Huckleberry Lake

by Catherine Anderson

  “What’s wrong?” the owner cried. “What’s wrong? Your girlfriend just walked out in the middle of her shift and left me shorthanded! That’s what’s wrong. No warning. Nothing. She just up and disappeared!”

  Kennedy’s stomach clenched. “Jen wouldn’t just walk away. She’s saving almost all her wages for tuition. Have you looked at the camera footage? Something must have happened.”

  “You hear all those horns blowing? I’m too damned busy to stand around with my thumb up my butt. You want to watch footage, you go right ahead. I have a business to run!”

  Kennedy couldn’t blame the guy. Being shorthanded during dinner hour, he was in a heck of a fix. But didn’t the man care if Jen had gone missing? Kennedy strode into the building. Kids were all over the kitchen in their Mystical Burger Shack tops, which looked like prison scrubs with a logo on the front and back. Kennedy looked up at the monitor, which was essentially a flat-screen TV with a camera feed. Problem. Kennedy had no idea how to back up the recording.

  “Hey,” he said to a kid flipping burgers on the grill. “Do you know how to back this camera thing up?”

  “Hell, no, man. The boss doesn’t teach us that stuff. He watches us more than he does the customers. He thinks we’ll give away food to our friends.”

  Kennedy stared up at the screen, which was divided into frames. Shit. Something had happened to Jen. He felt it in his bones. The different zones covered almost all the outdoor area where cars pulled in. He needed help to watch the footage.

  Kennedy thought about calling the cops, but since he wasn’t positive that Jen hadn’t been irresponsible and just left, he was hesitant. He decided to call her folks instead to see if they knew where Jen had gone.

  “Hey, buddy, do you have Jen’s home phone number?” Kennedy asked the patty flipper.

  The kid, who wore a net over his dark hair, jerked his head toward the commercial refrigerator, a silver monstrosity with papers taped all over the front. “Should be posted there. If not, the boss has it.”

  Kennedy advanced on the fridge, located Jen’s home number, and punched it into his phone. When Jen’s dad answered, Kennedy said, “My name’s Kennedy Fitzgerald, and I—”

  Mr. Johnson cut Kennedy off. “Well, hello, Kennedy. I’ve never had a chance to thank you for standing up for my girl that night. I really appreciate what you did for her.”

  Kennedy was in too big a panic for chitchat. “Look, Mr. Johnson, I appreciate that, but right now I’m worried about Jen. I’m at the burger shack. She texted me that she was working today, only when I got here, she wasn’t anywhere around. Her boss is ticked off. He says she walked out in the middle of her shift.”

  “Jenette would never do that,” her father said. “And she’s supposed to be there. If something came up, she would have called us.”

  Kennedy didn’t want to be an alarmist, but he was worried. “Mr. Johnson, I think you should call the cops. I don’t think Jen would walk off the job like this, and if she didn’t, something else went down.”

  “Oh, God. That damned kid, Rob Sorensen. He’s big trouble. I’ll call the cops, all right.”

  Kennedy’s stomach was still tied in knots. He had a really bad feeling about this. If those kids had returned, they could have overpowered Jen and forced her into a car. “Hurry, Mr. Johnson. Tell them you think Rob Sorensen kidnapped her. It may not be true, but given what he did the other night, I don’t think he deserves any benefit of the doubt.”

  “I agree.”

  Kennedy started to say something else but realized Jen’s father had ended the call. At a loss as to what to do next, Kennedy decided that messing with the camera footage would be a wasted effort. The county deputies would arrive soon. They would know all about surveillance systems. Kennedy’s time might be better spent looking around outside. He remembered how the food tray had been knocked from Jen’s hands that night Rob shoved his driver door open. Was there a tray and cold food lying on the ground outside that the owner hadn’t noticed?

  Kennedy exited the building and scanned the parking area. There were so many vehicles under the overhang that he wouldn’t see a tray lying on the asphalt. Kennedy walked along the concrete median that the servers skated on to deliver orders. He accidentally stepped into the path of a waitress and made her spill a soda.

  “Damn it!” the owner yelled. “Get the hell off the runway! Can’t you see how busy we are?”

