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*
Chapter 1
Finally, some down time, was Sonya’s first thought on the day she was abducted, as she awakened to the last hours of simple, sweet normalcy that she would ever know.
She rolled away from the light leaking through the mini-blinds of her heritage home in a historic Denver neighborhood. Sonya had been booked solid for the past two weeks, and this morning offered the rare luxury of sleeping in after working until ten thirty last night on a major magazine ad for Nordica ski boots. She snuggled the comforter around her neck as the phone began to ring softly.
Dutifully, she picked up the receiver and checked caller I.D. Chatwin Modeling Agency. Then she did her best at nine a.m. to sound awake, alert, and, most of all, young and energetic. Sprightly.
Her voice cracked on, “Yes?”
“Sorry-sorry-sorry, but I gotta wake you up because you are the flavor of the month.”
Jackson, Jackson, Jackson, she thought, turn down the flattery.
“Are you up for Bozeman, Montana, honeypants? It’s a last-minute thing. The art director says he’s gotta have you.”
“Hold on.” She sat up, covering the mouthpiece to clear her throat, trying to sound if not youthful, at least alive. “How last-minute is it?”
“Not that.” A pause. “Say an 8:40 flight tonight?”
“Sure.” She rose from the bed, arched her lower back, and heard a distinct pop that felt good.
“You still having trouble with your email? Because I tried sending you the shoot schedule and it came back.”
“Yes.” Waking up. “I’ll just come by.” Downtown Denver was only ten minutes away. “I’ve got to drop off my laptop anyway.”
“The shoot starts early tomorrow.”
“How early is ‘early?’”
“Oh, you’ll definitely be catching the sunrise.”
Sonya hadn’t seen that for a while. She opened the blinds, and noticed that the last of the red and orange leaves had fallen on her quaint street. That’s when the memory of her daughter’s birthday jolted her, as if it had been hiding in the back of her mind waiting for the right moment to leap out. Much as Darcy herself had been known to jump out of her shadowy life with a suddenness that had been shocking to her mother.
Sonya sighed. Twenty-three years ago, to the day, she’d given birth to her only child, an extraordinarily difficult daughter, but also an amazing—and passionate—young woman. On Sunday, she’d left Darcy a phone invitation to a birthday dinner. Now it was Thursday, and she hadn’t heard back from her. No surprise there, which was the saddest part of all—realizing that even though her expectations of Darcy had sunk to heartbreaking depths, they could still be exceeded by reality.
So at 8:40 tonight Sonya would hit the road again. Grab the work while you can—the model’s mantra. You never knew when you’d hit a dry patch that would turn into an endless professional desert. Always a worry when you’re a middle-aged model. Forty-four, to be precise. Advertisers needed mature faces to sell products to aging baby-boomers, but not too mature.
She hadn’t asked about the client. Most likely a catalogue shoot or a newspaper ad. Maybe a billboard. Or a new product. Her smiling face had also adorned packaging for everything from yoga mats to orthopedic pillows (the two were not unrelated, in her experience).
She fixed a cup of chai tea and settled at her vanity to do her face, studying the fine lines that had formed above her lips.
And here you thought you were getting too old for pleats. You just didn’t know that they’d show up on your face.
She saved her lips for last, smoothing on a sienna-colored gloss, and strode back into the bedroom to slip on a silk and rayon jacket with a jacquard vine pattern. Fall colors. Then she gave herself a strict once-over before a full-length mirror, straightening the mandarin collar on her crisp white shirt before judging herself fit enough to walk in the door of the agency.
Chatwin Modeling Agency occupied a spacious suite on the fifth floor of one of Denver’s oldest and most distinguished buildings. With its stone-and-mortar, ornamental turrets and tall, mullioned windows shimmering in the snappy, late autumn sun, it looked as much like a fortress as any castle Sonya had ever seen. A broad band of stained glass depicting Saint George slaying the dragon arched over the red brick entryway.
The elevator opened to Jackson pacing behind an elegant black-enamel reception desk that swept away from the far wall of a brightly lit lobby, appointed with teal leather chairs, brushed steel end tables, and fuchsia walls. Jackson remained on his feet most of the day, working the phone and pausing only to tap away at a keyboard or to direct the work of his two young female assistants.
Aspiring models waited on both sides of the lobby, balancing portfolios on their laps and flipping through magazines, bringing Joni Mitchell to mind, singing about lots of pretty people
“ . . . reading Vogue, reading Rolling Stone . . . ”
Lots of pretty faces on the walls, too. Hers was sandwiched between photographs of a Sports Illustrated swimsuit star and a plus-size model famous for her three brief lines in an ad for a popular ice cream bar: “This is real pleasure. And I won’t deny myself. Ever!”
Both of them had moved on to New York agencies. Sonya had seen other models come and go, less illustriously in most cases. Her own photo had been updated yearly for the past two decades. She wondered how many more times she’d sit before Ms. Katie Chatwin’s camera before her features disappeared from these walls forever. If adulation of youth really was the cold hard face of fashion, then every month saw more of her future melting away.
Jackson flaunted his own brand of eye candy: Tall, lean, handsome in an overtly angular manner that suited him at twenty-nine, but cursed with an upper lip so sparse that his head shots had never landed him a reputable agency. Now he directed the daily flow of models and tended to Ms. Chatwin herself, who referred to him as her Girl Friday, a tired moniker that he embraced fully.
“Here you go, honeypants.”
Sonya skimmed the travel arrangements to make sure there were no surprises (that’s the last thing you wanted on a shoot).
Bozeman. Alaska Air. 8:40 p.m. Return tomorrow 6:25 p.m.
Flipping the page, she noted her day rate: $1,500. Pretty much the top of the food chain for a middle-age model in these parts. Scanning further, she saw that the client was The Frontier Ahead catalogue (buckskin jackets and western skirts, Navajo blankets and silver bracelets). They’d plucked her from the cyberspace cattle call on the agency website. All the particulars for all the world to see: Sonya Adams. 5’10”. Size 6. Bust: 36 inches Waist: 27 inches Hips: 36 inches Shoe: 8. Eyes: Brown. Hair: Brown.
