Ransom (Holding Ransom # 1) Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Quote

  Part 1

  Untitled Document

  1. Lexie

  2. Lexie

  3. Ransom

  4. Ransom

  5. Lexie

  6. Ransom

  Part 2

  7. Lexie

  8. Lexie

  9. Ransom

  10. Ransom

  11. Lexie

  12. Ransom

  13. Lexie

  14. Lexie

  15. Ransom

  16. Lexie

  17. Ransom

  18. Lexie

  19. Ransom

  20. Lexie

  21. Ransom

  22. Lexie

  23. Ransom

  24. Lexie

  25. Ransom

  26. Lexie

  27. Lexie

  28. Ransom

  29. Lexie

  30. Ransom

  31. Lexie

  32. Lexie

  33. Ransom

  34. Lexie

  35. Ransom

  36. Lexie

  Epilogue

  Dedication

  Ransom

  By Denise Mathew

  Ransom-Published by Denise Mathew

  © Denise Mathew 2014. All rights reserved.

  This book is licensed for your personal use. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical without prior permission from the author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictiously. Other names, characters, places, incidents are the product of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN: 978-1494233143

  “There’s this place in me where your fingerprints still rest, your kisses still linger, and your whispers softly echo. It’s the place where a part of you will forever be a part of me.” ~ Ritu Ghatourey

  Part 1

  1. LEXIE

  I never hated anyone as much as I hated Mom right then. Dressed in her high-powered lawyer gear, a navy suit jacket and matching pencil skirt with a button down white dress-shirt, she had popped in for one final reaming before she went back to the office.

  “Lexie are you listening to me?”

  I gave her a one shoulder shrug, which meant that I had stopped listening to her a while back. Probably when she had said I couldn’t go to Dallas’s party.

  “Lexie, I was looking for an actual verbal response,” Mom said. She stood across from me, waving her index finger like I was a two-year-old. I wanted to break it in half because I wasn’t a baby. I was eighteen-years-old soon to be nineteen. She had never hesitated to leave me on my own when she had a business trip planned, but now suddenly I wasn’t old enough to go to a freaking party. It took every bit of strength I had to keep my lips pressed together and not scream the injustice of it all.

  Mom took a few steps closer to me, opened her mouth then closed it again.

  What I wouldn’t have given to walk out on her and just go to the party.

  The ultimate in defiance.

  Mom threw her shoulders back clearly waiting for me to say I was sorry. As far as I was concerned that was never going to happen. It was easy to see that my silence was pissing her off more than if I had yelled at her. That suited me just fine. When, after several minutes had passed and I hadn’t apologized, her face shifted. Now she mirrored the anger and venom that I was barely holding back. It felt good to see her squirm and know that she was as uncomfortable as I was. In my opinion she wasn’t being even remotely fair; she needed to realize that.

  The bottom line was that I was the one that was going to miss what I knew was destined to be the best party of the decade. A party that people would talk about for years to come. Dallas’s parents owned a seasonal motel and since it was off season and his parents were out of town, he quite literally had the whole place to himself. Of course when Mom had gotten wind of what was going down I was banished from the kingdom of fun, sequestered to my room until further notice.

  “What do you want me to say?” I said, my voice dripping with rage.

  Mom shook her head and sighed.

  “I’m only doing this because I care Lexie. I realize that you think that since you’re almost nineteen that you have it all figured out, but you don’t. Not in this case anyway. Too many things could go wrong with all those unsupervised teenagers, add in drugs and alcohol and you have a recipe for disaster. I’ve seen too many things happen to young girls not to worry…”

  Her face softened and I knew she was trying to be reasonable, but it meant nothing to me. As far as I was concerned it was all crap. The real reason why she didn’t want me to go was because she didn’t trust me. That truth ticked me off more than anything else did. Though it didn’t help matters that she was in the midst of one of the worst cases of her career, that just happened to involve a girl, a party, and a horrific incident involving date rape drugs and at least a dozen guys. I shuddered just imagining what that girl had gone through, but just because it had happened to her didn’t mean that I would get caught up in that same kind of scenario.

  “Whatever,” I said, sliding my eyes to the Oak hardwood floor.

  I was kicking myself for having been stupid enough to mention it to her in the first place since Dad had already given me the green light. If only I had kept my mouth shut none of this conversation would have ever gone down, and right now I would have been getting ready to have fun. I didn’t bother bringing up what Dad had said since it wouldn’t have done any good. My mother had full custody of me, so truthfully Dad’s word probably wouldn’t have held any water anyway. Mom more than loved playing the part of supreme ruler where I was concerned. But all that was about to change when I turned nineteen in a couple of months. As soon as that happened all her rules would be moot.

  Mom sighed again, pushing back at her chestnut brown bangs. It was the only moving part of her hair, that was wound up in a tight coil bun at the top of her head.

  “I guess there’s no reasoning with you,” she said.

