Hostage (10 page)

“How . . .
how long will it take?” I demanded, barely above a whisper.

“I think it took about ten minutes the last time,” Mrs. Banducci said. “It seemed like forever, and I wasn't sure they'd stay away long enough for it to work.”

My heart sank. “Ten minutes! They'll catch us for sure!”

I imagined one of Buddy's big fists smashing into my face or my stomach, and I flinched. “They'll kill us!”

“At my age, death is something I think about frequently,” Mrs. Banducci said. “I know I'm going to Heaven, and that's all right. I just hope it doesn't hurt too much.”

“But I'm not even twelve years old yet!” I protested. If she'd expressed her opinion on death sooner, I'm not sure I'd have stuck the nail into the valve to cause a flat tire. “I'm not ready to go to Heaven!”

There was a sudden burst of profanity from where the thieves were struggling to maneuver the grand piano through the barn doorway. I couldn't tell what they were arguing about, but they were definitely disagreeing. I just
hoped it kept them occupied while the rest of the air rushed out of the tire behind me. Maybe if they got to fighting among themselves they wouldn't be able to agree on what to do with us. If Mrs. Banducci was right and they intended to lock us in the rear of truck and run it into a river, would a flat tire be enough to foil that idea? Or would they run it, anyway, since they wouldn't care about cutting up a tire?

My stomach muscles suddenly tightened. The men had settled the problem with the baby grand and were stalking purposefully in this direction.

“Don't let them see you're afraid,” Mrs. Banducci said, and I wondered how on earth I was supposed to accomplish that when they could probably see my heart pounding beneath my T-shirt.

The hissing noise behind me had finally ceased.

I stared at the approaching men. My mind was still in too much of a panic to think clearly. I was too numb even to pray except,
Please, God. Please, God.
Usually I can figure out a prayer explaining to God just how to handle a problem, though Grandma said that was pretty presumptuous since the Lord is smart enough to get that part right on His own. This time I hoped that was the case, because I sure didn't have any ideas.

I didn't want to look at their faces, but I couldn't help it. Cal was the leader, and he was the one who would probably make the decision on what to do with us. He looked like a man who could step on us with no more regret than he would have if he crushed a cockroach.

When they got to within about ten feet of us, Buddy asked, “So what do you want to do with these two? We don't need hostages anymore.”

“Put them in the back of the truck. Then get rid of it. I'll follow you in the car, and we'll get out of here,” Cal said. “Bo, you can ride with me, and Buddy'll take care of the rest of it.”

A scowl formed on Buddy's face. “I'm supposed to roll it off into the river, right? So I'll be the one they hang the murder charge on if they catch up with us!”

“They'll hang the murder charge on all three of you if we die,” Mrs. Banducci spoke up from where she was sitting on the ground beside the truck. “And they will catch you. At least so far you haven't done anything to get executed for. Why don't you cut your losses and just leave us here?”

I guessed she had watched a lot of crime shows on TV. I didn't know if she was making things better or worse by talking to them that way. She couldn't appeal to their hearts because they didn't seem to have any, if they could so casually talk about disposing of us.

“She's
right about one thing,” Cal said. “It doesn't matter who actually drives the rig into the water. If they nail one of us, they'll nail all of us. But they won't if we keep our heads. There's nothing to tie us to robbing that house.”

“Except I wrote a description of the truck, and they've probably found it by now,” Mrs. Banducci said.

Cal gave her a nasty smile. “But we stole the truck, and there's nothing to tie us to that, either. We'll wipe all the fingerprints off the inside of it, for when somebody finds it in the river, and our prints aren't on file anywhere, anyway. Come on, guys, get rolling. We're wasting time.”

Buddy still looked uncertain, but I wasn't concerned about Buddy. I didn't know how far he'd try to drive before we and the truck went into the river, but it wouldn't be very long. I've heard that when people are facing death, their entire lives flash before their eyes. All I could think of was that there had to be some way out of this, and I felt frustrated because I couldn't think what it could be. Breathing had become an effort; it was as if I were paralyzed, so I had
to concentrate on making the air go in and out, and I felt light-headed and kind of dizzy. I hoped I wasn't going to throw up.

