Crow’s Row (8 page)

His face hardened. “You assume that the man was blameless.” This wasn’t a question—he had read what had been lingering in my mind. “What if I told you that justice was served?”

“He’s dead, isn’t he.”

“What does it matter?” he said. “It’s not like you knew him.”

I closed my eyes, which forced the tears to drop down my cheeks. Then the words came drooling out before I had time to process them. “His family will never know what happened to him, and they’ll spend the rest of their lives wondering what they could have done to change things. There doesn’t seem to be much justice in that.”

I fearfully braced myself for the blows that would come next. When I felt his fingers quickly brush my damp cheek, I opened my eyes. There was no anger on Cameron’s face—but his eyes were appraising.

I cleared my throat to cut through the pain in my chest, and I swallowed my second pill. My fingers tingled—the first pill was already working its magic. Whatever I was chugging down, it was potent.

“Cameron,” I said, “what am I doing here?”

“You’re resting.”

“Who were all those people in the room yesterday?” I probed again, my head falling into the pillow.

“My colleagues.” His stare was unwavering while my eyelids were getting heavy. I was fading fast.

“How long are you going to keep me here?” I drowsily continued.

Cameron pulled the glass out of my numbed hands and set it on the table next to me. “For as long as it takes.”

“And what are you going to do with me?” This came out as a whisper. My eyes were barely slit open.

Cameron paused on this question. He scanned my face, like the answer was written somewhere between the freckles.

“I don’t know,” was that last thing I heard him say before I fell comatose.

The next time I woke up, the sun was already setting.

I was feeling better, rested, though my joints and muscles ached from the lack of movement. As for the bump on my head, it was only sensitive to the touch of my fingers—there was no more throbbing. My hair on the other hand was a tangled mess; my head felt naked when my hair was down. I searched my pockets and then the barren room for anything that I could use to tie it back. The only thing I found was the glass of water that had been refilled, and that I greedily gulped down.

The bedroom door had been left open, and hollowed sounds from a TV could still be heard. As soon as the smell of food tickled my nose, my stomach grumbled. The last meal I had eaten was the stale peanut butter sandwich I’d gobbled down on my lunch break from work; how long ago was that? My brain was still too foggy to count back the hours—or the days.

Letting my stomach do the thinking, I got out of bed and shuffled to the door on my white-socked feet.

The darkening hallway had many doors, all the same as the one I had just walked through, and all closed. The only source of light came from the other end of the hall. I passed a small, white-tiled foyer … and what looked like a front door, or a way to escape. The door had five different locks on it: I kept going while I tried to calculate how long it would take me to go through all those locks before I was discovered. A tiny knot loosened inside of me when I noticed my worn, familiar sneakers neatly placed next to the pile of large shoes that were on the floor.

In the living room, the big kid, the one that looked like a big Chucky doll, was sprawled on one of the couches, remote control in hand, looking utterly bored.

The tattooed man was sitting erect on the edge of an armchair. He shot up and stood as soon as he saw me; his venomous stare unimproved.

The kid followed his colleague’s gaze and narrowed his eyes, as he scanned me head to toe.

“You look like crap,” he remarked, his lethargic gaze returning to the TV. We had just met; as far as he knew, I could have looked this awful every day.

I scowled.

“Thanks.” My voice was still throaty.

“Hungry?” asked the only voice that I recognized. I turned to see Cameron strolling out of the kitchen, a cardboard box with red symbols in one hand, the other stuffing a heap of noodle-laden chopsticks into his mouth. There was something decidedly different about him. The worried creases on his forehead and around his eyes were lessened.

I couldn’t stop my heart from thudding. He was handsome … for a kidnapper.

Meatball was at Cameron’s feet, slobbering and eyeing with anticipation every mouthful of food, hoping that some would fall his way.

Feeling the weight of the tattooed man’s stare, I tucked my hair behind my ears. Cameron’s smile almost reached his eyes. Sticking his chopsticks into the box, he took something out of his pocket and handed it to me. It was my rubber band. My face flushed while he watched me put my hair up—but I felt better, less naked, as soon as my carrot locks were pulled back.

With a nod of the head, Cameron directed me to follow him through the small kitchen to the kitchen table. He pulled a chair out and left to fix me a plate. I had hoped to get away from the tattooed man’s stare; regretfully, I sat in clear view of the living room. I kept my eyes down to the table. When I looked up again, the tattooed man had found the edge of his seat again and turned half his attention to the TV. The spiderweb on the back of his neck was all I had to contend with.

Cameron placed an overfilled plate of Chinese takeout in front of me; there was no way I would be able to finish that. But I started loading food into my mouth anyway while Cameron watched from the kitchen doorway. Every time I looked up from my plate, his eyes were on me. There was something unsettling about eating—with clumsy chopsticks no less—under someone else’s scrutiny.

“Do you feel better today?” he asked.

I swallowed.

“Yes. Thank you.”

He paused and read my face. His eyes narrowed—unsatisfied with what he found. “How’s your head?”

I doubted he knew what a loaded question that was. “My skull is fine.”

“Do you feel dizzy?” he asked quickly.

I brought the chopsticks to my mouth. “Not anymore.”

He waited, and then he continued, “Any throbbing?”

“Just a little bit,” I answered truthfully but quickly before he chose to poke and prod my head to catch me in a lie again.

He paused and watched.

“Good,” he said finally with satisfaction.

I breathed a sigh of relief; I had passed his assessment. I looked down at my plate with surprise—one more chopstick-full and it would be polished off.

“More?” Cameron asked with amusement when I took my last bite.

