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It’s the worst nightmare I could have imagined. Being taken by a man who doesn’t care that I’ve never hurt him, never done a single thing to him, is the absolute worst case. I’ve never been in more danger in my life.
Except, maybe, when I was an infant. My mother was a free spirit. That’s what my grandfather always says about her. She wasunprepared for the responsibilities of motherhood. Undisciplined. Unwilling to change her lifestyle to accommodate a child.
She never hurt me, but Iwasin danger. That’s why my grandfather doesn’t like to talk about my mom. Once, when I was a teenager, I accused him of resenting me for having to raise me after my mother left.
It was because my class had taken a field trip to the Met, and he hadn’t wanted to go. It meant rearranging cases on his docket, and his schedule distracted him the whole time. I wanted him to be into it the way the other parents were into it. I wanted to talk to him about the guy who was so comfortable in one of the galleries that I could almost believe he lived there.
He was tall and blond, but he didn’t draw attention to himself. Most of my friends didn’t notice him at all, which was wild, because he was hot. He was so absorbed in the art that it was like he was in a separate reality. I understood him, in a way. I’d been that absorbed in things before. I wanted to go up to him and ask about it, but obviously I didn’t, because I have manners. But I wanted to talk about art and obsession. I wanted my grandfather to tell me if he ever loved any art enough to see it the way that guy had. I wanted to dive back into one of my old obsessions to feel that absorption again.
The part my grandfatherreallyhad a problem with was the lunch afterward. Our art teacher believed in giving us awide range of life experiences,and so we were going to eat at a restaurant in a neighborhood my grandfather didn’t approve of. We’d argued about it. He wanted to send security. I said nothing would be more embarrassing on a school field trip. He insisted I couldn’t go alone.
I’d confronted him about it later.
You didn’t have to do this.We were in the kitchen, and I was tired from the field trip, irritated, and being a jerk.I know you resent me for having to do this stuff. But that’s not my fault. You could stop worrying about me and let me go on field trips and be fine with it.
I don’t resent you, Lily-bug, he’d said, straight-backed and serious.I was relieved to have you in my care. I’m still relieved. I’ve had the honor of keeping you safe all these years. I’m sorry if it bothers you, but I’ll never stop worrying about you. Not even when you’re too old to need me.
Did he come right out and sayyou wouldn’t have been safe with your mother?No. But he didn’t have to.
My breath shortens. All the muscles in my feet tense, like they’re getting ready to sprint away. There’s nowhere to sprint. We’re on the highway, and my kidnapper is driving.
I could, and probably should, undo my seat belt and attack him until he lets me out of the car, but an auxiliary effect of doing so much preliminary research for law school is that I’ve also done a lot of background reading about the world.
Traffic accidents are a leading cause of death. Most of those accidents happen because drivers are speeding. My kidnapper isn’t speedingtoomuch, but he’s going above the speed limit. Scratching out his eyeballs would prevent him from pulling the car over safely. We’re in an SUV, so I’d have to take my chances with the vehicle rolling over and crushing us both.
My mouth goes dry next. I don’t like dealing in hypotheticals. There are too many factors to consider. It’s not like reviewing the facts of a case, which are printed in ink. The cases that set precedent for the entire legal profession have, by definition,already happened.
There’s no way to know how this plays out.
I consider the facts of my bag like I’d consider the facts of my case while I do some deep breathing. I could hit him in the head with my laptop, but that leads us back to all the possible outcomes of a car wreck.
The kidnapper curses under his breath.
I shift in my seat, trying to be as subtle as possible about it. From this angle, I can see the tense line of his shoulders, and if I tilt my head, his hands gripping the wheel.
“Not now.” Jameson’s voice drops, and my fear sinks to my gut and settles there, frigid as winter in New York.
Something’s wrong.
With the kidnapper, I mean. Aside from the fact that he kidnapped me, and my grandfather is definitely going to press charges.I’mgoing to press charges when this is over.
It’s something else.
Our interaction in the fall couldn’t have lasted more than a couple minutes, but he wasn’t like this then. I know. It’s a flimsy basis for comparison. A handful of seconds on a dark sidewalk wasn’t long enough to tell me what he was like.
Itisenough to have formed memories of him. The way he raised his eyebrows, a bemused smile on his face. The way he teased me, gently, about my suggestion that he mug someone else. Even the way he stood was casual. He wasn’t threatening, otherwise I’d have hauled ass in the other direction.
He’s not like that now. It could be the kidnapping, but how did that even happen? If he was staking out the house and kidnapping wasn’t his original plan, then what was it? He decided on the fly to do some light stalking until he had me in the back seat?
What camebeforethat?
I don’t have all the facts of the case.
God, I wish I could stop thinking of everything like that. I don’t want my life to be an endless stack of case files. I don’t want to see laws and precedents everywhere I look.
I didn’t want this, either.
I might have been foolish enough to get out of my car a few minutes too early. I’m not so foolish that I can’t take in new information.