Cal was already striding away toward the house. I hadn't seen a car over there; maybe they'd hidden it back under the trees on the other side so nobody would notice it and wonder why it was there at an abandoned farm.

Buddy, still frowning, reached down and grabbed hold of Mrs. Banducci's thin arm, hauling her to her feet. “Come on, old woman. Back in the truck,” he said gruffly.

Bo hesitated. “You want me to bring this one?” he asked about me.

“Yeah, sure.” Buddy was being rougher than he needed to be, since he was much bigger and stronger than his victim. Bo wasn't very considerate, either. I felt as if he'd dislocated my shoulder by the time I was on my feet, and my balance was off, so I nearly fell again.

“Look,” I managed, “can't you untie our hands? If you're going to lock us in, what difference will it make? We can't do anything to get away, and my nose is running and I can't wipe it, and the rope is too tight! Please—”

Bo didn't
even bother to answer. It was a few seconds before I realized why his jaw had first slackened, then tightened in anger. “Buddy! Cal!” he yelled, slamming me against the side of the truck.

“What?” Cal called back, turning around halfway to the house.

“She let the air out of another tire! We got another flat!”

I'd almost forgotten that. I flinched from his angry grip, but I couldn't get away from him. I'd been sitting long enough that my feet were half numb, to match my arms.

There was more swearing as the three of them stood looking at the flat tire.

“How'm I supposed to drive this to the river now?” Buddy demanded, rage sending blood into his face. “Anybody sees us limping along on the rim is going to make us stop. Call the cops, who knows? It's too far to go without a tire, and we used the only spare there was.”

“Boy,” Bo said sourly, “this is the last time we'll trust you to swipe a vehicle. What a lemon.”

Buddy let loose of Mrs. Banducci so fast, she
fell against the side of the truck. He took a step toward his cohort with a fisted left hand ready to punch. “It didn't have flat tires when I stole it, stupid! She let the air out of it, see, the valve cap's there on the ground! It couldn't have come off by itself! I'll bet one of them did the same thing with the first tire, back at the house.”

He glared at me. For once Mrs. Banducci held her tongue, maybe because she was finally afraid that they might physically hurt us since they were so upset.

My mouth was dry, but I managed to swallow so my throat didn't quite close up.

Cal had the biggest vocabulary of profanity I'd ever heard. He kicked at the offensive flat tire. When he finally pulled himself together, he spoke through clenched teeth. “All right. We'll have to leave it here. We can't pull it into the barn without moving all that furniture, and we can't risk taking the time for that. You can drive it flat as far as where we left the car. It won't be quite so noticeable back there under the trees. Put them in the back of it, and let's get going.”

Buddy hesitated. “We gonna leave them alive? So they can describe us if anyone finds 'em?”

The constriction in my chest really hurt. I glanced toward Mrs. Banducci, who was looking as if she might have a heart attack. She was, after all, pretty old and she'd been treated roughly for a long time now. On the other hand, I thought, maybe having a heart attack would be an easier way to go than locked into a truck that was slowly sinking into a river.

I was convinced that for a matter of seconds Cal seriously considered murdering us in cold blood right where we stood.

And then Mrs. Banducci spoke. If she was terrified and shaky, it didn't show. “The cops are busy looking for you,” she told them. “Whatever you're going to do, you'd better hurry up or it will be too late.”

I closed my eyes for a blissful moment of not seeing those three enraged faces. Did she really want them to hurry up and do something, when the something was eliminating us?

When I opened my eyes again, Cal still looked as if he could chew razor blades. “She's
right. We have to move. Put them in the back, drive the truck into the place where I have the car now, and we'll go.”

“Leave them alive?” Buddy asked once more.

I was beginning to dislike Buddy excessively.

“It's too much time and trouble to do anything else. With any luck, nobody'll find them in time to identify anybody.”

“But what if they do?” Buddy persisted.

