I would have liked to have fought him harder, but there was something strange about him, and the way he ordered me around. I wasn’t as brave as Fletch, in that I did not look over my shoulder and smile at my abductor, but I did manage a glance over my shoulder. The man’s face was mostly covered in a scarf, he wore a fedora on his head, and he smelled like sugar cookies.

If I hadn’t seen Fletch jump over the hedge and head home, I would have thought he was pulling a prank on me.

The man ordered me through the doors and up the stairs.

“You smell good,” I said, breaking the ice as cleverly as a child.

“Move,” he said, trying to sound gruff and failing.

“Do I know you?” I continued, thinking that I knew dozens of men who would love to date me, and maybe one of them got up the courage to plan something like this. I couldn’t see him well enough to recognize him and his voice did not sound familiar.

“I don’t know, do you?” he said, pushing the barrel of his gun into my back.

“Why do you smell yummy? A kidnapper shouldn’t smell yummy. It totally gives off the wrong vibe. Aren’t you supposed to smell like B.O. and latex?”

“Been kidnapped a lot, have you?”

“I’ve been pranked a lot,” I admitted, turning the corner in the stairs to arrive on my floor.

“This isn’t a prank,” he hissed, letting me feel the gun again. “Open the door.”

I stood in front of the door, fumbled with my keys, and wondered what I ought to do next. To go into the apartment and allow him inside with me seemed crazy. I pretended to juggle the objects in my arms to buy time while I asked him, “What do you want?”

“I want to talk to you.”

“Can’t we do that out here?”

He snatched the keys out of my hand, unlocked the door, and pushed me inside. My apartment was puny, and right beside the door was my couch. With one push, the flyers in my hands fell to the floor, and he handcuffed me to a tall lamp I had placed next to the couch. Then he stepped away from me and removed his scarf, allowing it to fall fashionably around his neck.

It was Carver Criche.

I wouldn’t have known him if I didn’t have half a dozen flyers with his face printed on them strewn all over my floor. His eyebrows were dark brown and his eyes were a watered-down blue. His bone structure made him look older and more respectable than he deserved. He was probably close to the same age as Fletch, but Fletch’s light bones and cartilage made him look younger.

Carver bent and picked up one of the flyers. Stroking it between his fingers, he waved it under my nose. “Why are you defaming me by hanging these up around town?”

“I’m not. I was taking them down,” I replied, whacking my handcuff against the lamp. It didn’t make the proper sound. It thudded instead of clanked. It was supposed to be so loud, it woke the neighbors.

“Stop that,” he commanded through clenched teeth, pointing the gun at me. “This will go so much better if you simply answer me. When I’m finished, I’ll take off the handcuffs and leave.”

The lamp next to me shone light onto the handcuff that lay limply around the stem of the lamp. I leaned over and examined it. “There are teeth marks in this.”

He turned off the lamp. “You’re a lot less fun than you look,” he commented sourly. “If you were taking down the flyers, then could you explain to me why you’d do that?”

I exhaled. I didn’t want to explain anything. I didn’t want to talk about Natalie and why she was doing what she was doing. “They just looked hateful,” I hedged.

He didn’t say anything for a moment, looking at me like half of him didn’t want to talk to me and the other half wanted to talk to me desperately.

I started sniffing the air. “Why do you smell like cookie dough?”

“Okay! You wrenched it out of me,” he exclaimed like he was the one in handcuffs and not me. “I saw you kidnap that guy.” He was trying to distract me.

I yawned. “I don’t remember kidnapping anyone.”

“No. I saw you outside the tour bus that night. The drummer from the other band left the bus, got two steps away before I heard you and your friend say my name and cart him away.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

I eyed him warily. “What happened after that?”

“I followed you.”

I gawked in disbelief. “What did you see?”

“I saw the campground. I saw you and your friend fighting. I saw her clock you with a brick, drag you into the camp kitchen and drive away.”

Pouting my lips playfully, I asked, “And you followed her as she drove away and didn’t come to help me?”

He nodded. “There was no point in going in after you… you weren’t going anywhere. She’d handcuffed you to that guy.”

“Where did she go?” I asked, the chuckle bubbling up from my chest. “What did she do?”

He stuttered, too excited to keep his voice smooth. “I-it wasn’t very remarkable. She drove to a few houses. It looked like she was dropping off money. Then she went to a drive-thru and ended up at a man’s house who let her in like he didn’t like the sight of her, but she was better than his pillow.”

