“I shot her and was about to spray her brains all over that dirt road. That’s letting someone go on purpose? She ran off while I was taking care of other things—like killing someone else. She’s probably lying dead in a cornfield right now getting pecked at by buzzards.”
“And if she’s not?”
“What is she going to do? Tell the cops that she was in the back of a semi? Tell them that it was red with two girls driving it? She can’t say anything that would get us jammed up, and that’s if she was even alive. The plates on the truck are stolen, plus we won’t be driving it anymore after we give it back to Daddy. There’s nothing to worry about. Just let it go.”
“It just wasn’t smart,” Kitty said. “We met her in a public place. If she lives and says where she ran into us, I’m sure they can find us on camera. Daddy always taught us to be diligent. That’s the first rule. Do you need me to go through them for you?”
“Kitty, we—”
Kitty continued, “Rule two: if we kill people inside of the truck, we don’t spill a drip of blood. Rule three: we always make sure people are dead. Rule four: if anyone sees you, they are dead. Rule five: no loose ends. He gave us rules to live by. You broke every one. You should have just let me chase her down and kill her.”
“I’m well aware of the rules, Kitty. Except we were sitting on the side of the road in daylight. A dead guy—that I just shot—was crashed in a truck. I’d just fired off six shots that anyone could have heard. We had a trailer with tied-up and gagged people in it. And you think we should have stuck around while you tried to chase that woman down? A woman that was probably going to die in a couple of minutes anyway. No. Sorry, we made the right decision by getting the hell out of there.”
“Whatever. We’re just not going to agree.”
“Fine. But get over it. You’re being a buzzkill, and we’re about to show up to a celebration.”
Kitty crossed her arms over her chest and went back to staring out the passenger-side window.
“You’re not going to act like this in front of Daddy and everyone else at the party. Get your shit together.”
“You better hope that bitch died.”
Kerry rolled her eyes. “I’m sorry, okay? Next time, I’ll let you make the call if we end up in a situation like that. Just don’t say anything to Daddy. I don’t want him to end up getting mad when we’re supposed to be having a party.”
“So you think he would be mad? That should just about tell you everything right there.”
“Please. Just drop it already.”
Kitty shook her head, let out a puff of air through her nose, and reached for the radio.
“Promise me you won’t say anything.”
“I’m not promising anything. And I’m not going to lie to Daddy.”
“I’m not asking you to lie,” Kerry said. “I’m asking you to just keep your mouth shut.”
“Whatever. I’ll think about it.”
The truck went silent aside from the radio. Within a song or two, Kitty was bobbing her head and singing along to some country song playing.
Kerry figured Kitty had gotten over the subject of the woman who’d run. She made a slow left, pushing the truck’s front tire into the sage grass to make the turn on a narrow road. “One more turn to go. Almost there. Couple minutes.” She looked over at Kitty in the passenger seat, who perked up.
Kitty put a leg underneath her on the truck seat so she could get higher. “It all looks exactly the same. Mountains and dirt and bushes—some dead, some alive. Just like I remember it.”
“I don’t think things change much around here.”
“Speaking of changing, what do you think Bobby has been up to?” Kitty asked. “Aunt Ginny said he was working on some ranch the last time I asked.”
“You always did have a thing for him. He’s your cousin, Kitty.”
“Oh, wait a minute.” Kitty turned in her seat and faced Kerry. “You are not about to insinuate that there was something going on with Bobby and me and conveniently forget the fact that we straight up busted you and Ben out in that tent doing who knows what.”
“We were not doing anything,” Kerry snapped.
“Right. If that’s what not doing anything sounds like.”
“Whatever. We didn’t know what we were doing at the time. That was a long time ago.”
“I’m pretty sure I know what you were doing at the time.” Kitty smiled, bit at her lip, and wiggled her hips around.
Kerry reached over and swiped at Kitty’s leg. “Quit it. Don’t bring that up around them. It’s embarrassing.”
“Yeah, yeah. I won’t say anything. Just keep in mind that I have the dirt on you.”
