Forster, Suzanne Read Free Page A

industries.
    She fought the urge to dissolve in laughter, a chorus of thin, hysterical sobs. She was losing it, and she had to find something to cling to, some thread of reality, no matter how slender. At least she wasn't claustrophobic. She could be thankful for that much, though it didn't make it any easier to breathe as he loaded her into the back of a vehicle she imagined was some kind of van. The weight of the carpet had rendered her completely immobile, and the summer heat made it suffocatingly hot in her mummified state. Apparently he didn't care if she smothered. She didn't even want to think about what condition her still-wet toenails were in.
    Hysteria bubbled anew as she imagined the tabloids: "Fashion model found dead in bizarre sexual asphyxiation ritual. Carpet fuzz adhered to her body with shocking-pink nail polish. "
    She forced her thoughts to the route the van was taking as it roared away from the Featherstone enclave. They were supposed to be going east toward the freeway that would take them into the San Gabriel Mountains, but it seemed as if the kidnapper had turned the other way. She assumed it was him driving because she could hear him speaking on what must have been a car phone. He was telling someone that he didn't like the feel of things.
    "Something's gone wrong, " he said. "I'm not going to take the rug to the cleaners as planned. I'll be in touch. "
    The rug? That had to be her. Apparently he'd changed his mind about taking her to the cabin that was supposed to be their destination. He was on his way somewhere else. If that was the case, her fiancé might never find them! And what had he meant by that first reference: Something's gone wrong.
    Gus fought to draw some air into her lungs, but a cold, crushing weight was pressing against her chest. The kidnapping had seemed like a brilliant idea when she'd thought of it, the perfect way to get control of what should have been rightfully hers in any event—the substantial trust fund her stepfather had left her. It wasn't the money that mattered, it had never been that. It was what she planned to do with it.
    But now a man was dead or wounded, she didn't know which, and she could barely conceive of either possibility. A shudder swept her, bringing another even more immediate concern. She was going to pass out. The white dots dancing behind her eyelids and the dizzying sickness that washed over her told her she would soon be unable to defend herself in any way. Within moments she would be in the most vulnerable state possible and at the mercy of a man capable of killing without conscience,
    If there was any emotion Gus loathed more than fear, it was that one, vulnerability. Her stepchild status in the Featherstone family had exposed her to some terrifying and very inventive abuse by her stepbrother and stepsister. She'd had to armor herself emotionally to survive. She hadn't been able to fight her older siblings, so she'd fought instead to get control of her crippling fears. When she finally triumphed, she'd felt the first startled animal awareness of her own power, the first glimmer of what life could be like for the unafraid. Now it felt as if she were about to be stripped of that vital control, stripped of everything.
    Panic squeezed the last breath out of her. It sucked her deeper into the purple waves that were crashing over her. As the undercurrent tugged her down into its infernal funnel, her oxygen-deprived brain betrayed her totally, jumping from one grotesque image to another. Her stepbrother and stepsister were standing over her open grave, and her five-year-old stepniece was sobbing. Bridget! Gus had told the child she would be away for a few days on a photo shoot, knowing the family would shield her from news of the kidnapping. But she could hardly bear to think what would happen to the little girl if she died, the neglect, the emotional isolation. They would probably send her away to school to get her out from under foot.
    Gus tried to cry