Page 30 of Booked for Kidnapping

The memory of going from goat wrangling to handcuffed and chained in a dingy basement scattered like smoke on the wind. I recognized the fog of sedatives from my many stays in the hospital as of late, although the drugs the hospital used let me go with a gentler hand.

Some hellish concoction coursed through me, determined to torment me. My stomach rebelled, and swallowing compulsively kept me on the right side of the line, as the last thing I needed was vomit to go with my current status as cuffed to a bunch of pipes. A fresh coating of paint on the walls helped mitigate the dank basement of death and murder vibe, although I harbored a limitless supply of concerns over my predicament. Once coherency returned, a lengthy process without a stimulant to help ease the sedative’s cloying influence, I checked the cuff, which was covered in a fuzzy padding to protect my wrist, in the slim chance I’d gotten a stupid kidnapper using an adult toy with a mechanism meant to unlock without a key. Alas, my captor—or captors—had covered the basics and demonstrated some intellect.

Underneath the velvety material, they’d opted to use real restraints, the kind police used to keep criminals from staging an escape. In an effort to keep me from freezing to death on the concrete floor, my captors had provided a nest of blankets, and after some examination, I discovered the chain bound to my cuffs offered enough length to reach the nearby bathroom. Puzzled, I checked where the chain connected to the pipes to discover someone had welded the links into place after securing it with a padlock to make certain I had no hope of escape. They’d even welded the one cuff to the chain, as though concerned I might attempt to gnaw my way to freedom.

I doubted I could defeat any part of the restraint, let alone the thick steel chains keeping me in place while offering me minimal freedom to move around and take care of necessary business.

I suspected, within a few hours, I would appreciate the bathroom, which had a door, a bathtub, a separate shower, a sink, and a toilet. They’d even cut a hole at the bottom of the door to allow for the chain, which worried me.

Someone had planned to keep a captive—me—around for some time, going through the hassle of taking so much care with the restraint and my new living accommodations.

While the nest I’d been placed in lacked an actual mattress, there were enough pillows and blankets to make it comfortable and warm. I would have been much happier without the cuff anchoring me in place, but as far as being an unwilling guest went, I wouldn’t suffer much.

Assuming, of course, I hadn’t been signed up for slowly starving to death with only sink water for sustenance. My magic wouldn’t be able to protect me from that sort of decline, although I’d last longer than most in that situation.

As I lacked a viable method of busting out of the cuff or removing the chain secured to the pipe or dismantling the pipe, I struggled to piece together what had happened.

And why.

I eliminated the trouble-making goats as the culprits, although I bet they’d enjoy kidnapping people if they could figure out how. Damned cute, lovable, mischievous goats. I could see somebody deliberately letting loose a bunch of goats to stop traffic long enough to pull off a kidnapping, although the how of the whole situation insisted on evading me.

The last thing I remembered was helping to load one of the goats into the truck before selecting a new target to help wrangle, talking with Senator Westonhaus the entire time. Thinking about the man worried me. While I disliked his policies, I’d enjoyed my dinner meeting with him, which had taught me an important lesson on the nature of people. I could abhor someone’s policies while still liking them as an individual, at least a little.

Then again, he could have been involved with my current situation, which would have made lowering my defenses part of his job. Alternatively, he could have been the actual target, and I’d gotten grabbed because exsanguinators made excellent weapons. Other possibilities existed, and once my head and stomach took pity on me, I’d go through every last one I could conjure in search of answers.

No matter how much I disliked someone’s policies, I wished ill on nobody, except maybe the bastards who’d chained me in a basement. Considering how the politicians had been murdered, I assumed I dealt with an organized group of people who put their heads together to come up with good plans.

I gave credit where credit was due. They’d come up with a damned good plan. When I’d booked a dinner meeting with Senator Westonhaus, a kidnapping hadn’t even been on my radar as a possibility. Why kidnap me?

Had I been targeted by some freak mistake? A crime of opportunity brought on by goats?

Had the goats somehow been criminal masterminds?

I blamed the drugs for my thoughts, which flailed every which way without doing anything productive. Considering my situation, I could justify a little flailing. Short of attempting to gnaw my hand off my wrist so I could slip free of the cuff, or somehow separating the chain from the pipe using brute force, I was stuck.

Magic could only do so much, and nothing in my exsanguination arsenal allowed me to defeat steel. While I wanted to rescue myself, go home, and hide with my cat for a while, I accepted the reality of my situation.

Someone had gotten me good, and whoever they were, they had done a great job of planning.

With nothing else left to do, I settled in to wait.

In addition to rigging a prison in a windowless basement, my kidnappers had set up the piping to spew out some form of gas-based sedative, which did a damned good job of knocking me out. It also offered a clue on how I’d gone from goat wrangling to being a prisoner. Waking up the second time involved the same stomach-churning symptoms and lack of coherency. A cool breeze from vents overhead worked to clear the air, although a few wisps of some cloudy substance swirled in the corners.

A container of takeout waited nearby, and once I recovered enough, I could sit up without swaying, I scooted closer to investigate the offering. The smell of steak greeted me along with hints of garlic. Hunger demanded I investigate further, and I put the container on my lap, cracked it open, and peeked inside.

I’d been to enough fancy restaurants to recognize the meal as having come from some upscale steakhouse. Whomever had prepared the dish respected good beef, giving me real utensils. I eyed the knife and my handcuffs, but after some debate, accepted the thin blade would do a good job of cutting through meat but wouldn’t do much to the cuffs beyond a scratch or two.

I’d save my energy for something more likely to succeed.

As food equaled strength, I ate. It’d been a long damned time since I’d had a good steak, as while my mother made a damned good roast, she tended to use cheaper cuts she slow cooked to become tender masterpieces. While I loved her cooking, whomever had prepared my steak had done an excellent job of it.

Every movie I’d ever seen involving a kidnapping invoked a sense of terror in the victim, a fear of impending death or some other form of doom. My reality involved good food, a comfortable enough prison, and the ability to move around rather than need to be escorted to and from the bathroom or undergo general humiliation. Given a few days, my clothing would stink, but I could live with that.

I could survive through a lot, and if I couldn’t free myself in some fashion or another, I would endure through the embarrassment of being rescued. Before I went about attempting to rescue myself, I would watch and wait. I knew nothing about who wanted me or why, although their choice to inflict some form of gas on me boded well for my survival.

If I escaped—or I was rescued—I wouldn’t be a threat to their operations. I knew precisely nothing about my captors beyond their interest in keeping me alive, they had enough money to take care with what they gave me, and a general interest in making certain I stayed put.

My observations, such as they were, left me with more questions than answers. Why grab me? Had they also grabbed Senator Westonhaus? If so, what had they done with him?