Chapter 36CANDI

Chapter 36

CANDI

The first thing I'm aware of is a pounding ache in my head. My throat is thick and tastes like I sucked on someone's dirty sweat socks.

My eyelids feel glued shut and it takes a concentrated effort to force them open. At first, I can't see anything, but my eyes slowly come back into focus and the moonlight through the window allows me to make out most of my surroundings.

I'm in a bedroom with huge windows and no drapes. The walls are naked logs meant to look rustic, but too polished to be anything but part of some rich person's vacation home. Thick trees obscure the skyline out the window.

We're definitely not in the city. I don't know much about Long Island, but those trees look too thick for anything I've seen on the island.

So, where am I? One thing I know: I'm not going to figure it out lying here.

Groaning, I force myself to sit up. The pounding in my head gets exponentially worse. I'm pressing on both sides of my temples in a vain attempt to alleviate it when the door swings open and bright light from the hall spills into the room.

"Good. You're awake." The woman in the doorway is beautiful in that cold, cruel villainess sort of way.

Or maybe that's just my circumstances talking. "You'd make a great stand-in for Cruella De Ville."

Oops. Brain to mouth filter offline. Is that a result of the drugs that knocked me out, or the fury roiling inside me at being kidnapped. Again. Only this time there's no Angelo waiting for me to arrive with his obsessive certainty we belong together.

Whoever this woman is, she doesn't work for him.

He would never let someone who works for him drug me and give me such a terrible headache.

The woman's perfectly painted lips twist in a moue of distaste. "Don't try to be clever, dear. It doesn't suit you."

"I'm not your dear and you don't get a vote. At least I'm smart enough to know what a huge mistake it is to kidnap the Angel of Death's beloved."

"Beloved?" she scoffs. "Angelo is no more capable of love than a dog can speak."

"I'd rather listen to Mars bark than your ugly voice."

There is something familiar about the woman's gray eyes and then it hits me. "You're the sorry excuse for a mother that gave birth to my beloved ."

Perla Caruso, or whatever her last name is now that she's on husband number three, wrinkles her nose like she smells something bad. "Pregnancy and giving birth was the worst experience of my life, but it was supposed to lead to my offspring becoming a don and eventually a godfather."

"Yeah, nothing like pinning all your expectations on the next generation, instead of making something of your own life. Too bad it didn't work out for you. Or not ." Swallowing back nausea, I scoot toward the edge of the bed an inch at a time.

"My fortunes are changing. All my son has to do is his duty."

And that family thinks Angelo's the psychopath? "Maybe with enough fortune you can buy a better personality. Or even a conscience."

I swing my legs over the side of the bed and try to stand. But woozy, I fall back on my butt. I need a glass of water or something, but I'm not asking his awful woman for anything. Besides, I couldn't trust her not to poison it.

I stand again and manage to stay upright, even if I'm swaying a little. "Where's the bathroom?"

"Through that door." Angelo's mother points toward a door in the wall opposite the bed.

I head where she's pointing one slow footstep at a time. When I reach it, I step inside, find the light switch and turn it on before shutting the door.

It's less fancy than I expect based on the bedroom, with a single sink vanity, toilet and shower cubicle. And no window.

I'm pretty sure I couldn't manage to climb out one right now anyway.

I splash my face with cold water before drinking several gulps straight from the tap. I have to breathe through my nose for almost a full minute before I'm sure it's going to stay down.

After I pee and wash my hands in water that has turned more and more frigid the longer it runs, I splash my face again.

Finally, I can stand without swaying. I start searching the bathroom for something to use as a weapon. There's a comb, but no hairbrush in the vanity. No razor, though how I'd use one as a weapon is unclear to me. There's a manicure kit, but the nailfile inside is a blunt emery board.

I might be able to give her a good gouge with the toenail scissors, but I'm not going to incapacitate her.

The lid on the toilet tank has some heft but would make a very awkward weapon, no matter how they show it on T.V. Still, if that's all there is, I'll take it.

Do I know Angelo is coming? Without doubt, but Queen Bitch kidnapped me for a reason, and I have an ugly suspicion it's to use me as leverage against her son. Little does she know how well that could work.

No matter what she thinks, Angelo loves me and he's not going to risk me being hurt. Which means I need to get away from the bad guys before they can use me as bait to kidnap him .

My eyes land on the shower cubicle again. Instead of a door, there's a fabric curtain with a plastic liner trying a little too hard to be casually rustic. The curtain is useless, but the rod it's hanging from looks like a peeled and smoothed branch.

I turn the water on full blast and flush the toilet just before I knock it from its brackets. It comes down pretty easily, which makes sense since the curtain has to be easily removable for washing and liner replacement.

