GODDESS OF THE MOON (A Diana Racine Psychic Suspense) (52 page)

T
he pickup of his empty Styrofoam dishes
from
his meals
occurred about an hour and a half after the young girl delivered his food, always with Mountain Man waiting outside the door. Two different girls
had
performed the chore, or maybe pleasure, of serving him. Anna, respectful and compliant, eagerly served him in the manner Lucier assumed she’d been taught. The other never g
a
ve her name, was quiet
and sullen
, seldom ma
king
eye contact. He hoped Anna showed up this evening. She
’
d be more apt to
follow instructions.
If he got that far
.

He finished his dinner, a meaty white fish bathed in a butter/wine/garlic sauce, two vegetables, coffee, and dessert. The dessert was the important factor in his escape, and he worried that there wouldn’t be one.
He’d have made do with something else on the dinner plate if he needed to, but the
lemon
meringue
pie with
a
graham cracker crust
couldn’t have been more perfect
. The success of his plan
rested on
timing. It
was a long shot, he knew,
he had nothing to lose
.

He heard the muffled words of the bodyguard and the girl’s acquiescence as they approached. Lucier lowered himself to the floor, tucked his hand under his chest, and held his breath for as long as he could to cast a purplish hue to his coffee-colored skin. When the door opened, he saw
Anna
through the slit of one eye
and
groaned one word
―heart
.

The girl rushed to Lucier, calling Mountain Man to come inside. “He’s
having a heart attack
.
Mountain Man started to pull out his cell phone, but the
she
said in frantic desperation,
“
Hurry. He needs CPR
.
Turn him over and do it. You know how, don’t you?
”

“Yeah, but―”

“Do it,” she
ordered
. “He can’t die.”

The big man slipped the
phone back into his pocket
and le
aned over
Lucier
who
took a deep breath and
swung his fist full of lemon
meringue
direc
tly in the man’s eyes and nose.

Caught off guard, Mountain Man groped at the thick glop clouding his vision and clogging his breathing passage
. His effort to wipe it away pushed
the viscous substance further into his eyes. He inhaled some of the mixture and launched into a choking cough. Lucier sprang up, grabbed hold of the man’s testicles, and yanked with all his might. Much better than a kick
that
so
metimes failed to hit the mark.

“Sorry to resort to the old yank
-
the
-
balls cliché, man,” Lucier said, “but it’s either your nuts or mine.” The guard released a horrifying wail and bounced around with one hand clutching his crotch, the other unsuccessfully wip
ing
the goo from his eyes. Lucier decided to put him out of his misery. He picked up the wooden chair and smashed it over Mountain Man’s head. The chair was solid, didn’t even splinter. The goliath
collapsed to
the floor like a two hundred-fifty
-pound boulder and lay as still.

The girl started
screaming loud
enough to alert anyone within hearing distance. He
took a giant step toward her and
clasped his hand over her mouth, muffling her cries.
“I’m not going to hurt you if you stop screaming,” he said calmly in her ear. “If you don’t, you
’ll
force me to put you to sleep too.”

Panic flashed in the girl’s eyes, round as marbles, her angelic face a mask of fear. Lucier assumed she was aware of what happened to anyone who didn’t behave
. He also assumed the
kids here were taught to honor their elders
. E
ven though he wasn’t one of them
, he
hoped she’d respond to his demands as she would to any adult.

“I need your help
,
”
he
said in his most soothing voice. “
W
ill you scream
i
f I remove my hand from your mouth?” She shook her head, and he uncovered her mouth. She whimpered but didn’t cry out. He knew how scared she was and felt guilty
. L
ives depended on what he did now.
“Stay here and don’t move.”

She nodded and he shut the door. H
e frisked Mountain Man
and
confiscated
his
gun and a switchblade strapped to his ankle.
Next he took h
is key
s
and
cell phone
.
The gun was a
Glock
. He checked the load
―f
ull
―and tucked it in
to
his waistband.
He also relieved
the big man
of a prized find.
Handcuffs.
Lucier
guessed they were for him if he gave any trouble
. W
ho knew
? Ar
ound here
the cuffs
might have
a
dual purpose.

Lucier hurried back to
Anna
,
huddled
where he’d left her.
“They have a woman here they’re going to harm
.
Diana Racine. Do you know her?”

Anna nodded and shrugged away from Lucier, but he kept a firm grasp on her arm. “They won’t harm her,” she said tentatively. “She wanted to come here. We worship her.”

“People brought her here against her will.” Lucier backed away to show he wouldn’t hurt her but
stayed close
. “Do you think
i
t’s
right
to make
someone do things against her will?”

