Chapter 5

Now, she noted a slow turn, the way the van crawled, the screech of worn brake pads beneath her ear, still pressed against the floorboards. Diane had calmed herself. The knee that pinned her down had eased up when she stopped struggling and she’d curled herself up. She felt another inching right turn. The wheels bumped over a small ridge and then she heard the distinctive sound of metal sliding against metal coming from outside the van, the sound echoing. Garage door? Big one. In a large empty enclosure. Warehouse?

Brains not brawn, Diane, she thought. You’re a 140-pound pregnant woman. You can’t fight them. You have to outsmart them.

No one had said a word during the entire ordeal. No shout, no orders or directions given. She had seen two—no, three—men, including the driver, before they’d pulled the cloth over her head. But in her memory there were no distinguishing features. Dark clothes, maybe dark eyes inside the mask on the face of the one she did see. But were they the eyes of a white man? A black man? Asian, Hispanic? She couldn’t say for sure. It had all happened so fast; it was insane.

She felt the van stop and heard the sliding van door through which they’d dragged her being opened. Again, hands came up under her arms and dragged her out, this time with two people, one on either side, holding her up. She gained her foothold and stood, realizing for the first time that her shoes were missing. They must have come off when they pulled her into the van. They were flats she’d bought when she was at six months and her ankles had begun to swell. It was a totally bizarre thought, one that came from some involuntary synapse in her brain, but damn, she’d liked those shoes.

The surface she stood on now was cool to the bottoms of her feet, flat and hard like concrete. When the men pulled her forward roughly, she grunted in pain, her belly again feeling heavy, swinging a split-second behind each movement. It felt like it did when she rolled over in bed too quickly to answer the phone, or spun too quickly to catch an elevator door at the last moment.

In the last month, it was as if her stomach was an attachment; the weight of the baby and swollen placenta sometimes seemed independent of her own body. She’d grinned at the feeling the first time she noticed it. She was not grinning now.

They marched her across a hard flat floor, twenty-six paces. She was now counting, paying attention, determined to keep her head working instead of panicking. Then they hesitated a moment, and she could feel the hands under her armpits lift slightly, drawing her up. The top of her bare foot scraped across an immovable object. The hands continued to drag her up. She felt a flat surface, warmer like wood, and she stood on it. They were going up steps.

When she hesitated, the man on her left yanked at her. She moaned, and the gesture of pain seemed to cause the man on the right to stop and ease his grip slightly. She needed to remember the reaction from the one on the right: Was it a sign of compassion? Keep a focus on him, she thought. Try to keep track of him.

It took her a couple more steps up before she caught the rhythm and began to count: one, two, and three … seven. A landing, then a turn to the right, and then seven more.

At the top, they turned left. She tried to see under the hood, but there was nothing but blackness. Maybe the lights were off. Maybe the place was windowless. Maybe there was some sort of loose elastic around the hood and they’d somehow cinched it, but she could feel it around her shoulders. It’s dark, just dark. But these guys are still moving as if they know each step without seeing. Where the hell are we?

It was fifteen paces on another wood surface at the top of the stairs and then the sound of old hinges crying, followed by an abrupt turn to the right. When she was spun and pushed backward roughly, she panicked and thought they might actually be tossing her over the side of some elevated walkway. A bubble rose in her throat. But before she could scream, the backs of her knees hit something soft, and she sat heavily on some kind of chair … no, sofa … no, mattress.

She heard the hinges again and then the clack of a door being closed. Silence. She tried to calm herself on the mattress. She felt the roughness of the fabric beneath her with her fingertips: wool, scratchy, thick wool. She breathed in the air. She could smell the heat, the odor of old wood, stale air, dried cardboard, and a slight, pungent whiff of sweat. Not hers.

She thought of her heartbeat, then of her baby’s heartbeat, then admonished herself to focus and went back to her own heart rhythm. Calm yourself and listen, she commanded. She breathed deeply several times. Had they dumped her alone in a closed room? Finally, she took in a lungful of air, held it, and concentrated. There was another breath in the room, a most subtle sound of air moving rhythmically, in and out, and in and out. Not far away and to her right.

“Who are you, my keeper?” she suddenly said. “My captor?”

Silence.

“I know you’re here,” she said.

She listened again to the nearby breath, but now it was gone or was being held.

“I can see you there,” she lied, and tipped her head in the direction she thought the breathing had come from.

“I can see through this stupid hood and I know exactly where we are. Do you really think you can kidnap a federal judge and not have every law enforcement agency in the United States coming after you?

“They’ll find me, you know. And it will be very hard on you all. Do you know the penalty for abducting a federal judge?”

This time, she was quiet for several seconds. You can’t hold your breath forever, she thought. After what seemed an impossibly long time, she heard it. The breath was louder, no doubt from the effort to hold it in the lungs for so long.

Then Diane heard the creak of wood and the slightest swish of fabric. She thought she actually felt something. Was it her imagination or was that air against her? Was it the actual displacement of the oxygen in the room as her captor moved? She tried to sit up, to get her feet flat on the floor, but the baby made it impossible to use her stomach muscles. And with her arms bound at the wrists behind her, it was a hopeless task. She tried to roll over on her side to aid the effort and heard the structure beneath the mattress creak.

Or was that the floorboards again? Was he moving? Was he nearer? Was he close enough to slap her, strike her with a fist, or kick her swiftly in the stomach? She stopped moving and listened again. She squeezed her eyes shut and felt the moisture in the corners.

“Please,” she said softly. “Tell me what you want. Please, let’s get this over with so I can take care of my baby. Please.”