Page 5 of Wicked Heat

It’s not from the store, but I’m still smiling when I see the QR code stamped on one side of the light green plastic and the words SCAN ME in giant black letters on the other. As I follow that order, I make a bet with myself that it’s either a fan doing a reading from my book or a video of a book club discussion.

At first, all I see is a completely black screen. Then words appear.

Watch.

Listen.

No incoming calls.

No incoming texts.

No distractions at all.

Your full attention is required.

I roll my eyes at the antics of whoever put this together, and I upgrade my guess to a dramatic reading. Maybe even a scripted version of Chapter One. I settle back in my seat and watch the letters fade.

As the screen returns to black, I hear a crackle and background noise. The hum of an air conditioner, maybe? I’m not sure, but something about the sound is familiar.

I turn up the volume, then stiffen when I hear a choking gasp.

No. Please, no.

Every cell inside me turns ice cold, and I start to shake, making that same choking, terrified sound that’s coming out of my phone.

No. No. Please not again. Please, no.

“Strip.” The filtered voice is all-too familiar, and my throat seems to close. It’s getting harder to breathe. I want to pull my feet up onto the seat and curl into a ball. I want to disappear.

I want to close this webpage and get away from this voice out of my nightmares.

I can’t.

Even if my hands weren’t shaking so much, I still couldn’t close the site. I want to scream, to toss my phone into the street. To drive away and never look back. But I can’t.

Somehow, I have to be brave.

Tears stream down my cheeks as the voice speaks again. “Strip or I’ll strip the little girl.”

The words are coming through the phone—I know that. But I’m hearing them almost seven years in the past. In the memory that is playing in my head. A lost, dark memory of those long, horrible hours.

Taken. Held against my will, helpless and terrified and completely unable to protect the sweet baby girl who was my charge. Little Anne, not yet two, who’d been snatched along with me.

Everything inside me wants to close this screen. To stop the voice. To block the images that will surely come. But I can’t. Because the people who would do something like this are the kind of people who mean what they say. I don’t know what they want from me, but I know they want something. And if I want to protect Anne—to protect myself—I have to keep watching that horrible black screen. I have to wait for the next words.

I taste saltwater and realize that I’m crying. The screen is still entirely black. That voice is silent. But I hear Anne calling out for me, her words woozy and soft.

My entire body is shaking from the inside, as if I’m naked in a freezing room, and the only thing I can hold onto is the knowledge that right now Anne is healthy and happy and safe with her parents on a private tropical island. That, and the absolute certainty that she remembers nothing of the kidnapping.

I do, though.

I remember being locked in that room. Fighting the urge to sleep and knowing that they had drugged me. Battling the ice-cold terror that the drugs would kill me. Struggling to stay awake to comfort Anne.

Failing, and then spiraling down into a dreamless pit of darkness, as hollow and empty as death.

For years, I’ve told myself that nothing happened in those missing hours. That they kept me knocked out so that I wouldn’t fight or scream. But now, listening to that message and staring at my phone screen, I know that I’d fed myself a lie. Things happened.

Bad things. Horrible things.