  What Kennedy saw was that Jen’s boss was so angry at her for leaving him in the lurch that he didn’t care what had happened to her. But Kennedy wasn’t going to let that stop him from looking around. What was the guy going to do, kick his ass and throw him off the property? Kennedy didn’t think so.

  After walking the full length of the median, Kennedy cut a wide circle around the parking area, and as he finished the loop, which took him near the back of the building where a big green dumpster sat, he finally saw a tray. It lay on the ground with one of its legs broken, but no food was around it, only an empty hamburger wrapper, a smashed drink cup, and crumpled napkins. Kennedy closed the distance, anyway, just to get a better look. He saw nothing alarming. No blood or anything.

  The thought of blood sent a weird feeling through his chest, not exactly a pain, but more like an ache. He’d come to care about Jen. She was a sweet girl, and he didn’t know what he’d do if something bad had happened to her.

  Just then he heard a shrill sound. For an instant, he thought it was a distant cop siren wailing, but he only heard it once. Sirens usually kept blowing. His feet suddenly felt as if they were stuck to the ground, and his heart started to pound.

  “Jen?”

  The shrill sound came again, and Kennedy’s boots came unglued from the dirt quicker than a heartbeat. He ran around the dumpster, and there lay Jenette, her right arm and hand twisted and turned at unnatural angles. Her skirt had been ripped halfway off her, and the crotch of her leotard was unsnapped. Blood smeared her inner thighs.

  “No!” Kennedy cried.

  He knelt beside her, but he couldn’t think what to do. She was hurt. She was hurt badly. Sweet Jesus, show me what to do. Only nothing came to Kennedy. He was afraid to even touch her. She didn’t appear to be conscious. Her face was all red and puffy, like she’d been repeatedly struck by a fist. Anger roiled within him.

  He leaped to his feet and raced back around the building. “I found Jen!” he yelled. “She’s hurt! Somebody call an ambulance! Tell them to hurry! I think she’s dying!”

  And Kennedy truly believed that. The ground under her was soaked with blood, and he was afraid she was hemorrhaging internally from injuries he couldn’t see. He’d been scared a few times in his life, but never like this.

  * * *

  * * *

  Wyatt was lunging a horse in the round pen when his cell phone vibrated, his signal that someone had texted him. He almost didn’t stop working to read it. Over time, he’d learned that texts could normally be ignored until he had time to look at them. But something, maybe a premonition, told him this message might be urgent. Foolishness. He didn’t get premonitions. Well, he had gotten some doom-and-gloom feelings a few times, but they’d never amounted to anything. He’d just been anxious about nothing.

  Even so, Wyatt brought the horse down from its lope and drew out his phone. He was surprised to see that it had been Erin who contacted him. He started reading her text.

  I’m on duty and just responded to an emergency call. Kennedy’s friend at the burger joint has been raped and beaten. Don’t know if she’ll pull through. Kennedy took off in his truck. I think he’s looking for the Sorensen kid, her ex-boyfriend. If he finds him before we do, he may kill him, and right now, I’d consider helping him do it. Find your brother, ASAP.

  Wyatt almost didn’t answer Erin’s missive, but after handing off the horse to Tex for a rubdown, he drew his phone back out of his pocket as he left the barn and texted her
back. Thanks for the heads-up. Going to look for him. Wish me luck.

  Wyatt’s hands were shaking as he started his pickup. Kennedy was normally levelheaded, but when a guy cared about a girl and she got hurt by a jerk, all bets were off. Kennedy might do something totally idiotic if he found that boy.

  It had been a long time since Wyatt had been a teenager. In fact, he guessed if he were honest, he’d never really been a normal teen. The boys his age hadn’t wanted to hang out with him. But Wyatt did remember the things those youngsters had done for kicks, and alcohol had almost always been part of their repertoire. After raping and beating a girl within an inch of her life, the Sorensen boy had to be scared, and Wyatt was willing to bet money that alcohol would be his sedative of choice. He pulled his truck over to the curb on West Main and texted Erin again.

  Where do kids go to get drunk in this town?

  Erin wrote back: The creek. Drive out Mystic Creek Lane and take every road to the left. You can tell if it leads to a house. There’ll be a mailbox. All other roads go to water. Kids go there to avoid being caught in possession.

