Fatal Error

15

Scotts Flat Reservoir, California

Brenda Riley awakened confused and frightened in a terrible moving darkness. Somewhere nearby her cell phone was ringing, but she couldn’t reach it, couldn’t answer. Her hands were bound behind her. Her feet were bound too. There was a strip of something fastened to her face, and she was desperately cold.

She realized she had to be in the trunk-the large trunk-of a moving vehicle. She could hear the rush and scrape of pavement under the tires, but she had no idea where she was, where she was going, or how she came to be there.

Her memory was fuzzy. Foggy. She vaguely remembered being at home in the morning. After that she had gone to her meeting, her usual Friday noon meeting. And then she was supposed to meet someone for lunch, but right that minute, Brenda couldn’t recall the woman’s name. She had no idea of what had happened to her or how much time had elapsed. What she did know for sure was that she needed to pee desperately.

Brenda tried moving her legs and managed to make a few feeble thumps with her feet. It didn’t do any good. The car kept on moving and her sudden movement, compounded by the cold, made her need to urinate that much more critical. If the person driving the vehicle heard the racket from the trunk, it made no difference, at least not at first, but then the car seemed to hesitate. It turned off the pavement onto a rough gravel track of some kind.

As the vehicle came to a stop, Brenda’s heart filled with dread. Moments later, the engine died. With a thump, the trunk release was engaged and the lid opened automatically. For a moment she was astonished by how bright the night sky was overhead. After the impenetrable darkness, the stars above were more brilliant than she had ever seen.

She heard the crunch of footsteps on gravel. A moment later a woman’s face appeared in the starlit night. In that moment of clarity, Brenda recognized her. Mina Blaylock, the mystery woman on Richard’s list.

Brenda struggled against her bonds, tried to say something. “Please, let me out. I need to use the bathroom.”

For an answer, Mina reached inside. Brenda saw the hypodermic in her hand. She tried to dodge out of the way, but she couldn’t. The needle plunged deep into the muscle of her upper arm. That was one of the reasons Brenda was so cold. Her arms were bare. Where was her coat? Where was her blouse? Brenda tried to struggle, but she couldn’t escape the woman’s fierce gloved grip. At last Brenda lay still.

“Good,” Mina said. “That’s better.”

She reached inside the trunk again. As Brenda watched, Mina took Brenda’s purse out of the trunk. With the purse gone, so was Brenda’s cell phone and so was any hope of summoning help. Next Mina wrenched off Brenda’s shoes.

“Where you’re going, you won’t be needing your purse anymore, and you won’t need shoes either.”

Dimly, Brenda heard a sound from somewhere nearby. Mina heard it too. She looked over her shoulder, then slammed the trunk lid shut. There were more footsteps, hurried ones this time, then the engine turned over, and the car moved. As darkness enveloped her again, Brenda realized that her prison was now lit with an eerie reddish glow leaking into the trunk from the taillights outside the car. She wondered how much time had passed, enough to turn day into night.

Brenda considered briefly about the kind of substance that had been in the hypodermic. Moments later, however, she felt her heartbeat speed up. For a time she had difficulty catching her breath. Then, gradually, the drug overwhelmed her and she drifted into unconsciousness once again, unaware and unembarrassed that when she lost control of her mind, she also lost control of her bladder.