THIRTY

When we reached the car, I thought it was the one that had hit me the night I’d been trying to find Gram’s heart medicine, but I couldn’t be certain. On a rainy day, gray cars tend to look alike. My captor kept his gun trained on me, and held a handlebar on my bike.

“Open the trunk,” he ordered. He placed the key in my hand. “Open it. No funny stuff.”

I opened the trunk, letting the key hang in the lock as the lid inched up.

“Now lift the bike inside the trunk.”

“I can’t. It’s too heavy.”

“Can’t be much heavier than a bag of coffee beans now can it? Lift it front wheel first into the trunk”

So this guy knew I’d helped Gram lift bags of coffee beans. Where had he been hiding while he watched? And what other of my activities had he found interesting enough to monitor?”

“Do it now. Move.”

The bicycle felt awkward—more awkward than heavy. I managed to get the front wheel onto the rim of the trunk, twist the handlebars and shove the front half into the storage space. After that, the seat and the rear tire slid in with only some hard shoving. I didn’t know if I was gasping for breath from exertion or from fear. Maybe both.

“Now crawl in there with it.” He grabbed my arm, forcing me closer to the trunk.

“There’s not enough room. There’s barely room to close the lid on the bicycle.”

“These old Lincolns are known for their roomy trunks. Now get in beside the bicycle and shut up.” He goosed me with the gun barrel.

It took me a few moments to get into the trunk. A pedal bit into my shin, and I hit my head on the trunk lid hard enough to bring tears. But that was nothing compared to the head blow when he closed the trunk lid. I lay entwined with the bicycle, feeling blood running down my shin, feeling numb and nauseous from the blow to my head, wondering if the blow had broken my neck. But no. I could still move fingers and toes.

In moments the car started and we eased along the street. My stomach churned from the smell of gasoline and motor exhaust, but I managed to free one arm from its cramped position and grope for a trunk release lever. No luck. These old trunks had no safety devices.

I tried to keep track of our route, and from the traffic sounds around us, I knew when we reached the highway and turned toward Miami. We had gone only a short distance when the car made a sharp turn that butted my stomach against a bike pedal. I thought I might vomit, but I clamped my teeth against the rising gorge. Shortly after the turn, the car stopped, the driver’s door slammed, the trunk popped open.

Is this where he planned to kill me? A storm howled around us and darkness blacked out the surroundings, leaving me with no idea of our location. Rain poured into the trunk. I closed my eyes and lowered my head. Would he shoot me in the trunk? No. Wouldn’t want my blood on his car. The bike pedal scraped my shin again, but I lay beyond caring.

“Help me, you dumb butt. Push on that bike. Push and lift. We’re dumping it. Nobody’ll come nosing around this scrap heap anytime in the next few days—or weeks.”

I heard a scraping as he jerked my ID tag from the bike.

“Even if anyone finds it, they won’t be able to identify it. It won’t take long for rain and salt air to turn it into a rust heap. Wish I could leave you right here beside it, Keely Moreno. That’d make my job easier. But finding your body would give the police too many clues. I’m taking you where nobody’s likely to find you or your remains.”

I wondered where that place might be, but I wasn’t about to ask. A lot of crime takes place in the Keys. According to Punt, much of it’s never reported. And the local police get so many missing-person reports they don’t consider all of them emergencies. Kids run away from parents. Husbands run away from wives. Wives run away from husbands. But if I went missing, I knew there’d be a fuss. Gram. Punt. Consuela. My clients. There’d be a police search for me—or my body.

My captor managed to lift the bike from the trunk without my help. It clattered as if it hit concrete when he threw it down. Then turning quickly, he yanked me from the trunk. My legs were so cramped I could hardly stand, but he didn’t expect or want me to stand. Pulling a bandana from his back pocket he folded it into a blindfold and tied it around my eyes. Then I heard tape peeling from a roll and he grabbed my wrists and taped them together. Once he finished that job and taped my ankles together, he lifted me and threw me back into the trunk.

He hadn’t gagged me, but I lay in shock, unable to muster the energy to scream for help. He slammed the trunk lid shut and drove off, turning onto the highway and easing into traffic. How could I bear this! I couldn’t see. I couldn’t move my arms or legs. If I screamed nobody’d hear me.

Gram and I seldom leave Key West. Like many of the locals, we’re content to stay where we’re planted. But now I remembered my trip with Punt to Big Pine Key. I began to recall a ride to Marathon and Key Colony Beach last year, but so what? What good would remembering do? I couldn’t recall more place names except Key Largo and then Homestead which really isn’t a Key.

