Page 65 of Secrets Beneath the Waves (Beach Read Thrillers #2)
CHAPTER
NINETEEN
They drove another twenty minutes before Jules’ Uber driver wheeled the car onto a gravel driveway and maneuvered the SUV along it until they reached a dilapidated house with peeling gray paint that hadn’t been visible from the road.
He jerked the vehicle to a stop in front of the garage attached to the house and turned off the engine. Jules stared at the building. Whose place was this? Was anyone home? Would it be better or worse for her if someone was?
It was a moot point. When the guy exited the vehicle and came around to yank open the door, his pistol aimed at her chest, Jules climbed down.
No sense trying to fight him now; she’d only get herself killed.
She’d wait him out, take the first opportunity to either escape or attack him with something she found in the house.
At some point, he had removed his gloves, and he planted a hand between her shoulder blades to direct her toward the saggy front porch.
Beneath the pressure of his bare fingers, her skin crawled.
Once they’d ascended the three porch steps, the man reached past her to pull open the door and hold it until she had stepped into a musty-smelling kitchen.
Jules scanned the space, taking in as many details as she could, although she likely wouldn’t remember anything.
Her thoughts were spinning too wildly and the man was prodding her too quickly across the room for her to make many notes.
He herded her through a living room crowded with a couch, two armchairs, a coffee table, and a boxy television set in the corner with rabbit ears sitting on top.
In a short hallway, they passed a bathroom before he stopped and opened a door.
His hand on her back again, he pushed her inside a small bedroom.
After following her in, he came around in front of her, stuck the pistol into the back of his jeans, and pressed his bent arm across her collarbones to shove her against the wall.
Jules struggled to breathe as desperately as she had when thick, noxious smoke had filled her lungs. Was this it? No preamble? He was going straight for her throat? Not if she had anything to say about it. That dangerous heat flowed through her, and she harnessed the shot of courage and energy.
The man was too close for her to get in a good kick, but she lifted the heel of her sneaker to his knee and shoved backward.
The man grunted as he slid his bent arm up to press against her neck.
When he spoke, his breath was hot against her cheek.
“Do you remember what happened to the last woman who fought me?”
When Jules didn’t answer, he ran his free hand over the top of her head. “Maybe you don’t, since your brain doesn’t work right.”
She gritted her teeth. Just because she acquired and stored visual information differently than most of the population didn’t mean her brain didn’t work right. “And yet I am intelligent enough to know that you are a textbook psychopath.”
His eyes went dark, almost black, and the temperature in the room lowered. Jules repressed a shudder.
“Be very careful what you say, Jules Adler.” He pushed harder against her throat to drive home his point.
Deep grooves marred both his cheeks, and it took everything Jules had not to add more by scratching his cheeks or arms the way that woman in the alley had.
That would only get her killed. Her captor had the upper hand now, but she would bide her time, wait for the perfect opportunity.
It was unlikely he was planning to end her torment quickly, given how long he had dragged out this game so far.
He trailed his fingertips down her cheek. “You know, you are even more beautiful than before, now that you have been refined by fire.” He lowered his head and breathed in deep, as though attempting to catch a hint of smoke lingering in her hair, on her skin. “Perhaps I will keep you.”
Jules’ stomach roiled. Lord, help me. Death would be preferable to being held prisoner indefinitely in this room, at the mercy of a sick, deranged killer.
When she didn’t respond, he lowered his arm and stepped back.
“I will need to think about that.” Spinning on his heel, he strode into the hallway and slammed the door.
Seconds later, Jules caught the click of a lock falling into place.
She waited another minute, until his uneven footsteps—good, she’d made him limp—faded away.
Then she pushed away from the wall and checked the door.
The knob didn’t give at all when she tried to turn it.
Fine. There had to be another way out. Unable to recall what the room looked like, she turned around and took a moment to breathe in several slow, deep breaths.
Once her racing mind had stilled, she took careful, methodical stock of her surroundings.
To her left, dingy floral wallpaper hung in strips, revealing patches of water-stained drywall.
No bed, although a single mattress had been shoved into one corner.
What looked like a scratchy wool blanket was tossed over it along with a thin pillow with no case.
Ugh. If she ended up being held here for any length of time, Jules would sleep on the bare floor before she’d go anywhere near that thing.
Her slow scan took her to one of the two windows in the room, maybe four feet across and three feet high.
Plenty of space for her to crawl out, except that iron bars had been set into the frame every inch or so.
Wow. At some point, this room had been retrofitted as a cell.
Was she the first prisoner to be held here?
That thought stayed her investigation for several seconds until she shook it off and carried on.
Not that there was much more to see. A plastic bucket sat in another corner.
Was that meant to be her bathroom? She would wait until she couldn’t stand the agony any longer before she would stoop to using that.
