The Politician's Pawn - Chapter 3 - Inspector Gadget Biased Me Against Cats

I know I said there wouldn't be any introductory blathering this week.

But then I found this cat picture.

You see, I was trying to find an appropriate and relevant shot for “The Politician's Pawn” Chapter 3. Which is a lot more difficult than you might think. I probably shouldn't be surprised at the disturbing images I've come up with in my various searches on the kidnapping theme. Yet somehow, I still am.

In an effort not to traumatize myself any further than I already did, I went through the third chapter in order to select some other topic to search for, which is when I came up with evil masterminds and their cats.

That's because the blindfolded Kayla momentarily pictures her newest adversary lounging in a chair, stroking a cat: a cliche I remembered after randomly thinking about Inspector Gadget, and his nemesis Doctor Claw. Anyone who watched the show way back when will remember how we never actually saw him other than his gloved hand... and his nasty little cat.

(Da da da da da Inspector Gadget. Da da da da da doo doo.)

Believe me... You should be really happy I went with that over some of the other options. Let's just say there are some really disturbed people out there.

More disturbed than me. Don't let Kayla tell you otherwise.

3 – Identity Issue 

I

t was the kind of confident voice that came from a solid familiarity and subsequent love affair with power. Though the timbre held more than a trace of frat boy in it, Kayla couldn’t imagine he was actually in college. He sounded at least a decade and a half too old for that. It was more like he had the mentality of a rich trust-fund kid with too many options and a deep-seated disdain for all of them. Or maybe he was a car salesman for a less-than respectable lot.

It wasn’t the most comforting of first impressions. His use of the wrong name, however, sent a rush of hope through her.

Kayla had forgotten about the mysterious Lucy up until he spoke. It was a significant detail, yes, but one that had completely flown her mind when she almost asphyxiated. Her lower jaw was still trembling from fear and the cold walk across the garage, and her teeth chattered several times while she worked up the nerve to respond.

She had no idea what the best way was to explain that they’d gotten the wrong woman. A lengthy list of words and corresponding combinations ran across her mind, but what came out was simply, “I’m not Lucy.”

He – whoever he was – emitted a laugh that didn’t suit a car salesman. It was too slimy for that. So until she could see him or until he gave her further details, she was going to go with former frat boy. Either that or politician.

“I suppose I have time to play for a few minutes,” he told her. “If you’re not Lucy, then please, enlighten me as to who you actually are. This could be rather amusing.”

The way he expressed such heartlessness so casually shocked her to the core. She would have blinked in sheer bewilderment if she had that capability behind the blindfold.

“Kayla Jeateski.” Her voice shook during the simple introduction. “My name is Kayla Jeateski. I’d show you my ID, but I wasn’t expecting to go out tonight, so I didn’t grab my purse.”

“Didn’t grab your purse.” He didn’t chuckle that time, but he still sounded far too entertained. “That’s adorable. And what do you do for a living, Ms. Jeateski?”

“I’m a nurse.”

“Convenient.”

She didn’t see how that made any sense whatsoever, but she didn’t contradict him. It seemed safer to adopt a passive role in this newest situation until she could understand exactly what it was.

“And what hospital do you work at?” He pressed.

That was personal information she didn’t really feel comfortable telling a madman. She hesitated.

“Oh come on now. I already know your name and where you live,” he inferred correctly. “And I imagine I could tell you where you work without you giving me so much as a hint. Johns Hopkins, right?”

Kayla flinched in unintentional acknowledgement.

She could sense the man grin. She didn’t have to see him to know that was true when his smile saturated the room like too much pretentious cologne.

“I know far more about you than that. Should I keep going?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “You work in the emergency room. Your father is U.S. Senator Lee Reckins. Your mother is Suzanne Haley-Reckins, and you have a younger brother going to the University of Delaware right now. How am I doing so far?”

Not very well, but she didn’t say so quite that bluntly.

“I work at Hopkins,” she acknowledged with great care, twitching her numb fingers as she spoke. “But on the oncology floor. Not in the ER. And neither of my parents work in government at all, much less in the Senate. Plus, I don’t have a younger brother. I’m an only child.”

“You’re not a very good liar.” Still smug. Still terrifying.

“I’m not lying.” Kayla tried very hard to keep her voice even.

