Elizabeth Bevarly - Express Male

“Now what?” she asked.

“Buckle your seat belt,” he told her. “We wouldn’t want anything to happen to you, would we?”

She managed to refrain from rolling her eyes but did as he said, reassuring herself that she wasn’t following his instructions this time because she would have buckled up anyway. Nyah, nyah, nyah. Only then did he relinquish her keys. He lowered the gun so it couldn’t be seen by other drivers, but pressed it against her thigh. She guessed that that was because, if she tried anything, he could shoot her in the leg, disabling her without killing her. That would prevent her from crashing the car, and make it possible for him to escape with his own life—if not hers.

As she went to insert the key into the ignition, she realized her purse, a whimsical little Mary Frances number decorated with buttons and ribbons and lace in varying shades of blue—she’d spent way too much on it, even with her store discount, but she hadn’t been able to resist—was still swinging from her elbow. She turned and straightened her arm to let it slide down over her wrist, only to have her wrist seized by her companion, who gripped it with firm fingers.

“Problem, Lila?” he asked as he jerked her hand back up between both their bodies.

“I just wanted to put my purse in the backseat,” she said.

He smiled grimly. “I’ll do it for you.”

“Thank you,” she bit out.

“But not before seeing what you have inside.”

Of course.

Still pressing the gun against her thigh, he released her wrist, and Marnie held her arm still as he guided the purse carefully over her hand. She winced as she watched him manhandle it, turning it over and over in his big brawny fist, having not a care for any of the intricate detailing. Watching him treat the ultrafeminine accessory so carelessly hammered home how little trouble he would have mistreating her, too.

“How the hell do you open this thing?” he demanded.

“That beaded flower on the side facing away from you has a snap beneath it,” she told him.

He found the part she was talking about and unfastened it, but his big hand barely fit inside the little purse, so he turned it upside down and emptied the contents into his lap. One by one, he inspected each item before replacing it, starting with the tube of lipstick, then the tin of mints, then her hanky and so on. He was methodical and dispassionate in his task, even handled her emergency tampon with complete indifference. He saved her leather card case for last, flipping it open to extract one-handed her Visa card, her AAA card, her health insurance card and her driver’s license, studying each in turn.

“These are excellent forgeries,” he told her. “If I didn’t know better, I’d swear they were the real thing.” He glanced up to look at her. “But we weren’t the ones who made them. Who did?”

Marnie inhaled a deep breath and released it slowly. “Well, that first came from the bank when I opened my Visa account. The second came from triple-A. That third was from my insurer and the fourth is from the Ohio DMV.”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “Very funny.”

“Wasn’t meant to be,” she said. “They’re not forgeries.”

Without returning the cards to the case, he dropped all of them into her purse and snapped it shut. “Start the car,” he said as he tossed it into the back without bothering to see where it landed.

Damn men, anyway, Marnie thought as she watched him do it. They had no clue as to the importance of the ideal accessory.

“Which way am I supposed to go?” she asked when the little car purred to life.

“Use the mall’s north exit,” he told her.

His directions after that were clipped, concise and to the point. After ten minutes of driving, they were out of the Cleveland suburbs. Another fifteen, and they were crossing the county line, headed west on Interstate 90 toward any number of small towns that doubled as weekend retreats on Lake Erie. Obviously “not far” was a relative term to him, because it was nearly another hour before they finally reached their destination. During that time, he spoke scarcely a word to her—not that Marnie was all that fired up to get to know him better—and she kept her own thoughts to herself. But when he finally instructed her to pull the car to a halt, throw it into Park and cut the engine, she saw that they had arrived at—

Oh. An isolated cabin in the woods. Why had she not seen this coming from a mile away?

“Get out,” he told her. Then he repeated what seemed to be his mantra. “And keep your hands where I can see them.”

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Marnie waited for the fear to roar up again, but she felt only resolve now. Exiting the car, she inhaled the pungent aroma of fresh evergreen, and through a break in the trees, she could just make out the glitter of moonlight on water. But not Lake Erie. They’d left the interstate for a county road some miles back and headed east, away from the lake. This must be a small tributary that fed into it. Had she been arriving here for a weekend getaway, she would have been charmed by her surroundings. In the moonlit darkness, she saw that the cottage was of the faux-rustic variety—perfect for a guy like faux Randy—built to look like a log cabin but obviously fairly new. It was enchanting, really.

How comforting to realize she’d enjoy such a cozy atmosphere during the last hours of her life.

Marnie still didn’t know what to do. She could try to run, but she didn’t relish the idea of being in the woods alone at night. Who knew how far it was to another cabin, or if there even was another cabin nearby? Besides, her captor would probably tackle her—or shoot her—before she even made it to the tree line. She didn’t want to go inside the house, since that would make escape even more difficult if not downright impossible, but there might be something inside she could use for a weapon….

The matter was taken out of her hands when faux Randy circled the front of the car and wrapped the fingers of his free hand around her upper arm. “Walk,” he said, jabbing the barrel of his gun into her ribs.

Well, okay. If he insisted.

He had the manuscript tucked beneath his arm as he guided her forward. Marnie made it up the three stairs of the front porch without tripping, but her entire body was racked with trembling by the time they reached the front door. Something cold and slimy had settled in the pit of her stomach, and she wanted to throw up. Faux Randy released her arm long enough to fish a new set of keys out of his trouser pocket, but his grip on the gun never wavered as he unlocked the front door and pushed it open. He dragged her over the threshold behind him and shut the door again, turning a single dead bolt with an ominous thump before flipping a wall switch to turn on the lights.

In stark contrast to the ugliness of her situation, the cabin itself was quite pleasant. Amber light radiated from a single lamp in the corner, warming pine-paneled walls that housed pencil sketches of the wilderness. The furniture was big and boxy, looking hand hewn of more pine, and upholstered with blankets of Native American design. The floor was dotted with wool rugs of a similar pattern, the hardwood beneath them gleaming. A large creek stone fireplace took up most of one wall, shelves crammed full of books taking up the rest of it. Opposite her was a row of windows that looked out onto darkness, but which doubtless offered a magnificent view of the woods or water during the day. The whole place was tidy and spotless, as if it had just recently been cleaned. Had she not been here as a prisoner, Marnie would have found it charming.

“That way,” her captor said, tilting his head toward a doorway that led to a darkened room.

She swallowed with some difficulty, but walked carefully in that direction. Her captor, naturally, followed close behind.