Eleventh Grave in Moonlight (Charley Davidson #11)(78)

A man, clean and dressed in khakis and a baby-blue button-down, coaxed me over with a nod. He looked about as much like a kidnapper as my accountant did.

And then it hit me. Of course. I was so stupid.

He stood by a dark blue sedan, the trunk open. After motioning me over, he patted me down and told me to take off my boots. When he was satisfied, he said, “Get in.”

“Look, you haven’t done anything yet.” He was so young. For a kidnapper, anyway. He looked in his early thirties. Clean cut. Well groomed.

It was all a ruse to get me to come along quietly. No one had Shawn. The Fosters were behind this. They’d used him to get to me.

“What do the Fosters want with me?”

So far, the guy had done two stupid things. He’d joined a cult of crazy people. And he’d worn a rope belt with khakis. Unless he was a sailor in his spare time, that was just tacky. But I was willing to forgive him his trespasses until he knocked the ever-lovin’ craptastic out of me.

He backhanded me. My head whipped to the side and hit the edge of the trunk lid, sending a sharp jolt of pain rushing through me.

“Get in.”

I glared at him to make my point, but he only stared, unmoved. Lifting one leg over the rim of the trunk, I crawled inside, still hoping for the best. After all, these were the God-fearing kind of abductors. How bad could this be?

I’d scared them. The Fosters. And somehow they had put two and two together. They were smarter than I’d given them credit for. My bad. Though I should have known. They’d gotten away with child abductions and murder for over thirty years. They had to be at least semi-intelligent.

After climbing in, I expected the trunk to close down on me. What I hadn’t expected was the shot of electricity he’d hit me with. He’d Tasered me! Jolts of electrical currents rushed through my muscles and crashed against my bones. My body stiffened, my head jerked back, and I lost all motor control.

When he turned the gun off, I shouted a few expletives like I had Tourette’s then went completely limp. I couldn’t even lift my head, so when I felt a needle pierce the skin on the inside of my elbow, I could do nothing about it. Except seethe.

This guy had serious issues. I saw a promising career as a serial killer if he lived that long, because I was suddenly in a killing mood.

Still reeling from electroshock therapy, I realized I may have bitten off more than I could chew. Uncle Bob was never going to let me live this down. Reyes was going to kill me. And Cookie … well, at least Cookie would mourn me.

The kidnapper slammed the trunk lid closed, and I lay in total darkness as we drove. The drug didn’t knock me out entirely. I remembered hitting pothole after pothole and thinking he was aiming for the things.

I thought about summoning Angel. About three seconds before I lost consciousness.

*

We hit another pothole. That had to be what roused me from my sleep. I blinked and tried to gain my bearings with little success. Mostly because I couldn’t see shit.

My shoulder and hip ached from the hard surface I’d been riding on. And the bumps in the road didn’t help. We took a sharp turn. A few seconds later, we slowed. I heard voices outside, then the trunk lid popped open, and two sets of arms reached in to drag me out.

At first, I thought we were in an underground garage. It was dark and cold. Then I realized night had fallen.

I shook my head. How long had I been in that trunk? The dried drool on my cheek would suggest quite a while. And I had to pee like nobody’s business.

They dragged me into an outbuilding of some kind. Perhaps a storage building or a barn. It was lit with lanterns strewn across a dirt floor. I knew the floor was dirt because I tried to walk but couldn’t quite manage it, so my feet dragged along the ground, stirring up clouds of dust.

Then they dropped me, and I fell forward, landing on my knees and palms and face. I pushed up and took in my surroundings. Mostly I just saw legs. Several sets of them. Then I saw someone very tall. I raised my head, tried to look up, but it took every ounce of strength I had not to fall face-first again.

I finally sat back on my heels and my gaze traveled the length of the really tall guy. But he wasn’t so much tall as … hanging. Shawn Foster was hanging by his wrists, his arms over his head, his mouth gagged, his face and body bloody and bruised. They really did have him. It wasn’t the Fosters after all. Then who?

A woman stepped into my line of sight. She wore Sketchers, jeans, and a button-down. But the higher my gaze traveled, the more my head spun. I couldn’t seem to keep the room steady. Whatever they’d given me was powerful.

“Aren’t you something,” the woman said, squatting down in front of me, her smile genuine.

Mrs. Foster. It was Mrs. Foster, looking as happy as a python at a bunny farm.

“I’ve never seen anything like her,” a man said. Probably Mr. Foster.

Around us stood a group of about fifteen people, if my leg count was correct. Mostly adult males, but a couple of women and even a teen or two. Were they watching their parents torture the Fosters’ son? Because that could not be healthy.

Mrs. Foster leaned closer. She cupped my chin in her hand and asked, “What are you?”

“Wasted. What did you give me?”

She displayed a smile that was so smug, my palm itched to slap it off her. Still, violence was never the answer.

I smiled back. I’d had just about enough of the Fosters and their personal brand of crazy. “You’re going to die soon.”