Breaking Point Read Online Free Page A

me! Somebody help me!
    She might have screamed the words, or she might only have thought them. She didn’t know. But, regardless, no help came.
    She twisted in the cramped space, tried to stretch out, desperate for room to breathe, but the trunk was too small. Gasping for air, she reached out with bound hands to find only inches between her face and the underside of the trunk lid.
    It was like being buried alive.
    A scream caught in her throat, panic driving her as she pushed on the trunk lid with her hands and feet, striking it, kicking it, trying to force it open.
    It didn’t budge.
    And for a moment, she was back in New Orleans at the hospital, the storm raging.
    Come see, darlin’. They were already dyin’, them. I jus’ made it easier. Ya get on in there now. Go on.
    No! You can’t shut me in here. I’ll suffocate!
    Hush, you! Have a good death, a peaceful death.
    Darkness. Cold. No air to breathe. The endless howling of the storm.
    The car hurtled around a corner, throwing Natalie against the side of the trunk, her face pressed against rough carpet that stank of exhaust, the violent motion jolting her past the worst edge of her claustrophobia and back to the present, the pitch-black of the morgue locker fading into the darkness of the closed trunk—and a reality just as horrible and terrifying.
    Joaquin was dead.
    He was dead, along with so many others. Dear Sr. Marquez, who’d loved his grandkids so much. Ana-Leticia Izel, who’d been about Natalie’s age. Isidoro Fernandez, who’d survived being shot in the leg on his way home from work last year. Sergio de Leon, who’d spent eight months in hiding after exposing several corrupt government officials as pawns of the cartels.
    All gone. All dead.
    And she was a captive of the men who’d killed them.
    The cold, hard truth brought her heartbeat to a near standstill.
    Oh, God.
    What were they going to do to her?
    What do you think they’re going to do?
    The El Paso police had talked about it a lot on the first day—the unsolved murders of young women and girls in Juárez. Hundreds had gone missing, and those whose bodies had been found had been sexually brutalized and dismembered. At first, the police had believed there was a single serial killer to blame. Then they’d blamed copycat killers.
    But now, years later, it was clear that rape and murder were just part of the violent landscape, with drug cartels, sex slavers, human traffickers, gangs, and serial killers from both sides of the border preying on the young women who flocked to Juárez hoping for a job in one of the maquiladoras . During the seminar, they’d shown photos of some of the victims, stark images of young women lying naked and dead in ditches, in garbage bins, in the open desert.
    And suddenly Natalie found it hard to breathe again, her heart tripping hard and fast, her stomach threatening to revolt. But it wasn’t claustrophobia this time.
    It was straight-up terror.
    She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to force the unbearable images from her mind, the distress and sorrow she’d felt at seeing what had happened to those women becoming fear for herself. Is that what these men planned to do to her?
    I don’t want to die like that. Not like that.
    She didn’t want to die at all.
    Maybe they would hold her for ransom. She was a U.S. citizen, after all, and they knew she was a journalist. Maybe they just wanted money. Oh, God, she hoped so.
    God, help me!
    It was so hot, so hot. Her entire body was sticky with perspiration, her mouth dry from thirst—or was that fear? Claustrophobia began to take hold again, the close air pressing in on her. She had to get out of here. They needed to open the trunk now .
    Except that . . .
    What would they do to her when they did?
    Abruptly, the car swerved, then accelerated. Men’s voices rose in shrill whoops and shouts, guns firing, the terrible sound making Natalie jump. Were they being pursued? Had someone come after them, hoping to free her? What