Chapter 31
31
H anna pleaded with this woman, these women, whoever they were. "Please know if I had the money I would help you hire an attorney."
"We don't need your help to hire an attorney. We want our money back. That was part of my retirement, hers, too. I gave it to that piece of shit because he was going to come and marry me. He said he was going to. He said he loved me."
The other woman spoke for the first time. Her footsteps drew near, her voice was softer. "He said he was going to marry me, too. Told me he wanted to start a business, and we'd work it together."
Hanna felt bad for these women, but she was also afraid of them. "Have you ever met him in person?"
The first woman barked, "No, I never did. He said you kept stealing the money. I would send him money to come to me, and he said you got a hold of it and stole it. You have all my money."
Hanna shook her head and was immediately sorry as the headache slammed hard. "I didn't steal anything from him. It was quite the opposite. He's been stealing from me. As a matter of fact, I couldn't even afford to buy a thirty-five-dollar bathroom vanity at a thrift store because he had cleared out my bank account just two weeks ago."
"We don't want your pity story. He said you were stealing from him."
Hanna threw caution to the wind. "He also said he was going to come and marry you."
The woman yelled, "Quiet! I don't want to hear anything from you. Do you understand me? You're liars. You're both liars."
Hanna's stomach twisted. Her breathing came in spurts and she consciously tried to slow her breathing down, so panic didn't cloud her judgment. But she was getting closer to panic with each passing minute.
"I'm not a liar. I'm not a liar." She repeated. "I was duped by him just like you were."
"I don't want to hear it." The first woman barked again.
Hanna tried a softer tactic. "Have you tried getting in touch with him?"
"How would I get in touch with him? The only way I was able to get in touch with him was from a cell phone that he gave me that he no longer answers."
Hanna swallowed. That's how he was doing it. He had different cell phones. Likely pre-paids.
She inhaled a deep breath. "He called me last night. He said he was in town and wanted to meet. I told him no."
The second woman came closer. "He said he wanted to meet you and he's in town. Where is he in town?"
She swallowed. "I have no idea. I didn't want to meet him. I told him no."
The first woman asked, "Are you sure he's in town? "
Hanna shrugged. She wished she could see these women. If she could look into their eyes, they'd hopefully see she was being truthful with them. "Well, he asked me to come and meet him and I said no."
The second woman, with the softer voice, asked, "Where would he be then? Does he have friends here?"
Hanna scoffed. "No, he doesn't have friends. If he'd be anywhere, he'd be at the hotel."
The first woman jumped up quickly, knocking the chair over, and stormed toward the door. Hanna watched the door open and light filled the room. One woman was muscular with short, spiked hair. The other woman had longer hair, just past her shoulders. It was blonde, and she was on the small side. She heard the door lock from the outside and swallowed the despair climbing up her spine. She'd get out of here. If they didn't find Isaac, what would they do to her? So far, they hadn't hurt her, and she was their bargaining chip. That made her feel better.
She'd been sitting for a while. Stiffness had settled in, but she leaned forward on her hands, which were bound together with what felt like zip ties. She managed to stand. Taking a deep breath, she inched along the wall closest to the door.
Because she couldn't really see anything anymore, she brushed her back along the wall as she made her way. Slowly hugging the wall, her hands in front of her. As soon as she reached the door, she nearly wept.
She tried turning the knob, and it turned, but the door wouldn't budge. She started kicking the door. Pounding with her fists, hoping anyone would hear. She exhausted herself and leaned with her back against the door. She glanced around the room and remembered the big dark spot on the wall on the other side of the room. She slid along the walls toward the other side until she felt the frame of a window. It was covered with a board.
Using the zip ties between her wrists, she tried catching the zip tie under the corner of the board and pulling it away. The searing pain that shot through her as the zip ties cut into her wrists was nothing compared to the fear of what these women would do to her if they didn't find Isaac.
She kept pulling and tugging and scratching against the board. Finally, the zip ties between her wrists broke.
She sobbed as tingling raced up her arms. The warm stickiness of blood on her wrists made her nauseous. She let her arms hang for a moment and then remembered the chair across the room.
She crawled on the floor until she found the overturned chair. She picked it up and dragged it across the room. Once she was near the window again, she lifted the chair and beat it against the board and the window.
Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.
Another little piece of the corner of the board broke off and a little light shone through. She stuck the leg of the chair into the hole she made and tried using it to pry the board apart. She broke a little more of the board away and was encouraged to continue beating at it and prying it apart.
She kept working at the board until she had enough broken away that she felt she could probably crawl out.
Taking the leg of the chair, she scraped it along the window's ledge to make sure there was no pointed glass that would cut into her.
She squeezed her head through the opening only to see she was on the third floor. Tears flooded her eyes as her heart sank .
Allowing herself a bit of a pity party, she sucked in a deep breath and decided she was going to get the fuck out of there! With her fingers, she pulled and tugged on that board, breaking more of it away from the window.
And when she had enough, she began screaming out of the window. She screamed as loud as she'd ever screamed in her life.
And finally someone hollered up to her, "Hanna!"
She looked down only to see someone run around the corner of the building. She sobbed. Someone heard her and knew it was her. She slowly moved toward the door. Someone was coming!