Page 105 of Ruthless Possession
"I can't—" My voice breaks. I swallow. "She needs medical attention. Let me call someone for her. Please."
The gun shifts. Not toward me but toward Trixie. The barrel presses against her temple, and something in my chest fractures.
"Now," he repeats.
I move. My legs carry me forward on autopilot, each step feeling like it belongs to someone else's body. The passenger door is open. I can see inside as the interior light is on, illuminating the empty seats, the gearshift, a car that doesn't belong to anyone I know.
Trixie doesn't stir. Her chest rises and falls in a slow, shallow rhythm. Drugged. He drugged her. An ER nurse, taken from her shift, from the hospital where she should have been safe.
"Get in," Evan says. "Close the door. Don't look back."
I get in. The seat is cold through my dress. The door closes with a solid thunk, and the interior light goes out.
Through the windshield, I watch Evan lower the hatchback. He does it carefully, like he's closing a coffin. Then he's at the driver's side door, and the car dips as he gets in.
The engine revs. We pull out of the loading area and onto the side street. Evan turns right, away from the restaurant, away from the private room where my family is celebrating.
My phone is on the concrete behind the dumpsters. Trenton will text. Matthew will call. Someone will come looking for me in the bathroom, then the hallway, then the back door. They'll find the phone. They'll see the text from Trixie's number.
But Trixie is in the back of this car, unconscious, and Evan has a gun, and we're already three blocks away and accelerating.
Evan drives with both hands on the wheel. The gun is in his lap now, barrel pointed toward the passenger door. Toward me.
"You should have stayed away from my daughter," he says.
I don't answer. My mind is racing, calculating, the way it did in the safe room and in the cabin. Distance from the restaurant. Direction of travel. The gun. Trixie's breaths shallow but steady. My phone left behind. The text on my screen.
Trixie's phone. He has Trixie's phone. He used it to text me.
"You took her phone," I say. My voice sounds strange to my own ears. Flat. Empty.
"Smart." He glances at me, then back at the road. We're on a residential street now, moving at exactly the speed limit. "You figured that out fast."
"Where are we going?"
He smiles. It's a terrible smile, thin and stretched and completely without warmth. "Somewhere quiet. Somewhere we can talk without interruption."
I look in the side mirror. The restaurant is already gone, swallowed by distance and the curve of the road. Behind us, the street is empty. No headlights. No pursuit.
Not yet.
Trixie makes a small sound in the back. A moan that is barely audible over the engine. Evan's eyes flick to the rearview mirror, then back to the road.
"She'll wake up soon," he says. "The dose was light. I didn't want to hurt her."
The casualness of the words—the dose was light—sends a wave of nausea through me. He planned this. He planned the dose. And he planned the car, the phone, the text, the loading area behind the restaurant where no one would see.
He planned me.
"Evan." I keep my voice even. "You don't want to do this. The police?—"
"The police have me for murder already," he says. "What's kidnapping on top of that?"
The words land like stones. He's right. He has nothing left to lose.
I look out the window. We're heading northeast, toward the old highway that leads out of town. The houses are thinning. The streetlights are spaced farther apart. In another five minutes, we'll be beyond the city limits.
Trixie moans again, louder this time. Her arm shifts in the back. I can hear fabric rustling, the sound of someone trying to move limbs that won't cooperate.
