DARK BLISS (Dangerous Games,) Read Free Page A

vomit that I’d kept down earlier came back and this time I let myself throw up. The stranger said nothing but he got something from the cooler. He came over. “Throat’s dry, I expect.”
    “Horribly.”
    “Couldn’t find any water.” He handed me a small jug of Gatorade. I took a long, deep drink.
    “Don’t drink too much. You’ll just throw up again. Wait a minut e or two.” He went to the cooler and popped a can of beer. Instead of drinking it, however, he poured it on himself and continued to wipe, which he did for several minutes. When he was done, he poured beer on his knife and carefully cleaned the blade and handle.
    When I was little, at holidays I would watch my parents’ longtime maid polishing the family silver: candlestick holders, serving platters, teapot, creamer, cake knife. It took her days to work through all the pieces, getting every spot of tarnish off. Rock gave no less time and attention to his weapon, inspecting and rubbing it as someone would a precious object. To him, it was clearly as valuable, probably more so. I guessed this wasn’t the first time it had saved his life.
    And that was my first long look at Miguel Roca, though few called him anything but “Rock.” He stood there washing blood off himself with a can of beer as casually as anyone else would hose themselves after yard work, like a man with a long familiarity with alcohol and blood and blades.
    I began to shiver. Maybe a delayed response to what had happened, maybe to what might.
     

A Dark Design
     
    R ock finished cleaning himself and tossed the shirt away. The girl was standing now, wobbly but on her feet. She had grit. After an experience like this, most women would be hysterical.
    She was tall and pretty. Hell, she was beautiful. Shiny red hair, high cheekbones, pointed chin. She came from money; that was obvious: the way she talked, held herself, her clothes – casual but chic, her jewelry – gold and understated.
    She turned her back to him and lifted her dress to adjust her panties. He knew he should look away but he couldn’t help himself. She was wearing pink panties and her round ass filled them out nicely. He felt his cock stir. Damn Jones had no sense of time or place.
    Searching for distraction, he remembered an oddity about how she was bound. He crouched beside one of the stakes. Besides the rope, there was a snipped plastic cuff. He looked at the other stake, where there was another severed cuff. “ Funny,” he muttered.
    “ What’s funny?”
    “ Funny odd. Looks like they bound you with flex, then cut ‘em off.”
    “They tied me with something else. I couldn’t see what. My hands were behind my back. When they got me out of the SUV, they cut that off and tied my hands in front.”
    “ I see now. The flex wouldn’t reach the stake, so they retied you with rope.”
    “What is flex?”
    He picked one up to show her. “This. Plastic strips with notches. Works just as good as handcuffs. Cops use them.”
    “Where did these two get them?”
    “Online, I imagine. Anyone can buy them.”
    “They can? Why?”
    That was a question he didn’t want to fully answer. He shrugged. “Why do people do anything? They’re convenient, useful for kidnapping apparently.”
    But the bastards were going to brand her. What the hell was that about? “Orders,” they’d told the girl. Was that a dumb joke or had they really been hired to grab her and mark her? And for who ? Well, not his problem. Time to get the hell out of here, get this girl off his hands.
    He popped a couple of beers and poured them on the grill. The coals hissed and steamed. Unlikely a mischance would start a fire out here but best to be on the safe side. Country was dry as a tinderbox.
    The girl came up next to him , walking all right now. “What do we do now? Call the policia ?”
    He looked at her. “Where were you snatched?”
    “Tuláz.”
    “ We’re a long way from Tuláz. This is between towns, falls into the jurisdiction of