Chapter 25
TWENTY-FIVE
B ianca had been tied up and blindfolded for a movie once. It hadn’t prepared her for the very real-life knotted rope biting into her skin. Or the black stocking hat pulled down over her face.
Her heated breaths made an awkward rhythm against her unsteady steps; However her thoughts remained steady.
For the good and bad, God was with her.
She pressed her chapped lips together.
And she really wanted to live to see Eddie again. Tell him that he’d been wrong about them.
“Keep walking.” Their kidnapper no longer sounded like he was right behind her and Nathan.
“That would be a lot easier if you released us,” Nathan mumbled.
As they staggered forward, his shoulder bumped against hers—or at least she assumed it was his. The air smelled like mud and sweat and maybe a little gasoline mixed in. Gravel had been around the limo, but for the past thirty steps, her tennis shoes—thankfully not her heels—had almost sunk into what appeared to be soft dirt or sand. The rustling of the tree branches no longer seemed as loud. But if they were heading deeper into the woods, that shouldn’t be the case, should it?
Nathan huffed. “This isn’t a game. Release me this second, or pay the price.”
Great. Apparently, they had slipped into every-man-for-himself mode.
When the gunman had demanded they exit the limo, he’d been wearing a black masquerade mask, but it couldn’t hide his short stature and muddy boots and carpenter pants.
His stocky steps thumped over in Nathan’s direction. “You’ll pay. Now, shut up before you make me go against the plan any more and shoot you.”
He was definitely on the other side of Nathan now. Which meant he probably couldn’t see her hands.
Please, God, let him not see me.
Bianca kept her pace as she wiggled her wrists. The rope burned against her skin. She gritted her teeth and inched her thumb up. If only she could get a little slack.
Nathan scoffed. “You stupid fool. Your plan will never work. You have no clue who you’ve taken.”
“I know who you are, and you’ve become a liability.” A thwack sounded, followed by a groan from Nathan.
Bianca froze from her feet all the way to the thumb she had squirmed in between the rope and her wrist.
“Go ahead. I dare you to speak to me again.” The kidnapper’s tone dropped an octave. “Then you’ll never know the plan. Now get in.”
Hands landed on Bianca’s shoulders and shoved her down. Her head knocked against something hard, and the vibration echoed not only in her head but also in her ears. The space was cool to her exposed legs. Perhaps something metal?
Something collapsed on top of her stomach. She gasped at the same time the something—or rather someone, Nathan—groaned again.
An engine started, but not the limo. A deeper, more rattling noise. Smoke infested the air. The ground underneath them shook, and Nathan’s head lifted off her. Had he fallen? Or…wait. They weren’t going down, but forward…and also up.
What was happening? She needed the blindfold off.
She tugged against the ropes on her wrists. Crawled her thumb up. Still nothing. If she could only loosen them a bit, she could slip her arms down over her behind and pull her legs through. Then at least her arms would be in front of her.
Her ex shifted, and something wet landed on her arm.
“Nathan,” she whispered as she pressed her back up against his. “Come here.”
“Now you want me.” He moaned. “It seems you’ll have to wait your turn.”
Bianca bit back her own growl and reached her fingers out. Metal. Then Nathan’s suit. Finally, rope. She scooted closer to his tied hands. “Turn to the side so I can?—”
The engine stopped. So did Nathan’s and Bianca’s movements toward each other.
She rested against the hard, cool metal, and the stocking hat serving as a blindfold seemed to lift a bit from the back of her head. She sank farther into the makeshift scoop of their confined space.
The stocking cap lifted higher. The ends rolled up until she could breathe in unfiltered air. Only a bit more and she could actually see where they were.
“What are you doing?” Nathan murmured.
She moved back toward him and rubbed her head against the curve of his shoulder. The stocking cap rolled all the way and uncovered one of her eyes.
The darkening sky stretched above them. Smooth metal formed some kind of bucket around her and Nathan. “I think we’re in some kind of construction bucket?—”
“Where is he?” a familiar woman’s voice yelled.
Bianca blinked at the stocking hat covering Nathan.
“You said he’d be here by now.” The gunman spoke a little quieter.
Bianca leaned toward Nathan and bit the top of the stocking cap to pull it up with her teeth.
She spat out the coarse material, and a wide-eyed Nathan stared at her. The right side of his head had a gash, and blood had caked into his eyebrow.
Bianca wiggled her shoulders. “Now turn around so we can untie each other and figure out how to get out?—”
“No, if he’s late, he doesn’t get half of the ransom money.”
Nathan’s brows lowered. “All this for a ransom?”
Bianca rotated and put her back against Nathan. “I don’t have any money to get me out of this because you stole it.”
“I didn’t exactly steal it. Just put it in a safe place. You’ll thank me later.” Nathan shoved his rope against Bianca’s fingers. “Here. Untie me.”
