CHAPTER ONE

 

It was like fighting my way up from a dark and dismal pit. My eyes were closed and somehow my brain just wouldn't seem to work properly. My mouth felt as though it was stuffed with cotton wool and my whole body ached terribly.

I tried desperately to think logically about what had happened to me, but my mind seemed to be walking through treacle.

There was a sound.

I kept my eyes closed and allowed that sound to filter through the fuzzy confines of my head.

An engine! I concentrated and gradually my situation became a little clearer. The sound developed into a steady vibration and I realised that I could actually feel, rather than hear it.

I was inside something powered by an engine.

My brain tried a little harder.

The vibration was actually coming from beneath me; pulsing up through the floor, buzzing through the flesh of my backside.

I was in a vehicle and I was sitting - lying - on the floor with my arms pinned underneath my back.

I opened my eyes with a silly sense of achievement at solving the mystery so quickly and panic immediately enveloped me. I couldn't see. There was only all-consuming darkness.

It had to be a dream; it couldn't be real, could it? What in the world was happening to me? I gritted my teeth and forced the panic into retreat.

Something was happening. There was a something, seemingly far distant, but something nonetheless; a tiny pinprick of God-given brightness that told me I was not blind. I was confined inside a vehicle with just a sliver of light fighting its way through one side of its ill-fitting doors. Only the tiniest sliver but enough to quell the rising panic.

I felt a flood of relief and relaxed a little. For a moment I was so pleased that my sight was still intact that I almost forgot about my immediate problem. Unfortunately that came back with a rush as the vehicle bounced over rough ground and pummelled my bottom against the floor.

My immediate reaction was to put my hands out to steady myself somehow but my arms wouldn't move. Once again my mind went into overdrive as I tried to work out what was happening.

There was pressure against my wrists, something tight. It registered suddenly. My hands were tied behind my back and secured somehow to the floor of the vehicle.

My newfound joy at discovering I hadn't lost my sight was quickly dispelled. Tentatively I tried to move my legs and, with a feeling of relief, realised I could move them without hindrance.

So what was happening? Was this a kidnap? For what purpose? Rape, or something worse?

The deep throb of the engine continued unabated and I shifted slightly in an attempt to ease the steady ache creeping through my body. A sense of relief swept over me as I realised that, at least, I was still fully clothed. I was, however, laying in something wet. I smelt urine and coloured with embarrassment; my bladder must have released itself during the time I had been unconscious.

The darkness inside the vehicle greyed a little as my eyes became more accustomed to the tiny threads of light peeking though the sides of the door.

Something moved; something inside the vehicle.

There was something or someone else lost in the misty greyness.

Once again I felt a thrill of fear and the muscles in my stomach tensed expectantly. "Who's there?" I whispered, not really hoping for an answer.

A sharp intake of breath from very close by froze me into immobility. It was almost against my ear.

"Who is it? Who's there?" I asked again, my voice rising slightly. "Say something, for God's sake!"

Another gasp, followed by a racking sob, told me that I was in no immediate danger from its source.

"Who is it?" I repeated. "Who's there?"

"It's me - Elaine!" The voice was broken by sobs and I could hear my unseen companion sniffling close to my ear.

"Elaine? Elaine who? What's happening here?"

The sniffling increased and her voice was almost a wail. "I don't knoooooow. I don't know! I'm tied down to the floor with my hands behind my back. I think ... I think ... maybe we've been kidnapped."

Her voice grated on my ears and I pulled at my bonds, feeling the tension against my wrists. "Oh Jesus! Don't wail, for God's sake!" I said peevishly into the darkness. "You sound like a fuckin' hyena."

"I'm scared. I can't help it."

"I'm scared too, but wailing won't help." Once more I pulled uselessly at the ropes. "So you're tied up as well?"

"Just my hands, my legs are free."

"Same here. What the devil is going on?"

"I don't know. "Her voice started to rise once more. "I don't know! I can't remember!"

I pulled again at the ropes in the vain hope that somehow they might have loosened themselves but I was disappointed; they were tight and unmoving. They felt like nylon ropes fixed to some kind of a ring in the floor of the vehicle digging into my spine. I could feel the metal of the ring with my fingers but whoever had tied the knots was an expert. I was never going to loosen them in a million years.

