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It took a few long seconds for Heather’s eyes to adjust to the light.

When they did, she finally saw where she was sitting.

It was the back corner of a concrete parking garage, just as she suspected.

The place was empty for some reason. The lights were half on, half off, and there were numbers stenciled onto the pilings.

From where she sat, there was no view to the outside, so there’d be no figuring out where she was.

Although, her kidnappers were right either way.

They had her phone, so who was she going to call?

She turned her attention to the man standing in front of her, and he examined her right back. He was young, with blond hair and blue eyes. She thought he looked a lot like someone she might have gone to school with. It was a shame he’d chosen to do this with his life.

Then he spoke. “Oh, you weren’t kidding.

” He was holding up a phone next to Heather’s face.

She assumed he had a picture of the actress up on the screen.

“Well, that sucks.” By his voice, she could tell he was the hothead.

He turned toward where his cohorts stood some distance away.

“Hey! Hey, she’s right! She’s not our target! ”

Another of the kidnappers came running their way. He looked young as well. From a distance, Heather could see that the other two were older.

The guy running toward them looked like a young businessman, and when he spoke, Heather was shocked to find it was the psycho’s voice that came out of him. “You took her hood off?” he shouted. “You idiot! Oh my God, could you get any stupider? Now she’s seen us! Now we have to kill her!”

Heather’s heart began to pound even harder when she heard those words. She had thought that if she could just convince them they had the wrong person, they’d maybe let her go. Clearly, that wasn’t the case anymore.

Instinctively, she bowed her head and lowered her eyes. “I won’t be able to identify you,” she said, knowing it was probably useless. “It was so bright in here after the hood came off, and my eyesight isn’t so great.”

At the commotion, the two older men moved toward them, and Heather finally got to see the leader and the muscle.

The leader was the oldest, looking like he was possibly in his late fifties.

The muscle looked middle-aged, like he was maybe in his forties.

She wondered what had happened in his life to put him in this situation, where kidnapping a movie star was his best option. They were all risking so much. But why?

Heather wondered if it would be easier to appeal to the older men than their younger cohorts. “You don’t have to kill me,” she said to them. “Please. I won’t say anything to anyone.”

The leader looked her right in the eye and said, “Everyone always says that.”

Her eyes widened at that. “How many times have you done this?”

“That’s for us to know and for you to never, ever find out,” the hothead said.

The psycho apparently couldn’t help adding, “Because you’ll be dead.”

Finally, the muscle chimed in, but all he said was, “Stop.”

“This is why I said we shouldn’t include him.” The hothead gestured to the psycho. “He’s unhinged, and you all know it. He’s going to get us into a situation way beyond what we’re prepared to handle.”

The psycho glared at his accuser. “The only one who has gotten us into a situation way beyond what we’re prepared to handle is you, Jay. You’re the idiot who took her hood off. I’m just saying what everyone else here is thinking.”

“Oh, really?” Jay squared up to the psycho. “Well, I’ll tell you another thing everyone else here is thinking. You’re only on this project because old Stan here’s your uncle.” He gestured to the leader. “And you’re a damn liability.”

“That’s enough!” The man apparently called Stan shouted at both of them, and both young men immediately stood at attention.

The one who had the authority in this situation was obvious.

“Now she knows two of our names and one relationship. You’re both only making this situation worse.

It’s your incompetence that’s going to kill this woman.

Her blood is on both your hands. I expect you to learn from this, and so you’ll be the ones to put her down. ”

“Not a problem.” The psycho looked more excited than anything, and it sent a chill down Heather’s spine.

“I want Jay on this one,” Stan said. “He needs to learn.” Then he walked away. Heather could hardly believe it. After handing down her death sentence, Stan just walked away like it meant nothing to him.

It occurred to Heather that this was how she was going to die, that she wasn’t ready, that there was still so much she wanted to do.

She was terrified, but more than fear, she felt a kind of grief for her own life, the one she wouldn’t be allowed to live, just because she looked a bit like a movie star. And then she was angry.

Jay, the hothead, seemed angry, too, although Heather didn’t feel he had any right to be. “I always get stuck with the worst jobs,” he muttered.

Heather found an ounce of courage and managed to glare at him. “So don’t do it.”

“I wish that was an option.” He shook his head, reached into his jacket, and pulled out a medium-sized handgun. And Heather saw her whole life flash before her eyes.