by John Hart
“No, you won’t.”
“I could do it, you know.” Channing stood and walked along a row of books. “Run away. Check the hell out.” The profanity seemed wrong in such a young and flawless mouth, and the girl spoke as if she could see Elizabeth’s thoughts. “Tell me you don’t think about it. Tell me you weren’t just thinking about it.” Channing flicked fingers toward the door, meaning Beckett and the conversation and the mantra that bordered on prayer. “Leaving this place. Disappearing.”
“My problems are not yours, Channing. You’re so young. You can do anything, be anyone.”
“But, it’s not about age anymore, is it?”
“It can be.”
“It’s too late to go back or stay the same.”
“Why?”
“Because I burned it all.” A spark flared in Channing’s eyes. “The stuffed animals and posters and pink sheets, the photographs and books and notes from little boys. I burned it in the garden, a great, giant fire that almost took everything else with it.” She dropped the hood to show cherry-red skin and hair burned away at the tips. “The garden was burning, two of the trees.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Why did you get so close to the quarry’s edge?”
It was softly said, but broke Elizabeth’s heart.
“My father tried to stop me. But I ran when I saw him. I think he hurt himself going over the fence. He was screaming, angry maybe. Whatever the case, I can’t go home.” The girl’s defiance dwindled to desperation. “Tell me I have to leave, and you’ll never see me again. I’ll burn the world. I swear it.”
Elizabeth poured a drink and spoke with her back turned. “Your parents should know you’re okay. Text them, at least. Tell them you’re safe.”
“Does that mean you’ll let me stay?”
Elizabeth turned and smiled wryly. “I can’t have you burning the world.”
“Can I have one of those?” Channing pointed at the drink. “If it’s not about the age…” Elizabeth poured a single finger in a second glass and handed it over, wordlessly. The girl swallowed it, choking a little. “I saw a bathtub.…”
She let it hang, and Elizabeth pointed down the hall. “Towels are in the closet.”
Elizabeth watched her down the hall, then poured another drink, turned off the lights, and sat in the dark. Twice her cell phone vibrated, and twice she let it go to voice mail. She didn’t want to talk to Beckett or Dyer or any of the reporters who found their way to her number.
For another hour, she sat and drank and held herself still. When she finally stood, the bath was empty and the guest-room door was closed. Elizabeth listened, but there was no noise beyond the tick and creak of an old house finding its way deeper into the earth. She checked the locks, anyway. The doors. The windows. Stepping into the bathroom, she locked that door, too, then removed her shirt and examined the cruel, thin cuts on her wrists. They went all the way around and were deeper in some places than in others. Red lines, partly scabbed. Memories. Nightmares.
“Past is past.…”
She took off the rest of her clothes and filled the tub. She was hiding the truth, yes, but there were reasons. That should make her feel better, but reason was just a word.
Like family was a word.
Or faith or law or justice.
She slipped into the tub because hot water seemed to help. It warmed her through and made her weightless. Water was good like that, but it was water’s nature to rise and fall and rise again; that was its purpose, so that when she closed her eyes, the world fell away, and she felt it again: the basement around her, like fingers on her throat.
* * *
The man was choking her, one arm locked around her neck, his hand tight on her wrist, smashing her gun hand into the wall. Channing was a doll on the floor, screaming as the gun struck concrete three times, four times, then skittered into the dark.
Elizabeth felt the gun go, tried to turn.
Who was he?
Who the fuck…?
She could tell he was massive and unwashed, but that was it. He was an arm around her neck, a scrape of whiskers as he squeezed harder and blackness crowded in. She kicked down, looking for the instep, the shin. She flung her head back, but the contact was small and weak.
“Shh…”
Breath found her ear, but she was fading. No blood getting through. Eyes tight.
She clawed at his arms, and in the dark there was movement. The second man, broad and hunched. Channing saw him, too, her heels scrabbling in the grime, her back finding the wall.
