Читать книгу Beneath Still Waters - Alex Archer - Страница 3

It was Doug on the screen. He was tied to a metal chair in a nondescript room.

Annja’s anxiety propelled her closer to the hotel room’s television as she turned up the volume on the DVD player.

Not that Doug was speaking. His arms and legs were tied to the chair, leaving his hands free and his bare feet resting on what looked to be a wet concrete floor. The camera was close enough that Annja could tell his face was bloody and swollen. A thin line of dried blood ran down the side of his face. When he raised his head and looked at the camera, the one eye not swollen shut was filled with fear.

“Help me, Annja,” he said, and his voice was little better than a croak. “I don’t care what he asks you to do or who he asks you to do it to—I’ll die here if you don’t do what he wants.”

The camera zoomed in on his face and then slipped down to his body and stopped on his right hand. That close, Annja could see that his last two fingers were bent at odd angles.

She could hear Doug saying, “No, no, I didn’t do anything! Don’t!” She steeled herself but she didn’t turn away. Annja owed it to him to watch what he was having to endure.

A gloved hand reached into the camera frame. It was neither large nor small, so she couldn’t tell if it was a man’s or a woman’s, though she suspected the former. Not because a woman couldn’t be that cruel—she knew from experience that that certainly wasn’t the case—but because her mystery caller who’d sent the DVD had claimed to be the one who had kidnapped Doug.

The individual took hold of Doug’s middle finger and snapped it. Doug let out a shriek of pain and the screen went blank.

Watching the kidnapper inflict pain on Doug to coerce her into action filled Annja with a righteous fury.

He’d picked the wrong woman to tangle with.