Turn up the Heat

seafood hook helped Owen. Maybe it could help me.
    Shit, it smelled in here. I did my best to breathe through my mouth. On top of being abducted, I didn’t need to be sickened by the stench of pounds and pounds of fish. How long could I tolerate the foul air without doubling over? How long had we been on the highway? Five minutes? Ten? At least I had a weapon now. Two weapons: the hook and the dolly. Being armed gave me the beginnings of a sense of confidence. Kevin, I realized, had acted impulsively when he’d tossed me into the truck; he couldn’t have planned ahead, and whatever plan he had now wasn’t one he’d thought out. Someone was bound to look for me. And for Kevin, too. We’d abruptly vanished. We were going to be missed, right? And if Adrianna ever quit screaming at Owen, he was going to see that his truck had been stolen.
    1 was moving on from straight fear to fury. How dare Kevin do this to me! What was he, after all? A vain, aging bartender with weird facial hair and an embarrassing anatomical oddity, that’s what he was. I felt ashamed of my doubts about Owen’s character. I should never have suspected him of any romantic, not to mention murderous, involvement with Leandra. The dangerous one was Kevin. But my rage made me even more dangerous than he was, I told myself. I was not going to let Kevin hurt me!
    Kevin would have to stop this truck sometime. When he did, I would act. I searched for the heavy metal dolly, found the handle, and rolled the dolly so that it faced the door. When Kevin opened the back, I was going slam this metal hunk on wheels into him and knock him to the ground, bash him over the head with the metal rod, and run like crazy. I sat with my hands on the dolly and waited.
    The truck began to slow down. It took a curve. We must be exiting the Mass Pike. After only a few minutes of slow driving and turning, the truck came to a halt. When I heard the driver’s door slam, I readied myself to smash Kevin onto the ground. The fear that had transformed itself into fury had now become an ardent desire for revenge: Come on, you bastard! Come on! Open the door! Enraged, I was more than ready to kick some serious ass, but I forced myself to keep focused. With luck, Kevin envisioned me cowering in terror in a corner of the icy, stinky truck.
    Minute after minute ticked by, and the door didn’t open. Eventually, I loosened my grip on the dolly. Kevin, I realized, had left me here. Damn! What an anticlimax! How long was he going to be gone? And where had he gone? What if he had gone to get a gun? If so, I wouldn’t stand much chance of overpowering him with the dolly and the metal hook. Listening hard, I waited a few more minutes but heard nothing. Once I felt sure that Kevin had left the area, wherever the area was, I started kicking the door and yelling again. To maximize the noise, I banged the door with the metal hook. I screamed until my throat hurt. No one came to my rescue.
    Slowly, my adrenaline rush decreased as I accepted that I was alone. Except for the dead fish, of course. At least I wouldn’t die of starvation; I could always eat some raw haddock or smash open clam shells with the metal rod. And I could suck on fishy ice cubes to prevent dehydration, if I didn’t freeze to death first. A slight, almost imperceptible, gap along the edge of the sliding door was letting in air; I wouldn’t suffocate. Starvation, dehydration, suffocation: three ways in which I wasn’t going to die. I was not reassured.
    Kevin must have returned to Simmer with some excuse for his absence. He would have to come back for me. But why hadn’t he tied me up before leaving? Or killed me? More importantly, why had he kidnapped me at all? Why me? What did I know that could implicate him in Leandra’s murder? I reviewed the knowledge I had about Kevin. His only alibi for the night of Leandra’s death was based on Wade’s word that the two had been together and had closed up the restaurant. According to Josh, however, Wade was untrustworthy. So there went that alibi. I knew that Kevin had Simmer’s keys and alarm code. I’d made the disillusioning discovery that everyone at Simmer was stealing. Therefore, Kevin was stealing. But my theory that Leandra had been on the verge of ratting someone out for stealing didn’t hold. If everyone was light-fingered, then Leandra was, too. Besides, Josh had said that stealing was par for the course. Josh had also insisted that restaurant people just