Sidney Sheldon’s Mistress of the Game. Tilly Bagshawe

tried to scream, but no sound came out. Something had been stuffed into her mouth, a bitter-tasting cloth. She couldn’t breathe.

       Where am I?

      Panic began coiling its way around her heart like a snake. Was she dreaming? She sat up. Her head cracked painfully against something solid and metallic.

       A coffin? No! Oh God, please, no!

       Daddy!

      Again she screamed. Again the cloth choked her, stifling the sound in her throat. Slowly, consciously, she began to inhale through her nose.

      Keep calm. You’re alive. Don’t panic.

      Air filled her lungs. Relax.

      Bedtime stories of her great-great-grandfather, Jamie McGregor, came flooding into her mind. Jamie had been brave and cunning and resourceful. He’d battled sharks and land mines, escaped ship wrecks and fought off assassins. No situation had been too hopeless for him to figure a way out of it.

      She tried to think logically.

       What happened? How did I get here?

      It was no good. She couldn’t remember. Mrs Grainger had put her to bed, and then … and then … darkness. The fear returned like a great crashing wave.

       Help me!

      Lexi shivered. She realized suddenly that she was freezing cold. She was still wearing the thin cotton nightie she’d gone to bed in. Beneath her back the hard metal floor felt like sheet ice.

      Bump.

       What was that?

      The floor was moving. It vibrated steadily, then every twenty seconds or so it threw her body upwards, like a tossed pancake. Suddenly, it dawned on her: A car. I’m in the trunk of a car. I’ve been kidnapped, and they’re taking me somewhere. To their hideout.

      If it hadn’t been happening to her, it would probably have been exciting. Kidnapping was one of Lexi’s favorite games. But this was no game. This was real.

      

      ‘Get out.’

      The man wore a mask. Not a balaclava mask, like bank robbers wore in the movies. A rubber Halloween mask. It made him look like a corpse.

      Too consumed with fear and cold to move, Lexi froze. Her eyes widened with terror.

      Another voice. ‘Don’t just stand there man, pick her up. Get her inside before someone shows up.’

      The corpse reached into the trunk and grabbed hold of Lexi’s arms. On instinct she fought him, kicking and scratching like a wildcat.

      ‘Fuck!’ The corpse clutched at his forearm. Her sharp nail had drawn blood. ‘Little bitch!’

      Pulling back his arm, he punched her in the face so hard she blacked out.

      

      Time passed.

      She was in a room with no windows. A low-wattage light bulb burned constantly. Days and nights became one. At first the pain in her face was unbearable, where the corpse had punched her. But gradually it began to subside.

      There was a bed in one corner, an old-fashioned porcelain chamber pot, and a battered cardboard box containing a few desultory books and toys. The walls were bare, the floor smooth, green linoleum. It felt more like an office than a room in a house. The toys and books were all designed for much younger children.

      My kidnappers don’t know much about kids.

      Fear gave way to boredom. There was nothing to do, nothing to break the monotony of the endless, lonely hours. At regular intervals a masked man would enter, empty and replace the chamber pot, and bring Lexi some food. They never spoke to her, or answered when she spoke to them, but occasionally she heard their dim, muffled voices through the walls.

      There were three of them. A leader with a deep voice and a strange, foreign accent, and two others – the corpse, and a third man who wore a variety of animal masks, sometimes a pig, sometimes a dog or a snake. It was the third man, animal man, who really frightened her.

      

      He was standing over her bed. He had the pig mask on.

      ‘Make a sound and I’ll kill you.’

      No you won’t. If you were going to kill me you’d have done it by now. You need me alive.

      Lexi opened her mouth to scream but it was too late. A huge, hot hand clamped over her mouth. He was on the bed, pushing her down. The weight of him squeezed the breath from her body. One hand still covered her mouth, but Lexi could feel the other clawing beneath her nightgown. NO! A sharp pain between her legs brought tears to her eyes. She tried to move, to struggle, but it was hopeless. She was pinned like a leaf beneath a boulder.

      He made strange noises. Deep, guttural groans Lexi had never heard before. The hair on her scalp began to rise with terror. Then suddenly the weight lifted.

      Voices.

      ‘What are you doing in there, man?’

      It was the leader.

      ‘She ain’t due another meal for three hours.’

      Lexi couldn’t see the pig’s face, but she could tell he was afraid.

      He hissed at her. ‘One word and I will slit your throat. Understand?’

      She nodded.

      

      Agent Andrew Edwards looked at the stack of black and white photographs on the table in front of him. It was as thick as a telephone directory.

      ‘Is this all of them?’

      ‘Yes, sir. That’s every warehouse, hangar and industrial facility within a fifteen-mile radius of where the car was dumped.’

      It was eleven days, four hours and sixteen minutes since Peter Templeton had reported his daughter missing. Agent Edwards had played the tape of Peter’s desperate 911 call so many times, he could recite it by heart. Nine times out of ten with these child disappearances, the parents ended up being involved. What could you say? It was a sick world. But in this case, Agent Edwards believed the father. Not only did Peter Templeton’s distress seem genuine, but the ransom note left under the child’s pillow bore all the hallmarks of an organized criminal operation: no fingerprints, typed on the most common Lexmark printer paper, succinct, untraceable.

      The Blackwell family had two weeks to transfer ten million dollars to a numbered account in Cayman. If they involved the police at any point, the girl would be killed instantly.

      Agent Edwards was a Scot by birth, but a New Yorker by temperament. He had pale skin, watery amber eyes, and hair that couldn’t quite make up its mind whether to be blond or red. He loved the Yankees, hated the street gangs and drug dealers that plagued the city, and described his yearly vacation to the Jersey shore as ‘traveling’.

      He sighed heavily.

      ‘There must be three hundred facilities here.’

      ‘Four hundred twenty.’

      ‘Got any good news for me, Agent Jones?’

      ‘As a matter of fact, sir, I do. These,’ Agent Edwards’s colleague handed his boss a much thinner manila file, ‘are the derelict or deserted premises.’

      ‘How many?’

      ‘Only eighteen of ’em.’ Agent Jones smiled. ‘I can set up surveillance this afternoon if you want.’

      ‘No. Not yet.’

      ‘But sir, we have less than sixty hours. The deadline …’

      ‘You think I don’t know what the damn deadline is?’

      Agent Edwards