The Doomsday Show by Mark Alpert

Author:Mark Alpert [Alpert, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Severn House
Published: 2022-06-13T00:00:00+00:00

FIFTEEN

Sonya woke to the sound of footsteps outside her jail cell. They were quiet steps, just a gentle tapping against linoleum tiles, but the sound was deafening compared with the absolute silence of a moment ago. It was enough to jolt Sonya from her uneasy sleep and make her sit up on the sad excuse for a bed that jutted like a shelf from the cinderblock wall.

The footsteps grew louder and then stopped. Judging from the sound, Sonya guessed at least two people stood on the other side of her cell’s door. She wasn’t bound or gagged anymore, so her first impulse was to jump out of bed and start screaming on the off chance that the visitors were cops or FBI agents searching the building for her. But so many bad things had happened in the past twenty-four hours that she no longer trusted her impulses. Worse, she couldn’t turn to Janet for advice, because the kidnappers had separated them. Sonya felt like she wasn’t quite human anymore, like she was turning into a creature of pure fear, wincing at the thought of more punishment. So she sat there, frozen, too scared to let out even a whimper, while her visitors unlocked the heavy door and slid it open.

One of them was Angela, and that was bad enough, but the other was a hulking bald guy with a big purple bruise on his face. The baldie wore scuffed boots and muddy jeans and a polo shirt with dark sweat stains around the armpits. He’d obviously had a very bad day, and his scowl was a silent warning: don’t make it any worse. Angela looked unhappy too, her pale chin quivering, her deep-space eyes darting to and fro, as if some difficulty or setback had thrown her off balance. She stepped past the bald guy and stood in front of Sonya, her right hand deep inside the pocket of her jumpsuit, toying with the jingling items at the bottom of it.

‘Good afternoon, Sonya. Did you get some rest?’

It was a strange question to ask, since Angela must’ve already known the answer. A security camera hung from the ceiling of the jail cell, and it had undoubtedly recorded all the hours Sonya had paced back and forth and pounded her fists against the door and finally collapsed on the hard bed. But instead of pointing this out, Sonya simply nodded and said nothing. Better to save her strength.

Angela jerked a thumb over her shoulder, aiming it at the bald guy, who stood motionless in the corner of the cell. ‘This is Carl, my assistant. He’s here just in case you decide to do something stupid. But I don’t think that’ll happen. You’re an excellent student, and I think you’ve learned a few things from your experience yesterday.’

Sonya nodded again. She pictured the switchblade that Angela was jiggling inside her pocket, the same knife she’d held to Janet’s throat while they recorded the video last night. Sonya had read from a script,

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