Chapter 4
Really, the irony here is striking.
I asked Jameson if he was going to murder me so many times.
I’m not going to murder you, he shouts in my memory. I’d almost apologized to him. He’d seemed that upset about my insistence that he was going to kill me. Should I have believed him? No. Probably not. But everything that’s happened since Jameson took me from that parking lot has proved my instincts to be correct.
Jameson is just as hot as he was when I first met him. Not in the parking lot—on the sidewalk outside my grandfather’s house. He’s carrying too much grief around with him. I’m not condoning that kidnapping, I’m just?—
In retrospect, it’s very obvious that Jameson wasn’t going to kill me. If he was, he didn’t have to drive me to his cottage and give me a million chances to escape first. He could have done it in two seconds in the parking lot and then retreated to his cottage. It was never about murder for him.
By contrast, this kidnapper is all about murdering me, and he could not be more different from Jameson that night. He’s disguised as a member of the security team. Anyone looking in from outside could safely assume that he is my bodyguard.
It’s a true lesson in contrasts, because he doesn’t seem particularly excited about the murder itself. There’s no spark in his eyes, just that dull gray color. He moves down the row of windows, shutting each one and swiping the latch with methodical resignation.
Is this just what you do when you’re about to murder someone?
I guess it is if your day job is contract killings. I have to think that the day job aspect is what takes the passion out of it.
He moves down the row to my side of the building, and my heart speeds up. Is this the moment when he drags me over to the tarps? What should I do? Scream? I don’t get the impression that it would make a difference. This kidnapper hasn’t gone to any effort to keep me quiet. He’s either very confident in himself or has reason to believe that nobody within earshot will be bothered by the screams of a dying woman.
Or is this all an elaborate setup to bore me into complacence so I don’t see it coming when he shoots me out of nowhere?
Oh, God, this is bad.
The kidnapper turns his back on me and walks to the opposite side of the room. I look at him across what feels like a long way and no space at all. The space has four support beams in the center and half the polish has worn off the floor. There’s only one way out. In the far corner, there’s a narrow, shadowy doorway that might lead to an exit or might lead to a dead end. Is this someplace my grandfather—or the kidnapper—bought specially for killing? How many people can you kill in one place before somebody notices?
I wish I had some paper to outline my thoughts. I haven’t thought about outlining since Jameson found me—since Jameson took me—since I fell in love with Jameson, but it feels like it would be better than standing here, waiting to die.
My heart knocks against my ribs. It’s an alarm going off at the end of a timed test. Do you see where you are? it asks. Do you understand what’s happening?
Not entirely, no, but I understand that I’m supposed to be dead on those tarps, and yet I am not dead yet.
He hasn’t even tied my hands.
Why? Because he didn’t have time at the cathedral? Because he doesn’t care if I fight?
Because he knows he’s bigger and stronger and the fight would just spice up his day?
Because he doesn’t care if I spice up his day?
It’s already significantly warmer in the room with the windows closed. The air from outside is trapped. It smells even more like an antique shop. Everything about this is incongruous. Murders shouldn’t happen on sunny summer days. They shouldn’t happen when you’re supposed to be getting married. The atmosphere was better for a murder was better when Jameson kidnapped me, except for him.
He’s not like that.
He’s all warmth and intensity like lightning. He always seemed barely contained. This kidnapper is nothing by comparison.
The man takes out his phone.
Looks at the screen.
Taps.
Is he texting?
Holy mother of the Constitution, he’s texting.
While he texts, he nudges at one of the tarps with the toe of his shoe. How many murders have those shoes seen? Does he seriously do this every day, or are there different crimes for other days of the week?
Am I losing my mind?
I might be. My stomach keeps twisting and untwisting like it can’t decide if I’m in mortal peril or just being played with.
The kidnapper lowers his phone, then bends to rearrange one of the tarps even more.
When he straightens up, the line of his shoulders is different. He frowns at his phone.
Okay.
I’m freaking out a little. That’s normal in these circumstances.
And the texting is starting to seem incredibly sinister.
However, the more time he spends texting, the more time Jameson has to get to me.
Because Jameson is going to get to me. That thought hadn’t occurred to me in full until this moment. Jameson’s not going to shrug his shoulders and go back to his old life. His ring is on my finger. He followed it up with a genuine proposal, and the order of those two things is just details.
