Chapter 30
CHAPTER THIRTY
TEDDIE
I couldn't get what I heard during the storm out of my head.
All the way through college and the drive back—the car was a dream—I kept thinking about it. I was sure I didn't imagine it. Nothing seemed amiss with any of the houses in the area. I saw no sign of police cars or ambulances. That only left two other possibilities. Either it was a ghost or…
I parked my new car back under the tree and locked it carefully behind me.
I had a feeling Fade wouldn't be impressed if it was stolen from the front of the house hours after I got it.
That begged the question, when did he organize it?
Either he moved fast, or this was in the works before last night.
I wouldn't put either past him, to be honest. The fact my car was old and tired wasn't lost on anyone. Of course he'd want me grateful to him.
As for being bought already, I tried to put that out of my head but it also continued to echo.
It wasn't exactly inaccurate. They bought my time in return for helping my fathers.
I'd acknowledged that from the beginning.
Hearing it from his mouth though? That brought it into sharper focus.
Sharp enough to be uncomfortable. Sharp enough to break under my skin. I was going to have to thicken it up.
I headed into the house and put my things down, keeping an eye out for Shannon. I couldn't see her anywhere. She must be out doing the grocery shopping. That meant I had a small window of opportunity. I might as well take it.
I bit my lip and pushed open the door to Oak's bedroom. Why did I expect it to be locked today? I didn't know, but it wasn't.
I stepped into the room and stopped. Something was different. It only took a moment to notice what it was. Oak's clothes had been pushed aside, leaving the door down to the basement exposed.
Did he know I went down there?
I hurried across to the door and placed my hand on the knob. It didn't move. The door was locked.
I glanced around, stepped over to the dresser and looked through the pile of stuff on the top. It didn't take long to locate a key. Worn and well-used, it hung from a leather strap.
"Nothing ventured…" I said to myself.
I carried the key over to the door and pushed it into the lock. It slid in effortlessly, turning when I twisted it. The lock clicked, letting me push the door open.
My phone held in my hand, I headed down the stairs, taking them one at a time, slowly and silently.
I stopped at the bottom of the stairs and stared.
"What the hell?"
The basement wasn't empty anymore. Now, it held a chair. A figure sat in the middle of it.
He lifted his head and looked at me. He tried to speak, but his voice was muffled by the tape across his mouth.
"Victor?"
I blinked a few times, trying to get my head around what I was seeing. The guy who flirted with me in the restaurant was sitting in the basement. His hands were behind his back, ankles duct taped to the legs of the chair.
"What are you doing here?" I approached carefully, watching him while listening for sounds behind me. There was no doubt in my mind the men knew he was here. They put him here.
Why?
I grabbed a corner of the tape from his cheek and yanked it off quickly, wincing at the sound it made tearing away from his skin.
"Fucking hell." He winced in pain. "Ask your boyfriends," Victor said. "Did you know they were watching you while you were at that restaurant? There's a camera there. They were watching your every move. Mine too. Rude.”
I shook my head slowly. "Why would they do that?"
"Just a wild guess here, but it might be because they're fucking psychos," he said. He moved his arms, trying to free his hands. "I like being tied up as much as the next guy, but are you going to let me out of here?"
I stepped around behind him. His wrists were duct taped together behind the back of the chair.
"I'm going to need a pair of scissors. I'll be right back." I hated to leave him down there like that, but there was nothing else I could do. I couldn't break the tape off with my bare hands.
"I'll be right here.” He dropped his chin to his chest.
"Yeah." I trotted back up the stairs and out of Oak's room.
A door at the back of the house opened and closed. I froze for a moment, then shook my head to force myself to move again and hurried into the kitchen to grab a pair of scissors out of the everything drawer.
Judging by the shuffling and swearing coming from the pantry, Shannon was back with groceries, sorting and unpacking.
Hoping like hell she didn't realize I was there, I ducked back out of the kitchen and into Oak's room, closing the door behind me.
Holding the scissors carefully, I trotted down the stairs. My dads would have a fit if they knew I was running with them.
"Thanks for waiting for me." I offered Victor a faint smile.
"I had nowhere better to be right now," he said, surprisingly cheerful given the circumstances.
"I'm sure you don't." I snipped through the tape on his ankles, then stepped around to free his wrists.
He shook them out, trying to get blood back around his arms and hands.
"Are you sure they said there was a camera?" I asked. “In Heartbeets, I mean."
I had an idea they were keeping tabs on me, but not to that extent. No wonder Hel didn't answer when I asked. He'd have to admit to spying on me. If he was here right now, I’d be tempted to stab him with the scissors.
"That's exactly what they said." Victor rubbed his shoulders. "They were proud of it. And pissed off at me for daring to talk to 'their woman.'" He used air quotes and rolled his eyes. "I don't know about you, but I've had enough of being down here. Let's get the hell out of here."
I led the way back to the stairs and up to Oak's room, my head racing.
"I think this is where I say I'm not leaving without you," Victor said.
"I need to get some things." I pointed the way to the front door. "I'll meet you out there. There are shrubs out the front; you should be able to hide behind those if anyone comes."
He nodded and pulled open the front door, looking around before he slipped out of sight.
I swallowed hard, wondering if I shouldn't leave my stuff behind. I could replace it right? Except, I couldn't. I needed my laptop and my notes.
I darted up the stairs and across the landing to my room. I grabbed up my bag with the laptop in it, and a backpack from in the wardrobe. I stuffed a few things inside and swung it onto my back, all but running back down the stairs.
At the last couple of steps, I slowed. Half because I didn't want to fall and break my neck, and half because if Shannon saw me, she'd wonder why the hell I was running. Should I tell her? Did she know what was going on here? She knew the men better than I did. For all I knew, she was in on it too.