Channing …
No sound came out. Elizabeth saw her own hand outstretched, the fingers doubling as her vision blurred.
Channing …
The second man snaked big fingers into the girl’s hair, dragged her across the floor and into the dimness of another room.
Where was the gun?
Elizabeth was forced to her knees, saw high-top sneakers and grimy jeans, the place her fingers smeared mold on the floor. His weight settled on her back, pushing her forward, pushing her down. Whiskers ground into her neck, and the same breath licked her ear.
“Shhhh…”
It was longer that time.
Then fading.
Then blackness.
* * *
In judo, it was called a blood choke or a carotid restraint or a sleeper hold. Cops called it a lateral vascular neck restraint. The name didn’t matter. The purpose and function did. Simultaneous compression of the carotid and the jugular could render an adult unconscious in seconds. Do it right, and it didn’t take much strength. Do it wrong and it fails or somebody ends up dead. It’s not like the movies. You have to know what you’re doing to do it right.
Titus Monroe knew what he was doing.
Elizabeth played it over for the millionth time: how it started and ended, the minutes in between. Channing was off the mattress, and they were backing out of the room, the girl’s hand hot and wet and twisted into Elizabeth’s own. Elizabeth kept her gun trained deeper into the basement. She would shoot if necessary, but the door was empty, the basement quiet behind them. They managed three steps before the girl stumbled and went down, but that was okay. Elizabeth’s gun was up, and the last hall was ten feet away. There were some closed doors, some stairs; but they were going to make it.
Elizabeth never heard the door open behind her, never heard him at all; she felt the rush of his arm around her neck, his fingers on her wrist. She felt him and fought and failed, went down into the black, and woke wired to a mattress with her clothes stripped off and her mouth clamped shut. His tongue moved on her ear, her neck; and she fought like an animal would fight, screamed behind his sweaty hand as a red candle burned and his fingers moved across her skin. He was going to rape her, maybe kill her. But even as she fought, she felt as if she were falling, his rough touch fading, the candlelight winking twice, then gone. She heard a voice that was her own, but younger.
Not again, not again …
The fall could have taken her all the way down, so deep she would not have come back the same or even close. He was going to pound her into the dark and leave her there.…
Elizabeth settled deeper in the tub, cold and hot and shaking. She’d lost herself when it mattered most. Thirteen years of cop and she’d broken like a plaster mask.
It took Channing to save her.
The girl.
Who was only eighteen.
* * *
He was a million pounds of sweat and hair, of muscle and fat and thick, hard fingers.
“Fine bitch…”
His skin slid on hers, but there was little breath in her lungs. She breathed out; he pushed down.
“Fine, sweet, hot fucking bitch…”
* * *
Elizabeth was all but gone when gunshots blew the dark world into bright, shiny bits. She heard screams and followed them up, eyes blinking as the big man rolled to his feet, shouting something she later understood to be his brother’s name.
<
br /> No answer came beyond the screams, which were agonized and terrible and afraid. They rose from the room next door, ricocheted off concrete walls, and Elizabeth—even now—had no idea how Channing got her hands on the gun. She was simply there, pale in the door, and naked, the gun impossibly large in her tiny hand. Elizabeth saw it slow and clear, but like the dream of a dream; as if it had happened to some person she may have known once upon a distant time.
* * *
The first shot blew his knee to mist. He was still falling when the second knee disappeared, too. He jerked right and left, then dropped where he’d stood, the ruined bones slapping concrete with a heavy, wet sound she would never forget. His screams joined his brother’s before turning into a tortured version of barely recognizable words.
“Bitch!”
He writhed.
“Fucking … Ahh! Fuck!”
Channing shuffled across the floor, a broken mask on her face, too. The eyes looked dark and swollen, the mouth open and soundless. The gun pulled her arm down, so she staggered once, then stopped above the screaming man.
