Binding Choice: A Romantic Thriller Read online

  Tears streamed down my cheeks. I prayed that Drew would hide my body well.

  <<>>

  Drew

  I made the call at two in the morning, from out in the parking area where I could get at least one bar on my phone. She couldn’t hear me from here, a nice little serendipity that almost made it worth freezing my balls off.

  I have one more little surprise for you, my sweet Erica.

  “Wha’?” his sleepy voice finally answered.

  “I need your help with her.”

  “Hunh? Now?”

  “Be here by three.” I hung up and smiled at the phone.

  Then I went back inside to have one last go at her, hanging so helplessly in front of the fireplace.

  <<>>

  Erica

  By the time Drew lowered me from the hooks, my arms had long since gone to sleep. They tingled and then hurt like hell as the blood began to circulate again. My legs were weak from trying to hold myself up and away from the fire.

  I could offer no resistance as he half carried me to the center of the white sheet. He laid me down amidst the scattered rose petals, pulled my arms above my head and secured the wrist cuffs to the legs of the heavy wooden table.

  He kicked my legs apart into a spread-eagled position, but made no effort to bind them to anything.

  I was trying to decide if I had the strength to fight him, maybe kick him in the balls. Or wrap my legs around his neck and squeeze.

  These were more fantasies than real plans. My legs lay limply on the sheet, still weak from the hour or so they’d struggled to keep me from becoming a crispy critter.

  The low rumble of a car outside.

  My heart skipped a beat, imagining rescue, but somehow I knew better.

  Drew went to the door and threw it open.

  The cool night air blew across the floor. Thunder rumbled in the distance.

  I shuddered.

  I was having trouble breathing. A vise had closed around my chest. I prayed that I was having a heart attack.

  Monroe blew into the cabin on another blast of chill air. “Storm’s coming.” Then he grinned and slapped Drew on the shoulder. “What, you can’t handle one pint-sized female without me?”

  Drew returned his grin. “No, misery loves company.”

  Monroe’s eyebrows went up. “Misery?”

  “Yeah, we need to say goodbye to sweet Erica.” Drew returned the slap on the shoulder. “Figured you wouldn’t mind losing some sleep to say a proper farewell to her.”

  I tried to shut down my mind, force it to drift to the ceiling. It didn’t work. My brain was clinging to every last minute I had to live.

  I stared at Monroe as he yanked off his belt, grinning from ear to ear. He dropped his pants, ripped off his shirt, shed his undershirt and jockeys.

  Completely naked, he dropped to his knees between my legs.

  Again, I tried to drift away. Again, my mind wouldn’t cooperate.

  His weight landed on top of me, knocking the air out of my lungs. He pushed up on his arms and grinned down at me. “Prepare for the ride of your life, baby.”

  The world exploded in red. A scarlet halo surrounded his shocked face.

  Then the red blanketed me, thick and hot.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Jules

  Amanda and I had raced out to my car. I tossed her the piece of paper with the address as I started the engine. She plugged it into the GPS on her phone.

  Fingers gripping the steering wheel, I’d roared through the deserted streets of Columbia. Hold on, Ricki, hold on, ran through my head again and again. My teeth were clamped tight. Blood throbbed in my ears.

  “Should we call the police?” Amanda raised her voice to be heard over the wind whipping by the speeding car.

  “Not yet.” I wasn’t sure if they’d take us seriously, and if they approached the cabin with sirens blaring, what would Drew do to Ricki?

  Now we were on the labyrinth of country roads that the GPS said would lead us to her.

  A faint rim of light had appeared on the horizon, reflecting off of heavy clouds. Thunder rumbled in the distance.

  I careened around a corner onto yet another winding, narrow road.

  <<>>

  Erica

  A heavy weight lifted off of me.

  My God, I’d fainted.

  It was little wonder. I fixated on the sightless eyes of the corpse sprawled next to me.

  “Move over.” Drew’s tone was irritable.

