Джеймс Паттерсон - The 18th Abduction

She’d choked that out, too. It was important that he trust her. “I’m going to be the perfect date. I promise.”

They’d been driving for about a half hour, heading toward the setting sun. During that time Tony had been on the phone and he’d listened to music over the radio, but he hadn’t spoken to her again.

Adele thought that he was distancing himself from her, and that scared her. As she’d told Susan, he would kill them both no matter what they did. Being obsequious and cooperative had bought them time. But Tony would never leave witnesses to what he’d done to them and to Carly.

Adele was alert for opportunities, hoping Tony underestimated her. If he stopped for gas, she’d beg an attendant to call the police, or at least go to the ladies’ room and leave a message on the mirror in soap. If she managed to get her hands free, she could reach over and jerk the steering wheel and run the car into a tree.

She might die, but she might kill Tony, too.

Tony gripped the steering wheel with both hands and said, “We’ll be there soon, Adele darling. Don’t worry. You are going to have a good time, no kidding.”

“I’m glad. Thanks, Tony.”

She smiled like she was his girlfriend.

“I’m getting a little bit hungry, though,” she said. “And I’d like to use a restroom.”

“Sure,” he said. “Amenities are coming up in a few miles.”

The roadway cut through woods and was bounded by scrub and trees on both sides. The waning sun painted the sky pink and cast long shadows on the road. Adele flexed her fingers to keep the blood moving, wriggled them to see if she could loosen the wire around her wrists. She pictured pulling in to a diner or even a convenience store.

He would untie her with a promise to be good.

And when she got half a chance, she would whisper to the nearest person, “Help. My name is Adele Saran and I’ve been abducted. Call the police.”

Tony was speaking to her.

“I have to see a man about a horse,” he said, grinning. “That’s the expression, isn’t it?”

“Yes. So funny,” Adele said.

Tony slowed and pulled the car off the road onto a gravelly verge, where he parked and turned on the emergency lights.

“Be right back,” he said.

He opened his door and stepped out, walked to the front of the car and ten paces into the forest, and faced a tree.

This was it.

There were no cars, no people, and losing herself in the thick woodland was her best and maybe only chance to escape. Adele twisted in her seat, turning to face the steering wheel. While watching Tony, she felt around behind her until the door handle was in her hands.

She yanked up, and thank you, God, the door opened. Tony was still using the tree as a toilet as Adele swung her legs out of the car. She leaned against it to get her balance. Then, with the Jaguar between herself and Tony, blocking his view of her, she hunched over and ran for her life.

Tony shouted after her, “Run, Little A! Let me see you run.”

Chapter 72

Tony wanted her to escape? That’s what he wanted?

Well, he was going to get what he asked for.

Adele’s arms were twisted up behind her back, the wind whipping her hair across her face as she crossed both lanes without incident. When she reached the far side of the paved road, she had to stop to see how she would get over the gully between the pavement and the woods beyond it.

With her arms pulled up tight behind her, she didn’t have enough balance to jump across, and she was determined not to fall. If she did, Tony would seize her, and after humiliating her, he’d kill her.

She quickly sized up the width and depth of the ditch, looking for footholds, seeing where she would climb down, wade across, make it up the other side.

Watching her feet, she stepped carefully down into the ditch, then climbed up the other side, falling only once. She managed the crossing only to meet a wall of brambles between herself and the woods. The sticker bushes were everywhere, lining the woodland, and Adele did what she had to do. She leaned in, the fragile skin of her face taking the brunt of the thorns. And then she was through the barricade. She exhaled as she blended into the relative darkness of the forest.

And then, just when she had gotten free of the brambles, Tony called out to her.

“Adele. Adelll-ah, darling. You could get lost out here. You could get hurt.”

The shaded woodland gave her a big advantage.

She could see where she was going, and the shadows would give her cover. Adele turned her head to see where Tony was and glimpsed his silhouette beside his car—and he saw her. But he wasn’t coming after her.

He called out, “Wait there, Adele. I’ll bring you back to the car.”

Like hell he would.

She pushed on into the woodland, gingerly at first; but gaining balance and confidence, she steadily climbed the gently wooded slope. When the ground flattened, she ran. A hundred yards in, she stumbled over a root and pitched forward to the ground. She ignored the scrapes and bruises and used her strong core muscles to roll up into a sitting position, glad for the tens of thousands of crunches she’d done in the school gym. And thank God for the StairMaster, too; somehow she got to her feet on the incline.

Up ahead was a large tree and Adele got behind it. Tony couldn’t see her as she pressed her back against the trunk, inching down until she was sitting on the leaf litter beneath the tree. Her arms hurt with unrelenting pain, but she twisted and stretched, worked her slim hips through the circle of her arms until her bound hands were in front of her.

She noticed now that the white sweatshirt stood out like neon, looking even brighter as the sun left the sky. Adele pulled the fabric over her head and bunched it around her wrists. Then she pushed up and forward, exhilarated and at the same time certain that if Tony caught her, he would wrap his hands around her throat. He would squeeze and release her airway as he did during sex, the sick bastard, and this time he wouldn’t let go.

Adele was rested now.

She was moving swiftly and she wasn’t alone as she ran. She gave herself affirmations, saying out loud, “Good girl. Keep going.” As she tripped over logs and recovered from stumbles, she felt Susan, her parents, and even Carly flanking her path, encouraging her to run.

As she moved farther from Tony and toward who knew what, she heard the snapping of twigs.

There was a flashlight beam up ahead, swinging from left to right, and it stopped moving when it caught her square on. Adele shielded her eyes and saw another beam coming from her right and another farther up the hill.

Oh, my God. It’s a search party.

They were looking for her.

“Help,” she called out. “I’m over here . Please help me.”

Chapter 73

Someone called to Adele from the middle distance.

“Hey, chickie. Don’t stop now.”

That was Marko’s voice. Marko . What the hell was going on?

“Marko?”

“Run, Adele.”

That was Tony’s voice, and she could see him, silhouetted by his car’s headlights, coming toward her. She saw other flashlights in the woods, flickering through the branches, seeking her out, cornering her.

She realized with a shock that she’d made an idiotic mistake. This was no rescue. These were Tony’s men. And this was one of their sick games.

Tony shouted playfully, “You should run, sweetheart.”

Adele’s guess was that this was probably some version of hide-and-seek with a death penalty for getting caught.

She ran from the lights and the voices, and they followed her. “Adellllllllle. Are you afraid of us?”

Without stopping, Adele counted seven lights in the woods. She picked the darkest point between the lights and loped over broken ground, leapt downed branches and the scattered bones of a dead animal, and negotiated the changing grade of the land.