He sighed in such a way that indicated he was also rolling his eyes. He seemed to have very expressive emotions, she thought. It wasn’t something she cared for. She felt like she would feel a lot less horribly uncomfortable if he would stop acting quite so jovial. Much better for him to address her like she was an inanimate object than to act like she was some silly house pet.

“Where did you go to school?” He asked.

“The University of Virginia.”

“What’s the closest city?”

“Charlottesville.”

A pause. Then she heard him tapping on something.

“The name of the football field?”

“Scott Stadium.”

It was a test. A way to prove she was lying. So she supposed he was looking up her answers on a phone or a laptop or something. Lucy Reckins must have gone to a different college.

“Name a prominent building on campus.”

“Newcomb Hall.”

It had been years since she’d visited her alma mater. So Kayla really hoped he didn’t ask too many detailed questions. If he did, she might not be able to convince him that she wasn’t the woman he wanted after all.

“Best place to eat off-campus.” He wasn’t sounding quite so certain anymore.

“Arches.”

It wasn’t a restaurant per se, she realized after she said it. More like an eatery, or maybe a café since it just served frozen yogurt. But it was still a restaurant-related place most female students visited at least once a month. Usually more. At least, it had been back when she’d gone to school there.

Hopefully it was still open for business.

“The star quarterback while you were there?”

She had to dig deep for that one, and even then she came up blank. “I don’t remember. I used to know it, but that was years ago.”

“You remembered the eatery.” He said it like it was some vile accusation.

Her brain raced. It started with an M, she thought she remembered.

What names start with M? Mark. Mitt. Matt.

Her chin jerked up as the lightbulb went on. “Matt! It was Matt something! Matt Schibb?”

“Matt Schaub.” He spoke with disappointment and a growing anger.

Hopefully not at her. Perhaps, she reconsidered, his jocularity wasn’t so bad after all.

“If I find out you’re lying, Ms. Jeateski.” There was no need for him to finish the sentence, and he knew it.

“I’m not,” she assured fervently. “I swear!”

“Gentlemen.” It was almost a purr. “What address did you pick this young lady up at?”

Picked up. As if they’d prearranged the meeting. As if it was a date. Something civil.

The term offended her immensely considering how very uncivil the experience had been so far.

Evans, ever the leader, recited her address verbatim with no hesitation. And he added “Just like you said” to the end, an obvious message that he wasn’t the one who had screwed up if there had been a mistake made.

“That’s your place, Kayla?” The other man turned the conversation right back to her with a suddenness that took her by surprise. “You live there?”

If she could just see him already, she contemplated bitterly. It felt like she was on trial. With a blindfold. That was the way Lady Justice was supposed to be, not the accused. And definitely not the victim.

“Yes, I live there.” She tried to sound calm even if she was anything but inside.

“For how long?”

“Six months.”

“You need to get back up to Baltimore. Now.”

For one fraction of a second, Kayla thought he was speaking to her. The hope wasn’t any less strong for its very short life, so it was downright heartbreaking when she realized that the command was directed at her kidnappers.

Kayla wondered whether it would be worthwhile to suggest that, while they were headed back up north, they could release her. Her lips parted to try.

Evans cleared his throat, the pointed sound cutting her off before she could begin. “Do you have the right address this time?”

By itself, the question was nothing less than logical. It didn’t have to be taken as disrespectful, especially when presented in such a simple tone. Even so, Kayla recognized it for the dig that it was.

The mastermind, lounging on a chair and stroking a cat somewhere in front of her, no doubt, didn’t answer right away. She wondered if he was glaring at Evans. Or maybe he was glaring at her.

She shrank into herself at just the thought, her basic instincts kicking in, telling her to provide the smallest target possible.

“Hello, Mr. Smith,” he spoke into the dead silence. “It’s Mr. Smith.”

Kayla hadn’t heard anyone else come into the room, so she presumed he was making a phone call. It also wasn’t difficult to imagine that he was using an alias, both for himself and whoever was on the other line. Still, she stored the name in her memory anyway. For all she knew, it could prove to be useful somehow, someway, sometime down the road.

“It appears we have a problem,” he went on. “That address you provided for the pickup turned out to be erroneous. I have a product standing in front of me right now that matches the general description but has a completely different label than the one I ordered.”