“Whatever. Look!” Kerry pointed out through the windshield at an old rusted car from the 1950s along the side of the gravel road on their left up ahead. “We’re here.”
She slowed the truck to almost a stop and made a sharp left into an old overgrown gravel driveway beside the car, which marked the location. Kerry drove not much faster than an idle down the driveway toward a barely visible old gray single-story house in the distance. Old cars, half sunk into the desert landscape, littered the yard around the house. Rusted semitrailers, at least seven or eight, sat parked side by side to the right of the driveway and passed by outside the truck’s passenger window. A metal pole shed overshadowed the small home in the distance. As they continued to near, the front door opened, and a number of people walked from the front porch to the gravel driveway out front. One of the people, a man with a bald head and a clearly visible long gray beard stepped from the group and walked down the driveway toward the approaching rig.
“It’s Daddy!” Kitty yelled. “Kerry, it’s Daddy!”
Kerry smiled ear to ear and stopped the truck near the four-foot-tall boulders marking the edge of the driveway. She stared out at her father, Silas Levy, standing twenty feet in front of the nose of the truck. He looked just as he had the last time she’d seen him though his beard was longer and whiter. His head was clean-shaven, as always. He looked a little thinner but still all of two hundred and fifty pounds. Her father wore a black T-shirt and a pair of tan tactical pants—pockets lined the sides, ankle to waist. On his feet, he wore a pair of black leather combat boots. Kitty opened the passenger door and leapt from the side as Kerry shut the truck down and stepped down from the driver’s side. She walked to the front of the rig to see Kitty wrapped in their father’s arms. Kerry approached. Her father looked up at her and held out his right arm, covered in a faded sleeve of tattoos, to take her in. Kerry walked to him and wrapped her arms around his neck.
“Hi, Daddy,” she said.
Her father didn’t respond.
Kerry looked him in the face—he stared back at her and then Kitty. A smile overtook his mouth.
“My girls,” he said. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”
“We wanted it to be a surprise, Daddy,” Kitty said. “We brought your truck.”
Their father turned and looked toward the group at his back. “Did you all know about this?”
The thin middle-aged woman, Aunt Ginny, shook her head. Two midtwenties men, darkly tanned—a telltale sign that they either worked or spent most of their time outdoors—smiled and shook their heads.
“I knew,” said the older man standing with the group.
Silas shook his head. “Harper, you son of a bitch. You should have told me.”
Harper walked to the girls and their father.
“They were set on it being a surprise, brother. Who am I to ruin that for them?” Harper turned his attention to Kerry and Kitty. “Kerr Bear, Kit Kat.”
Kerry left her father and reached out both arms to her uncle. Her uncle approached while Kerry stood, holding her position with arms outstretched. She stared at him as he walked up. He looked almost identical to her father—being only a year or so different in age. The main thing separating the brother’s appearance was her uncle’s long hair, which was various colors of gray and
white and came down a few inches past his shoulders—his beard was equal to his hair in color and length. Harper lifted his arms to take Kerry in. He wore a dingy white T-shirt with holes in it and a pair of black jeans. A large hunting knife hung from the belt around his waist. Uncle Harper gave her a big bear hug before he moved on to greet Kitty.
Kerry went and greeted the rest of her family. Her Aunt Ginny, dressed in jeans and an old tattered T-shirt, had long gray unkempt hair. She gave her aunt a hug and a kiss on the cheek. Kerry moved on to her cousins Bobby and Ben.
Bobby gave her a hug, said, “Good to see you, Cuz,” and let her go.
Kerry moved on to Ben, taking him in before she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him in close. Ben’s strong arms wrapped around her. She breathed in deeply, and her cousin’s familiar smell of cigarettes and whatever deodorant he favored registered in her head as familiar. She took her cheek from his shoulder and looked him in the face. Ben’s dark hair was short, his eyebrows thick, and his chin strong. He flashed her a smile. Kerry couldn’t help but notice his hug was tighter and longer than Bobby’s.
