Infatuated (27 page)

The laugh that rang out was high-pitched and so full of glee that it made my skin crawl. “You’re leaving tomorrow, remember?” He smacked his lips together and waved his hand. “Packed up and ready to go. Saved me a bit of trouble there, so thanks. When I heard the news, I was a little angry at first, but then I realized it was better this way. You’re leaving, everyone expects you to go. Saves me time, too. When you don’t show up tomorrow, they’ll just assume you’ve taken off early. Nice and clean.”

“You’re crazy.” I said it, but until the words left my mouth, I hadn’t realized just how crazy he actually was.

Earl shrugged. “I’ve worked with less.”

Worked with less? What did he mean? “Worked with less?”

“Coming up with excuses for people leaving.”

Coming up with excuses for people leaving.
People. Plural. I wasn’t his first…I wasn’t his first. “Tonya.”

“Tonya.” He all but purred her name. “Yeah. She made it easy on me, too. Not quite as easy as you, but I wasn’t fussy. Nothing a little planning couldn’t fix.” His shoulders rolled in the barest of shrugs. “But with you? I don’t have to do anything. You’ve already done it all for me. I just had to sit back and wait. I hate waiting, but sometimes it’s worth it.”

Three thoughts hit me at once.

One, he’d done this before.

Two, there was no doubt in my mind that he planned to kill me, like I was sure he’d killed Tonya.

Three, I’d unwittingly set my own trap and had walked right into it.

He’d found out I’d planned to leave and that’s why he had disappeared for weeks. He hadn’t been hiding like the cops thought, like I’d thought and hoped. He’d been waiting, just so he could cover his tracks.

“How many?”

He looked at me. The curiosity was genuine and somehow sickening, because it seemed so
normal.
“How many what?”

“How many before me?”

My eyes stayed glued on the knife as he waved it and made a
tut-tut
sound. “It’s not polite to talk about your past relationships.”

Relationships. Oh, god.

“Pull one of those chairs up and sit down like a good girl.”

I twisted around and leaned on one of the chairs for support, my fingers curling around the legs like vice grips. It didn’t matter what I did, because he was going to kill me either way. But I wasn’t going to make it any easier on him. My hold tightened on the chair and I grit my teeth.

I was not going down without a fight.

I brought the chair up fast and swung out with all of my force. Earl lurched back enough to miss being hit and my own momentum carried me forward. Sharp pain stole my breath and I felt something wet trickle down my side. He grabbed my hair, jerking my head back as I fell to the floor on my knees.

“Now look what you made me do!” He released my hair only to shove me down again. I sprawled to the floor. Before I could move or even think to, his foot connected with my ribs, stealing my breath again. Silent tears ran down my cheeks and my breath heaved in and out.

Clutching my burning side and moaning, I pushed away from him, leaving a trail of red behind. Blood. My blood. I tasted it in my mouth, felt it seeping through my shaking fingers. I wanted to see my side but I was afraid to move or even blink.

When he took a step toward me, I rolled into a ball and covered my head. His fingers grasped my hair and he yanked me to my feet. He righted one of the chairs with his knife hand. “Sit,” he said and shoved me back. It almost toppled over.

The bag he’d brought in lay by the door. He kept his eyes on me the entire time as he went to retrieve it. I didn’t want to know what was in it but knew I was about to find out anyway. He set it on the table in front of me and unzipped it. From inside, he pulled out duct tape and rope.

I kept my hand pressed to my side. Blood, warm and wet, trickled down. “Don’t do this,” I whispered, my voice catching. Just breathing hurt.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to hurt you.” All the anger that had been on his face and in his voice was gone again. “Just need to make sure you don’t go anywhere while I take care of a few things.”

I didn’t ask what things. I didn’t want to know.

He grabbed the duct tape and walked to me. I shook my head fervently. “Please don’t!”

“Shh now. It’s okay. But if you move,” he said, the anger creeping back into his voice as the knife inched near me, “you’ll wish I’d killed you. Understand?”

I whimpered but nodded.
This can’t be happening.

