He came away feeling like he'd got a lot more than he bargained for and a lot less at the same time. He knew he wouldn't get a moment's peace until he managed to find Ellie and get some answers. He also knew now that the bitch would make him work his butt off for them.

It made him want to punch the wall.

Chapter 19

There was nothing Ellie would rather have done than meet with Evan and explain everything to him. Unfortunately that that wasn't one of her options at the present time. After they'd finished at her hotel room Juan and José had put a sack over her head, tied her wrists and stuffed her into the trunk of their car. It was a little melodramatic, a bit of overkill, since she couldn't exactly see where they were going from inside the car's trunk, so what was the point of the sack?

To get her in the right frame of mind, she supposed.

They'd driven across town and hustled her into a building and one of them pushed her down a short flight of stairs into a basement. She'd stumbled and slipped off the stairs, fallen screaming through the air, unable to see where she might land or even put out a hand to break her fall, but the other one had been at the bottom and caught her. They thought it was hilarious. Pricks. They pulled the sack off her head just long enough to stuff a dirty rag into her mouth and sat her on a hard wooden stool. They tied her ankles to the stool's legs and tied her thighs to the seat so the whole of her body below the waist was fixed firmly in place. Then they tied another piece of rope to her wrists and threw it over one of the exposed rafters above her head. They pulled the rope taut so her arms were stretched out above her head and tied it off on a cleat fixed to the wall. One of them had given the rope a quick tug which nearly jerked her shoulders out of their sockets and looped the rope one more time around the cleat.

After they'd finished trussing her up, Juan—she assumed it was him from the smell of cigarettes—stood in front of her. She could feel his presence looming over her, hear his heavy breathing, but what was he doing? She could smell damp and something else she couldn't identify. Nobody said a thing or made any kind of noise. She could hear the blood pounding in her ears, taste bitter bile in her mouth. She was aware of a sudden shift in front of her. Pain exploded in her foot and screamed up her right leg, flooding her brain with white light, as he stamped down viciously on her instep. Her scream shattered the stillness even with the filthy rag in her mouth. She tried to twist away but she was tied tight. The stool flexed and creaked but didn't move. It was bolted to the floor.

'Hurts, doesn't it,' Juan said with a laugh and stamped down again.

Through the blinding pain she heard him say fair's fair, after all.

'You just wait here, Chico will be here in a minute,' one of them said, she couldn't tell who.

They turned out the light and left her alone in the darkness.

It was more like an hour than a minute before anybody came back. As each minute dragged out her mind ran through all sorts of horrible scenarios. By the time she heard the door open and the light went back on her stomach was twisting like a worm on a hook, a nervous spasm making her whole body twitch. She was in exactly the state they knew she would be.

She couldn't tell how many of them there were. Nobody said a word. She heard one of them walk across the room and put something down next to her. It sounded like it was a small table. Then a number of metal objects were dropped onto it. She was aware of somebody standing next to her, looking down at her. She gasped as a hand grabbed hold of the sack over her head and pulled it quickly off. Juan was standing next to her with the sack in his hand. There was nobody else in the room.

'Have a look on the table before the sack goes back on,' he said.

Ellie closed her eyes and turned her head the other way. She didn't want to know what was on the table. She could imagine what it was; she didn't need to look at it as well.

'Go on, take a look,' he goaded.

She clamped her eyes shut tighter and tried to think about anything apart from what she knew was sitting a foot away from her thigh. But the trouble with having her eyes shut was that she couldn't see anything at all, couldn't see him raise his hand and the first thing she knew about the vicious backhand slap he gave her across the mouth was the stinging pain as her head snapped sharply to the side and her lip split. She let out a cry but it was lost behind the rag in her mouth.

'That made you open your eyes, eh?'

She looked up into his leering face but still didn't look down at the table. She closed her eyes again. She didn't want to look at his face either. She felt the sack land in her lap and heard him walk round behind her. She felt one hand grip her chin tightly, the other one clamped hard on the top of her head. He twisted her head towards the table. His strong fingers dug into her flesh. She couldn't stop her head from moving. He held her head still, facing the table.

'Take a look.'

She knew she was going to. She couldn't help herself. She didn't want to know but not looking wasn't going to make it all go away. And she knew the morbid curiosity that lives inside us all—the sick thing that makes us want to look at a car wreck on the freeway hoping to see some blood and guts and severed body parts—would make her open her eyes. He didn't have to do anything. If he'd left her another two minutes she'd have turned her own head.

She opened her eyes.

And closed them again. But it was long enough. A long, thin filleting knife—the sort of thing chefs or fishermen use for gutting fish—sat on the table, and, next to it, a pair of gardener's pruning secateurs, spring loaded for quick repeated cuts, red non-slip plastic covering the ergonomically shaped handles.

'Good girl,' he said, patting her on the head before pulling the sack back over her head.

She listened to him walk away across the room and turn out the light. Apart from the fact that her head was in a sack, she didn't need any light to see what was now imprinted on her mind.

They didn't leave it another hour this time—they knew they didn't need to. Ten minutes max. The door opened and the light went on. She could tell there were more of them this time. There was a buzz of anticipation in the room. Somebody walked briskly towards her. She could feel the spring in his step; almost imagine the twisted, eager smile. He pulled the sack off her head. She blinked into the light. Juan was standing in front of her, and José was there too, and of course, Chico. He was dressed in black pants and a black shirt—the sort of thing a priest wears—and she could see the white square of his roman collar at his neck. She'd heard the stories, she knew what that meant.

Juan went to stand with José as Chico crossed the room and stood in front of her, smiling down at her. She flinched as he stretched out his hand and touched the side of her face.

'Ellie, how nice to see you again. What happened to your mouth? Somebody hit you?' He looked round and Juan and José replied with it-wasn't-me shrugs.

She tried to say something through the gag in her mouth.

'Shush,' he said, stroking her face, 'save your breath for later.'

Behind him, Juan or José sniggered.

Chico let his hand drop from her face and stepped away from her. 'Okay, who wants to start?' he said.

The two guys made a big thing of you go first, no after you, I insist. José took a step back with a little bow and a flourish, so Juan stepped up to the table. He took a moment deciding before selecting the filleting knife.

'Be careful, that thing's sharp,' José called out from behind him.