I loosened, and finally removed my tie, undoing the top three buttons of my white dress shirt, and taking off my dark gray jacket.
“How long have we been driving?” I asked when he opened the back doors to glare at me.
“I’m not going tell you that, and don’t bother trying to figure it out. The less you know the better. We aren’t there yet, anyway. Just a pit stop.”
He tossed me a bottle of water. “Drink up.”
I caught the water. He shut the door again.
It had been roughly three in the afternoon when we’d left, and the sun was beginning to set now. Roughly four hours of driving so far, I guessed.
More time passed. Lots of time.
All the while, my mind raced.
I slept propped against the side of the van for a bit, my jacked held against my temple as the most useless pillow in history.
Even sleeping, I dreamt of Iris.
Where were we going? There was no way of telling, but when I’d been counting turns at the beginning, with some notion of where we were, I thought we’d headed east out of town.
In my mind, we were somewhere deep in Utah by now, but again, that was the vaguest of guesses.
The van careening to a stop again woke me, and when the back doors opened, it was to darkness.
He tossed me another bottle of water and a protein bar, told me to shut up before I spoke, and shut the doors again.
More driving. More sleep. The doors opened this time it was to the bright morning light.
“Get yourself presentable again. Wouldn’t want you looking like a slob for this. After that, turn around and back up to me. You want to do this, you’re going to let me blindfold you. I don’t need you picking out any f**king details.”
I scraped a hand through my hair, smoothing it back, then set to work on the buttons of my collar, watching him to see if he was serious about the making myself presentable part.
“Put your tie and jacket back on,” he ordered me.
I did what he said, vividly imagining doing him bodily harm all the while.
I backed up to him on my knees.
“I need to pee,” I told him.
He slid a cloth bag over my head and clicked handcuffs tight onto my wrists.
“In a minute. Unless you prefer to piss on a tire, there’s an actual restroom close by.”
I hoped he meant that minute part literally.
Logically, I knew I should be worried, and I was, to an extent. But the feeling that ruled me just then was anticipation, because finally I would get some answers, and it was much more powerful than any concern I felt for myself.
What was in store for me here? What would I learn, and could I live with the answers? And, if the worst had happened, did I really want to know?
He gripped the back of my upper arm and led me across gravel and onto a sidewalk, from the sun into the shade.
I heard him working a key into a lock and then he barked at me to step inside.
“Use the bathroom, and then stay put. You take a step out of this room, you’ll regret it.”
He undid my cuffs, and I heard the door slam shut behind me.
I pulled the bag off my head, glancing around.
It was an old, musky hotel room. I headed straight for the bathroom, used it, and explored, peeking out the window, which was frosted over and apparently bolted shut.
The whole setup was creepy in the extreme. Just the type of place someone would take you to finish you off.
I checked my appearance in the mirror, and thought I was turned out rather well, all things considered. Suit only marginally wrinkled, hair disheveled, but not more than usual. Eyes only slightly bloodshot, but not terribly so. Slight bruise on my jaw, but nothing too gruesome.
The room didn’t have a phone, but it did have an alarm clock that read ten minutes past seven.
There was an ancient TV centered between the two double beds, and after waiting thirty minutes, I switched it on. Turned out, it actually had a good lineup of channels.
I wound up watching one of the reality shows Iris used to love. It was called My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding, and it was atrocious.
Sadly, how bad it was just made me miss her more.
Around an hour after I’d been left in the room, the door opened. That blond son of a bitch poked his head in, customary glare in place.
“Turn that shit off,” he growled, then shut the door again.
I heard his voice faintly outside again not a minute later, though by his even, non-hostile tone, he clearly wasn’t talking to me.
“Brought you something,” he was saying.
There was a long pause, then a quieter, fainter voice responding softly.
Something about that voice had me standing, breath growing short, heart skipping beats.
“Go inside and see,” the bastard responded.
I watched the door, body drawn taut in anticipation.
Hands clammy and shaking with it.
Finally, mercifully, it opened. It creaked wide slowly, and the sight that filled it nearly brought me to my knees.
“Iris,” I breathed.
There stood Iris.
She looked different.
Wearing gray sweats and thick framed glasses, her blonde hair braided thick to one side and draped on her shoulder. Her face was clean of makeup, and as beautiful as ever.
She looked about fifteen, dressed like that. It was a perturbing development, but overshadowed completely by the burst of sheer joy in my chest at the sight of her.
She was whole and alive. Safe and sound.
Ironically, she seemed even more shocked to see me, her hands covering her mouth as she gasped.
“Dair,” she sobbed, then rushed forward, throwing herself into my arms.
They were ready for her. I caught her to me, holding her tight, my face buried in her hair.
She tipped her face up to me, eyes closed, glasses askew, her whole body shaking, and threw her arms around my neck.
I lifted her, and she wrapped her legs about my hips.
I lowered my mouth to touch her trembling lips.
“Jesus, can you not do that in front of me?” the bastard growled. “You’re already making me regret this.”
With that, he slammed the door, and I heard when he drove the outside bolt home.
I had no notion why, but he’d locked us in together.
CHAPTER FOUR
I took a ragged breath in and an unsteady step back, sitting on the bed.
I pulled her between my legs, pushing her baggy sweatshirt up to expose her taut naval, then up higher, to her ribs just beneath her br**sts.
Her sweats hit low on her hips, and one glance at her emaciated torso (and my very precise memory of her body) told me she’d lost some weight.