"Stop pacing around for God's sake, I'm trying to think," Ronda snapped at Charlotte. They were in the cabin's living room, minutes after Bayley had taken both Becky and the van.
"Stop pacing?" Charlotte snapped back. "I'm ready to murder someone! There's nothing to think about. We find those two pieces of shit, and we kill them both."
"Bayley can't get access to the million dollars," Ronda pointed out. "You know I've just checked that it's still in the account, and I changed the passwords just in case. We can just split the money between us and move on. We don't need to go after those two. If anything, Bayley has lumbered herself with Becky now. She has the problem of what to do with her. Even if she does manage to sell her on to someone, who cares? We have half a million dollars each anyway."
"Yeah, we have the money," Charlotte ranted, not placated by the fact at all. "But Bayley still fucked us over. And in case you hadn't thought about it, she knows who we both are." She spoke as if she was talking to an exceedingly simple child.
Ronda leapt up off the couch and got in her face, eyes burning with anger. "Talk to me like that again and see what happens."
"Alright, I'm sorry," Charlotte said, hurriedly backing down from the confrontation like the typical bully when faced with someone who was prepared to fight back. "What I said is true though," she went on as Ronda took a step back. "Bayley knows who we both are, and Becky would certainly testify against us as well. Yes, we have half a million dollars each, but we have to find them, and we have to kill them. I'm not living with the thought that the feds could show up at any minute and put us away for twenty years for kidnapping."
"Yeah, good point," Ronda admitted. "Although I don't think Bayley would run to the feds, it's something we have to consider. She might get the idea in her head about going into witness protection. That's something we just can't allow to happen. Okay, Charlotte, maybe you're right. We need to track down Bayley and Becky, and we need to kill them."
"Now we're talking the same language," Charlotte said, pleased at the prospect of some top quality violence. "How are we going to find them, though?"
"I'll put the word out, as well as a picture of Bayley. I have plenty of contacts. It would be a good idea to offer a financial reward for accurate information regarding her whereabouts. If we do that, I'm confident someone will lead us to her. And when we find Bayley, we'll likely find Becky."
"And if we don't? Find Becky, I mean."
"Then we cross that bridge when we come to it," Ronda shrugged. "If Bayley does manage to sell her on, then we're in the shit, but we can't cover off every eventuality at this point. Bayley made sure of that when she took Becky and ran."
"Fucking little bitch," Charlotte growled.
Ronda ignored the mini outburst and walked in the direction of the kitchen with her mind focused on more practical considerations. "What I'm going to do is call someone to come pick us up, but it will take them a while to get out here. I can start making calls and putting the word out while we wait. First, I'm having a beer."
Charlotte trudged after her. She didn't want beer. She didn't want to wait for people to track Bayley down. She wanted blood, plain and simple. "When we catch up to them, I'm killing Becky Lynch. I've been wanting to do that ever since we took her."
After taking two bottles of beer out of the fridge and handing one to Charlotte, Ronda used the edge of a work surface to remove the top from hers. She took a long hit, then raised an eyebrow at her partner. "You're messed up, you know that?"
"Yep. I don't give a fuck. You want Bayley and Becky dead, I'll kill them. You don't even have to get your hands dirty."
"Tempting, but no. We started this together, we're still in it together. We'll go kill them together, we'll dispose of the bodies together, then we split the million and go our separate ways."
Charlotte nodded. "Deal."
The two women bumped fists, then downed the rest of their beers. It was time to get down to business.
Having driven throughout the night, Bayley was exhausted by the time she found a dusy, run down little backwater town that looked like the kind of place she could lie low for a few days while she made a decision on what to do next. First things first, she needed to find a cheap motel to check into. It had to be the kind of place where the rates were cheap and questions weren't asked. There was nowhere else that would be a safe place to keep Becky.
Glancing into the back of the van, Bayley saw her prisoner sitting with her back resting against the side, knees tucked up under her chin in a very defensive posture. She was obviously still very scared; understandably so.
Not long after they had fled the cabin, Bayley had pulled over and got in the back in order to put a blindfold on Becky. She had realised that she needed to drive without the ski mask on to avoid attracting attention, and she hadn't been totally sure about letting her captive see her face as yet. Becky had seemed okay with the explanation, not that she had much of an option. Her wrists were still bound behind her back and the nasty towel and sock gag was still in her mouth, but she hadn't made any fuss or tried to escape during the long journey. Bayley assumed she was at least a little grateful not to have been left behind with Charlotte.
"We'll be off the road soon. I'm looking for a motel where we can hole up for a few days until I decide what to do. Please just stay quiet and sit still."
It only took her five more minutes to find the perfect place. Giving the place the name Five Star Motel had to be someone's idea of a joke. One Star Shit Hole would have been more appropriate. But for Bayley, it was perfect. Hers was only the third car in the lot when she pulled in. Looking around, she saw that the paintwork on the large sign at the roadside and on the doors to the rooms looked older than she was. One of the rooms even had a broken window, which someone had half-heartedly attended to by nailing a piece of wood across it.
"I'm going to get us a room, Becky," Bayley said, turning to look in the back once more. "I need to trust you to sit there and stay quiet, or I'm going to have to knock you out. Will you do that for me?"
