Ransom River

by Meg Gardiner

  Across the room, Dobro and his man took barstools and watched Rory and Seth in the mirror behind the bar.

  Seth said, “Eat.”

  Rory couldn’t have eaten if she’d had a gun to her head. “How long do we have to stay here?”

  “Until we’re finished.”

  But when he finally put cash on the table and they strolled outside into the hot evening, Dobro followed them.

  “Where you going, goddess?”

  Seth was holding her hand. Under his breath he said, “Ignore him. Get in the truck.”

  The sun had dropped behind the hills in the west. Red twilight drenched the sky. Dobro slouched toward them with his muscle in tow.

  “Where you going in such a hurry? There are things I’d like to discuss.”

  Seth dropped her hand and became electrically alert. “We’ll set it up.”

  Dobro walked past him and slid a hand around Rory’s shoulder. His doll eyes were black in the dusk. “There’s no rush, goddess. You can do better than this guy.”

  He laughed, a whinnying sound. Rory felt things teetering, like a vehicle about to tip, barely balanced.

  Seth’s voice was flat. “This dance is mine,” he said, and reached for Rory’s hand again. “Let’s go.”

  Dobro squeezed her shoulder and only gradually relinquished his hold. He took a cigar from his pocket, and a gold lighter. He said to his man, “Bring the car around.”

  The man left. Dobro nodded Rory toward the truck. “You go on.”

  Unsettled, furious at being belittled, she headed toward Seth’s pickup. She glanced back. Dobro was watching her.

  He turned to Seth. “We need to rethink our arrangement.”

  It was all he got out. Seth punched him hard in the face.

  Dobro reeled back under the force of the blow. He raised his hands toward his face and Seth hit him again, in the diaphragm. He doubled over. Seth kicked his knees out from under him. Dobro hit the asphalt and Seth booted him in the gut.

  “Come near her again, I’ll take you apart,” Seth said.

  He hauled back and kicked him in the kidney. Rory couldn’t move.

  Dobro tried to rise and Seth planted a boot between his shoulders and crunched him back to the asphalt.

  “So much as look at her, I’ll clip your nuts.”

  He backed away. Dobro pushed to his knees. His gaze was deathly. Seth turned. For an instant he looked surprised to see Rory standing in the middle of the parking lot.

  She got in the truck.

  Seth climbed behind the wheel and burned out of the parking lot. Dobro remained on his knees.

  Rory couldn’t bear to look at Seth. All she could see was the expression on his face when he had turned around after kicking Dobro.

  Fury. Calculation. Electricity.

  He accelerated along the street, a broad suburban boulevard lined with downscale retail stores. Mattress showrooms with huge banners across their plate-glass windows. Tanning salons, McDonald’s, auto-parts stores, garish billboards. Rory’s vision went out of focus, constricted, shoved the crimson sunset to the edges.

  “Dobro won’t come after you. Don’t worry,” he said.

  She didn’t answer.

  “He’ll want me, but he’ll think twice.” He glanced at her. “You were sharp back there. You gave him nothing.”

  The truck raced past a gas station and a strip mall.

  She said, “You beat him up to preserve your cover.”

  He took a beat, as though the remark caught him by surprise. “I preempted any move he might try to make against me.”

  “By kicking the shit out of him.”

  “He was openly challenging me.” He glanced at her again. “He is not a good guy.”

  “And if you’d left it alone? Driven away?” she said.

  “Rory, don’t.”

  She turned, slowly, to glare at him. “Don’t tell me you were being my knight in shining armor.”

  “He followed us to the restaurant. He has obviously been probing me for weaknesses. He thought tonight he had found one.”

  “You scared the hell out of me back there,” she said.

  “Me?” He turned, baffled. And beginning to look angry.

  “Seth, you calmly beat that guy to a pulp.”

  “Do you know who that was?”

  “Of course not.”

  “He is a midlevel nobody. He preens like he’s the shit, but he’s a gofer.”

