Chapter 5

Week three

Saturday morning, real early before dawn, I sneaked a whole pile of food, bottled water and a couple more books into her room while she was still fast asleep. With no sense of time other than the radio, I guessed her natural rhythms were screwed up. I’d seen the same in Iraq; when the bright electric lights were on day and night, and there were no windows to the outside, it was very easy to lose track of time. Heck, it was gonna be September in a couple of days; I’d have bet money that without the radio she’d have had no idea how many days she’d been here.

Then I grabbed my bag, locked up carefully, set a few markers, and drove off to the city and the Armory. It was good to see the guys again, but I kept quiet and let them do all the talking. They were mostly so engrossed in telling the rest of us what they’d been doing that no-one actually asked me how Aggie and Kasey were keeping. I kept stumm. I was close to the guys, but not close enough friends to confide that my life had turned to shit and my happy family was no more.

The weekend was just routine annual training and Company administration. Even when we had to do the mandatory annual verification of Next of Kin, I stayed quiet. It’s a serious military offence to declare and certify something that is not true, but I was prepared to take the risk rather than admit that my marriage had exploded so spectacularly. Maybe I am too prideful, but I still felt that I had somehow failed, that I was at fault and to blame. Keeping quiet a little longer was the easy way out.

The Guard already had my new postal address and knew to contact me through Henry Hallett if there was an emergency call-up, I just didn’t mention that I wasn’t living with my ex any longer.

There was a whole lot of standing in line that day. I hate to admit it, but I spent much of that waiting time thinking about my captive, hoping that she was okay in my absence. Not that I was at all worried that she could escape, or anyone would get in to find and rescue her, but more that I’d left her enough food and water, and that the lighting was working okay, and she wasn’t bored stupid.

Okay, guys, so I missed it. I shoulda realized right then that the amber warning light was blinking. I didn’t.

That afternoon my platoon went down to the rifle range to formally qualify, to keep the records up to date. Then it was back to the Armory to clean up and eat. I went out for a couple of beers with some of the guys Saturday night, but my heart wasn’t in it, and I headed back to my cot at the Armory early. In the morning we did some vehicle maintenance and servicing, and I headed off for home just as soon as we were released from duty Sunday afternoon. I’d still told nobody, not even the guys in my platoon who knew exactly how many teenage zit scars I had on my butt (like I did with them), that I’d been divorced on our return from Iraq. It was real personal information, not banter fodder. With an unwilling guest locked in my cabin, I didn’t want any outside interest in my domestic affairs. Having a friend drop in on me for a beer and to talk would have been a disaster. I was glad to get out of there.

I bought a bucket of fried chicken for Miss Gregson on the way back through town; I’d also included a Coke, fries, a side salad and a frozen milkshake. I was pretty sure that after being on her ownsome all weekend she’d be highly pissed off at me, but hoped that a good meal might sweeten her mood a little.

I approached my cabin real warily after my absence, checking all the tell-tales. It looked like no-one had been around, but leaving my captive alone for a weekend had been a little risky, with just a slight possibility of some nosy neighbor or door-to-door evangelist passing by.

Mask on, I slipped the key into the lock of her door as quietly as I could, but somehow she still heard it, and was waiting by the door. I pushed the tray with my foot, showing her the Tazer in my hand.

“Eat that, and then I’ll come talk to you.”

I locked her in, brought my Guard stuff into my bedroom, sorted out a few things and then went to see how she was doing. She’d eaten everything I’d just taken her. I faced her, studying her through the eye holes in my ski mask.

“I’m real sorry that I had to leave you alone for so long, Miss Gregson. I hope you weren’t too bored. It was a non-elective Guard drill weekend, and I had no choice but to attend. I guess you can understand why I couldn’t tell you in advance; it’s not that you could have escaped in the time, but you could have made a real mess of your fingers in thirty hours of trying to wear down the mesh, and it wouldn’t have gotten you anywhere.”

She sighed.

