River Road

by Carol Goodman

  I started to deny it but Troy spoke first. “She’s the police chief’s girlfriend, Scull, so you’d better not hurt her.”

  “Screwing the police chief’s bitch, well, well, that’s even more impressive.” He pointed the shotgun at me. “Is that true, bitch, are you the police chief’s piece on the side?”

  I didn’t think it was a good moment to split hairs, either about McAffrey’s rank or our relationship status. “Yes, and he’s on his way over. You’d better leave now.”

  Instead of leaving Scully took a step into my living room and looked around. “Ain’t this romantic, with a fireplace and candlelight and all. You think I’m an idiot? Why you snuggled up with your boy Troy if you’re expecting Mr. Police Man?”

  “I showed up unexpected, man,” Troy said. “I’ve been hiding out from the police since yesterday, waiting for a chance to get out of here.”

  “Waiting for a chance to grab the stash and double-cross me, more like,” Scully said, shoving the shotgun into Troy’s face.

  “I told you, man, Leia dumped it all,” Troy said. “I showed you where I’d hid it in the boathouse.”

  “You showed me an empty hidey-hole.” Scully spat on the floor. “Don’t mean nothing. You coulda hid it anywhere. Why else you hanging around here? Why else was this bitch down visiting my girl Aleesha? The two of you were planning to take the rest of the stash.”

  Troy didn’t say anything right away, then a slow grin spread across his face and he opened his hands wide. “Okay, man, you got me fair and square. The stash is still there. What, do you think I’d let a little bitch like Leia Dawson ruin my business? I knew she’d want to dump the stuff so I made up some little bags with baby powder and let her throw those in the river. The real stuff is still hidden.”

  I stared at Troy. His voice was barely recognizable, but then, he’d done voices for his story before. Was this an act? Or was the Troy I thought I knew the act?

  “So you were still holding out on me.” Scully jabbed the barrel of the shotgun into Troy’s chest. Troy only shrugged.

  “Hey, man, can’t blame a guy for trying. I’ll split it with you now. It’s down in the boathouse. We can go there. I got some money there too. Leia gave it to me so I’d dump the stuff.”

  Was he making up a story to get Scully out of here? Or was this what really had happened? Had Troy taken money from Leia and tricked her into thinking she had gotten rid of the bad heroin? And then run her down? I didn’t know what to believe or what to hope for. If the latter was true, Troy really was an irredeemable sociopath. If not, if it was an invented story to save both of us, then what would happen when Scully found out Troy was lying?

  Scully seemed to be considering the options as well. He looked down at Troy’s shoes—heavy Doc Martens—and then at his own thin-soled oxfords. “Okay—but first we’re gonna trade shoes and then, if you’re lying to me . . .” He jabbed the shotgun into Troy’s chest.

  “Yeah, man, I get it. You’ll get your stuff.” Then Troy glanced at me. “Better tie up the bitch and leave her here. She’ll just slow us down.”

  Troy’s face was still calm but I was close enough to see his leg jiggle—the way it had in workshop when he was nervous. Was he lying about the money and the stash? And why was he trying to get Scully to leave me behind?

  “You’ll never get there in the dark and the snow,” I blurted out. “But if you wait here until dawn—the snow’s supposed to stop—you can go then.”

  Scully looked at both of us and then a slow smile spread across his face. “Well, look at you two, all trying to protect each other. Ain’t that sweet?” The smile suddenly slipped off his face, replaced by an expression that made my stomach turn. “Unh-uh. We go now.” He took a flashlight out of his pocket and threw it at me. It only missed hitting me because I flung up my hand to catch it. The metal felt cold in my hand. “Come on, Prof, you gonna make like the Statue of Liberty and light the way.”

  * * *

  Scully let me put on my down jacket after searching my pockets but he wouldn’t let me give one to Troy.

  “My boy will do fine the way he is, ain’t that right, Troy?”

  Troy nodded grimly. Scully smiled and clapped him on the back. “And this way he won’t get no ideas about running away. He’d freeze to death on a night like this out in these woods.”

