Page 3 of On the Chase
“It’s okay, sweetheart,” he said, but tension lay beneath his soothing tone. “Anything with a sharp edge will work. Let’s get out of here, huh?”
His last sentence echoed in her mind, reminding her that the people who’d done this could walk in at any time. With a hunted glance at the stairs, she grabbed a small but wicked-looking knife from the table, forcing her brain to ignore how sticky the floor was beneath her shoes, or the purpose of the other tools lined up neatly, ready to be used again in an instant. She kept herself focused as she started cutting the zip ties securing the first man to his chair.
“You’re an angel,” he said as the knife sliced through the binding around his wrist. The zip tie popped open, revealing a bloody groove where it had been. Her gaze fixed on his wrist, on that evidence that he’d struggled against his bonds. She was unable to look away from the gory sight until he cleared his throat.
Kaylee jolted at the sound, fumbling and almost dropping the knife. Recovering her grip, she squeezed the handle tightly as she gave herself a mental smack.Get it together, Kay, she commanded, reaching for the tie on his other wrist. When she noticed how badly she was shaking, though, she stopped before she accidentally cut him.
“You’ve got this, angel,” the man said, and his calm assurance helped. Taking a deep breath, she steadied her hand enough to slip the tip of the knife under the plastic tie. When she pulled up, it opened with apop. His ankles were easier, and she cut his legs free in seconds before hastily backing up several steps. She almost felt like she’d opened the cage of a circus lion. Would he reward her help or just eat her?
“Thanks, angel.” The man stood and immediately moved to the table. Although he stumbled, his legs wobbling beneath him, he managed to stay on his feet. Grabbing another knife—this one much scarier-looking than Kaylee’s—he moved to the second man and cut his hands free. As he worked, she stared, wondering if she’d made a horrendous mistake. Two out of the three were free. What if they were dangerous criminals? What if they hurt her—or killed her? She was so worried about the return of the torturers, but what if the biggest threat was already in the room with her?
She pushed away the doubt. It was too late to worry about that now. If the men did try to hurt her, they looked to be in bad enough shape that she was pretty sure she could outrun them.
Kaylee forced her body into jerky motion. She headed toward the last guy, who was slumped to the side, only his bonds keeping him semi-upright. He was limp and still, his head lolling to the side as blood ran from his ear and across his cheek before it dripped steadily on the floor. Kaylee seized on the fact that he was still bleeding. Dead people didn’t bleed, did they?
“Please be alive. Please be alive,” she pleaded almost soundlessly. Kaylee sawed at the zip tie securing his hands until the plastic separated and released suddenly. His arms flopped to hang by his sides. Without the restraints holding him, he started to slide sideways, heading toward the floor.
With a squeak of alarm, Kaylee tried to catch him, but his dead weight—no! Hisunconsciousweight—brought her to the floor with him. She put out a hand, trying to catch herself, but her palm slid across wet concrete. Her hip and then her head hit the floor painfully, and the man’s limp body fell heavily across her legs, pinning her. For several seconds, she lay still, stunned.
Then the weight disappeared from her legs, jerking her back to reality. The first man was pulling his unconscious friend’s arm over his shoulder. The second supported the unresponsive man’s other side. Her gaze landed on his face, and she flinched so violently that the back of her head bumped against the floor again. There was a gory mess where one of his eyes should have been. Bile rose in her throat, forcing her to swallow several times. Barely able to keep from vomiting, Kaylee ripped her gaze away from the empty, bloody socket.
“Up you go, Angel.” The man with the swollen face offered the hand not holding on to his unconscious buddy. When she grabbed it, he pulled her up, almost lifting her to her feet, and she scrambled to get her wobbly legs to support her. “Let’s get out before ourfriendscome back, yeah?”
Kaylee couldn’t speak. The best she could do was a jerky nod as she moved to follow the trio. The stairs were too narrow for three big guys to stay side by side, so they were forced to turn sideways. The unconscious man’s boots struck the edges of the treads, and each thud made Kaylee flinch as she climbed the steps behind them. Every sound seemed thunderous, too loud to not be heard everywhere in the mansion, and each step they made, each inch farther that the men dragged their unconscious friend, felt horribly, painfully slow.
