Instead, he said in his smooth, relaxed tone, "Talking's going to be an issue for you just this moment, isn't it? So let's do this. Just nod if you'll tell me where it is."
She had no idea what the man was talking about, but she nodded. The flat of his hand struck her immediately on the tender spot where her head had met the front door, and she whimpered more in surprise than pain. Heat detected motion and tensed for another blow, but instead she got a strong whiff of Old Spice. And then the voice. Quiet as before, and even more chilling because of its calm folksiness.
"Sorry, ma'am. But, see, you were fibbing, and even in New York City, that dog's not gonna hunt." This Dr. Phil act was all about dominance, and Nikki had a response. She shot her head in the direction of his voice and butted some part of his face. She braced again, but no blow came.
The man simply cleared his throat and took two steps away from her on the hardwood. The hollow-sounding heels made sense to her now. Cowboy boots. She heard a clank of something metal, and the boots approached her side. "Now, I believe you need a reminder about the reality of your situation," he said. Then she felt something like the point of a pencil come to rest on the flesh of her left forearm. "This'll help you along those lines."
He didn't break the skin, but with the needle-sharp point he scored a line along her skin until he reached the duct tape binding her wrist. He held it there, applying just enough pressure to cause pain without puncturing her. And then he removed it and stepped away, only to come back and stand close to her. Something clicked, and a small motor like a dental drill, or one of those cordless tools they sell on infomercials that cuts nails in half, revved in a high-pitched whine bedside her ear. Nikki jumped and instinctively jerked away from it, but he clamped her in a headlock with his muscular arm. He slowly brought the tool closer and closer to her ear. When it touched the cloth of her hood, vibrating, spinning, chewing fibers, he shut it off. Silence. He put his mouth close to her again.
"You think about that till I get back, now. And when I do, no lies, ya hear?"
She heard the bootfalls again, but this time they went in the opposite direction. When they hit rug, they softened but kept going until they faded away, disappearing into a back room, she guessed. Heat listened, wondering how far the man had gone. Then she bent as far forward at the waist as she could and flung herself upright, feeling her hood inch upward from the momentum of her rise. Before she attempted another flip, she stopped to listen. The boots were approaching again. They clomped when they reached the hardwood, and she felt her slacks rustle as he went by. He paused, and she wondered if he had seen the slight rearrangement of her hood.
Apparently not, because next came the jingle of keys, and then the hard soles crossed the stone of a kitchen floor. From that aural sequence she pictured herself definitely in the great room off Rook's kitchen. She got confirmation when the front door in the entry off the kitchen was unbolted and closed and she heard the teeth of the key insert into the lock. As soon as the tongue of the deadbolt shot, Nikki went to work twisting her head to get the hood off.
It wasn't moving. The cloth was loose but hung too far down onto her shoulders to work off without the use of her hands. She stopped, held her breath, and listened.
The elevator hummed distantly and whined with a slight squeal when it came to a stop. When she heard the metal accordion doors open and close, she went to work wildly shimmying her upper arms. Concentrating her efforts on her right side, she pinched a fold of cloth between her chin and her shoulder, then extended her neck to push upward with the top of her head, slipping the hood up an inch. It was only an inch, but it worked, and so she repeated it until an inch more moved up. After three reps, light started to show underneath the hem. Nikki wished she had access to her mouth to grab it with her teeth, but this would have to do.
She bent for one more flip, and that one succeeded in raising the hood above her eyes, as if she were wearing a hoodie. Nikki shook it off her head and rested while she looked around. Her chair was positioned in open space between the kitchen counter and the oriental rug and the dining table where Rook held his weekly poker nights.
Nikki's heartbeat leveled off, and she went at the task of getting herself to the counter. Careful not to tip the chair over, which would only strand her turtled on the floor, she bucked her body side to side and created enough momentum to shift the chair across the floor a few inches. Heat started to worry she would run out of time before the Texan came back, and she threw more weight into her next motion and started to tip. She almost went over, but managed to get all four feet of the chair down with a slam. It was enough of a scare to settle her into more even movements. Think inch, not inches, she repeated, creating a rhythm. Inch, not inches.
When Nikki reached the counter, which was even with her jawline, seated as she was, she began to rubbing her cheek sideways along its edge. On one of her strokes, her face actually squeaked along the polished granite. The friction made her cheek burn. But it was also causing the ragged edge of the duct tape to catch where it met her skin and curl slightly with each pass. To shut out the pain of the abrasion she thought about the prize that waited on the countertop, inches away: the cordless drill and a half dozen picks and dental tools.
The tape started to give on the left side where she had been working it. Nikki used her tongue, her jaw, and her face muscles to work at it between strokes until she had created a small opening at the corner of her mouth. When she had freed enough tape to create a loose flap, she extended her neck and twisted until her cheek was just above the countertop. Angling slowly, carefully, Nikki lowered her cheek onto the counter and pressed. The tack on the sticky side of the fold of duct tape held to the granite. Keeping her face pressed down hard on the cold surface, Heat swiveled her head left to right, and when she came up, the entire strip of her gag had peeled off and was stuck to the counter.
Her arms and ankles were bound to the chair, but she was not belted down so she was able to rise up and chin her way across the cool granite to the tools. The nearest was a small pick. The drill was farther away, but that was the one she wanted. That was the time saver. She made a lunge for it and slammed her shoulder into the edge of the counter and bounced back into her seat. She torqued herself in the chair until it squared more to the counter and rose up again, not lunging this time but yoga-stretching herself over the smaller tools to the drill.
The handle was cylindrical but had small rubber feet so that the power button presented itself on top. Nikki rested the tip of her chin on the button and pressed once, twice, three times. On the fourth try the drill started to whirr. Her back muscles were crying out, protesting against the strain of holding herself up, contorted, over the counter, but she held steady, concentrating on the handle of the drill as she grabbed it in her lips and then clenched it between her molars.
Evenly distributing her weight between her elbows, she sat herself down gently so she wouldn't knock the drill from her mouth and then leaned over to cut away at the tape that bound her right wrist to the wooden arm of the chair.
Nikki worked fast. By curling her wrist upward, she created tension on the cutting surface, and the fabric peeled apart where the bit of the drill met the tape. Once her right wrist was free, she transferred the drill from her mouth to that hand and was able to cut the bonds on her left wrist even faster. She wanted to get her ankles free so she could move if he came back, but with her upper arms still strapped to the armrests, she couldn't reach down that far, so she began cutting at the right upper. When that came free, she heard something and turned the drill off.