MARTA WAKES ON the floor of a van, aching and sick. The metal beneath her is cool. The interior of the van will become hot later when the sun beats down on it, the walls blistering to the touch, the floor emanating heat like an oven. But for now, the van’s interior feels chilly, like the refrigeration aisle of a grocery store.
Which is nice because she’s already feverish.
Already sick.
She can’t remember the last time she ate, but it isn’t food she craves.
It’s the other stuff.
She can’t believe how quickly she’s become hooked. When one of the men—sometimes the one they call Llewellyn with the snake tattoo, but sometimes others—brings a small baggie of brown powder, her heart races with anticipation. She waits subserviently as they pour the powder into a spoon, heat it with a lighter, suck the substance up into a syringe. She lets them wrap the rubber strap around her arm, tap her skin for the vein to fatten and become distinct.
There is a moment of pain, like a bee sting, then she closes her eyes and floats on a cloud of bliss better than anything she’s ever felt before. And when the clouds disappear and she feels the metal floor beneath her again, the sickness returns.
Sweating.
Stomach cramps.
An aching in her muscles, even her bones.
Marta sits upright, leaning her back against the wall, blinking her eyes awake. The van isn’t moving, she notices. The only window is a metal mesh rectangle between her metal holding cell and the cab. She scoots forward to get a look. Her limbs are shaky, and it’s all she can do to rise to her knees to look through the metal X’s.
Llewellyn, the man who kidnapped her and who has been dragging her around in one car or another since the day the police showed up at the warehouse, isn’t in the driver’s seat. She spots him through the windshield, pacing and with a phone to his ear. He’s waiting for someone on the other end to pick up.
Behind him, Marta sees only hills of sagebrush. No buildings or structures. The sun has recently risen, giving the landscape a warm radiance.
“Mr. Z,” he says when the person finally answers. “Yeah, it’s Llewellyn.”
She’s heard this name a few times—Mr. Z—but has never seen the person it belongs to. The men all use the name with an air of respect.
Llewellyn explains to Mr. Z how the cops showed up at the brothel where they’d been keeping Marta. He explains how he’d shot at the Texas Ranger and fled before the Ranger killed one of the men and arrested another.
“Yeah, it was that same Ranger. That piece of shit just won’t go away. He’s like a turd that won’t flush.”
Llewellyn listens. He heads toward the van, and Marta ducks her head down. She pins her back to the metal, with her head just below the window, and tries to listen.
“Okay, I’ve got a pen,” Llewellyn says. “Give me the address again.”
A minute later, Llewellyn fires up the engine of the van. He puts the phone on speaker as he pulls onto the road.
“You think it will work?” Llewellyn asks.
“I think so,” says a confident voice over the speaker. “It will look like an accident. And even if they figure out it wasn’t, it will distract them for a while.”
Mr. Z—whoever he is—has a slow, confident way of speaking. To any outsider, every Texas accent might sound the same, but growing up on the Pueblo, adjacent to El Paso, Marta can tell more from the way Texans talk than just the state they’re from. Mr. Z is an upper-class good ol’ boy. There’s money behind his Texas twang.
“Besides,” the voice on the phone says, “we just need this Texas Ranger out of the way. That will give us time to shut down operations for a while. We need to consolidate the merchandise and hang low. We’ll set up some new brothels in a month or two.”
“What about the girl with me?”
“Bring her to my place before you ditch the van and set the trap.”
Marta knows she should be afraid. Going to Mr. Z’s place can’t be a good thing. But the truth is, this fills her with hope. If Mr. Z is the boss, he’ll have plenty of stuff to make her feel better. She looks at the needle marks on her arm and is ashamed for feeling this way.
“What about the guys they arrested?” Llewellyn asks as the van rumbles down the highway. “You think they’ll talk?”
“No one will talk,” Mr. Z says. “They all have something they care about. Wives. Mothers. Children. Dogs. If anyone talks, they know I’ll have you arrange an accident for their loved ones just like there will be an accident for that Texas Ranger.”
“You just say the word, and I’ll take care of whoever you need me to,” Llewellyn says. “You know I like kidnapping these girls, but I much prefer…”
He doesn’t finish, but Marta feels she knows what the rest of the sentence is: I much prefer killing people.
The thought sends a chill up her spine.
“Yes,” Mr. Z says conversationally, as if they are discussing the weather, “we all have our own personal appetites.”
Llewellyn ends the call, and Marta sits leaning against the wall, her arms curled around her knees. She steals a glance through the window into the cab. Llewellyn is facing the windshield, where the highway leads off into desert hills. Her captor reaches for the radio and flips through the channels, finally settling for a sports talk show with the DJs discussing the odds of any of the El Paso Chihuahuas getting called up to the big leagues this year.
Marta gets an idea. She doesn’t know if it will help, but she can’t do nothing.
She crawls toward the back of the van, checks the window to make sure Llewellyn hasn’t leaned over to look back at her, and then positions herself by the back door. She takes her index finger and presses it firmly against the metal. Then does it again.
And again.
And again.
Until she’s written a message to whoever finds the van—maybe that Texas Ranger they were talking about.
She only hopes he gets the warning in time.