Dropping the curtain into the bottom of the shower cubicle I heft the wooden stick. It's solid but not too heavy and only about three feet long.

A peremptory knock sounds on the door. "Come out, Kathleen. I do not have all night."

I turn off the water and place the rod to the right of the door, out of sight of the opening but easy to reach if I leave the door open and stay close to the bathroom.

Perla is pacing the room impatiently when I come out.

Pretending I'm still woozy, I lean against the wall beside the bathroom doorway. "What do you want?"

"You're going to call Angelo and tell him to do as he's told if he wants to see you alive again."

Yeah, no. I pretend compliance with a grimace and a nod though. I'm not pissing away a chance to talk to Angelo on the phone.

"Good." Perla lifts a burner phone and taps on the screen twice.

At least I assume the cheap phone isn't her personal device.

There's a single ring at the other end and then Angelo's voice. "Speak."

There's loud music in the background and something else. Is he still at the club?

Somehow, I doubt that very much.

"Angelo. It's me," Perla says like he should recognize her voice.

"I'm here too and I'm okay," I say quickly.

The older woman glares at me. "Shut up, Kathleen. You will not speak until you are told to."

"Talk to her like that again and I'll cut your tongue out." His tone sends a shiver down my spine.

Perla blanches before glaring at me threateningly. "Talk, Kathleen. You know what to say."

"Your mom is the real psycho in your family," I inform my guardian angel.

Perla raises her hand to strike me.

I shake my head at her. "The last person who touched me without my permission lost a hand to your son's knife. I don't know, but I feel like you're not someone who would handle that very well."

"If you don't want your mouthy whore's tongue cut out, you will hear me out," Perla threatens. "The only reason she's unharmed is her value to you, but I'm losing patience with her."

The only sound at Angelo's end is the loud music blaring in the background. That song isn't on any of the playlists at the club.

"Did you hear me?" Perla demands.

"I heard you begging me to cut off every appendage on your body before I kill you." There's no emotion in Angelo's voice now.

He almost sounds bored.

But the effect on his mother is the opposite of boredom. Her eyes go wide with fear and nothing comes out of her mouth when she tries to talk.

"I think someone is regretting their life's choices right now, stalker angel."

"Stalker angel?" he asks.

"Too much? How about hot stuff? Oh, I know, Iron Man. Because you're my morally gray superhero who actually kills people."

"That would be Deadpool," Angelo says.

My heart settles in my chest because he sounds like himself again. I really don't want to witness him cutting off all his mother's body parts.

"Yeah, no. What about babe? Or my beloved dark angel…but that feels too long."

"Beloved?" he asks, picking that word out of all the others I'm throwing to de-escalate the situation.

Wherever Angelo is, he's on his way to get me. If he weren't he'd have asked where I am. He didn't because he already knows and I'm also hoping my little show about endearments will have sidetracked his mother enough not to notice that.

He would also sound more worried. Maybe not for anyone else, but for me?

Definitely.

Shrieking, Perla spins on her heel and storms out of the room. Coming away from the wall, I go to follow her, only to be stopped by a man standing in the doorway.

Leaning around him, I yell, "How do you like stud muffin?"

My guard gently, but firmly pushes me back into the room and then shuts the door in my face. I don't bother banging on it. I got what I wanted, a glimpse of my prison outside the bedroom I'm in.

The hall outside my door is open on one side with a view of the first floor, where I saw a bunch of guys sitting around a table playing cards. Do they really think Angelo won't find me?

They must. Which gives me pause. I'm assuming my phone and whatever tracking app Angelo no doubt has on it got left at the club.

How is he going to find me? Maybe he didn't ask because he assumes I don't know anything about where I am, which is mostly true.

But he didn't sound worried.

Whether he's coming sooner, or later, I'm not sticking around to see what plans that evil bitch has for me.

She wants to use me as leverage against her son, but she can't do that if I'm not here.

My brief glimpse into the hall told me that this room is at the far end of the hall, away from the stairs.

Even if I could incapacitate Mr. Personality out there, the chances for me making it to the stairs down the open hallway and sneaking out the front door without alerting the guys downstairs are slim to none.

That leaves escape from within the room.

Peering through the window, I'm delighted to see the exposed beam motif from inside extended outside. Suspended by other beams, one runs the length of the eaves. About five feet from the wall of the house and open at the top, it is even with the bottom slope of the roof putting it only a couple of feet above the top of the window.

I don't know if the beams are structural or decorative. They're there and that's all that matters to me. If I can MacGyver some kind of rope, I can try to throw it up and over the beam.

Then I'll shimmy down and run like hell. Dancing the pole has developed my core strength so I could scale the side of a building as long as there's something to hold onto.