  I thought it likely we’d all freeze to death before we made it to the boathouse. The temperature must have been in the single digits. The snow was that dry, pellety kind that fell when it was really, really cold, and it drove against my face like needles as we crested the hill and started down toward the river. Scully made me go first, holding the flashlight, but all the beam showed was a narrow blade of swirling snow that was cut short by darkness. Like a light saber. I giggled.

  “What the fuck, Professor,” Troy, a step behind me, whispered. “Are you losing it?”

  “I was thinking that if Leia is Princess Leia you must be Luke and then since I’m your teacher that makes me Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

  “Fuck no!” Scully roared. “I’m Obi One Kenobi. You’re . . . you’re maybe Yoda.”

  “Obi-Wan Kenobi would not be forcing us at gunpoint through a blizzard,” I shouted back. “Let’s face it, in this scenario you’re Darth Vader—”

  Troy stumbled into me with a pained cry and I went down to my knees, my face in the snow. The flashlight skittered out of my hands and landed upright in the snow, illuminating an enraged Scully looming over us. “I’m no fucking Darth Vader, bitch. I’m Obi One, got that?”

  I nodded, afraid that if I opened my mouth, hysterical laughter would come bubbling out. I was out in the middle of a blizzard arguing with a murderous drug dealer/Star Wars fan. It just went to show that what I told my students was true: everyone’s the hero of their own story, never the villain.

  Scully jabbed the shotgun into my back and I grabbed the flashlight and struggled back to my feet. My pant legs were soaked through now and as we headed down the hill they froze in the sharp wind coming off the river. It felt as though the river had jumped its banks and was rushing over us in frozen waves. How would we even know that we had gotten to the river? The train tracks must be beneath two feet of snow by now. I hadn’t heard a train whistle since we’d left the house. We could have passed over them without our knowing and already be on the frozen river. We would just keep going until we broke through the ice and were sucked down the river to the sea. Bon Boy-Osh, Scuffy.

  “What’s so funny, now?” Scully was at my side. Troy had fallen back, stumbling in the snow. I suspected that without a coat he was already suffering from hypothermia. If he stayed back maybe I could lead Scully onto the ice. We would both drown, but at least Scully wouldn’t deal anyone else a lethal dose of heroin. It would be worth it, I thought. All these years since Emmy died, when I’d come close to killing myself I hadn’t been able to go through with it because it felt as if I’d be betraying Emmy’s memory. But if my death could do some good—if I could take an evil out of the world and save all the lives Scully would destroy—

  “We’re here.” Scully grabbed my wrist and yanked my hand higher so that the flashlight caught the three-gabled outline of the boathouse. It seemed to be floating in the air, a castle in a fairy tale carved out of ice and magic. Or like the evil witch’s cottage in the woods, built out of candy and malice.

  “We have to be careful,” I said. “There’s water all around it. We could go into the river.”

  “That’s why you’re going first.” He pushed me forward and I stumbled and landed in the snow, my knee hitting something hard and metal. The tracks. We were right on top of them. If only a train would come right now, I’d gladly drag Scully down with me. But Amtrak wasn’t running in this blizzard, and Scully was already going on ahead toward the boathouse. I felt a hand on my arm helping me up.

  Troy said something to me but a gust of icy river wind snatched the words right out of his mouth. I only caught “run for it.” Had he been warning me against
trying to run for it—or urging me to try it?

  “What—”

  But before I could finish my question Scully turned around and aimed the shotgun at both of us. “Come on now, you two lovebirds, don’t you want to come inside where it’s nice and warm?”

  “Yeah, Prof,” Troy said, his voice trembling, whether from cold or fear I couldn’t tell. “Let’s give the man what he wants so we can all go home.”

  Scully waited for us at the door of the boathouse and waved us inside with the butt of his shotgun. I shone the flashlight up into the dark depths of the storage loft—straight into a pair of glittering eyes.

  “Shit!” Scully swore as the giant barred owl swooped down from the loft straight toward him. He raised the shotgun in one swift arc and fired it at the owl. The air filled with feathers and the smell of blood and gunpowder and the bird landed on the floor at my feet, its brilliant gold eyes already dimming. I felt a scream itching the back of my throat but I swallowed it down.

