Chapter 48
JEREMIAH
What the fuck did I drink last night? I couldn’t remember when I’d ever woken up with my head pounding this badly. No, wait. Chili tequila.
I groaned, wondering why I ever would’ve gone back to that stuff. I’d sworn it off years ago and hadn’t thought about it since. The way my head was feeling though, I must’ve given in.
My eyes felt like they were glued shut, and my mouth tasted like metal, my teeth like the bodies of tiny furry animals. I wasn’t sure, but it felt like I was sitting up. Why did I go to sleep sitting up?
Maybe Tanner or one of the other guys had propped me up. Thinking of Tanner triggered a mass of memories to come tumbling free. Dropping Steph off at home, talking to Tanner on the way back to mine. Him telling me to go for it and ask her to be my girlfriend. Going to bed, alone and without drinking.
A cold chill skated down my back. It wasn’t chili tequila. This epic hangover was no hangover at all. My body ached like nobody’s business. I squeezed my eyes shut tighter and then tried to open them again. When I did, I regretted it immediately. Sunlight was pouring in through dusty windows, each ray of it like a laser frying my brain.
I winced, turning my head. Suddenly, I remembered doing a similar thing this morning. Or… a morning. On the way to Stephanie’s. I realized I had no idea when that had been. All I knew was when I did it, I looked to the left at the front bumper of a truck barreling toward me and slamming into me.
I must’ve passed out after that, it was the only explanation. What it didn’t explain was why I felt like I was sitting up and sitting on something hard.
I wondered if I had a concussion. It’d been a long time since my last one, but this sure felt like one. I was dizzy, my head swimming and leaving my lips feeling numb, buzzing. Nausea rolled in my stomach, twisting it and making me feel cold.
Running through the quick mental check, I tried moving my limbs one by one. They were tight and didn’t have much range of movement, but it didn’t feel like any bones were broken. At least, none that I could tell.
A sharp, pained intake of breath escaped my lips when I pried my eyes open again. Excruciating as it was, I needed to be able to see. I blinked a few times, trying to adjust to the dusty brightness of the room I was in.
At first, all I could make out were spots and funny patterns in front of my eyes. Blurry colors and big lumps swam into my field of vision. It took a few minutes, but when my vision finally cleared up, I knew exactly where I was.
I frowned. The bolt of recognition shooting through me made my head hurt even worse. Vague memories of slightly drunken images flashed in my brain. I was at the hotel Jannie and I had hooked up at. It was small and quaint, off the map. I recalled laying Jannie down on the four poster bed I was now sitting next to, remembered the way she clawed at my shoulders when I laid down on top of her.
A shudder passed through me as the puzzle pieces started falling into place. I knew Jannie was having some issues, but I never realized she was this far gone.
She fuckingkidnapped me. I almost started laughing at how absurd that thought was. Out of all my travels, some of which were to some fucking dodgy ass countries, I never thought if I was going to be kidnapped it would be in my own damn city.
Jack and I had one nanny growing up who had taken part in a child protection seminar once. In it, they were told what to do if your charge ever got kidnapped. They also gave them some child-friendly handy hints of what you should teach the children to do in the event that they were taken.
Too fucking bad none of those handy hints would come in even remotely useful now. I always thought I would be able to sass or sweet talk my way out of any situation like this, but I was highly doubtful any sass or sweet talk would work on Jannie. I didn’t know what she wanted, but it wasn’t likely she would just set me free if I made puppy eyes at her and said sorry.
She had me strapped to a damn chair in the middle of a hotel room that didn’t look like it’d been cleaned since Jannie and I were last here three years ago. At least not by anyone who knew anything about dusting. Which was rich coming from me, given that I’d never dusted a thing in my life, but it was true.
From what I could tell, I was alone. I couldn’t hear or see anyone else. The wide bay windows were closed, and the air was stuffy like the windows hadn’t been opened in a while.
A layer of dust covered everything, from the windowsill to the bed to the armrests of the chair I was in. An old chair, there was a spring sticking into my ass, and its spindly arms were digging into my elbows. I scanned my surroundings, trying to see if there was anything useful lying around.
One of the tips our nanny gave us was to see if we could find an object to use that might help us get free. In my case, there was nothing. A dusky pink bedspread covered the bed, hanging down all the way to the floor.
Aside from the chair I was in, the bed, and the daybed by the bay window, there was little other furniture in the room. To my right was a small loveseat with an old, box-shaped television on top of an ancient cabinet and a wardrobe standing against the wall.
Not badly appointed for a hotel, but absolutely nothing useful in sight. My eyes drifted over to the television. It was on, but the volume was turned down so low I could barely hear it.
My own face suddenly appeared on the screen. I jerked my head back, squinting as I tried to read the pixelated ticker tape scrolling across the bottom. I strained to hear what the news anchor was saying, but I had a feeling it was no coincidence the television was set to this channel.
Jannie left it on for me, so I could hear what was being said.
The breaking news banner spun on the screen and stopped right above my picture. On the bottom of the screen, the words “breaking news” were printed in bold, capital letters. The anchor’s expression was solemn and serious when the camera cut to him.
“The news has just broken that the son of billionaire Jance Williams, Jeremiah Williams has been kidnapped.” The man was staring straight into the lens. A montage of pictures of me started playing on the screen behind him. From when I was young, with Jack before his death, the few times I’d been photographed out since.
The main picture they seemed to be using was one taken of me at the Belmont Stakes, the third leg of the Triple Crown, last year. Neil dragged me along. One of his business school buddies had bought a share in one of the horses in the race, and Neil convinced me to go with him.
In the picture, my light gray suit was still dry, and I was laughing—presumably at something Neil said. The day started out innocently enough, but before I could stop it, we ended up at one of the other owner’s houses in the pool with his girlfriend. First fully clothed, then totally naked.