Forster, Suzanne Read Free Page B

out, but she didn't have the strength.
    Her last thought as she went under was of him, the executioner in the black jumpsuit. If he truly was a necrophiliac, if he liked having sex with dead women, what would he do to her while she was unconscious?

Chapter 2
    Gus stirred awake to the low whine of a powerful engine and the silken glide of tires on what seemed to be a highway paved with glass. The purring motion was hypnotic. It lulled her for a moment, but when she opened her eyes to total darkness, the shock of it brought her hurtling back to consciousness. A deep breath kept panic at bay long enough for her to clear her thought processes and assess her situation.
    She was still blindfolded and restrained with tape, her feet now as well as her hands, but she was no longer in the back of the van or rolled up in a rug. She'd been propped up on the seat of the cab, and something heavy had been thrown over her. The blindfold forced her to rely on other senses, but from what she could tell, the heaviness was covering all of her, including her head, and it had the feel of a canvas tarpauline.
    Her shoulder joints throbbed from the pressure of having been forced into an unnatural position, and her wrists burned. An icy draft swirled around her bare feet, and with so many signals flooding her, she nearly missed the most important one. Another kind of pain was radiating up the inside of her wrist, a tiny arrow of distress, sharp yet persistent. It was different than the burning, more like a needle prick. She squeezed her fist and felt a stabbing sensation that made her gasp. The manicure scissors! She was still clutching them.
    It was slow, painstaking work, but within moments, laboring under the concealment of the tarp, she had cut through one band of tape and was working on another. Her progress was hampered by the fear of giving herself away. If the kidnapper was concentrating on the road, perhaps he wouldn't notice the tarp moving. Please let him be on automatic pilot, she thought, wishing upon him that altered state of highway hypnosis that often overtakes drivers on straightaways.
    Her incantation held out long enough for her to cut through the second band and discover a third. A moan welled hotly in her throat. She'd thought she was done! Worse, if she didn't hurry she'd be in a heap on the floor of the cab before she could get her wrists free. Her bound limbs had robbed her of leverage, and she was inching down the slick leatherette seat with every little scooch of movement.
    She continued doggedly, electrician's tape the scourge of her very existence. He couldn't have used rope? No, he had to be cute. Exploding guns, area rugs, duct tape? This wasn't just a quest for freedom on her part, not anymore, it was a vendetta against modern criminal science. She was going to cut herself loose or die trying.
    The scissors jabbed her inner wrist as the van veered to the right. Swallowing a cry of pain, she swayed toward the kidnapper, then toppled to her side as they came to a tire-shredding stop. He must have pulled onto the shoulder, she realized. She could feel the vehicle quivering beneath her and smell the stench of burnt rubber, but they weren't moving and he was strangely silent.
    "When you get your hands free, " he said finally, his voice low and weary. "Would you let me know?"
    "Why?"
    "So I can knock you cold to make sure you don't escape. "
    She let out a sigh that was wild with frustration and then heaved herself upward, trying to get back into some reasonable facsimile of a sitting position. Nothing worked, including pushing off from the floorboards, and finally he put a stop to her thrashing. He gripped her by the shoulders and pushed her upright, much as he would have a fallen telephone pole.
    She hated having to accept his help. Worse, in all the commotion the tarp seemed to have dropped off her, leaving her exposed, and the blindfold had slipped down just enough to cover her nose and cut off her air.
    She settled back