Chapter 19.
"You have spare keys to release my hands though don't you?" she asked, turning on the steps to clunk her wrist cuffs locked behind her back.
"Of course I do." He said, giving her no reason to hesitate on her way up the stairs. "They're in the kitchen on top of the." Ally paused mid-sentence due to Tess turning back and stopping in front of him.
"You know she just told me that this isn't the last we'll be hearing from her?" Tess said, "She sounded strange, almost threatening. What do you suppose she means?"
"No idea." Ally replied, "When did she say that?"
"Earlier, when she was down here."
"Keep going." Ally pressed, ushering Tess up the stairs a little further, not paying much attention to her concerns.
"Wait." Tess said, "What if we can't trust her? I mean she's bound to want some sort of revenge for all that she's lost, suppose she double-crosses us when she's gone and turns super-grass on you, with her husband to the police?"
"No she won't, they won't be able to prove a thing. I could just say she wanted me to help her embezzle some money to avoid paying tax." He said, "Come on, get into the motorhome before the contractors see you."
With her hands cuffed to her waist belt behind her back, Tess's bare legs and ankle booted feet skipped sideways up the last few steps and headed over to the motorhome where the remainder of her clothes had been drying for most of the night.
Acting normally, not wanting to highlight her paranoid concerns for the journey ahead, Ingrid had already taken the initiative to close the curtains and greeted Tess with clean, dry underwear as soon as she walked through the door.
"Stay in there and keep quiet, I'll go get the rest of our things." Ally called from outside.
"I'm assuming my shorts are still wet?" Tess asked, stepping into the stretched open elastic that Ingrid had waiting in front of her, like her personal care assistant.
"Yes they are." She replied, trailing both hands up the length of Tess's legs, pulling on her underwear. "I wish I had a body as toned as yours." She whispered, complimenting Tess by patting the globes of her buttocks with both hands as she stepped away.
"Nonsense, look at how slim you are, people would do time for a figure like yours." Tess replied.
"Like you are." Ingrid laughed.
"This should be all we need." Ally said, interrupting them by letting go of the four corners of a blanket to release rations and toiletries onto the floor. "I can pick up anything I've forgotten as we travel."
"Did you get the spare keys to this lock?" Tess checked, rotating her hips slightly to display her shackled hands secured firmly to her waist.
With no sense of concern in his voice at all, Ally replied "Erm. No."
"But what if there's an emergency?" Tess insisted.
"Where are they?" Ingrid asked, "I'll go get them."
"No." Ally insisted, "She won't be needing them."
"What if we have an accident?" Tess contested.
Unannounced and certainly unexpected, Ingrid leapt through the side door of the motorhome and ran back into the main building. Both Ally and Tess knew the purpose and could only complain about the timing of her decision, not the reason. Within seconds she'd returned to deliver a handful of metal onto the table which consisted of two open padlocks and a bunch of keys.
Ingrid then squared up in front of Tess and used her hands to cup the defenceless breasts through Tess's shirt. "Don't worry cutie, we'll look after you."
"Of course we will." Ally laughed, placing his hand on Ingrid's upper arm and swapping places with her by pushing her aside. "Were in this together right?" he said, confirming his partnership with Tess whilst sounding to denouncing any loyalties towards Ingrid. His hands unfastened Tess's lower buttons and began their obligatory rolling of her shirt, upwards and inwards from behind to the front, tying the trailing ends in a supporting knot under her breasts as before.
Ally stepped back for a quick inspection of her panty clad crotch and naked midriff above and below the gleaming waist belt, which could now clearly be seen holding her wrists behind her. He then swiftly turned and picked up all of the keys that Ingrid had brought from inside the main building.
Leaving the padlocks behind on the table, he climbed forward into the driving seat and started the engine.
Still untrusting, Ingrid shivered at the sight of the blanket on the floor and considered the potential significant role it could play in what may be the final voyage of her life.
With the engine running and the air conditioning kicking out its usual initial musty smell, Ally stepped out of the motorhome to open the gates.