  I complied, shuffling my butt and legs out of the way.

  With hands encased in blue latex gloves, Drew pulled the side of a tarp up and over Monroe’s face.

  I felt unbelievably relieved that those dead eyes were no longer staring at me.

  Drew struggled to pull Monroe’s clothes back onto his limp body. “You fucker,” he mumbled, “you had to get completely undressed.”

  He rolled the corpse inside the tarp and hefted the bundle onto his shoulder. He staggered over to the door, awkwardly shifted his burden, and one-handedly yanked on the doorknob. He left the door hanging partway open.

  The cool blast of damp air sharpened my senses. The coppery smell of blood flooded my nose. I gagged, struggled not to vomit.

  I was covered in the red slime.

  Drew returned and picked up a bloody baseball bat. His gloves were now streaked with red. He wrapped the bat in another tarp, and calmly walked back out the door.

  I pushed off with my feet and crab-walked backward to lessen the tension on the chains attached to my wrists. I managed to wrap my hands around the chains and pulled myself closer to the table, hoping to somehow lift it and pull the cuffs off the bottoms of the legs.

  The scraping of shoes on the steps. I quickly spread my legs again and dropped the chains from my hands.

  Drew came inside. He didn’t seem to notice my shifted position.

  Had he pre-dug a grave earlier? How else could he have buried Monroe so quickly?

  In a few minutes, he’d gathered up all but the tarp and sheet I was lying on. I watched him carrying the bloody remnants of his crime outside. I tugged on the chains above my wrists again, then managed to wrap one hand around a table leg. I pushed upward but the table didn’t budge.

  Before I could twist around to try a different position, Drew was back. He went into the bedroom. A few seconds later, he was standing over me.

  He unlocked the cuffs from the table legs. “Stand up!”

  With great difficulty, I staggered to my feet.

  He handed me a bra and panties. “Put these on.”

  For a second, I considered defying him, although I couldn’t conceive of how that would help me. Could I wrap one of the chains around his neck somehow?

  He reached into his pocket. The pistol he’d flashed in the restaurant parking lot appeared in his hand.

  The threat of quick death no longer had much impact. It would be a godsend really. But a saner part of my brain prevailed, advising me to bide my time.

  I pulled on the panties. The bra snagged on the chains as I tried to struggle into it.

  Impatiently, he removed the wrist cuffs and pulled the chains loose from the bra.

  I untangled it and got it on.

  He held out the white dress.

  I hesitated. “I’m covered in blood.”

  The smile he gave me was cold. “Won’t matter, where you’re going. Put it on.”

  The dress slid over my head and down my body, picking up red stains as it went. Again, it felt like a coat of armor. Bloodied armor.

  I stood up straighter. I wasn’t going to let Drew defeat me.

  <<>>

  Amanda

  Jules raced along country roads at breakneck speed.

  I clutched the armrest with one hand and prayed. The other hand held my phone, the map on its lighted screen directing us closer and closer to Erica.

  I prayed harder—that we’d find her, that she would still be alive, that she wouldn’t be psychologically damaged
beyond repair.

  A sob rose in my throat. I choked it down.

  The map on the screen showed that we were nearing our destination.

  <<>>

  Erica

  As I’d suspected, my little Mazda had been parked in the woods. Drew shoved me into its passenger seat, secured one ankle with a soft leather cuff to the adjustment bar under the seat and went around to the driver’s side. He tore down the gravel drive, headlights casting macabre shadows against the woods, the green branches looking like startled giants caught in the act of heinous crimes.

  The shadows shifted under one of the trees as we passed it. I turned in my seat, as best I could with my ankle chained to that damn bar, and stared back into the darkness.

  Something seemed to be moving back there. Something big and bulky.

  We went around a curve and the thing disappeared from view.

  The headlights from another vehicle approached from a distance as Drew turned onto the main road.

  Then the lights were gone. Had I imagined them?

  Drew traveled down the country road at what was for him a sedate pace—almost the speed limit.

