“Mom! It’s Taylor.”
She opened one eye, then closed it again. “My head hurts.” It was surprisingly easy to hear her, considering we were bouncing along in a car trunk.
“Mine, too. They must have whacked us with something. You’re more awake than I thought. Let me feel your head.” I moved my fingers over her scalp. She wasn’t bleeding. “Whatever they hit us with must have been cushioned somehow. Neither of us has a fracture. They probably didn’t want any blood.”
“We’re in the trunk of a car?”
“Yes.”
“Will we suffocate?”
Good question. I thought about it for a second. “We should get enough air for a while, anyway. I don’t think these things are built that well.”
“They’re going to kill us, aren’t they?” Her voice was amazingly matter-of-fact.
I looked up at the glowing emergency release. “I don’t know, but it’s not the type of thing that I’m inclined to wait and see. I’m going to open the trunk lid and we’re going to roll out onto the road.”
I heard her shuffle her legs. “How fast are we going?” she said.
“I don’t know.”
“Are there cars behind us?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s a nice plan, dear.”
I smiled. At least she was retaining her sense of humor. “Would you rather wait and see where we park?”
“No.”
“Then get ready. I’ll open the trunk and take a look before we go. If there are cars behind us, we may not have to do it. We can just flag them down. I’ve been listening, though, and haven’t heard any traffic sounds. I’m guessing we’re out in the country.” I felt the splint on my finger to make sure it was still in place and no more damage had been done.
“How do we do this?” Mom was moving around now, adjusting her position the best she could in the cramped space.
“Cover your head with your hands. Tuck your legs up under you, and as soon as you hit the road, roll. Let your momentum carry you until you stop. This is going to hurt. You might even break something.”
“Maybe they’re not going to kill us. Maybe we should just wait and see where they take us.”
“Bad idea. If you want to be alive tomorrow, you’re going to have to trust me on this one. You can do this.”
“I don’t know if I can.”
I reached behind me and grabbed her arm. “You have to do it. It’s the only way. Now, listen to me, as soon as we stop rolling, we’re going to have to get moving. These guys are going to slam on the brakes and come looking for us. Hopefully there will be someplace to hide. I’ll check it out when I open the trunk.”
“I’m afraid.”
“You should be. I’m afraid, too.” I shifted my position to where I could look over my shoulder at her. “I will not leave you, Mom. Do you understand me? When we stop rolling, I will find you. If you’re hurt, I will help you. Whatever it takes, I will get us out of this, but you have to do what I tell you.”
Her breath on my neck became short and choppy. We needed to get going. She wasn’t likely to become any calmer with the passage of time. “Are you ready?”
“Yes.”
Rolling back over, I reached up and pulled the safety release, gripping it tightly with my good hand to keep the trunk lid from flying up. The lid thunked open. Air rushed in through the opening, and I held the release lever tight to keep the trunk from opening more than a few inches. I knew that the driver might be looking at a dashboard warning light at that very moment, telling him the trunk was open. The smell of damp earth and stale manure filtered into the trunk. My guess about being in the country had been right.
At first it was difficult to make anything out, but it was clear that there were no headlights behind us. I tried to remember what the weather forecast had been and recalled that it had been for warm temperatures and cloudy skies. Once we were out on the ground, the clouds would be great, making the night much darker. For now, however, the lack of moonlight wasn’t helping me figure out where to go once we hit the ground. I squinted down at the narrow road and realized we’d gotten two lucky breaks. The road was asphalt, which would provide a softer landing than some of the alternatives, and it was steeply crowned, so it would dissipate the shock and funnel us to the shoulder after we hit.
As my eyes adjusted to the surroundings, scraggly shapes emerged near the side of the road. I made out a spattering of short, twisted mesquite trees. The car slowed somewhat and a beer can clattered past on the road, apparently tossed by the driver. That was another stroke of good luck. Once we got out, I’d rather be matching wits with someone who’d been drinking.
The car slowed even more. I knew that if the driver realized the trunk was open we would only have a few seconds. I turned back to Mom. “We’ve got to go. Ready?”
She nodded.
“Watch me and do exactly what I do. I’ll find you after we’re on the ground.” I scooted to the edge of the trunk and let the lid fly open. The trunk light came on, and the sudden brightness startled me. I blinked hard and lifted myself over the lip of the trunk. Then I rolled out and tucked into a ball. My right shoulder hit the road, but I was already rolling. The asphalt tore my cocktail dress and my skin, but I managed to keep my head and my splinted finger clear. The momentum spun me at an angle to my left, down a short embankment and into a soggy drainage ditch. The tires of the car screeched.
When I stopped rolling, I tried to ignore the pain from my shoulder and the scrapes on my legs and arms. I turned and looked back at the car. It veered to the side of the road about fifty yards away from me and stopped. With the trunk wide open, and the trunk light on, it was easy to see Mom. She was still crouching there, squinting into the night. She wasn’t coming.
She had pulled off her jacket. She held it up so I could see it, and tossed it out of the trunk, into the ditch on the side of the road. In case I hadn’t seen, she pointed toward it. She was leaving the jacket for me.
I reached up and clutched my shoulders in my hands. Something caught in my throat, and I moved toward her but stopped myself. I couldn’t help her by heading that way.
I turned and scrambled on my hands and knees along the ditch away from the car. After about ten yards I came to a spot where the ground was more level. I dove into the field that adjoined the road and rolled behind a narrow mesquite tree. The car doors slammed. I flattened my face against the ground. Damp straw stuck to my cheeks and hair. I lifted my head and peeked around the tree. Two men ran around to the back of the car. They stopped face-to-face with Mom, who was still peering out the back of the open trunk.
I closed my eyes. Don’t shoot her, don’t shoot her.
