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“Hey, Allie, have you seen Rudy?” Clay peered around the banquet hall trying to spot him.
“No, not for a little while.”
Clay frowned. He had tried using the bond to contact Rudy, but it was silent. Not blocked, he knew what that felt like and he could still feel Rudy’s presence in his mind. No, it was just abnormally silent when it shouldn’t have been, and Clay was becoming concerned.
“Clay, what’s wrong?” Allie looked at him, worry marring her face.
“I don’t know that anything is wrong, exactly but I can’t find him, and the bond is weirdly quiet.”
Allie turned and waved at Matt, signaling for him to come over.
“Matt, I think Rudy is missing,” Allie told her husband.
“I never said he was missing, I said I couldn’t find him and I can’t reach him through the bond.”
Matt scowled. “Damn it. What about his phone?”
“I already texted him.”
“Call him. Now.”
Clay felt his stomach clench at the demand in Matt’s voice. Something really was wrong. He pulled his phone out and dialed Rudy’s number. He could just hear the distinct ringtone. Matt cocked his head. He heard it too, coming from outside the room. Clay and Matt followed the sound while Allie, being human and unable to hear it, silently tagged along behind them.
They left the banquet hall and moved down the hall and into a small office. The ringing stopped, and they paused while Clay redialed Rudy’s phone number.
“It’s under the desk.” Matt got onto his hands and knees and dragged Rudy’s phone out.
“Rudy never goes anywhere without his phone,” Allie said, alarmed. “It’s like a part of him.”
Matt rose to his feet and lifted his head. His nostrils expanded as he scented the air. “Rudy was definitely here.”
Clay’s sense of smell was good but not as good as Matt’s wolf. He watched intently as Matt walked slowly around the room, still sniffing. “There were three others here. Two, I’m not familiar with but the third... That one I’ve smelled before, I’m just not sure where.”
He finally stopped in the center of the room. “I’ve got to call this in. I think it’s pretty obvious that Rudy has been kidnapped.”
“What? Kidnapped?” Clay bellowed. “You’ve got the nose for it so can’t you follow the scent?” He waved his hand in the air. “Track him down like a bloodhound?”
Matt scowled. “I’m not going to get pissed at you for calling me a dog because you are scared and panicking. I guarantee you that Rudy’s trail will end in the street. He might not be a big man but there is no way they could transport him except by car.”
This couldn’t be happening. Not now. Why would someone take his mate? He realized he was hyperventilating, falling into a panic attack and forced himself to breathe normally like the therapist had taught him. Losing it now would not help anyone.
Running a hand through his hair, Clay stared at the ground for a moment more trying hard to bring himself back under control, before looking up. “I’m sorry,” Clay apologized to Matt. “You’re right. I am scared.”
“It’s all good, Clay. Excuse me.” Matt pulled his phone out and turned away.
Allie clutched Clay’s arm as Matt used his phone. “Clay, listen to me. Both Patrick’s computer at work and his home computer were stolen. No witnesses. Matt told Rudy, but Rudy didn’t want to tell you until after the funeral.”
Clay frowned down at her. “Why would he keep this from me?”
“Because he loves you and was worried about you. He thought it would only add to the stress you were under.”
“That idiot.” Clay shook his head. “God, I love him so much, but I am going to wring his neck when I get my hands on him again. He should have told me.”
“Not arguing,” Allie agreed as Matt joined them.
“Cap wants us to check both Rudy’s work computer and his home system. I’m thinking Patrick stumbled upon something and if they’ve taken Rudy, then it’s very possible he sent it to Rudy and they found out.”
“Of course,” Allie exclaimed, facing her husband. “As far as I know, Patrick didn’t have your email because he would have no reason to ever email you. So, he couldn’t send whatever it was to you. He didn’t have mine either, but he did have Rudy’s. It makes sense. He was probably counting on Rudy seeing it and sending it on to you, whatever ‘it’ is.”
“Is there anyone you trust to check Rudy’s office computer?”
Allie frowned for a moment, thinking hard. “Everyone I trust is here.”
“Can you get into it? Do you have his password?” Matt asked her.
“Yes.”
“That one first. With everyone here, it will be the easiest to get to. Stay by your phone,” Matt said to Clay, grabbing Allie’s hand and tugging her along.
Clay watched them leave, feeling helpless. Waiting would be unbearable. After the office, they would still need to check on the computer at home. Shit! Home. The kids!
