I figured she meant that, being pregnant and all. She wouldn't risk her baby by drinking anything she shouldn't.
"I'd love that," I said back.
I slipped out of the dress and pulled on my t-shirt and shorts before pressing my feet into my shoes.
"Great. I'm just going to ask for another little alteration. I'll meet you at the coffee shop on the corner?"
"Okay. I'll save us a table.” I grabbed up my bag and phone and headed out the door.
I only made it a handful of steps when something was thrown over my head and I was shoved forward, into what felt like the back of a car.
The door slammed behind me and the car roared away.
"Are you sure that’s her?"A deep, masculine voice spoke as the car door opened.
"Of course I am. What do you take me for?" another voice replied. Also male.
"You've fucked up before." The second voice wasn't giving an inch.
"Yeah. Well, it's her, isn't it? Matches the photo."
"Yeah. Let's get her out of here.”
Rough hands grabbed for me, pulling me out of the car and picking me up. My hands were tied behind my back. My ankles were bound too.
I didn't bother to struggle. Instead, I listened. Paid attention to everything around me. Every voice. Every sound. Even the lack of sound. Every so often a car went past but never slowed. We weren't in the middle of nowhere. I wasn't in the car long enough for that anyway.
Wherever we were, we were still in Dusk Bay. Maybe fifteen minutes from the dress shop. Give or take a couple of minutes.
I pictured a map of the town in my head, trying to pin down where we might be. In the end, there were too many variables. Not enough information to conclude anything at this point.
I kept listening. Any tiny detail could come in useful later.
"Put her in here," the first voice said.
I was lowered down onto what felt like a lumpy bed that rattled underneath me. One of those flimsy metal-framed beds,if I had to guess. The kind that would collapse if you tried to roll over too vigorously.
"What are we doing with her?" the second voice asked.
Good question. I was wondering that myself. Who was stupid enough to risk kidnapping me? Knowing my guys would come after me and tear them a new one, if they were lucky, which they wouldn't be. When Ice got his hands on them, they were going to enjoy a prolonged stay in his workroom, having the skin peeled off their body a strip at a time.
I might watch.
"That's not for you to know," the first voice said. "You worry about following orders and let me deal with everything else."
The second man grunted. Either with annoyance or agreement, possibly a combination of the two. He was curious, but knew better than to get in any further over his head in…whatever this was.
"We better get paid for this," the second man said.
"Don't worry about that, Chuck. We'll get paid, enough that we can get out of this shithole. Wouldn't have done it otherwise. Fucking with someone like this is suicide if we get caught," the second man said.
"I don't plan on getting caught," Chuck replied.
"We play it cool and wait for our orders," his companion agreed. "I've let them know we have her. Shouldn't be long."
"Better not be. I still think this was a really bad idea." Chuck sounded surly.
"A bad idea would have been taking Chelsea Miller too,” the first man said. "If we took both of them, we might as well go for a walk in the ocean right now."