Kayla couldn’t say whether she found the coded message more nerve-wracking or loathsome. What she did know without a shadow of a doubt was that she didn’t care to be deemed a “product.”

A dangerously patient silence ensued. She could feel the tension in the room roiling off more than just her shoulders. It felt very much like the calm before some storm she happened to be right smack in the path of. And she’d bet a lot that whoever was on the other side of the phone conversation could feel it too.

She hoped the person in question paid dearly for his or her mistake.

“You told me two-twelve.”

That would be her apartment number he was talking about.

“No, I distinctly remember you saying it was two-twelve. I repeated it back, and you said yes, that was it. So don’t try to tell me I’m the one who screwed things up.”

Little more than a quick breath passed before he was speaking again, his tone growing more annoyed and demanding. “Stop. I don’t want excuses. I want the correct address. Now.”

The last word hung in the air for a minute. Then two. Then three. Kayla knew because she counted.

It was amazing how long it took to count to sixty under those conditions, much less three times that. And she was well on her way to seven minutes before she heard more than the blood rushing in her ears.

“Thank you so much, Mr. Smith.” The sarcasm was viciously applied. “I hope you can do your job a little better in the future. For both of our sakes.”

It didn’t seem like he gave his hapless helper time to answer. He certainly didn’t say anything more to him or her. There was no formal goodbye. Just a weighted silence.

Kayla waited in sheer misery for him to deliver the verdict. She knew her life depended on it.

“It’s apartment four-twelve,” he explained, his tone riddled with more impatience. “Not two-twelve. And it would seem that Lady Luck doesn’t completely hate us tonight, because the real Lucy Reckins is in fact home.” His frat-boy auditory aura was back, though minus the smug amusement he had started out with. “Go get her.”

“We didn’t do any recon on four-twelve,” Evans pointed out with a whole lot of logic and little else. “It might not be as simple as it was before.”

The man calling the shots didn’t seem to care about such matters though. “In that case, assess the situation and do something about it. We both know this isn’t your first merry-go-round, so improvise.”

“And her?”

She could feel Evans’ breath on her cheek when he turned his head her way.

“What do you want us to do with her?” He pressed.

“Kayla?” The mastermind asked, then paused while he considered her fate.

She trembled in agonized trepidation while waiting for her sentence.

“Take her downstairs,” he rendered. “We’ll decide what to do with her later.”

“You could let me go.” The words were out of her mouth before she quite recognized she was speaking. After that, they just kept coming, tumbling off her tongue in the same haphazard manner. “I won’t say anything to anyone. What can I say? I don’t know anything that can lead the police to you or your location. I have no idea who you are or where this place is or what’s going on.”

Nobody said a word. She couldn’t so much as hear any of them breathe.

“Please?” She tried again, growing more frustrated with her inability to see any of their expressions even if that might be her saving grace. Then again, she knew she would have pleaded regardless of whether or not they appeared inclined toward the only decent choice available. “I promise. I swear you won’t regret it if you just let me go. Just please. Please let me go.”

In Kayla’s opinion, she sounded utterly pitiable and shamelessly pitiful. Her desperation, her terror and her hope that the nightmare might still end in her favor all combined into a sound that should have swayed any normal human being.

It was a serious shame none were around.

The frat boy spoke again, but not to her. What he said was about her. The product.

“I said to take her downstairs.”

Perhaps that should have sent her into another fit of hysterics, screaming and struggling to get away on her own. Maybe the tears should have started to flow and she should have begun hyperventilating all over again. But she had already done all of that. She had done it, and it had been exhausting with no worthwhile results.

So she just couldn’t muster up the ability to try yet again.

The way her shoulders drooped and her chin fell in absolute defeat should have been sign enough that she wasn’t going to struggle. But apparently Evans wasn’t taking chances. When he took her arm again, it wasn’t just to guide her along. The pressure he exerted was far too purposeful for that.

It wasn’t a grip meant to hurt, only to let her know that he could hurt her if she gave him reason to.

“Come on,” he said.

And so she did, her heart breaking with every step.

Walking down the subsequent flight of stairs, Kayla wondered if she should just trip and get it over with. She’d never thought herself suicidal before. She loved life too much for that, even when it got unpleasant.

