes? All you have to tell us is—”

“Victor.”

The soft voice cuts through the air. The man in front of me whips his head back, offering me blessed relief from his revolting breath. “What?” he demands roughly.

“You are frightening the child.” The suited-man’s voice is soft and slithery, like an eel. He speaks in the hushed tone of someone used to being in command. His voice makes my skin crawl. “That is no way to treat our guest. Come, now.” He motions to the door. “We will return again when she is fully lucid.”

The big man—Victor—turns back to me. He does not let go of my hair. “She looks fully lucid to me,” he says gruffly. He looks me in the eye. “You know exactly what is going on, yes?” He forces my head forward and back in a cruel, makeshift nod. Then he laughs. “You see? She is—”

I mumble something, cutting him off.

“What was that?”

I try again. The words don’t come out. Victor brings his face close to mine. “She is trying to say something, yes?” He smiles through his beard. “Go on, little mouse. Say what you want to say.”

Summoning all my strength, I spit in his face.

My plan backfires horribly. My tongue is still heavy. All I manage to do is get a little spittle on my chin.

Amusement shines in Victor’s eyes. He stands up. “The bitch tried to spit at me,” he says over one shoulder, rolling a sleeve up. “Insolent whore needs to learn her place.” He raises his hand above his head. I flinch and brace myself for contact.

But before he can swing at me, the other man comes to his side. “Need I remind you, Victor, that she is wanted
unharmed
?” Those beady, rat-like eyes focus singularly on Victor.

For a moment, I think Victor’s going to hit me anyway. But then he lowers his arm. Grunts. “More’s the pity,” he says, turning away. “This one could use a bit of softening up.”

The two men leave, and the door slams shut. After a minute, the lights go off.

***

I don’t know how much time I spend in that dark room. Nobody else comes to see me. I could use my tongue shortly after my captors left, but I will
not
demean myself by yelling. I know how little good that will do.

So, I sit there, in the dark, in the cold, with only my thoughts and the faint buzz of the refrigeration mechanism keeping me company.

I do not know what to make of any of this. It’s obvious now that Rich had lied to me. Why or to what purpose I cannot fathom. Our meeting at the bar had been happenstance. Being in his room when the men broke in had been back luck. And while seeing the bald man in the Lincoln outside Rich’s apartment had been frightening, it had nothing to do with me.

Except that now, it does. It is obvious that he and Rich know one another. It’s obvious that Rich had drugged me and handed me over to him.

Why
?

None of it makes any sense. Who am I to any of these people?
Nobody
, that’s who. I’ve only been in Oregon for a few weeks. I have no family back in California. As an orphan, I have no connections, no roots anywhere.

My presence here just doesn’t
fit
.

Were Victor and the other man trying to hold me hostage? I snort a bitter laugh. They couldn’t have picked a worse person to kidnap. I have no family, no money, nothing precious to my name. I’m new to the area, so have very few friends. None of them were what I’d consider close. Pathetic as it may be, Abby is the only person in my life who might care if I go missing. And I say “might” with a very generous appraisal of her personality.

No, nobody out there would so much as bat an eyelash if they knew I was missing. I’d come to Oregon with a clean slate. I’d left
everything
behind in California. So, if whoever my captors were planned to ransom me off, they’ll be in for a rude awakening when the bidding starts.

My mind recoils with the horrifying possibilities of what they might do then. Two grown men with a helpless girl? Two men who obviously have no qualms about breaking the law?

I shiver, not from the cold. I don’t even want to
think
about the possibilities.

This is a fucking mess, and I know it. I wish that I had some better understanding of what was—what
is
—going on. I wish I’d never met Richard. I wish—
no!

I shake my head. I can’t live with regrets. All I can do, like I’ve always done, is persevere. No matter how badly the odds are stacked against me.

I notice my arm going numb, and roll my shoulder in a circle to increase the blood flow. I can’t feel my fingers or toes anymore. The last thing I’d want, on top of all this, is to lose one of my digits to frostbite. So, with nothing else to do, I force my hands to open and close, open and close, grimly determined to get some warmth back into them.

***

A loud, echoey sound scrapes from somewhere to my left. I jerk my head toward it. But I can’t see anything in the dark. I hear a
thump
, followed by a soft curse. My heart leaps to my throat. I know that voice. It belongs to Rich.

After a moment, a bit of light comes from his direction. Right away, I see Rich’s shape crouched low against one wall. He cups a Zippo with one hand, the small flame flickering against his face. He squints his eyes, but I know he can’t see me yet.

“Penny?” he whispers softly. “Penny, you in here?” His voice rings hollow in the empty room. I debate not answering. The hesitation lasts only a second.

“Here,” I croak.

Rich looks up, and his eyes settle on me in the dark. He makes his way over, careful not to make a noise. Without a word, he steps behind me. I hear the scratchy sound of a knife cutting plastic, and feel the vibration up and down my arms.

“What are you doing here?” I hiss. I can’t turn my head back to look at him.

“What does it look like I’m doing?” he asks, repositioning himself to work on the straps around my shins. “Rescuing you.”

“
Rescuing
me?” I say. Unbelievable. “I’m only here because of you!”

He ignores the comment as the final PlastiCuff snaps free. He stands up and brings the Zippo close to my face, looking me over. “Are you hurt?”

“Aside from the frostbite in my toes? No, I’m just fine!” I spit.

Rich exhales and runs a hand through his hair. He looks as uncertain as I’ve ever seen him. “Look, you can be as mad as you want,” he says. “
Later
. Right now, we need to get out of here.” He walks to the door, and searches for the handle. Finding it, he pushes it down and carefully pulls it inward. Light shines in from outside. “Come on.”

Rich is halfway out the room before he noticed I haven’t moved. He glares back at me. “What are you waiting for?”

I cross my arms. I want nothing more than to get out of the cold. But, I know better than to be careless around Rich. “How can I trust you?” I ask.

He looks at me for a long moment. His eyes flash at me. Then he barks a crude laugh. “You can’t.”

“And you expect me to go with you?”

He closes his eyes and rubs at his forehead in irritation. When he opens them again, they’re afire with emotion. “Do you have any other choice right now?”

“No,” I concede. “But I could scream. If you’re not supposed to be here, Victor and the other guy will make sure you’re in as much shit as I am. And if you’re working with them—which seems so obvious given everything that’s happened—then you’re just trying to bait me into going somewhere I probably don’t want to be.”

Rich exhales loudly. He closes the door a quarter of the way. “God! Are you always this dense?” He grips me by the shoulders. “I’m risking a lot just being here. My life, in fact! But that’s not the worst of it.” He shakes his head. “Of course you don’t understand. I don’t expect you to. But I will say this—” his eyes darken, and his fingers dig deep into my skin, “—I am not working with those men.”