If I know anything about Jameson Hill, it’s that he’s on his way to find me right now.
Stalling it is.
I spend a few precious seconds debating how I want to open the next phase of conversation. I didn’t watch much TV during my academic career because I needed all the time I could get for studying and because I thought taking myself seriously meant avoiding all the unserious things my friends did in their downtime. I didn’t watch racy movies and I didn’t watch crime shows. I tried to stay away from pop music.
What was I thinking?
Now isn’t the time to regret my past choices, although they’re not helping me now.
My limited secondhand knowledge of crime shows, however, says the topic I choose won’t make the difference if this person is determined to kill me.
Since.
Since this person is determined to kill me.
My one vice before Jameson was dancing. All that practice didn’t give me a magical skill in escaping from kidnappers, but it did provide me with plenty of opportunities to improvise.
It’s fitting, isn’t it? Dancing was an escape. For a few hours a week, I escaped a life that never felt right no matter how hard I tried. When I was suspended in midair, I had control over my body and my life. I was myself.
I know how to get to the end of a complicated routine. I know how to outlast the music and finish with a smile.
On four—one, two, three, four.
“Did you kill my mother?”
The kidnapper is the one who handed me her death certificate. No—not a death certificate. An email printout that claimed to be a death certificate. It’s not proof of anything except that this man—and my grandfather—want me to believe my mother is dead.
He looks up from the phone and blinks. “How would I know?”
“You had to know my name to find me and kidnap me, didn’t you? A professional like you probably knows the names of all the people he’s…dealt with.”
He shrugs. “I don’t see the point.”
“Because…” Every second I’m alive is a second I’m not dead. “You’ve done this for so long that they all blur together? How long is that, exactly?”
The kidnapper narrows his eyes. It reminds me of a worn-out clerk behind the counter at Target. Someone who has fifteen minutes left on their shift and who doesn’t know if they want to spend the energy making small talk.
It’s so weird.
“Fourteen years,” he says. “Or fifteen.”
“That’s a long time to be killing people.”
Oh, Lily, come on. The last thing I need to be doing is reminding him that he has a job to do. And the job is to kill me. I guess there’s no way to avoid it permanently other than slipping out of his clutches.
Lucky for me, the kidnapper looks distractedly out the windows. His eyes scan the sidewalk below. Is he waiting for them to be clear? That’s unlikely. There’s nothing out there that would keep people off the streets. He’d have to drive me outside the city to find a place that was actually secluded.
My heart goes that much faster. Maybe he’s waiting for somebody else to get here.
It would be extremely bad for me if it was two against one, but good for me if the other person is delayed for some unpredictable reason.
I imagine a businessman in a navy suit hustling along the sidewalk, checking his watch and cursing himself for being late to his last killing of the day. If a person like that shows up and the two of them discuss getting held up in traffic, I don’t know what I’ll do. Laugh until I cry. Cry until I laugh. One of those.
“You didn’t—” His eyes flick back toward me. Either this man keeps forgetting I’m here, or there’s someone more important on the way. “You didn’t start out killing people, did you?”
A near-soundless laugh. “No. I only transitioned to the more delicate jobs fifteen years ago. The pay for everything else was shit, and I had?—”
He cuts himself off, snapping his mouth shut so hard I can hear it. Then he stalks toward the window, crosses his arms over his chest, and looks over the street again. He’s got a little color in his cheeks, and he’s breathing slightly faster. It’s the most emotion he’s shown this whole time.
Is that good?
Or is it terrible?
I take a deep breath and pretend I’m mid-dance. No way out but through. I could’ve just dropped down to the stage and walked away if I had to, but that wasn’t the spirit of the thing.
“How many times has my grandfather hired you?”
“I wouldn’t know.” Oh, now he’s annoyed. “He’s generally discreet.”
“Yeah. That sounds like him.”
Discreet is right. If I die today, at least I’ll die knowing the truth about the man who raised me. That information won’t comfort me in my last moments, but my final thoughts won’t be consumed by the misguided hope that my grandpapa will swoop in and save me.
What an asshole.
The kidnapper glances at his phone again. Taps some more. Mutters something under his breath.
More tapping.
And then he lifts the phone to his ear.
A few beats later, he yanks it down and stabs at the screen. There’s no mistaking it—he just got someone’s voicemail.
Whose voicemail?