Ben leaned in near Kerry’s ear. “I missed you,” he said.
Kerry gave him a smile and let go. She turned and walked back to her father, who was still standing near the front of the truck. Kitty passed her to greet the rest of the relatives.
Kerry glanced over at her uncle, who was standing with his thumbs underneath the front straps of his suspenders.
“Been a bit since you saw this rig, huh, Silas?” Harper asked.
“Looking at that thing is making my damn bones ache,” Silas said. “How many hours do you think we put into building that damn trailer?”
“Hell, hundreds and hundreds. Lots of whiskey drunk and sweat dripped in the process. It turned out pretty good in the end, though.”
Kerry’s father turned toward her. “You girls drove this all the way here from home?”
“Yup,” Kerry said. “We have another surprise for you, too. Come on.” She started toward the trailer, her feet crunching across the gravel. “Kitty, come on!” Kerry yelled over her shoulder. She saw Kitty jogging toward her, their father, and their uncle. Kerry went to the back of the truck and undid the lock securing the rear door. She pulled the bar to open the doors just as Kitty came around the back of the truck to join the group.
Kerry looked at her father and smiled. “Party favors,” she said, swinging the door open.
She stared at the four people inside, all bound with hoods tied over their heads. The four occupants all lay inside the trailer—hog tied. Beyond the occupants, on the back wall of the trailer, were the words You’re Already Dead, You Just Don’t Know It Yet spray-painted in red. The message was something Kerry’s father had written years before.
“Well, should we get them out and in the shed with the others? They’re just gonna die from the heat if we leave them in there,” Harper said.
“Kerry and I will get them.” Kitty hopped up into the back of the trailer.
Kerry took a look at her father as she stepped up into the back.
Silas gave her a grin. “Such good girls,” he said.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Ms. Goff, you don’t mind if I record our conversation, do you?” I asked. “Just so we don’t miss anything.”
“Just Sarah,” she said. “And that’s fine.”
I clicked the small Record button and introduced the parties present in the room. I looked at Sarah Goff, sitting up in the hospital bed. “Sarah, can you just give us your account of what happened to you?”
“Sure. Just start from the beginning?” she asked.
“Please,” Gallo said.
“Well, I was driving to my boyfriend’s house in Kingston when—”
Gallo cut her sentence short. “Kingston?”
“Tennessee,” she said.
“Okay, time and date?”
“This would have been Friday night around two in the morning.”
“So technically Saturday morning?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said. “I was out with some friends and was going back to his house.”
“Sure. Continue.”
“Well, so I get dropped off at his house, and we end up getting into this huge fight. I mean, it really just got out of control. I walk into his place, and he’s just reeking of booze. This is after he tells me that he wasn’t going out. Anyway, we get into it and start calling each other names and accusing each other of doing this and that. Then, out of nowhere, the asshole hits me. That’s how I got this.” She pointed at her blackened eye. “I just ran out of the door as fast as I could. It wasn’t until I was a couple of blocks away that I even realized that I left my phone and my purse there and I wasn’t going to go back. I figured I’d just send my brother to get my things and have a talk with him, you know. So as I’m walking home and crying, still a good two or so miles from home, I’d just had enough. That’s when I decided that I was going to go to the truck stop and call my brother for a ride.”
“What truck stop?” I asked.
“I don’t know what the name of it is, exactly. It’s right there near the interstate and Union Road. About halfway between where my boyfriend lives and my place.”
“Which interstate?” I asked.
“Forty,” she said.
“Sure,” I said. “Please continue.”
“So I head into the truck-stop parking lot. I have a busted-up eye and lip and have been crying, eyeliner streaking down my face—just a mess. Well, when I’m just about to the doors of the truck stop to go inside, this pair of girls, probably a couple years younger than I am, walk out as I’m trying to walk in. They both just stare at me and then walk straight up to me like, ‘Honey, Honey, Honey, are you okay? Let us help.’ It seems stupid of me now, but I just broke down in front of them—two complete strangers. The two girls just kind of hugged me and told me to come on. They walked me out by a semi on the side end of the parking lot. They just asked things like if they could call me someone. They asked if I wanted them to call the cops—stuff like that. I just told them no and asked them if maybe I could use a phone to call my brother to pick me up and drive me home. That was when they offered to just give me a ride.”
