The Letter Of The Law

by Tim Green

  Casey's eyes shot open as the shocking bolt of panic swept through her entire frame, rending her from a confusing dream. She bucked twice, but the overwhelming pressure on her face and the sharp point of a knife at the base of her throat left her wide-eyed and paralyzed with fear.

  Knowing that she was completely subdued, Sales rolled her over on her stomach and swiftly covered her mouth with duct tape by wrapping it around the back of her head. With the back of her T-shirt twisted in his hand, he lifted her off the bed and forced her over to the alarm panel that was above the light switch just inside the bedroom door. With the long knife pricking the back of her neck, Sales commanded her to disarm the system.

  Casey's knees were shaking. She looked hopelessly at her gun on the night table. It was only a few feet away, but it might have been a million miles. Slowly she began to punch in the numbers. But instead of the last digit, she stabbed the panic button and held on, triggering the alarm. She heard the wail of the sirens inside the house. She saw stars. Then everything went black.

  Sales had struck Casey in the back of the head with the handle of the knife that was grasped tightly in his fist. Even with the alarm shrieking in his ears, he looked coolly around the room. As quickly and as neatly as possible, he pulled the covers up and made the bed, finishing just as the phone stopped ringing. He knew after getting no response to their call, the alarm company would now call the police. That gave him at least five minutes, maybe more. He tossed Casey's little automatic into the nightstand drawer, then crossed the room and slid the screen door all the way open. That would hide the tear he'd made from anything but the most careful examination. He then slid the glass door shut and locked it.

  With Casey's limp body draped over his shoulder, Sales descended the stairs and found his way to the garage. As he passed through the kitchen, he grabbed what he presumed was Casey's purse, hanging off the back of a chair. The keys were in the ignition of the Mercedes. Sales opened the trunk and tossed Casey inside. Quickly, he let himself out the back door of the garage onto the patio. He took the ladder from its spot against the balcony and simply laid it down along the outside of the garage behind some bushes.

  Back inside, he glanced at his watch and made sure to lock the door between the garage and the house. Only three and a half minutes had gone by since the phone stopped ringing. He had a good ninety seconds at least. He pressed the button that opened the garage door and got into the car. Carefully, he backed the Mercedes out into the driveway. The remote to the garage door was clipped to the sun visor. Sales closed it, then backed into the street and set out for the main gate.

  A sheriff's car was pulling in just as the exit arm swung up, clearing his path. Sales glanced at the guard shack, where the only sign of life was the dim square of light that filled the window. At this time of night, the guard was probably fast asleep in his chair. On the open road, Sales checked the rearview mirror. It wouldn't make sense for the police to be concerned with a car leaving the community. They would be focused on answering the call. A call that most cops would presume to be a false alarm. By neatly locking up when he left, Sales had given them no reason to think anything else.

  ***

  When Casey came to, her head was throbbing so severely that she could think of nothing else. As her senses cleared, she frantically wondered where she was. She was lying facedown on a rock floor of some kind. Her hands were taped tightly behind her, and her naked ankles were likewise bound with tape. In a panic she rolled over, only to see Donald Sales slumped up against the rock wall of their cave, fast asleep.

  Tears spilled down Casey's cheeks as she remembered the horrifying events that had brought her here. She tried to control her breathing, but it was difficult. The tape over her mouth and her shortness of breath were causing her to gasp through her nose. She tried with all her mental powers to stifle the gurgles of panic rumbling in her throat and breathe as deeply and slowly as she could. Still, she was making too much noise. Only the faint sound of birds outside the cave helped to mute the sounds of her distress. Sales suddenly stirred, and Casey froze with her eyes shut tight. After a moment, she opened them and studied her captor's scowling face. It was smudged with dirt and his hair was pulled into a tight ponytail. He was wearing a pair of black jeans and his legs were crossed. His boots stood patiently slumped over beside his feet.

