Misplaced Innocence (24 page)

He reached over a hand and rested it on the top of Scruffy’s head. Jared didn’t say anything, and it was quiet in the car. He had a feeling it was a sound he might need to get used to.

~*~

“That was a complete waste of our time.” Alex was still grumbling as he and Marguerite
sat in the uncomfortable chairs at their boarding gate. “A waste of time and money and mostly time. Because now we have lost all this time!”

“Alex. Okay. I get it. We didn’t exactly get what we came here for, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it was a waste of our time.”

Alex yanked his hand angrily through the air. “Do you see anything good coming out of our trip, because, in case you’ve failed to notice, the trip is coming to a sad and exceedingly unproductive end.”

Marguerite
rolled her dark eyes at his attempt at drama. “Maybe Williams
will come up with something. Any minute we might hear from him.”

Alex dropped his head back against his chair, stretching his body in the hopes of working out some pretty persistent kinks. “Sure. Any minute now, he’s going to pick up the phone and call and then you and I will be stuck on an airplane for a few hours. All in all we’ll only have lost a few precious days of time and the likelihood of Ackerman still being alive won’t have plummeted drastically. Not to mention what little we had in terms of a case. Everything is just absolutely peachy fucking keen.”

Marguerite
sighed, reached into her carry-on bag and pulled out her Ipod. On days like this, it was the best money she had ever spent. She slipped them into her ears and hit the power button. Beside her, Alex continued to talk.

Thankfully, she didn’t have to continue to listen.

Charisma closed her eyes tightly beneath the blindfold, focusing every ounce of her energy on sensing her direction. Fortunately, she had been blessed with a decent sense of direction – one of the few positive things she had inherited from her mother. It was a talent she frequently felt was obsolete thanks to Mapquest; she never would have guessed just how much was resting on that ability in her sudden, unusual, predicament. She could be nearly across the country by now, probably back in New Jersey where it all began. Even thinking about it brought a churn to Charisma’s stomach. She didn’t want to see any of those familiar faces, partly fearing them, and partly believing she would lose control and be capable of doing anything to them. They had stolen first her life from her, and now, her body too.

A rough, harsh arm wrapped around her long legs and smaller, clammier hands reached under her arms – probably Freddie’s, she thought with disgust. She clenched her teeth as one pinky finger, began inching forward, stroking the side of her breast. She gnashed through the gag in protest and wiggled a little, but the grip beneath her arms tightened harshly and she winced in pain.
 

“Quiet,” he snarled under his breath, and resumed his previous violation with his little finger.
 

Quiet acquiescence was difficult for Charisma, but she forced herself to comply, hoping that her cooperation would gain her some sort of clemency in the end.
 

“Dom, how far is this place?” Frankie asked.

“Shut up.”

Frankie growled in response.

“I do. Don’t want our groceries to learn where they are.”

“Our groceries are…bagged,” said Frankie, with a tone that clearly suggested he was pleased at his ability to carry on the metaphor.

What a stupid euphemism, Charisma thought.
 

“You’re an idiot,” Dom said bluntly from ahead.

 
“Hey, shut the fuck up,” His grip was tightening on her shoulders again in frustration and the wince etched deeper in the lines of her face.
 

“You fuck this up, you die.” Dom said with a brutality and severity that ended the conversation.

Tentatively, Freddie asked, “What about Frankie?”
 

“Shut up! You both die!”

“I’m not concerned,” Frankie scoffed, shifting Charisma’s weight in the crook of his arm.

There was another phone call, announcing that they had the groceries, but this time it was followed by a “see you soon,” that frightened her. She had no desire to meet this Benedict fellow. She was farther away from the phone this time, and she had only the vaguest of notions where the phone was located in the room.
 

After nearly two hours of sitting around trying to develop a plan, Charisma had come up with only very farfetched possibilities riddled with faults. But they were all she had and she was anxious to do something before she encountered the boss. He did not seem like he was one to grant mercy, let alone take pity on her poor self.
 