When they finally reached the door, all the air left Kaylee’s lungs so quickly and completely that her head spun. After a quick glance into the hall, the men slipped through the doorway. Kaylee hurried up the final few steps, not wanting to be left behind. The thought of being trapped alone in the bloody basement made her stumble forward, rushing to flatten her hands against the opened door.
The man with the swollen face glanced at her as he hitched the unconscious man higher. “Better not go back to the party like that.”
Confused, Kaylee glanced down and saw that, on her hip, a white section of her color-block dress was now smeared with dark red.Blood.The salmon she’d eaten earlier threatened to climb back in her throat.
“You have a car here?” he asked.
She stared at him without seeing his face. All she could see was blood. It was only after he repeated the question that it finally penetrated. Kaylee nodded.
“Head that way.” He jerked his head to the left. “Turn right at the T, and you’ll get to some stairs. They’ll take you to a back entrance.”
“What about you?” Her voice was a husky imitation of its usual self. Her throat felt as rough and sore as if she’d actually been screaming the entire time, instead of just wanting to. “How are you getting out?”
His half grin contorted his abused face, twisting the cuts and bruises and making his eyes almost disappear. “We’re going out theotherback door. Good luck, Angel.” He and the other man started making their painful-looking progress in the opposite direction, the unconscious guy slumped between them, his boots dragging across the polished hardwood floor.
The sight of them walking away, leaving her alone, sent a surge of panic through her. She had to bite the inside of her lower lip to keep from calling after them. They were strangers, but it had felt like they’d been on her side. Now she was on her own.
At the thought, the voice in her head screamed at her to get out of the nightmare house. As she moved out of the doorway, Kaylee stepped on something and stumbled slightly. She glanced down and saw her silver clutch. Her fuzzy brain wondered how it got on the floor, until she recalled that she’d used it to prop open the door. Automatically, she bent to grab it.
Once it was in her hands, she remembered that it held her phone. “I can call the police,” she called in a carrying whisper to the retreating men.
They stopped abruptly. “Won’t help,” the one missing an eye said. His voice was raspy, too, and she wondered if hehadbeen screaming. The thought made her shudder. “The Jovanovics have deep pockets and a wide reach. Just get out and get far away from these people.”
It felt wrong, not calling for help, and Kaylee’s fingers tightened around her clutch. Urgency was building in her, panic expanding like air inside a balloon, stretching her tighter and tighter. She needed to get out before she broke. Turning away from the men, she hurried in the opposite direction. It was hard to believe that Noah’s family had the entire police force on their payroll, but she’d wait to contact them, just in case. Later, after the men had a chance to get out and she was safe, Kaylee would call. The thought of being out of this nightmare mansion, of being home, made her hurry her steps.
As she reached the end of the hall, she snuck a quick glance behind her. The men were nowhere to be seen. Sucking in a shaky breath, she turned right toward the stairs…and what she hoped was safety. She refused to think about how she’d gotten so terribly lost in the rabbit warren of a mansion just a short time earlier, or about how easy it would be to get turned around again. The thought of running through Martin’s gilded house, frightened and trapped, made her throat close. There was a door right in front of her, but would it lead to escape or a continuation of her waking nightmare?
Turning the knob with shaking fingers, she didn’t know whether to be grateful or scared that it wasn’t locked. The door opened to a neatly kept yard, lit by an almost-full moon and discreet landscape lights. She was out. Relief flooded her, even as a hundred other emotions—fear and paranoia and horror—pounded through her veins. The cool night air felt good on her flushed cheeks, and Kaylee bent at the waist, trying to catch her breath and make her brain reboot. A revolving chain of images flashed in her mind—blood and knives and the one man’s ravaged, empty eye socket. Her next inhale sounded like a sob, and she forced herself to stand up straight.
There was no time to fall apart. She was out of the house, but Kaylee definitely wasn’t safe yet. Even though he’d been sitting innocently at the dining table with her and the rest of his guests all evening, Uncle Martin had to have given the order for those men to be tortured. After all, they were in his house. Her memory of his flat stare seemed even more menacing now, and she hurried to follow a flagstone path that led to the front of the house.
With every step, Kaylee’s shocked brain was tuning back in to reality, her fear spiraling into panic. Surely they would’ve noticed her extended absence by now. What if the men’s escape had been discovered? How fast would they put the two together?
