* * * * *
Jolie woke and burst into tears before she even knew where she was.
Her sobs came first, hard and ugly, tearing out of her chest as her body fought against the bonds holding her in place.
Her wrists burned. Her shoulders screamed. Her mouth tasted sour from fear and drugs. When her eyes finally focused, she saw rough wooden walls and a weak light coming from somewhere in the corner. Her ankles were tied to the legs of a chair.
“Stop.” The male voice snapped across her senses.
She jerked her head, and her neck wrenched painfully, telling her that her head had hung at an awkward angle for too long.
Blinking through tears, she scanned past a black woodstove to a figure. A man.
He stood a few feet away in shadows, but she felt his cold stare cutting through her like a frigid wind. His order came with an edge of irritation.
She sucked in a wet, shaky breath and glared at him. “What, is there no crying in kidnapping?”
He stepped into the ring of light enough for her to see a man built to be forgotten—average height, average build, thinning brown hair, features so plain her eyes slid off them.
But she saw his jaw flex at her sassy response. Good. Let him hate her backtalk. It was the only weapon she had left, and she’d spent her entire adult life slinging food to grouchy customers.
He kept staring at her until dread trickled through her chest. He’d already held her at gunpoint, drugged her and kidnapped her. What else was he capable of?
She took a second to rethink her approach. Trading verbal shots might not be the best way to handle her captor.
So she used the only weapon she had left—her vulnerability.
Since she was already desperate, slapping on a pleading expression didn’t take any effort at all.
Her stomach cramped, and she seized on that. “I’m hungry.” She let her voice wobble. “Is there any food?” She threw a look at the wall by the woodstove where a lone cupboard hung, paint chipped and peeling.
“No.” One word. Flat and final.
So that didn’t work.
Her mind raced, flinging itself through every corner of her memory. Why would someone want to kidnap her? What had she done before a few weeks ago that could possibly matter?
She was nobody. A restaurant manager and a big sister from Chicago. She didn’t even have any pets or hobbies. She didn’t put herself in the public eye in any way. She didn’t even have an angry ex, she was so unremarkable.
She thought of the tower. Maybe this man thought she’d seen something she wasn’t supposed to see up there. A murder or illegal activity that made him want to silence her.
The man only watched her, giving her the impression he wanted something.
Her stomach bottomed out with icy dread at what that could be.
But if this was about rape, she wouldn’t be upright in a chair. She’d be tied to a bed or on the floor.
Or dead already.
The only conclusion she came to was her kidnapper liked watching her fear…
Or he needed information from her.
“I’m really hungry,” she tried again.
He pushed out a hard breath and then walked over to the cupboard and opened the door to reveal a shelf stacked with supplies. He picked up a can and set it on the woodstove.
A second later he abandoned that idea and grabbed a granola bar instead.
