that if he took me to the headquarters, he might be able to get someone to rescue him or he could slip away somehow because he knew the building better than I did. Well, I wasn’t going to make it that easy for him.
“What do you want from me?” he asked.
OK, communication was a start. I didn’t even have to threaten him this time. If he thought he was lulling me into a false sense of security, he had another thing coming. I’d seen enough movies to know that wasn’t how it worked.
“I’m going to help you get up, and then you’re going to walk in front of me," I said. "I need you to go places, and I don’t feel like touching you much. I don’t know where you’ve been.” I could see that the insult pissed him off, but oh well.
He glared at me like he was waiting for me to move closer and help him get up. I got up quickly and held out an arm to him. He looped his tied hands over my arm and I pulled up for all I was worth, letting him get to his feet without stumbling. He was a lot heavier than I thought. When he was on his feet, I shoved him forward. It wasn’t very hard, but it was enough for him to have to catch himself.
He turned around and glared at me, almost walking into the door frame, which made me chuckle. He turned around quickly to make sure he could see where he was going, and I made sure that I caught up to him in case he decided that his next attempt at getting away was to just flat out run. If he wanted to do that, then I had a heavy knickknack in my hand from the bedroom that I could throw like a baseball and knock him over.
He didn’t try anything fishy, though, and before long we were standing outside of Derrick’s car. I had him stand next to me while I unlocked the trunk. He looked from it to me, realization and horror dawning on his face.
“You don’t really expect me to get in there, do you?” he asked.
I didn’t know if it was a rhetorical question or if he was expecting me to actually answer him. I opened the trunk and took a step back.
“Go ahead and climb in," I said. "I really don’t want to knock you over the head with this, but I will if I have to.” I casually opened my hand and showed him the heavy golden carved egg that I’d bought a few months ago.
It weighed about a pound and a half, but I could still throw it pretty far. His eyes widened in surprise, and I thought that I might have seen a little fear in his eyes, too. I did my best not to smile with satisfaction. He glared at me, then looked at the trunk.
He sighed heavily and put a foot in. I waited until he got comfortable, then pulled the other piece of rope out from behind my back. He looked at me askance, but I didn’t say anything, I just went to work tying up his feet.
When he was trussed up like a Christmas goose, I gave him a once over and slammed the lid closed. He’d already told me where it was that I needed to go, and the main reason that I wanted him to come with me, was because I was going to use him as a bargaining chip if I got in any kind of trouble.
I got behind the wheel and took a deep breath.
“I’m coming, Derrick," I said aloud. "Just hold on, sweetheart, I’m coming.”
I threw the car in reverse, and braced myself for whatever was coming my way next.
***
I found the warehouse and parked about a block away from it. It was instantly clear that this was no abandoned warehouse. There was a line of fencing that surrounded it, complete with concertina wire winding around the top of it. Clear red flag. No one put protective measures around an empty warehouse that wasn’t hiding or protecting something.
The guy had told me about a tear in the fence towards the back of the warehouse where the lower grunts would sometimes smuggle in some women for private entertainment unbeknownst to the
Harry Connolly
J.C. Isabella
Alessandro Baricco
S. M. Stirling
Anya Monroe
Tim Tigner
Christopher Nuttall
Samantha Price
Lisa Mondello, L. A. Mondello
Katherine Ramsland