  When Sales's breathing again returned to a quiet, regular rhythm, Casey began to worm her way toward the brilliant light in the mouth of the cave. Because her arms were bare and taped beneath her, the grit on the stone floor chafed against her skin. By the time she reached the cave's entrance, she was bleeding. Beads of sweat dripped down into her eyes, blurring her last look at the dozing Sales. She turned her face into the fresh breeze. The morning air filled her nostrils like champagne after the humid closeness of the cave. With a burst of energy, she tried to rise, then gave up and began to roll as fast and as far as she could.

  The rocky terrain sloped downhill, and she was able to cover a substantial distance in a short space of time despite the bumps and bruises she sustained. Within minutes she was out in the open and resting on a soft, needle-covered floor in a stand of pines. The distance she'd put between herself and Sales and the exertion from her efforts had cleared her mind enough to think. She needed to free her hands and feet. While she caught her breath she listened, and she knew that she was in the middle of nowhere. There were no sounds of people or traffic or even jets in the sky. There was no way she could travel any great distance bound as she was. She needed to regain her feet.

  She heaved herself up into a sitting position and searched the area for some kind of sharp stone. She saw a jagged outcropping of granite uphill and a little off to her left. She lay back down and began to roll toward it. When she reached the spot, she sat back up and searched for the right edge. Struggling against the constraints of her bondage, she worked her wrists up against the stone. She struggled several times to get the right angle and several times slumped to the ground after gashing her skin. Finally, with her feet wedged up against another rock, Casey had just the right position where she could cut into the tape by flexing her legs and shoulders up and down at the same time. After fifteen minutes of exhausting work, she was free.

  Her hands were slick and sticky with her own blood, and it was difficult for her to get a purchase on the tape that bound her feet. She fought hard against the instinct to free her mouth first, but she knew that Sales could awaken any moment, and if her ankles were bound she'd have no chance of escape. She tore at the edge of the tape, ripped about an inch into it, but was then hopelessly stopped where the bond thickened. Twice she broke fingernails as she fought to peel back the end piece of tape. Then she got it started and frantically began to unwind her ankles.

  Once free, Casey staggered to her feet and stumbled downhill, catching herself against every other tree trunk. Her legs and back ached and barely responded to the commands her brain was sending to walk, let alone run. But the more she moved, the more limber she became, and soon she had enough balance to lope along and at the same time work at the thick gray tape that was wrapped around her head.

  By the time she reached the bottom of the hill, she was completely free. A narrow stream cut through the rocks, and Casey, parched from her efforts, slipped down into an oblong pool whose edges were slick with brown moss. She was filthy from her roll in the dirt and the blood that had begun to dry on her hands and arms. She crouched down and dipped her face into the water, drinking long, cool draughts until her stomach sloshed. She absently rubbed some of the dirt and blood off her arms before submerging her head to rinse her hair and face.

  The water felt so good and the sunlit spot was so peaceful that a part of her wanted to stop, to just lie back in the water and let it rush over her, cooling her, refreshing her, and lulling her to sleep with its quiet whisper. When she woke up, she would find that it had all been a bad dream. In the water, she became aware of the stinging pain in her feet. She looked down into the clear pool an
d turned her pale foot on its edge to look at her sole. Tiny red fissures oozed billowing crimson clouds of blood into the swirling water.

  She climbed up out of the pool and stood dripping on a rock like a half-drowned rodent. Strands of dark red hair hung like cobwebs on her face until she pushed them back with a weary, bleeding wrist. She stepped tentatively on the large rocks, and the stinging pain made her totally aware now of the damage she'd done to her feet.

  She couldn't help beginning to cry. Casey was no woodsman. She had shunned anything of the sort when she was a girl. She had no idea where she was and no idea how to figure it out. The closest help could be to the north, south, east, or west. She could start out in any direction and be wrong. Her body ached from lying bound up on the cave's floor. The throbbing in her head from the blow she'd received the night before and now the bleeding lacerations on her hands and feet were almost too much to bear.