  I was relieved that she was wrapping up her mother-knows-best speech. The meter on my temper was resting on red; there was a good chance that I wasn’t going to keep it together much longer.

  She started to turn around but then seemed to think better of it. She narrowed her brown eyes into a cool stare.

  “And Lexie, don’t even think about sneaking out because you know I’ll find out.”

  I rolled my eyes and fell back against my bed with a dramatic flare. I didn’t bother answering her. I felt my face go even hotter. Then before I could stop it from happening I was sitting up again and the Lexie that could never seem to keep her big mouth shut, was in full force.

  “I’m tired of you trying to control me all the time. I should have gone to live with Dad, at least he understands me and doesn’t need to dominate every move I make, ” I screamed.

  My breath came out in ragged huffs, my heart beat a furious rhythm. I fisted my hands in my teal duvet.

  Though my words were meant to hurt, they were also true. My father actually realized that I had grown up a while back, and that I was quite capable of taking care of myself. Mom spun toward me and the look on her face made me want to retract everything I had said, but I was too furious right then to do it. I knew later when I had cooled down that I would feel like hell for knifing her like that, but right then it felt good that I had managed to kick her in exactly the right place. Tossing out the dad card, despite the fact that his cheating butt had been the reason for their breakup, definitely was playing it dirty
.

  Mom swallowed a few times before she spoke.

  “I’m sorry you feel that way,” she said.

  Her quiet response felt worse than if she had hollered a bitchy retort. It was impossible to be mad at someone who was so reasonable. My stiffened muscles relaxed a little because no matter how livid I was, I hated seeing that I had upset her that way. Still it wasn’t near enough for me to recant my words. I wanted her to know how much she was messing with my life. I was going to give her some time to ponder my words, a few of which were the cruelest I had ever said to her. But desperate times called for odious measures, or at least it felt that way right then.

  When I noticed tears glistening in her gaze I almost caved. Mom just didn’t cry, in fact I had only seen her break down two times before, one was when my Nan had died, and the other was when she had found out that Dad was having an affair with a twenty-two-year old associate in his office.

  “No matter what you think Lexie, you mean everything to me. I make these decisions from a place of love not spite. If that means that you don’t go to a party than so be it. And to tell you the truth I just keep getting this feeling that something bad is going to happen tonight. It makes me even more adamant that you stay home, safe and sound.”

  I shook my head. Whatever moment of weakness that I had experienced had left the vicinity; pissed off indignation took its place.

  “The only bad thing that’s going to happen is that I’m going to miss the last opportunity I’ll have before college to hook up with Mitch Temple.”

  Just saying the name conjured up an image of Mitch, the guy I had been crushing on since fifth grade, and who was just beginning to notice that I existed. At six-foot-two with golden blonde hair that fell in soft waves just touching his broad shoulders, he was nothing short of a sexy god. All he had to do was cast his green flecked brown eyes my way, and I went to mush. He was all lean muscle and had a chest that looked like he had spent quite a few hours in the gym.

  Mitch was an all-star athlete who had managed to secure a football scholarship to the exact same university as I was planning to attend. Throughout our senior year I had tutored him once a week. Though we had mainly talked about fluid dynamics, a subject he was barely passing, I had felt a connection with him. Even now I couldn’t stop thinking about how he always managed to smell divine, like musky cologne and clean soap.

  My stomach knotted into a thousand coils just thinking about missing the party. It was quite possibly the last chance I would have to get Mitch to really notice me. Even though we were going to the same university the pond was so huge there was a good possibility that I would never see him. If I didn’t go to the party I would lose my opportunity to hook up with him, and also the possibility of becoming a couple before we went away.

  “There will be other parties Lexie,” Mom said, bringing me back to the present. She shook her head then glanced down at her watch. All signs of her tears vanished when she realized that I had taken up more time than she could spare.

  “I have to go, Mick and Dave are waiting on me. I don’t know how long I’ll be working, we have to go over some new evidence in the case.”

  She cocked an eyebrow for effect. “Don’t get any ideas about going anywhere. I’ll be calling frequently. I might just show up here to check on you, so don’t do anything that you’ll regret later.”

  I flopped back on the bed, not bothering to respond. Obviously it was enough because I heard the soft click of her shoes as she moved out and away from my room. I lay there, focusing on the tiny cobweb that had managed to sprout up in the corner of my bedroom in the few days since the maid service had come to clean the house. No matter how many times they got rid of the webs there was always a new one to replace it every morning. I had to admire the spiders resilience. No matter what life threw at them or in this case vacuumed away, they always rebuilt.

  I heard the garage door open, a minute or so later it closed and I knew Mom was gone. Another image of Mitch filled my mind. In a fit of rage I leapt up and grabbed the silver-framed picture of Mom and me, sitting on my dresser. I hurled it at the wall. There was a satisfying crunch and snap when the frame bent and the glass cracked. For added effect I stepped on the frame, wiggling my body so my full weigh pulverized the already broken frame. Mollified by my destruction, I grinned and allowed my thoughts to drift back to better things, like Mitch.

