Light It Up

by Nick Petrie

  While Lewis talked on the phone, Peter stood and looked at the hotels in their little cluster, thinking.

  Lewis ended his call. “My guy definitely remembers Sergeant Wallis,” he said. “The man had an early history of sexual assault complaints, but victims and witnesses kept refusing to testify. Some of them actually disappeared. The Army kept moving Wallis around, in part because that’s what the Army does, but also because none of his CO’s wanted a problem child on their books. Like the Catholic Church and the pedophile priests.”

  “Jesus,” Peter said.

  “Yeah,” Lewis said. “Eventually the complaints stopped, either because Wallis cleaned up his act or because he got better at covering his tracks. You can imagine which one. They only kept him because they needed all the warm bodies they could get after 9/11. Apparently Wallis turned out to be a pretty good soldier, made it through Ranger school with flying colors. The only reason they didn’t take him was because of his tainted record.”

  “You’re not making me feel any better,” Peter said. “I think we need to stop chasing him and try to figure out where he’s going to be next.” He looked at the three other hotels in their little commercial ghetto. “You got a laptop with you?”

  “’Course,” Lewis said.

  “If you were these guys, what kind of hotel would you pick?”

  Lewis smiled.

  —

  Peter climbed into the driver’s seat while Lewis focused on the map pulled up on his laptop. “Nothing in this little corner,” he said. “Too nice. Business travelers. Suites and conference rooms. You’d want something cheaper for sure. Not ’cause they worried about money, but ’cause of the other people staying there. More likely to mind their own business. Less likely to call the cops.”

  “That reminds me.” Peter called Steinburger. “We found the car. Abandoned, the top down in the rain. I don’t think they’re there.”

  “We’re still gonna look at it,” Steinburger said. “Tac team is en route. Prints and the rest.”

  “I know,” Peter said. “Thanks for the shot.”

  “She means something to you,” Steinburger said. “This woman they abducted.”

  “Yes,” Peter said.

  “Well,” Steinburger said, “you’re going to do what you have to do.”

  “Yes,” Peter said.

  “Just try not to hurt any civilians, okay?”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “Got something,” Lewis said, fingers flying on the keys.

  “What?” Steinburger’s voice thinned as Peter pulled the phone away from his face. “What have you got?”

  “Gotta go.” Peter hung up.

  Lewis pointed. “Get out of this parking lot and go west on Peoria, under the freeway.”

  Peter put the Jeep into gear and hit the gas.

  —

  Past the overpass, they found an older commercial strip, a six-lane tangle of access roads and parking lots fronting mom-and-pop businesses and cheap motels. The rain still light but the clouds massing overhead.

  “I like this one best,” Lewis said, tilting his chin. It was a long two-story off-white chain motel with a long line of first-floor room doors opening onto the broad parking lot, and second-floor doors opening onto a long balconied walkway with multiple sets of stairs down. “This don’t pan out, I got two more possibles, one around the way and another across the street.”

  “They’re going to know this Jeep.” Peter eyeballed the building as he pulled onto the frontage road. “If it’s the guy in the brown Dodge truck, he’s seen us before.”

  Thinking, if it was Dixon, he’d probably remember Peter’s face.

  “Lot of black SUVs on the road,” Lewis said. “He only got one clear look, and I was pointing a shotgun at him. After that he was looking ahead, not in his rearview. And we were lost in the dust.”

  “Well, first we’ll look for that Dodge,” Peter said. “We don’t find it, we go talk to the desk clerk.” He turned into the parking lot, began to circle the building, eyes flicking from car to car.

  Not many vehicles, most of them tucked into a parking spot by the rooms.

  No shit-brown Dodge pickup.

  “We still don’t know how many people they have,” Lewis said, his own head on a swivel.

  “Four fewer than yesterday,” Peter said.

  Lewis didn’t smile. “That’s the right direction.”

  Peter thought about the blue Mustang, crunched in the front and back. “Look for cars that have been in accidents. Front or rear. Even just a fender bender.”

