Chapter
3 Fire and Water
He took her back into the bedroom and proceeded to dress her
like she was a doll, in the denim dungarees she had picked out. He carried her down the stairs, slightly
dizzy with all the turns. He cleared away the shopping bags, setting her down
just as they left the house.
He had dressed her in her denim jacket, he held the back of
it. The gesture was casual, as though he had his arm around her. It would
appear to the neighbours that she was leaving with him of her own accord, but
from here he could control her like a puppet on a string. Laurel was highly
frustrated and scared. Most of the time the neighbours were as nosy as hell.
Now when you needed them to be, they were nowhere to be seen. He had taken the
keys to the silver Mercedes and he pushed the beep key. The car unlocked. He
helped her into the driver's seat and then got into the backseat. She heard the
click as the chamber of a gun closed. She looked behind her. He was pointing it
right at her back. She had no doubt the silver-plated killing machine was
loaded.
"Drive where I tell you? Do you understand?" She
nodded in the mirror. "Good. Keep to the speed limit. We don't want you
stopped now do we?"
Slowly, reluctantly she let off the handbrake. They drove
for about half an hour in complete silence. How did you make small talk with a
kidnapper? He'd hardly be interested in the weather now would he? He told her
to stop. They were in a stand of trees. They were in a park, more precisely. She recognised it from walks she'd taken with
Darren. Sunday afternoons spent hand in hand.
There was no one else in that part of the park. He roughly
shoved her out of the car. She landed in
the grass. She tried to get to her feet, to run, but he rugby-tackled her from
behind. He put his knee into her spine, possibly badly bruising it. She
grunted, almost screamed. He took a petrol can he'd stowed in the boot.
Laurel watched in horror as he doused the car with the
contents of the can. He got a box of matches from his pocket and struck one. It
was the half-used box of matches from her own pocket. As he threw the match,
the car became a fireball. He waited until it was a twisted blob and then
pushed it into the nearby lake. He'd
levered off the personalised number plates.
Her mind raced. She was next. He was going to push her into
the lake, weighted down with bricks, or something else heavy. She would drown
slowly, unable to move, until she sank to the bottom, lifeless. Darren would
call the police, he would search desperately, unable to have closure, hoping
she'd walk through the door at any
moment. Just another missing person on a long list. Then months later she would be bait on some
fisherman's hook, unidentifiable. Just another Jane Doe. She couldn't think of a worse, more
depressing way to die.
He rolled her over and forced her hands behind her back. He
handcuffed them there. The click of the cuffs had a certain air of finality to
them. He kicked her roughly over. He took a bottle out of his pocket, unscrewed
the lid, having no trouble with the child-proof cap, dabbed some on a cloth and
held it over her mouth. She tried not to inhale, but finally had no choice. She
began to slide out of consciousness. Her
final thought, before blackness took over was "At least Darren's not here
to witness this. At least I'm the only one who had to be hurt."
Chapter 4 No one can
hear you scream
She had very little memory of what came next. She wasn't
completely out, which was a pleasant surprise, but everything was blurred. She
couldn't speak and couldn't identify anything. For too long, confused thoughts
raced through her head. But the main question that kept returning like an
annoyingly persistent fly was why? Her numbed brain screamed it in her ears. If
she was terrified she worked hard, not to show it. She was essentially an
optimistic person. Her outlook on life was usually “Whatever happens will
happen. She tried very hard to stick to that philosophy now, as she felt her
world tilt upside down.
Presumably he’d slung her over his shoulder, with as little
effort as if he’d been carrying a sack of grain. She counted the seconds in her
head, until she was set gently back down, rolling onto her side. Muffled sounds
reached her ears and then she felt a jolt, she felt her body roll of its own
accord and hit something. They were moving, travelling in a vehicle of some
kind, maybe a car. She did the geography. Presumably she was in the boot.
Wasn’t that how it worked? The hostage was put in the boot, out of sight out of
mind? Somewhere where no one could hear you scream.
Of course in TV shows and films there was always something
left conveniently lying around the hostage could use to lever open the boot, or
a chance to overpower her captor. But of course she thought bitterly, she had
to get kidnapped in real life, where there was nothing, no convenient crowbar,
no hastily discarded knife.
She tried to raise her legs to kick out, but she couldn’t
move. The space was too narrow and she'd never been good at gymnastics at
school. It was stiflingly hot. It was the hottest day of the year so far and
she was overheating. Wherever he was taking her, she hoped they got there
quickly. She was beginning to panic, if she didn’t calm down, she’d suffocate.
She concentrated on her breathing, counting in her head, measuring each breath.
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