Beckon

“This is for shooting me.”

He plunged the stun stick against her chest, and Elina felt every muscle in her body seize as though a thousand needles had been jabbed into her at once. Her spine arched, and the room dissolved into darkness.

Elina heard herself groaning as she regained consciousness. Shadows swirled around her, and a sharp odor stung in her nostrils like razors. She opened her eyes to see the small man bending over her, smelling salts in his hand. He lifted her eyelids and checked her eyes with a penlight.

“She’s awake,” he said to Carson. Then he took Elina by the chin and whispered, “Just tell him what he wants to know.”

Carson swatted him out of the way. “Okay, chica, let’s see how smart you are. You said you followed the van. That’s how you found us. Is that right? You followed it here?”

Through her pain, Elina felt a flicker of hope. She had them nervous. For all of Vale’s arrogance, he was worried about being discovered. And he’d sent Carson down to pry information from her. That meant she had some leverage. She had something they wanted.

But she would need to proceed with caution. As soon as they got what they wanted, she would no longer be of use to them. “Yes. Actually it wasn’t that hard.”

“Why did you follow us?”

“Us?” Elina grinned. She could taste blood in her mouth. “So you were the one driving the van?”

Carson leaned close. “Why were you following us?”

“I told you already. I was looking for my cousin. I wanted to find out what happened to him.”

“Who else knows you’re here?”

“Why?” Elina almost smiled. “Does that worry you? Are you afraid other people will come looking for me? Well, you better be.”

The next thing she knew, she was waking up from a second jolt. The little guy—Elina thought he must be the medic or doctor—was leaning over her again with the smelling salts.

“Stop antagonizing him,” he whispered.

Carson loomed in the background, grinning. “No, we’re not worried, chica. We’ll just get a new van. And now, thanks to you, we’ll make good and sure it can’t be traced back to us.”

Elina could barely keep her head upright. Her limbs throbbed from the jolts, but she forced a bloody smile. “It doesn’t matter. They already know about the van, and they know about Vale Corp. So it’s just a matter of time before they come looking.”

Of course, she had not told anyone about the information she’d gathered on the vehicle. She wasn’t officially part of the police department at the time and therefore not supposed to be accessing the database. Furthermore, since she didn’t want Javier to get in trouble with the INS, she had truly pursued her investigation as a lone wolf. But Vale didn’t know that, so at least she had some leverage, even if it was a bluff.

“Who did you tell?”

“You’ll find out when they show up… in force.”

Carson backhanded her across the other cheek. “They won’t find anything. No one ever does.”

The room spun and Elina’s jaw throbbed. She blinked back her sweat and tears, clenching her teeth against the pain.

“That’s… what Vale said.” She struggled to get her words out. “But still, here you are… asking me about it. So maybe he’s not as unconcerned as he pretended to be.”

“He’s not going to let you go. You know that, don’t you?”

Elina shrugged as best she could. “Then there’s not much incentive to tell you anything more… is there?”

Carson’s grin faded, and he held the stun stick in front of Elina’s face. And that was the last thing she remembered seeing.

Chapter 20

Elina awoke in the dark, back in what she assumed was her prison cell. Her jaw and muscles ached from the beating she’d taken and from lying on the cold rock floor. She had no idea how long she had been unconscious.

She explored her cell again and found no way of escape. There was a large clay pot in the corner that reeked of human waste but otherwise nothing else inside the cell. No other bit of furnishing. Like in some squalid medieval dungeon, she half expected there to be a rotting corpse chained to the wall.

Elina found she was losing all track of time. She spent her waking hours talking either to Javier and Miguel or to God. And when she slept, it was in fitful spurts on the cold, damp ground. She struggled to keep her thoughts focused on finding a way out. She had to keep her terror at bay. Terror would lead to despair, which would cause her to give up hope.

At one point she was huddled on the floor praying for her life when she heard a voice outside her door.

“What’re you doing?”

Elina looked up, startled. “Praying.”

She peered through the window in her door and could see the vague features of the man with the smelling salts.

“Praying? Why?”

“Because it’s all I can do at this point. And I happen to think God is listening.”

“Well, it won’t do any good, you know,” he said. His voice held little emotion, as if he had shut himself off to it. “God abandoned this place a long time ago.”

“Not my God. He doesn’t just abandon people.”

“You think so? You think He can save you? Because I’ve never seen Him save anyone from here.”

“I wouldn’t underestimate Him if I were you.” Elina moved closer to the door. “What do you want?”

He held up a ladle to the window. “I brought you breakfast.”

“Is it morning already?”

He tapped the door. “You want it or not?”

“Yes.”

Elina heard something rattle and creak, and a small slat at the bottom of the door snapped open. A bowl slid through the opening, and the slat snapped shut again. Elina picked up the bowl and sniffed it. It was half-filled with what smelled like oatmeal. He’d given her no utensil and nothing to drink.

She sat down and ate the meal, scooping it into her mouth with her fingers. She was desperately hungry, and the bland, lumpy oatmeal paste did little to satisfy her appetite. She could see the guy still looking in through the bars in her door, so she decided to venture a question.

“Who are you?”

After a moment he replied, “No one. Nobody important.”

“You were part of the inquisition, right?”

“I… I was there to make sure you could still answer him.”

“So you’re a medic… or a doctor or something?”

Another pause. “I’m a doctor.”

“A doctor.” Elina stood and moved to the door. “Then can you… can you at least tell me what’s going on here?”

“Sorry, I can’t give you any information.”

“Why not? Just tell me why you’re keeping us prisoners here.”

“No.”

“At least tell me your name.” Elina moved to the window and peered through.

He hesitated, shifting his weight and avoiding eye contact.

Elina persisted gently. “Mr. Vale didn’t say you couldn’t tell me your name, did he?”

“Dwight,” he said finally.

“Dwight.” Elina tried to offer a pleasant smile. “I like that. Not many parents name their kids Dwight