“Well, dang,” Eugene said. “She didn’t tell you, did she?”
Nick stared at Taylor.
“I thought sure she’d run right on up them stairs and tell you how her and me had us a little prayer meeting outside the front door.” He pulled Taylor roughly against him. “I owe her one. Now, you get to watch me teach her some manners,” Eugene said. “And after that y’all are gonna find them records, and after that I may just let you go.”
“What records?” Taylor squeaked.
“Why, sweet thang, the records of what all the ol’ man stole, who it got stole from, and what it’s worth.” He began to laugh. “Dang! Here I thought that was what you was looking for all this time.”
Taylor was having trouble breathing.
She felt the same rush of terrible heat she’d felt outside Rounders, but this was worse, much worse. She should have told Nick. She’d promised herself Eugene wouldn’t get her again. Mel had warned her.
Everybody had warned her.
“Maybe we better start by getting nekkid,” Eugene said. “Hey, sweet thang?” He sneered at Nick. “Hear that? Her and me’s gonna get nekkid.” He scraped his cheek down Taylor’s. “I’m gonna get me into some places she ain’t never felt no man before.”
Nick growled. Eugene snapped to attention and swung the gun in his direction. “Uh-uh. Stay down there on your knees. Put your hands behind your head. You gonna get to watch your woman on her knees real soon.”
Eugene’s arm tightened around her. Today his feet were splayed wide. She couldn’t stamp him. She didn’t know what to do except stand here and take it
He whispered to her, but loud enough so that Nick could hear. “Anybody ever take a piece of baling wire to your tail, sweet thang?” He caressed her breast with the barrel of the gun. “Tell you how it works. First I tie you face down to that old bedstead over there, then I strip you nekkid, and I beat the crap out of you. I can make a real pretty pattern all the way from your neck to your knees. They tell me after a while it just feels hot, but I’m gonna feel hotter. You gonna be beggin’ to do every little thing I want you to.”
Taylor’s eyes begged Nick to stay still. If this hideous thing happened to her, she’d endure it so long as Eugene didn’t kill them both. Maybe after Eugene had taken his fill of her, she could catch him off guard.
She prayed Eugene was too dumb to realize that if he did, indeed, beat and rape her, he’d better kill Nick, because Nick would certainly kill him—even if it took the rest of his life.
“First off, we need us some rope,” Eugene said.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“Y
OU, FACE DOWN ON THE FLOOR, lock your hands behind your neck,” Eugene told Nick. He kept his gun pressed under Taylor’s breast.
Nick sank to his knees, then stretched out on his face and locked his hands. Taylor could see even in this dim light that his knuckles were white. Blood from his scalp dripped onto the concrete. His respiration was fast and strong, but he might have a serious concussion or a brain hemorrhage. She whimpered. Nick tried to raise his head.
“You want me to blow the back of your head in?” Eugene snarled. “That’ll keep you down there, all right.”
He dragged Taylor over Nick’s prostrate form. Taylor tried to kneel beside him, but Eugene dug his fingers into her arm. She realized she was losing the feeling in the fingers of her right hand.
Eugene couldn’t afford to leave either of them alive. The only decision he had left to make was when to kill them—before or after he raped and tortured Taylor. Well, she planned to stay alive as long as she could. She’d beaten him once, she would again.
Step by wary step he backed her towards the front of the room.
She forced herself to concentrate on something other than Eugene. All along she’d been sure that Eugene had the Eberhardt’s records and the remaining carousel animals. Now it seemed she’d been wrong about that too. Her gaze darted around the shadowy room. Plenty of drawers to hide papers in.
Even if Helmut had only paid off his contact for the sale of Marley’s hippocampus, that name would be listed. They’d know who had set Rounders up for the theft. How many animals were left unsold?
Eugene’s face against hers kept her from seeing more than half the room. She counted six horses. There might be others behind larger pieces of furniture.
“Hey, here we go,” Eugene said cheerfully. He nodded at a thick roll of duct tape on the concrete floor by the front door. “Now ain’t that lucky. Lot harder to break tape. No knots to come aloose.” He pulled her down with him. “Pick it up. I only got two hands.”
Taylor picked up the roll of tape.
“Now let’s us get your friend taped up.” He said to Nick, “Hey, you get on up slow and easy and come on down here.”
Nick stood, but swayed uncertainly.
“Did I tell you to drop them hands?” Eugene snarled. “Nossir, you turn around real slow and march on down here. Yeah.” For a moment Taylor felt the steel gun barrel leave her side. She tensed. Maybe she could throw her weight against Eugene, knock him off balance long enough to dislodge the gun.