She needed to balance waiting for the right moment with not waiting so long that she lost her opportunity. Her stomach was left in knots and her mouth became even dryer than it already had been, not helped by the fact that she couldn’t accurately remember the last time she’d had a drink of water or a bite of food.
 

She listened intermittently to the asinine conversations of the men for a few hours, and when Dominic finally announced he was going out for another pack of cigarettes, Charisma decided it was time to act. Not that she could overpower two of them anymore than three, but she just might be able to outsmart the two left behind. Dom seemed graced with a few more brain cells.
 

After she had heard the door close with a soft thud she turned to Frankie, still sitting in a chain in front of her with today’s newspaper.
 

“I need to go to the bathroom.”

“You just got here.”

Charisma wasn’t sure that made a lot of sense, but she decided not to point that out.

“Yes,” she said cautiously, “but I’ve been in the car for quite a while.”

“Right.” He rolled his eyes, as if this was a totally ridiculous request. “Alright. Let’s go,” his hands were reaching for her bindings as he said the words.

“Maybe we can tie my hands in front me, this time.
 
I mean, I don’t want to be a bother, you can put them right back after, but it takes a really long time to get my pants down, you know, in the stall.” The words tumbled out of her mouth in a hurry, she relished the feel of her hands free from their restraints, wanted to pull them in front of her and rub the raw wrists.

“I’ll help you,” he smirked, “like I told you last time.”

“Dom ordered you to stay by the phone, Frank,” Freddie piped up with way too much enthusiasm in his voice.

“Shut up.”

“Just looking out for you,” he sang in a voice that clearly ate at Frankie. “What if he called and I answered?” Freddie clucked his tongue in mock dismay.
 
“He would kill you.”

Frankie seemed to think about this for a moment and determined there was some logic in Freddie’s words. Of course, it must have been Freddie’s first shot at being right in his whole life.

“I’ll do it,” Freddie ventured, again with an enthusiasm that made Charisma want to die.

“No, we’ll tie her hands in front, retie them when she gets back,” Frankie said, more to irritate Freddie than to spare Charisma the experience.
 

Charisma could hear Freddie sputter, furious at having been robbed of the opportunity to lower her pants. He narrowed his eyes at Frankie, but didn’t dare say anything, much to Charisma’s relief. He placed one hand on her shoulder, as he had seen Frankie do the day before. His grip was light, felt barely there with little strength in his fingers. With both hands free, and desperation on her side, she thought she might be able to take him on. He stood only a few inches taller than she was, but was so slight he looked like his growth might have been stunted by some unfortunate malady. With her hands tied, though, she would need to stick with her plan, even though it fell pathetically short of what she had hoped.
 

She peeked beneath her blindfold as they made their way toward the bathroom. She knew it was in the same direction as the phone, but she saw no visual evidence of it. It was possible they wouldn’t pass the phone on their way to the bathroom – the voices had sounded farther away during those brief, and uninspiring, phone calls. Then again, she was getting barely a fleeting glance at each room, so she couldn’t at all be sure.
 

In the bathroom, Freddie seemed not to know what to do. He pushed her inside and blocked the door.
 

“Thanks,” she said, with what she hoped was a sassy saunter that would leave him confused. When she was finished she made her way to the sink and awkwardly washed her hands in the rusty water.
 

Freddie came toward her to resume his position behind her shoulder. But as he got within reach, Charisma let her mouth split into a smile she had spent hours practicing in front of a mirror. If he could see her eyes now, the lashes would be batting, their depths twinkling. She knew every trick in the book; she had learned from the best.

“You seem pretty nice. The kind of guy I’d really like to get to know.” She twisted around, away from the mirror where she imagined he was watching her reflection raptly, until she was facing him.
 

“Yeah?” Charisma hated the way his voice took on a bedroom edge, the way she knew he was imagining her without her clothes on, performing all sorts of totally inappropriate acts for him.