I turned my attention back to my unknown companion. Her sniffling had quietened a little and I could hear her breathing nervously close beside me.

"There has to be some sort of an explanation," I said. "People just don't get kidnapped and tied up without reason. Whaddya think? Ransom? Rape?"

"Rape? Oh no! Please don't say that! Not rape!" She started to sniffle again.

"Well, what do you think?"

"Oh noo! Oh God! Not rape, please!"

"Oh, don't start wailing again, Elaine, I can't stand it! There are a lot worse things than rape, you know!"

"What ... what ... d'you mean; worse things?"

"Never mind!" I snapped impatiently.

"I'm frightened."

"So am I, for Christ's sake, but wailing like that ain't gonna help, is it?"

"I'm sorry. I'm just not used to this."

"You think I am? You think I do this for kicks?"

"I don't know. Perhaps you're one of them. Perhaps you're a spy or something. Perhaps you're here to watch me."

"Don't be ridiculous," I snapped into the darkness. "How could I be watching you? I can't see you!"

"They could've put you in here while I was unconscious. Oh God! I don't know."

I got even more peevish. "Listen!" I snarled. "We're both in very deep shit, Elaine. If we don't work together we're going to sink even deeper, so pull yourself together and get your thinking cap on!"

"I can't think. My head is so fuzzy."

"Well try, for crying out loud! How did you get here?"

There was no answer, just a muffled sob followed by a weak: "Who are you?"

I sighed impatiently. It was just my luck to be in such a terrible situation and have a companion who obviously didn't possess any form of backbone at all.

"My name is...?" For a moment a sense of panic coursed through me as I realised that I didn't even remember my name. "I am ... Oh Jesus ... who the fuck am I?" I shoved the panic back deep into my subconscious and tried to concentrate. My name filtered slowly through the haze enclosing my thoughts. De Palma. Janet De Palma. "I remember now. I'm Janet De Palma." I said with a rush of relief and I heard my companion gasp. "Yes, that's right. I'm Janet De Palma."

"The actress?"

"Yes!"

There was silence for a few moments then, very quietly: "My God! Janet De Palma. I've been a fan of yours for ages. I think you're just wonderful."

Despite our predicament I nearly smiled. A fan, no less!" Well, thanks," I said a little smugly. "Mind you, that damned director nearly ruined the whole picture. Do you know he tried to cut four of my scenes?"

"Really?"

"Yes, really! He thought I was getting too much screen time," I snorted angrily. "He seriously thought he was going to kill my character off halfway through the picture and give the lead to that prissy bitch, Jean Carse!"

"You remember all that?"

I stopped to think for a moment. "Yes, I do, don't I?"

"You haven't lost your memory then."

"I thought I had for a moment. I really thought I had. Thank God for small mercies."

There was a moment's silence and I wondered what I was doing talking about my latest picture when here I was lying in wet knickers, securely tied to the floor of someone's van or lorry and travelling to God knows where.

"It's getting dark," Elaine said quietly. "There's hardly any light coming through the sides of the doors now. Where do you think we are?"

"God knows. Could be the middle of the Sahara for all I know."

"I don't think so."

"All right, it was just a figure of speech," I said impatiently.

"If we were in the Sahara it would be a lot hotter than it is in here. It's really quite cool. I think we're travelling through the countryside and I think we're still in Florida."

"And what brings on that brilliant deduction, may I ask?"

"Bells. Church bells. I heard them earlier."

"You think Florida is the only place in the world that has church bells?"

"I can't remember any feeling that we were on water so I suppose we must still be in Florida."

"I don't suppose it has entered your head that we may have been unconscious for some length of time and that we were shipped out during that period?" I tried not to sound bitchy but it was difficult. The silly cow was irritating the hell out of me and I just wanted to know what was going on. It was obvious that someone had kidnapped us for a specific reason but I was damned if I could think whom or why ... apart from the obvious, of course. Discounting a serial killer - or rape - ransom was the next thing to spring to mind. Of course! I was a valuable asset to the film company. Then another, much less attractive, thought momentarily insinuated itself into my mind. What about white slavery, did that still go on, I wondered? Had we been kidnapped in order to be sold to some octogenarian Middle Eastern potentate for his harem or ... my mind raced on to other, yet more fantastic possibilities ... maybe a gorgeous, hunky, millionaire Russian Mafia boss?

