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Grady tried to brace himself against the bouncing and rolling of Enrique’s car. With his wrists and ankles bound with duct tape, and another strip over his mouth, there was little he could do to free himself from the trunk. The spaghetti he’d scarfed down roiled in his stomach, and he willed it to stay put. Choking on his own puke wasn’t the way he intended to die.
As if he’d ever thought about how he might die.
At least Enrique and Xiang had believed him when he’d told them he’d been hustled out of the Springs without anything but the clothes on his back. Now, all he had to do was come up with a story they’d believe. Assuming they were going to Enrique’s place in the Springs, Grady had an hour to come up with something.
He winced as they went over another bump. Xiang and Enrique were used to having others do their dirty work, but they weren’t so out of practice that their fists and feet couldn’t still get the job done. Not that they’d needed them. Enrique’s gun and Xiang’s knife were enough motivation for Grady, but Enrique always had to pile drive his points home. Luckily, Grady had convinced them to stop when he told them he’d give them what they wanted, but it was in the Springs.
Arrogant sons of bitches, thinking nobody would dare lie to them, but it worked to Grady’s advantage. At least for the next hour.
Despite Grady willing them to get pulled over by the cops, no whoops of sirens offered hope. Nothing but road noises and loud Latin music drumming in his ears. Probably wouldn’t run out of gas, either, or decide they were hungry and wanted to grab a burger.
While part of his mind worked on a story to tell Enrique and Xiang, another part was distracted by changes in the road. They’d passed the gravel approach to the ranch, and the next stretch of road was filled with potholes. Then some twists and turns, ups and downs, followed by more turns. He’d wedged his legs against the side of the trunk, which cut down on the nausea.
Each time they stopped, Grady’s panic rose. Were they going to dump him on the side of the road like a sack of garbage? Then, after a minute or so, they’d move again. Red lights, he assumed. The road noises changed to the whoosh-whoosh of tires speeding on asphalt. That would be the Interstate. From there, a short time until they were at Enrique’s place. Grady still hadn’t come up with a good story.
If Enrique and Xiang were going to believe it, Grady had to believe it. He should have said he’d given the phone to the cops, or mailed it to someone instead of saying he’d left it in the Springs. At the time, it seemed the best way to stay alive. He needed more possibilities.
Gave it to a friend for safekeeping? Who? No, he’d have to give a name, which would mean Enrique and Xiang would wreak their havoc on an innocent bystander.
Hid it in a place where nobody would find it? He didn’t know the Springs well enough. If only he could come up with the right place. A place where retrieving it would make them conspicuous. Someplace they couldn’t get into at night, which should keep him alive until morning.
Yeah, right. As if time of day ever made a difference to the dastardly duo.
Someplace he could make a run for it? Someplace with a lot of security cameras.
He considered options one after another, dismissing most of them as quickly as he thought of them.
The car stopped. A garage door rumbled. The car moved a bit, then the engine’s vibrations ended. The garage door rumbled again. Wherever they were going, they were here. Grady steeled himself for another show of power from the two men. The trunk popped open, and he squinted against the light pouring in.
“Get out.” Enrique reached into the trunk, grabbed Grady by the ankles and pulled. The man might have earned his muscles at a gym, not working on a ranch, but bottom line, he was stronger than Grady.
“Take it easy,” Grady tried to say against the tape blocking his mouth. Xiang drew his knife, light glinting off the blade as well as the rings on all of Xiang’s fingers. Grady’s heart drummed against his chest so hard it hurt. Why had they driven him all this way if they were going to kill him? Why not do it somewhere in the middle of nowhere? They’d had plenty of opportunities.
Instead of Grady’s throat, Xiang slit the tape around Grady’s legs. “Now you walk, little one. No funny business, right?”