  It was a hopeless situation, made even worse because her whole world had been turned upside down. Everything she believed in had been shaken to its foundation. She had spent her life making what she thought were the right moves. She had worked hard and she had learned the rules of the game, the law. Studying the law had not only given order to the world; it had been her means of escape, escape from the chaotic uncertainty of growing up poor and unaccounted for by the world at large. But now, for the first time in her life, she was afraid that the law was nothing more than a useless facade. And if that were true, then couldn't the same be said for her entire existence?

  What was happening to her now, this, was real. All her knowledge of the law and its noble purposes could do nothing to protect her. Hadn't the same laws been useless in protecting Marcia Sales and Frank Castle? For a victim, the law was a remote and unimportant counter to what was real. Suddenly, and for the first time, the law seemed to her an insignificant shell, fragile and weak when compared to the visceral realities of life and death.

  This was reality. Her rich, handsome husband (who, she became suddenly and painfully certain, was off cavorting with another woman), her bank account, her expensive car, her elegant home, her reputation, what good were they here and now? They were useless. If she could run fast and far she might live. If she tired and lost her way… she would die. Her limbs grew heavy with the weight of her life's foolish mission.

  Yet, when the sound of a snapping branch reached her ears from about a hundred yards up the tree-covered slope, Casey felt a burst of adrenaline. Survival instincts she'd never known she possessed took over. She was being pursued and she knew how to run. Like a gazelle, she skipped across the rocks, up the other bank of the stream, and plunged blindly into the woods beyond.

  Casey moved steadily through the wilderness until cool evening shadows began to chill the surface of her skin. Twice she thought she recognized landmarks she'd seen before, but she couldn't be sure. She was exhausted and hungry. Even the fuel from her fear was beginning to ebb. As night came, she began to look for a place to lie down. The best thing she could come up with was to burrow beneath the soft mat of brown needles that encircled a massive pine tree.

  Instinctively, she wrapped one arm around the thick root of the enormous tree. Her mind slipped unthinkingly into the habit of imagining that she was holding on to the iron limb of a protective man. It was silly. She had done the same thing as a girl, stacking up extra pillows in her bed and clinging tightly to them in the night. But she had no man, not really. She was alone in life, just as she'd always been. The man who was her husband didn't afford her protection from anything. He never had. To the world, Taylor Jordan might look like the perfect life's companion. But she was now painfully aware that in reality, he was nothing more than a stack of pillows or the twisted root of an ancient tree.

  Casey knew she was as exhausted as she was delirious. She was so tired that within minutes, despite the dull throbbing of her feet and head, she was fading off to sleep. But while sleep was a blissful reprieve for her tortured body and mind, it gave her no warning of the ghostly beam of light swinging to and fro like a pendulum as it crept slowly toward her through the trees.

  CHAPTER 21

  It was the first real sleep Sales had had in three days. So when he awoke, he came from the depths with the gasp of a man desperately breaking the surface of the ocean. His head snapped this way and that for a sign of Casey. She was gone. He yanked on his boots and stood. Without moving, he studied the faint signs in the dust on the stone floor. When he came to the place halfway to the cave's entrance where her skin opened up, a small smile grew from his frown. His racing heart settled. After sliding the knife into the back of his belt, he picked up his rifle and walked carefully out of the cave. By the strength of the light, he knew it was close to noon.

  Out in the sun, the thin swatch of blood grew so faint on the rock that he had to crouch low to distinguish it from the various striations in the granite. When it disappeared completely, it took several minutes of casting about before Sales could pick up the trail again. He knew she must have rolled downhill. Even when her general direction became apparent, it was slow work tracking her on the rough ground.

  Once he found her first mark in the pine needles, it became easy again. He was several yards away from the rock outcrop when he spotted the shiny gray remains of her bonds.

  "Shit!" he said aloud, casting his eyes three hundred and sixty degrees, hoping to catch a sign of her dashing through the trees. He bent down over the spot where she'd cut through the tape. The sharp-edged stone was liberally decorated with her blood. He touched his finger to one of the larger spots and brought it to his lips. It was still sticky.