  I suppressed a bubble of hysterical laughter. He certainly didn’t want to get stopped for speeding with a woman covered in blood in the passenger’s seat.

  <<>>

  Jules

  Taillights of a car disappeared around a curve ahead as we reached the turnoff indicated on the GPS map. Lightning flashed in the distance. The threatening storm had moved off to the west.

  I slowed, had trouble finding the entrance, a mere gap between two tall trees. We bounced along a narrow lane, my headlights showing us dense woods.

  Suddenly they were reflected back from the chrome fender and back window of a dark car fifty feet ahead.

  I hit the brakes and killed the lights.

  “What are you doing?” Amanda asked.

  “I think that’s Drew’s car.”

  A sharp intake of air. “What now?”

  “We walk from here, and hope he’s asleep.”

  I hadn’t really thought through how I was going to overpower Drew once we’d found them. Now I wished I’d brought some kind of weapon.

  We got out of the car as quietly as possible, easing the doors shut.

  Amanda pulled a small penlight out of her purse. “Even less light than a cell phone,” she whispered, pointing it at the ground just in front of our feet.

  Stepping carefully we made our way toward the cabin, then jumped out of our skins when floodlights suddenly turned the clearing into daylight.

  “Motion detectors,” she muttered.

  When there was no reaction from within the cabin, we crept forward again. I put out a hand, signaling for Amanda to stay back.

  Circling to the side of the porch, I climbed over the railing, ducked under the window and eased up to the door. I tried the knob. It was locked, of course.

  I was debating the wisdom of peeking into the window, while being backlit by the floodlights, when they blinked off. Amanda had stopped moving and I was out of their range under the slight overhang of the eaves.

  I eased my head around the side of the window and looked into the cabin.

  Flames flickered in a fireplace. As my eyes adjusted, I saw a table and chairs near the fieldstone hearth. No one was in the room.

  An open doorway was a black rectangle. The bedroom, I assumed.

  I crept along under the eaves and ducked around the side of the building. Weeds choked the way but I pushed through them. Finding the bedroom window, I peered in.

  A bare mattress on the bed stood out, stark white in the dark room.

  Unless Drew was sleeping on the floor or in the bathtub, he wasn’t here.

  I walked around to the front of the house. The floodlights flared on again.

  I pulled off my jacket, wrapped it around my fist and punched the window.

  Nothing happened. It crossed my mind that it was a good thing I had a decent job. I was a lousy B and E man.

  Amanda appeared at my side, a rock the size of a softball in her hand. She hauled off and pitched it through the window.

  I gave her a small smile, punched the remaining shards of glass loose with my cloth-covered fist, then laid my jacket over the glass-strewn windowsill. I crawled through, Amanda right behind me.

  She moved quickly to the door, found a switch and light flooded the room. It was rustic and far cleaner than it ought to be.

  We both raced for the bedroom.

  I patted the wall, flipped that light switch. The room was empty.

  As was the bathroom and the closet. But in the latter there were four holes in the wall, about a half inch in diameter each, two at my shoulder height several feet apart and two a couple of inches from the floor.

  My stomach heaved.

  “He’s cleaned up after himself,” Amanda whispered.

  I met her gaze. We both ran for the car.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Erica

  We passed the dark hulk of the Italian restaurant on the outskirts of the town where Monroe’s law offices were located. The streets were deserted.

  At the horizon, a pinkish arc of light announced the coming day. I prayed I’d still be alive to see the sun set this evening.

  Drew suddenly made a sharp right. He went down a block, glanced in his rearview mirror and turned right again.

  “What are you doing?” I asked without thinking.

  “Shut up.” His gaze was glued to the rearview mirror. After three blocks, he took another right, and we were back at the Italian restaurant.

  He pulled out onto the main street again and drove through town at a crawl, slowing at each intersection to stare in both directions.

  Hope bubbled in my chest. Had he spotted someone following us?

  Or was he just being paranoid?