I wished I hadn’t tried so hard to remember because now Punt’s words replayed through my mind—words about a place where the deer refuge workers buried the deer that died or that had been killed in traffic. He said one time the police had found human bones mixed with the deer carcasses—bones that nobody ever claimed or identified. Was that where I was headed right now—the deer boneyard?

My head ached and I curled myself into a fetal position. All I wanted to do was to close my eyes and sleep. But no. I might be able to do something to save myself from this guy if I stayed awake—if I stayed alert. After a few minutes rain stopped pelting on the trunk lid. I could hear water hitting the underside of the car as we splashed through puddles, but the rain had stopped.

In a few seconds I heard that fact announced from a microphone.

“Okay, folks. The rain’s over and the night’s young. Who’s going to be the first one on the bull? Don’t be shy. Step right up.”

The voice faded into the distance, but I knew where we were. Ramrod Key. The Boondocks. Punt and I passed here on the way to talk to Shrimp Snerl. But where to now? When I felt our speed slow and remain slow, I remembered the night-time speed limit on Big Pine Key. So we were on the Key Deer Refuge. A national refuge. An area where cops strictly enforced the speed limits. I guessed we were traveling a bit below the thirty-five mph limit. My captor would take no chances of being pulled over for a traffic violation.

When the car stopped, I knew we’d reached the one traffic light between Big Pine Key and Marathon. Moving forward again, we took a left turn. Were we heading toward the road prison? The Blue Hole? Was there a place nearby where this guy might dump my body? I remembered the vast expanses of scrub palm and mangroves between the stop light and the Lion’s Club. I also remembered desolate country with paths and trails going off the main road, trails that led into nothingness.

We drove on and on and on. I knew Big Pine Key was the largest of the keys in land mass, but surely it couldn’t cover as many miles as we had traveled! For a while the road felt smooth, then suddenly we turned sharply to the right. We jounced and bumped over ground rough enough to blow out tires. Maybe this guy was blazing his own trail through the scrub brush. I braced myself against the top of the trunk with my bound hands and against one side of it with my feet.

At last the car stopped. I waited. Nothing happened. Maybe he planned to desert his car along with me? How long would it take someone to find a car with a body in the trunk? What if I screamed? Would there be anyone around to hear? Maybe I could work my hands loose, find a car tool, and beat on the inside of the trunk. Again, I wondered who would hear me.

At last the trunk lid popped and I felt a rush of cooler air. Taking his time, my captor unbound my ankles, but he left the tape on my hands and the blindfold in place.

“Get out.”

I can’t, I wanted to scream, but I didn’t dare. If I couldn’t get out of the trunk under my own steam, he might leave me there—forever. I flexed my fingers and my toes. I took some deep breaths.

“Get out. Now!”

From somewhere I found the strength to push myself across the bottom of the trunk, to reach for the side of the opening even with my hands still bound, and to pull myself to a sitting position. Then he grabbed my arm and hoisted me from the trunk to the ground. I sank to my knees with cramps in both legs, but he jerked me upright, not noticing that my blindfold had slipped askew.

I glimpsed a ray of moonlight playing across the rooftop of a small house in front of the car, then a cloud covered the moon, blacking out the area. He pushed me ahead of him to the house, unlocked the door, flung it open. Pulling a flashlight from his pocket, he shone it around the room, and then pushed me toward a bed and flung me down on it while he taped my ankles together again. I dreaded what might be coming next. How could I fight him off with my hands bound? His next words surprised me.

“You can call this your home away from home, Keely Moreno. The house has been vacated. The owners won’t be returning this season. I’m leaving you for a while. But never fear. I’ll be back.”

“Where are you going?”

A slap in the face was my answer. My cheek smarted, but at least I lay on the bed and he couldn’t knock me down.

“Don’t try to escape. If you should be so unlucky as to get outside, you’ll face wildlife. Raccoons, hungry raccoons. Deer. Snakes. Iguanas, wild and determined. Those big lizards can be treacherous. And alligators. There are lots of fresh-water holes in the thicket. A couple of ’gators live in each hole. And in addition to the animals, you could wander into poisonwood and manchineel trees. Natives used to tie a victim under a manchineel and let the sap drip on him. Ate flesh to the bare bone.”

At last he left me alone, bound, partially blindfolded, and in the dark. Once he was gone, I knew that all the wildlife wasn’t outside the house. Tiny footsteps scurried across the bare floor. Scurry. Scurry. No. I was not alone.