A near-perfect figure, but she thought she’d probably nabbed the job with her smile. Sonya wasn’t coy about her assets and liabilities. The smile made her appear healthy, wholesome, “Bright as a peppermint Altoid,” in the memorable words of her favorite art director.
“Katie busy?” As long as she was down here she’d like to slip in and see her agent.
“She is. New girl. Hot. But don’t worry, she’s a petite. Name’s Taffeta. Don’t you just love it? Mobile, Alabama.” Said as if that explained everything. “Why? Is there something I can do for you?”
“I just wanted to talk to her about my daughter.” Katie Chatwin called Darcy, “A diamond in the rough.” Sonya still held out hope that her girl might try the modeling business. Maybe even end up liking it. “It can wait.”
She spotted the smile starting to creep across Jackson’s face, but he stopped short of using his pet name for Darcy, “Little Miss Makeover.”
Bizarre to have a daughter so notorious for her appearance that she’d earned a slew of unflattering nicknames over the past several years, especially when you made your living with your looks. And not just looks. Sonya had achieved this success by having a predictably cheerful demeanor, while Darcy had gained her reputation by using harsh means—and behavior—to create a much starker image.
As chance would have it, her daughter rang her cell as she stepped back onto the elevator.
Take a breath.
Which she did, twice.
“Happy birthday, sweetheart.”
“You still want me over for dinner?”
“Yes, of course . . . ”
“But?”
“The only uncertainty you hear is that a job just came up. I’ve got a flight tonight, but if you could come over at five we could probably do it?”
“Four”
Sonya had been negotiating with this kid since she’d learned to talk, but four o’clock would never be enough time to get ready. “I’m sorry, it’s got to be five.”
“Remember what I’m eating.”
“I know.” She tried to keep impatience from bubbling over. And almost told Darcy to forget it, that you don’t call me at the last minute. But a big part of the challenge she’d always faced in parenting Darcy had been knowing where to draw the line. Sonya still wasn’t sure of the answer so she tended to err on the side of kindness, and often felt like a fool. “Okay, five,” she said.
Look, you’ll do dinner, she told herself. It’ll be quick, and you’ll be on your way to Bozeman. It’ll be what it’ll be. What it’s been for too long now.
She stared at her watch as the elevator opened to the ground floor, already gripped by panic.
Forget the laptop. Get a move on.
By the time she got home she had three bags full of produce and a bouquet of flowers. A gift for Darcy was always problematic, but maybe she’d like the lilies. They were truly lovely.
Two hours later she’d worked the food processor so furiously that she expected to see a spike in her utility bill. But this was Darcy’s birthday, so it would be a raw food fest: mock salmon pate, which bore as much resemblance to the real thing as it did to Milk Duds; carrocado mush, a blend of carrots, avocados, and dulse (basically seaweed, but “harvested from virgin tidal pools”) and sprouted quinoa, which appeared a little too alive when she globbed it into a serving bowl.
Sonya wiped up the pits and peelings sliming every surface, loaded the dishwasher, and drew herself a bath, spritzing it liberally with lavender oil.
After lighting a scented candle and turning the Jacuzzi on low, she lay back, relaxing into the padded headrest.
And fell asleep.
She woke with a start at twenty to five, rose from the tub like Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction, and dried off so fast she left a towel burn on her bottom.
Sonya dashed into the bedroom and threw her clothes back on. Looked herself over in the full-length mirror and checked her face. It’ll do. Stage one of Darcy triage was complete.
Stage two came when she packed her carry-on. She’d had to do this too many times in the midst of a hellacious argument with her daughter, and been left having to buy a hairdryer, eye makeup, underwear, or some other overlooked item on the road. Pack now, pay less later.
Sonya wished that she could have reacted less harshly, but Darcy had never seemed to understand that her mom was supporting her with no help from her feckless father.
Stage three came when Sonya fortified herself with a glass of wine.
The front doorbell sounded as she took another sip of sauvignon. Her hand froze with the glass inches from her lips.
More, she barked at herself with the kind of urgency normally associated with a 911 call. She took a mouthful, then smoothed the front of her slacks and headed calmly to the door as the opening notes of Pachelbel’s Canon in D Major rose for the second time.
“It would help if you’d give me a goddamn key.”
In response, Sonya managed a greeting and a hug, reaching out in word and deed to put aside Darcy’s profane and familiar complaint, and received in return a stiff whiff of alcohol, tobacco, and firearms.
“Look at you, twenty-three. Happy birthday.”
“Thanks, pork chop.”
A term of endearment at one time. Now? Sonya honestly had no idea. Maybe it meant Meat Eater. Maybe, “You’re a pig, Mom.” Don’t ask.
Darcy shrugged off her mother’s hand and a dark wool jacket, then whipped her knitted cap across the room, where it landed with handsome accuracy on the arm of a tufted blue couch.
Her hair fell in clumps to her shoulder. Sonya found herself reaching for the tangled mess.
“Don’t,” Darcy warned. “I’m letting it go. I want dreads.”
Dreadlocks. Of course. As predictable as her tetchiness. Dreads, like the ones festering on that white guy’s head at a most unforgettable shoot two months ago. He’d had a bone handle knife, of all things, poking out of his locks of hair like an accessory. It had been a newspaper ad for McFaddins Fashions, a shot that had turned into an increasingly popular poster well beyond and outside of the original ad. The full-page spread had featured Sonya in a linen pants suit and pearls casting her most censorious look down at the neo-primitive, as he’d described himself, crouching at her feet in a loincloth . . . and that’s all, unless you were inclined to include the tattoos and piercings that had covered his entire upper body, from his neck to his navel, his deltoids to his derrière.
“Darcy, I wish you wouldn’t get dreadlocks—”
“Not now. I’m not in the mood. I’m majorly PMSing.”
“—because you have such lovely hair.” When it’s not a tangled, unwashed mess and dyed all colors of death. But again, those most chosen words remained unspoken, as they often must for a mother.
Darcy might not have heard them anyway, because she’d followed the flight of her hat to the couch before veering into the kitchen to root through the refrigerator for a Corona (she ate raw food except for beer and tequila). It was her birthday, so Sonya had stocked up.
