“Good night, Cleo,” said one of the maintenance men from the other end of the hall.
“Good night, George,” she replied.
The elevator door closed, and any hope of rescue was gone.
The parking garage had never been this foreboding. Her kidnapper blended into the shadows, and her white uniform stood out like a target. He stopped at a black car and opened the passenger door.
“Put your seatbelt on.” He slammed the door shut behind her.
The car had a deeply masculine scent. It must be his scent. She wanted to hate it but couldn’t. A few seconds later, he sat in the driver’s seat, his large frame rubbing up against her arm.
His cell phone went off as he drove out of the parking garage.
“Yeah. It’s done. Message sent loud and clear.”
He tucked his phone away.
The night was dark, growing darker as they distanced from the city center.
“What are you going to do with me?” Part of her didn’t want to know, but the other part felt she may as well know if she couldn’t change anything.
He didn’t answer her, which scared her even more.
A few minutes later, he spoke, the deepness of his voice a sharp contrast from hers. Everyone always told her she had a baby voice, and she hated it.
“That man in 4423 wasn’t worth his skin.”
“What does that mean?” she asked.
“He was a human trafficker. That girl was his next victim, one of hundreds in their prostitution ring. The younger they are, the more money they can get out of them.”
“And you let the girl go?”
“Yeah. I wasn’t there to kill her.”
So, he saved her? That made her angry. “Why don’t I get to go free, too? I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“You’re a witness.”
“So was she.” She was bargaining, reasoning, using every tool she had to get free.
“She was plastered. God willing she’ll return home and straighten out her life.”
Cleo was confused. Was this guy a serial killer or a saint? How could he slash a person up and also have a moral conscience? It didn’t make sense.
“What about me?”
“I haven’t decided yet. You’re an unfortunate complication that thoroughly fucked up my entire night.” He turned onto the freeway, heading farther and farther from everything she knew. “I want to kill you, you have no idea how much. It would be so easy to dump you out here in the ditch, end your life with a bullet to the head. Or maybe I’d just snap your neck and save my ammo.”
She opened her mouth to breathe. A full-blown panic attack was brewing.
“But even though you’re a hotel maid with no family ties and no pets but a goldfish, you haven’t done anything wrong besides being an inconvenience to me.”
“So you’ll let me go?”
“No, my boss would never approve of that. I’m stuck between killing you or keeping you prisoner for the rest of your life. And that sounds like a lot of responsibility on my part.”
“There has to be another option.”
He pulled to the side of the road. With no lighting way out here, it was complete blackness. As soon as the car began to slow to a crawl, she opened the door and rolled out onto the ground. Immediately, she started running blind. There was still some light from his headlights and the moon, but once she got far enough, it would be impossible to see. She didn’t care.
The man was going back and forth from one horrible scenario to another. He offered no outcome where she came out on top, so she had to take a chance. She hoped he’d see her as too much trouble and would drive off rather than traipsing through the mucky fields after a hotel maid. When she didn’t hear footsteps in pursuit, a little smile pulled at her mouth. Cleo kept running, needing as much distance between them as possible.
Maybe she’d wait in hiding for an hour after he left, then try to hitch a ride back to the city. No one could be worse than him.
Then everything went dark, and she was falling, her breath stolen from her lungs. Strong hands shackled her wrists.
It was him. He was straddling her body, and the shadows playing across his features made him look like the devil himself.
“You’re a naughty girl, Cleo Bennet.”