He made quick work of duct taping my legs to the chair. His fingers brushed against my side and he made a
tsk
sound. “You really shouldn’t have made me angry. Now I have to clean up all this blood. But it’s not going to help if I don’t stop the bleeding first, is it?” He brought the knife down over my shirt and I had one second where I thought—almost hoped—he’d just get it over with. Instead, he cut off a strip of my shirt. He dropped it to my lap while he ripped off a piece of duct tape. Pressing the torn cloth to my side, he taped it in place. He wasn’t gentle about it, pushing down unnecessarily hard with his hands.

Behind me now, he pulled my arms through the rungs of the chair and taped them together. And then he got the rope, securing me in even more. “Just in case,” he said with a wink, tossing the remainder of the rope to the ground and studying his work. His eyes went dark and a satisfactory smile appeared. He came forward and roughly grabbed one of my breasts.

I cursed him, yelling at him to get his fucking filthy hands off me, but the sounds came out garbled. I struggled against the ropes. He only squeezed harder until my eyes watered. They burned, with nausea rising in my stomach, as his hands moved between my legs. All I could do was close my eyes and curse him in my head.

“I’ll be back soon,” he said, speaking close to my ear. He licked the side of my face. “So you just sit tight. Need to get rid of your car.”

My mind raced. Soon? How long was that? A few minutes, an hour? Two? Did I even want to know?

He gathered up his bag and tossed it by the door. He grabbed my purse off the floor, digging through until he found my keys. There were only three on the ring now—the bar, my car, and my apartment. At the door, he stopped and turned back. He fixed me with a hard look. After a second, he went back to his bag and ripped off another piece of duct tape that he placed over my mouth. Satisfied that I couldn’t move or yell, he left.

Don’t come back. Get hit by a car or a meteor or something, just don’t come back!
God, I hoped someone caught him.

He was gone. I had time to…do something.
Think! Escape!
Wildly, I looked around. For what, I didn’t know, but my eyes searched everywhere, looking for anything I could use as a weapon. Anything I could use to get myself free. I wiggled my arms and legs, gritting against the pain in my side and ribs. Nausea had my mouth watering sickly. The wet feeling spread down over my hip. I twisted and turned, fighting the restraints until my breath came out choppy. Fighting against them until my wrists, shoulders, and ankles screamed in agony. Fighting against them until my tears turned to frustration over fear.

I glanced at the bar and then the alarm. If I could get to the bar, I could maybe break a glass and get free that way. Or if I tried for the alarm, I could hit the panic button and alert the security company who’d call the cops.

I didn’t know how long Earl would be gone or where exactly he was taking my car. He could be gone for five minutes or an hour for all I knew, though I doubted the latter would be the case. He wouldn’t risk leaving me alone for that long, would he? No, I doubted it. So whatever I was going to do, I had to act now, because I didn’t think I’d get another chance.

Bar or alarm, bar or alarm.

The alarm was closer and ensured
someone
would come.

Twenty feet. I just had to make it twenty feet.

I hopped in the chair, trying to get it, and me, to move forward. I barely made it an inch. Pain radiated down my ribs and side, and my shoulders and arms because he’d tied them at an awkward angle. I could deal with the pain, or I could deal with Earl when he came back for…

I shook my head and swore behind my gag. I’d take the pain.

Bracing for it, I hopped and tried propelling myself forward with only my feet. Again and again, over and over. My side screamed in agony, and my ribs ached so bad it made breathing difficult. Every other minute, I had to stop to rest and catch my breath. My shoulders were killing me now and I was afraid I’d wrench one—or both—into being unusable. It seemed like it took an eternity to make it ten feet. Ten more. I chanted the words in my head in lieu of a prayer. Ten feet.

At the five-foot mark, I forced myself to work harder, faster. I was almost there! The pain in my shoulders was almost unbearable and tears streamed from my eyes making it nearly impossible to see, but I pushed and pushed.

I heard the jingle of keys and thought my heart would give out. He was back.

I yanked up and pushed with my toes hard enough to send myself sprawling back. My head bounced off one of the tables, making me see stars, and when I hit the floor, I landed on my side. Something tore in my arm and the pain had my stomach clenching and nausea rising. I cried so hard I could barely breathe through the duct tape over my mouth.

And then the door opened.

