So Pretty It Hurts (17 page)

The first intersection I passed was Rivington, and there was no sign of a cab there. I walked another block north to Stanton. It was a relief to see a few more people in the area, but they seemed to be looking for cabs too. I had no choice but to head another block north to East Houston. I already had that sinking sense you get when a little voice in your head tells you that at least as far as tonight goes, there’s no way in hell you will find a taxi.

There was a ton of traffic on Houston, but it was all just regular cars barreling along. Ten minutes passed with my hand in the air and me flicking my head left and right, searching futilely with my eyes.

I stuck my hand back in my pockets just to warm my fingers. I could hoof it home, I realized. It would take about a half hour. But I’d be freezing cold by the time I arrived. And I didn’t feel comfortable being alone at this hour on the deserted downtown streets. I also didn’t feel like hopping on the subway this late.

Suddenly I heard a car come up slowly behind me on Ludlow, and instinctively I spun around. It was another gypsy cab. Or, rather, the same gypsy cab I’d seen outside the Living Room. The driver was obviously having the same amount of luck as I was. He made eye contact again and cocked his head. I nodded my head in response. This time I felt desperate enough to hop in.

“Ninth and Broadway,” I told the driver once I was in the back seat. The car, to my disgust, reeked of cigarette smoke.

“Twelve dollars,” he told me, not bothering to turn around. Gypsy cabs didn’t have meters.

“How about ten?” I said. Twelve seemed outrageous.

He nodded, again without looking back, and put the car in drive. I leaned my head back, exhausted. I’d barely slept last night, and my insomnia was catching up with me now. I closed my eyes, just resting them. I heard Beau’s words from earlier echo in my head suddenly: “Something absurd is going on here. But I’m not the one responsible.” Was he going to end our relationship? I wondered.

I opened my eyes again, feeling miserable. I was too churned up right now, and I couldn’t think any more about it. When I gazed out in the darkened Manhattan street, I realized something wasn’t right. We were back on Houston Street, headed east, not north. The driver was going the wrong way.

Chapter 16

“W
ait,” I yelled, jerking my body forward. “I said Ninth and Broadway.”

For one brief moment I actually thought the driver had misheard me or had arrived in America six days ago and had no freaking clue where he was going. But he never turned around, just gunned the motor so that the car sped even faster. I realized that after I’d closed my eyes in the backseat, he must have circled back to Houston. It was suddenly clear: he was abducting me! My heart hurled itself against the front of my chest, like it was trying to leap off a cliff.

“What do you want?” I called out. My voice was squeaky from panic. “Do you want money?” But the driver ignored me.

I glanced toward the door. The lock was still up at least. I had no choice—the only escape was for me to leap out onto the road. Yet the car was moving so fast, I couldn’t imagine how I’d pull it off.

I reached for my handbag and searched frantically until I found my BlackBerry. My hands were shaking as I punched in 911.

“A cabdriver kidnapped me,” I yelled to the operator. “Uh—a gypsy cab. We’re going down Houston Street. East.”

“Miss, what is your name?” the woman asked.

“Bailey Weggins. Please, you’ve got to help me.”

With one swift movement the driver reached his right arm into the backseat and tried to slap the BlackBerry from my hand. I jerked away, pressing my body against the door.

“What is the license plate of the car?” the operator asked.

“I have no idea,” I exclaimed. “I didn’t see it.”

“What’s the car look like? What’s the make?”

“Uh—I don’t know. It’s dark. A four-door.” I peered into the front seat toward the glove compartment. I couldn’t see anything.

I prayed the guy would head onto a side street, where he’d be forced to slow down. But he turned south onto the FDR Drive, which ran between the East River and the eastern edge of Manhattan. My fear ballooned. There was only a small amount of traffic, and the driver now had the car up to at least fifty miles per hour. If I jumped out, I’d kill myself.

“We’re on the FDR now,” I yelled to the operator. “South.”

I grabbed the window handle and rolled it down. Cold air gushed into the back of the cab.

“Help me,” I screamed to the stream of cars to my right, but my voice was crushed by the wind. Finally a woman in the backseat of one of the cars seemed to notice me. She leaned forward, said something to the couple in the front seat, and then glanced back at me, her face scrunched in worry. But the car pulled off at the next exit.

I felt nearly dizzy with dread. Where was he taking me? I wondered desperately. Did he want to rob me or rape me, or both? He nearly careened off the South Street exit, and then to my horror swung onto the entrance to the Manhattan Bridge. He was taking me to Brooklyn, where it would be easy to find a deserted spot. He was forced to slow down just a little on the bridge, but there was too much traffic for me to even think of jumping out. On my right a subway car hurtled by alongside us. Inside passengers dozed or stared listlessly. I tried to motion to them, but no one noticed.

