The Chain(6)

“Here,” the man says and leads her across the room. It’s a basement, obviously. The basement of a house deep in the country, far from anyone.

Kylie thinks about her mother and feels another sob welling up in her throat. Her poor mom! She’s supposed to be starting a new job soon. She’s just beginning to turn her life around after the cancer and the divorce. It isn’t fair.

“Sit here,” the man says. “Sit all the way down. It’s a mattress on the floor.”

Kylie sits on the mattress, which feels like it’s covered with a sheet and a sleeping bag.

She hears the click of the woman taking a photo. “OK, I’m going to the house to send her this and check Wickr. I hope to God they’re not angry with us,” the woman says.

“Don’t tell them anything went wrong. Tell them everything went according to plan,” the man says.

“I know!” she snaps.

“It’s going to be OK,” the man says unconvincingly.

Kylie hears the woman run up the wooden steps and close the basement door. She’s alone with the man now and this scares her. He could do anything.

“It’s OK,” he says. “You can take your blindfold off now.”

“I don’t want to see your face,” Kylie replies.

“It’s fine, I’ve got the ski mask on again.”

She removes the blindfold. He’s standing near her, still holding the gun. He has taken his coat off. He’s wearing jeans, a black sweater, and loafers caked with clay and mud. A heavy man in his forties or fifties.

The basement is rectangular, roughly twenty feet by thirty feet. There are two small square windows choked with leaves on one side. A concrete floor, a mattress, and an electric lamp next to the mattress. They’ve given her a sleeping bag, a bucket, toilet paper, a cardboard box, and two large bottles of water. The rest of the basement is empty but for an antique cast-iron stove against one of the walls and a boiler in the far corner.

“You’re going to be staying here for the next few days. Until your mother pays the ransom and does the other stuff. We’re going to try to make you as comfortable as possible. You must be terrified. I can’t imagine…” he says and begins to choke up. “We’re not used to this, Kylie. We’re not people like this. All of this has been forced on us. You have to understand that.”

“Why have you taken me?”

“Your mother will explain everything when you get back to her. My wife doesn’t want me to talk to you about it.”

“You seem nicer than her. Is there any way you could possibly let—”

“No. We’ll—wow—kill you if you try to escape. I mean that. You know what we’re c—capable of. You were there. You heard. That poor man…oh my God. Put this on your left wrist,” he says, handing her a handcuff. “Tight enough so you can’t escape, not so tight so that it chafes you…that’s it. A little bit tighter. Let me see.”

He takes her wrist and examines it and ratchets the handcuff tighter. Then he takes the other cuff, attaches it to a heavy metal chain, and attaches that to the iron stove with a padlock.

“You’ve got about nine feet of chain, so you can move around a bit. Do you see that, over there by the stairs? That’s a camera. We’ll be keeping an eye on you even when we’re not down here. The fluorescent light will always be on so we can see what you’re doing. So don’t try anything, OK?”

“OK.”

“You’ve got a sleeping bag and a pillow. In that box there are toiletries and more toilet paper and graham crackers and books. Do you like the Harry Potter books?”

“Yes.”

“The whole series is in there. And some old stuff. Good stuff for girls your age. I know what I’m talking about. I’m an en…good stuff,” he says.

“I’m an English teacher”? Was that what he was going to say? Kylie wonders. “Thank you,” she says. Be polite, Kylie, she tells herself. Be the good, scared, frightened girl who won’t cause them any trouble.

The man squats down next to her, still keeping the gun pointed at her.

“We’re in the woods here. At the end of our own dirt road. If you start screaming, no one will hear you. We’re on a big lot and the woods are all around. But if you do start yelling, I’ll see and hear you on the camera and I won’t be able to take any chances. I’ll have to come down and gag you. And so you can’t remove the gag, we’ll have to cuff your hands behind your back. Do you understand?”

Kylie nods.

“Now, turn out your pockets and give me your shoes.”

She turns out her pockets. She only has money in them anyway. No penknife or phone. The phone’s back there on the dirt road on Plum Island.

The man stands and sways a little. “Sweet Jesus,” he says to himself and swallows hard. He goes up the stairs shaking his head, apparently in disbelief and amazement at what he has wrought.

When the basement door closes, Kylie leans back on the mattress and exhales.

She starts to cry again. She cries herself dry and then sits up and looks at the two bottles of water. Would they poison her? The seals on the water are intact and it’s Poland Spring. She drinks greedily and then stops herself.

What if he doesn’t come back? What if she has to make this water last for several days or weeks?