Held, Pushed, and 22918 (3 Complete Novels) Read online

  About Held

  HELD

  About Pushed

  PUSHED

  About 22918

  22918

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  COPYRIGHT

  About HELD

  Nicole Lee, a young wife and new mother, steps out of the mall, squinting against the glare of the midday sun, completely unaware that her life is about to change forever. In a matter of seconds, she is steeped in fear as the world she knows and the life she loves fades away. As the panic sets in and the terror takes hold, Nicole tries to keep calm, though she's now in a frantic fight for her life. Locked in a deadly battle of wits with a psychopath, she struggles to keep her sanity as she's held.

  REVIEWS

  "...one of the best purchases I have made on Amazon. I took a chance on an unknown author and found a new favorite to follow. I was just expecting a dark run-of-the-mill thriller and found a writer who can actually scare the heebie jeebies out of me." — Independent Review

  "Brilliant start to finish. I can't believe this came from the mind of a woman." — Independent Review

  "Texas Chainsaw meets Silence of the Lambs." — Independent Review

  "...grabs you by the throat on the first page and relentlessly squeezes you to the last." — Independent Review

  HELD

  1

  I squinted as I stepped out of the store and into the glare of the bright sunlight. As I walked across the parking lot, I went over the purchase in my mind. I was certain that the bubble gum smacking cashier had overcharged me. I stepped into the narrow space between my smaller SUV and the behemoth SUV parked beside me, and pulled the receipt out of my purse to study it. With my attention on the receipt, I was unaware of anyone else until I felt a gun poke into my ribs.

  He wrapped his left arm around me and squeezed my left shoulder. With his right hand, he shoved the gun into my ribs even harder.

  My breath caught in my chest, trapped by shocked lungs. Everything happened so fast. He was there, gun pressed to my side, squeezing me against him tightly. I had no time to process the situation.

  We certainly looked to others as no more than a normal couple. I knew no one could see the gun. My arm, bent at the elbow with the shopping bag dangling from it, hid it well. There were only a handful of other people in the parking lot, none of which even glanced at us. How could they? We were hidden by the SUVs.

  My mind, every bit as shocked as the rest of me, struggled to grasp the situation and find a way out of it. I thought of screaming. I thought of wrenching free of him, turning and running. But I also thought of my husband and my son. If I did any of those things, this man would shoot me. It would be easy to do. The gun was already buried in my ribcage, his finger undoubtedly on the trigger. If he didn’t mean me harm, he wouldn’t have the gun. He meant business. And if the pistol were equipped with a silencer, he could shoot me and be long gone before anyone even realized I was on the ground. Had the parking lot contained more people, screaming and running might’ve been an option. Surely he wouldn’t shoot me with so many witnesses. But that wasn’t the case here. Not today. Not on a stupid Tuesday afternoon.

  Before I could hate myself for not waiting until later when more people were at the mall before shopping for jeans that were supposed to be on sale but weren’t because the pink haired bubble gum smacker rang them up wrong, he spoke.

  “Open it,” he commanded.

  I dug through my purse, wishing like hell I carried a bear spray or Mace or hairspray or anything that would give me the second I needed to get away from him. But I didn’t carry anything like that. I felt the pack of gum, the emergency tampon, the extra pacifier, my wallet, and finally my keys. I jerked them out of my purse, nearly dropped them, and clumsily began to unlock the door.

  The closer we got to getting in the car, the harder he pushed on the gun. I was going to have one hell of a bruise.

  When my trembling hands finally managed to unlock the door, he tightened his grip on my shoulder even more, causing me to wince. He leaned into my ear, which would look to others as if he were whispering something to me. Had he whispered, I wouldn’t have heard him over the sound of my pounding heart echoing in my ears.

  “You’re going to get in, slide over to the passenger seat, and nothing more. Do you understand?” He spoke evenly, though in a low tone to avoid being heard by anyone else who might be listening.

  I didn’t look at him. I couldn’t. I just stood there, staring at the pavement in shock and very much afraid. My mind was racing, my thoughts a blur.

  “If you do anything, and I mean anything at all, other than what I’ve told you to do, I’ll kill you. And if you manage to get away from me, I’ll kill your family, and I’ll take my sweet time doing it. Do you understand?”

  This time, I nodded. I wouldn’t let anything happen to my family.

  He kissed me on the cheek quickly, causing the knot in my stomach to roll.

  “Good. Now get in.”

  He snatched the keys from me and I did as I was told, though the urge to open the passenger side door and flee was overwhelming.

  He got in quickly and started the vehicle. I made myself as small as possible and leaned against the door, watching through the window as we drove through the parking lot and away to wherever we were going. Hopefully someone I knew would see us and the look on my face. But I saw no one I knew. I fought to keep from vomiting as I realized that no one was going to save me. No one was going to stop him from taking me.

  If I’d just stayed home today like I had originally planned, this wouldn’t have happened. But I hadn’t. Damn me and my quest for discounted jeans.

  The best thing that could happen to me now is he’d rape me and throw me out of the car somewhere. Knowing that was the best thing that could happen, I tried not to imagine the worst. But I knew. I knew from the moment I felt the barrel of his gun press against my ribs.

