Beckon (10 page)

Chapter 18

Elina felt Carson's hand clench like a vise around her upper arm. He hauled her out of the room at Vale's command, then shoved her down the hallway until they came to a security door that opened on a flight of stairs into the basement of the mansion.

Seeing the stairs, Elina tried to twist loose of his grip, but he jerked her back. Then he snapped her around to face him and she felt the jarring sting of the back of his hand across her jaw.

“Try that again and I'll break your neck!”

Elina teetered on the brink of consciousness, but she could see Carson was looking paler than he had earlier and the skin under his eyes had darkened.

She could taste blood in her mouth but grimaced at him, refusing to let her fear show. “You don't look so good. What's the matter? Not feeling very well?”

Carson only spun her around and forced her down the wooden steps into the basement.

Elina's mind was spinning out of control. All her worst fears when she first decided to follow the mysterious van from LA to Wyoming were apparently coming true. She tried to remain rational. And she tried to reason with Carson to let her go.

At the bottom of the stairs he led her down a narrow corridor to a large supply closet at the far end. Inside were shelves of cleaning supplies and chemicals with mops hanging from a row of hooks on the far wall. He twisted one of the hooks to the side and Elina heard something click. Then he pushed against the wall and a small section of it swung out into darkness beyond.

Elina felt cool, damp air brush against her face. “Where are you taking me?”

He didn't reply but pushed her through the door and closed the panel behind them.

Elina could see they were in some sort of tunnel dug right into the mountainside. Crude lighting fixtures had been mounted into the rock overhead and cast a dim, pale-green glow. They climbed down a set of rough, uneven stairs carved into the rock, which went on for what seemed like more than a hundred yards deeper underground.

“Where are we going?” Elina whimpered again.

Still Carson didn't say anything, only forced her forward, down the steps. She could hear his breathing in the darkness, growing more labored as they walked. He didn't appear to be bleeding, but Elina guessed the gunshot had hurt him more than she had initially thought.

After several minutes they arrived at yet another door, only this one was made of solid wood. Thick, rough timbers that were fastened together with rusted iron bands and bolts. It looked like a door to some kind of dungeon.

Carson pushed the door open and ushered her into another tunnel. More dim light fixtures illuminated patches of the tunnel in the same green hue.

Now Elina could hear sounds ahead. Voices, though she couldn't make out what they were saying. She quickly discovered that they weren't speaking so much as moaning. It was as if she had descended right into hell itself.

Carson steered her into a secondary tunnel, far narrower than the first. Darkness fell around her as though someone had put a blanket over her head. After several paces he pulled her to a stop. She tried to tear away from his grasp once more, but despite his wheezing, his grip felt almost like claws digging into her flesh.

She heard a rusty metallic clank followed by the dull creaking of another door. Then came a soft snapping sound, and Elina felt the plastic ties fall away from her wrists right before she was shoved forward. She tumbled blindly onto the cold stone ground as the door creaked and slammed shut behind her, followed again by the metallic clank like some kind of lock sliding into place.

Elina flailed around in the darkness as terror welled up inside her. She felt along the floor until her palms slapped against the rough, wooden surface of the door. She balled her fists and pounded against the door, shrieking in anger at Carson. But her cries were met with silence. She screamed and raged until her voice was gone and she collapsed again on the ground, weeping softly.

Then from somewhere out in the darkness a voice called,
“Quién es usted?”

Elina caught her breath. It was a young male voice, maybe no older than a teenager. She felt her way up the surface of the door until her fingers came across a small opening with metal bars, like the window in a prison-cell door. Outside, she could see the soft-green glow of the lights in the main corridor.

“Soy Elina. Dónde estás?”

He replied in Spanish with trembling in his voice, “I think I'm in the cell right across from you.”

“What's your name?”

“Miguel,” came the reply.

