The Hostage Read Free Page A

a challenge. Girls like Sarah Roberts, now that would be fun. He wondered how she’d react to being photographed in a pair of panties. He wondered how she’d take the drugged sex and violence he enjoyed.
     
    On the opposite wall sat a large cork board that Elmore had purchased at a store that catered to teachers. On the cork board sat every picture he could ever find of Sarah Roberts. The newspapers had reported on her exploits at a Mormon compound. Elmore had been able to locate old editorials on people Sarah had saved from kidnappings, burning buildings and car accidents. It was amazing and awe-inspiring. Not many women had those kinds of talents and those kinds of looks. Sarah Roberts was model-stunning gorgeous. There was no doubt about it.
     
    “One day, Sarah Roberts,” Elmore said, staring at the pictures across the room on his wall. “I will get you and the two of us will have many months to get to know each other better. I’m sure you taste as good as you look.”
     
    He lifted his coffee, toasted her, and took a large sip. Before he could stop it, the coffee washed the toenail down his throat as he swallowed.
     
    “Shit.”
     
    He grabbed the black container and pulled out another long, thick one, placed it near his wisdom teeth and shoved it down in between. His tongue found the nail and began to coax it around.
     
    He had studied Sarah ever since she was rumored to have saved a news anchorwoman from a car accident on the St. Elizabeth Bridge almost five years ago. He knew she had recently been in Hungary and she would want to come back to North America soon.
     
    “Knowledge is power, and Elmore is knowledge,” he said to the empty room.
     
    Sarah was everything he desired. The only small problem, which he felt he could get over, was her age. She was at least seven years older than he would normally look for in a hostage. At twenty-four, she had been used up too much, but Elmore was willing to let that go, if only for a year of her time. One year in the cage, her food drugged, blacked out most of the time, she’d become dependent on him and learn to love him. Then, when completely docile, she would bore him, and he’d give her a proper burial out back. She deserved it after all the people she’d saved. If only he could tell where she’d be next.
     
    “Where will you turn up next, Sarah?” he asked out loud.
     
    A few of the newspapers he’d read suggested that Sarah had died in the Danube River outside Esztergom, Hungary, but he knew that to be false. Sarah was too tough, too strong. She’d turn up again, and when she did, he would be waiting.
     
    Elmore picked up the black container and spit the nail back in. He replaced the container in his desk and stood.
     
    “Sorry, Jackie, but you have to go. Sarah’s coming. I’m sure of it, and I want to be ready. Gotta make room for her. She’s on her way and wherever she lands, I will find a way there and find her. Then I will bring her back here. I will own Sarah Roberts. She will be my little pet.”
     
    Elmore walked away from his desk and headed for the basement, a crooked smile on his face. Maybe he should have Jackie one more time before he killed her. Or, maybe one more time after he killed her. He’d decide when she showed him how much she loved him.
     
    He opened the basement door and started down the stairs, becoming aroused with each step.
     

Chapter 3

    The pain never seemed to stop. Sarah woke slowly, sprawled out on the hard floor of a small, dank room. Any sort of movement caused her headache to flare. It felt like a brain-eating cockroach worked on her insides and the little light in the room caused it to scurry through her frontal lobe searching for a hiding spot, but finding none.
     
    With both hands on her temples, massaging in slow circles, Sarah tried to roll over and get to her feet, but she did this act of bravery as slow as her fingers moved.
     
    A single bulb hung suspended from the ceiling, lighting what