After about an hour, she had made almost no progress. Her fingers found a small tear near her hand, and with it came a quick, futile ray of hope. It died as soon as she realized the tear led to another knot of shrink wrap. Worse, the room had gone cold. A draft cut through, and the air had that predawn bite. Or maybe not. Maybe morning had come and gone while she'd been unconscious. She had lost all sense of time. And now another problem presented itself:
I have to pee.
Dexter never had to deal with that. Victim wakes up, speech, knife to the chest, dead. His kills happened fast; he never had to manage unwanted bodily functions.
I guarantee somebody peed or pooped on Dexter's table at least once. Rod would lose his damn mind.
A glimmer of an idea began to form.
While still digging with her fingers and stretching the wrap around her body, she let the idea take form. Just then, the door opened, and Rod returned. He did his slow Dexter walk around the table, filled with hidden glee.
"So," he said. "Have you thought about my proposal?"
Celia strained to move her head to see him. "Okay, so let me get this straight: you drug me, kidnap me, tie me up in a Dexter kill room, and now you want me to move back in with you? Does any of that sound weird?"
Rod cocked his head. "Val, this whole thing is weird. I mean, you kicked me out. After all I've done for you over thirteen years, you kicked me out. And it wasn't even my fault. I know I said it was, but that's only 'cause I wanted you back. It was all your fault. You made me do those things, just like you're making me do this now. But you gotta see. I love you. You're my wife, and I ain't letting you go ever again." By the end, he was yelling.
Celia stared at Rod. She couldn't believe all the emotions running through him. Considering the way he used to treat her, she had always thought he'd feel relieved if she left, like he didn't even want her around.
And then she understood: she had rejected him, not the other way around. If he had walked out, none of this would have been an issue. But since she had been the one to end it, the rejection had been too much for him to bear. It all came down to the fact that she had been the one to leave.
Stalling for time, she asked, "Rod, how did you find me? I mean, I never told you my new name or even where I was living. How'd you do it?" She wanted to get him talking.
Rod smirked. "You didn't think I could, did ya? You can thank that skanky friend of yours at Tequila Barbs. She gave me your name and then let it slip where you live. After that, I just kept looking through the Texas government jobs until I found you."
So, it had been Josie. Damn it.
"I can't believe Josie would tell you anything. She's too smart for that," Celia said.
Rod chuckled. "Oh, you're right. She wouldn't tell me shit. Actually, she did tell me your name that night I saw you there, but no one could remember it. So, I had a thought and sent Willa in by herself, who this bitch didn't know, and she pretended to be an old friend from your other job. Chick opened like a clam trying to get you two in touch. It was kinda brilliant, if you ask me." "Who's Willa?" Celia asked.
"Ah, you met her. She's the one you caught me with. See, I haven't had much luck lately with work, so I've been staying with her. It's not a bad arrangement."
Celia's head ached. Her throat was raw and her vision blurry. "What did you give me? I feel like shit."
Rod smirked. "Now that is an interesting story. You see, I wanted something to knock you out, you know, like in the movies. Well, it turns out that's all a bunch of crap. Chloroform doesn't do jack in real life. You gotta breathe it in for like five minutes. Pain in the ass. So, Willa, who works as a dental hygienist, tried to get me some of that nitrous oxide the dentist uses, but it comes in huge barrels, and you can't siphon any off. But—and this is the genius part—I found out you can buy nitrous oxide in a smoke shop. It comes in a cylinder with an inhaler fixture. I couldn't believe it. So, then I just hooked up an oxygen mask to the fitting, and, boom, I had a knockout tool."
Celia couldn't believe what she was hearing. "You really went to a lot of trouble. Why didn't you just let it go?"
Rod moved to her feet so she could see him clearly. "Because you are my soul mate. I'm not letting you go."
Celia took a deep breath. She wanted to keep him talking. "Nitrous oxide knocked me out like this?"
Rod chuckled. "No. Turns out all it will do is incapacitate you for a little bit. But it was enough to get you into the truck. Then I gave you a swig from the water bottle that was laced with roofie. That knocked you on your ass. It kept you out till we got here, and then I gave you some more. You've been out almost eight hours. It's close to sunrise."
Celia glanced toward where she thought the door might be. She did not see daylight.
"I gotta hand it to you, Rod, that was quite a plan. And it worked. You should be proud."
Rod sneered. "Proud doesn't have anything to do with it. I told you, I want you back. I want to go back to our life, and then we can just pretend none of this nastiness ever happened."
Oh, man, he has lost it.
Celia kept her voice calm and gentle. "Think this through. I have a new life and a new job that pays great. How can I just turn my back on all those people who depend on me? I have a lot of responsibility to a lot of people. How would that work?"
