Chapter 24
Kayla came back to herself slowly.
She blinked. There was something in her eye. Her hand didn’t move like it was supposed to. It moved with her other hand instead. That was when she realized they were tied together. Zip-tied. When her finger came away from her eye, she saw blood on it. Not wet. Dried.
Assholes.
Cat!
She remembered the last minute before everything went dark. Cat going down in the parking lot. Trying to hold onto her. Trying to save her.
Hurt.
Not dead.
Kayla sagged with relief. That was when she noticed just how cold she was. Her clothes were heavy and wet from the field, and this place might be inside, but it was pretty damn cold. She looked down and saw she was on stones. Not tiles. Stones.
Then she noticed the smell.
She knew that smell.
She'd smelled it before, standing between Cat and Cat's mom while a tour guide in a burgundy polo shirt explained the difference between French and American oak barrels and how the wood itself changed the flavor of the wine.
Cat had whispered something in her ear that had made her laugh, and Cat's mom had shushed them both.
She was in a wine cellar.
Her eyes adjusted slowly to the low light. Barrels stacked on either side of her, row after row, curving away into the dimness. Stone floor. Stone walls. She tried to get up, but her ankles were tied. At least her wrists were tied in front of her.
She rolled around like a worm until she was against one of the barrels, then she scooched up into a sitting position. She took inventory.
Doors?
Windows?
One door that she could see. At the far end of the cellar, heavy wood with iron hardware, closed. No windows. Two industrial light fixtures overhead, the kind that gave off more shadow than light.
She shivered again. A big racking one that she couldn’t stop.
She pulled her knees up to her chest and held them there with her bound wrists and tried to make herself smaller and warmer simultaneously and neither worked very well.
Okay, she told herself.
Think.
Her head jerked up when the door opened. A tall, light-skinned Black man walked in. He was wearing a blue suit. A really nice suit. He had white shoes. Who wore white shoes? Another man followed him, and it was clear he was just a helper. Not muscle.
White-shoe-guy pulled up a chair. She hadn’t noticed it before. The helper stood behind him and to the side.
She opened her mouth to say something, and that was when she realized she was gagged. How had she not noticed that before?
He looked at her for a long moment before he spoke. His English was precise and careful and slightly formal. Kayla was pretty sure he was African.
“I'm going to tell you something,” he said, “and you're going to listen, because there's nothing else for you to do right now.”
She glared at him. Because she could do that.
“Your father,” he said, “is not who you think he is.”
She felt her jaw tighten against the gag.
“I know what you think. You think he's a hero. You've been told that your entire life. The uniform, the medals, the stories.” He leaned forward slightly, resting his forearms on his knees.
“That makes you angry.”
Kayla didn’t bother to nod. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
“I want to tell you about my brother, Kofi. We were orphans. It was my job to look after him. But he was young. He was easily swayed. He made choices that were… unfortunate. I was working to get him out. I thought I had him convinced…”
He looked down at the floor.
Kayla, for just a moment, could feel his pain. He’d been the older sibling. Trying to help his younger brother. Then the man looked up again, his glance harsh.
“But before Kofi could leave, your father took that away from him. He led a team that butchered him. Never even gave him a chance to surrender. He wasn’t a man. Barely older than you.”
Kayla stared at him so hard her eyes burned.
Liar, she thought, with every part of herself that was capable of thinking.
“I don't expect you to believe me,” the man said, as if he'd heard her. “You're fourteen years old and he's your father and the world is still simple for you.” He sat back. “It won't be for much longer.”
Then he stood, he straightened his jacket, and he walked back out through the heavy door, his helper following him.
Kayla stared after them.
She spent the next five minutes examining the zip ties. Unless she could find something to cut them, she was screwed. Time to start thinking, then start moving. Hell, maybe she could be like Bree and find a cell phone.
She pulled up everything she remembered from that tour.
Cat had been bored and trying to make her laugh, but Kayla had actually listened to parts of it because she'd been interested despite herself.
The tour guide in the burgundy polo had explained the layout.
The vineyard, the crush pad where the grapes were processed, the barrel room where the wine aged, and then the tasting room where people came to drink it and buy bottles to take home.
The barrel room was always adjacent to the tasting room.
Always, the tour guide had said. It was part of the experience. You walked through the barrels, you understood the process, and then you emerged into the tasting room and the whole thing made sense.
Which meant the tasting room was close. So Fancy Shoe Guy came from the tasting room. And in the tasting room, there might be people. People who could help.
She looked at the door. She wasn't getting through that door with her wrists and ankles tied and her body still shaking from the cold.
But noise traveled.
She looked up at the ceiling. At the walls. At the gap under the door—thin, but there. She looked at the barrels around her and thought about what was inside them and wondered if a barrel rolling across a stone floor made enough sound to bring someone running.
She thought it probably did.
She looked at the nearest barrel rack. At the angle of the barrels. At the physics of what would happen if she managed to get to her feet, which was going to be painful with her ankles tied but not impossible, and worked her way along the rack until she reached the end barrel on the bottom row.
If I could tip it.
If she could tip it and it hit the floor and rolled, preferably not on top of her, would anyone be out there to hear it?
She brought herself back down to the floor of the cellar, and began the slow process of rolling down the corridor toward the last barrel. At the rate she was going, it would take over an hour, but at least it was warming her up.
She kept going, concentrating on her goal, gasping for breath. Her head was pounding.
The door opened.
She froze.
The man walked in. He was carrying a phone and he looked at her, not anywhere near where he’d left her. He looked from her to the last barrel on the rack.
“Smart girl,” he said quietly. “You’re trying to be like your father.”
He didn't say it like a compliment.
He crossed the cellar toward her and she held very still because there was nothing else she could do. He stopped in front of her and looked at her for a moment, taking in the wet uniform, the shaking she couldn't control, and then he raised the phone.
She understood what was happening.
She looked directly into the camera. She held herself as still as she could despite the shivering.
She kept her eyes open even though they were heavy and the cold had made everything slow.
She thought about her mom seeing this photograph.
She thought about what she wanted her to see when she looked at it.
I'm here. I'm thinking. Come find me.
She didn't look away.
And then the man hit her in the head and the world tipped on its axis. He took the photo while her head was still swimming, her eyes half-closed.
The man lowered the phone. He looked at the screen. He looked back at her.
“Your father has received your photograph,” he said. “Now we wait and see what kind of man he really is.”
What did he mean her dad had received the photograph? Dad was on a mission.
Was Dad back? Her head swam.
Another racking shiver encompassed her body, causing her head to bounce against the stone floor. When she could think again, she paused. A glimmer of satisfaction roared through her.
Come get me, Dad.