“You liar. You said you didn’t know what happened to my money.” Bianca fumbled a bit, but Nathan’s ropes weren’t as tight as her own. She sank her thumbnail into one of the knots, then pulled with her fingers. Nathan shimmied his wrists, and unlike her own try, the movement loosened the ropes more, and Bianca found the last knotted loop.
“I think that’s it.”
“We’re so not done talking about this, Nathan.”
Nathan brought his hands in front of him. Instead of reaching over to untie Bianca’s ropes, he stood up in the metal construction bucket.
He grabbed the side of the bucket. “Whoa. You’re going to hate them even more, LB. We’re not exactly on the ground.” He pulled out his wallet from inside his suit jacket. “Hey! I’ve got your ransom money right here. You don’t know who you’re messing with. Now let me down.”
Me. Not both of them.
“Nathan, what are you doing?” Bianca rubbed the rope back against the metal. Maybe the knot would snag on a rusted section.
He held his wallet over the side of the bucket. “If you had allowed me to make a deal, you wouldn’t have had to call anyone and wait. Time is money.”
“You were offered a deal,” the familiar woman’s voice said. “Are you going to do what the Duke asked you to do or not?”
Nathan swallowed. “I already took the fall once. It’s not my turn.”
“I don’t like it when people don’t follow the rules,” the woman gritted out.
A gun popped. Nathan grunted and stumbled.
Bianca sucked in a breath.
Blood seeped into the white shirt under Nathan’s open suit jacket.
“Nathan!” No, this wasn’t happening.
“I…” His wallet dropped out of his grip and fell outside the bucket.
A gurgling noise escaped his bloodied lips. Nathan’s eyes rolled back, and he collapsed, his head thumping against the side of the bucket on the way down.
A hoarse wheeze flew from Bianca’s mouth. She pressed her lips closed, and tears burned in her eyes. She backed up until she was curled into the corner of the bucket.
Nathan didn’t move next to her. No breath vibrated his chest. Dead.
And she would be next.
Help, Lord. Please.
Her lungs pulled tight. Black spots floated in her vision.
“You’re late.” The gunman’s voice rose above the pulse in her ears. “And you’re not getting half of my money.”
A new man’s voice chuckled. “Remember your place. You moved ahead of schedule, and you and your sister agreed to share a third. Don’t get greedy. You see how that ends.”
“That was before your woman shot someone!”
“I did what I had to do.” Wait. She’d heard that voice before. Smooth yet brash.
I don’t like it when people don’t follow the rules.
It sounded like the angry lady from the auction, the mayor’s assistant, Janice. Was the mayor the other man?
Bianca blinked. Focused on the shadowed clouds and not Nathan’s body at her feet.
“You shouldn’t have shot Nathan. He would have agreed to take my fall again eventually,” the newer man’s voice said.
“He gave an excellent point about his money,” the kidnapper said. “Now we don’t need to call in the ransom. Like he said, we have his credit cards right here. I’m sure it will be all the money we need.”
Bianca still had no clue who the kidnapper was.
The newer male voice echoed in the still air. “You really are an idiot. It wasn’t actually a ransom. You can’t get money from a dead body.”
Carter had mentioned something similar. Did this have to do with the Duke?
But why was she here in this mess? Because of Nathan?
The familiar voice sounded staccato. “You were supposed to keep things under control. Where’s the girl?”
Bianca squeezed her eyes shut.
“Up there with the dead body. She banged her head on the corner when I shoved her into the front-end-loader bucket.”
As if given a cue, pain flashed down her neck from her injured head.
“Fine. Dump and bury them. She’s served her purpose. Your sister will have to get over the logistics of Bia’s death?—”
“I can’t bury them here.”
Nathan’s blood pooled closer to her tennis shoes, but she didn’t dare move.
Bianca couldn’t see anything except the sky above, the metal around her, and Nathan’s body. She pictured the newest arrival turning slowly toward the kidnapper.
“What do you mean not here?”
“It might get linked back to my company if they’re found.”
“It’s my company now. Remember. I’m about to own this entire town. Don’t forget your place like Nathan did. Or I’ll make sure the bodies are found and you get tagged for them.”
Bianca’s heartbeat rattled three beats.
Roger Pointe.
That’s who the newest male voice was.
So Janice and Roger, but who was the other construction guy?
“I suggest,” Roger’s whisper rose, “you bury them deep enough that only the worms can find them.”
Bianca squeezed her fingers into a fist, and the rope tightened around her wrists.
She wasn’t going to be buried alive. Not that being shot was any better.
She pushed herself up and peeked over the opposite side of the bucket, and one of her knees buckled. The bucket reached a little higher than the blow-up slide. A pile of dirt sat next to the bucket, while the front-end loader butted up against a parked bulldozer—more than likely waiting for its turn to shove the extra dirt into the pit.