From my hand I could hear the operator calling out to me. I pressed my Blackberry to my ear.

“Miss, please, give me your location now,” she said.

“We’re on the bridge now,” I told her. “Manhattan Bridge.”

“Can you signal to anyone near you?”

“I’m trying, but they don’t see me.”

“We are alerting the police in Brooklyn to your location.”

Get control
, I told myself. I had to think of a plan. When we left the bridge, the driver would
have
to slow down. That would be my chance to leap from the car. I pressed myself against the door and gripped the handle tightly.

Finally we came off the bridge, rolling into a dark, deserted part of Brooklyn. I could tell the driver was trying his best not to lose speed, but he had no choice but to ease off the gas. The traffic light ahead had just turned from yellow to red and he zoomed right through it. I’d never have a chance to jump if he refused to ever stop the freaking car.

There were only stop signs at the next two intersections and the driver just barreled through. He was about to do the same with the next one, but miraculously a delivery van came lumbering through the intersection. The driver touched the brake, slowing the car. I jerked the handle down. At the same moment the driver shot his right arm into the backseat and tried to grab hold of my jacket, but I was faster than he was. I shoved open the door, propelled myself out, and rolled onto the sidewalk.

I scrambled to my feet, veered right, and started to run. I was on a dark and empty street, lined with old warehouses and storefronts with their metal gates pulled down. Behind me I heard tires squeal as the driver jerked the wheel. Oh God, I thought. He was going to come after me, even though he’d be headed the wrong way down a one-way street.

“I’m out now,” I yelled into the BlackBerry. “On, uh—I can’t see.”

I couldn’t take the time to see. I just had to move. Running as fast as I could, I screamed for help a couple of times, but there wasn’t a soul in sight, just darkened or boarded-up windows everywhere I could see. In a minute I could hear the car coming up behind me. I propelled myself even faster, trying not to trip in my damn riding boots. My lungs seemed ready to explode.

I heard the driver gun the engine. He was almost parallel to me, just off to my left. I didn’t look over, just kept my eyes straight ahead, focusing on a point in the distance. About two blocks ahead I could see a big halo of light at an intersection, as if there were businesses and traffic there.
Go!
I screamed to myself. I only had to make it two long blocks. I yelled for help a few more times, just to let the guy know it would be a bitch to stop the car and try to get me inside again without a fuss.

We were coming to a stretch of the street where there weren’t even any parked cars along the sidewalk, and I wondered, horrified, if the driver might try to jump the car up onto the sidewalk and mow me down. And then it was like he’d read my mind. I heard the thud as he yanked the car up over the curb. Without even processing what I was about to do, I dropped my phone into my pocket and grabbed a garbage can near a doorway. I spun around and hurled it right at the hood of the car.

It didn’t do any damage, but it stayed on the hood. As I started running again, my lungs nearly screaming, I heard the driver curse through an open window and put the car in reverse, making the can roll off the hood. Within seconds, though, he was in pursuit again.

But it was too late. I was close to the intersection now, and I could see that it was filled with traffic, and there were even a few people up there too, a cluster of hipsters hanging by a bar. And on the far side, there was something that filled me with joy. A police cruiser.

I burst into the intersection and started waving my arms frantically. Behind me I heard the gypsy cab screech to a halt and then do a U-turn, the driver jerking the car forward and backward a few times. I slowed my speed a little, and looked back. The car was totally turned around, ready to take off in the opposite direction. In the dark I could make out only the first part of the license plate—L3. The driver suddenly thrust his head out the window and looked back at me. He screamed something in my direction. It sounded like “Stop. Be a body.” And then he took off like the proverbial banshee down the street.

Relief poured through my body, warm, almost intoxicating. I turned back to the intersection, waited for the light, and started to jog across to the police cruiser. As I moved, fighting a stitch in my side, I dug into my pocket and found my BlackBerry. The 911 operator was still connected.

“I’m okay,” I told her, trying to catch my breath. “I see a cop car.”

“Good. Please let me speak to one of the officers.”

As soon as I approached, the cop in the driver’s seat rolled his window down. He looked like he was twelve years old and might be wearing Spiderman underpants.

“What can we do for you, young lady?” he asked. The cop next to him set down the disposable aluminum dish he was eating from and leaned his head in my direction.

I blurted out that I’d been abducted and then handed him my BlackBerry. He listened intently, signed off, and then handed the BlackBerry back to me.

“Are you okay?” he asked, climbing out of the car. When I assured him I was, he asked for the best description of the car and driver I could give and then called it in on his radio.

I suddenly noticed that despite the cold, the sweater inside my jacket was wet with sweat. I also noticed a weird crashing sensation beginning to build in me, maybe from all the adrenaline that had been briefly pumped through my system and was now in retreat.