  “Fucking boondocks!” Scully swore, spitting on the owl. “This is why I hate the country. Get me my product now so I can get the hell outta here.” He swung the gun around at me and Troy.

  Troy held up his hands. “Sure, man, it’s right over there, under a floorboard.”

  “You tried that on before. You’d better have the right floorboard this time.”

  Troy attempted to shrug and keep his hands over his head at the same time. “I was just trying to keep it safe, man. And good thing I did. When Leia went on her rampage she only got the fake stuff. She didn’t know where I’d hid the real stuff.”

  “Big man,” Scully said, “foolin’ a lil’ girl. Why’d you go and kill her after, then?”

  Troy’s jaw tightened and his eyes flicked to me for a moment. We hadn’t gotten to this part of the story yet, but I’d figured it out. “You felt betrayed by her, didn’t you? She’d lied to you about the money—” I stopped, an awful thought rising in my head. Troy had thought Leia was blackmailing Ross for the money, but what if she’d come to me for the money, what if that’s why she had wanted to talk to me? Of course I didn’t have that kind of money but if she had told me I would have gotten help for her—gone to the police—only, Troy would have been angry about that. He would have lost his scholarship and without that he would have seen no future but ending up in his father’s garage, turning into his father—

  “You were afraid,” I said, looking into Troy’s eyes. “Leia threatened to tell the police. You followed her in the car. It was snowing. You could have skidded into her. It could have been an accident . . .”

  Troy stared at me. In the glare of the flashlight his eyes glittered as if full of tears but that might have been a trick of the light.

  “Sure, Prof,” he said, his voice hard. “If that’s what you think. I suppose you think it’s an accident that Leia’s body wound up under your car.”

  Scully whistled under his breath. “That’s cold, man. Getting it on with your teacher and then framing her for murder. I guess you won’t mind what we do with her after I get my stash?”

  As cold as I was I felt ice water sluice through my bowels at Scully’s words. He had no intention of letting me go after he got his drugs and money. He could do what he wanted to me and then dump me in the river. He’d already disposed of one body that way. I clutched the flashlight, wondering if I could use it to defend myself. But what good was it against a gun?

  “Keep that light steady, bitch,” Scully told me, all the laughter gone from his voice. “Help your boy here find that stuff or you’ll both be in the river.”

  I shone the flashlight on Troy as he walked to the back wall, beneath the loft, and knelt down. As the beam followed him it caught Leia’s painted eyes on the wall above him. Where I’d seen sadness in those eyes before now I saw reproach. If only you’d listened to me, they seemed to say, you wouldn’t be about to die.

  “Shine the light on Troy,” Scully growled. “That painting is fucking creepy.”

  So I wasn’t the only one reading reproach in those eyes.

  I lowered the beam down to the floor where Troy was running his hands over the floorboards. “What’s the matter?” Scully demanded. “Did you lose track of your hidey-hole?”

  “Nah, it’s just that the wood’s swollen with the cold. I’m having trouble prying it up.”

  “Lame-ass college boy,” Scully muttered, stepping toward Troy. “Lemme at—”

  As soon as Scully was near, Troy rose, a length of wood studded with nails in his hands, and swung it at Scully’s face. One of the nails went into his eye. A jet of blood gushed up like a geyser, rising with Scully’s high, inhuman scream. Troy was yelling too.

  “Run!”

  For half a second I thought my feet had frozen to the floor, but then I turned and fled, out of the boathouse and into the storm, the shriek of the wind merging with the shouts and screams of the men I’d left behind. I still had the flashlight in my hand but all it showed me was a spinning galaxy of snow. I switched it off and stowed it in my pocket so it wouldn’t give away my location and headed toward what I thought was the riverbank. If I could find the train tracks I could follow them back to campus but I couldn’t see the tracks. I could just make out the tree line, though, so I ran for the trees, instinctively seeking their shelter.

  I remembered the distance between boathouse and woods as short, but wading through thigh-high snow, battling gusts of snow-filled wind, it felt like a mile before I stumbled against a broad-trunked pine. I wrapped my arms around it and pressed my face against the rough bark, inhaling its resinous scent. I felt like I could stay here forever rather than brave the chaos of the storm, that it would be good to become a tree, like Daphne, who prayed to her father the river god to change her into a tree to evade her pursuer, Apollo.

