Sharp Turn - Marianne Delacourt [71]
He pointed towards an open door that led to a lit stairway. I took a couple of quick steps towards it before he grabbed my elbow and spun me around. The pistol that had been against my ear was now pressed hard against my lips. The sight of his skin-coloured rubber gloves all but closed my throat over. This guy was a professional.
‘I’ve got a silencer on the pistol. No one will even know you’re dead until they find you with your guts full of gas, floating in one of those fancy marinas. Don’t piss me off.’
He forced me up the staircase. It came out in a hallway of what looked like a townhouse, as empty as the garage. There were some Chinese takeaway cartons on the floor, but otherwise this guy was leaving minimal trace.
‘Sit,’ he said as he pushed me past the kitchen and laundry and into the smaller of two bedrooms. The only furniture was a heavy wood garden chair in the centre of a large plastic tarpaulin.
Josh pushed me over to the chair, then went to the built-in cupboard and opened the door. Inside was a fold-over suitcase. He pulled rope out of one of the zippered compartments and handled it with chilling dexterity.
When he placed the pistol on the floor and began to tie my legs, a window of opportunity flashed before me. A two-feet kick would knock him off balance and then I could dive on the gun.
‘If you move, I’ll break every bone in your body,’ he said, reading my thoughts.
His quiet threat paralysed me. I didn’t doubt he meant what he said. As he deftly knotted my feet and hands to the chair, I stared at his aura. I hadn’t misread his calm – just the reason for it. Unfortunately, auras don’t come with ‘cold-blooded killer’ warnings. A new release of adrenaline vibrated through every part of me.
He felt me tremble. ‘Cool it.’ He reached into his pocket and brought out a scarf.
‘What the fuck is this about?’ I demanded, the adrenaline loosening my throat. ‘What kind of a crazy are you?’
He smiled in an empty way. The face that I’d found so pleasant now seemed unfamiliar and cold. I saw a sulphurous yellow snaking through his aura. Not the colour of pus like Johnny Viaspa’s aura, but the sickly tinge of jaundice.
‘Don’t talk, you’ll spoil it.’ With that, he wound the scarf so tight across my mouth and around the back of my neck that I gagged.
He made another trip to the fold-over case and retrieved a tool wrap, which he laid out carefully on the plastic in front of me. I could see enough of the steel implements sticking out of the pockets to know they weren’t made by Meccano. Not unless Meccano had gotten into scalpels, small hand drills and chisels.
The precision and calm of his movements sent my panic meter spiking off the scale. He was deliberately psyching me out and it was working a treat. Fear made it impossible to think. All I knew was that I wanted to pee. Badly.
A phone started ringing. His. In the fold-over suitcase.
He answered it, listened for a moment, then left the room, shutting the door.
Though I could hear him moving around downstairs, he didn’t come back all day. I sat there, terrified, unable to move any part of my body. Staring at his bundle of instruments.
Chapter 24
WHEN JOSH RETURNED, it was nearly dark. I made a desperate pleading noise and he unwound the scarf.
‘Please. I need to . . . pee.’
He shrugged at that idea.
‘Let me go to the loo. Please.’
He lifted his shoulders and dropped them again as if vexed, then punched me in the mouth. Pain exploded along my jawline and my head jerked back. He grabbed me by the hair and wrenched my head upright.
‘Don’t speak to me again,’ he said close to my ear, and tied the gag back – tighter.
The smack in the face was a big favour – somehow it unstuck my brain freeze. When he left the room this time, I finally began to think.
He’d left the light on so I could contemplate his choice of torture implements.