The second morning I woke up with a feeling of excitement. Marcus said he would be gone for a day or two, so he should be back sometime that day.
I got into the shower and shaved my legs. I spent at least an hour blow drying my hair and making myself feel pretty. I was so excited to see Marcus again.
I spent some time dusting the house and felt like I owned it or something. I cleaned surfaces and put things away to try and make it look nice for when Marcus got home. Obviously, it wasn’t home, but it was where we were staying right then, and I wanted him to feel comfortable after his two long days of working.
When I finished cleaning, I sat back on the porch and tried to reach through the ending of the book I had started. My mind couldn’t stop thinking about Marcus, and I looked up in anticipation at each car that passed.
I went in quickly to grab lunch and later some dinner and then returned to the front porch. I wanted to be there waiting for him when he arrived. But as the day wore on and the night set in, I moved inside to the living room. I still went through my ritual of locking all the doors and closing the curtains, but instead of going upstairs, I waited for Marcus in the living room.
When I woke up to the sun the next morning, I didn’t know what was going on. Marcus had said he would be back in one to two days, this was the third day. I had no way of reaching anyone. No working phone, nothing for me to use to call Stanley or Rob.
I didn’t know how to reach Marcus or Zed, and I didn’t even know where I was really. I felt like I was just north of Chicago, but I could have been a hundred miles out of the city for all I knew.
Worry set in, but I tried not to let it overpower me. Instead, I went about my day again. Reading, lunch, cleaning, more reading, dinner, and then locking up the house.
But this pattern continued on for day after day, and Marcus never came back. Finally, after it had been a week since he left, I didn’t know what to do. I had plenty of food around the house; I wasn’t worried about that. But I didn’t want to be stuck at this abandoned house for weeks or even months. If something had happened to Marcus and his team, then there was no one that knew where I was. I would be stuck there forever.
I wanted to figure out what happened to Marcus or I at least wanted to go back home. One of those two things had to happen. Stanley had to be worried sick about me. I knew Willow and Marv would be worried as well. I wasn’t so sure how Rob was going to act, but I still wanted to talk to him as well. It had been a week since I was taken from my house, and Marcus had talked to them; surely people were worried about me by now.
So on the eighth morning, I packed a backpack full of food, water, and the gun that Marcus had left for me. I set out down the dirt road in the direction that I thought was south. I remembered there had been a major road a few miles down that way, and I planned to walk to that road and then hitch a ride into Chicago.
I didn’t know what I would do once I got to Chicago, and I didn’t know how I would ever get back home if that was what I decided to do. All I did know was that I couldn’t just sit at this abandoned bed and breakfast and wait for someone to rescue me. I had to figure out what happened to Marcus, and I couldn’t do that if I sat alone in that house for another moment.
Chapter 24
About two hours into walking down the dirt road, I started to regret my decision to leave the bed and breakfast. I had air conditioning, food, water, and a bed there. I had everything I needed and could have lived comfortably there for months. But instead, I was walking down a dirt road in the ninety-degree heat, waiting for someone to pick me up and help me get to Chicago.
My mouth was dry from the hot summer day, and as much as I tried to ration my water, my thirst kept getting the best of me. I continued to sip on the gallon of water I had brought with me and hoped I would run into a grocery store or gas station at some point so I could fill it up again.
Admittedly, I had no experience in packing for long hikes and probably should have prepared a little better before I had taken off down the deserted road that I was on.
When Marcus and his team left the bed and breakfast over a week before, they had said they would be back in a day or two. It was clear that something had gone wrong with their plan, and I needed to figure out what it was. Marcus and I had grown very close, and I knew he wouldn’t purposely leave me at the bed and breakfast without any word of how he was doing.
A few cars had come past me, but they were all going in the wrong direction. I needed to go south and make my way into Chicago. But at ten in the morning, there were not many people on the old dirt road, and the ones who were out were heading to their fields to work.
The farmland around me was beautiful. It was filled with corn and soybeans and ripe for the farmers to start harvesting. It was a picturesque scene that I enjoyed immensely as I continued to walk at a slow, but steady pace.
I couldn’t remember the drive into the bed and breakfast, but I knew there had to be a major road somewhere down this dirt road. I just didn’t know how far or how long I would have to walk before I found a ride.
My willpower to go find Marcus started to fade fast as the hot summer sun got stronger throughout the day. I had only brought a gallon of water with me and tried to ration it as best as I could. I thought for sure I would have run into someone to take me into town by then.
I couldn’t take the heat anymore and found a spot under a tree just a few yards from the road. Sweat poured from my body, and my T-shirt was drenched. I clearly had not brought enough water on this walk.
It felt nice to relax and cool down, though. The summer breeze made the shade the perfect place to hang out. I seriously contemplated just taking a nap and then heading back to the bed and breakfast but decided against that plan.
Instead, I sat and sipped on my water and ate one of the apples I had brought along. I felt my heart pounding and realized I probably should have spent some time working out before I decided to set off on a ten-plus mile walk. I really was more out of shape than I had realized.
