Untraceable (24 page)

I had the distinct feeling this guy
didn’t like the idea of toying with Micah. If I could convince him
of Micah’s gratitude if he helped me, perhaps I’d have a chance.
“He’ll kill her,” I stated, “and anyone who helps her.” I watched
his eyes; he was nervous but he was trying hard not to show it.
“But I know he’d be grateful if you help me. Please,” I said,
searching his face for some hint he would listen to what I was
telling him. “What’s your name?”

He seemed annoyed that I would ask,
but he finally answered, “Dice.”

“
Please, Dice, help me get
out of here; I swear he won’t hurt you. I’ll tell him
you—”

“
I may not like jacking
with someone as psychotic as your husband, but I’m dealing with
someone just as psychotic downstairs. Personally, I think Giovanni
has his own plans for you. Sharon must think the same thing or she
wouldn’t have told us not to let him have his guns back. She wants
us to keep a close eye on you two.”

The door opened and Jonathan peered
inside, “I told you to leave her alone—get out!”

Dice rose slowly and approached
Jonathan in a stance that looked like an egotistical challenge,
“Hell, she’s no fun anyway. I told you we should have tied her up
naked.”

“
Out!” Jonathan
ordered.

He left, but Jonathan simply stood in
the doorway and stared at me. I turned my face away; I couldn’t
stand to look at him.

“
I will bring you
something to eat.”

I didn’t respond. I heard the door
close and his footsteps fading as he walked away.

I had nothing left but prayer. If
Micah thought I was dead, he’d need my prayers in the worst
possible way. Then I thought about my mom and Kimmy, and Ryan.
These were the people who would be hurting the most. The baby gave
a weak kick, and then rolled. “I’m so sorry,” I said in a choked
whisper. I didn’t know what Jonathan put in the bottled water to
knock me out, but I hadn’t been the only one affected.

I finally made sense of my restraints
and managed to sit up on the edge of the bed. I needed to get up
and stretch my legs, but I couldn’t. I was checking each restraint
and each place it connected to the bed frame to see if I could
wiggle or break something loose, when the bedroom door opened and
Jonathan reappeared with a plate that had a mug and a handful of
crackers on it. He had a bottled water under his arm. A different
man also appeared, but he didn’t venture into the room, he waited
at the door.

“
You will not get loose,”
he stated, setting the plate on the nightstand by the bed. “I do
not have much in the way of food right now, but—“

“
How long?” I stated
unemotionally.

“
The broth is still warm.
I suggest—”

“
How long?” I
repeated.

“
She is planning to wait
for a funeral before she contacts him.”

“
Why?”

Jonathan gave a strange smile, “She
wants maximum suffering before she breaks him—it helps with the
control issue.”

“
Please,” I choked,
“Jonathan—”

“
It is
Giovanni.”

“
Not to me,” I said,
hoping against hope he hadn’t been completely fake since I’d met
him. I didn’t know many men in the mafia, but I had discovered each
one I did know, had another personality they kept tucked away.
“Please, Jonathan, don’t do this, please.”

“
What is done is done,
and, lovely as you are, you will not get, as you American’s say,
‘under my skin.’ No woman ever has or ever will.”

“
So the story about your
wife and daughter was—”

“
False,” he
confirmed.

“
I need to walk a little;
my legs are cramping.”

“
The farthest I will allow
is the bathroom, and you will do it my way.”

I watched him open the top drawer of
the dresser and pull out a long coil of metal cable. It had a
clamped loop on each end. He reached into his pocket and produced a
small lock and secured the cable to a large eye-hook in the wall
near the bed, and then he walked inside the open bathroom door. I
heard the sound of another lock clicking shut. He returned and
produced a pair of handcuffs from his other pocket.

“
Give me your
arm.”

“
You’re going to treat me
like an animal? Like a dog on a leash?” I stated in
disbelief.

“
I do not have to let you
up. You can piss in the bed and let your legs cramp until you
scream. If you want to get up, you do it my way. I will not ask
again for your arm.”

Jonathan was actually very familiar to
me at the moment; he was as emotionless as Micah could become when
he was about to kill someone. I was treading on very dangerous
territory. I slowly lifted my arm.

He clamped the handcuff on me snuggly,
and then attached the other end to the cable. Three locks opened
and I was, relatively speaking, free from my restraints—at least
the ones that had tethered me to the bed anyway. My legs felt numb.
I stood and swayed, nearly falling; Jonathan caught me.

“
Careful,” he stated
quietly, but he didn’t sound as he did a moment earlier.

I was certain there was another side
to him, but he kept it well hidden. When I reached the bathroom, I
realized the door wouldn’t close with the cable in the way, and I
could barely reach the toilet. I peered out at Jonathan’s expectant
face. “I need some privacy.”

He looked at the other man, “Close the
door. Wait in the hallway.”

The man appeared angry, but did as he
was asked—Jonathan remained.

“
Would you leave, too,
please?”

“
No,” he stated with an
even stare.

I kicked the door hoping the anchor
would rip out of the wall and that the door would slam shut, but
all I managed to do was make a deep, splintered gouge in the door
when the cable tore into it.

“
Do something like that
again,” he warned, “and I will remove the bathroom door from its
hinges.”

“
Mafia asshole!” I
snapped, loud enough to be heard.

I heard him chuckle. I pulled off my
tennis shoe and wedged the toe under the bottom of the door, so I
could at least sit on the toilet without him watching. My bladder
was numb from the weight of the baby and from being too full for
too long. I thought I’d never finish, but I took my extended time
to study the bathroom. The window was ample size to fit through and
appeared as if it could be easily opened. Unfortunately, the roof
was steep and I didn’t know (if I managed to get the anchor loose)
if I could keep from sliding off and falling. Not the safest escape
plan for a pregnant woman, but my only plan at the
moment.

