The sound of metal grating against metal had her jerking her head around to see what the gunman was doing. To her relief, he hadn’t followed them inside. But to her horror, he’d just locked the door. He grinned as he pulled his key out of the round lock that required a key on both sides—not the kind where you could flip it from the inside.
He aimed the flashlight up, casting an eerie, sinister look across his face. “I’ll give you two lovebirds some alone time,” he teased, adding a wink that had her wanting to throw up again. “Make sure he’s ready to answer my questions when I get back. I want to know what the cops know. If he can’t talk, he’s of no use to me.”
She’d wondered why he’d gone to the trouble of taking both her and Bryson instead of killing him at the Brodericks’. Now she knew it was because he wanted to interrogate him.
“Today caught me off guard, I gotta admit,” he continued. “I’m not really prepared. Don’t have my...supplies handy. But don’t you worry. I remember everything you like. I’ll make sure I come back with just the right stuff.” He leaned closer, pressing his face against the glass. “How’s my mark on your belly looking?”
She automatically pressed her hand against her stomach, her entire body shaking as she stared at him. Hot tears coursed down her cheeks in spite of her efforts to hold them back.
His grin widened, his bright white teeth sparkling in the light. “Don’t worry. I’ll freshen it up a bit, make sure it hasn’t...faded, since our last meeting.” He chuckled and hopped off the porch, the flashlight’s beam bouncing across the gravel as he headed toward the truck.
Chapter Fifteen
Bryson blinked in the near darkness, a fog of confusion roiling through his mind. Where was he? How did he get here? And why was he lying on a couch that, judging by the lumps and musty smell, clearly wasn’t his?
He braced his hands on the cushions to push himself up but the tug of a cold chain against his right wrist had him stopping to look down. A small form lay curled up on the floor, her left arm propped against the couch. As his eyes adjusted to the dark and he was able to make out more details, he noticed the gleaming silver circle around both their wrists. They were handcuffed together. Still confused, he leaned down for a better look. Teagan. She was on the floor, without even a pillow for her head.
What was going on?
Her eyes were closed and she was asleep, albeit a fitful one, her elegant brows drawn into a frown. Having never seen her hair anything but perfect, he was surprised to see curls forming a halo around her face, escaping the tight braid that hung down her back. Even worse, there were dark splotches on her blouse. The color was lost to him in the darkness, but there was no mistaking the metallic smell.
Blood.
Memories slammed into him. Awful glimpses of the reality that had happened, and where those dark splotches had come from. He softly touched one to make sure it wasn’t wet, then pulled his hand back in relief. It wasn’t her blood. It was his.Thank goodness she hadn’t been hurt. But that would change the moment their captor returned.
Careful not to jostle their joined wrists, he managed to push himself to a sitting position so he could take stock of their situation. It didn’t look good. The front iron-barred door was closed, no doubt locked, but the glass provided a moonlit view of the gravel road and clearing out front. They were empty, the delivery truck nowhere in sight.
He studied all four walls in the main room as best he could in the limited light. Both of the front windows were covered in bars. He imagined the one other window that he’d seen in police photos, the one in the tiny bedroom down a short hall, was also barred. The adjacent bathroom didn’t have a window, unless that had been changed over the past two years.
The place was too small to be called a hunting cabin, which was what the owner had called it in the police reports. Had he been the one to install the bars and new door after what had happened here? Or had he sold the cabin, unknowingly, to the very killer who’d been using it all along as his own? Maybe the original owner was the killer, and the police had mistakenly cleared him.
Those were only some of the questions going through his mind. Along with the one that had been niggling him since the tragedy that had happened at the Brodericks’: How had the killer known that Teagan would be there?
“Bryson, are you feeling better?” Her voice sounded groggy.
She was shoving to her knees, already reaching up to check on him. He grabbed her hands in his and kissed them before letting go.
“I hate that I slept at all. But I needed it. I’m thinking more clearly.”
“What about the pain? Your head? Your hip? I could massage—”
He stopped her wandering hands and teased. “Boundaries, Teagan.”
She smiled, somewhat reluctantly. “I sure never thought our first time sleeping together we’d actually be, well, sleeping.”
“Maybe next time it will be different.”
Her eyes widened like an owl’s in the darkness. “If you really mean that, I’ll bust out one of these walls to get us out of here. And I’ll hold you to your word.”
He laughed, amazed that hecouldin a situation like this. “Now there’s the sassy, sexy, smart woman I remember. I think that sleep did both of us some good. But we can’t sit around any longer. We have to get out of here before he comes back.”
She moved her arm, frowning when the short chain between their wrists stopped her movement. “You had handcuff keys in your cane. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I wasn’t even sure they were still there. It was a gag gift from Bishop, one of the Justice Seekers, after the shooting. He gave me a set of handcuffs and put the keys in the head of the cane, teasing that I could use them to keep my girlfriend at my side through my convalescence. That was after the nurses complained about how bad a patient I was in the hospital.”
The corners of her mouth turned up in a small smile. “I can imagine that. I’ve seen how grumpy you are when your hip hurts.”
“I never thought about those handcuff keys again until I was lying on the floor in the Brodericks’ foyer and realized we were cuffed together. That’s the main reason I kept asking for the cane. But he kept us under such close scrutiny that I never got the chance to get them out. You have to twist open the top and tilt the cane up in the air. Not something you can do on the sly. Once he put us in the back of the truck and kept the cane, I figured I’d lost my opportunity so there was no point in bringing it up.”
