Regrets Only (28 page)

Bless
your heart
,
Suzanne thought with malice. “Still, pretty clever.”

“I
know,” Penny said haughtily. “I don’t need you to tell me I’m clever. Not
anymore.”

“You
know what, Penny, maybe you never did.”

“Shut
up,” Penny said, waving the gun at her.

Suzanne’s
mind raced. This wasn’t working. Time to try a different tack. “Can you tell me
what time it is?”

“Why?”
the girl demanded.

“Um,
no reason. Never mind.” Suzanne hoped she sounded sincere enough that Penny
might take the bait. She thought, absurdly, of Wallace Shawn and Cary Elwes in
a battle of wits in one of her favorite movies,
The Princess Bride
. She
and Marci had watched it more than a hundred times together since middle
school. She fought off a wild urge to giggle.

“Why
do you want to know what time it is? What’s going to happen?”

“Nothing,”
Suzanne said. “I was just wondering. It’s okay.”

Penny
came over and pointed the gun directly at Suzanne’s face. The urge to giggle
disappeared and her stomach lurched. “Tell me why you want to know what time it
is. Now.”

“Well,
it’s just that I’m supposed to be meeting a friend here today, but…”

“Which
friend? When?” Penny demanded. Good, Suzanne thought; she was putting it
together.

“Just
my friend Dylan,” Suzanne said. She strained to see the numbers on the clock
over the stove and hoped she was reading them right. She tried to sound
dejected. “But he won’t be here until one.”

“You
mean that country singer? Didn’t you just come from seeing him last night? He’s
not coming here. You’re lying.”

Suzanne
wondered how much this insane girl knew about her life. Had she followed her to
Marci’s? Could Marci be in danger?
Oh, God. The baby…

She
stayed silent, partly because she couldn’t decide the best way to convince
Penny that Dylan would be there within the hour, and partly because her throat
was choked with rage. It seemed to work. Penny looked nervous again. She
probed. “Well, you’ll just stand him up. I’ll move you to the back closet and
put a gag in your mouth. He’ll think you forgot about your little date. Or that
you were just avoiding him. That wouldn’t surprise him, would it?”

This
last barb was caustic and pointed, but Suzanne ignored it. She was punishing
herself enough for all of that. She didn’t need this crazy bitch piling on.
“Actually, he knows about you,” she said truthfully. “He was here when I got
your
lovely
flowers.”

“Oh,”
Penny said softly.

“So
if I don’t answer the door or the phone, he’ll call the police. We have an
agreement about it.” It was a total lie, of course, but she hoped it was
believable enough.

“Unless…”
Penny said slowly. “You call him to cancel.”

Suzanne
pretended to be horrified. “You can’t make me do that. I won’t.”

Penny
leveled the gun at her again and it made an ominous clicking sound. Suzanne
swallowed hard and found she did not have to fake the cracking in her voice.
“Fine. I’ll call him.”

“And
I’m going to listen on speaker to make sure you don’t say anything…funny.”

Suzanne
cleared her throat nervously. “Of course. We’d better hurry before your friend
gets back. Can you untie me?”

Penny
seemed to think it over momentarily, and then said, “No, I’ll dial.” She retrieved
Suzanne’s cell phone from her purse and found Dylan’s number saved there.
Obviously Penny wasn’t quite as stupid as Suzanne had hoped, but there was
still a chance she could get herself rescued before the deranged duo took her
to wherever they had planned to hold her for ransom. But now it all depended on
Dylan.

He
didn’t answer, and when his voicemail message started, Suzanne raised an
eyebrow at Penny, who nodded. She willed herself to stay calm, and when she
heard the beep she gave it her best shot. “Hey, Dylan, it’s Suzanne.” Her voice
was unnaturally high, but maybe that was better. “I had a great time last night
and I was just calling to say I need to reschedule our meeting today. I’m…catching
up with an old friend, and believe it or not she loves your music almost as
much as I do. She’s a huge fan. I’ll have to give her one of those autographed
CDs of yours I always keep on hand.”