  “So?” The edge in her voice was sharp.

  “So now he won’t come back on me. Word will get around. He stepped out of line, and I pushed back.”

  Rory’s pulse beat in her temples. “You mean if he’d been a bigger fish, you would have let him get away with it?”

  “I would have taken a different tack. Rory, he was pissing all over me and threatening you. I had to act. I spoke in the only language he understands.”

  “So cops can commit assault and battery if it fits with their cover story?”

  Shaking his head, he pushed it through a yellow light. “Get real. Things could have been very dangerous back there.”

  “Then why haven’t you called it in to your handlers?”

  “For Christ’s sake.” His face looked cold. “Why don’t you make a checklist for me. Mackenzie-approved tactics.”

  Her hands were trembling. “That’s not the problem.”

  “Don’t tell me I’m reckless. I’m not.”

  He was, bravely reckless. Sometimes he seemed to taunt fate—to seek a cut from the Reaper’s scythe, to prove to himself he was invincible.

  “That’s not it,” she said.

  “Then what?” he said.

  They crossed the Ransom River city limits. The boulevard emptied. Plowed fields and lemon orchards spread out on either side of them. Black furrowed ground, trees huddled thickly together.

  What was the problem?

  “You enjoyed it,” she said.

  She turned in her seat. She had jumped in the truck in such haste that she hadn’t bothered to buckle her seat belt. She reached for it but paused.

  “You enjoyed beating that man up,” she said.

  He looked at her with reproach. His face was white.

  “Seth,” she said, “what’s happening to you? What the hell is going on?”

  “What’s going on is that this investigation is at a critical point.” He shook his head. “Don’t do this. Not now.”

  “This investigation is dragging you into a pit. A deep one. And I don’t know what to do.”

  “You do nothing. The job will take care of itself.”

  “How?”

  “I can’t tell you operational details. You know that.”

  Compartmentalization. She knew that too well.

  “And then what?” she said. “Can you tell me when it’ll be over? When you’ll come back to me, as yourself?”

  “Soon.”

  “You’ve said that before.”

  “Rory, why are you doing this?”

  “Because you’re scaring me.”

  He looked at her, and in his eyes was resentment and hopeless fatigue—as though explaining everything would simply drain him to the bottom.

  “I’m scaring you. Me. But that guy back there”—he nodded in the direction of the restaurant—“Dobro? He’d sell his sister to Somali pirates for cigarettes. And he touched you, Rory. He laid his hands on you.”

  Because I was with you.

  “And what do you mean, come back? I’m right here. I’ve been beside you since fourth grade.”

  “That kid I knew. The nasty bastard I saw at the restaurant, I don’t.”

  “That nasty bastard is who I’m supposed to be. When I’m at work,” he said, enunciating each word with chipped care. “Because at work I am an undercover cop.”

  But she knew, despite his vehemence, that he wasn’t being honest. He thought he was. But he couldn’t see it. He’d been swallowed by the job, the life, the importance of staying in the role. He had lost himse
lf.

  And she saw again his face, as he turned away from Dobro in the parking lot.

  He had smiled.

  That rakish grin, the devil’s got me smile. He had felt fulfilled and justified and goddamned happy at kicking a man to the ground. For her, he thought.

  The truck raced toward the foothills, the night falling, orchards giving way again to homes and the vast asphalt prairie of a car dealership. She squeezed her eyes shut.

  “I can’t do this anymore,” she said.

  “Fine with me. Let’s let it lie.”

  “No.” She turned to him. She had to be looking straight at him when she said it. “I’m done.”

  He paused a beat. He knew what she’d said. He had to. He was, it seemed, waiting for her to take it back.

  “Seth, that’s it. I’m finished.”

  “What are you saying?” He shook his head again, as though he didn’t believe her. “No.”

  “We’re done,” she said.

  “Because of Dobro?” He sounded incredulous.

  “Yes, because of Dobro,” she said, “and if you can’t see that—Jesus, Colder, if you can’t understand that, you’re farther gone than I imagined.”

