Ridley strolled back to the truck as if he had all the time in the world and climbed into the cab. The truck pulled out of the parking lot, with Carina close behind. She hadn’t heard any reports of the accident or traffic tie-ups, but maybe she’d been lost in thought. She switched the radio off and paid full attention to the truck.

The moving van turned off onto a secondary highway lined with an unbroken wall of strip malls and fast-food joints. The heavy traffic stopped every hundred yards or so for traffic lights. Carina was grateful, after a couple of miles of stop and go, when the truck’s directional lights signaled a right turn.

She was less thankful when they began to pass through a deteriorating neighborhood of seedy apartment houses and run-down commercial areas that looked as if they dated back to the Great Depression. Graffiti were scrawled on every vertical service; litter had washed up along the gutters. The unsmiling people she saw seemed stoned on drugs, as they probably were, given their surroundings.

Minutes later, they passed through an area that looked like a war zone. What had once obviously been a busy commercial area was a deserted neighborhood of abandoned stores, shut-down garages, and padlocked brick warehouses. Vacant lots were overgrown with weeds and cluttered with windblown papers.

Carina was frustrated at not being able to communicate with the truck. She tapped her car horn. Ridley stuck his muscular arm out the window and waved, but the truck showed no sign of stopping. She was looking for a wide place in the road where she could come up alongside, when the truck turned off into a potholed restaurant parking lot. The word PIZZA could barely be made out on the faded sign on the front of the dilapidated brick building.

Carina expected Ridley to come back and tell her that they were lost. When he didn’t, she became annoyed, then angry. She clutched the wheel as if she wanted to pull it off. The truck just sat there. She thought about getting out, but one glance around at her desolate surroundings told her that she was in a very unhealthy place.

She reached over to press the lock button on the door. In that instant, a figure materialized from behind an old Dumpster, opened a rear door of her car, and got into the backseat.

“Hello,” the man said in a soft, breathy voice.

Carina looked in the rearview mirror. Round eyes stared out of a baby face. She was looking at the hijacker she’d seen as she lay tied up in the ship container. She was gripped with fear, but she had the presence of mind to reach for the door handle. She felt coldness on her neck and heard a low hiss. She lost consciousness, and her head lolled on her chest.