As I sat there, I watched an old green minivan go north; it looked surprisingly familiar, but I couldn’t place where I had seen it before. Often I felt like I had seen a person or a thing before but just couldn’t remember when or where I had seen them, so it wasn’t unusual that I thought I had seen it somewhere before.
After about twenty minutes, I was ready to finish my hike toward the interstate and hopefully find a ride into Chicago before it got too late. I didn’t know where I would sleep or what I was planning to do if I never found a ride into town. I just had to keep a positive outlook that sooner or later I would find a ride.
My feet throbbed in pain as I stood up and started my slow walk south. Surely there had to be someone going south on this old dirt road at some point during the day. I know I had seen a few cars go by while sitting on the front porch of the bed and breakfast, but I couldn’t remember what time of day I had seen those cars.
I used one of my spare shirts to cover my head and try to keep some of the sun off of me as it beat down hard on my skin. One of the things I had forgotten to gather before I left the bed and breakfast was sunscreen. I knew for sure I would regret that the next day. My skin already felt burned and stung when the sun shone down on it.
I heard the vehicle coming before I saw it, the green minivan that had passed shortly before was heading south now. The woman and man in the van stopped beside me, most likely out of concern since the old road I was on seemed to go for miles and miles. They probably had not seen many people actually walking down the road before. Most people were probably smart enough not to venture out in the hot sun of the afternoon if they did need to walk down that dirt road.
“Do you need a lift?” the woman said as she leaned out the passenger window.
“Yes, thank you!”
The excitement in my response was a bit more than I would have liked. I couldn’t control myself, though; I was genuinely excited to have a ride. Any ride to any distance was a big deal at this point.
“Whe
re are you heading?” the man asked.
The woman hopped out of the van and opened the side door. I stepped in and sat down, put my things onto the ground, and then buckled my seatbelt. The air conditioning in the van felt heavenly, and it made it very hard to even think straight.
My body was hot, probably too hot, and I felt a huge sense of relief when the cool air rushed over my body.
“Ideally, I’m going to Chicago, but I’ll go as far as you can take me,” I said.
I wasn’t about to turn down a ride at all. If they could only take me to the next town, that would have to do for the night. I could try and call Willow and Marv from there, or maybe get access to my bank account so I could get some money for the rest of the trip.
“We are actually heading south of Chicago, we can drop you off. Where at within Chicago?”
I didn’t have an exact location and really didn’t know at all where I needed to be.
“Around Navy Pier would be great,” I said as I tried to sound convincing.
Really, I had no clue where to start looking for Marcus and Zed and the team. I didn’t even know which agency he worked for. The first place that had come into my mind was the rides that I remembered going to at Navy Pier when I was younger. I hoped that I would be able to get where I needed to go from there.
“Alright, sit back and relax, we will get you there,” the woman said.
She looked back and smiled at me, and I instantly felt at ease.
It was weird to be in a van with people that I didn’t know. I had never hitchhiked before and thought that I would never have done such a thing. But I felt surprisingly comfortable with the pair. They had a baby car seat in the back, and the woman was reading a book in the front seat. I couldn’t see what the title was, but it looked like a romance novel.
The man, who was in his mid-thirties, drove and flipped through the radio stations until he found something that he liked. He didn’t seem to care that I was in the van with them, and I had to wonder if the pair had ever picked up a hitchhiker before.
My favorite thing about the ride was that they didn’t bombard me with questions. I was exhausted and didn’t have the energy to explain every detail about why I needed to go to Chicago. I probably wouldn’t have explained it to them even if I did have a ton of energy.
It surprised me that I had fallen asleep in the van with the two strangers. It certainly wasn’t something I had planned. The hot summer heat and the relief of being in air conditioning had been too much for me. But when we went over a bridge on our way into downtown Chicago, I was jolted awake.
As I sat up and looked around, I couldn’t figure out exactly where we were at. I didn’t know Chicago very well, though, so it wasn’t unusual that I had no idea where we were. I just sat back and looked around as we continued through the city streets.
“Do either of you have any water?” I said as the dehydration from my day in the sun seemed to set in.
My level of dehydration had probably contributed to the long nap that I had taken on our drive into town also. The woman handed me a bottle of water, and I guzzled it down as quickly as possible.
Hopefully, after the pair dropped me off, I could call someone and at least get a hotel booked for the night. I certainly didn’t want to find myself sleeping in a homeless shelter or something like that.
I continued to look around and take in all the buildings, but I still couldn’t figure out where we were. It seemed like we were heading more into the shipping district as I saw large docks and container ships all along the side of the road as we continued to drive.
My heart started to beat faster as we turned into the shipping area, and I grew more concerned that something was going on. We weren’t anywhere close to Navy Pier, and I was pretty sure there was no reason to be turning into an old shipping yard at that hour of the night.
“Where are we?” I asked.
