Chapter 380

Daisy’s POV

I was dreaming about being at the beach house with Victor. In my dream, I was lying on a deck chair in the sun, watching Victor approach me to make love on the deck.

He was wearing nothing but red swimming trunks low on his lean hips and that sexy smile that was just for me. I held out my arms in welcome and prepared myself for a rousing kiss.

The dream was interrupted by the sound of the door to my prison closing. It made me jump to my feet, ready to fight.

But it was too late. I heard the key in the lock and saw a new tray of food on the table. The men had brought our food and left.

Anna and I had missed our chance to escape because we were asleep.

We spent hours making a plan of attack that we thought would work the next time the men came with food.

It wasn’t a sure thing we would overpower them and take the gun and the key to the door, but we would try our best.

Without a window, clock, or phone, we could not know what time of day or night it was. When we grew tired after eating the cold pizza, we decided a nap would help our chance of successfully escaping.

There must be more knockout gas in our system than we thought. We fell into a deep sleep and didn’t wake until we missed our chance.

“Anna, wake up,” I called to my fellow captive.

I felt guilty that she was in this predicament with me. If …no, I mean when we escaped, I would make sure she and her family were set for life.

“Daisy, what’s wrong,” Anna mumbled sleepily.

“They were here while we were sleeping,” I said. “We missed our chance.”

“Crap!” Anna exclaimed. “We’ve got to get out of here. These guys aren’t playing. I’m afraid of what they’ll do when they’re done with us.”

“There has to be a way to escape.” I began looking around the room for something to use to pry open the door.

“What about a leg from a cot?” I asked.

Anna turned her cot over. “It won’t fit in the door frame, and they are hollow aluminum. What else is there?”

We began searching every inch of the room for a way to escape. There was nothing to help us pry open the door or to pick the deadbolt.

“What about the bathroom?” I thought out loud. “One wall is drywall. Maybe we could kick our way through it. The room on the other side of the wall may not be locked.”

Anna nodded. “That might work, especially if we can find a spot where the drywall is damp or old.”

We hurried into the bathroom and turned on the overhead light.

“I don’t see any damp spots,” I said.

“Let me try kicking a hole in the wall,” Anna said. She stood back and let loose a brutal sidekick.

“You dented it a little,” I said.

Anna kicked it again with the same result.

Anna shook her head. “It makes too much noise when I kick the wall. They will hear us and bring something stronger than zip ties to tie us up.”

My stomach squirmed at the thought of being tied up and at those men’s mercy.

“There must be a way out of here,” I declared.

“We can’t go through the walls or the floor.” Anna paced while she spoke. “We can’t open the door without the key or a crowbar.”

“That leaves the ceiling,” I said.

We both looked up to study the drop ceiling. Made of discolored two-by-four-foot tiles, there was an air duct in the center of the room and a single-bulb light fixture beside it.

“I wonder how much space is above those tiles,” I muttered.

Anna held up crossed fingers. “If there’s a crawl space above the tiles, we could use it to move above the ceiling and enter an unlocked room.”

“We need to get closer to the ceiling to see what's on the other side of the tiles,” I said as I looked around.

“We could stand on a cot,” Anna suggested.

We pulled a cot toward the air vent and light, and I tried to stand on it. But the folding cot collapsed when I put all my weight on one spot.

Disappointed, we put the cot back where it was in case the masked men returned.

“What about the table,” I said.

“It’s pretty shaky,” Anna demonstrated how the table wobbled under the slightest weight.

The same ceiling is in the bathroom,” I said. “Why couldn’t we stand on the toilet to reach the ceiling?”

“I think it’s our only option,” Anna replied. “Let’s try it.”

She led the way into the bathroom and stepped onto the toilet seat. “I can’t quite reach the ceiling,” she groaned.

“Step on the tank,” I suggested. “Just be careful it doesn’t break loose from the wall.”

Anna gingerly stepped on the toilet tank. It raised her to the perfect height to push up on a ceiling tile and poke her head into the space to see what was up there.

“There is a crawl space,” she reported. “And there are planks that run next to the ventilation system for us to crawl on. It’s plenty big enough up here for us to move through easily.”

She pulled herself up and disappeared into the ceiling. “Come on, Daisy,” she coaxed. “It’s easy. I’ll pull you up if you need help.”

“Let’s get out of here,” I said and climbed onto the toilet tank.

I anchored my arms on the ceiling joists and swung my legs up. Anna helped steady me while I joined her in the planks that ran parallel to the metal ductwork.

Anna replaced the ceiling tile, and we were out of our prison.

“We need to be careful to stay in the planks, or we could fall through the ceiling,” Anna whispered as we began to crawl toward a light ahead of us.

“There’s light coming from that air vent,” I murmured. “Someone is probably in that room. Let’s see who it is.”

We crawled carefully to the lighted vent and nudged a ceiling tile aside enough that we could peer into the room.

“Wow!” Anna said and clapped a hand over her mouth.

Wow, was right. We were over a sumptuously decorated room with thick carpeting and expensive furniture.

A gigantic flat-screen TV was mounted on a wall playing a news channel. The newscasters were talking about me.

“There’s still no word about Daisy Wilson’s whereabouts,” a blonde news anchor said. “After being abducted by a group of Betas, the heiress is being held for ransom at an unknown location.”

Male laughter drifted to our ears as three men came into view. Anger swelled in my heart and brain when I recognized John Cameron, Kirk Sanders, and Rodney Wells.

I now knew for sure who was behind the flood of Ice in Denhurst and my abduction. The fact that they were blaming it on Betas made my blood boil.

“What are you going to do with the fifty million dollars?” Kirk asked John.

“Don’t worry, you’ll get a cut,” John replied. “But the rest is going into a new venture.”

“Are you continuing with the Ice project?” Rodney asked.

“I’m expanding the import and sale of Ice,” John assured him. “I’ll be counting on you to oversee operations here. I’m sure you won’t let me down.”

What a horrible person. He had no conscience and no remorse for anything he had done. People were pawns to him. They were to be used for him to get what he wanted.

A loud knock echoed through the room below us. John snapped his fingers, and Rodney moved out of sight for a moment.

He returned with two men. One was large, like a professional wrestler, and I recognized the other's voice as the man with the gun. They were the men who brought Anna and me food.

They were in a panic.

“I’m sorry to have to report this to you,” the muscle-bound man said.

“Please forgive us, sir,” the other man who had pointed a gun at me whined. “But somehow, the girls escaped.”

“What do you mean by somehow?” John roared. “How could you let them get away?”

Anna and I clung to each other just above the men. I struggled to keep from shaking.

“We didn’t, sir,” the man with the gun insisted. “They were sleeping, locked in the room a few hours ago. Now they’re gone. We don’t know where they went.”

“Find them!” John ordered. “Find them and kill them on sight. Do not let them leave this building, or the two of you will take their place.”