“And it was just these two girls in the semi?” I asked.
“Yeah, the blond one was driving the truck.”
“Did they tell you their names?” I asked.
“Carrie and Kitty, they said.”
“Can you describe them for us?” I asked though I had a pretty damn good feeling about the description our woman in the hospital bed was about to give.
“Twins,” she said. “The blond one was named Carrie. The black-haired one was Kitty. Early twenties. Pretty, if we’re being honest. Complete psychopathic lunatics, but they were attractive.”
“Height and weight? Caucasian?” I asked.
“My height or so. Five foot nine. And yeah, white girls. Probably not much more than a hundred and fifteen pounds—either of them.”
“Anything distinguishing about either of them?” I asked.
“The one with the dark hair, Kitty, had a tattoo of a little cartoon cat on her collarbone with x’s for eyes.”
“Okay. What happened next?” Gallo asked.
“Well, we’re driving along, and I’m giving them directions. We were on Kingston Highway, about a half mile from my house, when the girl driving pulls to the side of the road and says she thinks something is wrong with the truck. She stops and gets out, so it was just me and the dark-haired one sitting inside the truck. I mean, I didn’t really know what she was getting out to look at. Where we pulled over was completely pitch black—it’s just a two-lane country road. So I’m just sitting there waiting and thinking that I should probably just get out and walk the rest of the way when the girl who was outside of the truck yells okay, and the black-haired girl still in the truck gets out, stands outside of the doorway, and waves me down. When I get out, the other girl, at least that’s who I’m ass
uming it was, hits me in the head with a big rock. So I fall down and am kind of knocked for a loop, and I look up to see her swinging the rock down on me again. That’s where I got the knot and cut on my forehead. Well, I wake up who-knows-when later, and I’m tied up in the back of the truck. All I saw was black. They put some kind of hood or pillowcase or something over my head.”
“You said that there were other people in this truck?” Gallo asked. “Meaning captives?”
“Two more people tied up inside. When I got out, it looked like they were getting ready to put in two more.”
“What can you tell us about the others?” I asked.
“Nothing really,” she said. “They had hoods and were tied like I was. That’s about it, really. The ones inside the trailer with me looked like they were both women. I’m guessing one of the ones they were about to put in was a man, by the size. The other outside looked like the size and shape of an older woman. I only saw the ones outside of the trailer for a second.”
“Okay. Can you tell us about how you escaped?” I asked.
“Sure. So when I woke up, I couldn’t see anything. I was facedown on something soft. My hands were strapped behind my back. My feet were also linked together at my ankles, and I could feel that my hands were connected to my feet by something. Whatever was holding me wasn’t metal and flexed a little, so I just started pulling and ripping back and forth. Well, after doing that for a bit, I fell asleep. I don’t know if it was from getting hit on the head or what, but I just couldn’t stay awake. This went on for I don’t know how long—days, maybe. I’d come to, try to fight out of what bound me, and then pass out again. Sometimes, I’d come to, and we’d be moving. Sometimes we’d be stopped. I heard voices a couple of times. Well, the last time I woke up, I actually felt pretty coherent. I really started working on what was holding me. I could feel what held my wrists start to cut into my skin, but I just kept going. After a few more minutes of ripping around, I hear a snap, and whatever was holding my ankles lets go. So then, I could lie down flat on my back and pass my legs through my linked arms under my butt and get my hands before me. As soon as I did that, I ripped the hood from my head and took the gag from my mouth. I tried looking around, but there was nothing but darkness. I pulled my lighter from my front pocket and flicked it. With the little light it made, I could see my surroundings and the other people.”
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