“Channing…”
The name fell from Elizabeth’s mouth, but Channing raised the gun, her face utterly still as the screams ramped louder, and tears tracked through the grime beneath her eyes. She was in shock and filthy, blood running from her wrists to drip off her fingers.
“Channing…”
Elizabeth stopped struggling. The girl stared at the wailing man.
“Channing…”
* * *
It took forever to use all eighteen bullets: seconds that stretched to minutes, minutes that felt like hours. In reality, it could have been no time at all. Elizabeth was not the one to say. She kept her eyes on Channing when she could; saw the wounded blankness of all who are ruined young. In the end, it was a simple thing. The gun spoke. Men screamed. When they were dead, Channing stood for a long time before Elizabeth’s words made any kind of impression.
The shots will have been heard.
Police will come.
Smoke still hung in the air, and already the world was torn wide open. Even as sirens rose in the distance, and wire bit more deeply into her wrists, Elizabeth understood that the police were now on one side of the rift, while she and Channing stood, forever, on the other.
That’s how fast she made her decision.
How fast her old life ended.
* * *
Elizabeth wanted to be done, but images spun out of the dark: Channing’s fingers, shaking red as they stripped off wire, and sirens drew close. The gathering of clothes and the wiping of the gun, the story repeated as Elizabeth held the child and forced her to say the words.
Channing was on the mattress.
Elizabeth shot them in the dark.
* * *
“Say it again, Channing.”
“I was on the mattress. You shot them in the dark.”
* * *
At two o’clock, Elizabeth finally climbed into bed. She barely slept, and when she did, she woke soaked in sweat. The third time it happened, she followed an unfamiliar noise and found Channing curled on the bathroom floor. The only light was a flicker from the girl’s room, but it was enough to see the bruises and the bite marks, the bandages on her wrists.
“I thought I was going to be sick. I’m sorry if I woke you.”
“Here.” Elizabeth ran cold water on a washcloth and handed it to Channing. “Let me help you.” She helped the girl up. They stood at the counter and in the mirror looked very different, Elizabeth narrow and lithe, the girl shorter, more gently curved. The girl was crying, but seemed unable to move. “Let me.” Elizabeth took the washcloth and pressed it against the girl’s skin. She wiped away tears and smoothed hair from the pale, cool forehead. “There.” She turned Channing to face the mirror. “Better?”
The girl stared at her own face, then at Elizabeth’s. “We have the same eyes.”
Elizabeth lowered her face until it was even with the girl’s, their cheeks almost touching. “So we do.”
“It’s my fault,” Channing said. “What happened in the basement, what happened to you.”
“Don’t be silly.”
“What if it were, though? Would you still be my friend?”
“Of course.”
The girl nodded, but seemed unconvinced. “Do you believe in hell?”
“Not for you, I don’t.” Elizabeth squeezed Channing’s shoulders, her voice fierce. “Not for this.”
The girl looked down, and the bright eyes closed. “I shot the little one the most because he liked to hurt me the most. That’s what the dream was about: his fingers and teeth, that whisper he had, the way he’d hold my eyes open as he hurt me, that deep-down, forever stare.”
“He got what he deserved.”
“But, I made the choice,” Channing said. “The smaller brother was the worst so I shot him the most. Eleven bullets. That was me. My choice. How can you say there’s no hell?”
“You can’t look at it like that.”
“I barely sleep, and it’s not for fear of dreams. It’s because there’s this one second when I wake, this one instant, where I don’t remember.”
“I know that second.”
“But there’s another one behind it, isn’t there? Another second, and everything comes down so hard it’s like being buried alive. I go to bed in fear of that second. I’m eighteen years old, and I’ve done this thing.…”
“What thing?” Elizabeth hardened her voice because the girl needed hard. “You saved my life. You saved us both.”
“Maybe I should tell somebody.”
She meant the police, her parents, a shrink. It didn’t matter. “You can’t tell anyone, Channing. Not ever.”