No dresser. A closet that she held out hope might contain hangers or a metal bar, something useful. The tiny space proved to be stripped of both, leaving only bare walls and a high, narrow shelf.
The second window faced the backyard and sported the same metal bars as the first. Clumps of dust and dirt lined the baseboards and massive spider webs stretched across every corner.
Jules tipped her head to contemplate the ceiling.
Solid drywall, not tiled, unfortunately, or she might have been able to push one up and crawl out of the room that way.
Of course, she’d have to be able to raise herself that high which, given the lack of furniture in the room, wasn’t likely.
The only light was a dusty bulb hanging from the center of the room. If she could reach up far enough to unscrew it and break it on something so it had jagged edges, that could prove a useful weapon.
Positioning herself beneath it, she pushed to her tiptoes and stretched her arm as far as she could. The bulb was a good foot from the tips of her fingers. With a hiss of frustration, she sank onto her heels and scoped out the room again. Right, the bucket. Standing on that might close the gap.
Jules hurried over, grabbed the handle of the bucket, and carried it to the middle of the room.
After flipping it upside down, she set it carefully on the wooden floor.
This was the tricky part. The bucket wasn’t that big.
She’d need to balance on it perfectly to keep from tipping it over, which would send her crashing to the floor and alert her captor to what she was doing.
If he thought she was too much trouble to keep around, he could end this pretty quickly, especially if he used his gun.
Which would be preferable to having the life slowly choked out of her.
Jules climbed carefully onto the top of the bucket. For a few seconds, until she felt completely stable, she held her arms out to the sides. Then, slowly, she reached above her head again. Her fingers slid an inch or so up from the rounded bottom of the bulb, just enough for her to grasp it.
Righty tighty, lefty loosey . Her dad’s patient instructions floated through her mind. She might have smiled if the situation wasn’t so precarious. Like her perch on the bucket. She’d have to be careful that any motion she made didn’t knock her off balance.
Urgency gripped her. Her captor could return any moment, and she needed to be ready.
She twisted the bulb to the left. At first, it didn’t move, then it slowly, slowly turned beneath the pressure.
In a few seconds, she was able to tug it free of its base.
Holding her breath, Jules stepped onto the floor with one foot and then the other.
There. Done. She had a weapon, such as it was.
After returning the bucket to the corner, Jules wandered over to the window, stopping in front of it to peer through the glass.
They appeared to be miles from anything.
All she could see were endless fields of straw stubble, glowing gold and pink in the setting sun.
Darkness was approaching. Now that she had disabled the one source of light and with no streetlamps outside, this room would soon be pitch black.
Which actually might help her if the murderer returned before morning.
He would have no idea she had armed herself.
She could take him by surprise, possibly stun or injure him enough to flee the room and get to his vehicle before he could gather himself enough to follow.
Had he left his keys in the ignition? She couldn’t remember.
One step at a time. If she couldn’t drive, with enough of a head start, she might be able to take off running and he wouldn’t be able to see well enough in the dark to follow her. Or take a shot.
Jules studied the glass a moment. Window glass would be considerably stronger than light bulb glass.
Could she apply enough pressure to break it?
When she slid her fingers between two of the bars, the tips pressed lightly against the cool surface.
As hard as she tried to wriggle it, she couldn’t shove her hand through far enough to push hard. So much for that.
Jules withdrew her hand. At least she could break the light bulb on the metal bars, although she’d need to use extreme caution so the process didn’t shatter the glass or make enough noise to summon the man.
She spent the next few minutes tapping the bulb just below the rounded top, turning it slightly after every couple of taps as though attempting to break the top part of the shell off a boiled egg.
Finally, the line she’d been tapping along fractured and the top fell onto her waiting palm.
Jules set the broken piece on the floor before sinking down next to it, her back pressed to the wall as she clutched the metal base of the bulb in one hand.
It wasn’t much of a defense against the evil coming for her but maybe slightly better than nothing.
It was the best she could do, anyway. The thin glass wouldn’t penetrate deeply, so she’d need to scratch him.
On the arm, maybe. Was he wearing short sleeves?
Although she rifled through the details she had memorized in her mind, she hadn’t noted that one.
The face, then. Maybe even an eye. She shuddered at the thought, although it was likely her best bet to disable the man and get away.
She glanced at the ceiling. Could you help me out of this like you did the burning house? I’ve just started to find my way back to you. Although, if she was going to stand before God soon, maybe that was gift enough.
Jules leaned her head against the wall. She would try, but if she couldn’t fight the man off and Dante wasn’t able to figure out where she was in time—and really, how could he?
—then she would have only one choice. Pray that God would either save her or take her quickly to wherever someone like her, someone with a rekindled but still faintly flickering faith, went the moment her life on Earth was done.