My mind snapped back to the more mundane. "What do you do for a living?" I asked in the hope that her reply might go some way toward solving the problem.

It didn't!

"I'm a hairdresser," she said proudly.

"A hairdresser?" I echoed. Why would anyone want to kidnap a bloody hairdresser? Desperately, I tried to marshal my thoughts.

Elaine gave a little gasp. "Could it be terrorists?" she whispered.

The word sent a shiver of dread up my spine. "I -er - don't know. Maybe."

My hidden companion gave a little sob. "Whoever it is, they can't keep us in here forever, can they? They'll have to let us out eventually; then we'll know."

Elaine's logic hit home and I sighed. My bottom was wet, cold and uncomfortable, my joints were aching from the cruel bondage and I just wanted out of this darkened tomb of a place.

We fell into mutual silence. After all there was little we could deduce from our position until something developed. As Elaine had said, eventually we would get wherever we were going and then perhaps we would find out exactly what was happening.

I leaned my head back against the side of the van or whatever it was and closed my eyes. The vibration coursed through my body with an almost hypnotic and relaxing effect. In fact, I think I must have dozed off for a while until Elaine's voice from the darkness woke me from my reverie.

"We've stopped!" she hissed.

She was right. The steady motion of the van had ceased although the engine was still running. There was an awful crunching of gears and then, once again, we were on the move.

"Traffic lights?" I posed quietly, feeling the disappointment right down to my toes. "Maybe a junction or something."

"I thought we were stopping."

Silence reigned for a further few minutes and I tried to recall the circumstances that had led me here. I vaguely remembered being slightly drunk and opening my hotel door to a dark skinned young man holding a huge bunch of flowers. I couldn't recall his features; just remembered that he was dusky, probably Latin. He had offered me the flowers and, stupidly, I had taken them. A light flashed on somewhere in the back of my mind. My God, that was it! The flowers! I'd buried my face in their perfume. It had to be the flowers. They must have been drugged in some way because that was the last thing I could recall.

I closed my eyes again, then opened them when the van pulled noisily to a halt and the engine stopped. There was a moment of absolute silence before I heard the slamming of doors from the front of the vehicle.

A distant mutter of voices was followed by a loud, protesting creak as the vehicle was opened and the half-light of evening flooded inside. Framed in the opening I could see the silhouettes of two very big men. My dark haired flower deliverer had been slight, not very tall. Couldn't be him, then.

Elaine began to protest as one of them leaned toward her, her voice piercing through the confines of the van and scraping across my nerve ends like a bowstring.

Neither of the dark shapes said a word as they released our wrists from the rings in the floor, leaving our hands tightly secured behind our backs. Roughly, the two of us were bundled out into the night.

Elaine was wailing frantically something about the police but no one seemed in the least concerned. My handler tangled his fingers in my hair and yanked me painfully to my feet. I called him a bastard, or something, but all he did was to tug again more forcefully. Through my tears of pain, I vaguely saw the outline of a building as I was bundled forward but had little time to absorb any more details.

Somewhere in the midst of being shoved inside the darkened building, I remember shouting insanely about recriminations and prison, all to no avail. Very soon both Elaine and myself were secured lying side by side, this time with ropes around our necks tied to rings set in the wall, in what looked terrifyingly like a dungeon.

The two men left us there, bolting the door behind them and we were once again alone. I shoved myself into a sitting position against the wall and wondered what the hell was going on. Elaine was crying bitterly on the floor beside me. Light was filtering in a grey pattern through a high, barred window and I was able to distinguish her features in the shadows.

I felt a tang of envy when I saw her beautiful features framed by gorgeous, waist length hair. Her ample, bra-less breasts were plain to see under a figure hugging woollen sweater, rucked up to reveal her tanned midriff with its pouting little belly button. She looked very young, no more than sixteen or seventeen, I guessed.

Suddenly my own twenty-five years felt like a lifetime. This was no University student prank. This was very much for real. Elaine leaned against me, searching, I suppose, for some crumb of comfort.

I had no idea what faced us but I was fairly sure it wasn't going to be pleasant.