Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 76022 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 380(@200wpm)___ 304(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76022 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 380(@200wpm)___ 304(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
Tears pricked my eyes, and I fought hard to keep them back as something upstairs slammed.
My heart lodged itself in my throat, worried that George was losing it, that he was getting pissed off at me and throwing things, breaking things.
Was I next?
Turning so my legs were over the edge of the mattress, I started scooting until I was on my knees on the hard floor once again.
It was true that the windows were boarded up, but I knew they existed. So did, I remembered, an exterior access door. Those big ones that had a staircase and double doors.
I just needed to orient myself, try to figure out where they were in the layout. Then I could, I don’t know, tear down the damn walls if I had to.
But what if the doors were barred from the outside?
Could he have prepared that much? Anticipated every attempt to escape? Or would he have assumed I would just accept my imprisonment?
I’d kneed my way over toward the dining table when there was another crash upstairs, making my belly twist.
He was really, really angry.
I did not want to be the punching bag for all of that.
Closing in on the kitchen cabinets, I brought my bound wrists up, yanking open the drawers and digging around in the contents, looking for anything I could use to free—or defend—myself.
Any hopes for knives faded. Not even a single butter knife was in one of the drawers.
With a frustrated growl, I inched my way across the room toward the bathroom cabinet.
There was a loud thud above me, and I could have sworn that was the sound of a grown man falling.
Good.
Maybe he’d knock himself unconscious, and I’d get more time to work on an escape plan.
“Yes!” I cheered when, in the back of the drawer, I found something sharp.
Okay, fine. It was a pair of nail clippers. And not even a full-sized one—just one of the tiny travel ones for your purse.
I didn’t care.
It was something.
I dropped down onto my butt, pulling my legs in as close as possible, then sliding the zip tie into the loop.
I clipped across the thick plastic millimeter by millimeter, praying to at least get through one of the cuffs so I could stand and walk around.
“No, no, no, no, no,” I cried as I heard the groaning sound that must have been some kind of door blocking the basement staircase.
I snipped again, and the loop cut free.
But the clippers slipped from my fingers, shooting halfway across the room in the process.
Okay.
I needed not to panic.
I could just tell George that I had to pee, that I didn’t know what else to do but try to free my ankles.
If he tied me up again and tossed the clippers, I could find something else. Not to cut. He probably wouldn’t be that stupid again. But zip ties could be taken off without cutting them.
My grandfather had been frugal about them, refusing to buy new ones if he could pull ones off an old project.
“You just need a shim against the pawl here,” he’d tell me as he demonstrated the movement. “And it pulls right out.”
If George didn’t know a lot about tools, I was sure he didn’t know much about zip tie functions. He probably just knew what he saw criminals and cops doing on TV to use them to restrain people.
It wasn’t hopeless.
Not even as he was coming down the stairs.
I braced myself to throw myself at his mercy.
“Este!”
Saul.
He’d come to save me after all.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Coach
“A soccer coach,” Rook told me. “College soccer coach.”
“I need more than that.”
“He was Este’s college soccer coach. For her first year, anyway. She dropped out before the second season started.
And she’d been real cagey about not wanting to tell anyone why.
Could it have something to do with this guy?
“Stop giving me drips and drabs,” I demanded, jaw tight.
“Something must have gone down that first year. Because the coach got fired. And Este was granted a restraining order. Things seemed to be going alright then for a while. At least on paper. But suddenly, the restraining order was up. And the coach got hired again. After that, Este dropped out. And dropped off the face of the earth for a while.
“She popped up again, half the country away. Then disappeared. Then popped up.”
“What about the coach?”
“He quit. Disappeared.”
“He was following her.”
“That’s my best guess.”
“She never got another restraining order?”
“None on record, no. Figure maybe she wasn’t able to prove he’d done anything wrong. It’s harder than it should be to get those fucking things. Someone can stalk the fuck out of you, but if they don’t threaten or hurt you, judges don’t take the shit seriously.”
“Send me a picture. I want to see the fuck.”
“Already sent.”
I guess I’d been expecting a relatively young, fit-looking coach, but George was closer to middle age, out of shape, greasy, and seemingly uncomfortable in his own skin.