She sat up suddenly, smacked her forehead into the soundproofing, and fell back onto a limp hand.
“Who’s there?” she shrieked.
Nothing answered.
She located the hand in the dark and squeezed it.
“Do you hear me?” she whispered, thinking, If that’s a corpse I’ll fucking lose it.
A half-conscious female voice mumbled, then gasped, jerked away from Beth.
“My name is Beth. Who are you?”
A voice croaked back, “Karen.” It sounded as if she spoke through clenched teeth.
“Is this hell?” Beth whispered.
“It’s the trunk of that psychopath’s car.”
Everything came rushing back in a fury of consciousness.
“Where are my children?” Beth asked.
“Your children?”
“Did he hurt them?”
“I don’t know.”
Crying now, Beth tried to shove the fear down in her craw, into that calloused niche she’d found when her husband was murdered.
He only took me. That animal did not hurt my children. Please God You did not let that happen.
Lying on their sides, facing each other in absolute darkness, the women held hands. They could each feel the exhalations of the other—warm comforting breath in their faces.
The car was in motion again and the force of inertia tossed them about in the dark at the slightest change in speed or direction. As the pavement screamed along beneath them they snuggled closer. Karen stroked Beth’s hair and wiped her wet cheeks. She wished she’d just lied and said that her children were safe.
Hours later, the car came to a stop, the engine quit, and the driver side door opened and closed.
Karen strained to listen.
Footsteps faded.
As she held Beth she concentrated on the scarcely audible sounds beyond their black cage—the distant continuous slam of car doors, the starting of engines, crying children, and the unmistakable squeak of shopping cart wheels rolling across pavement.
“We’re in a parking lot,” Karen whispered.
Three doors slammed nearby.
A voice came through: “Shannon, quit primping, you look fine.”
“She doesn’t want to disappoint Chris,” another voice taunted.
“Fuck you and fuck you.”
“Help!” Beth screamed. She jerked away from Karen’s embrace and put her lips against the foam. “Help me! PLEASE!”
“Be quiet!” Karen hissed. “He’ll kill us if we—”
“PLEASE! PLEASE! MY KIDS NEED ME!”
Karen wrapped her arms around Beth, put her hand over the woman’s mouth, and pulled her back onto the filthy carpet.
“It’s okay, sweetie. It’s all right,” she said, Beth shaking violently in her arms. “It’s gonna be all right. But you can’t—”
The voices passed through from outside again.
“There is nothing in that trunk, Shannon. You’re crazy, come on.”
“It sounded like a dog barking. What kind of sicko leaves his dog in the trunk?”
“Who cares? Chris is waiting.”
Beth elbowed Karen in the ribs, broke free, and screamed through the soundproofing until she thought her larynx would rupture.
When fatigue finally stopped her, all was silent again save her frenzied panting and the shudder of her heart.
17