“Lime?”
Sonya pointed to the fruit basket.
Darcy fondled three of them before slicing up the ripest with such professional dispatch—she bartended nightly at a place named Rio deGenerate—that for the first time in Sonya’s life she actually felt sorry for a piece of fruit. Her daughter stuffed the wedge into the bottle and took a swig that lasted several seconds, then eyed her mother.
Her mother eyed her right back, the better not to notice the piercings: eyebrows, nose, ears (half a dozen in each . . . at last count), tongue and, reportedly, breasts, labia (major and minor), and the worst, by far, two tiny titanium barbells through the bridge of her nose, which gave Sonya’s beautiful child the unmistakably deranged look of a bride of Frankenstein.
“I’m gonna do it,” Darcy said.
It, in this context with this girl at this time was as loaded as two simple letters could possibly get. Did it refer to dropping the seedy job, the “art” classes (held in a squatter’s loft), and the druggie friends, including her boyfriend, Kodiak, and their housemate, Lotus Land?
Or did it mean she’d finally return to school to get a Masters in Fine Arts?
If only, Sonya would think moments later, though Darcy’s revelation wasn’t absent of all artistic considerations:
“I’m gonna get inked. Finally.”
“Inked,” Sonya said in a tone that spoke more of incredulity than ignorance.
“Yep.” Darcy pulled off her sweater, unveiling a ratty, “recycled” sleeveless camisole, once peach, perhaps, but now broadly stained and washed-out. “I’m gonna get a big tattoo for right here,” stroking the whole of her bare shoulder like it was a pet.
Don’t, Sonya warned herself. Not a word, not a single word. She knew in the pre-dawn of her emotions that even a lone critical note would buttress her daughter’s decision to further disfigure herself, for that was the only view Sonya had on this subject. Piercings? Ugly as they were—and here her eyes rose to those belligerent-looking barbells in the bridge of Darcy’s pert nose—the holes would eventually seal up. But a tattoo?
“A snake in the grass.” Darcy said, “with its head coming up right here.” Her thin, graceful fingers circled a patch of skin right below her ear.
“You’ll be in turtlenecks the rest of your life,” flew from Sonya. Dismayed not so much by Darcy’s huge smile as by her own inability to restrain herself.
“I’ll wear my apple earrings with it.”
Sonya, still in shock, added bewilderment to her ever-expressive face.
“The Garden of Eden. Don’t you get it?” Darcy grinned.
*
Dinner went as well as Sonya could have expected, given Darcy’s opening gambit and her dietary demands.
Now it was time for the cake, a mound of raw carrot clippings with almond “icing.”
Sonya planted the candles in the concoction and watched them immediately begin to lean over, Tower of Pisa-style, so she jammed them in another half inch before firing them up. She carried the gleaming, orange and brown mass to the table singing Happy Birthday in French, a family tradition since Darcy had entered the third grade of the Denver International School. The girl’s facility with her second tongue far surpassed her mother’s, but the last time Sonya had tried to get away with singing Happy Birthday in English, Darcy had been sixteen and had screeched, “No, Mom, you ruined it.” (But in French, of course, not that a translation had been necessary.) And, well, that had been the end of that. Bonne Fete A Toi it would be, qui-qui.
“Thanks,” Darcy said as Sonya set the cake down in front of her.
She closed her eyes and could have been a pre-teen again for all the simple delight she squeezed into her face while making a wish.
As she blew out the candles, Sonya’s hand settled lightly on her bare, blank shoulder, and Darcy squeezed it gently, an act of kindness so unexpected that it left her mother startled, shaken, and more wary than ever.
What’s that tell you? Sonya asked herself later as she backed down her driveway. She was so nice to me there for a while, even thanked me for the flowers. It’s like she’d just heard I had cancer or something.
And then she’d wanted to talk. Of all the days.
Sonya checked her watch and moved rapidly from surface streets to the freeway, darting through the last of Denver’s drive-time traffic. One more quick turn took her into the airport’s long-term parking, where she retrieved her carry-on from the back of the car.
Is that snow?
The cold damp spot on her cheek turned out to be rain. She hadn’t noticed the clouds moving in, or the terminal up ahead, which bore the unlikely appearance of a tent, as if it might have rambled nomadically across the Front Range before settling here.
The strange design no longer shocked her, and she wondered if there’d come a time when a snake on Darcy’s lovely neck would seem as normal.
Less than an hour after boarding, she landed in Bozeman. As she rolled her carry-on past security, she spotted her driver, a young woman in a white shirt and dark tie with a chauffeur’s cap pulled low on her forehead. She held a plain piece of cardboard with Sonya Adams. It looked like a flap torn from the top of a packing box that had been scribbled on with red crayon.
Never a good omen when the client’s penchant for penny-pinching begins with the modest cost of a neat sign.
What gives? Sonya wondered. Major catalogue companies had never been this cheesy.
At least they’d assigned a driver to her. And they certainly hadn’t scrimped on the car: a white stretch limo. Town cars were much more typical, so no complaints there. A chance to stretch her long legs after the cramped seating on the plane.
Fat, cold raindrops pelted the dark windows as they pulled away from the terminal. Sonya checked her watch and figured she could be in bed by ten-thirty.
Several minutes later the driver pulled onto the shoulder by a stand of conifers, their wet bark shiny in the headlights.
“A warning light,” the chauffeur said after lowering the vinyl privacy panel that separated them. “Got a phone? “
“Sure, but don’t they give you one?”
“Yeah, but I forgot it.”
Sonya dug out her new Nokia and scooted up to the opening. The driver took the cell with her eyes on the rearview mirror, never bothering to thank her.
As Sonya sat back down the electronic lock sounded for the front passenger door. She looked up to see a man racing from the trees to slide in beside the driver. With a start, Sonya realized that she recognized him.
He spoke without turning around. “You’re locked in and you’re not getting out. Don’t try a thing or I’m coming back there.”
“What’s going on?” Sonya tried to sound outraged, but her hands, arms, her whole body had begun to shake.
The privacy panel rose, isolating her as the driver sped back onto the road.
