I’m lying in the back of the painter’s van, with my arms zip-tied behind me.
It’s extremely uncomfortable, because Du Pont isn’t driving carefully. Several times when he’s taken corners too fast, I’ve gone rolling over, slamming into the wheel well, or the ladders, buckets, and bags he’s keeping back here.
He’s taped my mouth, but I wouldn’t talk to him anyway. It’s irritating enough listening to him hum while he drives. His humming is atonal and repetitive. Sometimes he taps the steering wheel with his long fingers, not exactly in beat with the humming.
It stinks like paint and other chemicals back here. I’m trying to breathe slowly and not cry, because if my nose gets stuffy again, I’m afraid I’m going to suffocate with this tape over my mouth.
I heard Du Pont’s conversation with Dante. He wanted me to hear it.
It seems like some kind of sick joke. I can’t believe he actually intends to let me loose, just to shoot me.
I don’t understand why he’s doing this. I didn’t have any part in his cousin’s death. I wasn’t even in the same country at the time.
Though, of course, that’s not why he kidnapped me.
He wants to torment Dante.
And he thinks the best way to do that is through me.
He doesn’t know we just had a fight. Thank god for that. My body shakes as I realize that if he knew about the fight, if he knew what we were talking about . . . he would have kidnapped Henry instead. He doesn’t know that Henry is Dante’s son. That’s the only thing I can be grateful for right now. The only thing helping me to hang onto a semblance of calm.
I don’t actually know where Henry is . . . but I have to believe he’s safe, either with Dante, or somewhere in the hotel, in which case he’ll find his way back to my parents again. Wherever he is, it’s better than the back of this van.
God, I’ve got to get out of this. I can’t let this psychopath kill me. Henry needs me. He’s so young, still. He’s already lost Serwa, he can’t lose me, too.
I look around wildly for something I could grab. Something I could use to escape. A knife, a box cutter, anything.
There’s nothing. Just paint-splattered tarps and the duffle bags that I can’t hope to unzip without Du Pont noticing.
Then he takes another corner, and I hear a rattling sound. A screw rolling around on the bare metal floor of the van.
It’s difficult to reach it. I try to squirm in that direction an inch at a time so Du Pont doesn’t see. I have to back toward the screw so I can grab it in my hands. Meanwhile, it keeps rolling away again, right when I’m about to reach it.
Du Pont starts fiddling with the radio. I take the opportunity to push against the wheel well with my feet, shoving myself back in the direction of the screw. My fingers skate over it, numb from being twisted up behind me and bound too tightly with the zip ties. I grab the screw, drop it, then grab it again. I clutch it tight in my fist, glancing nervously up at Du Pont to make sure he didn’t notice.
He finds his station and sits back in his seat with a sigh of satisfaction. Billy Joel pours out of the radio, loud and eerily cheerful. Du Pont starts to hum along, still off-key.
I grip the screw between my thumb and fingers. Twisting my hand as best I can within the bounds of the zip tie, I start to saw at the edge of the plastic, slowly and quietly.