  He held the wheel. The sun had dropped below the horizon and the sky was a bleeding red, fading to black.

  “That’s it,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “Like that.”

  It seemed obvious, pure, easy. She knew already she was regretting it, that this would be a bleeding wound, sharp and deep, but she was so livid, so full of fear and righteous anger, that she could feel nothing but her own triumph in saying it to him.

  He didn’t look at her. His gaze was on the road, but she couldn’t tell whether he saw anything at all.

  “Then it’s done,” he said. “That’s it; the cord’s cut.”

  She nodded and watched the neighborhood race by. Her heart was pounding.

  “I won’t pretend with you,” he said. “If we’re finished, that’s it. We’re not friends. We’re nothing. No smiling and acting like it’s amicable.”

  She said nothing. He drove.

  “I’ll take you home,” he said.

  She bit back, That’s mighty nice of you.

  He drove on, in acid silence. Rory didn’t want to be near him. She didn’t want to breathe the same air as him. She was exhausted and ready to cry and was not about to let Seth Colder see even a hint of that.

  When his phone rang, she didn’t move. Normally, he might have asked her to dig it out of his back pocket. She heard him pull the phone out, peripherally saw him glance at the caller ID. He answered, “Colder.”

  The truck rolled straight down the road at fifty miles an hour. He said, “Where?” He stared out the windshield but his face was set in a thousand-yard stare.

  “When?” he said. “Where’s the nearest patrol unit?”

  His tone of voice chilled her. He glanced at the clock on the dashboard.

  “Nobody’s closer?” He listened again. “I don’t want to risk—”

  He frowned. Rory could hear the person on the other end, an official and urgent voice.

  Seth glanced around outside. “I’m two miles away. And I’m not alone.”

  He looked reluctant. He didn’t glance at Rory. He listened to the urgent request coming through the phone. He finally acquiesced.

  “I’m on my way. But send a patrol unit ASAP.”

  He ended the call and dropped the phone on the dashboard. “Domestic disturbance, shots fired. It’s at an address that’s linked to the operation. It’s an emergency.” He barely gave her a look. “I’ll drop you at the Outback—you can get a cab home. I’ll give you the fare.”

  “Don’t bother,” she said.

  Ahead, the road curved and spoked into a V. A column of eucalyptus trees lined the shoulder. Seth accelerated into the curve and signaled, planning to veer left at the fork.

  “Something bad is going down. I need to get there,” he said.

  His voice was stretched tighter than baling wire. He was already gone, into a headspace where he felt secure when everybody else felt like screaming. He had something to aim for, something he could help with, when Rory had become a hopeless cause. In the failing light, his face was pale and planed with injury.

  He held the wheel hard and angled around the curve. The trees picket-fenced on the right, like figures in a strip of film that was coming off the reel. Seth signaled and crossed the yellow centerline, angling for the fork in the road.

  The other pickup was black, and fifty yards ahead, and headed straight at them. No lights.

  “Seth.”

  Rory pressed herself back in the seat and jammed her foot to the floor as if she had a brake pedal. But she didn’t.

  Seth spun the wheel. He threw it hard to the left and tried to get out of the other truck’s way. The eucalyptus trees swung past. Then the black truck was there.

  The impact was loud and brutal.

  The black pickup T-boned the passenger side of Seth’s truck. The frame buckled. The windshield squealed and cracked. The window by Rory’s face shattered. The grille of the black pickup bore straight at her, crushed the side of Seth’s truck, sent her flying.

  They skidded sideways, pinned to the black pickup, as if skewered there. It felt like being borne along by a freight train. The black truck kept coming, filling her with noise, with heat, the metal and energy crushing everything as it came on. The cab of Seth’s truck crumpled to half its size.

  They skidded, tilting, until the other truck’s front wheels locked and flattened and dug into the road. Crushed together, they swerved off the asphalt and hit a tree. They stopped ugly, with a heavy metallic crunch.