Sonya lunged for the door. Locked. She stabbed the lock button with her finger and yanked on the handle again, then spun around when she heard a truck coming up behind them. She waved frantically, mouthed “Help, help,” before realizing that the driver couldn’t see her through the limo’s smoked glass.
And no one would miss her at the shoot because this wasn’t a modeling job. This was a trap, and she’d flown right into it. And the driver had duped her into surrendering her only means of calling for help.
But why me?
She hit the switch to lower the privacy panel. Nothing happened. In a sudden fury, she pounded the black vinyl. It started down, and she backed away, wishing she’d left it alone.
The young man stared at her. He looked the same as when she’d seen him before: bone-handle knife rising like a hair stick from his balled-up dreadlocks. The last time, he’d been crouching at her feet, posing for that McFaddins ad, affecting a feral taunt on his face.
He looked deadly now. And then he pulled the blade from his hair.
Chapter 2
“Didn’t you hear me the first time? Sit back in the seat and don’t make me come back there.”
Horrified, that’s exactly what Sonya did. The privacy panel rose.
An hour and twenty-four minutes later, it remained in place. She’d checked the panel almost as often as she’d checked her watch, trying to track how far they’d gone. She thought they might be driving north on a state highway, but she’d always had a lousy sense of direction, a shortcoming she’d never experienced more cruelly than tonight.
She wished she could see whether he’d put the blade back in his hair. It frightened her almost senseless to think of the weapon in his hands, and him coming back after her.
The heater fan hummed relentlessly, making the back of the limo uncomfortably hot, and the switch to turn it off didn’t work. Sweat streamed from her scalp, down her brow and back and neck, dampening her blouse and bra and leaving her limp and feverish.
She’d shed her leather trench coat and a cashmere sweater, and now undid the top two buttons on her blouse, discreetly fluffing it to try to get some air. Feeling watched, even though she didn’t know how they could see her back here.
Her throat and mouth burned as if they‘d been scoured with sand. Dizziness and a dreadful feeling of sickness finally forced her past her considerable fear. She knocked meekly on the panel. It lowered less than an inch.
The guy with the dreadlocks turned, showing a face that had become as well-known as her own from the McFaddins poster.
“Could you turn down the heat? Please?” Sonya’s voice croaked, a sound so weak it scared her. “Water?” she managed.
The young man whipped the knife up from his lap and smacked the vinyl by her face, making her jump back.
The panel closed.
She could have wept in fear and frustration. Why hadn’t Jackson checked, called The Frontier Ahead to make sure it was they who’d requested Sonya Adams? But why would he? It was so routine. No one ever checks. Who thinks abduction?
They did.
The heater fan never faltered, and she grew so furious she wanted to pound the panel again; but she didn’t have the strength even to sit up properly. And then her eyes landed on the vinyl where he’d smacked his knife, and she couldn’t stop imagining what he could do to her, what he might have done to other women. At the shoot Sonya had considered the knife a prop, not a harrowing fixture of some insane life.
Miles and miles went by. Nobody passed them. They didn’t pass anyone else. Few headlights appeared. She checked her watch again: one hour fifty-seven minutes.
This heat is killing me.
She edged back up to the dark panel and used what felt like the last of her strength to tap it. She felt on the verge of passing out. When it cracked open, she caught the driver’s eyes in the rear view mirror, and pantomimed drinking water.
Dreadlocks glanced at the clock on the dash and leaned forward, retrieving a water bottle from a pack. The window opened two more inches, barely enough room for him to slip it to her.
“What’s going on? Tell me, please.”
The window closed once more without a response.
The heater fan suddenly fell silent, and in that first instant she imagined a degree of cooling. Thank God. She ripped the cap off the bottle and drank greedily, downing half of it before finding the harsh metallic taste repugnant, like water from the rankest desert well.
That was her last thought before melting to the carpet.
*
Waking was like coming out of a coma. Her thoughts were sluggish, and only the most basic elements of her surroundings registered: blanket, cold, movement.
The limousine hit a pothole and her head bounced. When she settled she felt the carpet on which she lay. Rough. Grimy. Smelled like a dog. And the blanket covering her was bristly as a brush. Then she heard the rapid metallic rhythm of studded snow tires.
Not the limo.
Her eyes opened to darkness so blank she blinked to check herself, but still she saw nothing. The scratchy blanket covered her head too. And her mouth wouldn’t shut. It hurt. She tried to work her jaw. Couldn’t.
Christ, they’ve gagged me.
Another bump. She bounced again. Her neck ached. She was on her side. She tried to brace her head, but couldn’t: Her hands were tied behind her back. Her feet were tied too.
She sank into herself, so aghast she didn’t feel it at first. A chilly dampness. And then she realized she’d wet herself.
Oh God.
Another jarring bounce made her neck hurt worse. She must have been sleeping in an awkward position. Not sleeping, drugged, she told herself.
Wet.
She shifted the coarse blanket off her face, then let her eyes travel as far as they could. This was the back of a big vehicle. A Suburban or the like, with the seats in the back taken out.
Two people, a driver and passenger, sat up front. Sonya started when her eyes fell on a guy sitting near her on the raised platform that filled the rear compartment. No, there were two people back here too. The second was the woman limo driver, but without the chauffeur’s cap. Sonya looked at the guy again: Dreads, with that knife rising from the back of his head. Both of them staring at her in silence. Like zombies. More than any threat, this terrified her.
She grunted, trying to speak. He drew the knife from his hair, his face still blank as he crawled toward her.
She tried to roll away. The blanket fell off as he grabbed her, his fingers long and hard. Steely tentacles. He pressed the blade, still warm from his scalp, against her face. Then he cut the cloth and jerked away the gag.
“Where am I?” Her words came as if from a broken dream, stumbling across stepping stones of consciousness. No answer, but he understood her. She could see it in his eyes as he sat back still staring at her, crossing his arms, the knife casually pointing toward her.
“You drugged me.” The accusation came on a cloud so thick her voice sounded more of wonder than anger.
“She’s hammered,” the young woman said to him. “She won’t be able to do anything for a while.”
Still nothing from him. Just that stare, the silence now complete but for the steady drumming of the snow tires.
