She lay still, then tried it all again. Thoughts moved sluggishly in a head pounding with pain.
What is this?
There was a deep, guttural rumbling coming from somewhere. Her body vibrated with the noise.
So cold.
Popping sounds overlaid the rumble. She blinked, trying to focus, but something was right in front of her face. She adjusted her focus and realized it was a blue plastic sheet. Raindrops were pelting it, rivulets running down on the other side as wind fluttered it against her face.
When she twisted her hands, she felt a pliable plastic cord that terminated in a knob with three prongs, and she realized it was an electrical extension cord wrapped around her wrists.
Whatever she was lying on bucked and jumped, lifting and slamming her down. She straightened, hitting the back of her head on a metal retaining wall of some sort. Her fingers groped down, feeling a cold, wet, dirt-covered metal floor.
So cold. Her chin bobbed up and down as she shivered.
Her head hurt so much.
A memory of leaving the supermarket wriggled its way through the pain. She’d seen a man. A man who had attacked her.
Her legs were free, but she couldn’t feel a thing. She tried moving her right leg and heard the scrape of metal. She moved her foot, then her other leg and foot. All she felt was cold.
She shivered some more, and heard the high-pitched squeal as she slid forward, hitting her head again. And then it dawned on her she was in the back of a pickup truck, covered by a tarp.
The engine cut off. The sound of a door shutting. Footsteps crunching. Then just the popping of the rain.
She opened her eyes wide, waiting, then jumped as the blue covering lifted off her. Icy drops hit her face, landing inside her ear. A man's visage filled her vision and their eyes met. She recognized him and tried to speak, remembering too late she had the duct tape over her mouth.
His eyes were wild, nothing like they’d been the first time she’d seen the man a couple days ago, reminding her of a cat’s on the hunt. He put a finger to his lips. "You be quiet, all right?"
She tried to speak again.
"I said, shut up."
She glared at him and screamed behind the duct tape.
He flinched backward, turning his head.
Again she screamed. The sound was futile to her own ears but it built in intensity as the panic within her redlined.
“Shut up!” he hissed.
Her throat felt like she was gargling razorblades as every effort to yell was jammed back into her by the tape, but the man was growing distraught at her increasing volume, however pathetic it was.
Something in his eyes changed and he ducked away and out of her field of vision.
What about dad?
The thought stopped her. She sucked in breaths through her nose, thinking of her father.
She wanted to check her watch, but her arms were bound behind her back. She already knew that. Her sluggish brain worked in fits and starts. She thrashed against her restraints. This was stupid, she thought. Stacy was with Dad, and that’s the least of my worries.
Footsteps sounded again, this time down by her feet. The tailgate clicked, squealed, and dropped open. The truck sagged down as someone stepped on the tailgate.
She let out the loudest scream yet.
"I said, shut up.” The world flashed as there was another tremendous blow to her head, and she fell back into the darkness.
Chapter 33
Wolf kept one eye on his cell phone, the other on the road in front of him as he descended into the Dredge Valley. He had been driving out of the cell vortex when he’d last spoken with Patterson. His call had been cut off by three beeps early in his rant for help. Despite the disconnection he continued to drive, certain Patterson had heard his request for backup. But as
he drove on, doubt had crept in and set up camp inside him.
His phone still read No Service. Damn it. He should have turned around when the call had gone out, but something told him every second counted right now.
There! The No Service indicator disappeared, replaced by a single bar of reception. His phone began vibrating as missed call notifications and messages rolled in. Ignoring them, he poked Patterson's number.
"There you are," she said through the speakers. “You cut out.”
"Are you on your way?”
"Yes. I have people heading up,” she said. “We’re all heading up. I tried to get a chopper up there, but they’re saying the radar indicates it’s impossible.”
Wolf’s windshield wipers slapped back and forth at the highest setting but it was still not enough at the speed Wolf was going. Still, he kept his foot on the gas.
“The radar’s not lying,” he said.
“What’s happened to her? You said somebody attacked her. Who?”
“I don’t know that yet.” He told her about the text message that he'd gotten from Cain, and the voice message. "She was onto something, though. Something about a financial transaction at a place called Lonnie's Market.”
“Where?”
“Dredge? I don’t know.”
Wolf passed a sign reading Dredge—2 miles. He wanted to jam the accelerator all the way down, but the road veered to the left and the windshield already looked like he was inside a carwash.
“I can look it up,” she said. “I can call and speak to a manager. Maybe figure out what she was—”
“Good. Yes. Call. Call me back.”
“On it.”
He dropped the phone in the console and concentrated on the road, blurred by the shifting stalagmite raindrops hitting the ground.
He poked Cain’s phone number again, willing her to answer and prove his paranoia as unfounded, but again it rang six times and then went to her voicemail.
Wolf pecked his Toughbook, entering a search on the digital map for Lonnie’s Market. By the time directions came up he was inside the town limits, driving past the Casino’s glowing lights. He hit the brakes hard, the rear