Earl took one look at me and his eyes turned to thin slits. He slammed the door behind him and stormed over to me. I couldn’t avoid the kicks to my legs and stomach. “You stupid bitch!” he screamed at me. He brought his leg back to kick me again and I could see it shaking with rage, but he lowered it. His hands went to his hair and he yanked, pacing away from me. I heard his loud breaths.

He was seriously losing it. Calm and cool one minute, enraged and out of control the next, like a switch was being flipped in his head. He was like two different people.

Even my dad, who had the worst temper of anyone I’d seen, never looked so terrifying.

Earl released a loud breath and hauled the chair I was in back to its normal position. The movement pulled at my arm and side and I screamed behind the gag. He backhanded me. “Don’t make a fucking sound!”

I shook my head, trying to convey that I wasn’t screaming for help but in pain. I looked in his eyes, then down at my arms.

And boom, like that, the still-psycho-but-less-scary Earl was back. “Did you hurt yourself?”

I nodded again and the movement made me even more sick.

“I’ll remove the tape, but so help me, Ally, if you scream…” He let the threat trail off and I nodded once. He eyed me for a moment, as if trying to gauge whether he could trust me, and then he grabbed a corner of the tape and yanked it away.

I gulped in greedy breaths of air. The scream bubbled up—in pain and anger—but I managed to swallow it back.

Earl grabbed a chair from a nearby table and sat in front of me. He studied me. Long minutes passed in silence, the only sound my harsh breathing. “Now, you’re going to do me a little favor by texting your little buddies and telling them you won’t be meeting them tomorrow. It’s probably not necessary, but I like being cautious.”

“Do it yourself.” I answered without thinking.

“I would, but the whole point is to make sure no one suspects anything. Considering you were a little bitch and have me on the run, I have to be extra careful. So you’re going to send the messages.”

I shook my head. “No.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re going to kill me anyway, so just get it over with,” I panted between breaths. I was nearly hyperventilating now and dizzy with it. And cold. So, so cold.

His arm reached out and twisted in my hair. The knife went to my neck and I could feel the serrated edge bite against my skin. “You’re going to do it or I’m going to shove this in your gut, then find your pretty little friend Laura and do the same to her. I’ve always had a thing for blonds.”

Laura.

By tomorrow night, she’d be living in my apartment. She’d be there, alone.

“And then maybe I’ll move on to Kale, just for fun,” he said, pressing the knife against my throat again, hard enough to break the skin.

“No!” I let out a sob that had nothing to do with physical pain and everything to do with the fact that he would hurt the people I loved. “I’ll do it,” I whispered.

He untied one of my arms and cut the duct tape away before shoving my phone in my lap. “Text your little buddies, tell them you’re leaving tonight. Keep it short and simple. Keep it honest.” He smiled again, a wide smile that scared me more than the knife. “And if you try anything else, I’ll skin you alive, layer by layer, you hear me? I’m very inventive.”

I bit my tongue to keep from screaming and closed my eyes as I nodded. My hand, covered in blood, shook, but I typed the message.
Cant handle more byes, so leaving 2nite. Miss u. Luv u
. He hovered over me now, so I didn’t dare add anything else. Someone, one of my friends, would see the message. They’d know it didn’t sound like me. They might not think anything of it now, tonight, but when they couldn’t get a hold of me again, maybe then they’d suspect something. It’d be too late, but I didn’t want them to think I’d just left. I didn’t want them to think I was ignoring them.

He snatched the phone back and hit
Send
himself. “Good. That should do it. Now, we have a few more things to do, like clean up this mess you made, and then we can—” He broke off as the phone beeped with an incoming message. “What do we have here?” His face contorted. “Seems Kale wants to see you before you leave. He says he’s coming over.”

Of all the people I thought might have responded, Kale wasn’t one of them. Not when he hadn’t said a word to me in weeks. And still, for a split second, I almost sighed in relief. I had an instant where I thought
Yes! Come rescue me!
before my heart nearly stopped. He didn’t know I needed rescued. He didn’t know he’d be walking into a trap with me. “No!”

Earl tossed the phone back to me. “Then convince him not to come, Ally. Because if he does, he won’t be leaving here alive.”