“Yeah,” she repeated, desperately trying to keep the mocking sound out of her voice. She swallowed the distaste down and pressed into him, moving forward until his lips pressed hungrily into hers. They tasted like tobacco and mornings before you brush your teeth, and she tried not to grimace. She turned away slightly, biting back the gag, but Freddie was clearly a man of little willpower, among other things, and he yanked her back around jerkily, planting a big, wet kiss on what was intended to be her lips. He missed, and his mouth pressed against her face, but she didn’t care, she kissed him back with what she hoped he would mistake for lust. She backed herself into a wall behind her, feeling up and down his skinny little torso with her tied hands, as best she could. She turned her face away and he began scraping his teeth on her neck and groping her breast with grabby hands. His teeth and hands hurt, but she pretended with all her might that she was loving it, even moaning occasionally. She was sure she would never be an actor, but the effect was good enough for Freddie. This was probably the most Freddie had ever gotten.
 

Suddenly, she used her body to rotate thier positions, pressing him into the wall and taking control of the action. She figured he would prefer it that way anyways, since he didn’t seem familiar with what to do. She kissed him forcefully, running her hands up his chest, to his neck, where she stroked him as seductively as she could muster for a few moments before tightening her grip around her neck.

He murmured something unintelligible against her skin.

“It feels best this way, handsome.” She didn’t need to force the huskiness to her voice, though it was certainly from anything but lust or desire.

He relaxed for a minute, but her hands tightened more and more. Suddenly Freddie seemed to realize he was suffocating and tried to fight it, but it was too late. He tried to scream, but his voice was caught in Charismas mouth. She let him fall when he passed out. She didn’t want to kill him, though she was sure he wouldn’t do her the same courtesy. She breathed heavily for a minute. She hoped he wasn’t dead. Then she felt a heave in her stomach as the combination of the sickening kissing and her attack on another human hit her and she dry heaved into the sink.
 

Then she ran. She ran quietly down the hall, hearing Frankie’s voice calling out to Freddie, trying not to run into unmovables, like the walls.
 

She didn’t have much time. She peaked into the first room past the bathroom. No phone there. Panic rose in her chest. This was her once chance. She heard the scrape of a chair on the floor. She stuck her head in the second room and scanned it. No phone.

Steady footsteps echoed down the hall. She ran into a third room. There, before her on a counter sat a phone, plugged into a wall, like a holy Godsend.
 

She ran to it and shoved her hands into her pocket, hoping she had some number, any number there. She meant to check while she was in the bathroom but had forgot in her anxiety. If she didn’t, she would call 911, but if they found her doing that, she was a goner for sure.
 

She might be anyway.
 

She pulled out a crumpled piece of this paper, it had been though the wash, but the paper hadn’t deteriorated too much, it was still legible: Jared’s business card.

She dialed his cell with the speed of panic and the precision of only having one chance, despite the rope tying her hands together.
 

The phone rang once

“Pick up, Dammit.” She said under her breath. “Pick up pick up pick-“

“Jared Williams” his voice came though the line, tired and laced with defeat.
 

Frankie’s voice shouted from the bathroom. She could hear a trail of expletives in his wake. His footsteps quickened as he jogged down the hall

“Jared, it’s Charisma. They have me; I don’t know where I am.”

“Oh my God!” he said. “Do you know anything? Who has-“

“I think they’re from—”
 

Suddenly, she dropped the phone as she was yanked backward and thrown into a corner. Frankie lunged for the phone and slammed it down on the receiver.

“What the fuck did you do to Freddie?” he snarled, turning towards her. “Bitch, that was a bad move.”

She swallowed. She didn’t try anything; she didn’t know what to try. She’d used up her only partial plan.

He grabbed her arm in his strong hand and pulled her up on her feet. Then he slapped her across the face with a brutality that made her head turn. Tears flooded her eyes.
 

“That’s just the beginning,” he growled.
 

They moved back to the bathroom where Frankie flung her onto the cold tile floor, the door slamming behind her and the sound of something heavy coming to rest against it.