so maybe if she had moaned, he hadn't heard her.
She kept her eyes closed as she took stock of her situation. Breathing deeply, she worked at keeping her bile down, gathering her bearings, and listening.
It sounded as if he'd moved off. The bedroom door opened into the living room. To the right of the bedroom was a short hall that led to the kitchen and the bathroom. The apartment wasn't very big, and there was only one door out. She'd have to run clean across the living room to escape.
Before her plan fully formed, she recalled the moment when his fist had sailed toward her after she'd let herself into the place. She saw the moment with crystal clarity.
His other hand had been clutching a gun.
Well that makes this situation just a bit worse. Worse took another turn when she became aware of her bindings.
The moment she sensed he wasn't looking at her she opened her eyes to just a tiny slit. She looked toward where her captor had been, and found the doorway empty. She was on the bed, half on her back, half twisted on her side. Her feet and hands were indeed bound. He'd used nylon cord, and he'd tied it just tight enough that she couldn't easily get free.
That kind of puts an end to the "run away screaming" plan of action. She supposed she should be thankful her hands were tied together at the wrists in front of her and not behind her back.
Chloe focused her hearing, needing to know where that bastard was and what he was doing.
From the sound of things, Lockwood was muttering to himself. She heard a click, click, click that reminded her of someone working a keyboard. He wasn't talking very loudly, so she had to strain to hear anything.
"Yeah...I knew there would be a list of bank repos. Whole fucking country's being foreclosed on. Now, where to go, where to go...someplace remote. Remote won't sell. We can live there a good long time. Long enough for me to teach Carolyn the errors of her ways." Lockwood giggled. "I'll have to punish her. She ran away, after all. I don't want her to run away again, so I'll have to be harsh. Don't want anyone to interfere, try to stop me from exercising my God-given rights. No, no, no indeed. They're all mine. She's all mine. Soon now. Just minutes, really."
Oh, God. Was Carrie there already? What time was it? Chloe swallowed down her panic even as the soreness on the back of her head seemed to get worse.
My jaw's sore because he punched me. Why's the back of my head sore? Did I fall and hit it on something? Am I bleeding?
Chloe moved her head to see if she could sense any stickiness, any sign that she'd bled - and felt hope and joy explode in her heart.
Her head hurt because she was lying on the pillow that lay over her Beretta! How many times had she kicked herself for not storing the weapon safely in the bedside table? But this morning she'd been so pissed off about those firefighters, she had barely pulled the covers up on the bed before she'd stormed off to bitch at Carrie about them.
At the moment she felt so damn grateful she just might give them each a big, sloppy kiss. If she got out of this mess alive, that was.
No, not if. When I get out of this mess.
Heart pounding, Chloe continued to work at coming fully alert. The nausea had eased off, but still hovered. Her jaw really did hurt like hell, and she wondered if that asshole had broken it. Later. She'd worry about it later. Right now, she had to figure out what she was going to do. She'd be damned if she was just going to lie here and take whatever that son of a bitch had in mind for her. Neither was she going to worry about what he might do.
Terror skittered down her back and across her consciousness. She knew what he'd done to Carrie, what he'd done to two other women besides. Rape. The threat held a special fear for females. No man can possibly understand the sick dread that lives down deep inside every woman, the vulnerability that each of us knows so well. It was a vulnerability that only trust could disarm, and each woman, the first time she bared herself to a lover, understood it.
She shoved her terror down, ordered it away,