Rod pursed his lips in thought.
"I don't give a shit about them," he said.
Celia took another calming breath. "Okay, but you gotta admit, the last few years we've been miserable. All we've been doing is fighting and dissing each other. We haven't even been friends."
Rod shook his head up and down in agreement. "Yeah, you got a point. But okay, we can fix that. I'll start. I'm gonna compromise on where we live. You got a good gig here in Austin. Fine, I'll move here."
Celia inhaled and, as she exhaled, said, "I appreciate that. But location isn't our problem. We don't get along. I'm not sure we even like each other. How can that get fixed?"
She could see him thinking, almost hear the gears grinding in that echo chamber of a head.
"I've been thinking. I could pay more attention to you, you know, your needs. Like, you get to decide when we do blow jobs. And I could eat at the 'Y' from time to time. How's that?"
Even considering the fact that he held her captive, had tied her up, and insisted he would kill her, she couldn't stop herself.
"Oh, for chrissake. Rod! Really? That's what you think is wrong? How fucking clueless are you? I get to decide when to blow you? That's been our issue? Oh my God!" Her head pounded against the tabletop within the confines of the shrink wrap.
"I swear to God, Rod, you have no idea what a normal, real relationship is about. It isn't all about you." She let out a disgusted gasp of desperation, the perfect topping for the dessert of bile she had just thrown at him. She closed her mouth and shook her head. "For chrissake, just kill me. I'd rather die now than think about moving back with you for another minute. Life is too short."
As she lay there, bound, frustrated, scared, and pissed, all at the same time, she thought that this might be it. She looked for Rod's reaction.
Rod hadn't moved. His eyes, drawn and sullen, stared straight ahead. She thought he might be seething beneath the surface, but she couldn't tell. This new version of Rod didn't offer much insight compared to the man she had lived with for all those years. Looking closer, she thought she might have gone too far. She hadn't embarrassed him into releasing her, but she might have humiliated him enough that he would take her up on her request.
Without a word, Rod turned and walked out.
Celia had the sense this was her last chance. Rod seemed to be psyching himself up for something. She abandoned the finger-picking. She'd never have enough time to scrape her way out.
Okay, this is a long shot. Please work!
Rod hadn't been gone long. When he returned, a look of determination enveloped his face; he had made a decision. Before he could speak, Celia interrupted his train of thought. No way of telling if this would work, but she decided to play on one of his biggest phobias.
"There's something Dexter never had to deal with. What if one of his victims needed to go to the bathroom? Do you have a plan for that?"
Rod blinked several times, and clearly, he hadn't considered this at all. He sneered and looked down at Celia. "Piss yourself. It's not like it matters to me." Knowing Rod as she did, she considered his aversion to fecal matter.
"Okay, that would work, but it's not just a pee break. That gas or whatever isn't sitting well with me, and I need to take a crap. It's building up pretty hard. Might be diarrhea." She added a moan to help sell the urgency. Rod became visibly agitated. She could tell that he had not planned for this contingency. His face scrunched in pain as he visualized the table after she spattered all over the place.
"Might be the explosive kind. Damn, Rod. Get me to a bathroom." She let the urgency in her voice convey the immediacy.
Rod stood shaking.
"Even if you kill me now, my bowels will release. Shit will be everywhere." Celia added to the already-building visual, groaning as she did.
At his wit's end, Rod scrunched up his face and said, "Fine. God damn it." He pulled a box cutter from his pocket and ran it along the edge of the shrink wrap.
"I swear to Christ, Val, if you try anything, I'll gut you right here. I don't even care about the shit."
Her ankles were still bound under the top layer of plastic, so that would be a problem. Her arms were free, though, and once Rod sliced the plastic, he hauled her upright. Her body was stiff. Her legs were asleep. She swung them off the table and tried to stand. Rod put the box cutter under her eye and said, "Oh no. I'm gonna carry you. You just relax." He grabbed her arm and pulled her over his shoulder in a fireman's carry.
"You gotta go outside. There's no bathroom here." Lying over Rod's shoulder, her ankles bound, her naked butt in the air, and her arms swinging freely behind him, Celia looked for anything she could turn into a weapon. This was the first opportunity she had to see her surroundings. They were in an empty, abandoned diner or restaurant. The remnants of a bar lined the far wall, and a single broken chair lay heaped in a corner. Otherwise, there was nothing but the plastic tent that was the kill room.
Once they got outside, the cool desert air draped over her, and she longed for the serenity of her bedroom balcony.
Wonder if I'll ever see that again?
Rod said, "I got an idea." Just behind the building was an old wooden corral. Most of the circle had decayed and rotted, but one section remained standing. He dropped her on her feet and said, "Stick your butt through there. You can sit on the rail and do your thing." He pushed her midsection so that she sat on the bottom rail. Using her arms, she grabbed the top rail to steady herself and slid her butt out over the edge.
