“Please, babe,” I tell her. “Please let me be inside of you.”
And just like that, she carefully straddles me again, careful not to jar my knee, and I’m plunging deep inside of her. She takes all of me on the first plunge, and I groan with the pure ecstasy of it. There’s nothing like that first plunge, hot and wet and tight.
I swallow hard, and she rocks gently, then more and more forcefully… quicker and quicker, and then she gives me sweet release.
I groan as I spurt inside of her, and her muscles clench, as though she’s trying to suck it all up, trying to take it all and keep it.
“God,” I finally say. “You’re so fucking hot, babe.”
“I’m glad you think so,” she says in satisfaction and she unties my blindfold.
“Are you ok?” I ask her quickly. “No blood?”
She nods. “I’m fine. No blood.”
Relief rushes through me, and I notice that my knee is throbbing again. I’d strained against it more than I’d thought because I was distracted by the ecstasy of sex. Now that it’s finished, the pain is emerging, worse than ever.
Son of a bitch.
“Let’s get you home,” she tells me as she unties my hands and feet.
I sit up. “Don’t we need to clean this up?”
“No. Natasha is doing it. I don’t have enough time with you. I don’t want to waste it cleaning.”
I can’t believe she’s actually letting someone else do something for her, but I can’t fault her logic. It seems that lately we just don’t have enough time together.
We make our way to her SUV, and I pause.
“Babe? You’ll have to drive. I can’t really drive right now.”
Mila glances at my knee. “Holy shit, I didn’t even think of that. Are you ok right now?”
“Of course,” I lie. “I just can’t really push down the accelerator. Other than that, I’m fine.”
I open her driver’s side door for her, and she climbs in.
As I limp around the back, I take two more pills.
I’m down to twenty-two.
I chew them before I get into the truck.
When we arrive home, I stumble on the front step. My knee buckles, and almost gives out, and Mila grabs me with a gasp.
“I think maybe you should use crutches. At least until surgery.”
“It’s not a bad idea. The damn thing gives out whenever it wants to.” Plus, it’s almost impossible to bear weight… and it gets worse every day.
“I’ll have Natasha stop at a drug store on her way home.”
I nod. “Thanks.”
She heads to peek in on Zu, who should be peacefully sleeping in her bed, and I stop in my study. I pour a glass of scotch, and as I’m drinking it, I notice the mail on my desk. I hate for it to pile up, so I sit down to look through it.
A box is on top. It’s small and wrapped in brown parcel paper. There is no return address.
Intrigued, I unwrap it, and open the top.
A folded note is inside.
Keep this.
Beneath it, there is a loaded syringe of heroin.
17
Chapter Sixteen
I shove it in my top desk drawer, trying to get it out of my sight. Just looking at the needle sends a deep craving pulsing through me. I don’t know why, and it scares the fuck out of me.
But I don’t have time to think on it.
Because Mila is screaming my name.
I scramble as fast I can from behind my desk, and she’s bursting into my office, her eyes wild.
“Zuzu’s gone, Pax. She’s gone!”
“What do you mean?”
“Someone took her!”
Shock slams into me, into my gut, and Mila has a piece of paper pressed into her hand.
“What is that?” I ask and I can’t feel my tongue. She thrusts it at me.
X marks the spot.
Below it, there’s a phone number.
Son of a bitch. Oh my God.
I can’t breathe, I can’t think. I just pick up my phone and call the number.
“Hello?”
Someone answers, and I can’t tell who because their voice is disguised. It’s gravelly and mechanical, and it sends chills down my spine.
“Where is my daughter?” I ask abruptly.
The person laughs and they sound like a devil. “She’s here. Look.”
My phone vibrates in my hand, and there is a picture of Zu, asleep in the backseat of a car. She has her tiger with her.
I am relieved for one brief second. At least she is alive.
“What do you want?”
“There are a couple things,” the voice tells me. “First, you cannot call the police, or she’s dead. Got it?”
My heart is pulsing high in my throat and I can barely make my vocal chords work.
“Yes.”
“Next, you will get on your plane, and you will fly to Angel Bay. To your home on the lake.”
“Why?”
“Don’t ask questions. You will go alone.”
“Ok.”
“Mila will not call the police. If she does, I will kill her, too. You will take the box with you. The one you just found on your desk.”
I’m silent and shocked, and how did he know?
“Say yes or no.”
I move my lips. “Yes.”
“Good. I do believe your daughter will make it through this just fine. All you have to do is behave.”
I’m silent, and I can’t breathe. Mila is clinging to my arm, trying to listen, but she can’t hear anything. I see the frustration and desperation in her eyes.
“Say that you’re on your way. Your plane is waiting for you.”
“I’m on my way.”
“Say that you won’t call the police.”
“I won’t call the police. Don’t hurt my daughter.”
“Then behave.”
The phone goes dead, and Mila is staring at me, and I stand frozen with the phone in my hand.
“What’s happening?” she begs. “What’s happening?”
“Leroy Ellison,” I finally manage to say. “He’s arranged this somehow. I have to go to Angel Bay. I think that’s where they are taking her.”
“Why?” Mila cries out. “I’m calling the police.”
She grabs at my phone, but I don’t allow it. “You can’t,” I tell her simply. “He’ll kill you and Zuzu if you do. I have to do as he says. He has our baby, Mi.”
