VERNON HILLS, Ill. -- An Illinois man is back home after he told police he was kidnapped, bound with duct tape and driven more than a thousand miles to Texas in the back of his own vehicle.

Authorities said 33-year-old David Clark of Round Lake telephoned Laredo, Texas, police shortly after 2 a.m. Wednesday and told them he had broken free from two kidnappers.

He had been missing since Monday night.

“I’m very fortunate to be able to come home,” Clark said

Friday during a news conference. “For whatever reason they spared my life, and I’m very happy.”

Police said they don’t doubt Clark’s story since he was dehydrated and disoriented when authorities found him.

“It’s hard to believe that someone would go through an experience like that and live to tell about it,” said Laredo police spokesman Joe Baeza.

Clark, a co-owner of McCarthy’s Restaurant in Vernon Hills, said he pulled over his Jeep Cherokee to check his brakes on Monday when a gunman forced him to drive to another location where they picked up another man.

The father of two said the two men bound and gagged him, threw him in the back of the Jeep and drove to Texas. He said he was not offered any food and given water only once.

Baeza said the men apparently left Clark in the Jeep in a strip mall parking lot, where Clark said he was able to break free and call police from a nearby pay phone. Baeza said some duct tape was found in the car.

Clark told authorities that the men stole $1,000 in cash, a laptop computer, a cell phone and his wallet.

The FBI is investigating the case. Telephone messages left Saturday by The Associated Press to the Laredo Police Department and the FBI were not immediately returned.