I wake up and try to roll over, only to find my hands are cuffed to the headboard. I pull at them futilely, rattling them against the unyielding metal, and nothing changes. I look down in shock as I find myself in a strange bed, clad only in my bra and panties, and alone.
I try to think back to last night and everything is fuzzy. I remember being at a bar, celebrating with Julie the end of an investigation. She had gone home and I started flirting with a businessman in a tailored suit from Kansas. After that, nothing.
It looks like a hotel room. I scream for help, hoping an adjoining room or cleaning person will hear me and help me get free. I scream for what seems like hours, and nothing changes except my throat is raw.
I'm about to scream again when a door opens. A man is there, a large man who oozes power. His face is silhouetted in the opening, and it isn't until he walks in and closes the door that I see who he is. "YOU!"
"Yes, me. Good morning, Rose."
"LET. ME. GO." I was pissed as hell, I couldn't believe a man I trusted would do this to me.
"Not until you listen to me for a minute." He came over and sat on the bed next to me; grabbing the sheet, he pulled it up to my neck, saving me the embarrassment of being there in my lacy underwear. He looked good enough to eat; his muscles played under the custom-tailored dress shirt like bulldogs fighting under a rug. "Those men last night, they are the ones you should be mad at. They drugged and kidnapped you, not me."
I looked at him, staring into his eyes. There were a lot of emotions there, fear, anger, lust, but deceit wasn't among them. I had made my career out of interviewing criminals, I knew when I was being lied to. "How?"
"I was watching you at the bar last night."
"You've been following me?"
"Yes. I told you before, I love you and I'll do anything to keep you safe." He cupped my face, tingles exploded wherever he touched me. It was weird, but I had a rule; he was connected to a case and I didn't mix work and pleasure. I had rejected his advances for five days now, despite how attracted I was to him.
"I don't remember what happened." I relaxed into the pillow, trying to will myself to remember last night.
"I'm not surprised. Your drink was drugged, they slipped a roofie into it." My jaw dropped, I knew what those drugs could do. My own daughter had been raped after an acquaintance drugged her.
"I'm sorry, I didn't figure it out right away. You were at the bar, that man in a suit was talking to you. I saw you get up, a little unsteady, and head towards the bathroom with him. When his friend left and you didn't come back, I got suspicious. One sniff of your glass and I knew what happened."