Page 16 of Corrupt Game

Toward the end, I'd been so busy. I silenced so many of his calls with a promise to myself that I’d call him back tomorrow. Now I had run out of tomorrows.

Our regular monthly get-togethers had been pushed to the wayside. We’d only managed a few calls that lasted minutes instead of hours.

Grad school was not kind to the lives of students.

Each week had been filled with classes, huge papers, a thesis, and working as an intern for a starter company. I’d barely had time to breathe.

Those were just excuses, though. I should have noticed that Andy wasn’t going out of his way to find me or come over as often.

My head had been so full of other stuff that I hadn’t seen the obvious. Andy was doing something he hadn’t wanted me to find out about.

I hadn't believed Ingrid when she’d arrived on my doorstep to deliver the news. I had dialed his number one last time, only to have some federal investigator answer it instead.

The SUV stopped. The driver opened my door, and I stepped out, nerves jangling, blinking in the sudden light. After the long dark, it dazzled me.

A cabin sat surrounded by trees, secluded and alone in the middle of what appeared to be a forest. It gave off a forlorn appearance though it looked well maintained.

I guess most getaway cabins were located in the middle of wooded acreage, but this one gave me the impression of being more isolated than normal.

Maybe I was imagining things, and thiswasn’tsomewhere I could scream for hours without a soul to hear me.

My heart thumped. Why did this suddenly feel so Silence of the Lambs?

Or, it could be because he’d killed my brother? There was no rhyme or reason to it. It made absolutely no sense. What could he possibly want with me here?

Running water sounded in the near distance.

Crickets chirped.

The sound of a helicopter roaring was the only civilized thing in this wilderness location.

A helicopter could be one way to escape if I needed to. If the pilot wasn’t on Mr. Holdt’s payroll.

The driver stood next to me as I watched the helicopter land on a cleared out space near the driveway.

Ian Holdt stepped out, followed by his bodyguard, Rossi.

I hadn’t realized that Rossi wasn’t in the vehicle with me. I'd thought he was up front with the driver. I needed to pay more attention to his whereabouts. Escaping when I was done depended on how closely Rossi watched me.

Mr. Holdt didn’t strike me as the type to do the dirty work himself, when he could just order it done.

If they were going to come out here anyway, why couldn’t they have just flown me over as well? I wouldn’t have been able to recognize anything blindfolded in a helicopter.

Frightened that I’d missed vital pieces of information, I vowed not to make the same mistake again.

The secrecy seemed a bit of an overkill to me. Did it matter if I knew where I was right before they murdered me?

This was Holdt's deal though, and if I wanted to find out the truth, then I needed to play his game.

Mr. Holdt approached, then motioned for me to walk in front of him.

My stomach sank.

What if they already knew about my connection to Andy and were simply bringing me here to get rid of me?

All that stuff about a job might have been their way of covering their asses before offing me.

What if I never left here alive?

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