Penny
scowled and waved the gun in a “hurry up” motion; Suzanne knew she was out of
time. “Anyway, why don’t I call you next week and we’ll meet then, okay?
Thanks.” Then Penny had pressed the End button and Suzanne had nothing left to
do but wait.

Dylan
lay in the double bed, naked from the waist down, listening to Misty talk and
staring at the ceiling. The lovemaking, if you could call it that, had been
swift and furious. Dylan had been nearly out of his mind with anger and
frustrated lust and had been barely aware of Misty herself, which, oddly,
seemed only to increase her enjoyment of the event. Now, lying in the sweat and
shame of the last hour, he found himself even less happy than he had been that
morning. Misty, on the other hand, seemed invigorated by what she obviously
perceived as passion for her, and she was rambling on about plans for the
summer tour and God knew what else.

Dylan
felt restless and sick. Sick of Misty and the inane conversation, but mostly
sick of himself. After a few minutes, he was desperate for a reason to get out
of bed. He remembered that his phone had been buzzing earlier and mumbled
something about it without waiting for her response.

He
played Suzanne’s message three times, trying to get his head around it. It made
no sense whatsoever. Could she be drunk? No. Was she messing with him? Not
really her style. Especially after the tense note they’d left on last night. She’d
never been a fan of his music, and obviously didn’t keep autographed CDs on
hand. They’d talked about that when Officer Daniels—

It
hit him like a bucket of ice water. It was code. The stalker was there with her.
Dylan nearly dropped the phone. With shaking hands, he checked the time Suzanne
had called. Nearly forty-five minutes ago. If she were hurt, if something
happened…

No.
He wouldn’t think that way. He didn’t have time. He dialed 911, but before hitting
Send he realized that was bound to be a useless exercise. What would he say? A
friend called to say she liked my music? How was that an emergency?

He
ran to the bedroom to find his wallet, ignoring Misty’s affronted questions
about what was so important. Credit cards and other papers scattered to the
floor unheeded while he searched, eventually putting his hands on the business
card he’d been frantically searching for. He ran back to the kitchen and called
Officer Bonita Daniels’ direct line.

#

Fifteen
minutes later, he hung up the phone, pulled on jeans and reassembled his wallet.
He told Misty to stay at the apartment. “Where are you going?” she demanded.

“It’s
an emergency with…a friend,” he said hastily. Misty made a face.

“What
do you expect me to do here by myself?” she demanded.

He
had no time to argue with her. “You’re welcome to leave, then.” He slammed the
door without waiting for an answer, and barely stopped for red lights on the
way to Suzanne’s condo.

The
police cars were in front of her building when he arrived. Bonita had answered
his call right away and believed him without question. But he needed to see it
for himself, to see that someone was there, helping Suzanne. He slammed the
truck into park in the garage across the street and ran through the revolving
doors into the lobby. Two uniformed officers were blocking the elevator doors
and a couple of confused residents murmured to one another nearby.

They
wouldn’t let Dylan up or give him any information, so he made himself sit in an
armchair across from the doors and wait.
Just please, God, let her be safe.

After
what seemed like an eternity, the doors opened and a group of police officers
emerged, leading out in handcuffs a robust girl with black pigtails and a tall,
bald white guy who looked menacing even to Dylan. At the back of the elevator
he saw the short, round figure of Bonita Daniels, who gestured for him to join
her. He held his breath until the elevator doors closed and she said, “She’s
okay.”

Bonita
led him to Suzanne’s apartment, where she was wrapped in a blanket at the dining
room table, looking a way he never, ever wanted to see her. She was being
interviewed by a female officer with a tightly wound bun, speaking softly and
wringing her hands on her lap. He could see red marks on her wrists where she’d
apparently been tied up. When she looked up and saw him, tears welled in her
eyes and she threw off the blanket to run to him.

