46

THERE WAS NO QUESTION IN MY MIND THAT I WOULDN'T GO with him. My two encounters with the stun gun had left me dazed and weak. I had the knife so I might have a chance, but I also needed my strength, which as long as I was getting zapped would continue to ebb. Realistically, I'd have one shot at him and I had to make it count.

I'd often in the past daydreamed about someone abducting me in a shopping center parking lot. You know the drill. Bad guy comes up with a gun and either jumps in your car or makes you get back into it and then drives you out in the toolies somewhere, far from other people or help, and then proceeds to rape you and then kills you. I'd play the mental game with myself, what would I do ?

Given that scenario, my solution was always that I would stay in the parking lot and fight like hell or run and take my chances of a bullet in the back. I'd risk all that for the benefit of being in a populated area where someone might see fit to give me aid or at least call 911.

Yet here I was, on my home ground with a man who had caused me more physical pain than any man ever had, and I was actually thinking it was a good idea to leave with him in his car. More than likely to go to a remote place where he would try to kill me.

Real life.

Getting zapped with a stun gun can do that to you. And hope can drive you to places where you never thought you'd go.

As we neared the ancient, faded Bronco I noticed that even the tires were old, with cracked, split sidewalls. Peter opened the driver's door and got in, sliding across the console to the passenger's seat as he pulled me in behind him. As he dragged me into the tattered driver's seat, the blade of the knife shifted. Although I tried to hunch my back to catch it, I felt the knife slip deeper in my shorts. The tip was now near my bra line and the rubber haft fell below my waistline.

“Pull the door closed,” he ordered.

I did as he said, moving carefully so the knife wouldn't stab me.

“You're driving.”

As though I hadn't figured that out.

The interior of the car was shot. The cloth seats were ripped and torn and I could see the foam padding underneath. A gaping hole was all that was left of what had been a radio. The windshield was a road map of cracks and glass starbursts. While I thought ranchers were hard on trucks, this one was a real beater.

The dashboard looked as though someone had taken a knife to it, a victim, I suspected, of being left unprotected in the hot Arizona sun. Glued between two of the long, wide dashboard slits was a faded plastic Madonna. She'd pulled off miracles before and I said a silent prayer that she could do it again. For a Presbyterian. For me.

“Nice car,” I said.

“It's not mine.”

No kidding.

I was praying that Juan had awakened from his afternoon nap and was out in the garden. Not that I'd expect him to do anything, but I was hoping for the solace that he could at least tell someone that I'd gone off in the Bronco. But it was not to be. As we drove slowly past the vegetables, there was no one there but the birds pecking at the bright, ripe tomatoes.

I drove out the dirt lane a lot slower than I ever had, barely distracted by the pair of bouncing foam dice that swung from the cracked rearview mirror. Peter said nothing, seemingly content with our pace. When we passed the turnoff to Sanders's ranch I threw a longing glance in that direction, wishing I could mentally make him appear.

Unfortunately we made it all the way out to the highway passing only one person I recognized, Ginny Eske in her Blazer with her passel of kids. She drove past not noticing me. But then, why would she? I was piloting a strange car, not Priscilla.

While I'd had trouble staying awake on my drive home from town just a short time ago, my priorities had shifted and, although exhausted, my adrenaline had kicked in. Now that I was worried about sleeping permanently, I was eager to stay awake as long as I could.

I didn't talk and neither did he. While I was full of questions, I was still trying to get my mind back on track. My eyes drifted down to the console between us where Peter's tan hand clutched the thing that looked like an innocent TV remote controller. The problem was, I knew better. And I was terrified of getting zapped again. I'd thought I was having a heart attack when he hit my back. Was there a cumulative effect to those things? Is that what he planned, to zap me to death? Was that possible with a stun gun? I shuddered.

“Are you cool enough?”

“Pardon me?” I stole a quick glance at Peter, who was adjusting the controls of the refrigeration unit. It was one of the few things in the old car that seemed to be in good shape.

“It's on high,” he said, almost apologetically.

What in the hell was going on? He'd just zapped the shit out of me twice with a stun gun and now he was solicitous of my comfort? What was I going to tell him? The temperature's fine but I have this stupid knife poking me in the back and my legs feel sticky and itchy from where I wet myself. And I'm worried that you're going to kill me. Hardly.

Although it was as much of a rush hour as we ever get when we drove through La Cienega, as near as I could tell, no one noticed us.

We were just through town, nearing the County Line Road, when he said, “Turn here.”

I did as he asked and headed west across Big Wash toward the Tortolita Mountains. The road hadn't been graded in a long time and we bounced and rattled over its washboard surface. I dropped the speed down to twenty-five and tried to get a grip on my possibilities.