I thought about it, but shook my head. He took the empty plate back into the kitchen. With Cameron’s easy mood and food in my stomach—a lot of food—my shoulders were starting to unclench.

It didn’t occur to me why Cameron was so relaxed until he came out of the kitchen and announced his decision, “Kid’s going to take you for a drive.”

My full stomach dropped to my knees, and Kid’s head snapped up, at last finding interest away from the TV.

“I am?” he asked, echoing my own thought—though mine was more of a horrified gasp than a question. The tattooed man also looked surprised by this announcement; apparently Cameron hadn’t shared his plan with anyone else.

“Yep,” Cameron said with confidence, turning to Kid. “You’re taking Emily to the farm tonight.”

At this announcement, the big kid let his head fall back in annoyance, like a ten-year-old child being asked to clean his room. “Tonight? Are you kidding? It’s already getting dark! It’ll take forever!”

I still had hope: Kid—with the now noticeable strangler-sized hands—was too lazy to kill me today. But Cameron offered incentive: he grabbed a set of keys from the kitchen counter and adeptly threw them across the room to Kid, who adeptly caught them with his monster hands, which were attached to his humongous arms. His eyes lit up.

“Seriously? You’re letting me take your car?” he said, his voice squeaking with joy.

The tattooed man stared at Cameron in disapproval, but kept silent.

Not needing any further encouragement, Kid hastily got up, glanced in my general direction and headed for the door. “Let’s go, Red.”

My stomach was now down to my toes. Was taking someone “to the farm” some kind of code word along the same lines as having someone who “sleeps with the fishes”?

Tears sprung to my eyes. I couldn’t breathe.

I turned the full focus of my pleadings to Cameron. “Cameron, please don’t do this. I won’t talk … I’ll do whatever you want. It doesn’t have to be like this.”

But my beautiful kidnapper’s easy mood turned to ice, and his lips spread thin. “Your shoes are at the door,” he said sharply.

I looked down, my teeth biting into my quivering bottom lip. I went to the front door and slid into my still soaked sneakers—not bothering to lace them up.

By the time I made it out of the apartment, Kid was already down the hallway at the elevator, impatiently pressing the button over and over. I looked back once—Cameron’s back was turned, and his arms were tight to his side—and I closed the door.

The hallway was bright, with brick walls painted white and plush carpets—not the kind of carpet I expected to find in the hallway of an apartment building but the expensive kind that your feet sink into and leave footprints behind when you walk on it barefoot. There were only two doors on this floor, the one I had just exited, and the door to the elevator I was about to enter. The apartment, I noted, must have been the penthouse.

Going down the elevator, Kid was silent, squirmy, eagerly spinning the key ring around his index finger, clearly indifferent that I would be joining him, even if it would only be for a little while—until I was dead. The elevator doors opened, and we stepped out into a closed-in garage, with a garage door at the front and a laneway only big enough for cars to tightly enter and exit. There were four vehicles in the garage: one was a newer model black pickup truck, and two were beaten-up, rusty cars. The fourth car was an Audi, sleek black with tinted windows.

The Audi beeped as we came closer. Kid jumped right in and started it up. I hesitated, casting my eyes in search of an exit that I might have missed.

He rolled down the window and stuck his head out. “Are you coming or not?”

I wasn’t dumb enough to assume that he was really giving me the choice.

My heart pumping through my ears, I climbed into the passenger side, the Audi’s locks clicking shut as soon as I closed the door.

The kid excitedly gripped the steering wheel and side-glanced me. “Put your seatbelt on—this is going to be fun.”

I did as I was told, and he hit the red button on the rearview mirror, which caused the garage door to slide open.

We drove out onto the gloomy street. Kid didn’t let go of the gas pedal until we were driving well above the speed limit. Darkened street signs flashed by. He sped through a red light, swerving around a car that was patiently waiting its turn. What was the point of making me wear my seatbelt if he was planning on killing us both by crashing the car?

With an extended grin, he weaved us in and out of traffic.

Eventually we moved away from the city streets and onto a country road. We picked up more speed, but at least there were no other cars to play chicken with. I was able to unclench my teeth and my stranglehold on the security bar against the door, using my free hand to wipe my newly dampened cheeks.

With little distraction and the car’s novelty having worn off, Kid remembered that I was sitting next to him.

“Sorry about hitting you on the head like that yesterday,” he said, his eyes still on the road. “I didn’t think that I had hit you that hard.”

Unprepared for this discovery, I kept quiet. What was I supposed to say? Getting hit on the head seemed insignificant compared to what was coming.

“How did you manage to sneak right by me?” he asked, like he was nervous with my silence.

“I didn’t sneak by anyone,” I hissed, my eyes shooting daggers at him. “I was just trying to get home.”

“Who runs alone, in a dark cemetery, toward danger? It’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

I had to look away to keep my temper under control long enough to come up with a plan.

When I was in eighth grade, our teacher fell ill after consuming the glue that had mysteriously found its way into her morning coffee. We spent the rest of the day sitting in front of the TV while the principal scurried to find a substitute teacher at the last minute. Of the multitude of educational videos we were forced to watch that day, one had been a bad reenactment of an attempted kidnapping. I didn’t have to rack my brain too long to remember the first rule: never get in the car with a stranger who offers you candy.

I started to panic when I noticed the yellow road signs with pictures of crumbling rocks flashing by us. We were heading into the mountains … the largely uninhabited mountains. And then my panic triggered something—a hazy survival tip from one of those crime shows: make the attacker see that you’re a real person, not just a nameless witness to a murder, or something like that.

“My name is Emily,” I announced.

He looked at me like I was crazy.