The Comfort of Black (11 page)

“Good morning.”

Hannah spun.

She hadn't even heard the door opening. A man stood holding two coffee mugs. He offered a nervous smile, the kind used when reaching fingers out to a strange dog.

It's okay, girl. It's okay
.

Black. The man who had asked her if she felt safe, and she didn't have an answer.

But she did now. Whatever any of this was, Hannah did not feel safe.

She turned and scrambled out the open window. As soon as her shoes touched the soft dirt, Hannah ran as fast as she could.

“Wait!”

She heard the shout and Hannah only chanced a brief glance back as she sprinted. The cabin she escaped was small, old, with a rock-wall foundation and aging wood siding. A simple cabin in the woods, the kind a family visited a few days every summer. Or the kind someone spent their last days in, afraid of society. Or a place to hide from those searching for you. Or maybe a place to hide a body.

She saw Black leaning out the window, his hands perched on the sill. He shouted again for her to wait, but Hannah didn't obey him. She was done obeying.

Her fists pumped in rhythm with her legs.
Just run, Hannah. Run hard and fast, constant speed and one stride at a time. Just like long-distance running back in high school, back in Kansas, when the sun burned on the track and the rhythmic slapping of feet on the spongy surface almost became hypnotic. Back then, you could run forever. Now you have to do it again. Just run and don't look back
.

But she wasn't in high school anymore, and she certainly wasn't on a smooth, flat track and wearing running shoes. She was running in pumps over layers of moist leaves and pine needles covering rocks and branches. Twice she slipped and nearly fell but was able to catch herself, but with each falter she lost momentum.

She could hear him. He was coming fast.

“Hannah, stop!”

The woods were dense with trees, but not enough for her to zigzag and lose herself among them. She knew she would not outrun him. She spotted a narrow creek bed up ahead of her,
a snake of land that once held water but now only nestled river rocks, smoothed by years of passing currents. She made it to the creek before stopping. Hannah bent and picked up two of the rocks, each about the size of a baseball, before turning to make a stand.

Black slowed.

Hannah sucked in the moist air of the woods, cooling her burning lungs. Her headache was gone, or at least pushed aside by the adrenaline and rage.
How dare you
, she thought.
How dare you bring me here against my will
. Hannah held the rock in her right hand up at shoulder height, perched to throw. It was a desperate move, she knew, because she couldn't throw for shit. But if he came close, maybe she could smash it into his skull.

Black came within twenty feet and stopped. Hannah waved the rock above her head, ready to let it fly. She was panting. He hardly seemed out of breath.

“I was hoping for a thank you,” he said.

“What did you do to me?”

He held his hands up. “I saved you.”

She launched the rock at him. It had the distance but went far right. Black didn't even move as it sailed past him. Hannah shifted the other rock to her throwing hand.

“Look,” he said. “You can keep running if you want. We're in the middle of nowhere. You can run and run until you are so lost your only option is to die of exposure. Then you'd give those men exactly what they wanted. Or you can give me two minutes to tell you what happened.”

She threw the other rock. Wide left. Frustration seared her.

“Let me guess,” he said. “You never played softball growing up.”

She bent and snatched two more rocks.

“What did you do to me?”

“I followed you to the hotel,” he said. “Do you remember me? From the coffee shop?”

“Yeah,” she said. Hannah pushed the hair out of her face
with her free hand. “Black like Betty. Did you abduct me, you pervert?”

“Look, Hannah. What I do…for a living. It involves being able to read situations with very little information. I could tell you were scared about whatever meeting you were going to.”

“I wasn't scared.” She heaved another rock and felt good about this one. Perfect aim. Black casually sidestepped to avoid having it hit him in the head.

“Will you stop that?” he said.

“Why did you follow me?”

“I was worried about you.”

“I didn't need your help.”

This time Black outright laughed at her and her anger—Billy's anger—crested over her.

“
Don't laugh at me!
”

His laughing stopped and his face lost all expression. “You needed all the help in the world,” he said. “I watched you talk with that man in the lobby, and I could tell right away he was bad news. Slick. Confident. Definitely not friendly. Then I watched you cross the lobby with him, and I followed until I saw you disappear in the meeting room. A moment later, another man approached the room, and I knew he was ex-military. It's in the walk.” Black took a couple of steps forward and Hannah threatened another throw. He backed up, holding up his hands in a
take-it-easy
gesture. “He had a big steel case with him, the kind roadies use for music equipment. He wheeled it outside the room. It was big enough to hold a body. He left it in the hallway and then I saw him open the door. Now, you can stand there with a rock in your hand and tell me you don't need help, but you sure as hell did back in that hotel.”

Hannah kept the rock held high and her arm was starting to tire.

“He drugged me,” she said. “Smelled like nail polish.”

“Sounds like ether. I thought I heard a muffled scream but I wasn't sure. A moment later the door opened and the big guy
pulled the case inside the room. When he did that, Slick left the room and walked to the service elevator, then disappeared. I waited. A couple of minutes after that, the big guy came out of the room, wheeling the case behind him.”

“Why didn't you call the police?”

“They wouldn't have responded fast enough. You would have been long gone before the cops got to the hotel.”

“So, how did—”

“I checked the room and you weren't in there. Three people went in, two came out. Easy math. I knew you were in that case. I followed him to the garage. He loaded the case into the back of a van. If I had tried to jump him, he would have torn me to pieces. Fortunately for you, I have a good habit of never leaving the house unarmed.” He patted his waist as if looking for something. “Well, almost never.” Then he took a step forward and a twig snapped beneath his boot. “I forced him out of the van and then took it. Drove straight here.”

“You brought me here instead of taking me to the police?”

“I don't trust the police.”

“You kidnapped me.”