The next time she awoke her mouth and throat were as parched as they’d been in the limo when she’d torn open the water bottle. But her head felt clearer.
The road had changed. Rougher, jarring her every few seconds, and the sound of the snow tires had been replaced by gravel or rocks clattering against the chassis. She tried to look at her watch before remembering that her hands were tied behind her back.
It’s not there.
She rubbed her wrist against her lower back to check. Her Movado was definitely gone.
“Where’s my watch?”
“You won’t need it.” Dreads’ eyes had never strayed from her.
Won’t need it? Only the dead don’t need time, she thought immediately.
She looked closely at him. “You took it?” Her Movado bangle watch? She’d paid more than a thousand dollars for it.
No answer.
“You’re stealing from me.” But even as she accused Dreads for a third time, she told herself not to antagonize him over a watch, no matter the cost.
She took a steadying breath, riveted again by his familiar face. It had startled her when she’d first met him on the set at McFaddins, his striking facial features, so handsome in contrast to a body riddled with tattoos and piercings. She’d shaken his hand and wondered where McFaddins had found him.
Now, she realized with a fresh infusion of fear, she was likely to learn the answer.
Dreads nudged her with his boot. “Change your wet clothes.”
She shrugged off his touch. Furious at his effrontery, and embarrassed that they knew she’d wet herself. But, yes, she did want to change, desperately so.
He waved the knife in front of her face. “I’m going to cut you loose so you can do it. Don’t try anything stupid. Now roll on to your belly.”
She felt the knife by her wrists, the delicious release of rope. By her feet too. She sat up stiffly.
The woman, who looked very young, maybe twenty with a round face and tiny eyes, handed her clothing. Soft leather, all of it.
Deerskin, Sonya thought. “Can you look away?”
They both shook their heads.
Sonya put the deerskin clothing aside. “Where’s my carry-on? I’ve got clothes in there.”
“You won’t be needing them.” Dreads.
“The trench coat? My sweater? What did you do with them?” Testing him. Gently. Trying to understand her situation. He shook his head.
“You threw everything away?”
Dreads pointed to the deerskin. “These are your clothes now.”
She grabbed the blanket, thinking she could cover herself with it; but now that she’d fully awakened, the fabric felt weird, unlike anything she’d ever touched. And it had an odd smell.
“What is this thing?”
“A blanket.” Dreads.
“I know that, but what’s it made of?”
“Hair.”
“Hair?”
“Human hair.”
Her stomach lurched and she kicked the blanket away as she would have a spider or snake, revolted by its touch, the abrupt mingling of anonymous history with personal odors and colors and oils, curls and waves and kinks: the visceral memory of so much hair from so many people so close to her face. Where had they gotten that much hair? All she could think of were Nazi death camps and the shaved heads of thousands of starving prisoners.
She sat there stunned, weakened by the drug and chilled by temperature and circumstance. She absolutely could not take her clothes off in front of them: People who make blankets out of human hair.
“I’ll stay like this.”
“No you won’t. You stink.” Dreads pushed her with his boot again, harder this time. “Do it or we’ll do it for you.”
She didn’t doubt him. With that bone-handle knife back in his hair he looked like a caveman killer.
“Would you hold it up so I can have some privacy?” She addressed the young woman, thinking she would understand. No reply.
Sonya took a bracing breath and draped the blanket over her head, cringing as the weight of all that hair settled on her skin again.
She pulled off her clothes and used a leg of her slacks to dry herself, dropping them by the rear door.
When she unfolded the deerskin, she found a pair of pants and a skirt, along with a top. They felt like they’d fit. Why not? They’d thought of every other detail.
“Underwear?” she asked, already knowing the answer.
They didn’t bother to respond.
She pulled on the deerskin pants, not gracefully, but she managed to tug them up to her waist without putting herself through too many contortions. The fly buttons felt as if they were made of bone. Still covering herself with the bristly blanket, she took off her blouse and had begun to ease the deerskin top over her head when Dreads offered another command:
“Bra.”
“No.”
“We’ll make you.”
She threw it on the growing pile.
Sonya paused over the fringed skirt, then realized it would give her an extra layer of warmth. As she tied it on, she thought it was not unlike the western wear sold in The Frontier Ahead catalogue.
She pushed away the creepy blanket. “Could I please have my coat?”
Dreads leaned over the wide front seat and turned back to her with an armful of fur.
“What is it?” The experience with the blanket made her hesitate.
“Bear fur.” He also handed over a pair of wool socks and hand-tooled, fur-lined books.
“Can someone please tell me what’s going on?”
Still no answer from any of them.
She put on the coat, snugging the fur collar around her neck. That’s when she noticed that her opal earrings, like her watch, had been taken from her.
“They were my mom’s,” she said softly. “She gave them to me right before she died.” Feeling abandoned, utterly alone, she shook her head, fighting tears. They spilled anyway.
Dreads nodded at her coat, boots. “There’s something else we’re going to give you.”
She wiped her eyes. His voice had lowered, sounding more frightening than ever before.
“What?” Her question came out in an unintended whisper.
He hesitated—his first hint of indecision—and then sat forward, eyes burning, “We’ll tell you when we’re ready.”
Maybe he knew she was still drugged. Within minutes of lying back down, she fell asleep.
When she awoke the third time she noticed the slightest graying of the sky before realizing that they’d tied her up again. At least they hadn’t bothered with the gag. Who’d hear her anyway?
The young woman had dozed off, but Dread’s eyes remained fixed on her. Sonya wondered if he’d stalked her after the McFaddins shoot, if this was the culmination of some sick obsession, but she felt far too fearful to ask.
She risked propping herself against the wheel well. He didn’t stop her. She noticed snow in the trees and the softer sound of the tires on the road.
If this were the pre-dawn, then they’d been driving at least six hours. Don’t they need gas? Maybe they’d filled up while she was asleep, covered her up again. That would have been a risky move, especially without a gag. But if they hadn’t stopped yet, and they pulled into a service station, that’s when she’d scream, do whatever she could do to save herself.
What service station? she asked herself sourly, a half hour later. Nothing but trees crowded the country road. Unplowed, just wide enough for two cars. No towns, not even a road-side sign since she’d awakened. In the headlights she saw what looked like half a foot of snow. They were moving through it cautiously.