The limo was parked back at the curve of the drive that went farther ahead. What was likely Roger’s car had stopped before the front-end loader’s original tracks.
She turned, and on the other side of the bucket lay a shadowed forest surrounding a giant pit.
No wonder the front-end loader had stopped.
She didn’t need to squint in the dimming light to know that the hole below was far deeper than any stunt she’d survived before.
Her fingers trembled. Stupid heights.
The memory of Eddie lacing his hand in hers on the blow-up slide played through her mind. Then his focus on her as she sat in the car.
You don’t have to do this.
If only he were here now. A hot tear dropped onto her shoulder.
No, it was better that he wasn’t. Her life would have only brought him down.
And he couldn’t always help her. God provided everything she truly needed. Not a man. Not fame. Not money.
The slam of the front-end loader’s door had Bianca peeking over the other side of the bucket. The kidnapper had gotten back in the driver’s seat.
Lord, I surrender everything to You.
The engine rumbled but never turned over. Then a second time.
“What’s the problem?” Janice asked.
The kidnapper hopped down and walked away from the front-end loader toward Roger, who stood in a suit by a tree at the curve in the woods. “I’ve got to get some tools from my dozer.”
“You mean my dozer.” Roger laughed.
It was now or never. She would have to jump. But she couldn’t aim for the open pit. She probably couldn’t climb out without anyone seeing her. The loose dirt in front of the dozer might soften her landing. She’d been trained on how to do stunts. How to fall without injury. She’d never been so thankful for doing her own stunts before now.
Except she’d never had to climb without a harness. Or with her arms still tied around her back.
She got onto her knees. Lifted her gaze above the bucket.
No one else was in sight.
She exhaled. She could do this. Had to.
One. Two…
Before three, she pushed onto her shaking legs, thrust her right tennis shoe onto the edge of the bucket, and leaped for the dirt. Her legs ran through the air. She gritted her teeth, bent her knees, and prayed that nothing would break.
Her feet hit the loose dirt, and she managed to tuck into a side roll that might have made her old stunt double jealous. She slid down the rest of the pile while the dirt clawed at her exposed legs. She may never want to wear a designer dress again.
Her scraped legs moved like jelly when she got up to run. She had to get to the nearest tree line.
On her fourth step, she stumbled, yet she managed to keep herself standing until she reached the brush before the trees.
She dove and rolled again. A stick dug into her back, and a pile of cockleburs stuck to her dress, stabbing her thigh. She sucked in air. Too loudly.
She closed her mouth, focused on breathing through her nose, and allowed her fingers to locate the knots on the rope. Her thumb slid back up into the extra space between the rope and her wrist as the front-end loader engine roared to life behind her.
She needed a better hiding spot. She rose onto her knees and managed enough space where her thumb had moved into the rope to twist it around. The knot now rested in the palm of her right hand. Her fingers pulled and yanked as if they’d solved this puzzle before. The rope loosened enough for her left hand to slip free.
She crawled on her hands and feet until the rope dangling behind her snagged on a sticker bush, making the branches pull toward her. She retreated enough to wind the rope around her right shoulder. She had to keep anything that she might be able to use as a weapon.
Just as long as it wasn’t used on her.
A tree stood ahead with a row of bushes lining the path. She could make it if she army crawled. Leaves and grime clung to her dress. Dirt caked her nails. The bush branches reached for her curls.
A bunny hopped out of her way as she reached the bark of the tree roots. She crawled around the base of the tree until she sat with her back pressed against the far side, then pulled her knees up to her chest.
“Hey!”
Bianca held her breath.
“Turn that thing off,” demanded Roger.
The engine stopped. “What now? I barely got the thing going.”
“Only one body fell out when you dumped it,” Janice said.
Bianca peeked over her shoulder and around the robust tree. The trio walked around to the front of the front-end loader where the bucket had tilted over the pit. Soon they’d figure out that she hadn’t fallen into the pit with Nathan.
She focused on the trees to the right of her. She could make it to one of those. Then one farther away. One step at a time.
Her gaze caught on something beyond the fifth tree in her planned route—a light.
A light could be a house. A house could mean a person. And a person meant help.
She shoved herself up and ducked, making it to the second tree. Then the third.
“Where’s Bia? She’s not down there,” Roger roared.
She was really starting to hate her old nickname turned stage name.
Bianca rose to her full height and sprinted toward the fifth tree, skipping the fourth. She couldn’t afford any more slow and steady.
She swung her arms faster, heading straight for the light that glowed through the trees at the end of the woods and what looked to be a cabin window. Finally, a way out.
Until a bullet whizzed by her head and struck the last tree in front of her.