  <<>>

  Amanda

  The car’s wheels had spewed dirt and gravel noisily into the forest as we raced back along the dark lane to the paved road. Once there, Jules turned left without hesitation.

  Heart in my throat, I asked, “Where are we going?”

  “Phil Monroe lives and works in a town a few miles from here. Drew might have taken her to his place.” His body tensed as he shoved the accelerator to the floor.

  Once again, I grabbed the arm rest and prayed.

  After flying over hilltops and whipping around death-defying curves, the town’s main drag was surprisingly straight and flat. The buildings looked like huddled beasts, crouching ominously.

  Two red pinpricks blinked on and off at the other end of town. A second later, my mind processed what they were. Brake lights. On a car that did not have its lights on.

  Jules doused his own lights and punched the accelerator. We rocketed through the town in the dim predawn light.

  <<>>

  Erica

  The road wound upward through foothills, the headlights briefly illuminating trees and the occasional dark house. We started up the side of a small mountain, crested the top and headed into a pitch-black valley.

  A third of the way down the mountainside, Drew swung the car around a curve, and then into an overlook area a hundred or so feet beyond. The mountain was between us and the rising sun. It was still dark as night here.

  Without a word, he turned off the ignition. Leaving the lights on, he got out of the car. I heard the trunk pop open.

  My mind scrambled for a plan. I had to get away from him in the next few minutes or I would be dead.

  But my ankle was tethered to the bar under the seat, and even if I could get loose, the high heels on my feet would make running difficult. Barefoot on the rough ground wouldn’t be much better, but I would kick off the shoes and run like hell if I got any opening at all.

  The driver’s door opened and I screamed. I was face to face with a corpse.

  Drew shoved Monroe’s body in next to me. I cringed back against the door and turned my head away. But I could still feel those shock-filled, d
ead eyes staring at me.

  Outside the car, Drew laughed. The sound bounced off the mountainside in a macabre echo.

  Then he was at my door, opening it. With the gun in his right hand, he leaned down and fumbled awkwardly with the key to the cuffs restraining my ankle.

  Feigning submission, I kept my head down, my hair hanging on either side, a curtain hiding my face, as my left hand blindly unbuckled my seatbelt.

  Time slowed as he removed the leather cuff from around my ankle. I assumed he was going to let me out of the car.

  But then he muttered, “Can’t have any signs that you were anything but his willing date.” He jammed the cuff and the attached chain into his coat pocket. It didn’t fit very well, but he got enough in to keep it from falling to the ground.

  Then he leaned into the car, reached for the gearshift on the console between the seats.

  It was now or never. I lunged upward, cramming a fist into his face.

  Stunned, he let me push him out of the car. He staggered back a couple of steps and I jumped out.

  But he recovered too quickly. He grabbed my forearms and shoved me hard against the side of the car. One hand went up in the air to backhand me. I ducked and twisted. Then felt a shift, a subtle sense of movement against my back.

  With a jolt, I realized the car was moving, slowly creeping down the slight slope toward the drop off maybe twenty-five feet away. He’d managed to knock the gearshift into neutral before I’d socked him.

  I couldn’t let Drew pin me against the car or I might go over with it. I dropped to my knees, my weight pulling my arms loose from his grip.

  He raised the gun. “Get up damn it, and get in the–” His eyes went wide as the car picked up speed. “No!” He lunged for the door handle. But the back fender slid inevitably past us.

  I started to roll away from him. He grabbed for me. I threw a hand up to fend him off and connected with cold metal. My fingers wrapped around the chain dangling from his pocket. I yanked it out, then hauled back and hit him with all I had.

  The red leather cuff, not particularly hard, hit his face, but the end of the chain must have connected somewhere as well. He froze, half leaning over, his face blank, stunned.

  I scrambled backward like a crab.

  Belatedly I wondered how I could see his face so clearly. Then realized light had flooded the scene. Headlights, stark, throwing long shadows.