“I guessed immediately that you were going to be away for a while when you left me such a whole lot of food and those books. I’ve already worked out that you’ve lined the walls and ceiling with mesh; I felt down the toilet hole and found the edges there as well. I know the door is the only way out of this room, and the sheet steel on the back told me I was gonna be wasting my time there as well. I thought you might be away for a night, I hoped it wouldn’t be any longer. I knew it was the weekend because of the radio.”

I stared at her, impressed with her reasoning.

“I owe you some fresh air. Do you want to bathe, or just walk?”

“How much daylight have we got left?”

“Enough for both.”

“Bath first, please, Bubba.”

“No problem. Come on.”

I took her down to the creek, walked a few yards away and turned my back to her. I stood listening to the sounds of the woodland until she called to say she was done. I turned around and found her standing dressed and ready to go.

“You look a whole better clean shaven, Bubba. The scruffy beard makes it seem that you don’t care about your appearance.”

I laughed.

“Thanks, I think! The beard is necessary, but you’re right, I prefer not to have it. Now, if we keep quiet, I thought I heard some deer barking, so we might just get lucky and see them out front.”

We did, but only the whites of their tails as they headed away through the trees. We must have made too much noise. The girl smiled with delight that she had seen something of them at all. We dropped the washing bag and towels off on the porch; I hung on to the Tazer as we walked around the property.

“How much land have you got?”

“A quarter section – 160 acres.”

I realized that I had accidentally given away a piece of true information, so I quickly added some clutter.

“This whole area got divided up into homesteads after the Civil War when there weren’t the owners or the labor to run the plantations or big farms. They’re all that size; I guess that was the standard homestead or land grant in those days.”

She nodded in understanding. Our area had avoided the worst excesses of the post-war carpetbaggers; I guess there was more rule of law and less to be gained than there was away to the south and west. A lot of the mountain men further up the river wouldn’t have been at all happy about being taken over by outsiders and damned Yankees, so it wouldn’t have been a push-over for the interlopers.

“It’s real peaceful. You know something? I’m almost jealous.”

“Just a mite too rustic for you?”

She giggled.

“Yeah, I grew up having HOT water in my bath, and I kinda miss it.”

I had to laugh with her.

“Me too. Maybe one day I’ll figure out a way to do that here. You can get solar kits for warming swimming pools, so I might look into something like that. Make myself a smaller bathing hole, away from the flow of the creek. It’ll take some thinking.”

We strolled round for a while longer, until the sky started to color pinky-purple with the sunset, and the air started to cool down. I led us back to the cabin. She turned as we got onto the porch.

“Thanks. After forty-eight hours in that room, I needed to be out for a while. Maybe we can do that again?”

“Sure. Thanks for not trying to run off on me; you wouldn’t have made it and it would have spoiled the occasion to have had to zap you. I’m working tomorrow; do you need anything stocked up?”

She thought for a moment.

“Yeah, I could use a bucket of water for washing, but otherwise I’m okay at the moment. Some more fruit would be nice.”

“Okay, I’ll do that in the morning.”

She reddened slightly.

“I’ve got some trash for you to burn.”

I knew it was her used pads, I didn’t want to embarrass the poor kid any more.

“Not a problem, give it to me after breakfast. You need any more Advil?”

She shook her head no.

“Thanks, I’m fine.”

“Okay. If you do need anything, just ask.”

She looked at me a little strangely, as if I was confounding her expectations. I ushered her into her room and locked the door, then gratefully pulled off the itchy ski mask, tidied up a few things and went to bed.

You know something?

I’d almost gotten to the stage where I wanted to be nice to her. If I’d read her expressions correctly, she had come some way towards treating me as a fellow human being. I made a bet with myself that it wasn’t gonna last.

That recognition was the red warning light. Once again, I missed it.

Monday I scrambled us both some eggs for breakfast, served at the table with pre-cooked packed biscuits. Long-life, so goodness only knows what keeps them fresh. They’re okay as a reserve, but I try not to have them too often. She didn’t comment.

I gave her the bucket of water she’d requested, and passed in another case of bottled water and some supplies for her lunch. She handed me a well-wrapped trash bag; I put it in a dumpster at work when I got there, rather than go to the trouble of lighting a fire and burning it.