Clay quickly called Jackson’s phone. No matter how he felt about the man, he had to be able to contact him and vice versa.
“Jackson, is everything okay at home?” He snapped trying to sound calm and failing. No wonder when it felt like his insides were being tossed around in gale force winds.
“Everything is fine.” Jackson sounded confused by Clay’s tone. “The girls are watching that revolting purple dinosaur, who shall not be named, and I just fed the boys and put them in their cribs.”
Clay sagged, sighing in relief.
“I heard that. Is something the matter?”
“Rudy is missing, and Matt thinks he might have been kidnapped.”
“I tried to warn him—”
“You knew?”
“He had to tell me, so I could keep an extra eye out for unexpected danger to the kids.”
“Fuck. Everyone knew but me. I’m going to have some serious words with him when we get him back.” ‘When’, not, ‘if’. ‘If’ was just not an acceptable option. “Be extra vigilant. I’ll be there soon.”
Clay made his way back into the banquet hall. The mass of people had thinned considerably. The funeral director was standing behind the drink table giving instructions to his staff and Clay approached him, drawing him to the side.
“Rudy took care of everything, right? There is no reason for me to stick around.”
“Yes, sir. Everything is paid for. My staff will handle clean up.”
“Good.”
“Clay? Is everything all right?”
He turned to face his father. “Dad, I have to go home.”
“Why? What’s happened?” His father paled. “Are the kids okay?”
“Yeah, they’re fine.” Clay sucked in a breath. “Rudy is missing.”
“Missing? Go. Find him. I’ll handle things here then head to your place with the others.” His father didn’t ask questions, simply stepped up to do whatever he could.
“Thanks, Dad.”
Clay turned and exited the room. He stopped at the front reception desk and asked the receptionist to call him a cab. She recommended one of the drive apps instead and offered to get him a ride. He thanked her and stood outside the funeral home to wait. She was right, a minivan pulled up in less than ten minutes.
Giving the driver his address, he watched the driver punch it into his GPS. The drive seemed to take forever, though it was only about forty-five minutes. Each minute dragged on his nerves stretching them taunt. Paying him, Clay quickly strode into the house.
Clay slammed open the door. Jackson immediately stepped out of the kitchen towards him, a baby monitor clipped to his waist and a washcloth in his hands. His body was tense, and Clay briefly thought he should have identified himself instead of barging into the house like a tank. When Jackson realized it was Clay, he glanced over his shoulder and then lifted the end of the cloth revealing a gun hidden under the towel. He tossed the towel over his shoulder and tucked the gun into the waistband of his cargo pants at the small of his back.
Jackson shrugged. “Sorry. Not taking chances.”
“Thank you. I appreciate it.” Not wasting time, Clay shrugged out of his suit jacket as he strode down the hall heading for Rudy’s office, he tossed the jacket though the door to his office, uncaring where it landed. He had more important things to worry about.
Jackson followed him. “I take it you couldn’t find Rudy?”
“No, he’s definitely missing. You met Matt, Allie’s detective husband this morning. Matt thinks whoever killed Clarice and Patrick has taken him.”
“Shit.”
“That,” Clay agreed.
Sitting at Rudy’s desk, he said a silent prayer to whoever might be listening and hit the power button for the computer. Jackson silently stood by him, watching. The computer hummed then the screen turned blue as the log-in window appeared in the center of it. Clay typed in Rudy’s password. The tower made a beeping sound then the familiar tune played, and the main screen appeared with all of Rudy’s shortcuts arranged along the left-hand side.
“Thank, God,” Clay exhaled in relief, unaware that he’d been holding his breath. He glanced up at Jackson. “Matt believes that Patrick stumbled upon something that got him and Clarice killed. His computer at work was stolen and the hard drive was taken from his home system. Matt’s convinced that Patrick sent Rudy a file to forward to him. That’s why the perps have taken the computers and Patrick’s phone.”
As Clay spoke, he accessed Rudy’s emails and downloaded them from the server. Scanning through them, he found one from Patrick dated the night he died. There were pictures attached which Patrick had specified in the body of the email that he wanted Rudy to send directly to Matt. Clay saved each to the hard drive, minimized the email window and opened the picture folder.
He enlarged the first picture then began to scroll through them. “That’s the inside of a trailer, but what’s that? Shelving? I don’t understand what I’m looking at.”
“I do.” Jackson’s voice was a cold as his last name. “Those are bunks, not shelves. The large rings bolted into the walls are for attaching chains to. That trailer is being used to transport people. It’s person trafficking, trading in human and shifter lives. No wonder they killed Patrick. Bastards.”
