Somewhere in His Arms (75 page)

             
“Well, I ain’t paying, laddie!”

             
“I’ll pay,” Alec sighed, rubbing the flesh between his eyes. He could feel a headache coming on. “You can have your own room.”

             
“Now then,” Pat grinned, walking over to Alec and slapping him on the back. “That’s mighty generous of you, laddie!”

             
“Yeah, I know.” Alec sighed again, wishing he’d brought Lucy instead. This was going to be a long trip. He just might make his mother a widow before it was over.

             
They drove off and checked into a cheap motel. Alec was true to his word, and Pat was happily settled in a room next door. Alec tugged off his shoes and climbed into bed. He slept for a few hours before showering and changing into fresh clothes. Then he and Pat had a bite to eat at a cheap restaurant down the road before setting off again.               Before leaving for Rhode Island, they checked with the sporting goods shop that Rudy had visited. The manager didn’t remember him, but there was a record of the transaction. Pat and Alec were perplexed and more than a little alarmed.

             
Rudy had purchased a stun gun.

              Lucy and Gavin hauled their purchases up the hill, grumbling all through the slow climb to the house and up the stairs. “We should have taken the car,” Gavin told Lucy as she pulled out the key.

             
“A little exercise never hurt anyone,” she chuckled but her smile faded as the door swung open. They exchanged alarmed glances before stepping inside. “Wait here,” she told him as she had a look around. Lucy was sure she’d locked the door and now she couldn’t be certain, as there didn’t appear to be anything out of place. Gavin joined her in the kitchen.

             
“Anything missing?” he asked and inspected the refrigerator. Nothing seemed amiss. “Didn’t you lock the door?”

             
“I thought I did,” she said, confused. Lucy went back to the door and inspected the knob. She shut the door again and locked it and unlocked it. Nothing. “The door is fine.” Assuming it was stress taking its toll, Lucy locked the door and fastened the security chain for good measure. “That’s odd,” she muttered to herself.

             
“What’s odd?” Gavin came out of the kitchen munching on a burrito.

             
“I know I locked this door!”

             
He went and jiggled the knob. It seemed locked to him. “It’s an old house. The locks probably haven’t been changed since the last earthquake.”

             
“I guess you’re right,” she agreed and spied the burrito in his hand. “Where’d you get that?” Though they’d had a bite to eat at a pub, that was hours ago and she was famished from all that walking.

             
Gavin tore off a chunk and handed it to her. “Bean and cheese. There are at least five boxes of these in the deep freeze.”

             
“Lead the way,” Lucy grinned and followed after him, casting one last look at the door.

              They loaded up on burritos for dinner and retired to the living room for more video games. While Gavin was engrossed in taking out living corpses, Lucy went through her phone to see if Alec had tried to contact her. He had. He and Pat had run into a spot of trouble outside New Mexico, but they were on their way to Rhode Island and shouldn’t worry. Gavin noticed her furrowed brow. “What does bro say?”

             
“He and Pat had to change a tire in Las Cruces but not to worry.” She set the phone aside and picked up the game controller. “Now, how far have you gotten?”

             
“I’m in the apartment complex.”

             
“Hmm,” Lucy took out a few mangled bodies before her avatar was disemboweled. Her heart just wasn’t in it. She opted to watch Gavin instead. He seemed to have a knack for this sort of thing. “Eww,” she grimaced as he blew off a head in a spectacular burst of blood and brains. “That’s so gross!”

             
“How long have you been a nurse?” he laughed and took out a few more corpses as they charged him. “How can you be so squeamish?
              “Nursing is different!” she retorted. “People don’t go around trying to eviscerate you with claws made from human vertebrae!”

             
“Sometimes they do,” he reminded her, and she made a face and stretched out on the sofa while he slid onto the floor. “They just don’t warn you before they do it!”

             
“That’s true,” she yawned and pulled an afghan over her. “I’m going to nap for a bit.”

             
“Nighty night, sis,” he said lightly, and gathered so many credits he was able to upgrade his suit. “Sweet!” Gavin muttered to himself. This game was getting better and better. Now if only he could find a corpse that looked like Harvey.

              Gavin had finally tired of role-playing and crashed on the carpet, his head pillowed on a floor cushion. It was well after midnight and he’d left the television on. A horror movie was playing with a young woman screaming in the background. Neither he, nor Lucy heard a door creaking open and the light fall of footsteps making their way down the hall.

             
Lucy was curled up on the sofa dreaming of nothing in particular, when she was startled awake by the sudden bright flare of a flashlight. Her scream was cutoff as the flashlight slammed into her head, silencing her. Gavin was roused from slumber by the sound of Lucy’s scream, then he too, felt the vengeful blow of a flashlight against his skull and slumped to the floor, blood trickling out from a gash in his forehead.

             
They were carried out of the house and stuffed into the trunk of a waiting car. It sped off, bleeding gas and fumes and when questioned later by the police, the next-door neighbors would swear they didn’t hear a thing.