He shoots me such a fast glare that it’s gone before I can decide if it was real, and then he’s tapping again, each jab hard and precise.
The phone goes back to his ear.
While it’s ringing on the other end—it must be—he looks at me with this distant irritation. Now he’s not a worn-out Target cashier. He seems more like a disgruntled rental car agent who doesn’t have any cars left and now some woman is at the counter in her wedding dress, demanding attention.
I don’t laugh at that mental image. Now is not the time.
“This is the last chance,” he says. “I’m willing to negotiate the fee for transport.”
My jaw starts to drop open, but I close it in the nick of time. He’s on the phone with my grandfather. He wants to know if he should proceed with the killing or if he should deliver me back home for an additional fee. Like he’s working for a delivery app.
I’m too far away to hear anything coming from his speaker. The kidnapper seems to realize that he’s scowling and slaps on a neutral expression. It’s not quite neutral enough. My heartbeat goes faster. It’s unsteady now.
I wouldn’t rather die than be taken back to my grandfather’s. If I’m still alive, I have a chance to get away. But the thought of having to look at him feels like dipping my hands into a bowl of egg yolks. Disgusting.
“Understood.” One more stab with his thumb to the screen. “That’s the end of that. Come this way.”
The gun reappears. I’m not sure where he was keeping it. His waistband, I think. I should have been paying closer attention. The kidnapper uses it to gesture toward him.
How about…not?
“If you want more money, my fiancés family has a lot of it. I’m sure he’d be happy to buy out your contract,” I mention.
“Don’t care.” He motions with the gun.
“Is this personal? I don’t think we’ve met before, so I don’t see how it could be, but…is it?”
“This is a job.”
Motion in the far corner of the room—in the shadowy doorway—catches my eye. I force myself not to look directly at it. Either it’s someone coming to my rescue, or it’s someone coming to kill me, or?—
My heart’s going too wild to do a casual glance.
“A lot of people feel strongly about their jobs.” I’m counting heartbeats now. He could just shoot me from over there, if he has good enough aim. If I tried to run, I’d probably trip over my dress at some point and he’d have another shot.
Another chance.
Jesus, Lily.
“I feel strongly that I want this job to be over and done with.”
“Dinner plans?”
“What?” The gun wavers in the air. Is that because he’s squeezing it in anticipation of killing me?
“Do you have interesting dinner plans? Is that why you’re in a hurry?”
He hasn’t been in a hurry until now, so I bet he doesn’t have interesting dinner plans.
“Or is this about the Hills? It’s more than a little unfair to hold me accountable for some past animosity.”
“What would you know about past animosity? You’re barely out of high school.”
“Excuse me.” I hold the skirts of my dress tighter. “I am a college graduate.”
A boy is creeping out of the dark hallway. No—a man. He’s around my age, I think. In his twenties, I think. Tall, with light hair and gray eyes. Unlike the kidnapper, the boy—man’s—eyes are bright and determined. Focused.
“Takes all kinds.” My kidnapper takes several steps toward me, and I back up on instinct. “You’re only making this hard on yourself.”
The other man moves silently across the wood floorboards. If even one of his feet hits the wrong one, he’ll get found out.
Why is he here?
And why does he have a length of pipe in his hand? It looks like an antique, heavy and dark.
“Sorry? I had other plans today. I don’t think you can blame me for not wanting to change my schedule.”
He takes a few more steps. The man with the pipe gets closer with two graceful, soundless strides.
The bright gray eyes meet mine. Slowly, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a coin, which he holds up to show me.
Why is he showing me a penny?
I don’t have more time to wonder, because he throws it at the windows.
It hits with a loud ping and the kidnapper whips his head toward the noise. The man with the pipe grasps it in both hands and swings like it’s a baseball bat. It cracks against the back of the kidnapper’s head.
And then he turns and runs, disappearing into the hall with long, loping strides.
The kidnapper reels, dropping the gun, shouting what sounds like a combination of every curse word in the English language all mashed into one. He catches himself before he falls. His hand comes away from his head streaked with blood.
Then the door slams open, and running footsteps descend on me, and before I can say anything—before I can even raise my hand to point at the kidnapper—I’m in Jameson’s arms, my face pressed into his shirt.
“She’s here,” he says, over the yelling fray, his hands on my face, then my neck, feeling for—wounds? Tears? I don’t know. “You’re here. You’re here. Fuck, Lily. You’re here.”