Clay stared at the images as he struggled to come to grips with the information Jackson had just given him. Patrick and Clarice, his pregnant twin sister, had been murdered because Patrick had inadvertently stumbled upon a person trafficking ring using the trucking firm he’d worked for.
He picked up his phone and dialed Matt. “Clay? Good. I was just about to call you. The computer in Rudy’s office is also missing its hard drive. Allie is pulling surveillance videos for the last few days of the elevators and the lobby area in front of her desk.”
“Rudy’s computer at home hasn’t been tampered with. Probably because there’s always been several people in the house at any given time all week.”
“Fantastic.”
“Matt, Jackson figured out why Patrick and Clarice were killed.”
“What did you find?”
“Patrick took pictures of a rig and trailer inside and out. The inside contains bunks and Jackson says it’s a person trafficking ring. There are also pictures of documents here. Manifests, I think.”
“Listen to me very carefully, Clay. Make sure you forward the entire email from Patrick containing those pictures to me. I’m going to read off two more emails addresses you need to send them to.”
Clay noted that one of the addresses was federal. He heard Allie excitedly calling to Matt.
“I’ve got to go,” he said quickly and hung up.
“Matt...” Clay yelled into the phone, but it was too late, Matt was gone. “Fuck. Now what?” Clay slammed his fist down on the surface of his desk in frustration. “I can’t just sit here and do nothing.”
“We have to find that truck,” Jackson answered. “There’s a good chance they don’t know we are onto them and the drivers might be able to lead us to where Rudy is being held.”
Clay glanced up. “Us?”
“Us. I like Rudy and I can help you get him back.”
Clay stared into Jackson’s face, deep into his blue eyes. He saw no deceit there, only honest determination. Deciding to take a chance, he nodded. “Okay, now what?”
After a moment, they spoke simultaneously, “The Walker Trucking Company.”
Rising to his feet, Clay left the office with Jackson right behind him. He entered his own office and opened a filing cabinet drawer. He pulled out a box and unlocked it. Inside was his favorite handgun, the one that he kept for emergencies and this was definitely an emergency. He quickly checked it over, loaded a clip and tucked it into his waistband like Jackson had done earlier. He felt calm, focused, like he finally had purpose now when he had been drifting for so long. Clay was going to get his mate back and no one would stop him.
“I’ll be right back,” Jackson said, spinning and almost running from the room.
Shrugging, Clay shoved extra clips into his pocket. He closed the box, left his office and headed down the hallway for the door.
Jackson met him in the foyer and grabbed his bicep. “Wait. The kids. We can’t leave the kids.”
Clay froze. He couldn’t believe he had forgotten them. But like an answer to his prayers, the front door opened and in walked both sets of grandparents, Nick and Clara. His dad took one look at the two of them and said, “It looks like we timed that just right.” He patted Clay’s arm as he moved past him. “Allie called us. We’ve got the kids. Save your mate.”
“Thanks again, Dad.”
He popped the locks on his SUV as he and Jackson quickly left the house. Clay knew where to go. He’d been to the Walker Trucking Company a couple of times in the past.
“Still nothing on the bond?” Jackson asked, gasping as he hurriedly hung onto the ‘oh shit’ bar.
Okay, maybe Clay was driving a little wilder than he legally should have but time was of the essence. He could feel it in his gut. Rudy’s life was on the line.
“Nothing. I can feel it tethered to me, so it’s still in place, but the other end is swaying loose, just hanging there. It’s hard to describe. I can’t feel Rudy anymore—at all.” That frightened him more than anything. He prayed it didn’t mean Rudy was already dead. He gave himself a mental shake. If Rudy were dead, Clay would have already followed him because of the Mate Bond. That meant Rudy was still alive. He leaned on the accelerator, pushing the SUV to faster speeds.
Incoming call from Allie Timmons. Will you accept? The car’s automated voice echoed in the interior, interrupting his thoughts.
“Yes. Accept.”
“Clay?”
“Yeah.”
“We found out who messed with Rudy’s computer. It was Christopher Millar from the IT department. He’d already cleaned out his cubicle. Seems his brother is none other than Rick Millar, the assistant manager of Walker Trucking, the trucking firm Patrick worked at.”
Clay and Jackson exchanged glances.