“Oh,
God, thank you, thank you,” she said. “You got my message. I was so scared.
Dylan, I was so damn scared.”

“I
know. I’m so sorry I didn’t answer the phone. Oh, Suze. I’m so sorry for what
you went through.” He held her back, putting his hands on her cheeks,
inspecting her like a mother would examine a child who’d fallen off the
playground. An angry bruise was starting to show on her right cheek. “Are you
hurt?”

She
shook her head softly as tears flowed fresh. He pulled her close again, putting
his face in her hair and inhaling deeply. She sobbed into his neck. The officer
at the table gave him a wan smile as if to say that Suzanne was lucky to be
alive. Dylan held her tighter, not wanting to let her go. He wanted to protect
her, to erase her pain, to never leave her side again.

The
officer cleared her throat and he led her gently back to the table to finish
the interview. Dylan sat next to her, holding her hand. Bonita bustled in and
out, asking questions and giving directions and quiet updates. Radios beeped
and crackled on the hips and shoulders of officers who came and went, taking
pictures and notes, collecting evidence in little baggies.

“So
then after you called Mr. Burke and left the message…” the officer was
prompting gently.

Suzanne
nodded. “For a few minutes nothing else happened. I knew that Gunnar, the man,
was going to several ATMs using my card. The girl, Penny, she seemed to be just
waiting for him.”

The
officer nodded, taking notes. Bonita had stopped in her hustling around to
listen quietly as Suzanne went on. “So then he called her, I guess, to ask for
the PIN to my credit cards, to get a cash advance. I don’t have those codes
memorized, and I said that. It sounded like maybe he told her to hit me again.
But she said no, that she believed I didn’t know the numbers, and she didn’t
think hurting me more was going to make a difference. They fought for a minute
on the phone, and then I said I could look through my filing cabinet to try to
find the numbers. I knew things would get worse once he got back and I was
trying to buy some time.”

Dylan
shuddered. The time she’d been desperately trying to buy to save her life was
the same time he’d spent with Misty, ignoring Suzanne’s call and trying to
erase his feelings for her. He was the worst person on earth.

“So
Penny got into my filing cabinet, but we couldn’t find any of the information,
and when Gunnar called back he said he was around the corner.” She started
breathing heavy, he noticed, and he could tell she was reliving the panicked
feelings.

“Are
you sure she needs to talk about this now?” he asked. Bonita nodded at him, so
he squeezed Suzanne’s hand and sat quietly waiting.

When
she went on, her voice was very small. “When he,
Gunnar
, got back, he
had two black ski masks and a newspaper with him. He told Penny to put me on a
chair and they put…” she gave Dylan a pained smile “…duct tape on my mouth. He
took pictures of me with the newspaper in front of me and made Penny hold a
knife to my throat.”

She
took a deep, rattling breath. The next words came out choked with fearful sobs.
“That’s when he said that I—I didn’t look
scared
enough. That my parents
might not believe I was in real danger. So he…” She stopped, looking at her
lap. Dylan’s whole body hurt. It was all he could do to remain seated, holding
her shaking hand. For the first time in his life, he wanted to kill someone.
Not punch or kick or wound.
Kill.
He wanted that bastard dead.

The
officer taking notes wore the neutral expression of a professional: patient and
nonreactive. Bonita wore a version of the same expression, one that years of
training and witnessing horrible experiences had obviously given her, but he
thought maybe her deep brown eyes looked watery.

Suzanne’s
voice was barely a whisper now. “So he took the gun and the knife from Penny
and told her to take me to the bedroom. She didn’t seem to want to. I got the
impression that it—maybe it hadn’t really been part of their plan. Penny seemed
scared, too, actually. She said they had what they needed and shouldn’t they go
ahead and take me to the warehouse. I guess that’s where they were going to
keep me while they waited for the money. Gunnar told her to shut her fat mouth
and do as she was told. He pointed the gun at her and told her to take me to
the bedroom, now.”