  Wyatt fastened his seat belt and felt his phone vibrate again. He got it out of his pocket and saw that Erin had added: We’ll be combing the same area soon. Scrambling at moment. Arranged emergency transport for girl. Sending to Crystal Falls. Dealing with crime scene now and questioning all kids here.

  Wyatt knew things were probably crazy at Erin’s end, and he was glad to know the authorities would soon launch a full-blown search for the Sorensen kid, undoubtedly their prime suspect. Wyatt only hoped he could find Kennedy before he did something crazy that could land him in jail.

  Instead of driving around town, which probably would be a waste of time, Wyatt headed toward the north side and turned onto Mystic Creek Lane. Erin had it right. This was an area where kids could hide. Pines so thick he couldn’t see through them. Dirt roads that had been driven during the winter to create ruts that had now hardened like cement. Definitely not inviting, not even to cops.

  The first road Wyatt drove down ended at the creek, but there were no vehicles parked near the water and he saw no sign of kids. So he went back out to the main road and took the next left without a mailbox. Again, he found nothing. He’d searched five creek-side spots and was starting to worry he wouldn’t find Kennedy when he finally hit pay dirt. As he bumped his way down the sixth road, he glimpsed a blue vehicle through the trees. Kennedy’s pickup was blue. A second later Wyatt saw a refurbished red-and-white Chevy. He floorboarded the accelerator, pushing his truck to such a high speed that it bounced and went airborne over the ruts. When he entered the clearing by the stream, he slammed on the brakes and put the vehicle into a sideways skid.

  Kennedy and a kid built like a brick shithouse were squared off with their fists raised, but Wyatt’s unexpected appearance and the cloud of dust sent up by the truck tires startled them both enough to make them look at Wyatt instead of each other.

  Wyatt leaped out of the vehicle. “Kennedy, let the law handle this! It’s not your place!”

  Kennedy gave Wyatt a wild-eyed glare. “You didn’t see what they did to her! By God, I’m going to kill the little fucker!”

  Wyatt held up his phone and dialed 911. He watched the screen to see when the dispatcher answered the call. “My name is Wyatt Fitzgerald. I’m deaf and can hear nothing you say to me. The young man who raped and beat the Johnson girl is hiding out off of Mystic Creek Lane down by the creek. Send officers to the scene. Tell them it’s the sixth road south of the north end.”

  Kennedy stomped over and grabbed Wyatt’s phone. For an instant, Wyatt thought his brother truly had lost his good sense, but instead Kennedy put the phone to his ear. “The guy’s name is Rob Sorensen. I know he did it, because he’s got her blood on his hands and the fly of his jeans. Three other boys were in on it. Get here as fast as you can, because the jerk has a knife.”

  Just then Rob Sorensen came tearing across the clearing. Wyatt saw that he was yelling something, but he couldn’t make out the words. Wyatt stepped into the kid’s path. If the boy jumped Kennedy, Kennedy would fight back, and at all costs, Wyatt hoped to keep his brother out of trouble. Kennedy had a bright future ahead of him, and Wyatt didn’t want his plans to be ruined over a fight with a minor.

  The impact of the youth’s body sent Wyatt flying backward, and the kid landed on top of him. Wyatt rolled out from under him and sprang to his feet. “Stay out of it, Kennedy,” he commanded. “Stand back and let me handle this.”

  Sorensen staggered erect and swung wildly at Wyatt with the open blade of a pocketknife. Wyatt swung up his arm to block the thrust and managed to knock the weapon out of the boy’s hand. From that moment forward, all Wyatt did was block punches. He would do everything he could to avoid hitting the kid. A grown man could get in serious Dutch for assaulting a minor. Kennedy tried to come in on the scuffle once, but Wyatt threw out his arm and knocked him backward.

  “I said stay out of it.” Wyatt turned to face off with the boy again. “I may go to jail, Kennedy, but I’ll still have a job when I get out. You might ruin your whole life.”

  Wyatt’s arms were starting to ache from blocking the youth’s wild swings, but he just kept circling and blocking until the three boys huddled together by the car ran over and tackled their friend. One of them, a teen with whitish-blond hair, extricated himself from the dogpile and turned to face Wyatt.