“The poor kid was beat to shit,” she continued. “His brother was forcing him to steal the computers to find the email Patrick had sent to Rudy. They caught him at the security gate leading to your place. Chris confessed that he was on his way to take care of Rudy’s home computer while everyone was still at the funeral. Since he’s being so cooperative, Matt is putting him under protective custody and he’s telling him everything he knows about the smuggling operation.”
“Does he know where Rudy is?”
“No.”
“Clay? Are you in your car?”
“Yup.”
There was a pause before Matt spoke again. “Where are you going?”
“To Walker Trucking. We need to have a little chat with Rick and find that truck.”
“No, absolutely not. Firstly, it’s too dangerous and secondly, the FBI has now taken charge.”
“Why? Because it’s kidnapping?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Do they know where Rudy is?”
“I can’t tell you,” he said loudly, followed by a whispered ‘no’.
Clay gripped the steering wheel tight enough that his knuckles turned white. “Then they’re not much good, are they?”
“Uh-huh, I see. Are you alone?”
Clay glanced at Jackson again, who had his eyebrows raised.
“No, I’m with Jackson Frost.”
“Good, good. Relax. I told you the FBI has a handle on this. Okay. Don’t start supper without us. We’ll pick up the kids and will be there in twenty minutes.”
Thank you, Matt. “All right. We’ll wait for you as long as we can.”
“Done and don’t burn anything. Got me?”
Clay hung up. “If I’m not mistaken, Matt is on his way and he doesn’t want the Feds to know.”
“That was painfully obvious. He also doesn’t want us getting burned. So what do we do now?”
“Now? We keep going and have a little chat with Rick. And then...” Clay scowled. “I make some calls.”
§ § § §
When Rudy awoke, the first thing he realized was that his neck felt tight as if a steel band encircled it. The back of his nape felt especially sore. He hesitated to open his eyes, his mind fuzzy, like he’d had a couple of drinks on an empty stomach and had a buzz on.
Someone gripped his hair in a tight fist and roughly forced his head back. A hand slapped his cheek none too gently and he moaned in protest. His other cheek was also smacked and he painfully lifted his lids. The harsh light from a string of overhead bulbs hurt and he had to squint to see. He jerked as cold dead-looking eyes filled his vision. They moved back until Rudy could make out the face they belonged to.
“R-Rick?”
“Rudy.” Rick crossed his arms. “Bout time you woke up. How much shit did you give him?” He partially turned and directed the question behind him.
Rudy fought against the blanket of fuzziness holding his mind hostage. Those were the two men with Rick at the funeral home, he thought with difficulty. One of them had injected him with something; he remembered a sting in his neck before he’d passed out. Stiffly, he twisted his head to see his surroundings and a wave of dizziness swamped him, almost sending him off the chair he was sprawled in.
From what he was able to catch a glimpse of, it seemed as if he was in a long wooden box. Natural light poured in from one end, contrasting severely with the bare bulbs overhead. His face being struck again forced his ind back to the three men in front of him.
“That’s better. Now, pay attention, Rudy. Patrick May sent you an email on the day he died. Did you get it? Did you open it?”
“Email?” He answered groggily. “N-no. Haven’t been on my computer all week.” He tried to order his thoughts, but it was hard. “Too busy. Funeral. Boys.”
Rick grunted. “You know what? I believe you. You haven’t downloaded any emails to your phone. I checked it at the funeral home. And if you had seen those pictures, I’m sure the police would have been by here to arrest me days ago and they haven’t. I’ve already made arrangements to have your computers taken care of. So, as far as anyone knows, you went for a walk and then just disappeared. Poof.” He snapped his fingers.
Taking a step back, Rick rubbed his chin then addressed the two men with him. “Since you two idiots killed one of the sex slaves, Rudy can take his place. No one knows where he is and now no one will ever find him. Stash him and then load up. Don’t forget to check the weight on the hidden water tanks so there’s no discrepancy at the weight stations again.” He handed one of the men a sheaf of rolled up papers. “Here’s your manifest and your trailer security seal. Load up and get the hell out of here. This mess has put us way behind schedule.” Rick fisted the shirt of one of the men and hauled him close. “Don’t fuck it up this time or you’ll both be joining the party. Got me?”
The men nodded then they each took one of Rudy’s arms. They half dragged him to the dark end of the long box they were in and opened a door. It was pitch black past the door and Rudy tried to struggle but he felt weak as a kitten and just as effective in breaking their holds.
He could barely make out shelves on either wall before he was tossed onto one of them. They held his head firmly and he heard a chain rattle, feeling a tug on his throat. That’s when he realized something cold and hard was wrapped around his neck like a steel band.