She kept her eyes on the white world ahead of them, still dazed but less so by the minute.
The driver grunted, said they’d be pulling over up ahead for a bathroom break. It was the first time she’d heard him speak. Gruff.
She could use a bathroom right about now, but it was a figure of speech. He turned onto a two-track and drove through the woods for another couple of miles before stopping. She spotted snow falling in the stillness, so lightly that she hadn’t noticed it in the headlights.
“Don’t try to get away,” Dreads said as he freed her. “We’ll run you down, but even if you made it into the woods, which is not going to happen, you’d die from exposure before anyone would find you. It’s ten degrees.”
The most he’d spoken. Every word boiled down to another threat.
“I’ll watch her, Akiah.” The young woman wiped the sleep from her eyes.
Akiah. Sonya hadn’t been able to remember the name he’d used at the shoot, but she was certain it wasn’t Akiah. That would have stuck with her.
They climbed out of the vehicle, joined by the driver and the guy in the passenger seat.
Sonya was no outdoorswoman, but she skied and knew this was pure Rocky Mountain powder. The fresh snow brushed off her deerskin pants as easily as dust as she and the young woman trudged behind the nearest tree.
They returned to the car, trailed by the burly driver, who’d maintained only a discreet distance. The others stood waiting, large fuel cans strapped to a wooden cargo carrier right above their heads.
The sky had paled enough to see that they were all dressed in deerskin, heavy fur coats, and the same style of boots. She looked like she belonged. To what? Some crazy cult?
They piled back into the old Suburban. She cursed herself for not noting the license plate but she was greatly relieved when they didn’t tie her up again. Where would she go?
They stayed on the same narrow road as it rose slowly through a thick forest. No oncoming traffic, which she hoped for frantically. They’d have to slow way down, maybe pull over. She could scream, raise a huge ruckus. But all they encountered was more snow.
About forty minutes later they turned on to a rougher path draped with huge drifts, and started getting jounced so hard that Sonya had to steady herself with her hands.
The vehicle slowed and the driver navigated carefully.
Her first glimpse of the sun came through the pines to her left. It made the snow in the trees sparkle, and she felt a wrenching sense of loss for the mountains of Colorado, even for the nature walks her parents had forced her to take with them until she hit her teens.
They were still climbing, only now the ascent grew steeper and the snow even deeper. A logging road, she realized when they came upon a vast clear-cut. The stumps rose only inches above the snow, dark circles in a field of white.
She turned around and saw only the slightest depression from the tires; the feathery snow had settled back into the tracks as quickly as it had been pushed aside, a trail that would disappear with the next snowfall or breath of wind.
The clear-cut ended and the vehicle trundled for another hour through a forest that never thinned.
Her ears popped, her first notice that they were descending into a valley, rolling toward the dull, flat face of a frozen waterway. She remembered another line from Joni Mitchell, singing about a river—to skate away on—and wondered if they were in Canada, Mitchell’s homeland. They’d been driving long enough on these unmapped logging roads to have slipped across the largely unguarded border.
In the distance she spotted two dogsled teams.
This is it.
After all these hours and miles of back roads, she knew without question that this would be her only chance to escape. There hadn’t been any service stations. There hadn’t even been any people until these two with their sleds.
She got ready to scream, to raise that ruckus, the biggest commotion these crazies with their deerskin and knock-out pills had ever seen.
The driver slowed as they approached the dogsleds. She read a bearded man’s face for any familiarity with her abductors, drawing a blank.
As soon as her driver stopped and opened his door Sonya shrieked “Help. They’re kidnapping me. Please stop them. Help!”
“They’re with us,” Akiah snapped.
She fell against the wheel well, shaking with terror, hope a shattered vessel.
The driver talked briefly to the bearded man before returning to the truck and opening the door next to Sonya.
“Get out.”
“Get out?” A fresh flood of panic set in: new abductors? Dogsleds? The middle of nowhere?
“You’re going with them.” He gripped her arm so hard it hurt.
“What’s going on?” As scared now as she’d been in those first few moments after Akiah had ducked into the limo, right before they drove her away from the life she’d known to this throbbing nightmare.
She wanted to fight back, kick and punch and pound her way free, but there were six of them.
Akiah seized her other arm, and they forced her to the bearded man’s dogsled. He was big, wore glasses.
“Get in,” he said. “We’re gonna be mushing for about three hours.”
“Three hours?” She could hardly believe this.
“You need to go to the bathroom, better do it.” He looked at her closely. “What about food? Water?”
“Feed her,” Akiah said as if she were animal stock. “And give her some water.”
The dogsled driver handed her a wineskin.
She looked at it warily. “What’s in there—”
“It’s fine,” Akiah said impatiently.
She was so thirsty she almost didn’t care.
“I’ve got some biscuits soaked in bacon grease,” the dogsled driver said as she handed back the wineskin.
She was starving and stared as he unwrapped a white cloth with two bundles the size and approximate shape of iPods. At the same time, she had the eerie feeling that she’d time-traveled into some twisted Jack London story.
He handed them to her. “Eat them while we move.” Turning to Akiah, he added, “I feel too exposed out here.”
“She probably won’t be reported missing till tonight, at the earliest,” Akiah told him. “But get in the sled,” he said to Sonya.
The dogsled driver spread open a pile of thick furs and looked at her. She didn’t move.
“Don’t make us tie you up,” Akiah said. “You don’t want that. Not out here.”
She looked at the men who surrounded her and knew she had no more choice than the sled dogs in their chains and harnesses a few feet away. She climbed in, dizzy with disbelief, vaguely aware of the big bearded guy covering her with the furs.
Akiah waited till he was finished, then crouched next to her. She drew away from him, fearing yet another threat.
“You think you’ve had it great, don’t you? Silly watches, cashmere sweaters, all that crap.” His eyes burned into hers again and he leaned forward, bracing himself on the frame of the dogsled. “Remember what I said about giving you something else? All I’m going to tell you is it’s something you never could have imagined, even if your life depended on it.”
My life?