Anna sniffled. “Sometimes you have to
until they learn the right way
.
B
ut I don’t believe you. They wouldn’t do that
to her
.
”

“Give me the benefit of the doubt, for now.”

A moan from
the unconscious man
caused Lucier to check
his life signs
.
He’d
hit
the brute
hard
enough to cause permanent damage
. A finger to the big man’s neck r
evealed a strong, steady pulse.
He couldn’t worry about it.

“
Why do you think this man has a gun?”

Anna shrugged, but she wrinkled her brow. Thinking now, Lucier hoped. “
What if your leaders tell you the wrong things?
What then?”

The girl looked confused. “We
’re not supposed to
question.”

“They were going to kill me,” he said, holding up the gun
as evidence
. “Then they
’d say
they
sent
me home
, b
ut they would have been lying.”

“They’d
…
never lie. Lying is
―it’s
a sin.”

Lucier shook his head in exasperation. This place had been built on lies. A flashback memory surfaced of a lecture Lucier gave to his older son after catching him in a lie.
It’
s a sin
to lie
, he’d told him. Lucier shook off the remembrance as he’d done so many
times, snippets of another life
popp
ing
up when he least expected them.

A snort from his
unconscious
captive snapped him back to the present. His groans indicated it wouldn’t be long before he was awake and seriously pissed. The man had at least sixty pounds on Lucier and
wasn’t the type to fight fair.
A smile curled his lips when he thought how he put down the hulk. Not fair either.

Though the man was dead weight, Lucier dragged him to the cot
, praying he didn’
t rouse
. He hoisted his torso onto the mattress first, then his legs. His heart pounded from the residue of drugs still in his system, but he couldn’t take time to catch his breath.
He didn’t want Mountain Man to wake before he had secured him
.

He threaded one of Mountain Man’s arms through the narrow space between two vertical slats in the headboard
of the bed
, pulled the other arm over the top rail, and cuffed the two wrists together.
H
e used the knife to cut off
the unconscious man’
s shirt and tear it into strips. He tied
his
ankles tightly to opposite bedposts and stuffed a wad of shirt into his mouth. With little leeway to move, one wrong turn and he’d break his
wrist. W
hen
his captive
woke
, Lucier harbored no doubt
he’d be wild with anger.

H
e turned to the girl
,
huddled into
herself
, terrified. “Where are we?”
S
he didn’t answer
.
“Where?”
he demanded
.

“I don’t know if I should tell you. You’re going to hurt people.”

Lucier knelt down until he was level with her. He crooked his index finger under her chin and lifted her head until she raised
an unsteady
gaze
to meet his. “I promise I won’t hurt anyone who doesn’t want to hurt Miss Racine or me. We were taken against our will.
Kidnapped.”
A thought occurred. He needed to broach it delicately. “How old are you, Anna?”

“Fourteen.”

“Have you been with boys?”

Cheeks flushing, s
he turned away
and spoke softly. “Not yet.”

“Is that what you want? To be with boys and make babies.”

“No,” she answered quickly,
then
seemed ashamed of her response. “But that’s what we’re supposed to do.”

More memories emerged, and Lucier spoke as the father he once was. “I had a little girl very much like you. She’s dead now, but she’s always in my thoughts. She would have wanted to go to college to become a doctor or a lawyer or even pursue a career in law enforcement
like her dad
. What she wouldn’t
want
is what you will be forced to do if the people in control
here
aren’t stopped.” Anna sniffled
, and
Lucier asked one more question. “
Do
you spen
d
time with your mother, Anna? Talk to her about these things?”

“I see my birth mother sometimes. Not enough, though. All the kids have lots of mothers.
Fathers too.
That’s the way here.”

“Would you like to spend more time with your mother?”
he
asked, wondering who Anna’s mother was. Wondering
what
the population
totaled
in this pretend haven.

Anna nodded.

Mountain Man moaned louder now, distracting Lucier, but the sound came from deep in his throat. Best he could do with a gag in his mouth. Lucier wished he had some of the drug they gave him, because this guy look
ed
like he could pull the cot from the floor bolts and walk thr
ough the door with it attached.

“I need your help. People will die without it.”

Anna thought for a long time. “Are you sure you won’t hurt anyone?”

A
groan
came from the cot. T
he
big man
’s
eyes spr
a
ng open, and he tried to get up.
H
e realized he was tied to the bed
and
writhed and twisted, peppering his efforts with grunts and
growls
. Lucier was sure he wrenched hi
s arm when he squealed in pain.
The captive
spit out his gag.

“
When
I get loose,”
he
screamed, “I’m
gonna
kill you.
Your girlfriend too.
I don’t care what anyone tells me. You’re a fucking dead man, Lucier.”