The men filed out but the last one stopped, perfectly framed in the dim and only source of light. “You can scream. You can bang on the walls all you want. This room is super insulated and secure. No one will hear you.”
The door slammed shut swallowing what little light had existed. Rudy lay in complete darkness. It was hard to tell if his eyes were even open. A moment later, a low rumble began vibrating the wall by his head.
A sharp jerk and the entire compartment was rhythmically shaking and rocking. Just before he succumbed to the drugs once more, he managed to press his hand against the wooden wall. Wherever he was, he was moving.
When Rudy finally woke up, he felt like shit warmed over. He had the worst hangover in the world without any of the night before fun. Inky darkness still surrounded him. The unmistakable constant thrumming and swaying told him he was still in a vehicle, or rather in a long box being towed by something. The only thing he could think of was that he was inside a transport trailer behind a rig.
His stomach roiled, forcing him to swallow several times, trying hard not to be sick. The overwhelming bleach smell burning his nose didn’t help. He tried to sit up and promptly banged his head.
“Ow, shit.” He groaned, rubbing his forehead. He lifted his hand, exploring overhead in the darkness and discovered another shelf only inches above him, similar to the one he lay on.
Shifting to his side, he felt a tug on his neck accompanied by the rattle of a chain. He reached for the collar around his throat. A loop on the front had a chain attached to it. He traced the chain with his fingers to another loop bolted into the wall by his head.
“What the hell?”
“Don’t bother.” A deep voice growled from the darkness. “You aren’t going anywhere. There’s just enough chain for you to reach the plastic toilet in the corner... maybe, if you stretch.”
“Who are you? What’s happening?”
“You are either going to be a sex slave or going to be hunted and killed for sport,” someone said softly from above him.
“Good God.” Rudy tried to send a mental SOS to Clay, but his brain seemed to be wrapped up in thick blankets. His mind felt muffled, underwater. And more alarmingly, he couldn’t feel Clay in his mind. The comforting presence of his mate was gone.
Growly spoke once more. “Don’t bother trying to shift either. The small box on the back of your collar pumps drugs into your system to keep you from shifting. Even if you could, the thick steel of the collar would strangle you.”
“Oh. I suppose that explains why I can’t communicate with my mate.”
Another person chirped up. “Seriously? You have a mate? You can communicate with her telepathically?”
“Him. And yes, I can.”
“Oh my God. That means you have a True Mate!” The first soft voice exclaimed. “I’d heard that True Mates were a myth, that they didn’t exist.”
“Trust me, they do,” Rudy assured him. “Clay will come for me.”
“No, he won’t,” Growly angrily threw at him. “Can’t you feel the movement? We are in a trailer and I don’t mean the RV kind. They are hauling us to God knows where. Your ‘mate’ will never find you.”
“Don’t scare the kid, Raph,” another strong sounding male spoke out.
Raph snarled back. “The only way that kid will be reunited with his mate is when he dies and his mate suddenly, out of the blue, drops dead in his tracks because of the damn Mate Bond.”
Gasps and quiet crying followed Raph’s cruel statement.
“You know what?” Rudy said, pleased with the strength in his voice even though he was quaking with fear inside. “I’m okay with that. I wouldn’t give up a minute of the time I’ve had with him, and I am beyond thrilled to know we’ll be together forever, no matter what.”
Raph grunted.
Silence reined for several minutes until finally Rudy had to ask, “How do you know so much about these collars?”
“Our wonderful guards. They took great pleasure in telling me everything that was going to happen as they abused me before putting me in here,” he snapped, his words filled with anger and pain.
Rudy’s stomach clenched in anguish at what Raph had suffered. “I’m so sorry, Raph.” It explained his harsh behavior. Raph had probably not meant to blurt that information out.
“Whatever,” he bit out. “I don’t have long to live anyway.”
“What do you mean?” Asked one of the soft voices in the dark.
Raph said nothing for a long while before he heavily sighed. “You pretty ones are going to be auctioned off as sex slaves and probably shipped out of the country. Us predators? Well, our fate is very different. We will be let loose in a special privately owned forest and hunted by humans who have paid a very high price to hunt predator shifters.”
“My Gods!” Rudy exclaimed in shock. The horror of their situation was beyond belief. “Don’t give up, Raph. Clay will find us. I promise you. He will come for me, no matter what.”
“I hope you are right, little man, otherwise, we are all doomed.”
