Taken

Jillian tried again to clear her head. Had she hit it somehow? Fallen? But why would she be lying in straw that reeked of urine? In what seemed to be some sort of moving vehicle? Some type of truck?

From the way that sound bounced around the space, it seemed to be a fairly large one.

Moving carefully this time, she shifted, looking for a more comfortable position. Her arms felt heavy, weighted down. She shifted her legs but recoiled when her left shin touched the straw. It felt as if someone had stabbed her there repeatedly with an ice pick. And it wasn’t just her shin and head that hurt, either. Her whole body ached.

What in the hell had happened to her? Had she been in some kind of accident?

A gun blast…

Everything came back to her in a horrible rush. She and Megan had been driving down to Charleston. The woman in the road. The man with the shotgun.

Jillian clenched her eyes as the next memory hunted her down there in the dark. The sound of a shot fired in the woods. Dread filled her chest. Megan. She searched her memory but couldn’t recall what happened next.

“Megan?” In her head, she screamed her sister’s name, but she knew in reality her voice had barely been a whisper.

“Jill—Jilly? That…that you?” Megan’s voice came from right behind her.

Ignoring the pain, Jillian reached out. A chain rattled and she realized there truly was weight around her wrist. A single manacle. She was chained up.

“Jilly? Where are you?”

“Here.” Unable to see, she scooted toward her sister’s voice. Was there enough slack in the chain to reach her?

To her surprise, she found her sister lying almost next to her in the straw. Fumbling her way upward along Megan’s arms, Jillian discovered that her sister was chained up, too. Jillian ran her fingers up until she found Megan’s face. Her cheeks were cool to the touch. “Megan? Are you okay? I heard a gunshot. Were you hit?”

“N-no.” Her sister’s voice sounded slurred. “They…they gave me some kind of pill. You, too.”

Turning away, Jillian forced a finger down her own throat. She immediately retched into the straw, but it took several more attempts before she actually vomited. And it wasn’t until she dry heaved that Jillian finally sank back to the floor. How much of the drug had already reached her system, though?

Suddenly recalling her cell phone, Jillian dug into her jacket pockets but didn’t find it. No doubt they’d taken it from her.

“Megan?” When her sister didn’t respond, she nudged her. “I need you to force a finger down your throat.”

“Tried. Did…. didn’t work.”

Jillian shook Megan’s shoulder hard. “I need you to try again.”

Megan obediently turned onto her side.

As Jillian listened to her sister’s repeated attempts to vomit, she wondered about the woman they’d tried to save. Had she made it? Or was she already dead? And if dead, had they left her in the middle of the road? Or was she concealed somewhere close by in the dark?

She recalled their attacker’s confidence. He’d seemed unconcerned about discovery.

“No…good,” Megan said after long moments. “This is all my fault…getting us lost.”

“Neither of us is responsible.” Jill moved closer, straining to see. Megan appeared to be lying on her side, her knees drawn to her chest.

Jillian smoothed the hair back from Megan’s forehead. “Tell me everything you can. How many are there?”

“Two.”

“Was I out very long?”

“Don’t…don’t know,” Megan mumbled. “Tired. Cold.”

“What about the woman? Do you know what they did with her?”

“Here.”

Jillian scanned the intense darkness. “Lady. Are you there?” she called, and then waited for any sign of life. When there was none, she leaned over her sister again. “Did the men say anything?”

Megan pulled her legs even tighter to her chest. “Say ’bout what?”

Jillian gave her sister a gentle shake. “Where they’re taking us. What they plan to do with us.”

She didn’t really expect her sister to know those answers. Obviously, Megan was half-gone with whatever they’d given her.

“Kill…us. Like woman.”

“They said that?” Jillian waited for her sister to answer, but she didn’t. “Megan?” Jillian gave her a hard shake this time. “Stay with me.”

But when she still didn’t respond, Jillian sat back. With Megan out, it was going to be up to Jillian to protect both of them. But how? As long as they were chained up, they were pretty much helpless.