So far, I'd only seen the stun gun. Could he have another weapon? While I was sure that I'd read somewhere that you couldn't kill a person with a stun gun, hadn't I also read that the electrical impulses could cause heart attacks? Was that what he planned? To heart attack me to death? While I knew I didn't want to go through getting zapped again, I felt slightly encouraged. In order for the thing to work, he needed to have physical contact with me. If I could just distance myself from him, the stun gun would be useless. If.

The knife prodding me in the back reminded me that I wasn't entirely defenseless.

We passed no one on the long, lonely dirt stretch. That didn't surprise me, since the mine at the end of the road had closed long ago and there were no residences out here. This was all state land, empty but for the grazing bald-faced cattle and the normal desert denizens. Occasionally on the weekends, or during hunting season, groups of four-wheelers would come out, but today was neither.

Remembering the cracked sidewalls I found myself hoping—for the first time in my life—for a flat tire.

The road was getting progressively worse as we neared the mountain. In my fatigue, I missed a washout on the right-hand side and the Bronco lurched and bucked hard, sending both of us bouncing in our seats. As I came down, there was a soft pop, like a balloon bursting, as the blade of the knife jabbed me hard in the back.

“Arrrgggh,” I yelped. As I shifted my weight to redirect the knife the vehicle swerved across the road.

“Watch it,” Peter growled.

Tears flooded my eyes along with the awareness of a searing burn just below my shoulder blades. I gripped the steering wheel and fought the urge to pass out. Flattening my upper torso against the seat, I felt a cool spot spread in the middle of my back. I didn't have to look to know what it was. Blood. Shit! I'd managed to stab myself in the back.

As I pressed my shirt against the seat it didn't feel as though I was gushing blood. I increased the pressure in an effort to stop the bleeding, praying the blade wouldn't poke out my shirt and get entangled in the foam cushion of the torn seat.

My back hurt like hell and there wasn't a thing I could do about it unless I wanted Peter to discover the knife.

We passed several dirt turnoffs but he didn't say a word so I just continued driving west. I had a pretty good idea of where we were headed and I was not happy about it.

My suspicions were confirmed when we reached the old abandoned mine at the end of the road. A heavy steel cable was strung across the entrance, and a small dim two-track split south from there. He motioned for me to turn down it.

We drove another quarter of a mile or so when the road turned back to the north. Making a half circle we ended back at the mine property. All we had done was skirt the barricaded entrance.

“Over there,” Peter said, waving the stun gun in the direction he wanted me to go.

We stopped in front of a barbed wire fence bearing painted signs cautioning KEEP OUT and DANGER! OPEN MINE PIT!

It was a popular spot as evidenced by the myriad broken beer bottles, faded Slurpee cups and cheery Budweiser cans. An old abandoned stained mattress, leaking its stuffing, was propped against a mesquite tree and what looked like the carcass of a dead dog was not far away. Not to mention a deep mine pit to put a body in that might never be found.

Peter reached over and pulled the keys from the ignition. He opened his door and hunched out of the car so he could keep his eyes on me. “Get out.”

Not eager to show him the huge bloodstain I knew must be on the seat, I kept my back pressed against it as long as possible and then swiftly bounded out of the car. My strategy worked, as his head popped immediately up above the car roof. “What do you think you're doing?”

“Getting out of the car.” As I stepped away from the Bronco my eyes drifted inside where a bloodstain the size of a five-pound sack of potatoes spread across the back of the driver's seat. Seeing my own blood magnified the pain in my back, which was now throbbing, in addition to burning. The blood was slowly trickling into my underwear, which wasn't having a good day.

Briefly, I thought about running right then, but knew that it wouldn't work with the knife stuck down my pants. It was a damned if I do, damned if I don't decision. I hadn't been thinking clearly before when I thought I could distance myself from Peter and his stun gun. He was a runner. A marathon runner, for God's sake. I'd never outrun him.

My only chance was the knife in my back if I could just manage to not stab myself again.

Although it had to be close to six o'clock, it was still blistering hot. But not too hot for the flies who buzzed around the dead dog and were now acutely aware of our arrival and the fresh meal I was offering on my back.

“Walk toward the fence,” Peter demanded.

He was coming around the car now and I knew that if he saw the back of my T-shirt, he'd see the blood and find the knife. My brain kicked into gear and I formulated a quick game plan.

A huge mesquite tree was next to the car and a large flat boulder was nestled under it.

I backed away from him and sat on the boulder. “I …I have to sit down,” I said. “I'm not feeling well.”

My news meant nothing to him.

Keeping my back straight, I held my head in my hands, being careful not to touch my throbbing chin as I willed him to come closer.

I stared at the ground until I saw his Topsiders through my fingers and then looked up. As I did so, instantly there was a cold, raw fear in the pit of my stomach.

Peter Van Thiessen, dressed in his spiffy Ralph Lauren shorts and polo shirt, held the treacherous stun gun in his left hand.

And in his right, a small, sleek, deadly .22.