“And then?” I egged him on.

“Then, I drove back to the camp kitchen, but you and the drummer were gone.”

“Do you know my friend? Is that why you followed her?”

“No. I’d never seen her before in my life.”

“Okay, that makes sense,” I said as I moved my arm around in the uncomfortable handcuff. I looked at it again, only to see that the silver sheen of the metal was coming off on the sleeve of my coat. “I knew it!” I barked before I bent over and bit the handcuff in half. I spit the cookie into a decorative dish on my coffee table and stood up.

He sighed. “You’ve seen them before? Handcuffs made out of cookies.”

“They’re very convincing,” I said, eying his gun, which was also a cookie. “Where did you get them?”

“A friend gave them to me. They’ve been sitting in my car for weeks. Very smart of you not to eat it.”

I broke the other one off the lamp without biting it and I had to hand it to the baker, it was harder to break than made sense for a cookie. I held the broken pieces in my hands. The icing work was exquisite. “How much did these cost?”

He shrugged. “I have no idea. They were a gift. I only decided to use them tonight as a way to meet you because I saw you tearing down those posters. Are you going to tell me about why you and your friend were going to kidnap me and why these posters have appeared around town?”

I waffled, thinking about what I ought to tell him. “I don’t want to be involved in this anymore.”

“Then why did you tear the posters down?” he demanded.

“Because I don’t think you should be involved in this anymore either. If you go digging into this, you’re not going to find anything you want to know about. Ask the bump on my head.”

He wetted his teeth. “I’m dying of curiosity.”

“You should ignore this stuff,” I advised, pinching up leftover crumbs.

When I raised my head, I was immediately arrested by the languid way in which he regarded me from across the room. I only had one thought, and that was that this guy wasn’t interested in discovering who Natalie was or why she was interested in him. He followed Natalie that night because he believed she was running a quick errand and would soon be back at the camp kitchen. It had ruined his night’s entertainment that she didn’t come back and that Fletch and I were gone by the time he returned. He wanted to understand what was going on, but more than that, he wanted to get to know me. That was why he was standing in my apartment instead of Fletch’s or Natalie’s.

“I’ll call the police for you,” I said, pulling my phone out of my coat pocket.

“Wait! No!” he exclaimed, stepping toward me.

“Why?” I asked, hesitating. “I know the cops well and they can easily pick the posters off the poles while they’re patrolling. What’s the big deal?”

“Oh,” he said, lowering his shoulders. “I thought you were going to report that I’d kidnapped you.”

“With a cookie?” I droned. “It wouldn’t have held me. I have been tolerating you only because you introduced yourself to me immediately and I agree you have reason to speak to me. Otherwise, I would have busted your face. This place is full of heavy glass.”

He leaned against my faux mantelpiece that displayed two large glass sculptures. “Wouldn’t you be more worried about what a man in your apartment could do to you?”

I raised my eyebrows like he bored me and looked at my phone. “I have a gun and I can throw it pretty hard.” I finished dialing the police and the phone rang at the police station, where it was answered by Officer Todd.

I explained the situation, sent Todd a picture of the flyers I’d pulled down, said that Carver was in my apartment, and he was most unhappy about the defamation.

Todd laughed on the other end of the phone. “Have you ever thought about being a police officer, Shannon? I’m not sure anyone knows the streets better than you.”

From that point on, I engaged in some extremely heavy flirting with Officer Todd and ignored Carver completely. I hoped he would get the hint that he and I were done talking and he should leave on his own. I also hoped that Todd would clue into how uncomfortable I was with Carver in my apartment without me having to spell it out for him.

Unfortunately, Carver seemed to enjoy listening to me flirt. He made himself comfortable in a chair and listened to my end of the conversation. He smiled, laughed, and made eyes at me like everything I said was for him.

Finally, Todd had to answer a call. That was what always happened whenever I ran into a cop. Eventually, they always had to go. I ended the call unhappily and stared at my unwanted guest. “Was there something else you needed?”

“Your phone number?” he asked, raising his eyebrows like he knew he was asking a lot.

I smiled and said, “Of course.” I ripped a number off one of the posters I had made and offered it to him.

He reached for it, but I pulled it back. “I’ll give this to you, but you have to promise to leave right after. I’m tired. It’s been a long day, and I require some privacy.”

He took the number and left, as obedient as a dog.

When he called the number, he would get the message that told him that the woman who gave him her number did not like him, and wanted to let him down in the kindest way possible.