Jillian propped her back against the mesh wall and carefully straightened her injured leg. If she flexed her toes, she could just reach the opposite mesh wall. If she had to make a guess, the truck must normally be used to haul some type of livestock.

Given the truck’s speed, she assumed the road they were on to be a secondary one and not a major highway. Was it possible that she’d been unconscious only a short time? That they hadn’t gone all that far? Were still in the Francis Marion National Forest?

If she could get them free from the shackles and get the back doors open, they could wait for the truck to slow even more and…

Jillian tried forcing the manacle over her hand. Unsuccessful, she collapsed her palm at the same time as she pulled. Continuing to manipulate the cuff, she rocked it back and forth as she twisted.

She added some hard-to-come-by spit to her wrist. She’d been fortunate to avoid the full dose of whatever they’d given Megan, but she couldn’t count on that happening a second time. Once drugged, there would be no hope of escape.

Just as there was already no hope of rescue.

With no witnesses to their abduction, who would miss them? No one back home expected to hear from them. And even though they had confirmed reservations at one of Charleston’s better hotels, the hotel staff wasn’t likely to call the authorities when Jillian and Megan failed to check in. They’d run the cost for one night’s stay through on Jillian’s credit card and then cancel the other two nights. And when Jillian didn’t show up for her job interview tomorrow, her résumé would hit the circular file. End of story.

Eventually someone might find Jillian’s abandoned car. But by the time the police were brought in, the trail would be cold. The story of two missing sisters might make America’s Most Wanted, but after a few months another kidnapping, another unfortunate incident would push their plight into the background. And with no family to stoke anyone’s memory, she and Megan would be forgotten.

She couldn’t let that happen. It couldn’t end like this. She wouldn’t allow it. Somehow. Some way. They were going to survive this.

In sudden frustration, Jillian tore at the manacle and in the process peeled open the heel of her hand. Cursing, fighting tears, she bent over her wrist. She’d heard of animals chewing off a paw to escape a trap and of people cutting off a limb just to survive, but she didn’t have any type of instrument to accomplish an amputation. And even if she did, she doubted that she could actually go through with the self-mutilation. At least not yet.

But would it come to that? Would there come a time when she’d be willing to do just about anything? She decided it might be best not to think about the future. Swallowing her tears, Jillian ran her hands upward over the wire-mesh wall to the overhead mesh. For now she needed a skinny piece of metal.

She’d only picked one lock in her life and there’d been someone standing over her shoulder the whole time, explaining the process, but at least it would keep her from going crazy while she came up with something better.

With a quick indrawn breath, she jerked her fingers back, having encountered something sharp. After several seconds, going back to the same spot, she explored more cautiously but just as desperately.

A sharp scraping sound, like nails across a chalkboard, shrieked from overhead. Even though she was encased in suffocating blackness, Jillian stopped moving and stared upward for several seconds. When another screech followed the first, she realized it was just a low tree limb dragging across the outside of the truck, and went back to what she was doing.

It seemed as if she’d exhausted every inch of available surface before she finally located a piece of metal that wasn’t firmly attached on one end. With her second attempt to break it off, she managed to rip off the meaty end of her finger instead. With the sixth attempt, she jammed it beneath her fingernail. With no other choice, and blood now interfering with her ability to grasp, she continued as best she could, stopping only when she could no longer hold her arm above her head.

Finally the two-inch length of metal broke free and immediately fell into the straw.

Desperately, Jillian foraged. This was literally a needle in a haystack. She’d never find it. Panic tightened her chest, as dread deepened inside her. As long as she had a course of action, she’d been okay, but suddenly the ability to cope evaporated.

After several difficult seconds, she managed to partially rein in the panic. She needed to keep it together. The piece of metal would be heavier than the straw. Maybe it had dropped through the bedding, was resting against the floor. Finding the piece of metal where the back wall met the floor, Jillian picked it up and settled back, her manacled hand resting in her lap.

Holding the crude pick between the thumb and first two fingers of her free hand, she used the remaining two fingers to locate the lock, then in an awkward movement attempted to shift the pick forward and into the opening. She kept at it even after her fingers had gone numb from the pain and the cold.