  “We didn’t do it!” he cried. “We thought he was just going to give her a scare. You know? And then he went all crazy, and we didn’t know what to do! We kept telling him to stop, but he wouldn’t! When she kicked him on the shin with her roller skate, he went totally berserk. Carried her to the dumpster. Threw her on the ground. That’s when her arm got broken. And then”—the kid’s shoulders started to jerk—“he ra-aped h-her. R-right in fr-front of us. There was s-so much n-noise out front that nobody h-heard her scr-screaming. I swear, we n-never t-touched her.”

  Wyatt managed to read the kid’s lips and understood most of what he’d said. “The cops are on their way. You need to tell them your story.”

  The kid’s face twisted and tears spilled down his cheeks. “I don’t w-want to g-go to j-jail. I had n-nothing to d-do with it!”

  “Well, son,” Wyatt said slowly. “I’m sure Jenette Johnson didn’t wake up this morning wanting to be beaten and raped, either. And even if you didn’t lay a hand on her, you did allow it to happen. A good man doesn’t do that. He defends a woman with every ounce of his strength.”

  “I’m not a m-man yet.”

  “No, but you soon will be, and if you don’t start choosing your friends more wisely, you’ll be a poor excuse for one.”

  Wyatt made sure the other two youths still had Sorensen pinned to the ground and then turned to deal with his brother. He expected Kennedy to be fuming with anger, but instead the younger man’s blue eyes were bright with unshed tears. “Thanks, Wyatt. I would have killed him.”

  Wyatt nodded. “I know, and I couldn’t have blamed you. But a judge might not have seen it that way.”

  “You all right?” Kennedy asked.

  “My arms will be sore for a few days. The jock throws one hell of a punch.”

  Just then Kennedy whirled at some sound Wyatt couldn’t hear. “Sirens,” Kennedy said, looking over his shoulder so Wyatt could see his face. “The cavalry is almost here.”

  Lights flashing, three county vehicles finally pulled into the clearing. Wyatt curled an arm around his brother’s shoulders. “Our business here is finished, Kennedy,” he said. “We’ll only distract the deputies by hanging around. Now that the sun is about to dip behind the mountains, it’ll be dark soon. If possible, we need to get your truck home. Are you okay to drive?”

  Kennedy nodded. Then he met Wyatt’s gaze. “What he did to her. I’ll never get it out of my head. What if she dies?”

  Wyatt’s throat went tight.
“Let’s pray that doesn’t happen. It’s all we can do, Kennedy, just pray. She’s in God’s hands now.”

  “Just so you know, when I get back to the bunkhouse, I’m stealing one of your jugs of whiskey from under your bed.”

  Wyatt tightened his grip on Kennedy’s shoulder. “Promise not to drive after you’ve had a drink?”

  “You know I won’t.”

  “Then you’re welcome to my whiskey. Just buy me another jug if you drain it.”

  Kennedy started to walk away and then stopped to face Wyatt again. “What’re you going to do?”

  Wyatt shrugged. “First I’m going to collect my hat and try to clean it up. That little shit knocked it off my head, and it rolled in the dirt. Then I’ve got a couple of errands to run in town. When I’m finished, I’ll head home.”

  Kennedy nodded. “Thanks again, Wyatt. I wouldn’t have just blocked his blows.”

  “I know.”

  As Kennedy walked toward his truck, Wyatt searched the clearing for Erin and saw her over by the tricked-out Chevy, interviewing the three boys who had witnessed the attack on Jenette. He wanted to thank her for the text she had sent to warn him that Kennedy might be hunting down Sorensen. By contacting him, she had been instrumental in protecting Kennedy’s future. If it hadn’t been for her quick thinking, Wyatt wouldn’t have found his brother in time to stop him from doing something stupid. He also hoped to get more information on Jenette’s condition, mostly because he knew Kennedy would want to know how the girl was doing before the evening was over, and with all the patient privacy laws, Wyatt feared they would get no information through normal channels.

  Watching Erin do her job, he decided he should wait before he tried to talk to her. She was busier right now than a one-legged cowboy trying to kick his own ass. Maybe he could grab a bite to eat and then catch her at the sheriff’s department later.