The truck slowed to make a sweeping right turn. Everything seeming to creak and shift at once—the metal overhead, the wood wall next to Megan, the floorboards under Jillian. Holding her breath, Jillian waited for the truck to accelerate. When it finally did, it wasn’t nearly as fast. Were they stopping?
Frantic, she shifted into a different position and jammed the metal pick down. The lock suddenly clicked, and the manacle slid off with a soft clang.
Jillian immediately rolled onto her knees. As she reached for Megan’s handcuff, her sister stirred.
“Megan, wake up!”
“Jilly?”
“I’m free,” Jillian said. “We just need to get you loose, too.”
Megan tried to sit up, but quickly lost her balance and flopped into the straw again. When she tried to sit up the next time, Jillian stopped her. “It might be better if you don’t try to help me.”
“Hurry.”
Jillian had expected it to be easier the second time, but quickly realized that her first success had been nothing more than sheer luck. She jabbed the piece of metal into the opening.
Suddenly braking again, the truck made a hard left and immediately adopted a waddling motion as if it rode the ruts of a washed-out road.
Losing her balance, Jillian wobbled forward, then was thrown backward, her right shoulder and the side of her head bouncing off the mesh. Brake pads squealed as the truck slowed; its tires churned through soft sand or mud for a minute or more before giving up.
As soon as the truck came to a halt, Jillian reached for Megan’s wrist again.
“Why did they stop?” Megan mumbled.
Jillian listened as she worked at the lock, asking herself the same question. Was the stop only temporary? Had they stopped to relieve themselves? To check their route?
Two seconds later the engine was shut down. In the ensuing silence, the sound of the radio in the cab drifted through, the station a country-western one.
A door opened, the hinges screeching for oil. Jillian briefly heard the rumble of male conversation. She went still, waiting to find out if a second door would be opened.
Her brain leapfrogged. What was she going to do? And how? And when? She’d been so focused on getting free of the manacle, seeing that as the first obstacle, that she hadn’t given any thought to the next step.
Jillian searched for the handcuff that she’d removed only minutes earlier. Finding it, she pulled it next to her. Did she have the courage to place it around her wrist again?
When the cab door suddenly slammed, Megan and Jillian both jerked. Jillian immediately rotated Megan’s cuff until she found the lock, but neither woman spoke.
Nearly a minute later, there came a rhythmic sound that Jillian couldn’t identify. What did it matter, anyway, what they were doing? What was important was getting Megan free.
What about the woman from the road, though? What if she was still alive? If she was chained up, too, which Jillian assumed she would be, there wasn’t time to free her.
But how could they leave her behind?
Having ceased for nearly a minute, the sound started up again, outside. Megan shifted. “Oh God…they’re digging. Why?”
Jillian tried to ignore the question. The answer was too obvious.
“Jilly?”
“Don’t think about it.” But now that Jillian knew the origin of the sound, she could no longer block it out. Was that the reason they’d stopped? Was the woman dead and they intended to bury her?
Or were they digging three graves?
The sound stopped. The silence that followed was even more frightening.
When the latch on the truck’s rear door rattled, Megan pushed Jillian away. “No more time.”
“I’m not going without you.”
“One of us gets away, the other…better chance.” Megan’s fingers, suddenly strong, grabbed Jillian’s arm. “Go! Get help.”
The sound of the door being shoved upward was like that of a small roller coaster clattering to a stop. As moonlight penetrated the interior, Jillian got a look at their surroundings.
At first, she thought she’d hallucinated. That the drugs were somehow responsible for what she was seeing. But as Megan stiffened beside her, she knew that she wasn’t that lucky.
Oh God!
There had to be at least six young women—maybe even teenagers—out cold and chained up like livestock, one to a mesh stall. Some wore only shorts and T-shirt. Others had on jeans and sweaters. Despite the cool temperature in the truck, there were no blankets covering any of them.
The woman they’d been trying to save was there, too. Her light-blue skirt wrapped her waist like a thick belt, and her blouse lay open, exposing her rib cage. She wasn’t in a stall, though, and didn’t appear to be restrained like the rest. Did that mean she was dead?
As a man climbed up into the truck, his body briefly blocked the moonlight. It wasn’t the same gun-toting scum from the road. This one was closer to Jillian’s height, five-seven or five-eight, and was dressed in jeans and cowboy boots.
As if he had a single objective, he headed to the front of the truck. Once there, he nudged the woman from the road. When she didn’t respond, he dug the toe of his boot into her back and gave a hard shove, rolling her without resistance onto her belly.
Next, he grabbed her by the arms and hauled her to a spot just inside the door. As he returned to the front of the cargo area again, he pulled a medicine bottle from a front pocket and shook out a pill, clearly intending to dose the other women.
Already unconscious, the first one didn’t fight when he shoved whatever it was into her mouth. He moved counterclockwise to the next girl. She wore jeans, a pink sweatshirt and a pair of athletic shoes. “Come on, darlin’. You know the routine.”
He used her hair to roughly pull her head around, and then pried open her mouth. She appeared younger than the others, or maybe she was just smaller.
Jillian watched through slitted eyes. How often did they drug them? Every four hours? More often? Less often? Would she and Megan have more drugs forced into their mouths in the next few minutes, or would he skip them this time?
As he moved on to the next, Jillian glanced at Megan. But with eyes filled with shock, Megan stared at the woman from the road. Jillian wanted to reach out to Megan and offer comfort, but couldn’t because she needed to keep the empty manacle concealed. Maybe if they were lucky, he wouldn’t stop to check on them. Obviously, they hadn’t reached their final destination. The only reason they’d stopped was to bury the woman. Given more time, Jillian could free Megan.
But even once they were free, there would be the problem of getting out of the truck, since the back door was locked on the outside.
She’d