  I recalled that when he had paid me for tutoring the week before he had mentioned the party at Dallas’s. The comment had meant so much more since everyone knew that he and his girlfriend of six months, Cherise, had broken up a few weeks back. With him wide open I was finally going to get my chance to pave a future for us as a couple. No matter what Mom had ordered, there was absolutely no way I was going to let the opportunity to be a part of his life, slip through my fingers.

  With the edge of my fury a little frayed from my flip out, I threw myself back on the bed and stared up at the ceiling. I knew I had two options, sneak out and quite possibly hook up with Mitch, or stay home and let my life and only opportunity pass me by. It took minimal weighing of the scenarios for me to decide on what to do. What I came up with was, that sometimes the punishment for the crime was worth the risk. In my opinion Mitch was worth the risk.

  I knew Mom well enough to understand that once she started working there was no stopping her. If she was deep enough into something she forgot to eat, drink, sleep and sometimes I think she even forgot to use the bathroom. The chances that she would actually follow through on her promise to keep a hawk eye on me were practically nil. And as far as I was concerned even if she did manage to remember, Mitch was more than worth the gamble.

  Suddenly a window of opportunity had opened wide, all I needed to do was step through. Now reconciled to the fact that I was going to the party, with or without Mom’s approval, I smiled with satisfaction. Seconds later a jolt of anxiety hit my stomach because I had forgotten one important piece to the puzzle, transportation. My decision to break the rules would be pointless if I didn’t get in touch with Trinity soon.

  I glanced down at my watch. It was a little after seven which meant that I would have to act quickly. As I punched in my best friend Trinity’s number, guilt nibbled at my insides. I had never directly defied Mom like I was about to, and though I felt like it was my only choice I was still unsettled. Knowing that if I allowed it, my conscience would take over and snowball into me bailing, I shut out the regret. Bad feeling or not, Mom was being irrational and I wasn’t about to let her sudden bout of weirdness screw my night up.

  I punched in Trinity’s landline number. She and her family didn’t believe in cell phones and all the potential radiation that they emitted, so if I didn’t get a hold of her at home I was out of luck. The motel was off the bus route, so traveling by car was the only way that anybody could get there. Trinity was the only person I knew who had her own car.

  The phone rang once, twice, then three times. Every second I didn’t hear her voice made me wonder if I was too late and she had already left. “Hey Lexie,” she said after the fourth ring. By her relaxed tone she clearly had no idea about the inner turmoil I was dealing with.

  “Hey Trinity,” I said half-groaning, half-sighing.

  “What’s wrong with you?” she said, picking up my distress with ease.

  “Apparently, according to Mom I can’t go to Dallas’s party.”

  I hissed out a quick breath.

  “You actually asked her if you could go?” Trinity said with a note of incredulity.

  “Yeah I know it was dumb, but I couldn’t care less what she said, I’m going anyway,” I said. The statement left me feeling high with excitement.

  “Won’t you get into a ton of trouble if you sneak away?”

  I shook my head as if she could see me.

  “Not if she doesn’t catch me,” I said.

  My eyes grazed the closed door of my closet. I had already moved on and was working on my outfit for the night.

  “She’s gone to
the office and I have no idea when she’ll be back. Chances are the way she is with her cases, she’ll be buried in paperwork and whatever District Attorneys do.”

  “Fine, I’ll pick you up in an hour,” Trinity said, immediately accepting my deception as if I went against Mom’s orders every day. It was better that way because if she had asked too many questions I might have lost my courage and ended up staying home, too scared to incur the wrath of Mom.

  “Be ready Lexie. I want to get there before the kegs are drained.”

  “No prob, I’ll be ready. See you then,” I said.

  I pressed the end button, tossed my phone on the bed and went directly to my closet. I flung the door wide and glanced in. I knew that if I was going to make any kind of impression on Mitch I had to do it just right. There was a fine line between sexy and slutty. I would have to make sure that I didn’t go too far into the latter. There was no doubt that sleazy got guys, but it never kept them for long, not to mention the reputation that followed you. Not that it mattered much now since I was soon going to be far away from the small world of high school.

  I snickered, imagining what it would feel like to be considered the easy girl, since I was so far removed from that persona. I had been the exact opposite, the smart nerdy girl, the kind that the guys came to for help with their homework not for a date. It was part of the reason I was still a virgin and had never really had a regular boyfriend.

  I blamed it on the curse of always being in the friend zone, good old Lexie, amazing in Trig, but not someone you would take to the prom. While everyone else had donned gorgeous gowns and had traveled via limousines to prom, Trinity and I had watched sappy movies and had worked our way through mounds of triple fudge ice cream with a side of salty potato chips. It had been that night that I had vowed that college was going to be different; I was going to be different. Whatever it took I was going to get on the radar and break my old trend. If that meant that I had to wear a skirt that Mom would consider a handkerchief posing as a piece of clothing, then so be it.