“I've got a plan B,” Cal said curtly. “But I'm not gonna discuss it in front of them. Just in case they manage not to starve to death fast enough.”

He turned his back on us and began to trot toward the house. Mrs. Banducci yelped a protest at the rough handling as Buddy grabbed her again and steered her toward the back of the truck where the double doors stood folded back.

He didn't bother to put down the lift to get the old lady into the truck. He picked her up and dumped her inside, eliciting another bark of objection from her, and then Bo did the same with me. At the same time, I saw the
hidden car move out from behind the house.

I recognized it immediately. The old black beater we'd seen cruising the streets at Lofty Cedars before we'd even moved in. So they'd been casing the neighborhood, looking for places where people were buying new stuff like TVs and computers and furniture they could get good prices for when they sold it.

And then Bo slammed the doors on us, and we heard the bars falling into place, locking us in.

For a moment we lay there, breathing hard, in the darkness. It was pitch-black, no crack of light showing anywhere.

Moments after they shut the doors on us, the old vehicle began to move forward. We didn't go very far. When we stopped, I listened intently for voices or the sound of the old black car, but I couldn't hear anything.

“Have they left us here? Are we alone?” I asked in a hushed voice. Though if we couldn't hear them, they couldn't hear us, either.

And then Mrs. Banducci said, “Well, come on, Kaci Drummond. Roll over here and see if you can untie me.”

For a seventy-eight-year-old lady, Mrs. Banducci was pretty gutsy.

“Rolling's not easy when you're wearing a backpack and your hands have been tied together so long they feel like they're going to fall off,” I said, deciding it would be more practical to maneuver onto my knees and then kind of scoot on my face toward her.

“What's in that thing, anyway?” Mrs. Banducci wanted to know. She didn't sound as petrified as I felt. “You carrying any lunch, by chance? I only had coffee for breakfast because I was expecting my friend, and it's long past lunchtime. My stomach's rumbling.”

Lunch. Food was the last thing I was concerned with, but I had packed a lunch for school, the way I always do. “I have a ham sandwich with mustard, an apple, and two oatmeal cookies,” I told her. “And a granola bar I was planning to eat on the way home.”

She made a sound of approval. “Let's get these ropes off and get at it,” she said.

It took an interminable time to get Mrs. Banducci untied. The ropes were tight, I couldn't see the knots, and my fingers were
painfully numb. Once in a while she'd say something like, “I made an apricot coffee cake this morning. My friend loves it.” Or, “That Bo fellow has bad breath, did you notice?”

Mostly I just sweated and grunted as I fumbled behind me while we sat back-to-back. At one point I broke a fingernail, and it stung where it tore down into the quick. I didn't have the luxury of time to rest and wait for the pain to ease. I gritted my teeth and kept working at the knots.

When they finally came free, I grunted in exultation, though of course we were still locked inside a truck that had been abandoned and hidden under some trees in the hope that nobody would notice it or investigate.

“I haven't been bound up that way,” Mrs. Banducci declared, “since my brother Tommy tied me to a tree when I was eight. We were playing Joan of Arc, and he went off to find kindling to put around my feet so he could burn me up. Mama wouldn't let him take any matches out of the house, and he got hungry and stopped to fix a snack and forgot all about me. It wasn't until suppertime when I didn't
come in to eat that he remembered where he'd left me. He got his butt blistered for that one, I'll tell you. Served him right.” She moaned a little as she rubbed her chafed wrists, apologized for taking the time to do it, and began to work on my knots. “Speaking of suppertime, it might be easier for me to undo these ropes if we took the backpack off. Can I unfasten a strap or something and do that before I get you untied?”

I agreed it would be a good idea, but hoped she wasn't going to want to find my lunch and eat before she accomplished the important thing, and she didn't. Since she was working with her hands in front of her, even though she still had to contend with pitch-blackness, she did the job much more quickly than I had.

I brought my hands around front and rubbed circulation back into them. My torn fingernail hurt, and I sucked on that finger for a minute, then bit off the loose part of the nail as best I could. Finally I reached for the backpack, but Mrs. Banducci had already felt her way into it.