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“That will be so good. Can we watch Netflix tonight?”
“No, we’re going to a hotel tonight.”
“I want my own bed,” Amy whined. “I hurt. I want my own bed.”
“Oh my God, just how many painkillers did they put you on?”
“Lots. I wanna sleep on my own bed on top of you,” she slurred.
“We’ll go to the Hotel Monaco, how about that? Won’t you like that? I’ll buy you a Snickers.”
“S’kay.”
“So stay where you are, and I’ll be there soon, okay? And look, now I’m only an hour and twenty-five minutes away.”
She tried to turn off the phone but ended up dropping it on the floor. Gillian picked it up and she smiled at her. “Thank yous.”
She barely made it off her barstool in one piece. “Gillian, can you help me up to my apartment? I’m not shhh…I’m not shhh…I don’t think I can makes it on my own.”
Amy heard laughter all around her, but when she looked behind her, the laughter wasn’t there, it was in front of her.
“Who’s laughing?”
“Okay, honey. Let’s get you into bed until Ryker gets here, how about that?” Gillian asked.
“Shhu..shhu..all right,” Amy answered.
God, the pounding in her head matched the throbbing on her wrist. “Gillian, can you answer the door?” she pleaded. She opened her eyes and realized she was lying on her couch, and she was the only one in her apartment.
The pounding started up again on her door.
Ryker!
She stumbled over to the door and threw it open.
“Ryker,” she grinned. “You made it!”
She blinked as she took in the figure in the juicy couture tracksuit, with the barbie blond doll wig hair falling across her face. “Mom?”
The woman shoved her violently backward and she landed on her ass, then rolled and hit her burned wrist. She cried out with pain. “Mom, don’t do this,” she begged. Her mother slammed the door behind her, then locked it.
“Shut up,” her mother hissed out as she bent down and grabbed Amy’s hair and started to drag her across the room and into the kitchen. Amy kicked and wiggled, trying to break her mother’s grip, but it wasn’t working. Kiki Linden was too strong.
How is that possible? Am I really that drugged up?
Amy started screaming for help, and her mother backhanded her.
“I said shut up,” she hissed again. Her blond wig slid out from underneath her hood.
“I will not shut up!” Amy yelled. She pushed her feet against the bottom of the cabinets and got some leverage that allowed her to kneel up. She made a grab for her mother’s wrists.
“Goddammit, be still, you little cunt!”
Amy froze. It wasn’t just the word, it was the fact that it was said with a man’s voice. She heard clicking, then a hiss. He was turning on her stove. She cringed. She didn’t want another kitchen fire.
He pulled a roll of tape out of a black tote bag.
Where had that bag come from? How did I miss all of this? Who is he?