  Even if I could somehow manage to escape him at some point, everything was going to be different. Assuming he didn’t kill me first, life as I knew it was over and gone forever. If he stopped the car right now, told me he’d been joking and was sorry, then left and I never saw him again, everything would still be different. I’d never again park near large vehicles. I’d never let my guard down anywhere. I would constantly be aware of everything that was happening around me at all times. In essence, I’d drive myself mad trying to stay safe.

  But I didn’t have to worry about any of that because he wasn’t stopping, and I was sure he wasn’t joking.

  In the side mirror, I watched as the parking lot slipped away behind me, taking me farther and farther from my life and from any hope I had of ever seeing my husband and son.

  2

  As he drove us through the city to neighborhoods I’d never seen, he took many unnecessary turns. There were times when he turned right four times in a row, taking us all the way around a block and back to where we were. At first, I thought maybe he was lost. Then I realized that he was trying to confuse me so I didn’t know where we were or where we were going. I took this as a good sign. If he planned to kill me right away, he wouldn’t have bothered to confuse me. For a while, I kept my eyes on the Gateway Arch, standing proudly above the St. Louis skyline. But after I realized what he was doing, I stopped using it to keep track of where we were and began just looking at it, wondering if I was seeing it for the last time.

  Since it wasn’t doing me any good to try to remember our route, and staring at the Arch was only making me sad, I decided to check out the man behind the wheel.

  From the corner of my eye, I first noticed his shoes. They were dark brown sho
es, sort of a low-top boot type of shoe. His socks were beige. His pants were khaki, his shirt a white long-sleeve button-down with the sleeves rolled up. The top few buttons were undone, exposing a white undershirt and a few chest hairs.

  I risked a glance at the driver. He was a big man. It wasn’t that he was fat and it wasn’t that he was all muscle. It was somewhere in the middle. I guessed him to be about six foot two, maybe three, and he probably weighed two hundred fifty pounds or so. His hair was dark brown, bordering on black, with grey at the temples. He was cleanly shaven. He had no distinguishing features that stuck out or could be identifying. Had he not kidnapped me, I might’ve thought him to be a handsome man.

  Though I thought I was being sneaky about stealing glances at him, he must’ve caught me. From his pocket, he pulled a pair of sunglasses and ordered me to put them on. I did as I was told. They were the sporty kind that wrapped around the eyes, keeping out the sunlight. But these were more than that. They didn’t just keep out the natural light and block the UV rays of the sun. They kept out all light. I blinked, confused as to why I could no longer see anything more than a thin strip of light at the top and bottom of the glasses. Then I realized he had spray painted them black.

  A new kind of fear gripped me now. It was bad enough that he had kidnapped me. But now, it seemed that he had planned it. No one carries around painted sunglasses for any other reason. He had come to the mall with a plan.

  As he continued to drive, I wondered if he had specifically planned to kidnap me or if I was just the woman who happened along at the wrong time for me, right time for him. I could think of no one I’d wronged, no enemies of mine or my husband’s, and no one who’d wish to harm either of us. And moreover, I didn’t know the man behind the wheel, though he did look vaguely familiar.

  Finally, I felt the vehicle slow as he pulled into what I assumed was a driveway. A few seconds later, he stopped and put the SUV in park and turned off the engine.

  I reached up to take off the sunglasses. He didn’t stop me, so I removed them. Risking a quick glance of my surroundings, I saw that we were parked in a garage. His garage, no doubt.

  In the side mirror, I saw that he’d left the door open so we could just pull in, but now he was going to have to get out and close it. If he had a remote control for it, he’d left it in his car, which was surely sitting in the parking lot of the mall.

  He sat behind the wheel for a few seconds, glancing in the rearview mirrors, and then he turned to me.

  “I’m going to get out and close the door. You are to sit here and do nothing. Don’t move one muscle. If you do, I’ll kill you. You got that?”

  I nodded.

  He got out quickly and I watched in the mirror as he shut and locked the garage door. He then hurried to my side of the SUV and opened the door.

  Reaching in and grabbing my right arm with his left hand, he said, “Let’s go.”

  I thought of refusing. If I could overpower him now, I could get out of the garage and run. But he put his right hand on the gun in the waistband of his jeans, and all thoughts of fleeing left me. I got out of the car.

  Stupidly, I realized that I still had the bag from the mall hanging from my wrist. My purse was still slung over my shoulder and was clamped between my arm and my side. If only there was a way to turn those jeans into a weapon. Perhaps I could smother him with them. Or strangle him. Those were the only ways I could think of, and I knew that both would be impossible. He was bigger than me. And he had a gun.

  He continued to hold my arm as he closed the car door and pulled me along behind him, walking quickly enough to cause me to jog. We went through the door that led from the garage to the small laundry room. I saw no dirty laundry. No clean laundry. No laundry of any kind. There were lots of various cleaning products on the shelf above the washing machine and dryer, all sitting neatly, labels facing forward.

  Through the laundry room, we went into the kitchen. I saw no dirty dishes. No clean dishes. No dishes of any kind. They were surely all put away, everything in its place. I saw no food. No trash. No food crumbs. No spills. No dust. No cobwebs. Nothing. There weren’t even any visible grease spots on the stove. It was immaculate.

