Runaway Vampire(12)

She nodded, and then stood, stepped over Bailey and moved carefully back along the aisle until she could reach the folded afghan that had somehow managed to remain on the couch while everything else had gone tumbling to the floor. Snatching it up, she made her way back to her seat. As she climbed back over Bailey, she dropped the afghan in his lap and then plopped back into the passenger seat. If she was going to talk to the young man, she would do so with at least some small semblance of propriety. He was naked, for God’s sake.

“Oh . . . er . . . thank you,” Dante muttered, and removed one hand from the wheel to quickly spread the blanket over his lap and legs. It was a spider stitch pattern, a very loose spider stitch—which meant it had large holes. It would have been fine had he left it as is, but when he spread it out . . . well, she might as well have saved herself the walk to get it. His legs and groin were now playing peek-a-boo. Not that Dante seemed to notice. He appeared perfectly satisfied that he was now decently covered. But then it hadn’t seemed to bother him to be sitting there naked either, so what did she know?

Mary averted her eyes again with a little sigh. “You were saying you and your brother were assisting a task force in discovering how and why people were going missing in San Antonio?”

Dante nodded with a grunt. “Several of us were sent to bars where the missing people had last been seen. Tomasso and I were sent to the same bar, and were taken together as we left at the end of the night.”

“How?” Mary asked with a frown. It was hard to imagine this large, muscular young man being forced to go anywhere he didn’t want to, but two of him? If his twin was the same size, taking them on must have been like taking on a small army.

“We were shot with drugged darts in the parking lot,” he said grimly. “I thought it was a bullet until I glanced down and saw the dart in my chest. I pulled it out, but it was too late. I was already losing consciousness.”

“Sunday night?” she asked with a frown, working it out in her head.

Dante glanced to her uncertainly and then back to the road before saying, “I do not understand. What about Sunday?”

“You said you were taken the night before last. That would be Sunday,” she explained, and noted the frown that immediately claimed his expression.

“No. It was Friday we were taken,” he said and muttered, “I lost more time than I thought. They must have continuously drugged us. Perhaps intravenously,” he added and removed his left hand from the steering wheel to turn it over and peer at the unblemished skin as if he was recalling something.

“You would have a mark, possibly even a bruise if they’d put an intravenous in you,” she said gently. When he remained silent and merely returned his hand to the steering wheel and his attention to the road, she asked, “How did you get away?”

“I woke up some hours ago, naked and in a cage. Tomasso was in a cage next to mine, also naked.”

Mary sat back slightly at this news. Obviously the man had been wearing something when he’d gone to, and left, the bar. So his captors had stripped him. She couldn’t imagine waking up one day to find herself naked in a cage. It sounded like a nightmare to her and she was glad when he distracted her from the thought of it and continued his story.

“Whoever had been in my cage before me had obviously made some effort to escape. One of the bars had been loosened. Tomasso’s cage was close enough he could help, and together we were able to get the first bar out, and bend another enough to pull it out as well. I managed to squeeze out of my cage and tried to open his, but before I could accomplish the task, we heard our captors coming and he insisted I get away while I could and get help.”

Dante paused briefly, and Mary noted the muscles of his throat working, but then he continued, his voice almost flat. “It was a basement with high windows. I climbed out onto dirt and grass and saw the woods surrounding the building we had been held in. I started to run. I had no idea where I was, or if I was headed in the right direction to find help. All I could see were woods and more woods. I had not gone far when I became aware of someone running behind me. Afraid they would shoot me with their dart again, I put on a burst of speed and then the trees were suddenly gone and I was charging toward the road . . . and the side of this RV.” He patted the steering wheel with a grimace. “I tried to stop myself, but . . .” He shook his head, and then glanced to her and said, “The truth is you did not run over me, so much as I ran into, or under, your vehicle.”

Mary stared at him silently. She was glad she wasn’t at fault for the accident. The knowledge relieved a good deal of the guilt that had apparently been clouding her good sense, because now she was thinking more clearly. Voice firm, she said, “You need to turn around and head back to the truck stop.”