Neither the man driving nor the woman responded to me. Something was definitely going on. They ignored me and drove into the shipping yard. I looked around to see if I would be able to make a run for it. Maybe if he slowed down to make a turn, I could jump out and start running.
Then I looked at the door handle for the sliding back door; it was gone. The whole door handle had been removed. I couldn’t believe I had not noticed that before!
I looked at the door handle and then at the driver. By that point, he was watching me very closely through the rearview mirror. He knew I had figured out that something was going on. He motioned to the woman sitting next to him, and she started to rifle through her bag of things.
“There is nothing to worry about. Someone just needs to speak to you,” the man said as he looked at me in the mirror.
I looked at him and then at the female in the passenger seat. They both looked so normal!
Then it dawned on me, perhaps Marcus had sent these two to come get me. They must have gone to the bed and breakfast and then left when they found that no one was there. I tried to run that idea through my head and see if it fit the possibilities of the situation.
I wanted that to be the truth. I genuinely wanted them to be with Marcus’s team. Something deep down inside told me that they were not, though. There was just something about the way the driver looked at me; I could tell that he did not intend to be helpful to me at all.
We pulled into a back alley between two large warehouses. I felt my body start to shake from the adrenaline that rushed through me. I tried to calm myself and took a few deep breaths, as I let the air out and looked around and took note of my surroundings.
The vehicle was all the way at the end of a long parking area that was between the two buildings. I would have to run down that long area before I would be out of view, and it was likely that the driver or his passenger had a gun. I didn’t want to get killed, so I waited. I needed just the right opportunity to make my move.
Then suddenly and without any warning, the driver reached back and poked me with a needle in the thigh.
“Ouch,” I screamed.
I looked down at the needle and then at the driver. My first thought was that it was some sort of drug like heroin or something. My knowledge of needles and the drugs that could be administered was very small.
My body almost instantly felt like I was drunk. My vision got blurry, and I felt my face become flush. I reached toward the needle and pulled it out of my leg. A tiny dot of crimson red blood pooled on the spot that held the needle.
The power in my hands quickly dissipated, and I couldn’t hold the needle. It fell to the ground, and I heard the metal of the needle make a light thud as it hit the carpet of the van. Everything seemed to move in slow motion.
My vision got more and more difficult, and everything went blurry around me, so much so that I couldn’t even make out the face of the driver. I had to close my eyes. I hated the feeling of being nauseous.
My eyes closed, and I was overwhelmed with a desire to lay my head down on the bench seat next to me. I couldn’t hold my body in the upright position for another second. I needed to sleep, if only just for a moment.
As I lay there, my eyes were closed, and I couldn’t move any part of my body. To the driver and the woman, I clearly looked like I had fallen totally asleep. Although I hadn’t fully become unconscious yet, I could still hear them talking.
“Do you think she will flush out the mole?” the woman said.
“Yeah, whoever he is won’t let her be punished. He’ll expose himself, and then Rudy will kill him with a bullet to the brain.”
I remember thinking that Marcus was in danger, and I had to warn him; that was the last thing I recall.
I felt the rope around my wrists and ankles before I could even open my eyes. The tight compression of the string held my limbs up against the cold metal of the chair I was in. My head slumped down, and as I started to wake up, I slowly pulled my head up. My eyes were filled with a blurry mess when I tried to look out and see what was in front of me.
The voices of men surr
ounded me as they talked to each other and ignored me. I’m not sure any of them were fully aware that I had started to wake up yet. As my own cognition started to align with my body as it woke up, I was able to remind myself to move slowly. Perhaps if I moved slowly, then no one would notice I was awake, and I could observe them better.
There were three men close to me, they all had thick beards and held what I thought were guns. My vision was still pretty blurry, so I couldn’t fully tell. Two of the men had their back to me and faced the third man, who looked like he was in charge.
I overheard them say something about catching the mole among the other men. That made me hold my breath as I remembered the two who had brought me there and what they said just before the drugs had taken effect. I had to figure out a way to warn Marcus; this was a trap, and they were going to kill him for sure.
My eyes started to clear, and I opened them slightly to try and get a better look at the three men who held me captive.
They were all three very large men, well over 200 pounds, but physically very fit. I could tell the one who was in charge almost immediately because the other two looked at him after everything they said. The man in charge must have been Rudy, the person who was going to kill Marcus and me when he found out who Marcus was.
I tried to reposition my head slowly so I could get a look at the other two men, but their backs were still to me so I couldn’t see them. They both had dark hair and held onto their large guns like they were very comfortable using them.
“Go get everyone; I want to see their reactions,” Rudy said to his two sidekicks.
The two men left the room, and I was alone with Rudy.
He noticed I was awake and came over to me. My heart pounded as he walked closer. The gun he had slung across his body was my sole fixation, and I couldn’t even look him in the eyes because of this.
“Young lady, would you like some water?”
“No.”
“You will feel better. It will help flush the drugs from your system. Drink this,” he said, and he held a bottle of water up to my lips.
Mine to Protect Page 90