The truck slowed to make a sweeping right turn. Everything seeming to creak and shift at once—the metal overhead, the wood wall next to Megan, the floorboards under Jillian. Holding her breath, Jillian waited for the truck to accelerate. When it finally did, it wasn’t nearly as fast. Were they stopping?

Frantic, she shifted into a different position and jammed the metal pick down. The lock suddenly clicked, and the manacle slid off with a soft clang.

Jillian immediately rolled onto her knees. As she reached for Megan’s handcuff, her sister stirred.

“Megan, wake up!”

“Jilly?”

“I’m free,” Jillian said. “We just need to get you loose, too.”

Megan tried to sit up, but quickly lost her balance and flopped into the straw again. When she tried to sit up the next time, Jillian stopped her. “It might be better if you don’t try to help me.”

“Hurry.”

Jillian had expected it to be easier the second time, but quickly realized that her first success had been nothing more than sheer luck. She jabbed the piece of metal into the opening.

Suddenly braking again, the truck made a hard left and immediately adopted a waddling motion as if it rode the ruts of a washed-out road.

Losing her balance, Jillian wobbled forward, then was thrown backward, her right shoulder and the side of her head bouncing off the mesh. Brake pads squealed as the truck slowed; its tires churned through soft sand or mud for a minute or more before giving up.

As soon as the truck came to a halt, Jillian reached for Megan’s wrist again.

“Why did they stop?” Megan mumbled.

Jillian listened as she worked at the lock, asking herself the same question. Was the stop only temporary? Had they stopped to relieve themselves? To check their route?

Two seconds later the engine was shut down. In the ensuing silence, the sound of the radio in the cab drifted through, the station a country-western one.

A door opened, the hinges screeching for oil. Jillian briefly heard the rumble of male conversation. She went still, waiting to find out if a second door would be opened.

Her brain leapfrogged. What was she going to do? And how? And when? She’d been so focused on getting free of the manacle, seeing that as the first obstacle, that she hadn’t given any thought to the next step.

Jillian searched for the handcuff that she’d removed only minutes earlier. Finding it, she pulled it next to her. Did she have the courage to place it around her wrist again?

When the cab door suddenly slammed, Megan and Jillian both jerked. Jillian immediately rotated Megan’s cuff until she found the lock, but neither woman spoke.

Nearly a minute later, there came a rhythmic sound that Jillian couldn’t identify. What did it matter, anyway, what they were doing? What was important was getting Megan free.

What about the woman from the road, though? What if she was still alive? If she was chained up, too, which Jillian assumed she would be, there wasn’t time to free her.

But how could they leave her behind?

Having ceased for nearly a minute, the sound started up again, outside. Megan shifted. “Oh God…they’re digging. Why?”

Jillian tried to ignore the question. The answer was too obvious.

“Jilly?”

“Don’t think about it.” But now that Jillian knew the origin of the sound, she could no longer block it out. Was that the reason they’d stopped? Was the woman dead and they intended to bury her?

Or were they digging three graves?

The sound stopped. The silence that followed was even more frightening.

When the latch on the truck’s rear door rattled, Megan pushed Jillian away. “No more time.”

“I’m not going without you.”

“One of us gets away, the other…better chance.” Megan’s fingers, suddenly strong, grabbed Jillian’s arm. “Go! Get help.”

The sound of the door being shoved upward was like that of a small roller coaster clattering to a stop. As moonlight penetrated the interior, Jillian got a look at their surroundings.

At first, she thought she’d hallucinated. That the drugs were somehow responsible for what she was seeing. But as Megan stiffened beside her, she knew that she wasn’t that lucky.

Oh God!

There had to be at least six young women—maybe even teenagers—out cold and chained up like livestock, one to a mesh stall. Some wore only shorts and T-shirt. Others had on jeans and sweaters. Despite the cool temperature in the truck, there were no blankets covering any of them.

