Maggie wasn't thinking about anything.
Friends, work, stress, worries, cares, troubles, fears, all of them gone.
She was dancing, eyes closed, feeling the beat thrum through her body like a wave breaking over her, moving like a puppet on a string and loving every moment of it, feeling like a hand in a glove, a flash in the pan, a storm in a teacup, a needle in a haystack, a prize for the winning, a dead for the raising, a catch for the chasing, a jewel for the choosing, a man for the making in this blistering heat...
Then someone touched her shoulder. "Hammering In My Head" continued to play, telling her to sweat it all out, but the moment was lost. She turned around to look at the stranger behind her.
He was older than she was--perhaps late thirties, perhaps late forties, but it was difficult to be sure. His face had a timeless quality about it, like a rock that had withstood the harshness of wind and water so long that it had been worn down to its elemental qualities. He was dressed simply; a t-shirt and jeans, with a black leather jacket over the ensemble. The only touches of individuality came from the cowboy boots he wore, and the matching hat. She might have thought "Village People", except that he had an air of command that almost seemed menacing. She couldn't have imagined laughing at him. She couldn't have imagined doing anything at that moment except staring at him. Despite the heat of her dancing, despite the crowded warmth of the club, she felt her arms run cold with goose bumps.
He stepped closer to her. "You're in grave danger," he said, his voice rough like sandpaper. "You have to trust me implicitly, or you'll never make it out of here."
Maggie blinked. The words didn't seem real. Nobody ever really said that to anybody. It was just something that happened in Arnold Schwarzenegger movies, and bad detective novels starring Mike Hammer. She wasn't in any danger. She was a data processor for a check recovery firm. Nobody cared about her enough to want to kill her. This whole thing was crazy. She just had to explain that to this...whoever, and then he'd go away. The thought crossed her mind for a moment that he might be crazy, but she was in a public place, surrounded by people. He wouldn't try anything here, even if he was insane.
She opened her mouth to tell him that, but before she could get out the first word, he pressed a finger to her lips. "Don't look around," he said. "Look at my wristwatch; I've angled it so you can see him in the reflection."
Maggie looked down at the wristwatch. The reflection of the nightclub's harsh spotlights caught her eye for a moment, blinding her, but then he moved his wrist ever so slightly, and she saw him. "Frank?" she said. "I know him from work. I didn't know he went to this club." She started to turn, but he grabbed her chin and forced her to face him.
"I told you not to look around. If you don't listen to me and do everything I say when I say it, you don't stand a chance of escaping him. You think it's a coincidence that he's here? He's come here to take you. I would have come sooner, but I wasn't sure you were his target until tonight."
"Take me? What are you talking about?"
The man's eyes narrowed. "That man, the one you call Frank. He's a slaver. The data processing job is a cover for his real work--he procures women for the wealthy and unscrupulous, people who want trophy wives or sex slaves or...other things..." She didn't like the sound of 'other things'... "and you fit all the parameters. You're young and pretty; you have no family, no close friends, nobody who'd make serious inquiries if you were to vanish. And, of course, there's the stories."
