Page 103 of Lady Sings the Blues

“There’s a service road to the very back of the compound property. Start walking now. You’ve got ten minutes to get here, or she dies. I remotely think you’ve let on to Bossman or anyone else, she’ll be dead before they reach her.”

“You have my word.”

On that parting line, he disconnects and after I check to make sure no one is watching, I run into the kitchen to slip out the back door toward the field.

When cut grass turns to terrain too bumpy for heels, I kick them off as I run because ten minutes isn’t a lot of time. And the whole time my hand stays lying flat against my mildly convex belly.

The air chills considerably as the dusky wind picks up. Just like he said, there’s a service road, just a dirt road, up ahead of me where two figures stand. One, clearly a man. One, the silhouette of a woman in a dress on her knees.

His eyes train on me, watching my every step and when I’m about fifty feet away, he touches the prongs of a stun gun to Maryanne’s shoulder, and she drops.

She’s just stunned… she’s just stunned, I remind myself over and over, all while continuing to run to him. My side burns from running, and gut aches because well—it’s Maryanne. God, I wish I hadn’t eaten that pork. I feel like I’m going to throw up.

“Please don’t stun me,” I beg once I’ve stopped maybe two feet away, rubbing my belly.

The sun just beginning to dip behind the mountains, casting light and shadows along the road behind us. Houdini’s eyes drift down.

“Well, well, well…this is a development. Ain’t it funny how life works?” he says in his low, gravelly voice. The same chilly voice from the cemetery. “Was gonna stun you, now well… But I’ll have to blindfold you.”

“You’re not going to kill me?” I ask as I shuffle slowly toward my oblivion.

As he grabs my arm, pinching until it hurts. “Nothere. And now, plans have changed. Fucking perfection.”

He walks, while I stumble along behind him, down the bumpy service road to an old Bronco. Most of it black with a red front passenger door. The back bumper made up of a solid strip of particle board held in place by thin wire and one of the taillights has red electrical tape covering where the plastic cover should be. It’s well, it’s the Frankenstein’s monster of SUVs. And I doubt it’s his.

Before he allows me inside the monstrosity, he opens the back hatch and pulls a dirty green bandanna that had been sitting half draped over the grooves of an old flat tire. Dust puffs up in the air from both the bandanna and tire as he snatches it.

“Can you beat it against your leg a few times before you wrap it around my face?”

His look tells me no he cannot.

“I’ll sneeze the whole time if you don’t. It’ll get annoying for you and me. Please, I’ve been cooperative thus far.”

Houdini glares at me, yet surprisingly, he does actually beat the excess dirt from the rag before tying it tightly around my eyes. Next I hear tape ripping and smell the plastic smell of duct tape a second before the sticky gets stuck over my mouth. Finally he duct tapes my wrists together behind my back before pulling me a few steps. There’s the sound of a door opening and then I’m being shoved onto a seat. Judging by the length of the seat, he’s pushed me into the backseat of the Bronco.

He’s not going to kill me yet, and I have to keep my wits about me. Memorize time and turns, isn’t that what they do in movies?

Unfortunately as he drives, I find I’m nothing like a movie heroine because I quickly lose track of both time and direction. Without a way to know how long or how far we’ve traveled, I can only say it feels like we’ve been traveling a million miles for a million years.

God, poor Beau. After the shit start we’d had, all those obstacles between us. Today was supposed to start our happily ever after. I mean, haven’t we earned it?

When the Bronco finally skids to a stop, I hear voices, both deep male voices, but they’re talking too quietly for me to know what they’re saying, especially with the blood pumping so heavy against my eardrums and them being outside the vehicle.

Two voices? He said he wouldn’t kill me yet, but will he—I swallow hard—hurtme? Will the other guy? My body tenses when I’m pulled from the backseat. Luckily for the time being, only to be transferred to another vehicle, another backseat, before we start driving again. The gut-wrenching fear did a number on my bladder, though.

“Houdini,” I chance a call to him. Of course, with duct tape over my mouth it comes out sounding more like a murmured, “Ouini.”

His response is to growl low, guttural. Yet he does rip the tape from my mouth. I didn’t really expect him to, but thank goodness for small miracles.

“Houdini,” I chance again. “Please…I have to use the bathroom.”

His answer, another growl. Though after about a minute, I feel the vehicle veer as if taking a shoulder, then stop. My door opens, and I’m pulled not gently from the seat. He drags me roughly over what feel like pinecones and twigs against my bare feet about twenty-five steps before he stops us. My dress, tugged up over my hips. My panties, ripped away from my hips.

“Squat,” he finally orders.

So this is happening. Me. Peeing in front of my kidnapper.

I stand when I’ve finished, and he simply pulls my dress back down until gravity takes over. There are so many other ways this could have gone down.

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