My life depends on you, she thought as he stood. On all of you in your bizarre hides and fur. She couldn’t compromise this gritty understanding with hope, not out here in this frozen, unforgiving land.
Who are these people? she asked herself once more. What do they want with me? She was desperate for answers, but all the gathering questions fled before a sudden sense of the savagery ahead.
Chapter 3
The huskies tore through the snow, panting and pulling fiercely on their reins and leaving whispery white puffs in their wake. They towed Sonya’s sled at the speed of a strong long-distance runner all the way down a daunting slope to a frozen river.
She figured they’d fly across the ice and that Edson—she’d overheard his name as they took off—would stay this course as long as he could, but the dogs slipped on the bare patches and the sled no longer tracked as surely.
“Steady, steady,” Edson said to himself, but the worry in his words made her clench the sides with her furry mittens as it began to fishtail.
The lead sled, driven by a woman named Juno, headed directly toward the forest dwarfing the far bank. Sonya glanced at the glittery ice and wondered if it was thick enough to support two dog sleds and three humans this early in the season; but it showed no signs of cracking, and Juno and her team were already climbing toward the trees.
When Edson’s first two dogs leaped up on the bank the others lunged after them, eager for the snow’s sure footing; but the angle still slowed them.
“Mush, mush!” Edson cracked the whip over the dogs’ heads as they clawed up the last few feet of the bank.
“Yeah,” he yelled in triumph once they headed into the woods, and she recalled his desire for “cover,” the way he’d worried aloud about standing in the open with the others.
She looked around at the icy river and forest, and felt as if she’d been swept into a strange and scary movie. Then the dogs raced into the shadows and her sense of eeriness darkened even more.
“What river was that?” She had to shout over the sound of the dogs and the constant creaking of the wood sled.
“The—” Edson caught himself before naming it.
She’d almost eked it out of him, though the payoff might have proved marginal at best: Her knowledge of geography was no better than her sense of direction. He could have tossed out the name of any river and it wouldn’t have meant much to her, unless it was one of the huge ones, like the Columbia, or had a place name that would have made their whereabouts obvious.
The pines and firs rose at least fifteen stories above them with trunks six, eight feet across. Sonya realized they’d entered an ancient forest, trees so dense with boughs that a sylvan green blocked out most of the robin’s-egg blue sky.
They raced along a trail that might have been pounded down when they came to pick her up, but any thoughts she had of following it back out were quickly crushed by the memory of the long drive through those huge snow drifts. She doubted she’d even find that logging road once the blizzards began their blinding march across the mountains.
Ten degrees, that’s what Akiah had said when they stopped to relieve themselves. It felt colder now. She’d pulled the wool hat down over her forehead, and scrunched the fat collar of her fur coat up to her eyes.
Dry air, dry snow. She trailed her mitten out to check its consistency. Light enough to fly away, sparkling in a rare treat of sunlight.
Most of the journey became a blur of snow-crusted bark and boulders, and brooks frozen so fast that they still appeared to be bubbling. After the first hour Sonya lost all interest, knowing she’d never find her way back; and though jumpy and worried, her fatigue and the soft fur finally lulled her to sleep.
She didn’t awaken until Edson and Juno halted the dogs on top of a hill about five hundred feet above a settlement that spread out over roughly a hundred acres. At its heart lay a large circle of attached, stucco shelters with chimneys made from stones that might have been dredged from the ice-bound river that bordered the far side of the outpost. Shake roofs poked through the snow where the wind had blown the hardest. Rising up in the broad open area inside the circle of homes was a large building with the round shape and sloping roof of a yurt.
She stiffened when she saw big, half-butchered creatures hanging from uprights near the building’s exit. Bones and frozen blood. But where are the people? And then with a sickening fear she prayed—Oh dear God no—that she wasn’t looking at human remains.
A barn stood way off to the left, set apart from the houses by a copse. Through those trees she thought she could see another structure, but it was hard to be sure from here.
“Is this where you’re taking me?” Sonya asked.
“You’ll find out soon enough,” Juno said.
Sonya’s eyes drifted to the natural hot pools along the river, currents of steam vanishing over this primitive outpost in the backcountry. Of what country? She didn’t even know if she was still in the U.S.
Edson mushed the dogs and they moved on. The sun had disappeared behind a steely scrim of cirrus clouds. The landscape looked as grim as she felt.
Moments later they passed under one of the three covered openings in the circle of homes. Edson halted the sled by the fourth door to their left. It creaked open.
A woman stood before them in long underwear. About Sonya’s height and age, maybe a few years younger, with shoulder-length pigtails, each one strangled by a rawhide strap. She had arctic blue eyes and a body so brittle-looking that Sonya thought she’d snap if she sneezed. Even her face appeared rigid enough to rupture. The lack of makeup didn’t help. And the long underwear seemed like a peculiar getup for greeting someone for the first time. After Sonya’s exposure to the biting cold, the outfit didn’t appear capable of keeping her warm.
“You got her,” the woman said as they stepped into the warm entryway. “I’m Andromeda.” A name, but not a hint of friendliness. “Take off your boots and leave them here.” She pointed to two identical pairs lined up against the wall.
Sonya, dazed by the sudden warmth, pulled them off, along with her coat, mittens and hat. A large man stared at her from the shadows.
Edson and Juno remained just inside the door, though Juno did edge forward when she spoke.
“You’re going to be staying with Andromeda and Desmond. They’ll be watching you. Don’t try to escape. He’ll get you.” Eyes on Desmond, the man in the shadows. “Or you’ll die. Do you understand that? Shake your head yes or no.”
God, you’re obnoxious.
Sonya glared at her and refused to respond.
Juno stared back. “I’ll tell you what’ll happen if you do get away. The cold will kill you, or you’ll get eaten by cougars. They’re hungry this time of year and we’ve had a plague of them. We don’t even let the kids in the forest anymore without at least two adults. And if you try to take the dogs, they’ll turn on you, and that would be worse than being eaten by a starving cougar.”