“We should cruise around and see if we can find this guy,” the cop told me when he was finished talking on his walkie-talkie. “But we don’t have much to go on. And we also need to make sure you get home somehow.”

Out of the corner of my eye I saw a yellow taxi head through the intersection, and the light was on.

“Why don’t I grab this taxi,” I told the cop. I shot out my arm and waved. The car screeched to a halt. “Thanks so much for your help.”

“You’ll need to file a police report tomorrow, okay?”

I promised I would and darted toward the cab. I spent the ride home fighting tears. I felt badly shaken.

By the time I let myself into my apartment, I was trembling, as if the fear was now really catching up with me. I stripped off my boots, jeans, and sweater and took a long shower. It felt so good to have the hot water course over me, as if I was washing the terror away too. My leap from the gypsy cab had left another ugly bruise on my left butt cheek but fortunatly that was the only damage. I thought of how reassuring it would be to talk to Beau, but even if things were fine between us, I would have resisted the urge to wake him so late.

When I finally slipped into bed, I felt a little bit better. I knew I wasn’t going to fall asleep anyway, so I tried to go back over everything in my mind. I was positive that the driver who picked me up was the same one I’d seen earlier in front of the Living Room. Obviously he’d been trolling for someone to rob or rape. I decided to let the bar know tomorrow so the management could keep an eye out for the guy.

I still had no sense of where he had been taking me or why. One thing seemed odd. If he were going to rob me or rape me, why not just pull over on one of those deserted streets when we first came off the bridge into Brooklyn? Maybe he had wanted to find an even more secluded spot. I was also still baffled by the words he’d hurled at me:
Stop. Be a body
. He’d had a faint accent, one that I couldn’t place, but I was pretty sure I’d heard him right. Had it been some kind of a sexual threat? I had no clue.

I eventually fell asleep around four and woke at eight the next morning. I felt like shit, but I had my breakfast meeting with Scott and I had no intention of taking a pass on it. I did my best to look presentable—Scott, after all, was a player, and I sensed I’d extract more if I catered to that part of him. I wore my black suede boots, a tight black pencil skirt, and a plum-colored silk blouse. But the circles under my eyes had darkened badly. By the time I was done with my makeup, you could have taken an elevation level on the amount of concealer I’d been forced to apply.

I was the first to arrive at the café-style restaurant, and I grabbed a private table at the back of the room. I asked for coffee but then instantly changed my order to tea. I still felt completely on edge from the night before, and I was afraid anything with too much caffeine might make me jump out of my skin.

Scott was nearly twenty minutes late—and I almost didn’t recognize him. His hair was slicked back and he was wearing a long black cashmere coat. Not the kind of look that went with skeet shooting.

He slid into the chair, shook off his coat, and with a flick of his chin, summoned the waitress to our table pronto. He smelled of expensive, manly cologne.

“Sorry I’m late,” he said. “What would you like to eat?”

“Uh, I guess I’ll try the asparagus and goat cheese omelet,” I said.

And then I felt dumb because all he ordered was coffee, black.

“How are you doing anyway?” I asked once the waitress was gone. There was something supertense going on in his jawline that made even his face look different today. It was tough to accept that this was the same Scott who had bounded down the stairs to greet Jessie and me with a big, boyish grin on his face.

“Well,” he said, cocking his head to the left, “my hot new recording artist died at my house, and for the next two days most of the world assumed I’d loaded her up with cocaine—but other than that I’m just fine.”

“I appreciate your taking the time to meet in the middle of all this,” I said.

“I’m a little surprised
you
could make the time,” he said. There was a tiny edge to his voice as he spoke. “I figured things must be crazy for you at work. Though I’m a little confused. I turned on the
Today
show yesterday morning, and there’s some guy on there from
Buzz
talking about Devon Barr as if the story was
his
exclusive. Don’t tell me your boss doesn’t think you’re mediagenic enough to chat with Matt Lauer.”

Scott never took his nearly black eyes off me as he said it, and I could feel a rush of blood headed for my cheeks, like a mob of paparazzi that has just spotted Lady Gaga coming out of a building wearing only a couple of Band-Aids. He’d either somehow heard that I was in the doghouse or he just had brilliant intuition.

“I do media appearances occasionally,” I said, fumbling a little as I spoke. “But if I’m still in the middle of a story, I might hand the press part off to somebody else.” Lame, I knew, but it would put me at a disadvantage to admit the truth to Scott Cohen.

“Oh, is that it?” he said, disbelievingly. “Well, who am I to know how your wonderful brand of journalism works?”

So that might explain why he was goading me. He obviously felt burned from all the coverage over the past few days, and saw me as entrenched in the enemy camp.