“Left how? What condition was she in? Was she injured?”
Freddie plucked at Noah’s knuckles. “Dude, that hurts! Let go! She, uh, looked stoned out of her fuckin’ mind. They were dragging her. Musta been some really good shit. I asked if I could score a hit when they came by.” He rubbed his ribs. “Scumbag kicked me.”
“What did they look like?” Noah demanded.
“I don’t know!” Freddy whined. “Just a couple of guys. And one of ’em kicked me! Prolly cracked my ribs. I never saw either of them before.”
“White, black, Asian, Latino? Wearing what? Age? Weight? Anything!”
Freddie looked panicked. “One guy was bald,” he offered. “The shorter one. He had a goatee. The other one was big. And white. Yeah. Both of ’em were white.”
“What made you think they were her dealers? Their clothes?”
“Don’t remember their clothes,” Freddy said. “I thought that because of you.”
“Me?” Noah was bewildered. “What does that have to do with me?”
“Come on. Bitch needs to cop a buzz. She turns a trick, and calls her dealer. It’s so easy for bitches, especially ones like her. All they have to do is spread their legs.”
Noah smacked the guy before he could stop himself. Freddie burst out crying, cringing away from him.
He dropped Freddie on the floor, and ran.
*
Buried alive, under tons of earth. Head splitting. Can’t breathe. Mouth full of dirt. Her chest bucked and heaved. Couldn’t . . . get . . . any . . . air . . .
The line between her stifling dream and waking reality was blurry for a long time. She wavered, reaching toward consciousness, then collapsing back into nightmares again. Then the movement stilled. That buzzing hum had stopped.
She was in a car. It had stopped moving. Full consciousness forced itself upon her, and along with it came horrible images of whatever might be in store for her.
Someone dragged a smothering blanket off her head, and hit her face. She tried to cough, but couldn’t, with the gag in her mouth. The man’s face was slack and grotesque at that angle, his chubby cheeks and the bags under his eyes flushed and dangling. Metal glinted in his dental work. He had a black goatee. “Wake the fuck up!”
She was in the trunk of a car, arms fastened behind her. The upside-down man’s hands hooked her armpits. He dragged her out, flung her against the side of the car.
She would have slid to the ground, but he pinned her there, and swatted the back of her head. “On your feet, you lazy cunt.” He cut the ties on her arms. She cried out with pain when the numbness wore off and stumbled to her knees.
The bigger man kicked her in the buttock, the toe of his boot shooting a bolt of pain up her spine. “Get up, bitch,” he growled. “I ain’t carrying you this time.”
She tried, but her balance was shot. Whenever she was kicked or shoved forward, the dirt roadway tilted up and whacked her hard in the face.
They were on a deeply rutted, unpaved road carved through a thick evergreen forest. The tangled bottom branches were packed so tightly that the boughs seemed black and lifeless in the dim light of dawn.
The huge guy grabbed her arm. “Move it. Stupid whore.”
She was shoved and kicked all the way down the overgrown driveway until a building hidden in the woods slowly came into view. It was a shabby prefab box set on cinder blocks. No porch, just temporary aluminum steps in front of the door.
The bald man rapped on the door. “It’s us,” he said. “Open up.”
The door opened. Caro was heaved inside, cracking her shins against the bottom of the door frame before scrambling onto her hands and knees. Four pairs of jackboots were ranged around her on the dirty linoleum. She fought to control her terror.
One of the four men grabbed her under the armpits, heaved her to her feet, and shoved her before him through a dim corridor that stank of mold.
In the back was a room with a window showing a dark wall of trees. There was a wrought iron bed. The mattress was covered with a sheet of heavy plastic. She closed her eyes and hung onto her guts.
She was flung onto the bed. She’d lost her coat, at some point. The plastic covering the mattress felt damp and cold against the small of her back.
“Get out of here. Leave us alone,” the bald goateed man said to the man who had dragged her.
He waited for the big, thick-featured guy to leave, and then smiled wide, flashing metal in his eyeteeth. He pulled up a chair to the foot of the bed and straddled it backwards, facing her. “Good morning, Caroline.”
It took her several tries to get the words out. “You work for Mark Olund?”
The man’s close-set black eyes narrowed slightly. He didn’t reply.
Caro massaged her own wrists, and tried to flex her numb fingers. “I don’t have what he wants,” she said.
“Not my problem. I was paid to pick you up and keep you here until he comes for you, which will be soon,” he said.