Page 112 of Half Baked

I knew I should keep track of the turns so I could tell Noah, but I had no idea how many turns they’d already made, plus my head was still groggy and that ringing was giving me a headache.

Then I realized the ringing was in my own head.

I could hear the murmur of voices, but I couldn’t make out any words. It would probably help if the ringing went away, but I had no way to fix that.

I tried to turn my head so I could get a better look of the area where the light was coming through. Yes. They were taillights.

Maybe I could kick them out, but probably not since my feet were bound.

I tried to figure out why they’d taken me. Obviously I had some purpose, or else they would have killed me. But what?

Gina thought the man who’d killed my mother had also killed Detective Bergan, but I wasn’t so sure. Gina also didn’t think Gordy killed my mother, but she did think he killed Billy, and no matter her reasoning, it seemed more logical that Gordy/George would kill Billy to avenge my mother’s death. Not to protectme.

If my mother’s murderer was afraid I was turning over too many secrets from the past, it made more sense to kill me like Bergan, not kidnap me. But if Gina was right about George protecting me in the past, did that mean the person who’d kidnapped me was doing it to get leverage on George? I couldn’t make sense of it, though. I’d never even met the guy. There had to be another reason.

The car made two more turns and then pulled onto a bumpy road. Less than a minute later, we came to a stop, and the engine cut off.

The ringing in my ears had dulled enough that I could hear what the voices were saying.

“Get her out and bring her in,” a man with a deep voice said. “Now that we have her, we’ll invite our guest.”

The car doors opened, and seconds later, light flooded the trunk. The sky was overcast, but I could make out the faces of the two men. One was young, but the other was in his late thirties or early forties. Both had multiple tattoos, but neither had the eagle wings I’d seen on the guy who had come into Déjà Brew.

I cast a glance to the right and saw the sign over the building we were parked next to. Cock of the Walk.

Fear shot through me. Did that mean these guys were with the Brawlers? I’d heard horror stories about them and this place. It was run by a motorcycle club that was rumored to make people disappear. They were allegedly hardcore into drugs—both selling and using—and no woman in her right mind would step inside the place. Not if she didn’t want to run the risk of being violated.

If the Brawlers wanted me, there was a good chance the only way I was leaving was when they carted me out into the woods to bury my body in a shallow grave.

“Come on, Sleeping Beauty,” the older guy said with a laugh. He reached in and grabbed my arms, wrenching me into a sitting position.

My world began to spin, and as he started to haul me out, I leaned forward and vomited.

“Goddamn it!” he shouted, shoving me back into the trunk. “She threw up on my new shoes!”

My head hit the lid, and I could see stars as pain shot through every nerve ending in my body.

When the younger guy laughed, the older guy punched him in the gut. “You think it’s so damn funny, Murphy? You bring her in by yourself.”

Murphy doubled over, clutching his stomach while his cohort stomped away, his feet crunching on the gravel.

I took a second to try to absorb my surroundings. We were in a nearly empty parking lot that had been covered with fresh gravel. A two-lane road was next to it, and trees were across the street. If I could get away from Murphy, I could potentially run across the street and into the woods.

“Why do you want me?” I asked, but my tongue felt too heavy to enunciate clearly.

Murphy looked up from his crouch. “What?”

I tried to swallow to coat my dry throat. “Why am I here? Why do they want me?”

“Don’t care,” he said, still hunched over. “Just do what the boss man tells me to do.”

“And who’s the boss man?”

He let out a nervous laugh. “You sure don’t know much, do you?”

“I’d know more if you told me anything,” I said, hoping it didn’t sound as sarcastic as it did in my head.

“Come on,” he groaned, then leaned over the trunk and swung my legs over the edge.

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