Page 96 of Final Approach
Whywas he in a bedroom? Andwhosebedroom was it? And how long had he been out? And how was he going to get out of the zip ties?
A flicker of a memory danced across his mind and he frowned. He’d confronted Corey, gone out to his car, and...
And what? Had Corey done this?
No...
The spray in the face.
It was coming back to him.
The guy behind him had sprayed him with something that knocked him out.
And brought him here.
He lifted his bound wrists and rubbed a hand over his chin, then looked for his phone. Gone, of course. His head ached something fierce and he tuned in to the raging thirst clawing at him. The bathroom was across the room, and that meant he had to ignore the headache and other physical discomfort and make the effort to get off the mattress. The thirst forced him to move. He swung his legs over the side and stood, weakness invading him, and he almost dropped back down to let the darkness dancing in front of his vision take him under again. He hesitated, panting, searching for the strength to move, then stand. His dry mouth and burning throat sent him stumbling to the sink. He twisted the faucet and was relieved when water poured into the basin. He tilted his head to drink until he was satisfied. Feeling much better, he turned the water off and stood still for a moment, thinking.
He needed a weapon. He scoured the bathroom.
Nothing. Even the toilet seat and tank lids had been removed. There was no glass shower door to break. No shower curtain rod. He might be able to dismantle the sink parts and use one of the pipes, but that would take time he wasn’t sure he had.
So ... nothing. He stepped back into the bedroom. There was a mattress but no boxspring. And no window to break and use the glass as a weapon—or a tool to cut the zip ties. He frowned. This wasn’t an ordinary bedroom. Someone had planned this pretty meticulously. He looked up. There was a light, but it was built into the ceiling with some kind of protective cover over it. Could he break it? Maybe. If he could reach it. But even standing on the mattress, he wouldn’t be tall enough to even touch it.
There was one possibility. A built-in wooden desk with no drawers. He could probably bust up the desk, but that would make a lotof noise, and he’d rather not alert his captor to the fact that he was awake and moving. He walked to the bedroom door.
Somehow he didn’t think he was going out that way, but he tried the knob, shocked when it turned under his palm. He hesitated. He was able to move freely about the room. The door was unlocked. Which meant his captor wanted him to come out.
All righty then.
With an overabundance of caution, he pulled the door open and stepped into the hall, then followed it into a spacious kitchen. He tried the door and found it locked. And no way to unlock it from the inside. Oookay. Weird. There was a den off to the left, so he aimed his steps that way.
“’Bout time you woke up. Was starting to wonder if I gave you too much juice.”
Andrew stilled and focused on the man in the recliner aiming a gun at him. Dirty blond hair, narrowed green eyes. Some would probably say he was a handsome man. But the hate in his eyes was chilling. “Who are you and why have you brought me here?”
“You’ll figure it out in a minute when we go make a visit to the one person in my life who loved me.”
Loved.He narrowed his eyes. His captor looked familiar, but he couldn’t place him. Wait a minute. “You were watching me from the street outside my parents’ place.”
“Yes. It came in handy to know who they were and what they mean to you. You look like you’re a close-knit family.”
It made him sick that this man had spied on his parents, knew where they lived, knew what they looked like. Knew way too much. He hoped he hid his revulsion, because he had a feeling that would only please the man. “Helpful how?”
“To know you’d come running if they were in trouble.”
“You broke into their store?”
“I did. And like I figured, you came running.”
Which enabled him to follow Andrew to Corey’s place. He’d fallen right into a trap he’d never seen coming. “What’s your name?”
The man rose. The gun never wavered. “You can call me Ty.”
Ty. Ty. Ty...?
Nothing in Andrew’s memory database pinged recognition. “Ty what?”
“Like I said, you’ll figure it out. Go out the front door and walk up the hill. There’s a path, you can’t miss it. Don’t try any funny business. Hands tied up or not, I don’t trust you.”