My lunch hour from work I picked up some more fruit and vegetables. Having a guest was good for me; I was certainly eating better, healthier, more green stuff, than I usually did. Hey, I hadn’t bought my usual bulk box of 18 Zagnut candy bars or even a Moon Bar since her arrival. Cooking meals for two had sure cut down on my lonely snacking. Hey, I was even showing interest in what else was on offer in the food section, rather than just going for what I normally bought.

I saw some vacuum-packed meatballs which looked okay, and added to my trolley the ingredients for a ratatouille sauce which wouldn’t take too long to cook over the Colman stove and would fill us both up nicely. Yeah, it might have been better baked in an oven, but the flavor was there even if the stirred texture was a little lacking, more like a vegetable stew with meatballs dotted around. I think it missed out on something they call it ‘plate appeal’ in the overpriced big city restaurants; out here in the real world we’re more concerned with flavor, nutrition and value. Anyway, my dinner guest said she enjoyed it; she certainly cleared her plate and accepted another couple of spoonfuls to help empty the pan.

She was a little quiet and took herself off to her room after we’d both drunk a herbal tea; I locked the doors and hit the hay myself.

I hit the store again when I got off work Tuesday. This time they had some ready-to-eat shrimps in sauce on offer, so I bought us both a pack. I checked the tell-tales when I got to the drive, saw they were good, and went on in. Through the spyhole I could see the shape of her lying under the blanket. I was just about to open the door and enter to ask if she was okay, when fortunately my training and self-preservation instinct kicked in. There was no reason for her to be fully covered without even her hair showing. Something wasn’t right. I took a few minutes to serve up our meal on the table, and then silently unlocked her door and pushed it open, not going in.

“Supper’s ready if you want it.”

I stood back where I could still see the doorway. After a long two or three minutes, she emerged from beside the opening; my guess was that she’d been standing with her back to the wall all ready to jump me when I went in. She was very quiet, and I kept it that way. Personally, I’d have thought my choice of menu deserved another compliment, but she didn’t comment at all. Okay, so all I’d actually had to do was open up a couple of packets onto plates, but the thought was there. They tasted good, they were quality protein, low in fat, and they’d been on reduced price. What wasn’t to like?

When we’d eaten, I collected the Tazer from my bedroom, locking the door before I turned back to her. I could just tell she was up to something. That made me a tad more abrupt with her than I had been recently.

“Time you got yourself some more fresh air. Let’s take a walk. Remember, it hurts to be Tazered, and if you fuck me about, you’ll be staying in your cell.”

Dammit! I hadn’t meant to, but in my irritation, I’d used the C-word. I was pretty sure she’d picked up on it, but she didn’t say anything. I noticed that she watched closely as I unlocked and unbarred the door to the outside; she wasn’t to know that I’d already removed one chain and heavy-duty padlock that morning, nor that there was another chain on the outside when I went off to work. Another thing the military had taught me; never rely on just one line of defenses, always have a back-up and something in reserve the enemy doesn’t know about. So even if she did somehow knock me out and find the keys, she wouldn’t know the code for the combination padlock.

We did a circuit of the clearing. I would have liked to have let her walk in the woodland a bit; it was real pretty, but it would have given her too many opportunities to try to escape between the trees. Speaking of which, I moved closer to her when we got near to the drive; she was wary as she remembered the cord trap she’d fallen over, and made no attempt to run.

It was a real lovely evening. The kind where it’s good to sit quietly and enjoy the place.

“You want to drink a beer on the porch? It’s not ice cold, but it’s cool.”

I could see her thinking. She didn’t want to give me the victory of us doing something almost normal and civilized, but she could sure stand drinking a beer, especially if it kept her out of her cell for a while longer. I gave her an unopened can, and stood drinking mine, watching her closely.

She popped the can and took a swig of her beer.

“Do you often have girls out here drinking beer on your porch?”

I stayed silent. She was actually the first female I’d had a drink with since I’d returned home, but she didn’t need to know that. She might have pegged me as a sad weirdo, which wasn’t strictly true. I just had temporary trust issues with women. You know how it is when your wife runs off with another man, kinda affects your outlook on life.