Elina pressed her face to the bars. As her eyes grew accustomed to the low light, she saw wooden doors across the passage from her, built right into the rock wall. Each had a small window opening with bars just like hers. There were three doors on the other side of the tunnel, and she assumed there were additional cells on either side of hers. She couldn't tell which door Miguel was behind.

He spoke again. “Where are we? What's happening to us?”

“We're in Wyoming,” Elina said. “Do you remember how you got here?”

“Wyoming? They told us they had work in Las Vegas. Good-paying work. They picked us up in a van, and then . . . then I don't remember anything else. I woke up here . . . inside this dungeon.”

“You don't remember anything about the trip?” Elina said.

“No . . . only that the van smelled funny when we got in it.”

“How many others were with you?”

“Four others, I think. There were five of us altogether.”

Elina pressed her face to the window and called out, “Javier? Javier Sanchez? Has anyone seen Javier Sanchez?”

Then another voice called out—a gravelly, hollow voice. “Elina? Elina, is that you?”

“Javier!” Elina's heart surged with emotion. Despite the darkness she suddenly felt a spark of hope.

“Elina, what . . . what are you doing here?”

“I came looking for you,” Elina said. “Carmelita told me you had disappeared. She was worried sick. She said you had gotten in a van with Nevada plates.”

“They said they needed five workers. They lied to us. I think they sprayed something inside the van to make us fall asleep.”

“Carmelita said the van had been coming by every four weeks or so.” She related how Javier's sister had called her in a panic after he had disappeared. Elina had not seen either of her cousins since they were all children. When she was a child, Elina's family would spend Christmas in Mexico every year. But after her father's death the tradition had stopped.

Then a few weeks ago she had gotten Carmelita's frantic phone call with the story of Javier's disappearance and the mysterious white van with Nevada plates. Carmelita said her family had come looking for work. Elina could guess that they had not come legally, but regardless of the circumstances, she knew she couldn't just sit by and do nothing. She had to at least find out what had happened to her cousin. And since she had been on leave from the LAPD, she had nothing but time on her hands.

Elina explained how she had been watching for the van to return for a new group of victims and how she had followed it here to Wyoming. It had arrived late the day before, and she snuck into the woods to spy on the house, trying to catch a glimpse of anyone inside. She had spent the night in the cold, watching intently, and had seen fleeting images of Vale and a couple of others. But no Hispanics. And now she had gotten captured herself.

“How long has it been? How long have I been here?” Javier asked.

“Just over four weeks, I think.”

“Four weeks?” Javier groaned. “Is that all it's been? I haven't seen the sun since I've been here, and they only come down to bring us food or to take one of us away.”

“Do you know where they took the others?”

“I don't know where. But everyone else I came here with is gone. Do you know?”

A frantic, high-pitched voice called out, “They are cannibals! These people eat human flesh!”

That comment got the others wailing and arguing with each other and pounding on the cell doors. The racket continued for several long minutes. Or maybe longer; Elina had no way to keep track of time anymore. She tried to calm them down but to no avail. She finally gave up, sank against the door, and put her head in her hands.

Despair turned her to memories of her father. His strong arms and gentle eyes. And his simple faith. As a girl she would always grow so nervous before a test at school, and he would pull her close to his side.

“Why are you so anxious, Little Bean? Do you think God has gotten so busy that He's forgotten about you?” he would whisper to her. “He knew you before you were even born.”

Her father had immigrated to Los Angeles as a young man, newly married. He had worked hard to give his wife and children a better life, putting himself through night school to get a job repairing and maintaining commercial HVAC systems. In doing so, he had taught Elina and her younger brother, Paulo, the value of an education. He showed them the example of his genuine faith in God. He gave them the stern but loving discipline that only a father can give. He taught Elina what she should look for in a husband someday by the way he treated her mother. And in the same way he taught Paulo how he should treat his future wife. That a man should be willing to sacrifice everything for his family. And that such a man could be strong and wise and loving at the same time.

