Page 6 of Saving Mr. Bell

“In the flesh.” I grinned at him. He didn’t return it, staring at me without blinking, his confusion understandable. “Long time, no see,” I said.

Chapter Three

Rudolf

What the hell was going on? Since when did documentary makers, successful ones at that, kidnap people? Because hell, yes, I recognized him. The man who’d driven me away from the club was Arlo Thomas, the same man who I’d spent time with a few weeks shy of my eighteenth birthday, my father’s idea to feature me in a documentary to elevate my public profile ending as suddenly as it had begun.

Arlo and the film crew were there one day and gone the next, without even having had the courtesy to say goodbye. I hadn’t seen him since. Until now. I’d seen mention of him in the media, my attention snagged by it being someone I’d once known, but our paths had never crossed. If this was some new-fangled way of getting an exclusive interview, I wanted no part of it.

“Rudolf?”

Right. I hadn’t answered his question. “Yeah, I recognize you.” He smiled again, all white teeth and disarming friendliness. “How long has it been?” The answer held little interest for me apart from as a means to make conversation. That’s what you did with kidnappers, right? Kept them talking. Made them like you.

“Six years.”

“That long, huh?” Time flew when you were on a never-ending whistlestop tour of the entire globe. His apparent friendliness filled me with hope of resolving this quickly. “Listen, I’m sure we can work something out interview-wise, but this isn’t the way to do it.”

Arlo laughed. He actually laughed. “You think I want an interview?”

“I can’t think why else you’d trap me here and take my phone.” I held my hand out. “Speaking of which, I’ll have it back now.” I wiggled my fingers in the universal sign for waiting and running out of patience.

Arlo turned back to the front and stared out of the windscreen. “I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because then you’ll call someone.”

“Well, yeah, that’s what phones are for.”

“I didn’t go to all this trouble for you to raise the alarm.”

“All what trouble?”

The pause was long enough to make me think he wouldn’t answer. “Finding out where you were going to be, waiting for you to come out of the club.”

So, this was premeditated. Whateverthiswas. If he didn’t want an interview, then what the fuck did he want? “You know you sound like a stalker, don’t you?”

His fingers tightened around the steering wheel. He was wearing leather gloves. It made me think of motorbikes. Motorbikes and murderers, but I didn’t dwell for too long on the latter. “Yeah. I’m aware.”

I reached to the side and rattled the door handle, my movements less urgent now the panic had subsided. “Listen… just let me out. No one has to know about this. I’ll tell Jade I went under a bridge and we got cut off, and that I opted for a cab because I didn’t want to wait for the car to come get me. There’s nothing I do that would surprise her.”

Arlo chuckled. “I bet.”

“Nothing that wouldn’t piss her off either,” I added as something of an afterthought.

“Are you sure you want me to let you out?” When I frowned, Arlo jerked his head toward the window. I followed his gaze to what lay outside, all my focus having been on the man behind the driver’s seat. And what lay outside was… nothing. No buildings. No cars. No houses. No streetlights. Nothing but trees as far as I could see. Which wasn’t far when it was pitch-black.

“Because I don’t think you could walk back to Salzburg,” Arlo said conversationally. “Even if you could work out what direction it’s in, it’s at least ten miles. There are probably bears out there, or wolves.”

I swallowed, not liking the sound of tramping through the undergrowth with wild animals on my tail very much at all. “You’re just saying that to scare me.”

Arlo shrugged. “I’m not really up on the flora and fauna of Austria. How about you?”

I wasn’t, but I wasn’t about to admit that. “In that case, you’ll need to turn the car around and take me back.”

There was a moment where I thought Arlo might agree, but then he shook his head. “Not happening. I’ve come too far to quit so soon.”

He reached over to the passenger seat, my mind going into overdrive, time slowing. Was he going for a weapon? A knife? A gun? But when he lifted his hand, there was no flash of cold steel. No yawning barrel of a gun, either. Just a tartan blanket. I swallowed down a bubble of hysterical laughter that wanted out.

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