"So, you gonna stand there and watch?" Celia said indignantly.
Rod looked flustered and didn't know what to do.
"Look, my ankles are bound; I'm not going anywhere. Now, unless you want to spread my cheeks apart for me, you may want to take a step back and turn around."
Rod mumbled and then stepped back. "Don't get cute. I got no patience left for you," he threatened.
As he turned his back, Celia scrambled to find anything she could use as a weapon. Nothing. She leaned back against the top rail, and to her surprise, it moved. It moved so much, in fact, that she wondered how it stayed in the posts. The rail measured eight feet long; it didn't look all that heavy. Checking to be sure Rod had turned around, she let out a pain-filled groan to make sure he wouldn't sneak a look, then stood and slid the rail out of its sockets. She held what could certainly be used as an eight-foot lance. Rod cowered ten feet away, covering his ears in case he could hear the plop. She would have to hop toward him to get good contact. As she hopped, she let out another loud groan to sell her intestinal distress; Rod's shoulders bunched up around his ears.
Even in her distress and the immediacy of her situation, the gesture made her chuckle. She hopped twice toward Rod and stood within six feet of him. Holding the rail under her arm and against her rib cage, she swung it to the right and began to swing it back around like a batter swinging at a curveball. She reminded herself of the Austrian cuckoo clock that her grandmother used to have. A carved Bavarian woodchopper would slide out on a track and, by twisting at the waist, would swing his ax against a tree trunk. Taking careful aim, she swung the rail to her right and then, like chopping a tree, swung it back, aiming for Rod's head.
Twhack!
He fell like the temperature in January.
Groaning, he rolled over, holding his bleeding temple. He looked up at her.
An ironic smile crossed his lips.
"Aren't you gonna take off? Run away screaming for help?" A moan escaped as he said, "You always were a fucking pussy." He started moving into a sitting position.
Celia wound up again. "Remember Zombieland? You loved that movie.
What was rule number two? Double tap!"
With the fury of a wolverine, she swung the rail once more, whacking him on the side of the jaw. He spun around and hit the ground with a thud.
Tossing the rail aside, she stood over the prostrate Rod and dropped to her knees. She searched his pockets until she found the box cutter. In a flash, the shrink wrap around her ankles fell to the ground, and she stood, totally free of any restraints.
Then, she acknowledged a few crucial facts. First, she stood stark naked in the middle of the desert. Second, she had no clue what to do from here. So, she prioritized. She searched Rod again, this time for the keys, and found them in his front pocket. She ran back to the restaurant and looked for something to wear. Whatever he had done with her clothes, she didn't know, but she couldn't find them. She ran to the truck. Jumping in, she was accosted by the foul stench of congealed vomit.
The perfect topping for this whole deal.
Turning the engine over, she burst out of the parking lot like a two-hour sale at American Eagle had just been announced.
Having no idea where Rod had taken her or which direction to head, she turned right. She pulled the seat cover off the truck's bench seat and wrapped it around herself. Three miles down the road, a highway patrol car moved steadily in the right lane. Speeding up to get beside it, she waved at it to stop. They pulled to the side of the road, and the trooper approached the truck with caution, but when he saw a beautiful, bruised blonde huddled under a seat cover, his concern lessened. Celia explained everything that had happened and told the officer where he could find Rod. The officer called it in. Within five minutes, several patrol cars zoomed by her, lights and sirens blazing. A few minutes after that, his radio crackled.
Celia, sitting in the front passenger seat of the cruiser, still wrapped in the cover, saw him approach.
"Ma'am, one of your neighbors found your purse and phone in the garage by the elevator. She called it in right away. There's been an APB out for you for the last twenty-four hours. Glad you got out of that mess."
"Twenty-four hours? Have I been gone that long? Damn," Celia said, amazed.
I missed work. Garrett and Reagan don't know where I am. Shit.
The officer's radio squawked again; he keyed the handheld and said, "Go for Williams."
Celia overheard a bit of the call, but it mostly went into the officer's earphone. The officer said, "10-4."
"He's conscious but groggy and probably has one hell of a concussion, maybe a broken jaw. They're taking him to the ER. They'll arrest him when he's cognizant enough to understand what's happening. But they got him. I think this is about over for you."
Celia sighed with great relief. Looking at the officer, she said, "I don't suppose you have a sweatshirt or sweatpants around, do you?"
The officer rolled his eyes, embarrassed. "Actually, ma'am, I coach my daughter's volleyball team, and I've got all their uniforms in the trunk. I should've thought of that sooner. My bad. Let me get you something to wear."