Page 75 of Crash and Burn

Watson walked him into the tent. “This is Sebastian Kane. He's our victim’s boyfriend—”victim, Jesus. But Sebastian forced his focus. He had to keep his head in the game.

She introduced him to several officers, a few other FBI agents who specialized in missing adults, a third department was represented by a man in a forest green uniform.

His eyes were sharp, and he directed attention to a map, having barely looked up at Sebastian. That was good. This man was most focused on finding Maggie, and he could appreciate that. It took a moment for Sebastian to realize the man was a park ranger.

“This,” Marina told him, “is Leo Evans.”

The man shook Sebastian’s hand with enough force to be reassuring in the most shitty time Sebastian had ever encountered. “It’s nice to meet you. But why is there a park ranger here?”

Chapter Fifty-Nine

The two voices were still arguing as Maggie struggled with the tape. Geller was trying to convince the other man—William Sanders?—to kill her.

“Just wait until I’m finished with her then dispose of her like one of your victims.” He sounded so reasonable, as if they were discussing how to recycle cardboard. “If we mix up the M.O. it makes it harder for them to find us.”

“I would agree,” the other voice replied, just as chillingly cold in his tone. “But they've already found you.”

The way this was going, the second man was fed up. Despite his reasonable sound, he was done with the conversation and was going to leave any moment now.

She could only hope he left without first killing her.

Maggie had been shaking her knees and rolling her shoulders and breathing as quickly as she could to get her metabolism up. It was exercise, and she didn’t know whether it really did anything, but she did feel better when she flexed her fingers, she could see them respond quickly to each time she tried to move them.

The room had two windows, a closet hiding who knew what, and a small table with a half-full glass of water. And her … there was only what she had on her.

While she was clearly an idiot for not believing Sebastian, and for letting herself get drugged and kidnapped, she wasn't going to be an idiot anymore. Luckily, she hadn’t been much of one in the days before this. She’d been watching forensics shows on TV and online videos about how to get out of being kidnapped. She now kept shoelaces in her pocket. Three of them, in fact. So she could hog tie anyone she could take down or use the laces to break the plastic if she was zip tied.

Unfortunately, she was not bound with zip ties. Fortunately, when they’d searched her, they’d patted her down for phones and keys, but they'd not taken her shoelaces. She also had one shoe left. If she could get to it, the near stiletto shaped heel would be a formidable weapon.

The escape artists online taught her how to get out of duct tape. This wasn’t duct tape—Maggie was confident of that—but she hoped the same breakout technique would work.

Her fear tried to surface again, but she shoved it down deep. It wouldn’t help her now.

Lifting her bound hands high over her head, she prayed. She hadn't told Sebastian, but she tried the technique she’d seen online once at home and it had not felt good, but it worked. If she slammed her hands down over her knees, using her hips and body as a wedge for her elbows, she could put enough force in the right place to tear the tape, and free her hands.

She took a deep breath and brought her arms down. The trick was doing it as quickly as she could.Son of a bitch. It was a good thing she had tape over her mouth, or they would have heard her yelp in pain.

It didn’t work. This wasn't duct tape. It was something stronger, more cloth like and it was wide. A zip tie would have been thin and—she learned recently—could be sawed at with a shoelace. She thought about doing the same thing to the tape, but the tape was so wide that it would be much harder to get the shoelace strung through it.

She still had to do something. Maggie voted to try again.

She lifted her arms higher this time, hanging them hammer-style down behind her. For this to work it needed speed and commitment. She brought them down again. Again, the tape felt like it was trying to crack the bones in her wrists.

Geller had put several layers on to hold her tight. Maggie lifted her hands in front of her face to see if she’d accomplished anything other than hurting herself. She would have gasped if not for the tape over her mouth. She saw a small tear on the underside.

The trick did not work the way it did with duct tape. But she tried again and the tear became microscopically larger.That was enough.

Underneath the tape she muttered to herself, “I can do this all day.”

So she lifted her arms again. And this time, furious, she slammed them down with all her might, and her hands split apart.

Her fists, tightened to help the tape split, fell to either side of her body.

Holy shit.Her hands throbbed. She flexed her fingers, only able to say that they were working and not broken. But her hands were apart, the tape split neatly down the center. She would have celebrated but this was just step one.

Reaching down, she worked at the tape on her ankles, unwrapping the sticky motherfucker was almost as difficult as splitting the one on her hands. She looked to the table and thought of using the glass to cut the tape but, with one shoe on, hopping around the room with her feet bound would be impossible. And it certainly wouldn’t be quiet. Besides, maybe the water was poisoned. Geller had certainly seen fit to drug her once already.

Maybe the plan was to give it to her later.

---