A Margin of Lust (The Seven Deadly Sins #1)(64)

She lurched forward, trying to sit up, but couldn't move. Looking down she saw the cords that tied her wrists looped around her waist several times, crisscrossed around her legs and ended with knots at her ankles. She was trussed up like dead deer.

Fear, cold and raw, raked fingers up and down her body. She opened her mouth to scream, then shut it. She didn't want to attract... Who? A face floated in her mind.

Mo.

The wine shop owner.

She remembered the surrealism of finding him in the Frobisher's bedroom. The chase in the dark. Mrs. VanVlear's calls and then blackness. Why?

But then, of course, she knew. Another face surfaced behind her eyes. The dead, white, plastic sheen of Sondra Olsen's face.

Adrenaline, so thick and strong it burned like whiskey, flowed through her veins. She threw herself back, then side to side as far as the ropes allowed. Her ties chaffed and bloodied her skin, but nothing broke loose.

Gwen was no longer cold. Sweat trickled between her shoulder blades. She reached for the bonds with her teeth. No good.

She cried out in frustration, her voice scratching from her throat. Her eyes skittered around the room looking for a solution. A miracle.

The thudding of her heart crashed in her ears. It almost drowned out the other sound. A sound that filled her with dread. The sound of a ship's bell.

#

Tears sprang into Gwen's eyes from the bright light. She blinked. Mo stood in the doorway, silhouetted by a wall sconce in the hall behind him.

"You're awake," he said.

Gwen didn't answer.

"Good. We can't stay."

He walked toward her in short, swift birdlike steps. This was the first time she had seen him without the ship captain's hat. His hair was very thin. It made him look older. Smaller. Less menacing, until she noticed something gleaming in his right hand.

A knife. Gwen whimpered and threw herself on the floor trying to get as far away from him as possible.

He looked at the blade—not a knife, a box cutter—and showed her his teeth like an aggressive dog. Warm liquid trickled down Gwen's thighs. He laughed.

"What? You think I'm going to use this on you?" He slashed at the air. "Relax. All I want to do is cut some of those ropes."

He leaned over her, turning his head away in disgust. "What a stench. Did you have to do that? I would have let you use the toilet."

Mo flicked his blade through the ropes around Gwen's torso and legs. Then he sawed at the knot at her ankles until it snapped, but he left her wrists tied. She sat up and moaned. Pain shot through her head and down her spine.

"We need to leave. I'm going to put you in my car, but..." He put his face close to hers and held the knife between them. "No fun and games. Not now. Understand?"

Gwen couldn't take her eyes from the blade. He grabbed her arm and lifted her to her feet. She cried out. Sitting up was painful. Standing was agony.

"Look at you. Miss Piss Pants. I can't put you in my car like that. I'll never get the smell out."

He moved to the far wall of the room and pushed aside a stack of boxes with his calf. The light from the hallway fell onto the outline of a square cut into the floorboards. Holding the razor in front of him with his right hand, he grabbed a small wrought iron ring with the other and pulled open the trapdoor.

Gwen thought about rushing him when he bent into the hole to retrieve whatever he was planning to retrieve, but the feeling in her legs was just now returning. She didn't think she could get there fast enough. As if reading her mind, he said, "If you move I'll cut off your pinkie. I don't believe they give you a discount at the nail salon for doing nine instead of ten."

Mo knelt down, his head and shoulders disappearing. When he reemerged, he was holding a large dress box. He set it on the floor and riffled around in it for a moment or two. Gwen caught a glimpse of sky blue fabric, something white with ruffles, then he pulled out a soft beige skirt. "I think this will fit," he said holding it up and eyeballing Gwen.

He tossed it at her. In reflex, Gwen raised her arms as one unit and caught it. She examined the expensive fabric. Why would he have this? In a flash of insight, she knew. His victims had been found naked. Cold scurried up her arms. She flung down the skirt like she was shaking off a cockroach.

"Pick it up," he said, his voice hard. "It's a gift. That's no way to treat a gift."

She'd made him mad. Not smart. Gwen obeyed.

"Now, put it on. Get rid of your underwear too."

She stared at him stupidly for a moment. How was she going to do that? Her hands were tied. She had no privacy.

"Don't be shy," he said. "I have a mother and two sisters. Had, anyway." He leaned against the wall and began cleaning under his fingernails with the tip of the blade.

Gwen turned her back to him and wiggled out of her pants and panties then stepped into the skirt and pulled it up over her hips. She shivered as the fabric touched her skin.

Mo lifted an empty wine crate from the floor and held it out to her. "Put your things in there. I'll get rid of them."

She did as he said. He held the box as far from himself as he could and set it by the door. "Let's go."

Never go with them. That's what the police always say. You may be killed if you fight, but there were things worse than death.

"No," she answered.