“You can’t go,” she tells me firmly. “He’ll kill you.”
“If I don’t, he’ll kill Zuzu. I know he’ll do it.”
Mila drops into the chair, her legs unable to hold her. Her face is drained of all color. I grab her and pull her to me.
“I have to go. I will make this ok, Mila. I swear to God.”
She nods and she is wordless.
“Please, rest. You have to think of the baby. Please, Mila. I’m going right now. It’ll be ok. I swear it.”
I kiss her hard and fast, and I grab the box out of the desk.
Then I’m out the door. There is so much adrenaline pumping through me that I don’t even feel the pain in my leg as I drive Danger to the airport. I can’t think, I can barely breathe. All I can think about is that picture of my daughter in the back of a stranger’s car.
Her life depends on me.
I have to behave.
Just as he’d said, my plane is waiting at the airport, ready to depart. I climb the steps, and we take off within minutes.
The flight is two hours. Mila calls me and texts me several times.
“Have you heard anything?” she asks me.
“No. Please just stay inside, babe,” I tell her. “Don’t go out.”
“Ok. Natasha is back. She has your crutches.”
Mila breaks down into tears, and I console her the best I can.
“Babe, don’t cry. I’ll get her. It’ll be ok. He wants me. Not Zuzu. It’ll be ok.”
“Nothing can happen to you,”
she cries out. “Please, Pax. God. I can’t be without you. Not now.”
“You won’t,” I tell her firmly. “Call Maddy. Have her and Gabe come over and sit with you. Set the alarm. Ok?”
“Ok,” she agrees. “Please be careful.”
“I will.”
She hangs up, and I’ve never felt more alone, more scared, than I feel right now. I’m suspended above the clouds, in a plane that is flying me towards my old home, and hopefully toward my daughter.
I’m the only one who can fix this.
I know that.
When we land, I walk toward the airport and inside, there is a driver with my name on a sign.
“Sir?” he asks as I stop in front of him.
“I’m Pax Tate. Who sent you?”
He’s confused. “Someone set up your transportation from the airport. Are we not needed?”
“No, you are,” I tell him. “Let’s go.”
I direct him toward Angel Bay, and within the hour, we’re pulling up in front of my lake house.
He drives away, and I’m alone in front of the dark house.
I stare at it for a moment. The modern loft-style home is perched on the tip of bluffs, and I don’t know what I’d expected. Perhaps that Zuzu would come running out into my arms.
But she doesn’t.
All is dark.
My phone rings.
“Go inside.”
“Where’s my daughter?”
“Go inside.”
I unlock the door, and everything is exactly like we’d left it the last time we were here. It is spotless, and without a family in it, it is lifeless.
“Go sit on the couch in front of the windows,” the voice tells me. “Look out at the lake.”
I look across the water, and a couple hundred yards out, there is a boat. I can see the light bobbing on the waves.
“Your daughter is out here with me.”
“Prove it.”
There is another photo. This time, someone’s watch is in the frame, and someone’s hand is holding a knife to my daughter’s sleeping neck. The watch reads the current time.
“Don’t hurt her,” I tell them. “What do you want me to do? Do you want money?”
He laughs. “Not right now. Right now, I want you to open that box.”
The syringe.
My gut tightens. “No. I’ll pay you whatever you want.”
“That’s not what I want right now,” the voice says. “Right now, I want you to take out that syringe, and pump it into your vein. All of it.”
“Why?” It doesn’t make any sense. Unless it is laced with something to kill me. Or perhaps to infect me with something terrible.
“It isn’t for you to question me,” the voice says. “I hold the cards.”
“How do I know you haven’t infected the needle with something?” I ask, but I’m already pulling it out. I don’t have a choice. My daughter has a knife to her throat.
“You don’t. Inject it.”
I don’t hesitate. I roll up my sleeve, and pierce my skin with the needle. The heroin floods into my blood, and I feel the sting, and the warmth, and it is all very familiar, and lord help me, it feels good. Familiar. Comforting. Warm.
“Better now?”
“Now what?” I manage to say, even though my tongue is thick, and I look around for the camera. There must be a camera here. He’s watching me.
“Now, go into your bedroom. There are instructions. Leave your cellphone on the couch.”
I am wooden as I enter my room, and frozen as I turn on a lamp. True to his word, there are boxes with notes on the bed. At least thirty boxes. Each note says USE ME, with a time stamped beneath it.
I open the first box. Its instructions say to use it at one am.
It’s a small vial of cocaine, and a mirror with a straw taped to the edge.
You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.
I spin around to go back out to the couch, and the door is now locked.
He’s inside the house with me.
I pound on the door, but there is no answer.
I try to break it down, but it is too well made. It’s reinforced because that’s how I’d wanted it back when I built the house. Back when I didn’t want druggies to burst in on me in my sleep, because that was the kind of company I used to keep.
I stride across the room, and find that the windows have been nailed shut from the outside.
Whoever this is, they’ve thought everything through.
I sit on the bed.
A video nursery monitor is on the nightstand. A note is taped to it.
Turn me on.
I do.
A grainy black and white picture pops up on the screen, of Zuzu’s bedroom down the hall. She’s tucked into the bed with her tiger. She’s less than a hundred feet from me.
She’s safe.
For now.
I breathe out, then in, then out.
She’s safe.
She’s in this house.
But I can’t get out of this fucking room.
A paper is pushed under the door.