“Oh yeah. You’re definitely not from around here.” She leans over the counter, closer to me, her breasts pressing against the confines of the fabric that holds them. “Are you here on business? Or pleasure?” she purrs.
“Maybe both.” I keep my eyes on hers.
“What kind of business? Shipping? Oil?”
“Investments.” I watch her and add, “With Mason Enterprises.”
“Oh.” Her friendly demeanor fades fast and she slaps the menu carelessly on the empty counter space in front of me. “Good luck with that.”
“You look like it’s personal. Did you work for him once?”
She comes in closer. “Look, Mason moved in less than three years ago and now he pretty much owns this shithole city. People he doesn’t like have a tendency to wind up dead. So you may want to watch your back.”
Her eyes flash with equal amounts of fear and defiance before she disappears through the kitchen doors. Five minutes later, a teenage waitress comes to take my order.
“I apologize. I didn’t mean to cause a problem for the other waitress.” I peer through the kitchen window.
“It’s okay. Her shift was ending anyway,” she says brightly. “What can I get you?”
“I’ll take your big breakfast special.”
She giggles lightly as she scribbles on her notepad how I’d like my eggs, bacon, pancakes and home fries cooked. “It’s eight o’clock at night.”
“No better time for breakfast.” I smile and pass her the menu.
By the time I get to the hotel and shower, my mind and body are spent. As I dry off, I get a message out to Briggs, asking for any sensational or downplayed news reports from Bridge City to the Port Arthur area in the past three years.
Hanging up, I lay naked on top of the bed—my Glock on the nightstand beside me.
Chapter Three
Rachel
I’m blindfolded and can’t see any light, but based on the food they’ve fed me and how many times I’ve slept out of sheer exhaustion, I can deduce that I’ve been here three or four days.
The man who brings me meals has shown unexpected kindness. He holds my hand gently right before he places the bowl into my palm. He’s been scolded several times by whoever’s in charge for speaking to me. They call him Pedro. And sometimes—I think when no one else is around—he tells me Mexican folk stories, the sort that children would enjoy. The way his tongue shapes the words he speaks, I can tell he has some sort of speech or mental deficiency, and I believe he’s mentally disabled.
I try speaking to him in English, and although he doesn’t understand my words, he definitely understands my meaning when I snap my chained wrists crying, “Please!”
“Please, girl, I can't. My cousin will beat me,” he whispers in Spanish with the inflections and fear of a child.
I don’t see Pedro again after that. Maybe they’ve killed him.
I’m left here for hours, and my mind tortures me, thinking about what happened to Drew in the back of that alley.
The way they show gunshots to the head in the movies isn’t the way it really looks. They show fake blood splats. Point blank range, in truth, is nothing short of horrific. His death plays over and over like a film on repeat.
Once that has sufficiently shoved me to the brink of insanity, I’m forced to face my own mortality.
I wonder if they’ll kill me just as grotesquely. Will it be so bad my family won’t be able to recognize me? Drew was missing almost half his face.
Then I think his death was bizarrely merciful—at least it was quick. Quick pain frightens me, but I think I could get through it. What choice do you have if someone pulls that trigger?
What terrifies me is long-lasting, seemingly never ending pain. Agony that evil men will inflict on others to gain information or to coerce. My mind settles on that line of thought. Tools that inflict misery and make you scream, with no relief. That render the victim bloody and broken and unable to run.
Unable to run.
They don’t want me to run. They can’t allow me to run.
My mind is beginning to play tricks on me. I’m sure I hear a helicopter outside. If I try, I can almost feel the vibration conducting through the floor and walls.
I listen with fists clenched in violent anticipation.
They’ve found me!
I wait for the storm of SWAT team members to pour into wherever the hell I am and mop the floor with these guys, but after a long time my hope crashes hard. No one comes. There are no noises above my head that I can detect.
Every hope I’ve been clinging to deflates.
I wish I had called my sister or my mom the day I was taken. To tell them I love them one last time.
One last time.
Will they ever even know what happened to me? The true but dreadful answer is, probably not.
I thought I’d defied death that night in the alley.
When my mind settles on the actual idea of it—death—not feeling anything, wondering if there really is an afterlife and the what-if-there-isn’t-one question, my belly fills with this sick sensation. We have no control over it. We can’t wipe death from our existence. We can delay it, we can defy it for a time, but it will have its way.