I hesitated for a moment longer but slipped out the door behind Victor and over to my car. I unlocked it and threw everything inside.
I was about to look for Victor, but he appeared out of the shrubs, running over to dive into the passenger seat of my new car.
"Is there anywhere I need to take you?" I asked.
“Anywhere but here would be awesome," he said, putting on his seatbelt.
"Right," I agreed. I pressed the button to start the engine, and peeled away from the house, hoping it didn't look as though I was running.
"Actually, I know a place," Victor said. "I'll tell you where you can take me. It's not far from here. Keep going straight for now."
"You know I had nothing to do with locking you down there, don't you?" I glanced over at him.
"Do I?" He twisted around to look out the back of the car. He didn't need to, I could have told him we weren't being followed.
Hel, Oak and Fade would still be at work and even if Shannon saw us, she might not give a shit. Or she might have thought I was off with friends or seeing my fathers. She was good at lots of things, that included not sticking her nose into other people's business.
"You should," I said. "I had no idea you were down there until I saw you." That was mostly true. I hadn't expected to find someone tied up down there. I thought I'd find an empty basement again, supporting the theory the place was haunted.
That might have been better.
“Okay, I believe you." He sat around and smiled like a boy who was on his way to the circus.
Was he traumatized after what happened to him?
I didn't think I'd be smiling so soon after being tied up in a musty basement.
Especially if I was sitting next to the reason for being locked down there in the first place.
The guys said I was theirs. They must have taken that far more seriously than I thought.
What about now though? It didn’t matter.
I couldn't take their money knowing what they'd done.
How the hell was I going to explain all of this to my fathers?
We were going to have to come up with another way to save the bar.
Right now, that might be the least of my problems. If they caught up with us, they might put us both down in the basement.
"We should talk to the police," I said. Now I was thinking more clearly, we should drive straight to the station.
"No." Victor's vehement response took me by surprise. "I'm fine. No harm done. I don't want to press charges."
I stared at him for a moment before I remembered I was driving and swung my gaze back to the road.
"They tied you to a chair in a basement.
" I'd see the expression on his face when I found him, for the rest of my life.
Despair had turned to hope. Joy. The realization he might get out of there alive.
I didn't want to think what they might have done to him if I hadn’t ventured down there. Were they trying to scare him or…
I shoved the thought away for now.
"I'll get over it. Take the next left and pull into the parking lot."
"Where are we going?" I put down the unease down to wondering what the men would do when they found out I was gone. If they'd go to these length to keep someone from talking to me, then fuck only knew what they do to keep me.
"My parents own the ice cream parlor," Victor said. "I live in the apartment above it. It'll be a good place to get our heads together. Figure out where we’re going to go from here. I mean, you're not going back to them, right?"
I didn't answer that. I was out of my mind if I'd even contemplate returning. Right now, we both need time to decompress.
"I know the place," I said. It was a block from Loams and Nefarious. I should go and see my fathers, but I didn't know what to tell them. Instead, I parked behind the row of stores and killed the engine.
"No one else is here at the moment. My parents have finished for the day." Victor stepped out of the car and waited for me before heading toward the back door. He pulled out a key from his pocket and unlocked it.
"Home sweet home. Come on in." He stepped inside first and gestured for me to follow.
"I haven't been in here in ages." Ice cream and I had a love-hate relationship. I loved it, it hated my hips.
"I don't know about you, but I could use a sugar hit," he said. He pulled out a couple of cones from a box on the countertop. "You have to try the salted caramel."
“It’s my favorite,” I said, distracted as I glanced around.
“You have good taste then.” Victor scooped out a ball of the whiteish-brown ice cream, crystals of caramel glittering from the sides. He handed me the cone before scooping out strawberry ice cream for himself.
"I have to grab some things from upstairs," he said. "Then we can work out where we're going from here."
I'd already made up my mind. I'd eat this ice cream, then go to my dads. If anyone had the answers, it'd be them. They'd ask why we hadn't gone straight to the police.
Victor was going to have to answer that question himself.
"You okay?" He unlocked the door and opened it, revealing a set of stairs that must lead up to his apartment.
"I…" Was I? "I should be asking you that." I licked the side of the ice cream. He was right, it was delicious, but it didn't help settle my anxiety. Did they serve vodka here too? Probably not. Shame.
"I will be." His gaze lingered on me as I ate.
"Yours is going to melt." I nodded to the ice cream in his hand.
"Huh? Oh, right." He gave his a quick lick before he headed up the stairs.
I turned to look toward the windows, and the view of the street beyond.
It was relatively quiet at this time of afternoon.
Only a car passing here or there. No sign of three psychotic men wanting to lock me and Victor in the basement.
Had they noticed he was gone yet? If they hadn't, they would.
Unless they planned to leave him down there to starve to death.
In which case, they wouldn't know he was gone until they checked on him to make sure he was good and dead.
The thought made my stomach turn. The ice cream didn't taste quite as good. The salt and caramel flavor lingered on my tongue. And something else. Was it a preservative? The chemical aftertaste was bitter. I didn't remember the ice cream tasting like this the last time I had it.
My head started to swim. Why was my vision blurry?
I blinked a couple of times but it didn't help. If anything it made it worse. My eyelids weighed a ton. So did my legs.
I made a grab for the countertop, trying to hold myself up. My knees gave out. What was left of my ice cream dropped out of my hand and onto the floor. I tried to call out for help, but the words that came out of my mouth weren't coherent to my own ears.
The world tilted and I ended up lying on the tiled floor behind the counter.
"I told you it was good." Victor leaned against the fridge, looking down at me. His smile gave me more chills than the ice cream.
He was the last thing I saw before everything went black.