  Eyes burning, Peter finished the circuit and turned to take another look going the other way. He needed coffee. He was tired enough that he’d almost settle for battlefield coffee, a couple of single-serve packets of instant Folgers dumped dry into his mouth, followed by a swirl of funky sun-warmed water from his CamelBak. God, he could taste it right now, just thinking about it. The flavor was horrible, but the blast of caffeine that followed would be wonderful.

  “Anything?”

  “Nothing that looks right to me,” Lewis said. “Let’s go talk to the desk man.”

  —

  The desk man was a thin kid in a wrinkled blue button-down shirt, slouched in a desk chair scribbling in a blank book with a fountain pen. He looked up when they walked in, set his journal down next to a stack of books on screenwriting. “Help you guys?”

  “I hope so,” Peter said. “We’re looking for a friend of ours, driving a bright blue Mustang convertible, a little banged up? He might have had a woman with him. He turned off his phone and we can’t reach him. We’re a little worried. They had a rough couple of days, you know?”

  The clerk nodded. “Yeah, I remember him. He checked in, like, a few hours ago. His girlfriend never got out of the car. You guys want a room, too?”

  “Maybe,” Peter said. “We should probably talk to them first. What room are they in?”

  “I’m, ah, not really allowed to give out that information.”

  “But you know the room,” Lewis said, smiling pleasantly.

  “I do, yeah,” the clerk said. “I’m sorry.” He looked from Lewis to Peter. He saw something in Peter’s face. “That guy, he’s not really your friend, is he?”

  “No,” Peter said.

  “And that girl he was with. Passed out in the car. Was she really his girlfriend?”

  “No.”

  “But you guys aren’t cops.” This time it wasn’t a question.

  “We’re friends of the girl,” Lewis explained.

  “But what are you? Like, some kind of desperadoes?”

  Peter was out of patience. “Yes,” he said. He pulled out the big Colt pistol, pointed the long barrel at the young clerk’s face, and thumbed back the hammer with that crisp, satisfying double click. “We are fucking desperadoes. Now do you help us or do your brains exit the back of your head?”

  The clerk stumbled back a few steps, eyes wide, hands rising involuntarily. “Let me get you a key,” he said. “Whatever you want. Whoever you are, we never met, I never saw you, don’t shoot me, okay?” He was smiling. No doubt memorizing the moment for his screenplay.

  “Something else,” Peter said. “You get a credit card when you rent a room?”

  The clerk nodded and reached the keyboard. “I can print it out for you. Here it is, room 168, first floor back of the hotel. Leonard Wallis.”

  The printer hummed as Lewis came around the desk. “That’s great, kid. Now give me your belt and your phone. You got a storage closet or something?”

  “Uh.” The smile faded from the clerk’s face. “What?”

  “Two options,” Lewis said. “Lock you up or blow your head off. You choose.”

  —

  Lewis drove around to the back of the motel while Peter watched the door numbers.

  In front of room 168, three parking spaces stood empty between an ancient Ford station wagon and a dark red Honda sedan. The curtains were pulled tight across the big picture window
. Lewis rolled by without stopping.

  They left the Jeep around the corner out of sight, got out, and strode back toward the room side by side along the wide concrete walkway under the cantilevered balcony. Peter with the Winchester lever gun in one hand, the room key in the other. Lewis held the 10-gauge down along his leg, extra shells rattling in his coat pocket. Each had a big Colt SAA tucked into the back of his pants.

  A holster would have been better, Peter thought, if he had to run. But maybe more obvious than carrying a long gun out into the rain in the middle of the afternoon.

  What they really needed were armored vests and helmets.

  And June safe at home and Peter on his way to see her.

  But that wasn’t how things were.

  The adrenaline rose up through him yet again, bringing clarity and focus.

  Lewis stood on the hinge side of the cheap slab door, shotgun up and ready, protected somewhat by the concrete block wall of the motel. Peter listened at the door and heard nothing. He had a narrower range of protection, only twenty inches between the door and the window.

  Room 168. He looked at Lewis. Lewis nodded.