When I finished, I silently fixed my
underwear and skirt, but didn’t flush. I didn’t want him to think I
was done. The anchor in the bathroom wall was a thick, steel
eye-hook. If I could turn it, I could unscrew it from the wall, but
there was no way to open the lock securing the cable to the
eye-hook. I’d have to undo both ends and take the cable with me.
The eye-hook wouldn’t budge. If I could find something to put
through the eye as a leverage tool, I was sure I could unscrew it.
The bathroom was devoid of everything with the exception of a half
roll of toilet paper.

“
Would it be too much to
ask for a toothbrush?” I questioned, considering the handle would
fit perfectly into the eye.

“
A toothbrush?” he
scoffed. “You are being held hostage and you are worried about your
teeth? Anything else you need? Perhaps you would like a bottle of
shampoo, a hairbrush, and some perfume while I am out collecting
toiletries for you.”

I wasn’t going to answer his snide
remark, but one more item might be helpful in getting the bolt from
the wall. I flushed the toilet and pulled my shoe from under the
door. “A bar of hand soap, too.” I opened the door and hesitated. I
wasn’t ready to get back in the bed, especially not with the look
he was giving me. He stood up, dangling the handcuff keys from his
index.

“
I—I need to walk. My legs
are still a little numb.” That wasn’t anywhere near true, but I
hoped he’d leave me alone for a while.

He glanced at his watch; his feet
firmly planted, “Five minutes.”

“
How much is she paying
you, Jonathan?” I asked with a malevolent stare, hoping to find a
way to uproot him from his spot.

“
My name is—”

“
I know what your name is,
but I have a feeling there really is a Jonathan in you
somewhere.”

He looked completely bewildered, as if
he hadn’t heard me correctly.

I could see immediately I made him
uncomfortable. My anger over the situation had helped me suppress
the tears and emotions, but this time I let them rise to the
surface and fill my eyes to the brim, distorting the room in my
swimming vision. “Please, Jonathan. Let me go. Don’t do this,
please,” I pled again, letting the huge teardrops roll down my
cheeks. “I thought you were my friend.”

The scrape to his hardened exterior
was visible for only a split-second, but that was all it took to
make his discomfort level too much to remain in the room. He looked
down at his watch and snapped, “Three minutes!” And he stalked out
and slammed the door.

As fast as the door closed, I stepped
up on the head of the bed and gripped the eye-hook with all the
strength I could muster. Damn it! It must have been excessively
long and imbedded through the drywall into a stud.

There was a nightstand near the bed. I
pulled open the drawer hoping there might be something, anything I
could use. A pencil! I couldn’t believe it. It fit perfectly into
the eye. I twisted it with slow steady pressure to the left, trying
my best not to snap it in two, but it was no use; I heard it crack.
I removed it before it snapped completely through and placed it
back into the nightstand.

The handle on the nightstand drawer
was a possibility, but the screw on the backside was imbedded into
the wood. I considered threading my necklace through the eye and
making a wad of metal to grip, but that was when I realized all my
jewelry was missing. I stood there fuming in anger when the door
reopened. Jonathan entered and, once again, the other man waited in
the doorway. I was ready to snap at Jonathan, but from the look on
his face it would be wiser to use a gentler approach, “Why did you
take my jewelry?”

He didn’t say anything as he forced me
to sit on the bed. His emotions were gone as he reconnected my
bonds to the bed and released the handcuffs from the
cable.

“
Why?” I repeated softly,
this time allowing my hand to touch the back of his.

He jerked away from me as if I shocked
him. His head cocked slightly sideways and then he lowered his face
toward mine. I didn’t like him being so close but my instincts were
telling me to hold very still.

“
I gave them to Chelsea as
a gift.”

“
Who’s
Chelsea?”

“
Your body double. What
she did not know was they were necessary so your remains could be
identified. She was a beautiful girl, but a little too fond of
OxyContin; she would do anything to acquire a
bottleful.”

“
You—you killed
her?”

”
She did not suffer—much.
I am afraid I could not leave any DNA behind for them to discover
you were not in the car. They may figure it out eventually, but if
they do it will take them a while.”

“
You
killed
her?” I repeated.

He was inches away from my face; his
expression completely void, “Do not feign disgust, Annalisa; I am
no different from your husband.”

I wanted to argue the point, but he
was actually right. “I sincerely hope your telling me the truth,” I
stated carefully, “because that means there’s hope for you, too.” I
watched an unusual and shocked expression fill his face.

The bedroom door opened wider and the
man motioned to Jonathan, “We’re ready, let’s go.”

Jonathan’s gaze never wavered from
mine, but the expression dissolved, “You are sadly mistaken,
Annalisa. He and I are from the same cloth—there is no hope for
either one of us.”

“
Now,” the man stated with
a little more volume.

“
Get your ass downstairs,”
Jonathan fired back, turning to face him. “I will be there when I
am done with her. Go!”

The door closed.

“
Where are you going?” I
tried to ask calmly.

“
Do not worry; I am not
going to kill him. If losing you does not finish him off,
Sharon
will
break
him. I admit, she is good at that, truly an expert. I have given
orders that your guard is not to touch you, nor even come into the
room. Do not try anything foolish while I am gone. If you arouse
his curiosity—well, let me just say you do not want him in the same
room with you.” Then very succinctly he calmly added,
“Do you understand me?”

He was cautioning me with what appear
to be true sincerity. In that moment, I realized Jonathan didn’t
like the idea of me being alone with this person.