How she missed him now, and her memories only made her heart ache all the more as she longed to hear his voice again. She had been thirteen when he was killed. And in many ways his murder had been the catalyst for her joining the police department. It was a senseless, violent murder by some useless thug who killed him for the fifty dollars in his wallet. Fifty dollars. That had been the value of her father's life.

She recalled the anger that had burned inside her heart. A spark that grew out of her sorrow but soon hardened and coalesced into a steady, smoldering rage against the young black man who had pulled the trigger. A murderous punk with no job, no father, and a drug-addled mother, he'd turned to violence as a way to make himself into a man.

But her anger didn't stop there. It soon burned against all the young black men she encountered. Every one of them she saw, everywhere in the city. None of them seemed to have fathers to teach them how to be real men. How to act responsibly and do an honest day's work. They were all arrogant, misogynistic, lazy, and stupid. And violent.

So she had joined the police force to put them in jail, where they belonged.

Vale had been more accurate about her than he had probably realized. Some people the world was just better off without. Or so she'd believed.

Miguel's voice drew her out of her thoughts. He sounded weak and obviously terrified. “It makes sense, you know?”

“What?” Elina stood and looked through the opening in her door. “What does?”

“Why they choose us. Whatever's going on here, it makes sense why they choose us.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Think about it. We don't have any real identification. No driver's licenses or Social Security numbers. And most of us have no families here, at least none who would ever report us missing. We're the perfect victims. No one cares what happens to us. No one will ever come looking for us.”

Chapter 19

Elina heard footsteps approaching. Multiple footsteps that echoed through the tunnels. The voices of the other prisoners began wailing, pleading for mercy in Spanish. A few seconds later the footsteps approached Elina's door and a shadow appeared at her window.

A light blinked on and flooded the tiny room.

Elina winced and shielded her eyes. She could tell it was just a flashlight, but the brightness was still painful.

“Now we can do this the easy way,” came Carson's distinct voice, “or we can do it the fun way.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Just do what I say,” Carson said. “Turn around, face the wall, and lie down on your stomach with your hands behind you. And don't move.”

While Elina's initial impulse was defiance, she decided it would be more prudent, given her situation, to comply with the orders. They were pretty standard directions to get a suspect safely handcuffed. Besides, if they had wanted to shoot her, they could have done that through the window bars. She turned and lay down as Carson had directed.

A moment later Elina could hear them unlocking the door and a dull creak as it moaned open. Carson spoke again; this time she could tell he was inside the room.

“Keep your hands behind your back where I can see them.”

Elina felt cold steel bite down around her wrists and click. Then a pair of hands hoisted her to her feet. They turned her around, and Elina could see there was another man accompanying Carson. He stood in the doorway holding the light, and all she could tell was that he was very tall and burly.

Carson pulled her roughly out of her cell and shoved her along in front of him, up the dark passage the way they had come. Elina could hear the other captives cursing and issuing warnings, but Carson ignored them for what they were. Impotent threats.

“Where are we going?” Elina said.

Carson poked her in the back. “Just walk.”

At length they arrived at the supply closet entrance and marched through it back into the basement of Vale's house. They walked down the corridor and stopped at one of the doors. Here, Carson pulled out his set of keys, unlocked the door, and shoved Elina through.

The room looked like an armory, with gun racks and ammo cabinets lining three of the walls. Whoever these people were, they were well armed. In the center of the room was a wooden chair with some kind of strap system rigged up, obviously to restrain whoever happened to be sitting in the chair.

Elina knew what was coming.

Carson pushed her toward the chair as his partner, the big man, took her by her bound wrists and spun her around. He was enormous—at least six foot nine, Elina guessed—with a shaved head and a thick black goatee on his jaw. She remembered him from the road. He'd been one of the guys in the pickup truck. She struggled against his force, but the man was just too overpowering. He sat her down like a rag doll and draped her arms over the backrest while Carson proceeded to strap her feet and legs to the chair's restraints. Lastly they pulled her jacket down over her shoulders and Carson tore open her shirt halfway to her waist.

