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On my way.
Somehow she needed to stall.
“I need to use the bathroom.”
“Yeah right. Nice try.” He pulled a gag out of his pocket and grinned.
“Don’t,” she said, taking a quick step back, not wanting to taste any disgusting fabric in her mouth again.
“It’s not for your mouth, it’s for your eyes.” He tied the fabric around her head, then he tied her wrists together in front of her. “Be a good girl and lie down on the backseat and be quiet until we get where we’re going. If you don’t, I’ll kill you. Do you understand?”
She nodded her head. She didn’t doubt he meant what he said. She’d been exposed to enough evil to recognize the fiery glint in a man’s eyes, and this man had it in spades. He opened the back door and pushed her toward the back seat. She stepped up into the truck, sat on the seat and laid down. Just as he asked.
“Good. Don’t worry, we aren’t going far.” He slammed the door shut.
All she could do now was hope Josh arrived in time to stop him from leaving the ranch. He didn’t. A few minutes later they were down the drive and pulling right onto the main road, away from town. Away from help. No one was even at the ranch to see them leave.
True to his word, it couldn’t have been more than twenty minutes longer when he stopped and turned off the engine. The back door opened and he yanked her by the arm out of the backseat.
She tripped as he pulled her along behind him.
“Can you take off my blindfold now?”
He didn’t say anything, just ripped the blindfold off her head, pulling her hair with it. She bit her lip, refusing to give him the satisfaction of a cry. The sun’s bright light hit her eyes moments before he pulled her inside a large barn. She was in so fast, she didn’t get a chance to get a good look at it and had no idea where she was.
The barn was empty. He led her along a row of vacant stalls into the back area, where he opened a door to what once was a tack room and pushed her inside, closing the door behind her.
“Hey!” she yelled and banged on the door. It didn’t budge.
She heard a soft gasp and turned to find a young woman sitting in the corner, her face bruised, her hair matted, and her eyes wide and haunted.
She must be one of Sylvia’s roommates. Jacquie quickly approached her. “Are you all right?”
The woman whimpered, hugged her knees to her chest, and turned away from her. Stupid question, obviously she wasn’t all right.
Jacquie sat on the ground next to her and looked around the room. No windows, no other way out. It was more like an oversized closet than a room. “It’s going to be all right,” she told the girl. “I’m a cop. I’ll get us out of here.”
The girl looked up at her with disbelieving eyes.
“One way or another.” Jacquie stood and searched the room with her bound wrists, looking for anything that would cut the ropes. She found a bot egg knife in a drawer and managed to pull it out with her fingers. She brought it to the girl and dropped it onto the ground then crouched down beside her. “Can you cut my ropes with this?”
The woman looked doubtful. “It’s used for scraping fly eggs off horse’s legs, it’s not a knife.”
“True. But it has a serrated edge.”
She turned away.
“Look, it’s all we got. Or would you rather stay here and wait for hoodie guy to return?”
She turned back, picked up the scraper, and started sawing at the ropes around her wrist. “You really think we can get out of here?”
“You better believe it,” Jacquie assured the girl, trying to muster up as much false bravado as she could. “What’s your name?”
“Courtney.”
“Hi, Courtney, I’m Jacquie.”
She smiled briefly. “I’m sure you don’t feel the same way, but I’m really glad you’re here.”