In fear of her life, Ingrid's paranoid mind wondered how far she would get if she jumped in the front and put the pedal to the metal away from there as fast as she could. Cut short, her rehearsal scenario ended as soon as she saw the builders van at the entrance to the fortifications and realised that this would have been the end for her right there.
She quickly focused her attention on hiding herself and Tess from the view of the contractors, hoping that she would come across another opportunity of escape over the many miles ahead.
Ally spoke briefly to the contractors before climbing back into the front seat and clunking the gears in, to the start of their nine-hour drive.
"Do you think we'll make it before nightfall?" Ingrid asked.
"Are we nearly there yet." Tess joked, ridiculing the soon to be gone, unwelcome third party girl in her relationship with Ally.
"No chance." Ally glanced back, "Even if we had a helicopter we wouldn't make it before they close tonight."
Ingrid sat back and contemplated how many hours that meant. "Are you just going to drop me off?" she asked, testing the water for any hint of stray plans the couple may have for her.
"If that's ok with you." Ally agreed, giving no useful intelligence away.
Lacking any trust, Ingrid would now have to observe carefully over the next few hours for any signs of changes to her fate.
"Because we're not going to make it before close of play today were going to take the scenic route through the hills and park up for the night somewhere away from civilisation to avoid any do-gooding city folk asking questions."
This would be Ingrid's most vulnerable time where she would need to show her worth to the couple and fight to convince them to help her rather than simply bumping her off.
Four hours into the journey, Ally found a suntrap of a viewing point in plain sight of anyone around, where a motorhome didn't look out of place. Ingrid relaxed a little as his choice of location had an unregulated amount of random passing traffic, meaning that disposing of a body out here would be an act of stupidity.
From her seated position, Ingrid grabbed and turned Tess slightly to her side. Supporting the weight of Tess's cuffed hands with her thigh, Ingrid wedged herself down onto the sofa behind Tess, to begin the process of untangling the braded plat of Tess's hair, so she could retie it tighter and neater. Ingrid hoped her gesture of friendship would also allow her the chance to strengthen her bond with Ally whilst demonstrating this affectionate act for him to practice on his beautiful bride to be after she'd parted company.
Ingrid firstly taught him how to part the hair into three and keep crossing the middle into a ponytail down her back. After several attempts, once he'd got to grips with this method, she progressed onto showing him the finer details of platting the braids at the side of her head and merging them into one tidy rope behind her back.
The boredom of laying back and supervising his practicing, took toll on her tiredness and Ingrid struggled to keep her eyes open. The dulcet mumbling of Tess and Ally's smooching voices, cooing to one another, proved to be too much and she soon couldn't prevent her head flopping to one side and drifting off from reality.
Breathing louder than normal announced her slumber, giving way to privacy for Tess and Ally to kiss in a more intimate way.
"It's good of you for agreeing to take care of her." Tess said, wanting to be alone with Ally as soon as possible. "But can't we just go half way and ditch her out by the roadside?"
Although subconscious, Ingrid's mind picked out the words a paranoid woman fearing for her life would do.
"No." Ally replied, "The police will find her and then we'll be in the shit."
Now awake due to the adrenaline rush, Ingrid grunted with a snore to fool them and remained motionless to listen for more information.
"Shhhh. Don't wake her." Tess whispered, touching her lips against Ally's for another kiss.
"I love you." Ally pronounced once again.
"Are you talking about me?" Ingrid asked, interrupting their kissing to reintroduce more conversation than action.
"No talking going on over here." Ally joked, "We're just getting a little hot under the collar, that's all."
"You're right." Tess agreed, pulling away from Ally. "Can we have the air-conditioning back on? I'm cooking like a dog trapped in a car."
Ally smiled at her and agreed to start the engine to cool them down.
Sitting in the front seat Ally checked his phone to find it had no service and asked Ingrid to pass him her phone so that he could check the signal on that one too.
Ingrid took out the phone that Ally had lent her, looked at it quickly and returned it back into her pocket without offering it to him as requested. "No service." She said.