  In the kitchen, he stopped suddenly and turned to me. I didn’t see that he was stopping in time, and when he spun around, I bumped into him.

  He stared at me oddly and asked, “Are you hungry?”

  Shocked by his weird question, it took me a second to answer. When I shook my head no, he nodded, turned, and pulled me again, out of the kitchen into a hallway. We passed the first door on the right, but stopped at the second door. Again, he turned quickly to me. I was prepared this time, and was able to avoid bumping into him.

  He looked me up and down. Then, he jerked the shopping bag from my wrist and the purse from my arm. He threw them on the floor behind him and stepped toward me.

  My heart raced. This was it. This was where he was going to rape me or beat me or both.

  He put a hand on each of my butt cheeks and squeezed. So this is how it begins, I thought. But then, he removed his hands and placed them on the fronts of my hips, high on my thighs. He squeezed and squished, and I realized what he was doing. He was patting me down.

  When he was satisfied that I had nothing in my pockets, he took a step backward. Without breaking eye contact with me, he opened the door to my right, his left. He flicked on the light.

  Not wanting to, but curiosity killing me, I quickly looked away from him and into the room. It was a bathroom. Now I looked back at him, confused.

  “Go in there. Do what you have to do. Clean up. Then come back out.”

  Unsure of what was happening, I slowly turned away from him and stepped into the bathroom.

  Behind me he said, “Don’t waste time looking for something to use as a weapon. There’s nothing in there. And don’t try to get out the window. It’s nailed shut. I’m standing outside this door with my hand on the knob. Don’t be stupid.”

  He shut the door behind me, and I looked around the room. To the right of the door was the sink and cabinet. At the end of the cabinet was the toilet. At the end of the room, on the other side of the toilet, nestled between each of the walls, was the bathtub. Again, it was spotless. He clearly had an obsession with order and neatness. I was happy that if I was going to be held against my will, at least it was in a clean place. Had the house been crawling with cockroaches and germs, I don’t know if I could’ve handled it as well.

  I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to be doing. I didn’t really need to pee, but I wasn’t sure what was in store for me so I figured I’d better do it now.

  I stepped over to the toilet and turned, facing the wall. I undone my jeans and slid them and my panties down my thighs. I sat on the toilet and looked around the room again. When the pee finally started coming, I wondered if all kidnappings went this way. Looking for the toilet paper, I saw it hanging from a holder on the side of the cabinet beside the toilet. As I reached for it, I noticed that it hung over the top of the roll. And it was folded into a point.

  What kind of kidnapper kept such a tidy house and folded the toilet paper into a point? Then again, what kind of kidnapper offered to feed you and let you pee and clean yourself up? This was so bizarre.

  I pulled a few squares off the roll and wiped. I stood and pulled up my panties and jeans. I fastened the button and zipped the zipper. I leaned over and flushed the toilet, considering whether I should fold the toilet paper into a point as it had been. Had I been invited over for dinner at a friend’s house, I would’ve. But I’d been abducted at gunpoint. He and his fancy toilet paper points could kiss my ass.

  As I washed my hands, I thought of a way out. I looked at the window above the bathtub and wondered if it was really nailed shut or if it was just something he said to keep me from checking. When I’d dried my hands on the towel that hung perfectly on the towel bar beside the sink, I quickly went to the bathtub. I quietly stepped into the tub and checked the window. It was smal
l, but if I could get it open, I could fit through. I placed my fingers on the window and pushed upward with all my strength. It didn’t budge. Damn. Apparently, he was orderly and honest.

  I stepped back out of the tub and quickly checked in the cabinet under the sink. There was a pack of extra toilet paper, a toilet bowl brush standing in a holder, and an extra bottle of liquid antibacterial hand soap. That was it. Boy, he wasn’t kidding when he’d said there was nothing in here.

  Quickly, I checked the four drawers that stood in a column down one side of the cabinet. A few towels, a few wash cloths, but nothing more.

  I opened the cabinet again and took out the white plastic toilet bowl brush. I stood there holding it, wondering if there was anything at all that could be done with it to help me out of this mess. Had any damage ever been caused to anything other than toilet scum by a toilet brush? I doubted it. But it was all I had unless I thought I could squirt the liquid soap hard enough and fast enough to inflict serious eye damage, and I doubted that was possible. In fact, I doubted that even if I could pump it with the speed and strength of a super hero it would reach more than a foot at most. It was useless against everything except bacteria and germs.

  I swung the toilet brush through the air, trying to judge whether it would hurt him.

  Then, the door opened.

  3

  I stood there holding the toilet brush like a moron, and he stood in the doorway looking at me as if I were a moron.

  “What are you doing with that?” he asked.

  “Looking at it.”

  “Well, put it back and come on.”

  I returned the brush to the holder under the sink, closed the cabinet door, and left the room.

  He flicked off the light behind me and again grabbed my arm. He led me back toward the kitchen.

  “You should eat something,” he said. He led me to the kitchen table, pulled out a chair, and shoved me down on it. “Sit there.”