a dog. I know where your parents live, Little A., and I have the names of all of your friends. So please, darling, just behave. Say, ‘I understand, Tony.’”
Adele had said it.
“Say, ‘I belong to you, Tony.’”
She’d choked that out, too. It was important that he trust her. “I’m going to be the perfect date. I promise.”
They’d been driving for about a half hour, heading toward the setting sun. During that time Tony had been on the phone and he’d listened to music over the radio, but he hadn’t spoken to her again.
Adele thought that he was distancing himself from her, and that scared her. As she’d told Susan, he would kill them both no matter what they did. Being obsequious and cooperative had bought them time. But Tony would never leave witnesses to what he’d done to them and to Carly.
Adele was alert for opportunities, hoping Tony underestimated her. If he stopped for gas, she’d beg an attendant to call the police, or at least go to the ladies’ room and leave a message on the mirror in soap. If she managed to get her hands free, she could reach over and jerk the steering wheel and run the car into a tree.
She might die, but she might kill Tony, too.
Tony gripped the steering wheel with both hands and said, “We’ll be there soon, Adele darling. Don’t worry. You are going to have a good time, no kidding.”
“I’m glad. Thanks, Tony.”
She smiled like she was his girlfriend.
“I’m getting a little bit hungry, though,” she said. “And I’d like to use a restroom.”
“Sure,” he said. “Amenities are coming up in a few miles.”
The roadway cut through woods and was bounded by scrub and trees on both sides. The waning sun painted the sky pink and cast long shadows on the road. Adele flexed her fingers to keep the blood moving, wriggled them to see if she could loosen the wire around her wrists. She pictured pulling in to a diner or even a convenience store.
He would untie her with a promise to be good.
And when she got a half a chance, she would whisper to the nearest person, “Help. My name is Adele Saran and I’ve been abducted. Call the police.”
Tony was speaking to her.
“I have to see a man about a horse,” he said, grinning. “That’s the expression, isn’t it?”
“Yes. So funny,” Adele said.
Tony slowed and pulled the car off the road onto a gravelly verge, where he parked and turned on the emergency lights.
“Be right back,” he said.
He opened his door and stepped out, walked to the front of the car and ten paces into the forest, and faced a tree.
This was it.
There were no cars, no people, and losing herself in the thick woodland was her best and maybe only chance to escape. Adele twisted in her seat, turning to face the steering wheel. While watching Tony, she felt around behind her until the door handle was in her hands.
She yanked up, and thank you, God, the door opened. Tony was still using the tree as a toilet as Adele swung her legs out of the car. She leaned against it to get her balance. Then, with the Jaguar between herself and Tony, blocking his view of her, she hunched over and ran for her life.
Tony shouted after her, “Run, Little A. Let me see you run.”
CHAPTER 72
Tony wanted her to escape? That’s what he wanted?
Well, he was going to get what he asked for.
Adele’s arms were twisted up behind her back, the wind whipping her hair across her face as she crossed both lanes without incident. When she reached the far side of the paved road, she had to stop to see how she would get over the gully between the pavement and the woods beyond it.
With her arms pulled up tight behind her, she didn’t have enough balance to jump across, and she was determined not to fall. If she did, Tony would seize her, and after humiliating her, he’d kill her.
She quickly sized up the width and depth of the ditch, looking for footholds, seeing where she would climb down, wade across, make it up the other side.
Watching her feet, she stepped carefully down into the ditch, then climbed up the other side, falling only once. She managed the crossing only to meet a wall of brambles between herself and the woods. The sticker bushes were everywhere, lining the woodland, and Adele did what she had to do. She leaned in, the fragile skin