  He stood slowly and carefully examined the scene. The scuffs in the dirt at the base of the tree, a bloody swatch on another rock, and the pattern of blood on the sharp stone told him the story of how she'd been able to break free from the tape. Her resourcefulness and determination were impressive. His brow grew dark as he considered the possibility of her escape. He had expected her to be formidable, even before her bold move to set off the alarm with a knife to her neck. But to have the energy and the will to free herself in this way after a night of being bound up on a cold stone floor? He squatted back down and began to search for the new trail. Only years of practice made it possible for him to follow her.

  When her feet started to open up, he knew even an amateur could track her down. Once he had that clear trail, he began to jog through the trees, knowing now the line of her escape was the same as any wounded doe's. She would move downhill in as straight a line as she could, fleeing from him as fast and as far as her injured feet would take her. When a stick snapped under his feet, he cursed, somehow sensing the magnitude of the mistake, and began to move carefully again at a much slower pace.

  At the creek, the spot where she'd stood to dry was still evident, although the watermarks were rapidly evaporating in the warm sun. He knew from the sudden distance between her bloody footprints that this was the place where she had stood when he'd spooked her. Sales cursed again, but pressed on, glad at least that she was heading farther into the wilderness and not in the direction of the old mining road where he had stashed her car.

  Around noon, he topped a rise in the woods and caught sight of her running well below him through a clearing in the trees. He swung the rifle expertly up to his shoulder, and held her in his sights.

  "Bang," he said, with a gleeful smile. Then as she disappeared, he put it down and scrambled to the place he'd seen her last. By three o'clock, he knew he wasn't going to be able to run her down. The harder he pressed, the more distance she covered. At four-thirty, her trail crossed back on itself, and he knew she was completely lost. Sales marked the spot well, took his bearings, and started back for the cave. He was famished.

  He stopped at the stream to drink his fill, then climbed the hill to the cave, wary all the while for signs of danger. Although he doubted there was any possibility of his being followed, one never knew. If the alarm company showed up with the police and they had a key to the
house, there was the outside chance that one of the cops was sharp enough to suspect that the bed didn't look made quite right. He might notice the cut screen and figure that instead of an electrical malfunction, Casey really had pushed the panic alarm. It would then be well within reason that they remembered the dark blue Mercedes leaving the community. With an APB out for the car, who knew? A kid on a dirt bike or a lost hunter could stumble into the Mercedes and the rest would be history. They'd have a SWAT team in the rocks above his cave waiting to welcome him back with a bullet in the brain.

  But as he surveyed the area from behind a tree on the edge of the stony rise that led to the cave, the only other sign of life was the plaintive cry of a male cardinal searching for a mate. Inside, Sales greedily opened a can of beans and slurped them down straight from the can. After resting his feet for nearly an hour, he rose with a long sigh and gathered up his things. Besides the rifle and the knife, he picked up his flashlight and snaked his belt through the roll of duct tape, wearing it on his hip the way he had when he broke into Casey's home.

  By the time he reached the spot where he'd marked Casey's trail, the shadows had grown long. Before darkness engulfed him completely, Sales was locked in on her track again. He knew as hard as she'd run that she'd lie down once darkness came. He took his time and moved methodically along the path she'd taken. Every so often he would stoop to confirm that the faint dark smear on a rock or a leaf was really blood from her foot or that a particular twig was freshly broken or that a certain pebble was recently turned up from the earth. She had done nothing to conceal her trail. She was just running.

  When his beam of light finally came to rest on her curled-up, bedraggled form at the base of an ancient white pine, he indulged himself with half a smile. He quickly swung the beam up into the boughs of the tree so as not to waken her. He approached her with stealth. Standing above her, he cupped his hand over the light, deflecting the beam and making a dim lamp. Despite her dirty, matted hair and the smear of dried blood on her face, she was still a beautiful woman.