Cambria Hebert - Text

Fuck. I probably shouldn’t have pointed out his phone was missing. He hadn’t known, and I called attention to it. I might have cost myself—and Honor—precious time. I was merely acting in the moment. I hadn’t yet fully decided if those texts were the absolute truth. But once I saw his reaction to the missing phone, added to the picture and the necklace… I couldn’t not believe it anymore.

“What’s this about?” Patton asked, and I heard the sound of a toilet flush.

“I’ll explain later,” I said urgently. I needed to find her, and fast. “Don’t tell anyone I called.”

“I won’t.”

I pulled the phone away from my ear just as I heard Patton say, “Hey.”

“Yeah?” I said.

“If you need anything, I got your back.”

“Good to go,” I replied.

“Semper Fi,” Patton said and then he cut the line.

Semper Fi . Always faithful. It was the Marine Corps way of life. I knew if shit hit the fan, I could call and Patton would be there.

I hoped it didn’t come to that.

I didn’t bother to lock the Jeep when I got out and walked into the trees. I pulled the bill of my hat down low and tucked my hand in my jacket, pulling out a high-powered flashlight that was the size of a pen.

But in this case, size didn’t matter.

This little baby would cut through the worst of the darkness tonight. Overhead, another rumble of thunder rolled. It covered the sound of a text coming through my phone.

I pulled it out, silenced the ringer, and looked down at the message.

Two words.

Two words that made my blood run cold.

He’s back.

The thunder rolling through the night sky wasn’t a good sign.

“Seriously,” I muttered. “Like this day isn’t bad enough?”

I guess when it rains it pours. Literally. I had very vivid imaginations of the sky opening up to some kind of freak torrential downpour and me being trapped in this hole as it slowly filled with icy cold rainwater. Slowly freezing or drowning me…

What would be a better way to go? Freezing to death or drowning?

I’m a writer and even I never dreamed up half this shit. Well, I guess one positive would be if I survived this, I would have a ton of new material to work with.

Thunder rumbled again, and I sighed. My stomach growled, matching the ferocity of the thunder, and I realized I hadn’t eaten a thing all day. I never ate before my early runs because it upset my stomach. I usually made a pot of coffee and some kind of egg scramble after I returned home.

Then I would spend most of my day typing away at a story, social networking, marketing, and communicating with my agent.

I wondered if anyone noticed I was missing by now. I loved being a recluse, but I was beginning to think that my choice of lifestyle was a serious hazard.

Maybe I should have gotten a dog after all. A companion to have around all day might have been nice.

I paused. This was the second time today I thought of a dog. Why would I be thinking of something like that at a time like this?

I was insane. More so than usual. I was probably ready to suffer some sort of psychotic break from the stress of being kidnapped. I mean really, I thought I was stronger than that.

Or maybe you’re just thinking of the things you never got to do.

I don’t know where that inner voice was coming from, but it needed to shut up. I think I would prefer some psychotic break than sitting down here and thinking about the bucket list that was never fulfilled. I wasn’t ready to admit defeat. I wasn’t going to accept my death.

And also, I found it quite amusing that on the cusp of death, my one regret seemed to be that I didn’t have a dog.

Of all the things I could regret, that was what I chose?

I had a feeling a psychiatrist would have a field day with that.

I looked up toward the top of the hole, and though it was dark, I could make out the tops of the trees swaying in the wind. I didn’t want my kidnapper to come back, but I also didn’t want to spend the entire night down here in the rain.

I pulled out the phone again and looked at the signal. No bars. I decided to distract myself by snooping. I called up the camera roll and started going through his pictures. They looked like pictures you’d find on any regular guy’s phone. A barbeque, a baseball game, and one featuring the kidnapper front and center, with poker chips piled high in front of him.

Again, I was struck by how “normal” he appeared. How uncreepy and non-kidnapper-ish he seemed. He was the most dangerous kind of criminal of all because no one would suspect him. No one would be inclined to believe any accusations against him.

I flipped through a few more of the photos when one had me gripping the phone until the bones in my fingers ached.

It was of a young blond woman. She was smiling, but the smile didn’t reach her eyes. Her eyes were haunted, they were sad… and they were also a little empty.

Around her neck was the locket I’d found in the dirt—the one now in my pocket.

My stomach roiled. Bile rose up in my throat and I dropped the phone and lurched to the side and heaved violently. Nothing came up because my stomach was empty. I made hideous sounds and the pain of retching had me collapsing onto the dirt floor and curling into a ball.

I lay there for a long time, feeling the cold dirt against my cheek and keeping my eyes closed, hoping I might wake up and find this was all dream.

Eventually, the uncomfortableness of my position made me roll over onto my back and stare up at the black sky.

Only there wasn’t just black sky to look at.

There was something pale in my line of sight.

My heart rate accelerated when my eyes made out the shape of a man.

Nathan! He’d come for me after all!

“I told you I’d come back,” intoned a voice from above.

Chills crawled up my spine and I shivered. That wasn’t Nathan. It was my kidnapper.

“I had planned on leaving you down here for the night,” he called. Funny how his voice didn’t seem that far away; it seemed as though it was very close, and I reminded myself that he was up there and I was down here. For once, I didn’t mind being down in this hole.

When I didn’t respond to his comments, he spoke again.

“But it seems I have misplaced something. I came back to see if you had something of mine?”

My eyes darted to where the phone lay on the ground. It was facedown and the case was black. I knew he wouldn’t be able to see it.

“Are you talking about your heart?” I snapped. “Cause I’m pretty sure you weren’t even born with one.”

“Feisty.” He chuckled. “I like feisty. It turns me on.”

Gag. Me. With. A. Spoon.

“It seems my cell phone has gone missing,” he said. “You don’t have it down there, do you?”

“If I did, I wouldn’t still be here,” I yelled.

“Well, that’s good. Because I would hate to have to move up my timeline and just kill you now.”

His timeline?

Something told me that being killed now versus later was probably the better option.

“I’m going to send down a rope ladder. Climb up,” he said.

I wanted to laugh. Yeah, right. And maybe monkeys will fly out of my ass.

It was almost cute the way he tossed down the rope ladder and adjusted it so I could climb right up.

If pigs with mustaches and goatees were cute.

“Come on,” he instructed.

“No.”

The silence that followed my one-word reply was almost comical.

“What did you say?”

“I said I would rather sit down here and rot and die than climb up there and be any closer to you,” I spat.