Chapter Nineteen
As Kate opened her eyes, she wondered if she had been run over by a truck. Her entire body felt paralyzed and the pounding in her head made her speculate that her brain was about to explode. She was lying on her left side and felt cold concrete against her bare arms. Although she felt her eyes were opened, all her surroundings were still steeped in darkness. A groan sounded from her throat and she heard a shifting sound nearby.
She attempted to move, but found it impossible. Her hands were secured behind her back and she couldn’t get control over them. Shaking her arms, she felt the dangle of handcuffs on her wrists. When she tried to flex her legs, she was startled to discover her ankles were bound as well. It felt like some type of tape was wrapped around her legs. Pushing against the tape to try and loosen it proved fruitless.
After scraping her elbows against the concrete, she was finally able to get into a sitting position. Being upright did nothing to help orient her. It was so dark wherever she was, she could barely make out the outline of her own body. She swallowed hard and attempted to yell. “Help.” Her voice was meek and it was barely a whisper.
Drawing her breath, she was about to call out again when a voice from the shadows whispered urgently, “Don’t yell, he said he’ll kill us.”
Kate thought for a second she was having another psychic vision. It threw her off balance to hear Cori’s voice in person and not inside her mind. “Cori? Is it really you?” she asked with awe in her voice.
“Yeah, who are you?”
Kate blew out a long breath of air. The haze was clearing from her mind and she was beginning to sense the horror of her predicament. A part of her wanted to sink back to the floor and cry hysterically. She was in the terrible basement from her visions and probably would end up killed by the crazy man who had abducted Cori. After taking a moment to calm herself, she resolved to pull it together. It wouldn’t help either of them for her to freak out. At the very least, she had to remain strong to keep Cori from growing more fearful.
“My name is Kate, I’m a friend of your sister’s….er, boyfriend.” No need to get into semantics at the moment and mention she had been horizontal with Jared only a few hours earlier.
Following the sound of Cori’s voice, she scooted on her bottom towards her. On closer inspection, she was able to barely make out the girl’s blond hair through the darkness. Cori had her back against the concrete wall of the basement and sat with her knees drawn to her chest in a fetal position. “Are you ok? Are you hurt?”
“I’m hungry and I want to go home,” Cori sobbed. “My hands hurt, he keeps them tied up.”
“Has he done anything to you? Has he been feeding you?” Kate demanded urgently.
“He keeps me locked in here all day long. He had my feet tied up, too, but they got all purple and he cut them loose. When it isn’t so dark in here, I’m able to walk around. At night, it’s too scary to move. Some days he gives me food, but not always.”
She sounded very tired and terrified. Weeks had gone by since Cori was taken. Kate felt guilty over the fact she’d been warm and comfy in her own bed and eating like a glutton during the time that Cori had been suffering.
Cori meekly added, “He’s been acting real crazy the last few days, screaming and throwing things. Something must’ve gotten him real mad.”
Kate had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach as Cori relayed this information. A few days ago, Kate’s involvement was revealed and the sketch she drew of him published in the local papers. She wondered if he had been stalking her movements and that was how he came upon her outside of the house. Maybe he had decided to get rid of her before she could reveal any more information about him.
She grew irate again at Nikki for releasing her information to the press. She was now convinced more than ever that Nikki ruined everything. It certainly assuaged Kate of any guilt she felt for stealing her boyfriend. Although the likelihood of Kate being alive long enough to enjoy the boy she stole seemed to be diminishing. She could have totally kicked herself for not doing it with him when she had the opportunity.
“We’ll get out of here, I’ll come up with a plan,” she declared. Cori’s silence let Kate know she had little faith in her ability to get them out of the basement alive. Kate stiffened in anticipation as she heard the door unlock.
After he switched on the overhead light, Kate had to blink several times to get accustomed to the brightness. Daring a glance his way, she ascertained he looked much scarier in person than in her visions. Outfitted in a ratty tank top, he had seemingly dozens of scars that covered both arms. His right bicep sported a large tattoo of a handgun with red ink covering it. His low-slung shorts were covered in a variety of colored stains. Silently, Kate prayed that none of them were blood stains. He gave her a deadly stare which made Kate wish she could evaporate into the floor. Her knee-jerk reaction was to cry and beg for her life. Yet, she remembered hearing somewhere you should never show a criminal your fear. She forgot the exact reasoning, something about them getting off on your terror.
Locking eyes with him, Kate tried to give him her toughest expression. Without addressing them, he began to descend the stairs. “What did you hit me with? You know you really knocked my head hard. I could have died! You know how easy it is to slip into a coma after a head wound? They would’ve had you on murder one for that!” she spat at him.
The look he shot her indicated he thought she should shut if she knew what was good for her. She continued on despite his menacing facial expressions. “You should let us go before things get worse for you.”
“Shut up before I hurt you,” he threatened, clenching his jaw and tightening his hands into meaty fists. On closer inspection of his arms, a few track marks were visible enough to confirm her early suspicion of him being a major drug addict.
“Do what you want, but know although you may hurt my body, you’ll never hurt my soul!”
He punched her hard enough across the face to knock her head against the wall behind her. “Shut up, bitch!”
He looked as if he might hit her again, but a cell phone began ringing upstairs. Before he departed up the stairs back into the main house, he gave her a ferocious look. Without turning the light off, he slammed and locked the door.
“What kind of bad soap opera crap was that? We’re so dead,” Cori lamented.
“It sounded a lot better in my head,” Kate replied lamely.
She had to admit Cori had a point. She was never relying on TV again to get her out of precarious situations. A slight relief came from realizing she only had a viciously throbbing cheek and a growing headache instead of a set of knocked-out teeth from his punch. Maybe it would be better from here on out to appear compliant to the crazed kidnapper.