Cliché as it sounded and cliché as it felt sometimes, she genuinely believed that life was something to take seriously, from start to finish. Everything sordid and ridiculous and unexpected that happened in between – all the less-than-pleasant details – served as reminders of how much the better times should be appreciated. Or they could be used as tools to learn and grow. She couldn’t help believing that when she had to work with death so very often.

But descending into what could be the depths of hell for all she knew, Kayla couldn’t find too much to be hopeful about. In her utter despair, she had to wonder whether there would be any better times ahead for her. What if the dark inside the blindfold would be her last memory on earth? Or worse, what if it wasn’t? What if there were still hours and hours or days and days of horror ahead before they finally finished her off?

All of the possibilities she’d considered too many times already swarmed over her yet again. This time, they were so fierce that she lost her footing, and not on purpose. Only Evans’ grip kept her from tumbling further.

A sharp searing pang ran up her shoulder, and she cried out in pain and surprise. She’d never had a joint dislocated before, but for a split second, she thought she had wrenched the humeral head out of its place altogether.

Yet the red-hot agony faded, and she could feel both feet planted on the step again, giving her the chance to assess her condition. Her arm wasn’t drooping and the pain was receding to a severe ache: two signs that it was going to be fine. So too was the fact that she could take the next step downward without wanting to scream, faint or vomit.

Kayla rolled her shoulder as gently as possible so as not to alarm her captor. Just a little shrug to confirm it was still working the way it was supposed to. The resulting discomfort convinced her she’d done nothing worse than sprain a muscle or ligament.

“Stay there,” Evans told her.

She stayed, certain there had to be more steps ahead if they were going down to an actual basement and not some creepy cellar. It didn’t feel cold enough to be the latter; the temperature seemed relatively similar to wherever else she’d been in the house. Besides, the staircase was carpeted. Nobody bothered to add such plush lining to rooms or other areas intended for mere storage.

All the same, it was disturbing to think that maybe there was something worse than unexpected waiting in front of her.

Evans let go of her arm to take the next step. “Don’t fight. I won’t drop you.”

It was the only warning he gave before he bent down, put his shoulder to her waist, one hand around her legs and the other at the small of her back. In one fluid movement, her feet were touching nothing but air.

For a long list of reasons, Kayla shrieked. The high-pitched scream filled her ears and apparently reached the rest of the house. Footsteps hurried up above, and the ringleader’s tenor rang out in place of her squeal when she went to take a breath.

“What the hell are you doing to her?” He sounded much more irritated at being bothered than concerned for anyone’s well-being.

“She tripped,” Evans explained. “I thought it’d be safer to carry her down.”

“Brilliant idea. Did you have to make it sound like you were electrocuting her in the process?”

“Sorry.” His tone said otherwise.

“And you, Kayla. Try to refrain from making such grating noises in the future. Or else you may find you have something to really yell about. Understand?”

“Yes,” she whispered into her captor’s back.

Chances were that he couldn’t hear her, though that didn’t seem to matter to him just as long as she wasn’t offending his ear drums anymore. She could hear him walking away before Evans started forward again.

Kayla cringed the whole way down until she felt the finality of the last stair. Even then, she couldn’t relax any of her muscles.

He put her down right away, for which she was very grateful, and circled one hand around her bicep again.

“Come on.”

His commands were getting almost as monotonous as her compliance, she realized in weary acceptance. And she thought it again when he told her to raise her wrists. Her arms broke out into a million tiny pin pricks at the movement, but she held them there until the duct tape came completely off.

As soon as they were free, she began rubbing at them. It was amazing the movements she was learning not to take for granted.

“You can take the blindfold off as soon as you hear the door click behind you. Not a second before that,” Evans informed her.

Kayla continued moving her arms, trying to get full feeling back into them. “I won’t.”

He started walking away, and she listened hard for him to leave her alone altogether.

Waiting for her cue, it was nerve-wracking to think she might jump the gun, mistaking some other noise for a door shutting. The possibility crossed her mind that she’d be punished for looking around regardless: that she was being tested once again. So in the short space of time it took for the latch to tick into place, Kayla wasn’t sure if she would remove the blindfold right away.

She told herself that she’d count to sixty just to be on the safe side.