  Reminded of my pursuer, I inched my way around the back of the tree so I was concealed from anyone coming from the river. There was a depression in the snow here because the wind was blowing off the river. I crouched in it, looked toward the boathouse, and listened. The screams that I’d heard as I ran were gone now. Did that mean Troy had overpowered Scully? He’d had the advantage of surprise—a wave of nausea overtook me recalling the sound of the nail-studded board whacking into Scully’s flesh and the sight of his blood gushing into the air—but Troy had said that Scully was stronger than he looked, and he was angry. Even with one eye he might have killed Troy. And then he’d be looking for me. I had to stay hidden.

  The snow was mounting on either side of me, blown by the wind around the tree. It made a natural hiding place. I even felt warmer here, the snow acting as insulation. Maybe I could stay here until morning, gone to ground like a small animal in its burrow.

  Then again, I might freeze to death by morning.

  I had to keep moving. I could follow the line of trees that flanked the tracks, keeping behind them as much as possible so Scully wouldn’t see me.

  Or Troy. He’d helped me escape but did I really know he meant to let me go? He’d as good as confessed to killing Leia. He had to know I’d tell Joe what I’d heard—if I survived.

  I looked again toward the boathouse. It crouched like a large black toad on the edge of the water. No sound or light came from it. Maybe Scully and Troy had killed each other. I felt a twinge of guilt at the relief the thought brought me. No matter what Troy had done he was still a young man I had cared about. I just couldn’t trust him anymore. And I couldn’t just stay here waiting for one of them to come get me or to freeze to death.

  I crept out of the shelter of my tree and flung myself toward the shelter of the next one. I stayed low to the ground, in the lee of the high drifts mounding up at the tree line. I felt like a small animal tunneling through the snow, fleeing the hunting owl, scuttling away from its deadly talons—

  The fingers that suddenly closed around my neck felt like talons. They plucked me out of the snow as if I weighed no more than a mouse and shook me. I was staring up into the bloodied pit where Scully’s righ
t eye had been.

  “Bitch!” Flecks of spit hit my face. “You’re gonna join your boy in the river.”

  He wrapped his hand around my hair and dragged me to the river’s edge. He flung me onto the ice like I was a piece of trash. I heard a crack as the ice broke beneath me. I dug my nails into the ice. If he left me here maybe I could cling on to this piece of ice and float away like a polar bear on an ice floe, like—

  He kicked me in my side. I heard another crack and from the excruciating pain in my side I was pretty sure it was one of my ribs. The ice was cracking too. If only I could hold on—

  Scully’s boot came down on my hand, breaking my hold and at least two of my fingers. I screamed and tried to scuttle away from the next kick—into ice water. My ice floe was tilting down into the water. I could drown or face another blow—a real Scylla and Charybdis choice, I thought inanely.

  But maybe there was another choice.

  When the boot came down again I grabbed it with both hands—the hand with the broken fingers lighting up with pain—and yanked. Unbalanced on the slippery ice, Scully crashed down to one knee. When he tried to get up his other leg went through the ice. He screamed at the shock of the ice water. I crawled across my ice floe, toward another one that had broken loose and was floating on the current. Before I could get to it something yanked me back by my foot. I reached into my pocket and closed my hand around the flashlight. I thumbed on the light as I drew it from my pocket and aimed it in his eyes. I almost wished I hadn’t. The view of one-eyed Scully holding a jagged shard of ice over his head and about to bring it down on my skull was not my choice for the last thing I’d ever see. Emmy’s face is what I’d have chosen. But then another face reared over Scully’s shoulder, one almost as welcome as Emmy’s.

  “Put it down, asshole, and we might all get out of here alive. Move one inch and I’ll put a bullet in your thick skull.”

  If I couldn’t see his face I wouldn’t have recognized Joe’s voice. Scully heard the same deadly intent in it. He started to lower the ice shard but then he slammed it into Joe’s face and lunged to the left into the river. Joe grabbed for him, then Scully vanished under the ice, sucked into a whirlpool as deadly as any Charybdis.