So it was sometime between noon and four-thirty or five. That wasn’t exactly a narrow window, but it was something.
Had I been gone long enough for Brock to worry?
Had he tracked down the car yet? Was he on his way to save me?
“If you think that new investigator of yours is going to find you,” Ritchie said, making my head loll over to find him sitting in a papasan chair near a wall of windows that were painted in different colors, making the world outside impossible to see, “you’re mistaken. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I left the car in that lot,” he said, making my heart feel constricted in my chest.
Because in that car was literally the only thing that made it possible for Brock to find me.
I mean, if I hadn’t thought to suspect Ritchie, what were the chances that Brock would?
“Cmmll,” I mumbled, brows pinching at the slurred sound of my voice. “Cmmlltll,” I tried again.
Cam will tell himwas what I was trying to say.Cam will tell him that we didn’t have a lunch date.
When Brock got home and didn’t see me there, when he couldn’t get a hold of me via my phone, he would absolutely reach out to Cam, since he believed I was with him.
Cam would clear things up.
Brock would find some way to circle back to Ritchie. I didn’t doubt him for a moment.
The problem was if he would be able to locate me quickly enough. Before Ritchie did something crazy.
I understood my role here.
What woman hadn’t heard about how she was supposed to handle a situation where she was taken?
You were supposed to try to humanize yourself to them while you also tried to sympathize with them and their motivations for wanting to hurt you.
But my damn voice wasn’t working.
How was I supposed to try to distract him and drag all of this out if my tongue was fat and useless in my mouth?
Maybe if I focused more, my brain would fire right, and then my lips and tongue and voice box would work in unison.
Okay.
Focus.
The room.
It was slightly unfinished with its brick walls and cement floors. But they weren’t the typical gray. Or, rather, they weren’t only the typical gray. They were splattered in shades of pink, yellow, green, and blue.
Paint?
Yes, paint.
That was the smell that I’d noticed earlier.
The other scent, the strong, headache-inducing one, that was paint thinner for the brushes.
My gaze lifted, finding easel and large canvases all scattered around.
They were just… splotches. Abstract.
They weren’t my style, so I immediately thought they weren’t great.
But had they been done by Ritchie?