“Don’t like the personal questions, do you, Bubba? Okay. Back to business. Anything from my father?”

I’d been thinking about the next steps for the process of collecting her ransom money for a while, and I guessed my thoughts had kinda crystallized on the Sunday drive back from the city. From what I’d read, there were three especially risky times for kidnappers – the initial abduction, any contact with the victim’s family, and picking up the ransom. As long as you didn’t let your victim escape or contact anyone, the rest of the time there was next to zero chance of the authorities actively finding you. I’d gotten away with not being observed when I’d taken her, I hadn’t contacted her father, and she still didn’t know who I was, what I looked like, or where she was being held. So far so good, but that didn’t help me move the process on.

The problem arose because collecting the money without being caught was going to be real difficult as a solo operator, maybe impossible. I couldn’t watch my own back, or check out the local area while I was picking up the cash, and I would be real vulnerable if the cops or Feds had been called in.

Did I want a chance at getting the money, or was the risk too high? Spending the next fifty years at Camp Fed was one hell of a high price to pay for failure. Was the ransom going to be worth courting the risk of capture?

It had been seven months since I’d last seen my daughter. Perhaps Aggie had already forgotten me, or thought I had given up on her. Maybe my bitch ex-wife had told her I was dead, or that I’d cruelly deserted the two of them. Was there really a whole lot of point in fighting to get Aggie back? I was torn, but I was coming round to the school of thought that I might just as well release my captive and carry on living my life, maybe one day finding another woman I could love and trust enough to have children with.

The big advantage of NOT going for the ransom money was that I didn’t have to risk getting caught; I could just dope Miss Gregson up, drop her somewhere, and try to forget that I’d ever done it. I was pretty sure that she didn’t really know enough to get me tracked down, though having told her I was in the Guard was maybe a major mistake. Ours wasn’t a very small town, but there were only three or four of us involved with the Guard. Perhaps before I let her go I could convince her that my Guard membership was indeed the fantasy she’d accused me of living, but after our fight, I wasn’t sure that bird still had wings. Maybe I’d sign up for another active duty tour, get out of the country for six months or a year, and then return, although that wouldn’t be the right thing to do because I’d be letting down Henry Hallett. Jeez, I’d have to think this all through before making my final decision.

Yeah, I know. I was in a bad place.

The smart thing to do would have been to just kill her and bury her somewhere on my land where she’d never be found and I’d never be suspected.

Trouble with that option was, she didn’t deserve to die just because her father was a bent judge, and I knew it.

So I continued to lie to Miss Gregson. I laid it on a bit thick this time; she was getting too confident, and she needed a reminder that things weren’t equal.

“I’m pretty sure he’s gone to the cops. He keeps playing for time, saying he can’t get the cash together so quickly because the bank has to report every transaction above $10,000, so he’s only got half way. I did tell him that you weren’t gonna like being held in an underground basement chamber for a minute longer than necessary, and that my friends were beginning to sniff around and suggest that we all got a piece of the stuck-up white bitch before we offed her, and all he said that he was doing his best, but he’d hunt us down himself if any harm came to you. Then I hung up, because we’d talked long enough. I’m going to get myself another burner phone and ditch this one in the river.”

She shook her head, looking disappointed.

“So how much longer am I going to be in this underground basement chamber of yours?”

“Sounds like another ten days until he’s got no excuse for not having the money. Because he’s fucking me around so, I won’t keep the first two meetings we set up, just drive by and see if he’s trying to ambush me. That will make things take longer. Say a fortnight, three weeks tops?”

She sighed. She didn’t like hearing that. Didn’t like it at all.

“And if they do catch you?”

“Then he has to give me a plea deal before I tell him where you are.”

“And if they shoot you?”

“Then you’d better hope that they find my truck parked up and follow the lead back to the cabin before you run out of food and water.”

She scowled and stood up.

“You are a real fucking bastard, Bubba. I despise you. Here, I don’t want any more of your beer. I’m going to bed.”

She thrust the can in my direction; I placed it on the chair, followed her inside, and into her room. I wanted to take a closer look at the three-dimensional shape that had been under her bedding.