The woman they’d been trying to save was there, too. Her light-blue skirt wrapped her waist like a thick belt, and her blouse lay open, exposing her rib cage. She wasn’t in a stall, though, and didn’t appear to be restrained like the rest. Did that mean she was dead?

As a man climbed up into the truck, his body briefly blocked the moonlight. It wasn’t the same gun-toting scum from the road. This one was closer to Jillian’s height, five-seven or five-eight, and was dressed in jeans and cowboy boots.

As if he had a single objective, he headed to the front of the truck. Once there, he nudged the woman from the road. When she didn’t respond, he dug the toe of his boot into her back and gave a hard shove, rolling her without resistance onto her belly.

Next, he grabbed her by the arms and hauled her to a spot just inside the door. As he returned to the front of the cargo area again, he pulled a medicine bottle from a front pocket and shook out a pill, clearly intending to dose the other women.

Already unconscious, the first one didn’t fight when he shoved whatever it was into her mouth. He moved counterclockwise to the next girl. She wore jeans, a pink sweatshirt and a pair of athletic shoes. “Come on, darlin’. You know the routine.”

He used her hair to roughly pull her head around, and then pried open her mouth. She appeared younger than the others, or maybe she was just smaller.

Jillian watched through slitted eyes. How often did they drug them? Every four hours? More often? Less often? Would she and Megan have more drugs forced into their mouths in the next few minutes, or would he skip them this time?

As he moved on to the next, Jillian glanced at Megan. But with eyes filled with shock, Megan stared at the woman from the road. Jillian wanted to reach out to Megan and offer comfort, but couldn’t because she needed to keep the empty manacle concealed. Maybe if they were lucky, he wouldn’t stop to check on them. Obviously, they hadn’t reached their final destination. The only reason they’d stopped was to bury the woman. Given more time, Jillian could free Megan.

But even once they were free, there would be the problem of getting out of the truck, since the back door was locked on the outside.

She’d made her decision by the time he stepped in front of her. If he didn’t notice that she was free, she’d stay put. If he did…

When he nudged her with his boot as he had the woman from the road, she grunted softly as if too out of it to do any more.

But then he reached down and pulled on the chain; the empty manacle swung free. “What the…?”

Jillian kicked hard. He avoided the blow. But not the one Megan landed against the back of his knee.

“Bitch!” He tried to grab the mesh wall for support, but instead went down hard.

Even as Jillian snapped the manacle around his wrist and vaulted over him, he was already yelling for his partner.

Jillian hesitated just inside the door, looking out at the dark surrounding trees, looking out at freedom. But she couldn’t jump. It was as if she were still shackled in place.

“Go!” Megan screamed.

The second man climbed out of the cab. Though she couldn’t see him, she heard the sound of a shotgun round being chambered.

“Now,” Megan shouted as she kicked at Jillian’s ankle. “You have to go now.”

Her muscles frozen, Jillian turned back to her sister. “I’ll be back for you. No matter what.”

In the split second before the second man came into view, Jillian did the most difficult thing she’d ever done in her life.

She jumped.

Chapter Three

Time unknown

Jillian raced for the trees. Rain pummeled down. She plunged into the woods as a shotgun exploded behind her, leaves shredding less than a foot away. A second round quickly followed. Without looking back she careened forward, dodging trees, her feet slipping on wet leaves, her hands out in front warding off small branches.

There was not time to think about what she’d just done, about the sister she’d left behind. There was survival.

Seconds later she heard the men crashing after her, one following in her wake, the other off to the right, as if trying to block access to the road.

A wasted effort. If the area was remote enough that they hadn’t hesitated to use a shotgun, even if she reached the road, she was unlikely to find immediate help—the only kind that was going to do her or Megan any good.

For now she’d stick to the woods, hope to either lose or outrun them. But where was she? How far from where they’d been kidnapped?

She fell several times, but came up like a sprinter out of a starting blocks, attacking the gauntlet of oaks and pines and the leaf-covered stumps. She was gasping for air now, her lungs aching. How much longer could she continue the grueling pace? How much farther could she go?

Blocking out those thoughts, she substituted others. Keep moving. Stay ahead of them. Don’t look back.