Chapter Thirty-eight

He opened his eyes to find complete and utter darkness surrounding him. Gavin could hear the faint
trickling of water and his nostrils were assailed by a dank and musty odor of decay. He tried to move but couldn’t as his hands were bound behind his back and when he tried to move his legs, he discovered his feet were bound as well. Panic set in.
Where was Lucy?
He tried calling out but his lips were immobilized by a piece of duct tape. A faint scent of roses reassured him that Lucy was nearby but he couldn’t see anything, so he couldn’t tell if she was injured or not. The last thing he remembered was her scream, and cold fingers of dread crawled along his spine. What if she was hurt? Gavin’s mind began playing evil tricks on him as it turned over the dreadful scenarios, but his head pounded a fierce protest and he had to stop.

             
She was fine. She
had
to be.

             
Gavin thought he heard a faint rustling behind him, and he clung to the hope that she wasn’t as bad off as
he
appeared to be. Whoever hit him had meant it to be fatal. He was finding it increasingly difficult to think clearly and there was a buzzing in his ears that taunted him from time to time. If only he could move. He tried shifting onto his back and with a fair amount of maneuvering, was able to move into a position that allowed him to see the ceiling. At least Gavin hoped it was the ceiling. It was so dark he had to squint just to make out the faint outlines of bars on a small window. He could only mumble to Lucy and relief shot through him when she mumbled back. There would be no Alec to save them this time. They’d have to get out of this one themselves.

             
He didn’t know how long they lay trussed up like tragic dinner fowls, but he marked the passage of time by how many drops of water that fell. Gavin soon counted to three hundred and then heard a vague echoing that bounced off the walls and chilled his soul. Footsteps! He turned his head slightly and was able to see a faint glimmer of light from a lantern as it swayed to and fro. Gavin closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep. He heard the metallic jangling of keys and then a high-pitched creaking as a door swung open on rusty hinges.

             
“Untie her hands,” someone growled. It sounded like a man, but Gavin couldn’t be sure. The voice was deep and gravelly.

             
“What the hell for?” another voice answered. This time it was a woman. It was soft and tinged with annoyance.

             
“Because I
said
so, that’s why!” the man hissed to his companion. “They can’t be comfortable trussed up like that!”

             
“You think I care? Let them suffer!”

             
“Don’t tempt me, Corinne!” the man rasped. He sounded angry. “I’ve done what you wanted. Be merciful for once!”

             
“Don’t you dare speak to me about mercy!” she sputtered in outrage. “Where was
my
mercy thirty years ago?”

             
“And you think this is going to bring him back?”

             
“I wanted that bastard to suffer as he made
me
suffer!”

             
“Dammit!” he swore. “Get out of here and let me at least make them comfortable.”

             
“Fine!” the woman pouted. “Just remember what you owe me!”

             
“How can I forget?” The man’s muffled voice sounded sad and Gavin felt him kneel down behind him and grasp his hands. Then there was a sudden movement and a knife sliced through the rope and Gavin could feel his arms again. His feet were untied and then through slitted eyes he saw the thin figure of a man kneel down beside Lucy and slice through her binds as well. The man took out a damp cloth and wiped her face and brow and then he stood up and left. They were alone in darkness once more.

             
Gavin tore off the tape, wincing as he did so, and crawled over to Lucy. “Lucy?” he whispered, trying to feel for her hands in the dark. “Where are you?”

             
“I’m here,” she gasped, groping blindly for his hand. Their fingers brushed and they clasped each other in relief. “What happened?”

             
“Don’t know,” he muttered, trying to figure out what the hell was going on. “There are two of them.”

             
“Who?”

             
“A man and some woman named Corinne.”

             
“Corinne…?” Lucy repeated stupidly. The name sounded familiar, but she wasn’t capable of logical thinking at the moment. Her head felt like it had been pushed through a meat grinder, and the dull, throbbing ache wasn’t reassuring. “Are you hurt?” Her hands gently roamed over him feeling for broken bones.

             
“My head hurts. They really jobbed me.” His hands found a swollen area on her face and she let out a slight cry of pain.
“You’re
hurt!”

             
“I’m sure it’s just a flesh wound,” she quipped and winced again, feeling nauseated. They’d
really
let her have it. “I think I’m going to be sick,” she gasped and turned away, vomiting in a dank corner. When she finished, she examined herself and found a large lump near her ear. From where she’d been hit, she suspected a concussion and probably a skull fracture. That’s all she needed. To buy it here in some dingy cell without Alec was something she did not dare contemplate. “Where
are
we?” she managed and was able to scoot along the concrete floor and rest against a wall.

             
“I don’t know,” Gavin winced and squinted around him. “I think it’s a holding cell. There are bars on the windows and they had to open the door with keys.”

             
“A cell?” she repeated numbly, searching her pockets and then remembering she’d left her phone on the coffee table. “You mean a prison?”

             
“I think so.”

             
“Great,” Lucy mumbled to herself. “Alcatraz.”

             
“You don’t know that!”

             
“It’s the only thing that’s close by and abandoned this time of night!” she told him, her voice rising in panic. “No one knows we’re here!”

             
“What can we do?” Gavin didn’t sound entirely convinced that they’d make it out alive.  “I wish Alec were here!”

             
“Well, he isn’t!” she hissed in annoyance, her brain trying frantically to figure a way out of this mess. “We’re on our own.”