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Chapter Three
Never think there is anything impossible for the soul. It is the greatest heresy to think so. If there is sin, this is the only sin; to say that you are weak, or others are weak.
Swami Vivekananda
Melinda chatted with Grant from the back seat as he drove. She knew he was Grant and that he smelled good. Laughed deeply. Watched her. She knew, very distantly, that she was dreaming.
“Where should we go?” he asked.
Excitement thrilled her spine. “A drink?” she suggested.
He exited the highway. Bright lights pulsed like fireworks past her window. Suddenly they were tucked in a cozy alcove in a bar. Grant’s drink rested on their table, a dark concoction in a pint glass. Wine floated in a wineglass suspended by her fingers. Butterflies danced in her chest though she wasn’t nervous.
Instead she hummed. She anticipated. She hardly breathed.
“Why did you choose me?” she asked.
“It was you who chose me.” Grant’s eyes darkened as he tugged her across the red leather bench seat and onto his lap. Melinda closed her eyes and reveled in his strength. And then he kissed her. His mouth brushed against hers like velvet, his tongue patient and coaxing. Melinda moaned and slid her fingers past his temples to bury themselves in his hair. Grant’s arms wrapped around them both like fibers so that she was bound to him, shoulders to shoulders, hips to hips. His face was like satin against hers and she marveled at it. How could a mountain man have such soft skin?
Melinda nuzzled her pillowcase and dallied with consciousness. To her sadness, the kisses receded and the reality of Utah intruded. The conference organizers had really outdone themselves. Not all hotels cared this much about their bedding. But something must be wrong with the heater—the room hadn’t been this cold the night before.
Her eyes flew open. This wasn’t a bar. This wasn’t Utah. This wasn’t the conference. This was the kill house and there was a kidnapper in the living room. There was a blizzard and a dead phone. There was no power, no running water. No hope.
She sat up and immediately lay back down and yanked the blankets to her chin.
“Whoo.”The outburst hung in the air, an icy reminder that there’d be no heat. It had to be forty degrees in here, at most. Melinda extended a jacketed arm and switched on the lantern.
Mercifully, her duffel bag was on the bed from last night. She tugged her jeans over her pajama bottoms, despite feeling both uncomfortable and idiotic—warmer was better. She changed from her pajama top into her bra and her long-sleeved black blouse, subtly covered in dark gray alpana patterns, and felt thankful she had splurged on the silk. She wrapped her black thigh-length sweater around herself and topped it all with a black fleece hat and the Mastermind’s jacket. She eyed her thickened form. I look like I’ve been working out.
She snagged the lantern and went to the bathroom. The bowl emptied and Melinda remembered belatedly that the tank wouldn’t refill without the electric pump. What had he said? I’ll melt snow. She needed melted snow. Thank goodness they had lost power with an abundance of frozen water outside. Melinda nearly groaned at the thought of brushing her teeth and drinking a cup of hot tea.
She left the lantern in the bathroom and liberated the chair from beneath the bedroom door handle. Gun in hand, she opened the door to the kitchen. Startling daylight ricocheted through the room. Clearly it was later than she’d imagined. Melinda huffed out a breath. No cloud—the bedroom was freezing but the kitchen was just cold.
Melinda tiptoed to the den and spotted the wood stove. Ah. With no fireplace in the bedroom, the den would be the warmest room in the house and the bedroom like a meat locker. From her place on the free side of the prison glass, she’d suggest to the Mastermind that he remedy the situation.
Melinda snuck forward to check on the kidnapper. Was he asleep? Was he awake? Had he fled in the middle of the night? No, there he was: asleep, flannel-clad chest too broad to fit on the couch, legs too long, sock-covered feet balanced on the armrest. He looked for all the world like Snow White’s woodsman asleep on a doll’s bed. Huge. Out of place. Scruffy and appetizing. Seriously? It wasn’t fair. Despite their predicament, he looked sexy as hell. Melinda glared at him.
She pressed a palm to her breastbone. What am I feeling? Oh. That was it: mourning. She was mourning something. What was it?
Her mother would be doing backflips at her self-inquiry. Ugh.
The illusion. The fantasy, she realized. She’d enjoyed a cozy fantasy about Gerald, his huge hands, muscular thighs, impossibly broad chest. She’d reveled in the timbre of his voice and the sexual hum of his low chuckles. And then last night had exploded, good and proper, and Grant had emerged from the rubble in all his questionable glory.
Tiny flames flickered through the stove’s smoke-stained window, and Melinda realized he’d kept the fire going all night long. He had known this was going to happen. The lack of power, the lack of water, the lack of everything. He was keeping them alive.
That gave her pause. Who was this guy, really? Who in his right mind wouldn’t have pulled over the car when she’d asked him to stop? She knew the partition hadn’t eliminated all of her racket. He’d blasted nineties rock for half of their hellish ride. Could he have had any legitimate reason to ignore her, to traumatize her, to scare her into thinking she was going to be assaulted, murdered, and disposed of?
Melinda eyed the gun in her hand. She looked at Grant’s face, slack with sleep, throw pillow bunched beneath his head, breath light and steady. He’d apologized, pleaded with her to come indoors. He’d fed her, given her a gun, locked her in and him out of her room. She didn’t know what to think. Hold up, yes she did. She thought he was a monster. But is he a monster with a conscience? Again, she gritted her teeth.
Why couldn’t he have just been a yummy Kaar driver?
She wrested her eyes from the conundrum that was her kidnapper and turned her attention to the den. A cream-colored lounge chair oozed bohemian chic to her left, complementing the Midcentury Modern liquor cabinet and bookshelf—presumably full of books about how to abduct people—and a brown leather recliner. The recliner looked nice, but it definitely wasn’t new. Is that a bit of personality squeaking out, Paul?Or worse, sentimentality? Maybe Paul’s girlfriend had decorated the place and allowed him one personal item. The fireplace was marble. The kitchen table was marble. I bet the toilet’s marble too. We get it, Mastermind. You’re rich.
Her eyes circled back to the sleeping lumberjack. “Snacks from An Unwitting Monster,” she would title the blog she’d pen. “Tales of An Unwitting Kidnapper.” No, he was a witting kidnapper, he just had the wrong victim. Her jaw clenched.
A confused kidnapper, then.
No, an attentive kidnapper and a confused victim.
