The Messenger

17

Brad Clarke looked back at the desert mansion. No one had followed him. Good. He could have a minute of peace and quiet, which he wasn’t likely to get inside the house. It was nearly dawn, but music was still blaring.

He walked along a pathway leading to one of the guesthouses. As he neared the guesthouse, he smelled cigarette smoke and swore to himself. He had been seen. The smoker waved to him-Colby.

“Thought you’d left,” Brad said. “Haven’t seen you around.”

“Oh,” Colby said in a low voice, glancing toward the bedroom window. “I’ve kept myself occupied out here.”

Brad smiled. “Entertaining one of Rebecca’s friends?”

“Oh, I wasn’t so selfish that I only entertained one,” Colby said, and Brad laughed.

“Shhh,” Colby warned. “You’ll wake them before I make my escape. Just wanted a moment outside before I started home again.”

“Glad you could make it to the party.”

“Me, too.” He paused, then added, “Your cousin’s cute.”

“Dude-”

Colby raised his hands in mock surrender. “There’s been enough fighting over her for one evening, don’t you think? Anyway, I’m taking off. Thanks again for the invitation.”

“You’re welcome. Do it again sometime.” Brad didn’t remember inviting him, but then, that could be said for more than half the people here. He’d lay money on Rebecca being the one who told Colby about the party. But he said so long to Colby and turned away from the guesthouses. He wanted to avoid any other chance meetings.

He had come outside for some air, and to get away from Rebecca, who was pouting over Tyler’s departure. Brad had been kind of surprised about the fight, because Tyler had seemed like such a mellow person.

“Hello, Brad.”

Brad felt the color drain from his face. Evan and Daniel. “You guys can’t be here!” he said in a furious whisper, looking back at the house.

“Can’t we?” Evan said.

Brad struggled, but they had him in a headlock, then gagged and bound him before he had a hope of summoning help. He felt raw fear, thought he was as afraid as it was possible to be afraid-then they blindfolded him. He tried screaming into the gag, and they slapped him hard. He felt them lift him, carrying him roughly between them, and he began to cry, which made it hard to breathe.

They loaded him into the back of some vehicle-a van or a pickup truck-he didn’t know which. He only knew that he was scared shitless. The metal surface he was on was ribbed and cold as ice. The vehicle bumped along and he bumped with it, jarred with every pothole, rolled with every curve.

Being kidnapped was not the experience he had seen on television. The rope chafed and the duct tape made him feel suffocated. There were no convenient opportunities for escape.

He began to realize that “kidnap” was probably the wrong word.

The right word was “murder.”

They were going to kill him. He felt sure of it.

Why were they angry with him? He had called them earlier, told them right away that Tyler had left the party.

Brad missed Eduardo and wondered what had become of him. Eduardo was so much easier to deal with. Eduardo was rich and sophisticated, world traveled, and world weary in a way that made him seem pretty cool. Best of all, he had taken a liking to Brad and had provided an easy way to pay off a big gambling debt while Brad waited for his next payment from his trust fund.

But Eduardo hadn’t been around lately. Eduardo had said that Evan and Daniel were his assistants, and that Brad should do as they asked. Now he wondered if all three of them were working for some Mafia boss.

They had always been mysterious. Brad knew it wasn’t just the need for quick money that had brought him to this situation-he had enjoyed the intrigue and the chance to do something on his own without Rebecca having anything to say about it.

And until tonight, he had convinced himself that it wasn’t dangerous or criminal. All he had to do was to spy a little bit on his cousin’s new neighbor. Not even spy, really. Just tell them if Tyler left for a few days-they said he traveled a lot. He was to make sure Tyler was invited to the desert party, and Brad had figured out that all he had to do to make sure Tyler showed up was to invite Amanda. If Rebecca didn’t get it that Tyler was interested in her, Brad wasn’t so blind. He had picked up on that right away.

They had been happy with him when he told them Tyler would be at the party. And then they said Brad was to tell them when he arrived, when he left. That’s all.

And that’s exactly what he did! He followed his orders. He didn’t harm anyone. And now look what had happened to him. It was so unfair.

The vehicle stopped.

His heart started pounding and his throat went dry.

They pulled him out and stood him on his feet. They took the blindfold off, and he blinked in the bright light of a desert morning. No buildings nearby. Nothing but mesquite and sandy hills and dirt roads. The vehicle turned out to be a big white pickup truck with a windowless shell covering the back.

Daniel took the gag out.

“Why-” Brad started to ask, but Evan punched him hard in the gut and all the air went out of him.

As the blows rained on him, he thought they would bury him out there.

They put duct tape over his mouth and eyes, made sure the knots on the rope that bound him were good and tight, and threw him back in the bed of the truck, where the landing was just one more way to inflame pain so intense it consumed every thought.

Eventually, he went into a kind of numbed state, still feeling the pain, but trying to think of how he might survive.

For a time he had hoped someone had seen them take him. Colby, maybe? That hope faded fairly quickly.

Rebecca would miss him-eventually. With the party going on, though-how long would it be before she was even sober enough to notice he was gone? Who else would look for him? No one, in all likelihood.

He had never been badly injured in his life, and any time he had sustained a minor injury, someone had cared for him immediately, done something to lessen the pain. This pain was as different from what he had felt before as a volcano was to a match.

But the pain wasn’t the worst of it.

The worst was the fear.

Being so afraid-believing he was about to suffer more than he had thus far, and then be put to death-was exhausting. Over the hours, terror hollowed him out. He felt as if his skin was a shell of pain encasing nothing but more pain.

By the time they unloaded and untied him, more than his hands and feet were numb. It hurt when they pulled off the duct-tape gag and blindfold, but he hardly made a sound. He blinked at the light, and noted in a distant way that he was in the kitchen of what seemed to be an old house.

They waited only until they were sure he could stand up. They lit a candle and marched him to a doorway, then down a set of concrete stairs. They hurried back upstairs, taking the candle with them.

He had not struggled against them.

Only by using the last remaining bit of his tattered willpower did Brad prevent himself from throwing up. He hadn’t noticed the smell of the basement until Evan had opened the door to the stairway. If he had felt he had any choice about it, he wouldn’t have gone down the stairs at all, but whatever resistance he might have had in him had been beaten out of him hours ago.

The stench proved to be an unwelcome stimulant, reviving awareness.

There was not the slightest doubt in his mind that he was down here with at least one rotting corpse. Maybe they had killed Tyler Hawthorne, and now he was next. Whoever it was, there was no doubt in his mind that he, too, would become a rotting corpse in this basement, and he found he had just the slightest rebellion against this left in him.

It was only a thought, no more.

Because of it, he attempted to stay on his feet.

The wall behind him was cold and damp, and where it touched his skin-he tried very hard not to think about what might make it feel the way it did.

Suddenly the stench increased and the temperature dropped.

A foul breath blew against his face as a deep voice asked, “Would you like to leave here alive, Bradley?”