There finally came a point when she couldn’t do any of those things, though, and like an animal run to ground, she collapsed.

Fear spiked through Jillian as she lay heaving, the rain slashing through the tree canopy, reaching her, splattering her chilled skin. Minutes crept by as she listened, as she prayed, and as she considered what she was going to do if she actually had outrun them. She couldn’t waste time stumbling around these woods, hoping to find a house.

Which left only one option—the road. Jillian stumbled to her feet, stood there unsteadily, briefly staring back the way she’d come. Once satisfied that she wasn’t being watched, she turned and headed in what she hoped was the direction of the road.

But even when she reached the narrow and unlined pavement, she remained hidden in the bordering trees, recalling how the woman she and Megan had tried to save had exploded from similar woods.

The kidnappers weren’t dumb. They’d know that sooner or later she’d have to make for the road.

Was that how they’d caught the other woman? By waiting for her to go for it?

Jillian’s fear was so strong that even when she saw the headlights of an oncoming car, she found it difficult to get to her feet.

What if it was a trap? What if instead of being rescued, of helping to save Megan, Jillian was about to be captured again?

Realizing that there was no other choice, Jillian raced onto the road and into the path of an oncoming car.

Tuesday, 2:18 a.m.

RICK BRADY AWAKENED abruptly, momentarily disoriented. As the phone rang a second time, he rolled toward it, squinting at the clock as he went.

It was after two in the morning. Who would be calling?

When he’d been with Charleston PD, it wasn’t unusual to be called out in the middle of the night sometimes. And because he had, back then, he’d slept where he could easily reach the phone. But he’d been a civilian for nearly five years now, long enough for the habit to die.

He was still attempting to free himself from the sheets when it rang a third time, and he suddenly encountered something warm and solid stretched out next to him.

“Move it, Bax,” Rick mumbled.

The eleven-year-old male golden retriever that had been sleeping with its head on the second pillow grumbled, but didn’t get out of the way until forced off the bed. As soon as his paws hit the wood floor, though, Bax was on the move, bounding back onto the mattress and heading for the warm spot vacated by Rick.

Having finally located the phone among the pile of law magazines, Rick took a few more seconds to clear his head. He ran a hand over his face and squinted at the caller ID.

“PRIVATE.”

The phone rang a fourth time. He hit the talk button. “Rick Brady.”

“Detective Nate Langley with the Charleston County Sheriff’s Office.”

The name wasn’t one Rick recalled from his years on the force.

Propped against the headboard now, he did a quick mental scan of his current client list but came up empty. Not because those that he represented were incapable of murder, but because most of them were already behind bars for that particular felony. That was the up side of handling death-penalty appeals. Rick always knew where to find his clients. Unless…

Had one of them escaped?

“I know it’s late,” Langley said.

“What can I do for you, Detective? I assume this has something to do with one of my clients.”

There was a pause. “No. I’m actually looking for some help with a case.”

Rick remained silent, waiting for the detective to go on.

It took several seconds for Langley to take the hint. “Eight years ago your father was the lead detective on a case. The Midnight Run Murders.”

“Go on.”

“Is it true that even after his retirement, he continued to investigate? And that since his death, you’ve been doing the same?”

“Where is this conversation headed?” Rick abruptly swung his legs over the side of the bed and dragged the sheet across his lap. “And why call me at—” he eyed the clock “—two in the morning to ask?”

“There’s been another incident.”

Incident? It was an odd word choice. Especially when used in the same conversation with the Midnight Run Murders. His father had been obsessed with the case.

“And you think there’s a connection?” It had been over six years since the official investigation of the Midnight Run Murders had ground to a halt and the case had gone cold for everyone but his father.

“I wouldn’t be calling you if I didn’t think there was a connection.”

Hearing the irritation in Langley’s voice, Rick found it more difficult to hold on to his own. “Any survivors?”

“One. She managed to escape. The rest appear to be headed south.”

A witness? The last time there had been one, too. Unfortunately, she hadn’t lived long enough to tell the cops anything.