Grady nodded. His legs were numb, and as he tried to climb out of the trunk, he stumbled. One man grabbed each of his arms and shoved him to his feet. One on each side, never releasing their grips, they marched him into a laundry room, through a kitchen, a hall, down a flight of stairs, and along another hallway. Enrique opened a door, shoving him into a small, dark room.
Okay, this was not the house Enrique had opened to him after finding Grady on the streets in the Springs. That had been roomy—almost elegant. So where the fuck was he? Xiang flipped a switch by the door. An overhead light gave off a dim, yellow glow. The room was square, maybe ten by ten. A stained mattress lay on the floor in one corner. Atop it, a dirty gray blanket that might have been white once. A small chemical toilet. All the comforts of home. The room’s smell—sweat and piss—reminded him of his brief stint in a holding cell at the jail.
Being alive in this prison of a room still beats the alternative.
Xiang, tall and slender, with eyes so dark they appeared black, a man Grady had likened to a devil, reached for his face with a claw-like hand. Grady jerked away, but Enrique pinned his arms. “Chill, amigo. He takes off the tape, no?”
One of Xiang’s long, pointed fingernails teased the edge of the tape, working it loose. With an evil grin, he yanked it off.
Tears sprang to Grady’s eyes, and he tasted blood. He forced a grin and went with the plan he’d come up with. Be proactive.
“Boy, am I glad you showed up. That fucker of a judge stuck me in a crazy program, made me work on a ranch. You know what it’s like shoveling shit all day? Stinks, in more ways than one. Anyway, they grabbed me off the street a couple days after you were arrested and stuck me with some social worker who said she was doing me a favor, giving me a second chance. As if I wanted that kind of a chance. Guess you got out. Cool. How did you find me?”
Nothing but glares from both men.
Grady sucked in a breath, watching Xiang for any sudden moves with the knife. “Hey, you mind undoing my hands? I think the circulation’s cut off.”
Enrique shoved him onto the mattress in the corner of the small room. “You have something we want. Where is it?”
“I told you. It’s in a safe place. Honestly, I’m not even sure it would be a problem for you. It was dark, and I don’t think anyone could recognize who was in the pictures. Besides, I could have given it to the cops. I didn’t even tell them I had it. I did everything you told me when the cops grabbed me. Never said a word about you. Gave them the fake address, like you said. That’s all the stupid social worker got out of me, too. She spent more time at the mall shopping for herself than for the things she was supposed to get me for the ranch.
“Now that I’m here, I’m ready to get to work. We can forget the whole thing, okay? You know, pick up where we left off. I’m still one of your best workers, right?” He paused for breath, only half-aware of what he’d been rambling about. But they seemed to be listening.
Enrique stood, arms folded, feet widespread. Although the man was short and stocky, to Grady, lying on his back on a lumpy mattress, the man seemed to be the Colossus of Rhodes he remembered from his history book.
“I will decide that,” Enrique said. “Where is it?”
Xiang ran the edge of his thumb across the knife blade. “If he knows nothing, he is no threat. If he knows something, he is. Either way, the world will not miss this little one.”
“I am not ready to dispose of him,” Enrique said. “Until I see these pictures and judge for myself.”
“What is to say he has not sent them to others?” Xiang said, still thumbing his knife.
Grady’s mind whipped around like Ginger swatting flies with her tail. “Maybe I did. Maybe they’ll be all over the Internet in a couple of days when I don’t give my friends the code message saying I’m safe. Like I said, I had to leave in a hurry, and—” he grabbed a thought from mid-air— “and since I didn’t have my—your—phone anymore, I couldn’t call anyone.”
Grady figured if he kept throwing things out there, maybe Enrique and Xiang would miss all the holes and inconsistencies. They hadn’t gotten where they were by being stupid, but their intelligence was limited to a very narrow view of the world. If it didn’t profit Enrique and Xiang, it wasn’t worth knowing.
“You said you have what we want in Colorado Springs, little one,” Xiang said. “You tell us where it is. Now.” He stepped closer, his knife raised.