"Mmm," Becky nodded, meaning it. She reasoned that Bayley had rescued her from the others, so why would she hurt her now, unless she was provoked? Her hope was that they could get into the motel room, Bayley would take her gag off and they could actually talk about the situation. All she wanted was to be freed. She was prepared not to go to the cops, if that was what it took to secure her freedom. As long as she could back to her life, see her friends again, see her family again, that was all that mattered. Bayley really did seem like a kind person, especially for a kidnapper. Hopefully she would see sense.
"Okay, I'll trust you," Bayley decided. "Don't make me regret it. Remember, I could have ran by myself and left Charlotte to kill you if I wanted you to get hurt."
"Mmmph." Becky tried to sound as trustworthy as possible.
As satisfied as she could be, Bayley used the rear view mirror to fix her messy hair into a tight side ponytail. It was all she could do to make it look something like presentable after wearing the ski mask earlier in the night. With that done, she got out of the van and locked the door. Thankfully, she heard nothing from the back of the vehicle as she walked over to the door which bore a faded, dust-streaked 'Reception' sign.
Pushing the door open, Bayley saw an overweight man who looked to be in his early twenties lounging at the desk reading a comic book. A cigarette hung from the corner of his mouth. His eyes didn't leave the page he was reading as she approached. Apparently a greeting was out of the question. That was just fine with Bayley, who wanted as little conversation as possible.
"I need a room, please. I'll be here a few nights, not sure exactly how many. I'll pay for three for now, if that's okay?"
"Seventy five a night," came the uninterested reply, along with a flicker of eye contact.
Bayley was tempted to ask if he was serious, but she didn't want to give him any reason to remember her. She had enough cash on her to afford the required amount anyway. "I parked down at the far end of the lot. Can I have the last room along, please?" she asked as she counted out the bills.
"Whatever you want." The guy stretched up to take a key off a rack which was marked with room numbers. The occupancy rate was predictably pathetic, Bayley saw. He dropped the key on the desk, then quickly counted through the bills that Bayley handed him. "Thanks. Anything else?"
"No, thank you," Bayley replied, wondering what else he could possibly offer the human race. She picked up the key and left as quickly as she could without making a show of it.
The next task was to get Becky out of the van and into the hotel room without anyone seeing anything suspicious - like a bound, gagged and blindfolded woman for example. At least there was the fact that no one seemed to frequent this area of town if they could at all help it. She'd only seen one car drive past on the road since she'd parked the van. Another bonus was that Mr Attentive in the office was hardly likely to be coming to see what she was doing.
With a plan in mind, albeit not a world-beater, Bayley walked up to the last door in the row, just yards in front of the van's rear doors. Much like everything else at the motel, the metal numbers fixed to the door were heavily faded, not that Bayley cared in the least. All that mattered was that they matched the number on the cheap wooden key ring.
After unlocking the door and leaving it slightly ajar, Bayley took off her jacket, then opened the doors on the back of the van. She climbed inside, then pulled the doors almost closed behind her. "Becky," she said quietly, crouching down beside the her. "We're going to go into the motel room now. When we're in there, I'll take off your blindfold and your gag. I've got no food here yet, but there will obviously be water, so you can have a drink. I'm going to put my jacket around you, covering your head a bit so people can't see you. Don't be scared. There are only a few paces from the back of the van to the motel room. I'll point you in the right direction, you just move quickly. Unless you do something to attract attention, you'll be perfectly safe. Is that all okay?"
The voice was gentle as always. Reassuring. Even kind. Becky believed what she was being told. The prospect of getting the vile and painful gag out of her mouth alone was more than worth cooperating. She nodded her acknowledgement of the instructions.
Bayley coaxed Becky over to the doors, then got out to look around for anyone who might see what was going on. The coast was clear. She draped her jacket over the back of Becky's head, then told her to walk.
As ordered, Becky moved quickly in the direction she was guided by Bayley. She head a door's hinges squeak, then sensed that she was in the motel room.
"Over here," Bayley said, continuing to guide her. "There's a bed right in front of you. Lie down while I lock the van up."
Awkwardly, Becky lowered herself on to the bed and lay down on her side, facing in the direction of the door. Right now, she simply wanted to do whatever Bayley said. Within moments, she heard the soft footsteps return and the motel room's door closed with a dull thump.
Bayley breathed a sigh of relief. The difficult part was over. A thick curtain at the window was the only saving grace of the room, which was otherwise tragically furnished with a double bed that had long since seen better days, a single chair that was in even worse condition, and dark red carpet that was barely worthy of the description. That thick curtain was crucial though, making this a relatively safe place to keep Becky while she decided what to do with her.
"Mmmmmph," Becky mumbled into her gag as a reminder that she'd been promised its removal.
"Yeah, I'm going to take it off now," Bayley said, walking over to the bed and sitting down on the edge. "And I'll take off your blindfold, too. I don't have my mask on, so you'll see what I look like. Hopefully that tells you that you can trust me."
Becky was surprised by how much she wanted to see the face behind that gentle voice and those beautiful eyes.