Pinnacle Books - 2007

© 2007 by J.R. Bonansinga

ONE

Gullibility killed the cat. This silent refrain had been echoing through Dina Dudley’s thoughts on a regular basis since she was a teenager and had swallowed Robbie Pettigrue’s story about being a test subject for a male contraceptive pill. Time and time again, Dina had found that it wasn’t curiosity that did the feline in. On the contrary, it was a person not being curious enough that did the damage. It was a girl not bothering to question her mother’s blind insistence that her husband –- i.e., Dina’s dad -- had gotten his drinking under control. Or it was a girl -– i.e., Dina -- not investigating the background of a dreamy stockbroker boyfriend who turned out to be a coke dealer. In fact, it almost seemed as though Dina Dudley was getting more gullible with age. Her closest friends claimed it was simply a side effect of her being so big-hearted. And it was true that Dina had a thing for shaggy dogs, hard cases, losers. But there’s a point in every gullible person’s life when trust turns to recklessness.

As a matter of fact, right now, tonight, this moment, as she lay bound and gagged on the cold, corrugated iron floor of a battered van’s cargo hold, she was silently cursing herself for letting her gullibility finally do her in. If only she had been one iota of a degree more alert. If only she had been a single, infinitesimal scintilla more suspicious…she probably wouldn’t have stopped to help the little milquetoast in the hunting cap wrestling with his flat tire. But that’s not who Dina Dudley Dudley was. Dina Dudley was a sweetheart. Dina Dudley was gullible. And now it looked as though Dina Dudley was a dead woman.

Bone-thin and sinewy -- in recent months her coke-head boyfriend had taken to calling her Skinny Minny -- she tried to move in the darkness, but her arms ached, her wrists bound so tightly behind her back they felt numb, the plastic shackles digging into her tendons. Her denim jacket was torn, her jeans cold and wet where she had pissed herself. Her matted copper-colored hair dangled in her face. Duct tape covered her mouth, smelling of chemicals and grit. Fear constricted her throat.

Dina tried to see through the unrelenting shadows. Her best friend, Jenny Quinn, lay against the opposite wall, whimpering, also bound and trussed like a piece of meat. Raw, watering eyes, hot with horror, stared back at Dina. That was the worst part, seeing her friend Jenny like that, her old pal from Bellville High, always so bubbly, always the first to go on the roller coaster or play spin the bottle, now reduced to a mewling little caged bird. All because Dina had to go on this idiotic wilderness camping trip. Two girls from the suburbs of St. Louis. Making like they were Louis and Clark.

Meanwhile the van vibrated and rattled, grinding through its lower gears as it climbed a steep grade. Where in God’s name was the nebbish taking them?

Breathing through her nose, sniffing the rancid air of the van, Dina tried to think. It’s not too late, she urged herself, you can still get out of this, Jenny’s a wreck, she’s no help now, but you can play it cool, wait for an opening, maybe surprise the son of a bitch.

The van made a tight turn suddenly, pressing Dina against the wall.

Then the vehicle squeaked to a stop. Dina’s heart started thudding in her chest. Her mouth went dry. She could hear footsteps now, crunching in gravel, coming around the side of the van. Icy terror spread through her veins like cold poison, searing her nerve endings, making everything feel numb and sluggish.

Not now, she scolded herself, don’t freeze up now!

The rear doors suddenly clicked, then slowly creaked open on rusty hinges. The odors of pine and fish-rot and river mud flooded the van.

The dark figure stood there in the moonlight, calmly looking in at his captives. Everything about him was average, ordinary, nondescript -- from his duck billed hunting cap down to his dirty khaki pants. “Hello again,” he said in a convivial tone. “Sorry about the bumpy ride.”

Dina tried to latch on to some detail about him, some mark or scar that she might remember later for the cops, but it was difficult in the darkness. His face remained in shadow, his head haloed by moonlight. In fact, from the moment he had jumped them on the trail a few hours ago, Dina had caught only fleeting glimpses of the man. All she could tell for sure was that he was middle aged, probably white, very strong, and spoke with a flat midwestern accent. Modulated and genial. Like a TV game show host.

“Don’t you worry your pretty heads now, ladies,” he murmured as he went for Jenny first, grabbing her by the ankles, eliciting an anguished moan out of her. Then he started pulling her from the cargo bay as though he were removing a canvas bag full of dirty laundry. Then he said something else that sent an electric bolt of panic down Dina’s spine.

“It’ll all be over soon.”

Back to top