  Peter gently inserted the key, tumblers ticking smoothly. Turned the knob and pushed the door open in a single clean motion.

  Lewis slammed it back into the wall with his shoulder as he burst through the doorway, the 10-gauge sweeping the room.

  Peter angled past him with the lever gun up and the static rising. Stalked quickly along the narrow aisle between the bed and the dresser, nobody on the floor behind the bed, then into the sink alcove by the doorless closet, through the open door to the bathroom, sweeping aside the shower curtain with the Winchester’s barrel to see an empty plastic tub, then back to the room to see Lewis on one knee verifying that the bed was on a solid pedestal, with nobody beneath.

  Nobody anywhere.

  Lewis shook his head and stepped to the door to watch the parking lot.

  Peter looked at the bed.

  A dimpled outline rumpled the otherwise undisturbed white bedcover. The size and shape of a smaller person.

  The same white bedcover from the video Dixon had sent. The same color on the wall.

  He felt something catch inside, almost the same sensation as the tug of the knife blade in the long muscles of his arm. Yet another feeling that would stay with him, maybe forever.

  Peter went after Lewis, then turned to scan the room from the doorway.

  “Look.”

  Lewis turned.

  Peter pointed above the entry to the sink alcove, the corner where the ceiling met the wall. A small black hole in the drywall.

  A bullet hole.

  Peter felt the breath go out of him.

  Lewis put his hand on Peter’s bicep. “She’s okay. There’s no blood, right? Maybe it was a warning shot. And with this place, that hole could be from last year.”

  “Yeah,” Peter said, as the static expanded inexorably into his skull. “Okay.”

  “We’re gonna lock up the room again,” Lewis said. “And wait.”

  37

  June Cassidy woke into a lurching, thumping darkness.

  She was adrift, floating, disconnected from her body.

  Her head hurt like the worst hangover ever.

  Her mouth tasted like soured milk.

  Then her inventory sharpened. She couldn’t open her mouth. She was curled up on her side, with her knees bent and her hands caught behind her. She tried to move her arms and legs and felt a sticky restriction. She moved her jaw and felt the wide adhesion across her lower face.

  Her mouth and wrists and ankles were taped.

  The thump and lurch was the tires on the expansion joints of the road.

  She was in the trunk of a car.

  Then she remembered the rodeo rider, and the man in the tan suit.

  She was in trouble. Bad fucking trouble. She felt it grip her, the panic.

  Unable to change position, barely able to breathe through her nose, the small space closing around her like a coffin sized for a child.

  She couldn’t catch her breath. Her heart fluttered like something wild trapped in her chest. She pumped her legs and jerked her arms, then lost it entirely. Her muscles erupted uncontrollably into a frenzied, mindless animal attempt to get herself free, pulling and twisting and shaking, for what seemed like time without end.

  Until she was slowed by exhaustion. Spent, she lay still again. Bound hand and foot. Her position utterly unchanged.

  She thought of Peter.

  This was his experience every day. Trapped inside, panicked. Just riding an elevator, or buying groceries, or doing his laundry. What did he do?

  She remembered his letters.

  She breathed, flaring her nostrils to take in as much air as she could.

  In, then out.

  Breathing, she let her mind slowly calm to the rocking motion of the moving car.

  How would she get out of this? What would she do?

  She thought of seeing the man in the tan suit in the airport. Something about that nagged at her. The airport. What was it?

  Then she remembered.

  The steel pen. With the knife blade where the ink refill should go.

  Had he taken it? Was it still in her back pocket, where she tucked it every day, by habit?

  Her wrists were wrapped but not her hands. Her fingers were free. She reached down and searched for the narrow cylindrical lump in the fabric.

  There.

  She sighed. There it was. Her pen. Her handy letter opener and weapon of last resort.

  Ha! Not so paranoid now, are you, June Cassidy?

  Okay. Now, the next thing. Be careful. Her fingers were tingling, but not too numb. Only one thing to remember. Pay attention. Don’t drop the knife.