But the instant she heard the telling click, something snapped inside her. Reaching up to her face, she didn’t bother to untie the cloth. Instead, she used her fingers as claws to tear it up and over her head.

She threw the piece of fabric onto the floor like it was a poisonous snake. It was just a simple symbol of her captivity, she knew; nothing substantial. Yet she wanted it as far away from her as possible, going so far as to kick it across the room for good measure.

Trembling from head to toe from the non-incident, Kayla backed away from the discarded bandanna until her body hit the opposite wall. She let gravity take over from there, sliding down slowly like she was in a daze, though without the benefit of emotional detachment. Once she was sitting, she brought her knees up to her chest and held herself tightly.

With a deep, shuddering sigh, she finally let herself take real notice of her surroundings, which weren’t anything like she had anticipated. Knowing there was carpet under her feet, she hadn’t exactly expected to find herself in a dungeon. Maybe just a fancy closet. Or an empty room. The best she’d been hoping for was a cot, so what she saw instead was unexpected, to say the least.

It was a sizable bedroom, perhaps fifteen feet across and fifteen feet wide, with a ceiling that stretched well above her height of five-feet, five inches. All in all, the place was a lavish little prison, and not because of its size alone.

Two yards to her left was a large bed with four uncovered pillows, along with a brand-new sheet and comforter set lying on top of it. She knew the linens were brand new because they were still pressed to perfection inside individual zipped-up plastic sheaths.

From her position on the floor, Kayla could tell the comforter was a plain purple. A purple comforter and a brown four-post bed. Blue carpeting beneath her, a well-stocked wooden bookshelf on the other side of the room, and a neat stack of magazines placed on the floor next to it.

No TV, but there was a bathroom. Not a pot in a corner like people read about in so many kidnapping stories, whether fictional or otherwise. Not even a toilet crudely installed in a corner. A real bathroom. The door was open, so she could make out the tiniest tip of a mirror on the wall and the top portion of a shower. As for the rest of it, Kayla didn’t get up to investigate. She didn’t want to move other than to rub her hands back and forth along her arms, from her elbows to her shoulders, over and over again.

Just like she was a crazy person.

Kayla didn’t feel crazy per se. She still felt entirely like herself, actually. Even her immediate reaction to assess the damage done on her shoulder before had indicated that she was, in fact, still in her right mind. The pain of having her arm wrenched like that hadn’t been normal. It wasn’t something she dealt with as a general rule. But the way her brain began analyzing the problem without hesitation, running through textbook pictures and descriptions and solutions?

Well, that all showed she was still mentally intact. Which was nice to know to some degree. Problem was, she was in her right mind but in a situation so unfamiliar that no textbook in the world could save her.

No. Not unfamiliar. Insane. It’s downright insane.

And how in the world did a sensible person handle circumstances that didn’t make the least bit of sense?

If she was any indication, they did so by sitting on the floor and patting themselves.

Another ten deep breaths later, she wasn’t quite ready to get up and explore her surroundings, but she was willing to take a second look around the room. It was a little step that felt very nearly too big to handle.

The bed, the bookshelf, the door into the bathroom. Or maybe there wasn’t a door? Just a doorway?

She craned to see better, which turned out to be a useless move. All she got for her efforts was a crick in her neck that she had to massage out with her fingers. It forced her to acknowledge that, if she was going to answer her question, she was going to have to actually walk over and check it out.

And she would. Soon enough. But for the moment, she just let her gaze travel up the white walls to the white ceiling. Where there happened to be cameras. Three of them in all.

The sight inspired an uncomfortable flashback to a gory massacre movie she’d seen years ago. The horror genre wasn’t her normal go-to when it came to either viewing or reading pleasures, but she had still watched one or two such flicks over the years. Usually that happened when she was too curious for her own good, or because she let friends talk her into seeing stuff she had no desire to see.

They’d been stupid decisions at the time, as they had led to more than one nightmare since. But they seemed doubly stupid now that she might be in a comparable situation.

How, she wondered, could anyone find this kind of situation entertaining? How could she have treated it like that to any degree?

The thought of watching some poor, albeit fictional, character suffer under the onslaught of psychological and physical horrors for the space of two hours now seemed like downright cretinism. Pointless savagery. Like the Romans and their gladiator games.

