Page 12 of Sackett (Demented Souls #17)

T he throbbing in her head had eased slightly as Selena had tried to figure out how to free her hands and feet.

It had taken her several minutes to calm down in order to remember that she’d seen a video online while doomscrolling videos on social media one night.

It had shown what it had called a foolproof way to get your hands free if they were taped together in front of you.

It had taken her several minutes of trying to remember exactly how to do it and several tries after that, but she had managed to get her arms free.

Once she'd freed her hands, it only took her a few seconds to free her feet.

She wondered for a moment how difficult it would be to get away with no shoes.

But pushed the thought away. She had to figure out how to get out of this room first.

When she was no longer bound, the first thing Selena did was check the door, she was wrong, it had been locked. Next Selena searched the room for anything she could use as a weapon or something that could be used as a tool to escape the room.

Her initial search found nothing she could use.

There was the bunk she’d woken up on, a table against one wall that was so heavy she couldn’t move it no matter how hard she pulled, a porcelain commercial style toilet in one corner, the kind with no tank, only a lever to flush with, and a window above the table that was so tiny she would never be able to squeeze through it.

Frustrated, she sat back down on the bed to consider what to do next.

She didn't know how long she'd been sitting there when a click drew her attention and then the door opened.

A man stepped in. It only took her a minute to recognize him as the man she called Mr. Smarmy, at least in her own head. Upon spotting her sitting on the bed unbound he lifted a brow and watched her with an intrigued look.

“You're not what I expected, Ms. Leighty,” Mr. Smarmy said.

“I don't know what you expected.” Selena did her best to use the blank face she used in court.

“Not someone who would manage to get herself free and look for a way to get out of the room.” He looked around the room as if seeing it for the first time.

“Did you really think we'd leave something here you could use against us?” He slowly walked back and forth from one end of the room to the other, pacing as though waiting for her, an answer from her.

“It was worth a try,” she said. “It would have been pretty stupid not to look and have something here that would have helped me.”

She watched him but wouldn't meet his gaze. It wasn't that she was afraid of him, but having him think she was afraid could only help her. What she was doing was watching his body language, trying to get a feel of how he felt about the situation.

“It's been several hours, and we have not yet heard from Mrs. Harrison.

I'm wondering if they're just gonna give you up or if they're just gonna wait for us to chop you up and send you back to them in little bits.” He stopped and turned to face her, obviously watching to see if she had any reaction to his words.

“What do you think, girl? Are they gonna give you up for their own safety? For their own comfort?”

She fought the urge to glare up at him. To yell at him that she was a woman, not a girl.

She wanted to jump up and slap him. But forced herself to sit quietly.

To pretend to be the terrified little girl he expected her to be.

The longer he saw the scared little girl he wanted to see, the more likely she was to be able to find a way out of here.

“How can I guess how they will act. I don't know who you're talking about. You never told me why you took me.”

“Don't lie to me, little girl. You know we took you so that Donna will come back.”

Selena shook her head. “I don't know how long I've been here, but unless it's been a day, at least, she hasn't had time to get up here. The drive from where Donna is to here is fourteen hours with no stops.” She glanced up at him, trying to figure out what he was thinking.

Mr. Smarmy narrowed his eyes at her, watching as if trying to figure out if she was lying to him. She kept an innocent look on her face. She wasn't lying and there was no reason for him to think she was.

“There's nowhere in Colorado that takes that long to get here.”

“I never said she was in Colorado.”

“Nice try, Miss Leighty. You are an attorney, that means you are licensed. If you are practice law in Colorado, you are from Colorado.”

Selena fought the urge to laugh at how stupid these people were.

They had to have gone through her briefcase to find her name, if they hadn’t known it beforehand, but they didn’t snoop enough to find the paperwork that listed her office address.

And they obviously hadn’t looked her up on the internet either, because her office address came up in the top three results when you did. That wasn’t an accident.

“I am licensed to practice in several states. Colorado is one of them, but my practice is in Arizona. It’s a long drive to get here from Arizona.”

Mr. Smarmy watched her a moment longer then turned away and went back to pacing.

“Perhaps you are right. That doesn’t mean we’ll change the deadline. Or that we won’t hurt you if they fail to meet it. But in the hope that they do care about you, at least enough to keep you alive, we’ll do the same.” He went to the door and opened it.

A woman in a plain, long-sleeved dress that went almost to her feet came in carrying a tray with a plastic bowl and a bottle of water.

She set the tray on the heavy table on one side of the room that Selena hadn’t been able to move, no matter how hard she’d pulled on it, then moved the bowl, the bottle of water and something Selena couldn’t see well from this angle off the tray, then left, taking the tray with her.

“Your dinner.” Mr. Smarmy left Selena alone, closing and locking the door behind him.

Selena stared at the door for several seconds, then turned and looked toward the bowl they’d left. Was it safe? Had they put something in it to make her sleep so she wouldn’t try to escape? Her stomach rumbled as the tantalizing aroma reached her, but did she dare risk it?

She stood and padded her way over to the table.

Standing next to it she found the bowl filled with what looked like some kind of chunky stew, and the thing she hadn’t been able to identify was a plastic spoon.

Not even metal or even wood. They had obviously thought about her using it as a weapon.

Picking up the bottle, she inspected it and only after determining the seal was still intact, did she open it and take a sip.

She stared at the bowl of soup for a long moment, then took the bottle of water back to the cot and sat down to try and figure out what to do next.