Glancing down at her body, Kate was shocked at how dissimilar from a few hours ago she appeared. Her ankles were bound with duct tape and scrapes covered her legs. A pair of silver handcuffs were secured to her wrists. She still wore her shoes, but one of the heels was broken off. Her dress was filthy—covered in whatever grime was on the basement floor. Another thing to add to her list of reasons she wanted to kill this guy. He ruined the dress she planned to save to show her future children with Jared.
Giving a sideways look over to Cori, Kate felt the nausea from before come up once again. The girl appeared as if she’d been through hell and back. While lengthy weeks had passed since she’d been taken, she wore the same clothing. It was covered in grime, as was Cori. Under the thick layer of dirt, Kate could see how pale the girl had become. In her first vision, she was glowing with browned skin and was obviously a girl who spent long hours playing in the summer sun. Her face was thinner, too, and she presumed the young girl had lost a lot of weight in her time here. Cori had Kate realized if she didn’t get out of here soon, the probability of her falling ill and dying was scarily high.
They remained silent as they listened to the man screaming at the caller on the phone. The distance made it sound like garbled gibberish
to Kate and she hadn’t heard anything which could prove helpful to their predicament. Kate swallowed hard when the yelling stopped and the basement door swung open again.
Panic took over as she began to babble. “I’m sorry about before. I didn’t know what I was saying. Please, do whatever you want with me, but just let Cori go. She’s only a little kid and if it’s money you need I’m sure my family would be willing to pay a huge ransom for me…”
He cut her off and curled his lips in distaste. “I saw your house, it ain’t that nice. The Prestons are one of the richest people around.”
He was saying her house wasn’t that nice? Compared to this shithole, her house was like a palace. She had to remind herself not to incite him and bit her tongue to keep from giving a snotty retort.
He said in a low gravelly voice, “How did you know what I looked like? And don’t try to give me that shit like the paper says that you’re psychic.”
“Lucky guess?” she shrugged. She hurried on after he looked ready to strike out at her again. “I am psychic. I saw what happened to Cori through her mind. These visions come to me sort of randomly, it’s happened for the past couple of years.”
He gave her a look which made her suspect he thought she was full of crap and he was trying to work out some sort of conspiracy theory. With a dull look in her eyes, Cori seemed uninterested in the conversation and Kate wasn’t certain the girl understood the concept of psychic phenomenon. The man itched at the smattering of facial hair that was growing out of his chin.
When he did not reply, she attempted to soothe any fears he might have about his identity being revealed. “In all honesty, I didn’t give the police much to go on. I have no idea where you live or your name. Now that I see you in person, my sketch was way off.”
Her depiction was pretty accurate, but she had a feeling it would be better for her and Cori if he didn’t think the police were close to catching him. Her hypothesis was confirmed when she noted the look of satisfaction in his brown eyes; he seemed to believe her assurances of safety.
“Maybe I should have just killed you when I had the chance. No witnesses, no crime,” he muttered. “You better be telling the truth. I can’t have them catching me before I get my money from Cori’s daddy. He owes me,” he spat out. Kate wanted to question him further on how he knew Mr. Preston. However, she figured he wasn’t about to trust her enough to suddenly disclose his biography. A few hours in captivity wasn’t exactly enough time to prove to him she had developed a case of Stockholm syndrome and wouldn’t be turning his ass into the police as soon as she got the chance.
A thin hope suddenly came to Kate. Without the use of any psychic ability, she had a strong impression the guy wasn’t really a killer. He had the chance to kill her and Cori and he hadn’t. He was definitely a messed-up dude with a serious drug problem, but she had a feeling he wasn’t sure about crossing the line and murdering them. However, he had taken them for a reason and Kate wasn’t sure exactly what his plans were. Although he could possibly be freaked out about killing a kid, Kate wasn’t confident he was above murdering her. His hands twitched from time to time and she was not certain if that resulted from drug withdrawal or the urge to choke the life out of her.
Before she could further fool herself into thinking she and Cori were safe, the man grabbed her by the back of the hair and pulled her face close to his. Keeping her lips pursed, she tried not to gag from his rank breath.
“Keep your mouth shut while you’re down here or I’ll kill you. You’re going to help me get a hell of a lot of cash tomorrow. They pay a lot of money for white girl ass in Irvine. And if you don’t do everything I say, I’ll hurt you and the little girl.” Bile rose in her throat as she felt his spittle on her face. He pushed her away and exited the basement. The overhead light went off and they were cast in blackness again.
“Shit, we’re toast,” Cori mumbled.
“Hey, watch your language,” Kate admonished.
“Are you seriously going to lecture me right now?”
“Yeah, guess you’re right,” Kate agreed. “Shit.”
“What are we gonna do?” Kate hated the hopeful tone in Cori’s voice.
She wished she had a brilliant plan of escape, but nothing was coming to mind. Actually, she was hoping there was some sort of clue left behind at her house when he grabbed her. Earlier in the evening, Jared had mentioned they had narrowed down the area where the abductor was from. Maybe he was on his way there now to rescue them. However, she couldn’t pin her aspirations on Jared. Especially with the threat hanging in the air of her having to do god knows what tomorrow. The only consolation was he planned to pimp her out instead of Cori. If she hadn’t let handsome and charismatic Jared between her legs, she would most definitely die fighting off whoever this guy had in mind. If it took biting off a portion of his nether regions, so be it. Whoever paid him for her would most certainly be asking for their money back.
“I don’t know yet, but we’re going to get out of here. I’m going to find a way to save us both,” she promised.
Kate really hoped she wasn’t pulling things out of her ass here and wouldn’t be letting Cori down. They both sat quietly next to each other for a long time and Kate imagined Cori was praying just as hard as she for some sort of miracle.