For the umpteenth time that night, she shuddered. Past decisions and previous assumptions and the kind of arrogant naivety she’d enjoyed so much all leaned in close to slap her soundly. She felt sick about it all, as if by doing what she had done and thinking the way she had thought, it somehow justified what she now had to face.

She knew the feelings weren’t logical or helpful. It was just that understanding where to place the blame didn’t do her a single ounce of good. She still felt nauseated, disgusted with herself and frightened of what repercussions were still lying in wait for her.

Kayla wanted to bury her face into her arms, but she refrained. Knowing that someone could be watching proved to be a blatant deterrent to showing that kind of weakness. Nonetheless, her imagination went wild envisioning a shadowy figure sitting in a small, well-equipped booth of a room. Surrounded by electronics and monitors, he was watching her every move. Just calmly, quietly counting down the seconds until…

Until what exactly, she had no clue. But she didn’t want to stick around to find out.

It was the motivation she needed to force herself into action, giving her the will to slide her legs around, press her hands against the soft carpet beneath her, and leverage her body until she was standing up. The simple series of movements made her head whirl something fierce, and she had to close her eyes for several seconds to lessen the effect. Hand against the wall to steady herself, Kayla waited for the dizziness to subside before she contemplated doing anything else.

The cameras were fitted too snugly into the corners of the room for her to reach them, and there wasn’t one over the bed.

Perhaps she could move the bed around to use as a stepstool, though she had no idea what that might accomplish. Even if she did manage to disable or destroy the cameras, then what? It would doubtlessly annoy and maybe infuriate her captors, prompting them to retaliate in some way she would appreciate less than her current predicament.

She supposed the best move would be to acclimate to the notion of being watched for the entirety of her stay there.

The notion grated on her nerves.

Kayla moved into the center of the room, turning in very slow motion to view everything she could, which wasn’t much. There were no cracks or vents in the walls that could indicate potential escape routes. Nor were there any pointed objects she could use as a weapon. Unless there was some miracle item in the bathroom, she’d been left with nothing but the items she had already observed.

It was foolish. She knew it was foolish. But she still tried the unremarkable wooden door she must have come through in the first place.

First, she turned the knob back and forth. When it barely budged in either direction, her panic levels rose enough to overshadow the sensible voice in her head saying “I told you so.” In a fit of desperation, she disregarded the cameras and tried pulling at the door, shaking it as hard as she could.

Her results fell far, far short. Whatever locks they were using to bar her inside were good. She should recommend them to the managers of her apartment complex.

If she ever got back, that was.

In order to pull herself together – to keep from fighting the door yet again – she pictured the rectangle shape of her apartment building. There was the thick glass of the front door set in the center, with three windows branching out around it on either side: her bathroom and two bedroom windows on the left, her neighbor’s set on the right. Another matching row for the second floor.

All but ignoring the staircase directly on her left, she imagined her way inside, down the short hallway and past the four makeshift mailboxes. There was nothing remarkable about the layout. It was overall boring, designed for functionality and budget, not luxury. Yet she would give up a lot to see all those details again.

There was no reason to believe anyone had reported her abduction to the cops. But she still found herself envisioning her entranceway slashed with yellow tape.

CRIME SCENE – DO NOT CROSS.

The big black letters would stand out especially in her safe little complex in what was supposed to be such a safe little neighborhood. Like out of some weekly TV drama.

Which brought her mind right back to Hollywood.

Kayla returned her attention to the two cameras at the front of the room. Since they offered her nothing back beyond empty-eyed stares, she headed for the bathroom next. Which most definitely didn’t have a door.

She didn’t like that at all.

Whoever had prepared the room for Lucy Reckins had been considerate enough to leave a stack of black towels and matching washcloths lying on top of the closed toilet seat. Along the rim of the bathtub, there was a bottle of shampoo, another of conditioner and a third of body wash, all of decent quality if their labels were any indication. And on the sink, they hadn’t neglected to provide a toothbrush and toothpaste.

Apparently, her abductors wanted Lucy to remain comfortable during her stay. At the same time, they weren’t willing to take any chances. Hence the door-less frame.