“Not this time.” Eugene pulled her back against him roughly. “Fool me once—shame on you. Fool me twice—shame on me.”
Nick gave her a barely perceptible shake of his head. His lips were set in a thin hard line. The blood had begun to dry in his hair.
Eugene’s broad head swiveled on its thick neck as he searched for a place strong enough to hold Nick. “Okay. Even you can’t break one of them steel uprights. Tape you up to one of them real pretty and then I can take all the time I want taping this pretty lady here to that bed. Got to pick a place where you can see everything, though. Wouldn’t want you to miss nothing.” He snickered.
Nick had not spoken since Eugene hit him. Now, he complied silently. Only his eyes and the set of his jaw betrayed his fury.
Taylor guessed that Eugene was too high on adrenaline to read that look. Maybe he was too sure of his position to care. “Thought you was a tough guy,” Eugene said. “Could be I was wrong about you and this sweet thang here. Could be you gonna like watching.”
“Nick,” Taylor whispered. She longed to tell him that she loved him, but she couldn’t bear to have Eugene’s filthy ears hear the words.
Nick’s eyes held hers. He didn’t even blink. She saw the pulse leap at the side of his throat, the cords standing out in his arms and hands. He stood with his back to the beam and crossed his wrists behind it.
“Now, honey chile, you do the honors.” Eugene grinned. “Don’t think you can fake it, ’cause I’m gonna check it after you get through.” He handed the roll of tape to Taylor and stepped away from her. His gun did not waver.
She loosened the end of the tape and began to roll it around Nick’s wrists. It caught the dark hair on his forearms, and she thought for a crazy moment how much it would hurt when he pulled it off, then knew she was one giggle away from hysteria. What did chafed wrists matter when you were lying dead with a bullet in your brain? She bit her lip until she could taste blood.
“That’s enough. Don’t take much,” Eugene said. The roll of tape hung from Nick’s bound wrists. “Don’t want to waste it. You and me’s going to need it. Well, damn. What the Sam Hill am I going to cut it with?” Eugene sighed and peered into the gloom. “Hell, nothing ever works right.” He clicked his tongue against his teeth.
He turned to Taylor. “Bite it.”
She stared at him blankly.
“You know, bend down and bite across it, then you can tear it.”
Taylor bent. After she bit the tape she let her lips linger for a moment on the palm of Nick’s hand. His fingers curled gently to caress her cheek.
She staggered and caught herself one-handed against the concrete.
Eugene stayed outside Nick’s kicking area, grabbed Taylor’s upper arm and pulled her up and away. He winked at Nick. “Might oughta gag you, but you’ll probably want to yell. Ain’t nobody gonna hear you except this sweet thang here, and she’s gonna be doing her own yelling. What the hell. Yell away.”
Now it was Taylor’s turn. Eugene shoved her before him toward the sleigh bed. The frame was constructed of a simple wooden rectangle with heavy hemp rope stretched top to bottom and side to side like the weft and warp of a weaver’s loom.
She’d have no chance once she lay spread-eagled on her face, wrists and arms taped to the rope. Better to take a bullet now. She might only be wounded, might be able to wrestle the pistol from him if she surprised him.
He hit her hard in the small of the back. She stumbled and fell face down onto the bed.
Before she could react he was on her, his knee in the small of her back, his weight pressing her down. He captured her wrists in both his hands. What had he done with the gun? She struggled and screamed. The rope bit into her face, her breasts and stomach.
She heard the tape rip and felt it around her wrists. She kicked back at him, but he only laughed. He wound the tape around the rope in front of the headboard. She bucked against him frantically.
He grabbed her right ankle and taped it to the right corner of the bed. She kicked at him ineffectually, and he reached around and swatted her across her bottom. “Now, you just behave yourself, missy.”
Then he taped her other ankle to the other side of the bed.
She lay spread like a butterfly on a board. “Damn you!” she snarled. “Damn you to hell!”
He cuffed her across the back of her head hard enough to bounce her face off the taut ropes. “Ain’t that a nice way to talk? What would your momma say?”
He shifted his weight and stood up. She could turn her head only far enough to see his legs in their dirty jeans.
“Yeah,” he whispered. “Oh, yeah.”
He pulled her sweater up to her armpits. She felt the rush of cold air against her bare back and began to shiver. She gritted her teeth to keep them from chattering.
She wanted to shut her eyes, her mind and spirit away in some secret place that Eugene couldn’t reach. She wanted to faint, but she’d never been able to do that, not even when Daddy came at her with his belt, not even when Paul used his psychological terror tactics on her. She’d be fully aware of what happened to her every moment, no matter how terrible. She swallowed convulsively. Her mouth was so dry she couldn’t even lick her lips.
