“Shit,” Claire hissed, because she’d been speeding. The limit was thirty-five and she was doing fifty.
And she had a gun in her purse.
Claire was on parole. She had a weapon. She probably still had traces of drugs in her system. She had violated every single line item in her terms of parole, including ignoring a law enforcement officer’s request for a meeting.
The cop behind her made his siren whoop.
Claire pulled over to the side of the road. What was she going to do? What the fuck was she going to do?
The cop didn’t park behind her. Instead, he pulled in front and angled his car so that the Tesla was blocked in.
Claire put her hand on the gear. She could go into reverse. She could back up the car and she could hit the gas and she could probably go about ten miles before every police officer in the vicinity was chasing her down the expressway.
The cop got out of the squad car. He put on his hat. He adjusted his belt.
Claire grabbed Lydia’s phone. Paul. He would know what to do. Except she didn’t have his number. The caller ID always showed it as blocked.
“Shit,” Claire repeated.
Maybe Paul already knew what was happening. He’d made it clear that he had friends in law enforcement. He could easily make a phone call and have Claire pulled over and handcuffed and stuffed into the back of a police car that would take her to wherever Paul was hiding.
The cop hadn’t come over. He was standing beside his car. He was talking on his cell phone. They were on the outskirts of Lydia’s neighborhood. All of the surrounding houses were dark. The cop checked the empty road over his shoulder before walking toward the Tesla.
Claire’s fingers took over. She was dialing a number into Lydia’s phone as the cop tapped on her window with the back of his wedding ring.
“Hello?” The phone was answered with the usual breathless panic that always accompanied calls from unknown numbers. Was it Julia? Was it Lydia? Was it more bad news?
“Mom.” Claire gulped back a sob. “Please, Mom, I really need you.”
SIXTEEN
Lydia hadn’t stood a chance against Paul. She had waited and waited for him to get her out of the trunk, but he just kept stopping to take her picture and then driving some more, then stopping again, then driving. He did this a total of five times before she lost control of her senses.
The first sign was a faint dizziness—nothing alarming, and weirdly pleasant. She had yawned several times. She had closed her eyes. She had felt the tension drain from her muscles. And then a big, goofy smile had spread across her face.
The trunk wasn’t just padded for sound.
She heard the faint hissing noise as Paul pumped what could only be nitrous oxide into the trunk. Laughing gas. Lydia had used it once at the dentist when she got her wisdom teeth out and she had been haunted for months by the incredible high.
The gas wasn’t meant to knock you out completely, so Lydia could only retrieve fragments of memories from that point on. Paul grinning as he opened the trunk. Slipping a black hood over her head. Tying the bottom of the hood snugly around her neck. Cutting the zip tie holding together her ankles. Muscling her onto the ground. Pushing her to walk. Lydia stumbling through a forest. Hearing birds, smelling cold, fresh air, feeling her feet slide on dry leaves. They walked for what felt like hours until Paul finally pulled her to a stop. He turned her by her shoulders. He pushed her forward. She climbed an endless number of stairs. The sound of her feet echoed like gunshots in her head.
They were still echoing when he pushed her down into a chair. She was incredibly high, but he still didn’t take any chances. First, he zip-tied one ankle, then the other, to the legs of the chair. Then he tightened a chain around her waist. Then he cut open the zip tie around her wrists.
Lydia wanted to move. She may have even tried, but despite the hours of planning, she could not get her arms to lift, her hand to arc into the perfect shape of his neck.
Instead, she felt the plastic zip ties cutting into her skin as he bound each wrist to the arm of a chair.
She felt vinyl under her fingers. She felt cold metal against the skin of her legs. She felt her senses