Midnight Exposure (Midnight #1)(23)

She tried to raise a hand to her head. A tug on her other wrist and a metallic jingle made her eyelids snap open. Pain shot through her left hand. Her vision blurred in the dim light. She blinked hard and focused as the images in front of her sharpened.

Handcuffs linked her wrists. A thick chain fastened her bound hands to the stone wall four feet away. She stared at them as if they were figments of her imagination. She turned over her left hand. A fresh cut was just beginning to scab over. Adrenaline pushed the first twinge of terror through the drug-induced haze.

This can’t be happening.

Ignoring the pressure behind her eyeballs, she scanned her surroundings. Four walls of irregular stone. Dirt floor. Low ceiling. A bare lightbulb was attached directly to a rough-hewn beam. A steep wooden staircase rose in the center of the space. High on the opposite wall, faint gray light filtered in through two narrow, rectangular windows. An ancient furnace hunkered in the far corner.

OK. She was in a basement. But where? And how long had she been down here? She glanced toward the closest small window. With the heavy cloud cover, it could be dawn, dusk, or anywhere in between.

She forced herself to a sitting position. The room spun briefly, and she closed her eyes for three slow breaths. A gentle probe with her fingertips found the egg-size lump behind her ear. When she pressed on it, pain bounced through her head like a pinball.

Jayne blinked hard to sharpen her focus. The walls were covered with hundreds of those strange symbols. As her head cleared, Jayne connected the dots. She sucked a shaky breath into her lungs, controlled the exhalation.

She’d been knocked unconscious, drugged, and kidnapped by whoever was following her around town. This sort of thing happened to other people. She heard it on the news, read about it in the newspaper. She watched CSI with the same morbid fascination as everyone else.

But this sort of violence didn’t actually strike the average person. Twice. And how had he grabbed her without making a sound? She was always vigilant.

Fear swept the remaining fuzz from her brain. Her situation crystallized. If she couldn’t find a way to escape, she would die here. She refused to contemplate that option. There was always a way out, a counter to every attack. She just had to find it.

She would escape.

But how?

Both windows were barred. No bulkhead doors. The only way out was at the top of the staircase. It was also the only way in, and the way that her captor would enter when he came back.

Because whoever he was, he would come back. The faces of the men she’d met in Huntsville flashed through her mind: Nathan, Jed, Chief Bailey, Bill. She forced herself to add Reed to the list. Her attraction to him didn’t alter the fact that he was essentially a stranger.

What if Reed wasn’t R. S. Morgan? Could one of the other men be the sculptor? Could the sculptor be mentally ill? How desperate was he to keep his identity a secret? She hadn’t heard from Chief Bailey, so she didn’t know for sure that Ty Jennings was still in Philadelphia.

Jayne drew in more stale air and refocused with a quick, painful shake of her head. Next to her, directly under the place where the chain was fastened to the stone, three bottles of water tempted her. It looked like her captor wouldn’t be back right away, and that he wanted her alive—for now.

Jayne licked her chapped lips as she picked up a bottle and examined it. The seals were broken; the water was probably laced with a sedative. She set it back on the floor. Like she’d drink anything supplied to her by a kidnapper who’d already drugged her once.

A faint moan sounded from above.

Jayne held her breath and strained her ears for sounds. Only silence greeted her ears. No footsteps echoed from overhead. No squeaking of floorboards. No hum of appliances. Nothing.

Must have been the old house above her settling or the wind through the trees outside.

Scooting back to lean against the rough wall, she squinted at the tiny window across the room. Through it, she could see the edge of the forest. Fat snowflakes fell against a colorless sky. From the lack of other visible roofs and the silence, she doubted she was still in town. The vastness of the wilderness surrounding Huntsville flashed through her mind. Didn’t matter. She’d take her chances out there over what was in store for her in this basement.

She didn’t want to die, but she really didn’t want to be tortured, then die.

Jayne pounded a fist on her knee. Death wasn’t an option. Not only did she have plenty of living to do, she couldn’t do that to her brothers. They’d never be able to cope with losing her, especially Danny. He’d already sacrificed enough. His mental state was far too fragile to cope with another loss.

Time to get off her butt and out of this prison.

The room was cold but not as freezing as outside. Jayne felt the dampness seep into her bones. She was dressed exactly as she’d been when she left the bookstore: wool sweater, jeans, and boots. Her jacket, hat, and gloves were missing. No doubt to discourage an escape attempt.

Jayne examined the handcuffs. Too tight to slip out. There was a tiny keyhole in each, and Jayne wasted a few minutes searching her pockets and the surrounding dirt for anything that would fit into the hole. She was no angel. She’d picked a few locks in her day.

Finding nothing useful, she tucked her feet under her body and rose to a kneeling position. Whatever drug she’d been administered was wearing off rapidly, because she only wavered for a brief moment before getting to her feet. Her legs felt steadier than she’d expected.