At that point two other men entered the room. Elina recognized the tall man with reddish hair and a beefy mustache as the driver of the pickup truck, the guy who'd nearly shot her with her own gun. The second man she hadn't seen before. He was small and clean-shaven with short brown hair parted to the side, and he carried a leather satchel. These two didn't say anything but stood off along the perimeter of the room with the big man while Carson paced in front of Elina. He carried something that looked like a nightstick but which Elina recognized immediately as a stun baton.

“So you're a police officer, eh?”

Elina blinked, taken aback by the question. “Um, yeah . . . I thought we had estab—”

She felt a sharp jolt and sting on her cheek as Carson backhanded her again. Elina swooned for a moment, gathering her wits. She could feel her lip swelling and her cheek throbbing.

“What?” she said. “I'm answering your question!”

Carson chortled. “I know. That was for spying on Mr. Vale.” He held up the baton. “
This
is for shooting me.”

He plunged the stun stick against her chest, and Elina felt every muscle in her body seize as though a thousand needles had been jabbed into her at once. Her spine arched, and the room dissolved into darkness.

Elina heard herself groaning as she regained consciousness. Shadows swirled around her, and a sharp odor stung in her nostrils like razors. She opened her eyes to see the small man bending over her, smelling salts in his hand. He lifted her eyelids and checked her eyes with a penlight.

“She's awake,” he said to Carson. Then he took Elina by the chin and whispered, “Just tell him what he wants to know.”

Carson swatted him out of the way. “Okay,
chica
, let's see how smart you are. You said you followed the van. That's how you found us. Is that right? You followed it here?”

Through her pain, Elina felt a flicker of hope. She had them nervous. For all of Vale's arrogance, he
was
worried about being discovered. And he'd sent Carson down to pry information from her. That meant she had some leverage. She had something they wanted.

But she would need to proceed with caution. As soon as they got what they wanted, she would no longer be of use to them. “Yes. Actually it wasn't that hard.”

“Why did you follow us?”

“Us?” Elina grinned. She could taste blood in her mouth. “So you were the one driving the van?”

Carson leaned close. “Why were you following us?”

“I told you already. I was looking for my cousin. I wanted to find out what happened to him.”

“Who else knows you're here?”

“Why?” Elina almost smiled. “Does that worry you? Are you afraid other people will come looking for me? Well, you better be.”

The next thing she knew, she was waking up from a second jolt. The little guy—Elina thought he must be the medic or doctor—was leaning over her again with the smelling salts.

“Stop antagonizing him,” he whispered.

Carson loomed in the background, grinning. “No, we're not worried,
chica
. We'll just get a new van. And now, thanks to you, we'll make good and sure it can't be traced back to us.”

Elina could barely keep her head upright. Her limbs throbbed from the jolts, but she forced a bloody smile. “It doesn't matter. They already know about the van, and they know about Vale Corp. So it's just a matter of time before they come looking.”

Of course, she had not told anyone about the information she'd gathered on the vehicle. She wasn't officially part of the police department at the time and therefore not supposed to be accessing the database. Furthermore, since she didn't want Javier to get in trouble with the INS, she had truly pursued her investigation as a lone wolf. But Vale didn't know that, so at least she had some leverage, even if it was a bluff.

“Who did you tell?”

“You'll find out when they show up . . . in force.”

Carson backhanded her across the other cheek. “They won't find anything. No one ever does.”

The room spun and Elina's jaw throbbed. She blinked back her sweat and tears, clenching her teeth against the pain.

“That's . . . what Vale said.” She struggled to get her words out. “But still, here you are . . . asking me about it. So maybe he's not as unconcerned as he pretended to be.”

“He's not going to let you go. You know that, don't you?”

Elina shrugged as best she could. “Then there's not much incentive to tell you anything more . . . is there?”

Carson's grin faded, and he held the stun stick in front of Elina's face. And that was the last thing she remembered seeing.