When I opened my eyes again, she was edging back in the trunk, away from the men. They were saying something to her that I couldn’t make out. My silent plea changed. Don’t look this way. Don’t look this way. She kept her eyes straight on them. She had no intention of giving me away.
The driver was at least six feet four and as broad as a chest of drawers. Now I understood why I had so little chance when they popped us at the party. As he talked to Mom, he waved a hand, and I could see a beer can in it. Then he lifted his other hand to wipe his face with the sleeve of his blue-jean jacket. In that hand was a semiautomatic pistol.
The next thing he said, I heard easily, because he shouted it with his face within a few inches of Mom’s: “Where did she go?”
Mom cowered. I held my breath. She pointed to the opposite side of the road from where I was.
Unfortunately he was big but not dumb. He pointed to his pal, who was equally tall but as lanky as the mesquite tree I was hiding behind. “Turn the car around—” was all I heard. He pointed to the opposite side of the road. He pushed Mom’s head down and slammed the trunk shut over her. Then he turned and began walking—directly toward me.
He hadn’t bought what Mom was selling. He was closing quickly. I had a choice to make: hunker down and hide, or move and risk being seen.
When I was a little girl, I used to have a dream, over and over, in which a giant was terrorizing our town. He ended up standing outside my bedroom window with searchlights illuminating his head and shoulders. I would hide under my desk in my dark room and tell myself that I was very small and there were a million places he could look and a million people he could find instead of me. Invariably, within a few seconds, he turned toward my second-story window, which was just at his eye level, and looked straight at me. I trembled as he reached out his giant hand—a hand big enough to pick me up like an ordinary person would pick up a lizard or a chick—and crashed it through my window. That’s when I would wake in a sweat, my heart pounding.
I was never going to hide beneath my desk again.
I looked to my right, toward the middle of the field. The next closest mesquite tree was ten yards from me. I was glad my dress was black. I would be hard to spot as long as I stayed low and quiet. I belly-crawled to the tree and slid in behind it. My legs were burning from the dirt and gunk that I knew must be accumulating in the scrapes in my skin. Wet soil clung to my arms in globs, but generally my hands and arms hadn’t taken nearly the beating that my legs had.
I lifted my head just enough to spot the giant. He was at the side of the road, looking into the ditch. His partner had turned the car around. The headlights now illuminated the road but didn’t reach as far to the side as my little tree.
The giant didn’t have a flashlight, and I whispered a word of thanks for that. I knew that if I could put just a little more distance between the road and me, they would never find me on a night this black. As I put my hands beneath me to crawl again, the wind gusted across the field from the road. It was the perfect covering noise. I looked back over my shoulder. He was squatting now, his eyes focused on something in the ditch.
Pushing myself to my feet, I scrambled across the field toward the next mesquite, which was another thirty yards or so from the road. My back was to him. If he saw me, and if he knew how to use that gun, I wouldn’t even hear the shot before it dropped me. The scrawny tree seemed to move away from me as I ran. When I got within a few feet, I dove behind it, rolled onto my back and listened. Nothing but the wind rustling the limbs.
I rolled over onto my stomach. The giant stood with his hands on his hips, looking directly at me. He swore. I scanned the ground around me for anything I could use as a weapon. There was nothing but damp grass and straw. My best bet was to rip a branch off the little tree.
I shook my head. That was panic talking. A mesquite branch couldn’t win a battle with a semi-automatic. I had to think. My only chance was to run. I would stay low and zigzag and hope he wasn’t any good with the gun. Whether I was fast enough to outrun him, especially while I was zigzagging, we would just have to see. I closed my eyes and got right to the point: Please God; please God. I opened my eyes and kicked off my shoes. Pushing myself into a low crouch, I looked toward the road.
He was walking back to the car. I dropped back onto my stomach. I knew I didn’t deserve the break I’d just been given, but I figured maybe Dad and Simon had enough stroke upstairs to have put in a supplemental word for me.
The giant yelled something to his partner, who had been walking the opposite side of the road. His partner turned and made his way back to the car. Within a few minutes they had gotten in and turned it around again. They sat there for a while, facing down the road away from me. I assumed they were talking over what to do. I sat up with my back to the tree and took stock of my situation, glancing at them over my shoulder every few seconds.
My legs were badly scraped, my shoulder ached from where it had slammed into the pavement, and my head felt like it was encased in a steel drum. My legs and arms worked, though. My feet came out relatively unscathed, and the pain at least meant I could feel my body parts. As Dad used to say, there are positives in every situation, no matter how bleak. The people who survive are the people who see them and use them.
I had no cell phone. I assumed it was in the front seat of their car or lying with my purse on the side of the road somewhere between where I was standing and Southlake. I scanned the horizon. No houses, no signs of life, not even an animal. Not a single car had come down the road. It looked as if I would be walking.
I picked up my shoes. Four-inch heels weren’t going to be worth much out here. I knocked the heels off against the trunk of the tree. Then I hiked up my skirt and stuck the heels in the waistband of my panties. They might come in handy as weapons. I put the shoes, sans heels, back on. As soon as they drove off, I would check to see if I could walk on them. If not, I would toss them away.
The car’s engine revved. I peeked around the tree and watched it pull down the road. If I was to have any chance of finding where they were taking Mom, I would have to track it as long as I could. Fortunately the landscape was flat as a board. I came out from behind the tree and took a few steps on the heel-less shoes. My ankles wobbled. The shoes were no use at all. I kicked them off.
I walked at an angle back toward the road, and soon the car was so far in front of me that there was no danger they could see me in their rearview mirror. I moved out onto the pavement and looked back down the road in the direction from which we’d come—the direction of Dallas, I assumed. Then I turned and looked at the car’s taillights heading in the opposite direction. My eye caught Mom’s jacket, lying in the ditch to my right. I walked over and picked it up.