Almost Dead (Lizzy Gardner #5)(65)

Kitally was eight at the time, her brother six. She could still remember the smells of this strange new city as they followed their parents, always two steps behind, close enough to reach out and grab hold of their mother’s skirts if need be. Kitally had been hungry that day. While her brother’s attention was easily caught by all the barefoot kids playing in the street, Kitally’s attention was on the smells: fried rice, chicken and tortillas, savory beans on every corner.

The trouble began when her brother spotted a merchant on the other side of the busy street. The man wore a colorful shirt and he was flinging a handcrafted boomerang into the air. The toy would fly toward the hot sun, almost out of sight, and then suddenly it would be back in his hand again.

It seemed liked magic.

The man yelled something in a language she didn’t understand. And then he wriggled a finger at her brother, a gesture that translated well in any language. “Come here,” he was saying to her little brother.

Kitally tried to stop Liam, but he was strong for a six-year-old. Stubborn, too. Instead of going after her brother, she reached for her mother, only to be scared out of her wits when she realized she’d grabbed hold of a complete stranger.

The woman had looked at Kitally with dark hollow eyes and then smiled, a wide, toothless grin.

Kitally hadn’t meant to scream, but that’s what she did. She was eight. She was lost, and she was scared. Screaming at the top of her lungs had done the trick. Both her mother and father were at her side in an instant.

And when they saw that her brother was missing, they went into high-alert mode. Kitally pointed across the street, but the boomerang man was no longer there. She looked to the sky, to the street, back to the sky. Her mother pulled her along as they followed her father. They wove through hot crowds of colorfully dressed people. Hands reached out as they hurried along, screaming for Liam. A street band played music, using old tin pans and wooden crates. Dogs walked around aimlessly, all ribs and wiry hair.

They spent the first day looking in every shop, talking to every vendor. Kitally was interrogated by her mother and father, over and over again until the words coming out of her mouth were robotic and held no meaning.

The police assured her parents that almost all kidnappings ended with a ransom. Her parents took turns searching the city. If her mother went in search of her brother, Kitally was left with her father sitting by the phone. Her father never stopped asking her why she hadn’t stopped her brother. She had no answer, so she would just cry. But the truth was, Liam was fast. She spent many weekends chasing after her little brother. She rarely caught him. But that wasn’t good enough for her father. He blamed Kitally. She’d seen it in his eyes the first day Liam had gone missing. To this day, she saw the blame in her father’s eyes.

Mostly, she knew better—knew she wasn’t to blame, she was just a kid herself—but still, there were times when she felt the weight on her shoulders and blamed herself, too. Her brother had been her responsibility, and she’d lost him.

Chalkor exited the freeway. Lost in thought, Kitally nearly missed the exit. They had been driving for well over fifteen minutes, but she hadn’t been paying attention.

They were somewhere in Rancho Cordova. There were lots of warehouses and a few deserted office buildings. He pulled in front of a warehouse. After he climbed out of his car, she lost track of him. She waited a few minutes before she got out of her car, bringing her keys, cell, and her camera and leaving everything else behind.

The back of the building was framed with a chain-link fence. Trash and debris littered the property. She had two choices: climb over the back of the fence and look through one of the windows, or go to the front of the building where Chalkor had parked and risk being seen.

She opted to climb the fence. It wasn’t so bad. Took her less than a minute.

She hadn’t realized the windows were so high until she got up close to the building. Even on her tiptoes, she couldn’t see inside. From the street, she’d seen discarded pallets and other trash on the side of the building, so she walked that way, figuring she could prop one of the pallets against the wall and climb up on it to see inside.

That’s exactly what she did. She cupped her hands around her eyes and peered inside. The warehouse looked old and abandoned. Dirty and corroded industrial shelving covered one side of the building. The inside looked dim and dusty. Rusty nails were sprinkled about on the floor. Spiderwebs hung from the ceiling lights like the Spanish moss she’d once seen hanging from trees in South Carolina.

She couldn’t see movement, though. Not one sign that Chalkor was even—

A strong hand gripped the back of her collar and yanked her off the pallet, and then another clamped over her mouth. She bit down and ended up gagging on an old rag he had wrapped around his fingers. Although she couldn’t see his face, she knew it was Mr. Chalkor.

He dragged her around to the front of the building. She screamed, but the sound came out muffled. Her arms were trapped beneath his forearms. She kicked her legs and flailed about like a newly caught fish, but he continued on, unfazed.

They were inside the warehouse. It was cold and dank. The cement floors were stained with oil and grime. When they reached the door of a small windowless room that looked as if it might have once served as an office, he pushed her in. When he tried to grab her camera, she fought back with a kick to his side and another to his groin.

He ran out the door, slamming it shut before she could catch up to him.