“I saved you. And that guy, the one who took you? He's not an amateur. Wherever he was taking you, I'm thinking you weren't coming back. If I had taken you to the police, it was probably just a matter of time before he tried to take you again. Don't ever assume the police will be able to help you.”

“But
you
can, right?”

“You're alive, aren't you?”

Hannah finally lowered the rock. Whether his story was true or not, she was certain a rock wasn't going to be a game-changer. “The slick one. The one I was talking to in the lobby. He's my husband.”

“I know.”

“How do you know?”

“Your purse. Found your ID. Wasn't hard for me to find out everything about you.”

“You went through my purse?”

“You're seriously surprised by this?”

She wasn't surprised at all. Hannah heard the leaves rustle to her left and she spotted a squirrel foraging. “He…the other guy…Peter. He works for my husband.
Risk management
. He said something about the cameras being secure.”

Black nodded. “He probably made sure the security cameras in the hotel that would have picked up his exit were non-operational. Like I said, not an amateur.” He took another step forward. “They were kidnapping you.”

“I don't know what they were doing.”

“People are taken away against their will usually for one of two reasons,” Black said. “One is to hold for hostage or ransom, but that doesn't make as much sense when it's the husband kidnapping the wife.”

Hannah guessed the second reason before he said it.

“The second reason is to kill the person at another location. One less traceable. Or to sexually assault them.”

Hannah was suddenly exhausted, the adrenaline spike draining from her, leaving her wobbly legged. She didn't know if she could trust Black, but she didn't see much of a choice at the moment. She let the rock fall from her hand, which landed by her side and rolled down into the dry creek bed. Then she sat on a much larger rock, its surface cold and hard. She brought her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. The contact with her own body made her aware of how cold she was.

“We're having some…issues,” she said.

“Most people just get lawyers.”

Hannah laughed and it threatened to turn into tears, but she didn't have any energy left to cry. She just wanted to sleep for a long, long time.

“I'm learning Dallin is far from being a ‘most people' kind of guy.”

Black walked up to her and Hannah didn't look up. As he stood next to her, she could smell his scent. Faint aroma of spice.

“Let's go back inside,” he said.

She looked up.

“Can we call the police now?”

He reached out his hand.

She was torn between distrust and an overwhelming feeling of helplessness. Finally, she closed her eyes and sucked in a breath.

It's going to be okay. It's going to be okay
.

She took his hand. The warmth of his skin radiated throughout her.

“Let's just get inside. And then we'll talk about your options. Do you like bacon?”

She desperately had to pee. Once inside, Black pointed her to the one and only bathroom. She found it immaculate but sparse, a roll of toilet paper and a year-old issue of
Popular Science
the only contents inside. No soap, no hand towel. She opened the cabinet underneath the sink. Empty.

She washed her hands in the kitchen sink as Black cooked at the stove. His back was turned to her as he added more bacon to the pan. Based on the smell in the room, the last batch burned when he was chasing after her in the woods. She quickly scanned the cabin. A simple, functional living space, but that was it. There was no hint of a home. Nothing personal, not one thing revealing anything about the person who lived there. No art on the walls. No mail on the counter. No family photos. Not even a TV or, from what she could see, a computer of any type.

No clock. The digital clocks on both the stove and microwave flashed an eternal 12:00.

“What time is it?” she asked.

Black checked the watch on his wrist.

“Just after seven,” he said.

Hannah glanced at the light streaming through the curtain on the kitchen window. Seven p.m. was dark this time of year. And the light had only grown brighter since she had tried to escape.

“Seven in the morning?”

He flipped some bacon, which spat and hissed at him. “That's right.”

She rubbed her head. “I was out all night? All yesterday
afternoon?” Which explained why her need to pee had felt like a knife in her bladder.

“Yes.”

“But…how?” Could ether have knocked her out for so long?

Black wiped his hands on a paper towel, turned, and walked up to her, which took all of six strides. She shifted her weight to her back foot but she stood her ground. He reached out to her.

“Give me your right hand.”

“Why?”

“Just give me your hand. Dammit, Hannah, if you're going to trust me you have to…to trust me.”

After a moment she put her hand in his. He pulled her arm straight and pointed at the small bruise in the crook of her elbow. He touched it lightly and she could feel the tenderness of the skin.

“My guess is after they knocked you out with the ether, they injected you with something to keep you unconscious. Probably some kind of anesthetic, like propofol, chased with a longer-lasting barbiturate. They didn't want you waking up anytime soon, which means they were probably planning on transporting you somewhere distant.”

“Distant like where?”

“I don't know,” Black said. “But somewhere far, I'm guessing. They would have used that.” He pointed to the cargo van he'd taken from Peter.

“Can't they track me?”

He shook his head. “No GPS in that thing. And they would have ditched your phone soon enough. There would be no trace of you. I still have your phone, but I drained it. We don't want them finding you again.”

Hannah pulled back her arm and ran her finger over the spot where she'd been injected. Dallin had drugged her. He fucking
drugged
her. He didn't just assault her in a momentary loss of control. He plotted to have his own wife kidnapped.

Hannah tried to understand. She found out he was cheating
on her and that he had some dark sexual fetishes. Then he had attacked her. Was he so afraid she was going to have him arrested for assault that Dallin decided it was simply easier to make her disappear? It was possible, but she just couldn't reconcile that idea with the man she thought she knew.

“I need to get out of here,” she said.

Black nodded, handed her a plate of bacon, and said, “Sit.
Please
. Just for a few minutes. Eat something. Then you can do whatever you want. I'll drive you back to Seattle, take you anywhere you need to go.”

She hesitated, then pulled out a heavy wooden chair from the table and sat. The chair, the floor, the bare tabletop: everything seemed cold. A shiver rippled through her shoulder blades as she picked up a piece of bacon.