Page 124 of Waiting For A Girl Like You
“So where was I? We took the sailboat further out, went choppy-choppy to Charlie’s body, and tossed him.” Sitting in the front passenger seat, Taylor tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Then we grabbed my boat and went ashore. Buck Island is a nature preserve and is so beautiful. Toby and I said our vows on the beach right at sunrise. It was amazing. Much prettier than what your stupid beach wedding would have been. Ours was spontaneous and fun.”
A laundry list of responses rolled through Jamison’s head. So many smartass things she could say that would tear a hole right through Taylor’s ridiculously over inflated ego.
Trapped in her body, she imagined this must be what hell felt like. She had no control of her movements, and the only thing she could hear was Taylor’s yapping as it mixed with the erratic thumps of her own heart. Fast and slow.Fastandslow.Like her body was fighting a war to regain control, shooting adrenaline through her veins, but the drugs, being as potent as they were, gave the chemical no purpose and nowhere to go.
“Anyway, Toby had a way with the human body, right? He knew how to fuck, and he could… disassemble? Yeah, let’s go with that. No need to get into all the gore of Charlie’s transition into shark food.” Taylor wrinkled her nose. “And I told him, babe, you should totally be a doctor.”
Driving the van, Parker mumbled something. Jamison couldn’t hear clearly, but Taylor punched his shoulder. “Not cool, Parker. Toby isn’t here to defend himself.”
One of the only things Jamison held partial control over was her eyes. Rolling them as far up as she could, she stared at Bruce, who appeared both bored and annoyed by what he was hearing. With her head in his lap, she glared—or tried to glare—at him. Beyond his head, there was only sky through the window with the soft glow of night descending, but there was no way she could properly gauge time in this state.
“At first, Toby wasn’t into being a doctor, but when he changed his mind, he refused to take my dad’s money for school. That pissed me off, but Toby wanted to prove he had the financial status to be worthy of someone like me. My dad said he had a point. We didn’t know who the fuck the Fairweathers were. All we had to go off of was Charlie, which wasn’t saying much. Toby and CeCe always talked about Haven House. They would say how beautiful and majestic it was. Toby always promised to take me there.”
There were others in the van. Two women sitting on the third row, and try as she might, Jamison couldn’t see them clearly. The only thing she could make out were a few features, like how one woman had a head of long, dark hair and wore white. The second one also wore white but had much lighter hair, almost platinum blonde, and very similar to her own. There was something shiny and green at the base of the second one’s throat. Jamison stared at the color, hypnotized by how the dying light danced over it. Bruce never acknowledged them, nor did Parker or Taylor, which meant they were probably Zanmi “sisters” only here to do the dirty work if needed.
“You see, I don’t do poor. It’s a bad look for me,” Taylor jabbered on. “Toby understood that. When you can talk again, I want you to explain what you were thinking with Liam. FBI agents make no money, at least not enough for your high-dollar ass. I mean, he’s got the body, the face, the brains, but Jamison, babe, there’s no money. You fuck those types of guys. You don’t marry them.”
The GPS informed Parker he needed to make a left, and Taylor danced in her seat, excited over something. The car turned, and Jamison felt as ifshe were going to slide right off onto the van’s floor, but Bruce held her in place, grunting at Parker to take it easy on the turns.
“Yay! It’s here!” Taylor clapped like a seal. “Bruce, I told you they’d come through. My daddy’s friends have connections you could only dream of. Remember, you and Mike aren’t the only ones with private planes.”
Parker hit the brakes abruptly, and Jamison fully expected her body to go flying, but Bruce came to her rescue again, keeping a firm enough hold on her that she remained in place. Once they parked, Taylor rushed out of the van, with Parker right behind her, both slamming their car doors hard enough to rattle her teeth.
Jamison thought Bruce and the women would follow, but they stayed in the van. “When your next dose comes due, I’m not going to give you as much, but I need you to keep calm,” Bruce whispered, turning his head to the side so those outside the car couldn’t see he was speaking. “No stunts, got me? I don’t want them catching on.”
Pumping air in and out of her nose, Jamison attempted to blink a few times and was excited to find that her eyelids worked once more. She tried to communicate her thanks with her gaze, but he wouldn’t look at her directly.
“Taylor doesn’t need you long-term. Behave, and she might let you live,” Bruce continued softly. “But remember, what she wants doesn’t require consciousness. If you make trouble, she’ll keep you knocked out for the whole nine months.”
Nine months.
Nine.
Months.
The air thinned, panic constricting her chest. Nine months. Nine fucking months. This wasn’t new information, but at their mercy, and hearing it spoken aloud had the fear clawing its way through her.
The women in the back leaned forward, their faces sandwiched around Bruce’s head. Even this close, Jamison couldn’t see them clearly, nor could she hear what they were saying in his ear.
“Damon has to be kept fully sedated. Your cousin is one big motherfucker with some fight in him. Taylor wants him first, but then she has a list of others she’s approved to have him.” Bruce frowned, his eyes sliding to the side where the dark-haired woman continued towhisper. “And she’s about to knock Claudia out for the duration of her pregnancy. That woman is fucking terrifying, and when paired with Emily, the two have already maimed a few Zanmi sisters. Taylor is tired of it.”
Jamison’s eyelids fluttered, and Bruce noticed, the corner of his lips curved upward. “Oh, you like that, huh? Figures. Taylor thinking she can handle kids with your family’s DNA is ridiculous.”
She began to blink rapidly, urging him to keep talking. He was giving her information she could tell Liam if she saw him again.
When.
Whenshe saw him again.
Liam would come for her. Now and forever, he would never rest until she was found, and scared out of her mind, she had to hold on to that.
She thought of her father. He didn’t deserve this. Living with as much pain as he did, he didn’t deserve to go through the kidnapping of his daughter. It would break him. A final straw that would put in him an early grave.
The smaller woman—the one with the lighter colored hair—slipped her hand over the top of the seat to wrap her fingers around Jamison’s ankle. Her touch was a mixture of ice and fire, searing the flesh as each digit made contact.
Either out of terror or anticipation of what was to come, Jamison’s heart thundered in her chest. Faster and faster, it beat until her ears roared with the sound of blood flowing through her veins.
Bruce spared her a glance, but shook his head in warning when she continued to blink. “I don’t know why, but that shit is running through your system faster than normal, and you need to chill. I don’t want them to force another dose on you until we’re in the air.”