Yeah, it was just as I’d thought when I looked through the spyhole. She’d wadded up pretty much all her stuff to make it look like she was under the blanket, and I guessed that she’d been hoping I would walk in and she could push me over from behind, and if she got lucky, lock me in her cell and make her escape. It wouldn’t have mattered; the key to the heavy duty padlock securing the cabin door was round my neck, and the combination code only recorded in my head, so she’d have had to let me out sometime. I felt a little bad about having been quite so harsh in my reminder that she was in my power, but she had been getting uppity. I pointed to the bed.

“Nice try sweetie. Tell you what, I’ll always carry a note saying where you are, so if I ever do get arrested or shot, you’ll be rescued.”

There was no reply.

I wished her a good night, left the room and locked her in for the night.

She’d left half of her beer; I hadn’t seen her spit in it, so I drank it down rather than waste it, and went to bed myself.

I had upset her, trying to be too clever. I still didn’t know how this was all going to pan out. I didn’t sleep at all well, despite the beer. I was sick with myself that I’d caused her unnecessary distress.

That was the point when the robot should have shaken me hard and shouted “Danger, Will Robinson!” That didn’t happen.

Come Wednesday morning, along with her lunchtime cheese sandwich, I made a dozen pancakes, slipped half of them on a paper plate through her door with a travel mug of coffee as a peace offering, and went off to work. That evening, I called her through for supper at the table again. It was only ham, eggs and hash browns, with a store-bought dessert, but she ate it all up. She was polite but quiet; she answered all my attempts at conversation with a minimum of words, and when we were finished, she asked for a couple of pieces of fruit and returned to her room. I locked the door on her and went to lie on my own bed, read a book for a while, then dozed off.

Thursday night she tried a very different tack.

When I got home from work and the store, and looked in through the spyhole, she was lying naked on her bed. I unlocked and knocked, telling her the food was almost on the table. She didn’t emerge, and when I did push the door open and she could see me watching, she just smiled at me and squeezed her tits with her hands, opening her legs to expose her goodies. Yeah, they were very attractive goodies, even if her lack of grooming opportunities was now clearly showing, but the situation was so obviously contrived that I didn’t get at all aroused. Then she tried her most seductive voice.

“See anything you like, honey?”

I chuckled. This sure was a sight worth seeing.

“I like it very much indeed, Miss Gregson. In the right situation, I could really go for you. You are a very beautiful woman, but you are so far out of my league that I’m assuming this is just an attempt to trap me and escape, so I ain’t biting. Thank you for the offer anyway, I sure do appreciate it. Up to you whether or not you get dressed to come to the table, but I’m just about to serve up if you’re hungry. Come through when you’re ready.”

She was fully clothed when she joined me at the table. Part of me was sorry about that, but, to be honest, I was a whole lot happier that she’d chosen the textile option, as I wouldn’t have been able to think straight with those pert little titties on display opposite me. Even after all this time as a captive, her basic beauty shone through the tangled hair and baggy clothes.

I offered her a choice of chocolate or strawberry milk, she chose the chocolate and purred as she realized it was still cold from the store chilled display. I had divided and plated up the cold cuts and three salads; it looked pretty good on the plate. The rice and sweet pepper salad was colorful in its own right. See, I do understand ‘plate appeal’.

She grinned at me as she sat down.

“Aww, Bubba, you’re no fun! I could have shown you a real good time. It’s been way too long since I last broke in a virgin!”

I tried to put some humor into my laugh. There was a sore point there; I hadn’t gotten myself laid for seven months, not since before I’d gone to Iraq. It had taken some willpower to turn down her offer; only the immediate and absolute certainty that it was some kind of trap had prevented me from pulling off my own clothes and calling her bluff.

“Sorry to disappoint you, sweetie, but I haven’t been a virgin for a while. I’d certainly agree with you that you’ve got all the equipment for me to have a whole lot of fun with you, but I can’t. It’s kind of unethical.”

She laughed.

“Unethical? Mr Straight As A Die Wouldn’t Dream of Abducting a Helpless Woman? How the heck do you square that one?”

