Hostage by Willo Davis Roberts Page A

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’sright. 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.”
    â€œLeave them alive?” Buddy asked once more.
    I was beginning to dislike Buddy excessively.
    â€œIt’s too much time and trouble to do anything else. With any luck, nobody’ll find them in time to identify anybody.”
    â€œBut what if they do?” Buddy persisted.
    â€œI’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 thehidden 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.
    â€œHave 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.
    â€œRolling’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.
    â€œWhat’s in that thing,