Page 31 of Booked for Kidnapping

Considering the fate of those who also supported the bill, I suspected he’d been killed after I’d been gassed out—or whatever had sent me from alert to lacking any memory of what had happened. I refused to blame myself for the man’s fate, however.

I held no responsibility for another’s choice, and if I could have done something to save him, I would have.

I would make that be enough moving forward, no matter what had occurred when I’d been unconscious.

Still, it bothered me I lacked any memory of how I’d gone from wrangling goats to becoming a kidnapping statistic. If I blamed the wretchedly adorable goats for my kidnapping, would anyone buy into it? As far as I was concerned, I would never blame anyone for falling for the charms of troublesome goats. If I told myself that enough times, would I accept I’d gotten kidnapped without even being aware of it happening?

I supposed something could have happened that screwed with my memory. I’d lost a lot of memories surrounding the car crash, although fragments had returned with time.

A knock to the head could scramble a brain and make memories disappear. I would work hard to forgive myself for my inability to remember, no matter how much it bothered me.

After eating every scrap of food in the container and setting the utensils inside to hopefully convince my captors I meant to behave, I did a head-to-toe check for any signs of trauma. My foot needed to be purged of infection again, which told me a disconcerting tale of several days lost somewhere in a drugged fog. Bracing for the inevitable pain, I lurched upright and hobbled to the bathroom to investigate.

Behind the door, the bathroom extended farther than I’d anticipating, including a vanity with several neat stacks of women’s clothing waiting for me. Upon investigation, I discovered a disconcerting number of wraps, which I could wear despite the chain getting in the way. As weird clothes beat no clothes, I accepted what I couldn’t change with a sigh, closed the bathroom door, and checked for any evidence of cameras. I found nothing, even after a top to bottom examination of the room. My clothes would need to be cut off if I wanted to wear something clean, and I accepted my shirt’s demise with a disgruntled huff, returning to the main room long enough to grab the knife.

Five minutes later, I wore one of the wraps, which left my one shoulder bare but otherwise covered everything of importance. The presence of strapless bras in several sizes cinched the situation for me.

I had been the target, and I doubted anyone I knew had been involved, as they knew my sizes thanks to frequent hospitalizations and clothing runs to make certain I had something better to wear than a hospital gown. Someone had made an educated guess regarding my bra size, hitting close enough to the mark I suspected a woman had been involved with the selection.

Sitting on the edge of the tub as close to the toilet as possible, I removed my medical boot, grimacing at the worrying smell wafting up from my foot. While my magic had warned me of unpleasant things to come, seeing was believing.

Judging from the infection’s progression, it’d been at least three to five days since my last dose of antibiotics. I didn’t need to make an incision to access the infection site; the prior surgical site oozed, the source of the odor.

It would take daily work, but I could handle the infection. My doctors would freak out when they found out I’d gone without the drug cocktails meant to help my lungs recover and keep my foot intact, but I’d cross that bridge when I got to it—assuming I escaped alive.

If my kidnappers would stop knocking me out with their damned gas, I could even like being free of drugs, although I’d miss the painkillers the first time something went truly wrong. I’d handled much worse, and I’d do so again without complaint if necessary. Complaining wouldn’t help me escape.

For the moment, I had no choice but to watch, wait, and prepare in case an opportunity came knocking.

After three meals where I returned my utensils without attempting to use them to break free, my captors rewarded my good behavior with books, a dessert of chocolate cake to go with my steak dinner, and a large travel mug of coffee along with containers of non-dairy creamer and sugar. The books, a collection of twenty new titles across a range of subjects, would keep me busy enough. The paperbacks wouldn’t help me escape, although I’d move them into the bathroom under the guise of taking a bath with a book to poke around the ceiling. With twenty books, I could reach the tiles without many difficulties.

After some experimentation while safely tucked into my nest, I’d discovered if I had a willingness to potentially hurt my thumb or some other bone in my hand, I could get my hand free of the cuff. I might even be able to escape with some soap, a willingness to rip some skin off, and some determination. If fortune smiled on me, I might even be able to just contort my thumb enough to slip free.

All I needed to do was tear off the fuzzy padding, be willing to disfigure my hand a little if necessary, and then yank free of the restraint. The padding would prove my salvation and hope of escape, as it kept the cuff open enough to slip over the bones of my wrist, leaving my thumb and the broader part of my hand as the final obstacle barring me from freedom. The disfigurement part would hurt like hell, but if a dislocated or broken bone was all that separated me from making my escape, I’d deal with the pain.

Well, agony.

Suffering was a price I would pay for my freedom without hesitation.

First, I’d have to find a way out of the basement once freed of the chains, and I’d already eliminated the door and the ceiling of the main room. My only hope lay in the bathroom ceiling. If the ceiling opened up into some form of crawlway, I might be able to escape. Otherwise, I’d be stuck trying to dig my way through a wall with a spoon, assuming I could make one disappear without drawing notice.

As far as I knew, they kept close track of anything I might use to escape.

However much I loathed stupid criminals, the smart ones might prove to be the end of me. Then again, if they meant to kill me, they would have rather than reward me with good behavior while I waited to discover if they would actually introduce themselves to me or if they meant to get me out of the way for a while.

A bubble bath with some cake, coffee, and books was in order, and I’d even forgive the presence of the goddamned chain. I ate my steak before implementing my plan to indulge, making sure the cameras in the main room, which were mounted high up in the corners and on the ceiling where I couldn’t reach, caught me acting like someone resigned to a long wait.

Once in the bathroom, with the door closed and enough chain inside I could reach every corner, I went to work. To fool the microphones surely recording every sound, I turned on the water, whistled a merry tune, and set up my bath. Then I did my check of the corners, searching for any cameras or bugs masked with illusionary magic, finding nothing as usual.

It intrigued me that my captors showed some respect for my privacy, although the possibility an illusion covered some form of hidden camera existed. With that in mind, under the cover of the tub filling, I gave the entire bathroom a pat down, closing my eyes to avoid illusionary magic to trick me.

On the wall over the toilet, my fingers brushed against the sill of a window. I jerked my hand back and opened my eyes. The wall appeared to be blank, and I reached out to touch it again, jerking when I reached where the wall should have been.

“Well, hello there,” I murmured, closing my eyes and reaching beyond the illusion. Judging from feel, the window was plenty large enough for me to slip through, assuming I could figure out how to open it without tipping off my captors I knew it existed.

Having earned my chocolate cake, I retreated to the tub with one of my new books, stripped, and got into the water to enjoy my reward for having gotten a little closer to freedom.

Knowing there was a window and being able to make use of it were two completely different things. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t pierce through the illusions shrouding the potential escape route. Unless I closed my eyes and worked by feel, my brain insisted there was only drywall over the toilet, and my body reacted as though my damned eyes knew what they were doing despite tactile evidence of the window existing.