“Rudy, Rudy Klaus-Barnet.”
“Hello, Rudy Klaus-Barnet, I am Raphael Cardona. You sound like a nice person. I wish we had met under better circumstances.”
“Me too, Raph. Me too.”
“I’m Dalton Fitzpatrick,” the first soft sounding person responded. Rudy thought Dalton was above him.
“Curtis Michaels,” came from above.
“Joel Milton,” from below him was said so softly, that Rudy barely heard the name.
“Craig Goddard.” That name was from the other side of the space, near the top.
“Ferris, Ferris Boyko.” That was directly beside him.
“Lachlan McCloud,” was growled across from him but higher than Ferris.
“Rudy. Rudolph Klaus-Barnet. Imatech?” Curtis asked.
“Yep.”
“Oh, shit. They don’t know what they’ve done. I wouldn’t want to be them when your husband shows up.” Joel sounded hopeful.
“I’ve heard of you too. My sister’s kids love your games,” Ferris said. “Okay, fine. I love them too.”
Rudy smiled even though no one could see it. “Thanks, Ferris. I’m happy to hear it.”
“I’m a troop leader in the United Shifter Youth Alliance,” Raph murmured after a moment.
Rudy had created the United Shifter Youth Alliance five years ago as the shifter version of the Boy’s and Girl’s Scouts who’d refused to allow shifters in their ranks. The Alliance taught acceptance of all shifters and celebrated their differences. Although the Alliance focused on shifters, they did accept humans who wanted to join. Often, they were the children of human-shifter matings that had produced a non-shifter child. That Raph admitted to being a troop leader said much about the man’s character.
“That’s awesome, Raph.”
“We’ve all heard of you. I don’t think there’s anyone on the planet that hasn’t.”
“I appreciate that, Craig. We’ve all got to stay strong. Help is on its way.”
“I really hope so, Rudy.” Craig paused a beat before adding, “I don’t want to end up as a trophy on some bastard’s wall.”
The enclosure grew quiet and after a while Rudy began to hate the darkness. It was stifling. The inky black felt like a physical entity enclosing him. He hauled in a shaky breath, needing to break the silence.
“H-how did they capture you, Raph?”
“I was an idiot.”
“Excuse me? What happened?”
“I’m an ER doctor. I had just gotten off a particularly grueling shift at work and decided to have a drink at a local bar before heading home. This pretty young thing approached me. I told him I wasn’t interested but he said he was a college student working on a research paper about shifters and the affect alcohol had on them. He asked if I would mind answering a couple of questions for his research. I said sure.”
Raph paused. “He pulled out a pen and opened a notebook. The first question he asked was what kind of shifter I was. I told him tiger and he seemed inordinately pleased with that. I just figured he got turned on by tigers. I didn’t know. Anyway, he asked how many shots of alcohol I could take before I noticed any effect. I told him six. He asked some more questions before thanking me, closing the notebook and putting it on the counter. He knocked my drink over with it. I told him it was fine, but the kid was so upset that I let him buy me another one just to keep the peace. I drank maybe half of it to make him happy, I’m not a heavy drinker and I had to drive home. I got up to take a leak when the room spun, and I had to grab onto the bar. The bartender offered to help but the kid said he knew me and joked that I was a real lightweight. He told the bartender he would pour me into a cab. Make sure I got home safe.”
“The rest is in bits and pieces. I remember getting into the backseat of a car and arms pulling at me. We drove for a bit and then nothing until I woke up in a warehouse. You know the rest.”
Craig piped up. “Similar thing happened to me. I was in a bar after a long day at work and a hot little guy chatted me up, said he was doing research for school. He knocked my drink over with his notebook just like you said, bought me another one, then zip—nothing—until I ended up here.”
The others all responded with similar situations.
“How about you, Rudy?” Joel asked.
Rudy sighed heavily. “My brother-in-law is...was the manager of Walker Trucking. He apparently found out about this operation and he and his pregnant wife were killed to shut them up.”
He heard gasps echo around the area. “I was at their funeral when Rick, the assistant manager, pulled me out of the room. From what they said, Patrick sent me information that I never received. They injected me and like you, I woke up here. Rick said the drivers had killed one of the sex slaves and that I would make a perfect replacement. They were one body short and this way I would disappear, and no one would ever know.”
“That really sucks. I’m so sorry,” Curtis said in a hushed voice.
Rudy couldn’t reply around the lump in his throat. Yeah, it really did suck.