The dumb-asses had searched me for a gun, but they hadn’t grabbed my phone, which told me I wasn’t exactly dealing with professionals. Although I had to concede they’d been smart enough to get the drop on me.
My cell was still tucked way down in my inside jacket pocket, but it was of little use to me now. I couldn’t get at it, and even if it somehow slipped out and landed on the floor of the trunk, I was going to have a hard time manipulating it.
Most cars made in the last few years are equipped with an escape latch in the trunk that can be pulled from the inside. I’m not sure the manufacturers were thinking primarily of kidnap victims. They just wanted kids who’d accidentally locked themselves in a trunk to be able to get out before they suffocated.
I didn’t know how recent this car was or whether it had such a latch. And even if it did, I didn’t know where it was located. If I could untie myself, I could start patting around trying to find it. I couldn’t exactly roll out while the car was moving, but someone traveling behind us might see the trunk pop up, spot me in here, and call the cops. Failing that, maybe I could get myself into position, wait until the car stopped and they opened the trunk, and see if I could drive my heels into the face of one of these sons of bitches.
The tires hummed on the pavement below me, the noise much more audible than if I’d been behind the wheel. There was a rhythmic thunk as we drove over pavement seams. But then the sound changed, became more hollow. We were crossing a bridge.
Then we were back on solid pavement.
I didn’t know where we were going, but I had an inkling. I also had an idea who my two kidnappers were.
They were my chickens coming home to roost.
The car slowed, turned, sped up, turned again. We were off the highway, and had been traveling for about twenty minutes.
My cell rang. I felt it vibrating against my chest. There wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. I wondered if the phone’s ring could be heard inside the car, whether it would prompt them to pull over, pop the trunk, and take it away from me. But I could detect a lot muffled chatting in the two front seats, and when they didn’t pull over, I figured they hadn’t heard it.
I was still struggling with the tape, and while I felt like I was making headway, I wasn’t making it fast enough. If could free my wrists first, I could remove the rest of the tape in seconds. If I could break the tape wrapped around me, I could get my hands to my mouth, peel off that tape, and bite my way through the tape that held my wrists.
The car slowed. We were on gravel now, rubber crunching on stone.
I continued to shift and flex my arms. My body was soaked with sweat. Some of it had run into my eyes and stung like hell.
The car stopped and the engine died. The two doors opened and slammed shut.
“This place is good,” one said.
“I like it.”
“Put your mask back on.”
“Oh yeah.”
Although the engine was now off, I could hear something. A dull kind of roar. Not traffic on a nearby highway. Something else. Something not far away.
I made one last effort to break the tape wrapped around my body.
No joy.
The trunk popped open. A hand slipped under the edge to swing it wide. Red and Blue stood there, looking in on me.
“He’s almost got loose,” Blue said.
“I’ll get the roll.”
He was gone ten seconds. When he returned, the two of them swung my legs out over the bumper, then sat me up, my butt still parked on the trunk floor. Red ran more tape around my body, then added more to my wrists.
Once that was done, they hauled me out of the trunk and stood me up. We were in a wooded area, maybe a park. I blinked a couple of times, having spent the better part of half an hour in the pitch-dark trunk.
I recognized where we were. I had been here a couple of nights ago. It all made sense now. I knew what that roar in the background was.
Water.
Millions upon millions of gallons of it. Moving very, very quickly.
A river. The Niagara River. Just a short distance upstream from the falls.
“You’re going to have to hop,” Blue Mask said. “Either that, or we’re going to have to drag you to the railing.”
“Let’s just drag him,” Red Mask said. “Hopping’s going to take for-fucking-ever.”
And that’s exactly what they decided to do. They each grabbed me under an arm, and hauled me toward the river.
Forty-eight
“I’ve been thinking,” the woman says, having unlocked the door and entered the man’s room.
“About what?” he says groggily. He is on the bed, covers pulled back, an open magazine on his chest. He’d fallen asleep reading. He sleeps more and more these days.
“Maybe it would be a good thing for you to get some fresh air.”
He looks at her warily. “Are you serious?”
“Of course. You’ve been cooped up in here so long.”
“I don’t even — I don’t even know how long it is anymore.”
“The time does kind of fly by,” the woman says. “It seems like only yesterday.”
“I’d love to sit on the porch. Could I sit on the porch?”
“Oh, I was thinking of something much better than that. I was thinking that we could go for a drive. Not just you and me, but all three of us.”
He sits up, swings his legs over the side of the bed. “Where would we go?”
“Where would you like to go?”
“I... I don’t even know. Just getting out of the house, that’d be so wonderful. Just to go for a drive and — you know what I’d love to do?”
“What?”
“I’d love to go for an ice cream.” He frowns. “But I guess we can’t go any place where I’ll be seen.”
“I don’t know that we need to worry about that. If you could get some ice cream, what kind would you get?”
The man thinks. “I guess chocolate. I’d get chocolate.”
“You could have more than one flavor, you know. You could get a big bowl of it. You could have two or three kinds.”
He looks like a child who’s been promised a trip to Santa’s Village. “What other flavors are there?”
She laughs. “Where to begin? There are so many. Jamoca Almond Fudge. Strawberry. Heavenly Hash. They have ice creams with crumbled-up candy bar in them.”
“They do?”
“Cookies, too.”
He shakes his head, like it’s all too much. “Chocolate. That’s all I want. If I can have three scoops, I’d want them all to be chocolate.”
“It’s settled then,” she says.
“When is this going to happen?” he asks.
“Soon. Very soon. There are just a couple of things to work out.”
The man smiles. It takes a lot out of him. The muscles that are employed to make a person smile have not been used by the man in some time.
“You’ve made my day. That’s great news.” He puts his hands together. “I can almost taste the ice cream on my tongue.”
“You just keep thinking about that,” the woman says as she retreats from the room and relocks the door.