Like a shower curtain tied into a rope with the sheets from the bed. Which answers one how, but it's still a plan with a lot of ifs and not a lot of strategy.

Before anything, I need to see if the windows open and if they are wired to an alarm.

For that, I come up with a pretty decent strategy if I do say so myself. But it requires hanging the curtain back up in the shower. I check the closet and drawers in the dresser and bedside table first.

There are two wire hangers and six flocked ones on the empty closet rail. An extra pillow and blanket are the only things on the shelf above it. There's nothing in the nightstand, but there's a dark sweater in the bottom drawer of the dresser.

As my mind flips through the possibilities of how to use what I found, I open one of the windows. Then I wait.

It takes nearly five minutes for the door to slam open. My guard rushes in, but stops when he sees me on the bed, doing my best to look pathetic.

"What?" I pretend to hold back being sick.

His mean glare morphs into a grimace and he looks away. "Close the window."

"No."

Still not looking at me, he marches toward the window, like he's going to do it himself.

"I need the fresh air." I whine pitifully, which is so not me, but he doesn't know that. "Whatever you people drugged me with is making me nauseous."

"You're going to have to deal," he says unsympathetically.

While he's closing and relocking the window, I shove a finger down my throat, making myself retch. I don't try to hold back and manage to throw up a little bile onto the floor beside the bed.

Turning back to me and looking pretty green himself, the guard says something Italian in a nasty tone.

"I'm not cleaning that up. It will just make me throw up more." I turn over, like I'm trying to get away from the smell.

I feel the renewed breeze from the open window and cheer inside, but I don't turn over. Grinning inside, I enjoy every second of the guard's huffing and puffing while he gets something from the bathroom to clean up the mess. When he makes gagging noises, I'm positively gleeful.

He says something else in Italian and drops something wet on the carpet.

"Stay away from the windows," he orders, like I'm going to listen to him.

Even if I didn't think he was an asshole for being part of my kidnapping entourage, I wouldn't let him boss me around.

I'm off the bed as soon as the door shuts again. He left a sopping hand towel over the place I threw up.

Whimp. I guess he's never had to nurse a little sister through the flu or helped his mom clean up after new meds gave her diarrhea.

At this point, my stomach is pretty much made of cast iron.

I rush to pull the sheets from the bed and toss them into the bathroom before stacking the pillows neatly and putting the comforter back on.

It only takes a minute to retrieve my weapon and free the shower curtain from it. The nail scissors come in handy making snips so I can tear the curtain, sheets and spare blanket into strips. If anyone comes into the bedroom, I'll pretend to be washing up after being sick again.

In the time it takes me to twist the fabric strips and tie knots, no one comes to check on their nauseated captive.

After attaching the shower curtain rod to one end, I dismantle the two wire coat hangers and twist them together to make a long wire with a hook at the end.

Once everything is assembled, I tiptoe to the bedroom door and press my ear against it. No one is talking, or walking by.

I'm sure my weak-stomached guard is still out there, but it doesn't sound like anyone else is.

It's now, or never.

Being as quiet as I can, I climb onto the windowsill and lean out with one hand holding onto the window. You can't dance a pole if you have a fear of heights, but even I'm nervously aware that one slip and I'm a pancake on the ground below.

Relief floods me when I manage to get the end of the shower rod to sit on the eave. Despite the hours of throwing balls for Mars with Cookie, my aim is not that great. If I had to toss it javelin style, I would probably miss and make enough racket to expose my escape attempt.

But this way, I just have to shove and the wood acts like a needle guiding the rope over the eave. It takes me longer than I'd like to catch the rod with the hanger hook, but eventually I do and I'm able to pull it back to me.

After removing the stick from the end of my makeshift rope, I tie it around the other part of the rope. Then I reattach the stick. It could still come in handy as a weapon.

Hoping for the best, I swing out on the rope and flip upside down to see what's below my room.

Light blazes from a window that looks into some kind of office. An older man is sitting at a desk facing the window. He's not looking up, but that could change any second.

Okay. Plan B.

Wrapping the rope around my knee, I flip back upward and quickly shimmy up the rope instead of down. Once I can reach the exposed beam under the eave, I climb onto it on my belly and check out the rest of the house on this side.

There's no light coming from the window on the first floor at the other end of the house. Of course, it's going to be as far away from me as possible.

Untying the rope, I draw it upward, looping it over my arm until I can scoot along the beam to the other end. Once I get it tied back onto the beam, the stick at the bottom of the rope, I shimmy down, remove the stick and proceed with the second part of my plan.

Running toward the forest as fast as my dancer's legs will carry me.