“I tortured them.”
“Don’t say that word.”
“We could say it was self-defense.”
A sliver of hope touched Channing’s face, but no juror could understand the truth of what happened. They would have to have been there, to see Channing, naked and filthy in the candlelight, see the blood dripping from her fingers, see her face, shattered, the teeth marks in her skin.
Eighteen shots …
Torture …
The trial would force her to live it again, in public and on record. Elizabeth had seen enough rape and murder trials to understand the power of their deconstructive nature. Testimony would last for days or weeks, and the process would eviscerate any innocence the girl had left. She’d be marked for life, possibly convicted.
Elizabeth could hear the prosecutor, now. Eighteen shots, ladies and gentlemen. Not three or four or six. Eighteen shots, placed to wound and hurt and punish.… They’d pursue her for the politics of it, the visuals. “Promise me, Channing. Swear you won’t talk about it.”
“I don’t know who I am.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Can I sleep with you?”
“Anything.” Elizabeth hugged her, her emotions undone. “Everything.”
She led Channing to the large bed in the corner bedroom on the left side. There was no tough girl left, no anger or pretense or wounded pride. They were survivors—sisters—and as such climbed wordlessly into the same bed.
“Are you crying?” Elizabeth asked.
“Yes.”
“Everything will be all right. I promise.”
Channing reached out an arm and laid two fingers on Elizabeth’s back. “Is that okay?”
“It’s fine, sweetheart. Go to sleep.”
The touch must have helped because Channing did, her breathing shallow at first, then rhythmic and slow. Elizabeth felt the girl’s closeness, the heat of her skin. She felt the stillness of those two fingers, and her own breathing eased. It took a long time, but the room fell away.
Her aching heart slowed.
The carousel stopped.
12
Beckett didn’t know how to help his partner. Elizabeth was not just wounded but withdrawn, hurting in a way he’d never before seen. Normally, s
he owned the job. That meant the street, the politics, every impossible decision a cop would ever have to make. She made hard choices and lived with them, unflinching. Even the men she’d dated took a backseat to her unshakable sense of self. If relationships ended, it was because Elizabeth said so. She set the ground rules and the tone, said when it began and when it was over. Some thought she had ice in her veins, but Beckett knew better. Fact was, she felt more than most, but knew how to hide it. It was a survival skill, an asset; but whatever happened in that goddamn basement stripped it right out of her. She was a walking nerve, now—every bit exposed—and Beckett was running out of ideas on how to protect her. Keep her out of prison. Keep her away from Adrian. Those were the obvious things.
What about the rest of it?
It was late when he parked outside the house owned by Channing’s parents. He wasn’t supposed to be here—the lawyers had made that clear—but only two people knew the truth of what happened in the basement, and Liz wasn’t talking.
That left the kid.
Problem was, her father was rich and connected and draped in lawyers. Even the state cops couldn’t get past the wall. It was one of the biggest questions, really. Why wasn’t the girl talking? The lawyers claimed it would be too traumatic, and maybe they were right. Beckett had daughters. He was sympathetic.
But still …
He peered through the heavily treed yard; saw stone and brick and yellow light. He’d met the father a few times when Channing first disappeared. Not a full-blown asshole, but he liked the word listen, as in You listen to me, Detective. But that was probably a worried-father thing, and Beckett wasn’t about to judge a man for protecting his family. Beckett would do the same thing. His wife. His kids. Make the threat big enough, and he’d tear the city down.
Turning off the car, Beckett walked down the drive and circled to the front porch. A burned smell hung in the air. Music filtered through the glass and stopped when he rang the bell. In the silence, he heard cicadas.
Channing’s mother answered the door. “Detective Beckett.” She was in an expensive dress, and obviously impaired.
“Mrs. Shore.” She was petite and pretty, a slightly weathered version of her daughter. “I’m sorry to bother you this late.”