  Rory seemed to be floating. She was on her back, staring through strange twisted branches of metal at the sky. She saw stars. She blinked and her eyes felt stabbed with pain. A horn blared, long, loud, helplessly.

  The stars seemed overcome with a violent yellow light. A bus had stopped next to them. Its headlights were shining in her face. She realized she was lying faceup on the dashboard of Seth’s truck.

  She realized she was hurt.

  Her eyes were tearing, but every time she blinked, the pain sharpened. She raised a hand and saw blood.

  She turned her head. Glass crunched beneath her.

  “Rory.”

  She stopped moving for a second and took inventory. “Rory, hold still.” A swell of pain began at her feet and rolled upward through her.

  “Rory, babe, hold on.”

  Seth was talking to her. She heard other voices. A man, two men, maybe from the black pickup, or the bus. Moving around outside.

  More glass crunching. With a wrenching squeal, hands pulled the entire windshield out of the frame in one shattered piece of safety glass. The truck rocked beneath her. Seth appeared, kneeling on the pickup’s hood.

  “Rory, babe. Can you talk?”

  She moved her hand, and the sharp sensation, stinging, got her arms too.

  “Aw, Jesus, hold still—it’s glass spall.” His hand hovered in front of her face.

  The other voice: “Can we help?”

  “Call an ambulance,” Seth said. “First aid kit’s in the back. Hurry.”

  He scrambled around, crouching on the hood, trying to position himself so he could see her, could do something.

  “Hold on,” he said. He brushed glass from her face with trembling fingers. “Hold on.”

  She saw his face. He was bleeding too. His voice was bleeding. The sky, however, had turned blue. It had bled out.

  36

  Rory pushed off from the wall of the maintenance shed. On the park’s baseball diamond, players cheered a home run. She walked to Seth’s new Tundra and got in and closed the door. She buckled her seat belt. Seth climbed behind the wheel and fired up the engine. He studiously avoided looking at her.

  “Seth…”

  “Later. After. We don’t have time for explanations right now.”

  It was an o
ut, and a defense mechanism. But she nodded. Later. He pulled out of the park and headed back toward the center of town.

  “I need to go to Amber’s,” she said. “Something’s going on.”

  “You want to go alone?”

  “No way.”

  “I’m not sure she’ll talk to you if I’m hanging around.”

  “Then you can take me home to pick up my car and follow me over there. You can wait outside. Up the street, out of sight.”

  He drove cautiously along a residential street toward the freeway. Autumn leaves shivered in the breeze.

  “Look for Boone. And look for a newer silver SUV,” he said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Late-model silver SUV. It was at the stoplight behind the wrecker.” Seth swung onto the on-ramp and raced onto the freeway. “Boone isn’t the only one tailing you.”

  The view out the tinted windows of the SUV was busy and wrong. Traffic, stores, suburban sprawl. Supermarkets and a mall and not one single view of the black Toyota Tundra pickup with the ex-cop and the girl.

  The driver looked around. “Where’d she go?”

  “You lost her.”

  “No.”

  “She’s gone,” the passenger said. “And why was the wrecker following her?”

  The engine of the SUV rumbled. The air-conditioning was blowing, though the day outside was cool.

  “Did they make you?” the passenger said.

  The driver shook his head. He hoped not. They’d been anonymous so far and wanted to keep it that way.

  “This is getting out of control,” he said.

  “We need to stop this. Need to step things up. She should be sucking her thumb and writing journal entries about her terrible ordeal, not out driving around with Mr. Macho. This is not normal.”

  “Talking to an ex-detective is very abnormal.”

  “If she thinks he can keep her out of county lockup, she’s stupid.”

  “I know. Figure she’ll be arrested in the morning. She won’t keep quiet. She’ll talk. She’ll tell the department everything she’s figured out.”

  They looked at each other. With every minute the girl was loose, she could figure out more and more pieces of the thing. And she looked pretty close to obsessed about doing that. Once she put it together, it was game over.