I shrugged my shoulders.

“Sorry, sweetie. I know you find it hard to believe. Yes, I did abduct you. Now I’ve kinda got a moral responsibility to keep you undamaged until your father pays the ransom to get you back safe and sound. I’ve assured him that you’re unharmed, and I keep my word.”

She stared at me, hard. I held my nerve and returned her gaze, though hers was downright piercing in its intensity. She looked at me for what seemed like an eternity.

“Bubba, I’ve kind of got a real big problem with what you’ve just said. You know you’ve now told me several times that you’d talked to him? Trouble is, I don’t exactly see how you could. You see, I made up the cell number I gave you, invented it; I couldn’t remember his actual number because it’s in my smartphone’s memory, so I never dial it. He’s a judge, so his personal number is not publicly available, just like our home number isn’t in the book. Therefore, you couldn’t have spoken to him. How is my Dad going to pay a ransom when he doesn’t know squat about where and when? Hey?”

I almost grinned at her. Yeah, she was indeed a worthy opponent.

I managed not to grin. It wouldn’t have gone down that well, and she had silverware within reach.

“Okay, Miss Gregson, you got me. I apologize for lying to you. I didn’t want to worry you, let you mistakenly think for a moment that you weren’t going home at the end of this.”

“You mean that I’m going home soon?”

“Hell yes! It’s all planned. Just maybe not right now. A couple of weeks more, and I was going to drop you off where I found you. You don’t know who I am, or where you’ve been. I’d put you out, wrap you in a bed sheet from Goodwill that would stop you picking up any traces from here, unroll you in the car park, put you in the recovery position, and drive off before you woke up.”

She kinda went red in the face, trying to get her head around what I’d just said. There was a moment more of silence, and then she spoke, coldly and quietly at first.

“So, let me check, have I got this right? You abducted me so you could keep me captive for a while, then release me without receiving any ransom. My family will have been worried sick, I’ve been scared to death, and I’ve missed the start of my junior year of college, so this semester may not count unless I do summer classes. And all for nothing? Thanks a whole fucking lot for that. Jesus! WHY THE FUCK DID YOU KIDNAP ME, YOU FUCKING DICKHEAD?”

I stared back at her. Her outburst had been timed just right, for me, it pulled me up short and gave me some backbone when I had been about to apologize again. So I forgot to sugar the pill, and I told it like I saw it.

“You want to know why I kidnapped you? Simple. Your father the stinking bent judge took MY daughter away from me while I was in Iraq, serving my country, and as he’s helped my ex-wife steal my house and all my other assets, and sealed the records, I have no chance of getting my little girl back. So I’ve taken his daughter for a while, just so he feels a bit of the pain.”

She exploded into movement, standing up, her chair tipping over and falling unnoticed behind her. She got right in my face when I too got to my feet.

“You cannot be fucking serious! Your wife divorced your shitty ass and you’re taking it out on me?”

“Nah, I’m taking your father’s behavior out on you. I want him to feel how it is not to know where his daughter is. To lie awake at night wondering if she’s okay, what’s happening to her, if he’ll ever see her again. I’m sorry that you, as an innocent party, had to suffer the inconvenience, but I’d do it all over again just to hurt him back a little.”

She interrupted me, anger radiating from her eyes.

“INCONVENIENCE? Are you a complete fucking moron? I’ve lost three weeks of my life, I’m going to be neck deep in the shit at college, and you call it an inconvenience? SHIT! How can somebody BE so fucking ignorant?”

I shrugged expressively. Like I cared.

“Whatever, sweetie. You won’t like hearing it, but you are just collateral damage. It’s between your father and me, but you are the only weakness I can exploit to get back at him. Now, calm down and listen, and then we can talk about getting you home.”

I sat back down on my chair to try to defuse the situation a little. I didn’t want to let it get any more out of control, or it might close down some of my options. If she physically attacked me, I’d give her a free strike and take the first blow, but then I’d defend myself as much as it took to subdue her, and I’d win. She glared at me for a long minute, then picked up her own seat and dropped down onto it.