It was 13 hours, 14 minutes and 36 seconds later when the startled maid found the bound, gagged and scarf-encased woman in the closet.  Nicole was long past the struggling stage of captivity.  The maid thought the woman might be dead until she moaned through her gag.  The maid carefully untied the wet scarf that was plastered to her face.  The eyes that looked at her tried to focus.  The maid untied the headscarf, which also was wet from the woman's spittle.  The gag, a very wet bandanna, was tightly tied in the woman's mouth.  It took the maid a couple minutes and a broken fingernail to undo the knot.  When she pulled the bandanna away from the poor woman's mouth, the woman just looked at her.  The woman tried to talk, but couldn't.  The maid looked in Nicole's mouth and with her fingers pulled out a small wadded soaked woman's handkerchief and then a second wadded handkerchief.

Paige was quite pleased with herself.  She had outbid the other bidders and her client was very happy.  She wondered how Nicole was doing.  Then the pilot announced that her plane was about to land.

The maid wondered what she had done to deserve this.  She had untied the woman.  She had gone to call the front desk for help.  There was a sharp pain on the back of her head and everything went black.  When she woke up she was the one bound and gagged.  The woman she had untied was gone.

A woman got in the cab.  A brightly colored scarf hid her hair.  'To the airport', the woman told the cab driver.  This is not over, Nicole told herself.