Other than that fact, the bathroom looked just like a million other bathrooms, fit for maybe two users at a time. A bathtub stretched across one wall, and the sink was set over a small wooden cabinet. The latter didn’t contain anything more than a pack of pads, a tissue box and a few extra rolls of toilet paper. Both were useful items, but not for her immediate purpose, which was to get out of there quickly and safely without any further contact with the kidnappers.

She turned her head to look out the bathroom into the bedroom, eyeing the one camera distrustfully. As if she could make an escape anyway with someone watching her every second.

Thinking about it, a glimmer of hope winked into existence inside her troubled head. What if nobody was monitoring the cameras? It had to get pretty boring watching someone pace around in a confined space for hours on end. What person in their right mind would volunteer for that pointless position? And if nobody would willingly take up such a lousy responsibility, who was to say the cameras were hooked up at all? For all she knew, they were mere decoys.

The glimmer grew to a glow as her brain hashed out the possibilities and probabilities. It only took a few more seconds before she finished her exploration of the bathroom. But by the time she stepped out, the hope had developed into a definite flame.

That flash of optimism was permanently doused as soon as she noticed the winking red lights on the devices, indicating that the cameras were both on and running. How she had missed them before was beyond her.

How she had convinced herself the contraptions weren’t real threats was equally unfathomable.

Kayla tried to comfort herself with the knowledge that, even if they hadn’t been on, her escape options were severely limited anyway, if not entirely non-existent. There were no windows and no tiled ceiling she could pretend she might move aside in order to climb up and crawl through. So there was little sense in being disappointed when there hadn’t been much of anything to get excited about to begin with.

She sighed in disappointment and frustration and so many other negative factors anyway.

Completely mistrusting the bed, afraid of what it might foreshadow, Kayla again opted for the floor. Sitting down cross-legged, she stared at the door.

A large part of her wanted to get up and jiggle the handle again, twisting and pulling it until it finally gave way and let her out. But she knew it wouldn’t work. Her captors were too careful for that. So her efforts would only leave her that much more aware of how she wasn’t leaving the room until someone gave her permission to do so.

Dependent. She was utterly dependent, something she had tried so very hard not to be for so very long. Partially that was because she liked the personal pride associated with taking care of herself. But there was a lot more to it than that, and she knew it.

It stemmed from her mother’s constant reliance on others. Particularly men.

Ever since her father had walked out on them when she was twelve years old, Kayla’s mother had held a long string of relationships. Without exception, they were always with wealthy and accomplished men who appreciated her striking good looks and little else.

Some of them hadn’t lasted very long. Others had stuck it out for years. Her current husband – husband number three with his mansion in Bel Air, Maryland, and his summer home just outside of Delray, Florida – was supposedly a keeper. Kayla couldn’t be nearly so sure of that when she knew he had affairs behind her mother’s back all the time.

She’d seen the way he looked at the various women who made their way onto the property, from dinner guests to the maid who came by once a week. He usually managed to make his wandering eye come across as charming and even a bit sheepish. It was all part of his act.

Her mother should know better. And she doubtlessly did. But she weighed fidelity against the expenses of her gym memberships and Botox treatments and beauty packages that kept her looking young and desirable.

It was such a ridiculous paradox considering how she valued those things because she was afraid of another man discarding her.

Kayla didn’t want to be so subordinate. Ever. She couldn’t count the number of times she had vowed to take care of herself. Now it seemed as if she had little choice but to play exclusively by someone else’s rule book.

What would her mother do in such a situation?

She hated to contemplate the possibilities.

Yet despite her aversion to her mom’s life choices, Kayla couldn’t come up with anyone else she wanted to see more right then. She’d been off on her own for so long, pointedly and repeatedly refusing financial help ever since she graduated from college. And her independent streak reached far further back in other matters. But none of that mattered right then when all she wanted was a mother’s arm around her waist and the same shoulder to lean on.

The very idea was ridiculous when her mother had never been that kind of a person to begin with. Cory or Rachel would be much better at doling out maternal comfort. There was no contest there.

Kayla closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the wall.

She wasn’t allowed to stay that way for long though. In the silent room, it was nearly impossible not to hear the click of the lock turning and the broken suction of the door pushing open. Yet that didn’t mean she had time to stand up before someone was stepping into the room.

Someone who most definitely was not her mother.