“Please,” she begged. “Please don’t do this.”
“Why the bell not?” he said. His voice sounded thick and hoarse. The rope protested as he knelt over her, one leg on either side of her thighs. He ran one finger down her spine.
“You ain’t ready yet, sweet thang,” he said. He bent and kissed the nape of her neck gently. “I don’t take no woman before her time.” He laughed. “Just like one of them wine commercials.”
Taylor was afraid she was going to be sick.
“Leave her alone, you bastard,” Nick snarled. His voice rasped with anger as though his hatred choked him with his own bile. “Do whatever you want with me, but leave her alone.”
Eugene left her. His footsteps moved away on the concrete, then Nick’s breath exploded. He began to cough.
“Nick!” she cried.
“Shut up, bitch,” Eugene said. “He’s fine. Man don’t talk too good with a fist in his gut.” He tittered. “Now what the hell would I want with you when I got her?”
Taylor heard another blow and screamed in impotent futy.
“I’m a real man,” Eugene said with obvious pride.
Taylor took a deep breath and snarled, “You’re no man. No woman would have you unless you tied her up and beat her first.”
Taylor heard Nick’s quick intake of breath. “Taylor, shut up.”
It was like baiting a bull using a red cape. She and Nick, each trying to take the heat off the other. She pictured Eugene’s heavy head swinging from Nick to her.
“That ain’t at all a nice thing to say,” Eugene whined. His footsteps came back. She waited for him to hit her, perhaps kick her. She tensed her body and clenched her teeth.
Nothing happened. She opened her eyes and saw his legs beside her again. He was doing something with his hands, but she couldn’t tell what.
Then he showed her.
“I can’t find me no baling wire in this place,” he said conversationally, “but I done found this wire coat hanger. My daddy used to whip me with one of them when I was a kid. Hurts like hell.” He giggled. “I’m good with it. Before I get through you gonna look like somebody’s been playing tic-tac-toe on you.”
Taylor moaned. Tears spilled over the rims of her eyes. Her nose started to run; she couldn’t even wipe it. She struggled against her bonds, frantic, powerless, unable to endure what she couldn’t escape.
“You say when, pretty lady,” Eugene crooned. “You got all the power. All you got to do is beg me to quit. Tell me you’ll do anything I want if I’ll just stop. But you got to come up with some fine ideas. I got plenty of good ones myself, but I bet you can come up with something real interesting if you try real hard.”
“I’ll give you some ideas, you bastard,” she shrieked. “You want to know what I’d like to do to you?”
She expected him to hit her. Instead he laughed. “Bet you just can. Hey, you over there. Me and her gonna teach you a few things.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Don’t you give over too soon, though, you hear? I like this part a lot.”
She braced herself.
Suddenly, she heard a thud and felt the bed spring under her. Out of the corner of her eye she caught a glimpse of Eugene. He seemed to be flying. Something was wrong with his mouth.
He screamed and scrabbled backward. Something heavy dove across the bed.
She twisted her head, but saw only a flurry of arms and legs, heard only Eugene’s scream.
The steel door opened and shut, then opened again.
She heard three short pops. Shots.
Dear God
, she prayed,
let Nick live.
The door slammed once more. Hands tore the tape loose from her ankles, then her wrists. Someone turned her over, gathered her up, held her.
“Nick,” she sobbed.
“I didn’t kill him, Taylor,” he snarled. “Damnation. I missed him in the trees.” He rocked her like a mother with a new baby. “I’ve got to kill him.”
She began to shake. “I’m going to throw up,” she said. She pulled away from him, scrambled to her feet and got to the door, but Nick put his hand on it.
“He might still be out there.”
Taylor clapped a hand over her mouth and shook her head. If Eugene waited, he waited. She opened the door, stumbled towards the undergrowth and fell on her hands and knees on the edge of the gravel. Nick stood guard over her with Eugene’s pistol in his hand.
She threw up until she thought her stomach would come up through her esophagus. Finally she struggled to her feet.
Darkness had fallen. Night creatures rustled through the leaves.
Nick held the door open for her. Taylor walked in calmly. She wanted to sit down, but the only place close was that damned bed. She wouldn’t sit on that if her life depended on it.
Nick shut the door behind them and dropped the inside bolt into place.
His wrists still wore bits of tape. Bloody tape.
“Oh, God, Nick. How did you get free?” She reached out to him.
“There was a burr on the side of that beam.” He held out his bloody wrists and his voice broke. “I’m so sorry it took me so long.”
She went into his arms. They held each other silently and hard.