Long Lost - James Scott Bell Page 0,87

dead.

He had come back, or never left.

But he was not dead.

His right shoulder was a fire ball and he opened his eyes.

He was in a box. A coffin? He was alive in a coffin? Buried alive. They’d made a mistake.

He moved his head, saw upside down images. Trees. A snatch of blue sky. Something looming in the distance. A mountain.

He was in the mountains. He was upside down in the mountains.

His hands were bound behind him. And his mouth.

He remembered that part. He remembered being bound.

What had happened? He had been bound and put in the back of a car.

Wait, there was something else. Like the fading images of a bad dream. He was awake, but the dream was fresh enough to remember.

Sienna.

Sienna had been there. With Johnny.

His mind snapped into a new place, a mix of rage and confusion and pain.

Eldon LaSalle. Renounce Satan. Discipline.

If this was how they treated their lawyers, they had another think—

Don’t get funny now, son . . . they wanted to kill you . . . your loving brother Johnny wanted you dead, and Sienna was there all the time.

He forced himself to think back. To go back to seeing Sienna and Johnny in the window.

Check.

He cried out, a muffled cry.

Check.

The back of a car. What kind of car? Didn’t matter. The tires crunched on the gravel.

Check.

How long had they driven? Where? He didn’t think it was too long or too far. He had the feeling they were going up.

And then . . . a drop. Yes. He remembered a drop.

It went black after that.

Sienna. Sienna.

That was the kicker, the most nightmarish element in the whole thing.

Figure it out. Split up the possibilities, like you do when you try a case. Find the Aristotelian alternatives.

Either Sienna was at the house of her own free will, or she was not.

Either she had known Johnny all along and did not tell him, or she had not.

Either she was a traitor on the order of Judas Iscariot, or she was a pawn of the LaSalles.

Now, what was the evidence?

Was she the greatest liar he had ever seen? The coldest, most calculating woman he had ever encountered?

That seemed the most likely.

She might be a kidnap victim. If so, he was to blame, because he had hired her as his legal assistant. But why would they take her and not tell him? If they had kidnapped her they would use it against him.

But they had said nothing.

Had to get himself free. The tape chafed and it was tight, but if he worked it maybe he could get loose. Had to try. No other option.

Was anything broken? How did he get upside down?

The car must have gone over or something. Over from the highway. He must have blacked out.

He remembered a time, clearly, when he and Robert had gone to a lake with his parents, maybe it was Arrowhead, and they had bunked together. Steve had the upper, and sometime during the night he fell out of it. He must have been three years old. But nothing happened. He wasn’t hurt because he was so relaxed.

Steve wondered if that’s what happened to him now. Maybe blacking out had been the thing that saved him.

His left leg was throbbing. He managed to curl himself into a position where he could see his leg. Pants torn, dried blood. Fresh blood. That could not be good.

What time was it? How long would he last like this? If somebody didn’t find him, somebody other than one of Eldon LaSalle’s minions, what chance did he have?

He worked his hands but the tape held strong.

For a moment, surprising himself, he thought about to throwing up one of those desperation prayers, the kind where atheists lost at sea suddenly find their voices and raise them to heaven.

He thought about it, then decided he must have just done it.

But you are the one who has to get out now, bud. Nobody’s gonna come flying down from the sky to open the door for you.

Where was the driver?

Neal. Neal had been driving the car.

So where was Neal?

Steve rolled to his right and pushed his knees under him. Pain in the left leg was like a hot spoon digging around in his thigh. He was on his stomach now. He brought his knees up again and slowly got to a kneeling position. The back of the seat was to his left.

He put his head underneath the de facto partition. Which put him face-to-face with Neal Cullen. A dead Neal Cullen.