  Out it came, the slender steel cylinder. She felt the seam where the two sections came apart. Gripped one end tight in each hand and tugged. Separation. Which end was the blade?

  There, she felt it. She turned it carefully in her hand, so that the blade was down toward her little finger. Not quite so sharp now, from opening all that mail. And not really a slicing blade anyway, but a stabbing one.

  She’d get to the stabbing later, she thought savagely, wrists bent painfully as she sawed away at the thick layers of tape. She’d put so many holes in that goddamn rodeo rider he’d leak like a sieve. Like a fucking Tom and Jerry cartoon.

  The car sped up, slowed, sped up. Was she on the freeway?

  Through the noise of the tires on the pavement, she thought she heard voices, but she couldn’t tell who they were. Maybe just the radio, for all she knew.

  She felt the space between her wrists open slightly. Gripping the knife tightly in one hand, the cap in the other, she tried pulling. The skin stretched, the tape slid. She felt a few reinforcing threads separate, gaining a little more space.

  She could roll her wrists now, get better leverage. She sawed at the tape with more force, cutting her skin from time to time, but she didn’t care.

  Then her wrists were free.

  She was still having trouble breathing through her nose. She put the cap back on the blade, put the pen back in her pocket. She didn’t want to stab herself in the cheek when she pulled the tape away from her face.

  She knew it was going to hurt. But she also knew she only had so much time before the rodeo rider and the man in the tan suit came to get her out of this fucking trunk.

  To do whatever they were planning to do with her.

  Use her against Peter, somehow.

  She felt the sorrow and regret like a yawning pit.

  And slammed the goddamned lid on it, turned it into ferocity and determination.

  Just like her mother would have done.

  June steeled herself. She’d always been one to rip off the Band-Aid, so she did it again with the tape across her mouth. She got her thumbnail under a corner and raised a flap. It didn’t feel good.

  She got a better grip. Thumb and two fingers. Pulled hard and fast and
felt the tape take some skin with it. Fuuuuuuck, she screamed silently.

  She sucked in painful red mouthfuls of air, remembering how she had rejoiced at seeing the article in the science section of the paper, conclusive research that swearing made things hurt less. It validated what she herself had known for years. Swearing was good for you.

  Even if it was only in your mind.

  No time to rest, though. She took the pen from her pocket, freed the blade, and went to work on the tape around her ankles. It was painful to contort herself in the small space, she couldn’t bring her knees forward far enough to get to the tape from the front. But she could hold her ankle behind her back with one hand and hack at the tape with the other. Her hand slippery now, with the blood from her nicks and cuts. She held the knife tightly.

  The car slowed, then hit a bump.

  The knife squirted from her grip.

  She scrabbled with her hands as the car went around a corner. Panic rising up, she imagined the knife rolling into some far dark corner of the trunk, never to be seen again. She needed that knife, needed some kind of weapon, needed her feet free of that thick-wrapped tape, needed to get out of that fucking trunk.

  The car went around another corner and the knife rolled back against her fingers and she snatched it up, holding on to it for dear life.

  She got back to work sawing her feet free, still trapped in the small space and not knowing where they were going or when they would stop or what she might do when they did.

  She capped the knife and put it back in her pocket and peeled away the cut tape and felt around with her hands again, taking inventory of the trunk, hoping for a tire iron or a crowbar. But it was a newer car and the trunk was sleek and clean and empty of anything useful but some rectangular bulk behind her that kept banging into her on the turns. The car was in city traffic now, maybe.

  She reached around, felt a handle and a crimped plastic ID tag. It was her carry-on, her rollaway suitcase, not that she had anything worth a shit in there but clothes and a toothbrush. But maybe, she thought, and reached past the suitcase, hoping beyond hope.

  Felt the familiar worn fabric, the shoulder strap of her pack.

  She pulled the soft bag over her suitcase and into the cocoon of her cupped torso. Here was the zipper of the main compartment with her laptop and book, here the smaller compartment with her chargers and headphones and notebook, and here, the smallest pocket.