chapter thirty two

chapter 32
word count: 541

Jane opened her eyes slowly, very slowly because with the slightest movement her head protested in thunderous bolts of pain. She must have fainted...or been knocked out. With a deep breath to withstand the next pang, she threw her eyes wide open. The room was dimmed. A guard stood by the door, a desolate figure hunched over a machine gun. A tiny ray of soft morning light reached through an open slit where the drapes didn't quite come together. It must be morning. The light beam danced across the carpet in a frenetic display, driven by an obscure movement outside turning its beam off and on like a light switch. The little dancing light was like a ray of hope, hope she would get out of there and back to Bud.

He would be worried, always treating her like a porcelain doll, fragile and easily broken. But she was made of tougher stuff. Being a cripple her whole life toughened her other senses and hardened her skin. A quiet woman, her powers of observation and deduction were astute. It was no accident Bud frequently brought home mysteries to pick her brain. Her current predicament had come out of nowhere though. She could only guess these thugs were Bud's enemies, including the one bound, gagged, and dumped in a heap across the room from her, her first abductor.

It must be a motel room--the cheap TV on a dresser, monotone bedspread. The bathroom door lay ajar, a crack revealing bright light inside. A movement. A voice.

"Ren? Tell Uncle Frank. We got him, and the woman, too. I don't know what you want to do with the cesspool who whacked Ruben, but the woman could be valuable to us."

The other voice crackled in Ricco's ear. "You got Stan? Jesus! That's great. I'll tell Uncle Frank. Maybe let him decide on the festivities. But Ricco, the woman, she's married to a cop! If you jerk around with her, you'll have every badge in town gunning for you for kidnapping one of their own."

Ricco shifted on his feet nervously, finally sitting on the closed toilet seat. He leaned forward and hissed into the phone, "I gotta use her for something! I got a lot of trouble chasing my ass. She could buy me freedom, man!"

Jane stretched to listen. It was her life they were talking about. Although she only heard one side, it was enough. Enough to know she wouldn't be going home soon. A shuffle made her look up. The thug across the room was waking.

"Ow, shit!" He moaned, then startled when he saw his thigh, wrapped with a sheet, a blood-stained sheet, although the brilliant hues of red where it was fresh, and a duller maroon where old blood had dried, looked entirely gray in the dim light. He gazed over and spotted Jane.

He nodded to her and moved his gagged face in frantic motions, enticing her to come closer.

It was then Jane realized she was gagged, too, and her hands bound. She looked back, eyes wide. Neither of them were going anywhere, at least not by their own volitions. Not that she would go anywhere with that sonofabitch anyway.