Sonya didn’t buy that business about the dogs—they’d seemed plenty comfortable around her—but what Juno said about the cougars could be true. Every so often she’d seen stories about mountain lions killing a jogger or poaching family pets at one of the many new home developments encroaching on their territory in the high country. The reports usually included the tips her father had given her as a child on how to ward off an attack: Don’t run, and make yourself look as big as possible. Which had always made Sonya glad that she’d made her home near downtown Denver.
Juno took Edson’s arm and they walked out.
When the door closed, Sonya noticed that the only light in the cottage came from candles, metal sconces on the walls and fat, artless balls of wax burning on the table and above the stone hearth. There was also a window, but it was fogged-up and small, no doubt to conserve heat. Probably the reason for the thick walls too. Straw bale, she guessed.
The floor felt plenty warm. She wondered how they did it. Radiant floor heating hardly seemed likely.
Desmond stepped from the shadows in nothing but his long underwear, which stretched across his sharply muscled body.
Sonya thought he could have modeled gym wear, then quickly corrected herself. Not with that face. It wasn’t the straggly beard so much as the flinty appearance of his features. Handsome but ugly was how she immediately thought of men like him, good-looking guys who always appeared on edge, tense, terminally frustrated. A lot of them, she’d sensed, felt like failures in some fundamental way, as if they’d never lived up to their good looks, and were old enough to know they never would.
Her two warders stood before her, so clearly resembling each other that it was spooky. Both were blond and tall with icy blue eyes. And both sported red, yellow, and black tattoos of a vaguely Aztec design. And of course their identical cream-colored long underwear.
“We’re having tea,” Andromeda said. “Do you want some?” Offered as an obligation.
Sonya nodded, and Andromeda led her to a simple wooden table, then moved to an old-fashioned wood cook stove. A kettle sat steaming, and she served a cup of amber tea in a mug that looked like it had been shaped by an amateur potter: The sides were three times thicker than they needed to be and the handle felt as bulky as a baseball bat. The tea proved no more pleasing, like a bitter root boiled in water.
Without warning, Desmond began to stroke the nape of her neck. She shivered and yanked her head away.
“Don’t you dare touch me.”
He stared at his hand, as if the offending instrument were not his own, then pulled a chair so close that she could smell him when he sat. His odor wasn’t offensive but his touch had left her whole body feeling violated.
“You don’t give orders. You’re our prisoner.” Words like slaps.
She shifted her chair away, but he filled the fresh divide with his face, breath, hard eyes.
A predator, she thought. And he’s doing this right in front of her. But Andromeda seemed to pay no attention.
Desmond smiled as if he’d read Sonya’s thoughts and were amused by them. “Are you scared?”
“Don’t do it again.” She’d jerked back so far that the rungs in the chair were digging into her spine. Who the hell are these people?
Andromeda nodded at Sonya, who thought, Why’s she doing that? Because I tried to make him back off? Or because she approves of what he’s doing?
Sonya looked at Andromeda again and realized that the reason didn’t matter. It was such a clearly practiced pose that it looked no more real than makeup. Sonya had used similar expressions of approval in dozens of ads for laxatives, contraceptive creams, anti-inflammatories, and the like.
“We’ll be watching you,” Desmond said. “And we’re going to be living very close to each other.”
“Not like that we’re not. Not with me. Stay away.” Sonya felt caged, the small room like the back of the limo, but worse: now she had him sitting inches away.
He leaned even closer. She couldn’t back up anymore, his moist heat coming over her in a sickening wave.
“You’re really scared, aren’t you?” Not a drip of compassion in his voice.
“I’m telling you—”
But she couldn’t finish—Andromeda was suddenly behind her, working the tight muscles on the back of her neck.
“Stop,” Sonya shouted, jumping to her feet, her own hands out. What are they, a team?
“You’d better calm down before you meet the council,” Andromeda said sharply.
“What ‘council?’ What are you talking about?”
“Get back there.” Andromeda stabbed her finger toward a green door to the right of the hearth.
“What’s that?” Pulses of panic again.
“Your room.”
“Where do you guys sleep?”
“For the time being, we’ll sleep out here.”
“When you see we don’t bite, we’ll move back in with you,” Desmond added in an oily voice.
Never.
He reached up to a shelf and pulled down a set of long underwear, thrusting it at her. “Wear them.”
She tensed when his hand brushed hers and retreated with the bundle past the green door, her breath coming in anxious bursts. Andromeda barged in with a bowl of water, sponge, and a round of pale soap, ordering her to “clean up.”
A sharp insult. No one had had to tell Sonya to “clean up” since her early childhood. But she did feel dirtied by the abduction, and the bowl made her long for her bath.
“Make yourself look decent for the council.” Andromeda set the bowl on a night stand and lit a stubby candle, revealing a room the size of a walk-in closet, Dickensian in its dimensions and darkness.
“What council?” Sonya asked again.
“The Council of Consensus.”
“Who are they? Are they going to explain all this?”
Andromeda left without answering, closing the door behind her.
Sonya looked in vain for a lock, but at least there was no keyhole to spy on her either.
She stared at the bowl and realized that she did want to wash up. But as she started to untie the fringe skirt she froze and peered at the door again. No way could she undress with those two only a few feet away. Especially him.
She settled for washing her face. After patting it dry she looked for a mirror, bewildered when she couldn’t find one. Panicky too. No mirror? No makeup? Nothing of the life they’d taken from her?
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d performed this ritual without inspecting herself carefully, eyeing the lines, wrinkles, assessing the latest setback of age and the possible costs to her career.
Again she searched, casting candlelight on the walls, alert for a reflection.
As she lowered the flame at last, the answer to her question came to her, stark as a steel spike: Nothing remained of the life she had known. Nothing. Not even the familiar contours of her own face.
Shaking, she held the burning wick over the water, staring down at it like Narcissus. The soapy surface yielded only the glow.
She plunked herself down on the bed, drained by eighteen hours of the worst fear she’d ever known. The mattress felt as uneven as an old futon.
Sitting soon led to lying down and wrapping herself in the blankets. But a second later she kicked them away, trembling before she saw that they were woven from wool, not hair.
She lay back down and stared at the door. The candle burned beside her, sputtering in its spent wax and throwing shadows around the room. In an instant she fell asleep, dreamless and defeated.
Copywite © Mark Nykanen 2009
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