Hunting Dixie

by James, Harper

  ‘It wasn’t my fault.’

  She stared at her hands in her lap, a note of desperation creeping into her voice.

  ‘It was all Diego’s idea, is that it?’

  Her head snapped around so fast it made him jump.

  ‘Getting warm, huh?’

  She turned away. Stared out the window again, ran her fingers through her hair.

  ‘Life’s a bitch, ain’t it? See, somebody’s got to pay. I don’t know where Diego is. But I’ve got you right here.’ He patted her thigh. ‘That’s the way it goes sometimes. Life’s a zero-sum game, there’s winners and losers. And your luck just ran out. Here we are.’

  He braked sharply, turned off the road onto a bumpy dirt track that disappeared into the fields. In the failing light it was just possible to see a dense stand of trees about a mile away

  ‘Want to try rolling out of the car now?’ He unclipped her seat belt. ‘We’re only doing twenty-five.’ He made a show of looking at the dirt track. ‘Ground’s a lot rougher though. You’ll get some nasty cuts and scrapes.’ He leaned further across her. Pulled the door handle, pushed the door open. It swung wildly on its hinges. Almost clipped the ground as the car bumped and rocked along the rutted track.

  She looked down. Even at this speed the ground was moving scarily fast. He put a large hand on her arm. Pushed her. She went rigid. Grabbed the edges of the seat with both hands. He increased the pressure, put more of his weight behind it. Her grip slipped. Without warning he swung the wheel left. Then violently back again. The car lurched drunkenly, hit a deep rut. She lost her grip on the seat. Her arms flailed in the air as she tried to get hold of something, anything, to stop her falling out.

  She tried to jam her legs up under the dash, hook her feet behind something. Nothing would catch. She was falling out. Then his fingers curled around her arm. He hauled her upright. With his left hand he swung the wheel from side to side. Grounding the exhaust and undercarriage as the car bucked and wallowed. His fingers dug into her flesh. He pumped his right arm out straight like a piston. Pushed her halfway out the door. Then back in again. Out again. Over and over.

  ‘In out, in out, shake it all about,’ he half sang, half screamed. ‘Come on, Carly, let’s hear you sing.’

  An unintelligible howl came out of his mouth. Lips pulled tight across his teeth, eyes wet. From the punch on the nose or the exhilaration, she didn’t know or care. He turned, grinned at her like a lunatic who found the key to the meds cabinet. The car picked up speed. He wrenched the wheel to the left. Her door slammed shut. Ahead of them the stand of trees was growing taller by the second.

  He flicked on the lights.

  What she saw in the beams made her blood run cold. The track just ended. Right there up ahead. It didn’t go through the trees or even around them. She pushed her legs out straight under the dash. Fumbled with the seat belt, missing the slot. Tried again. Missed again.

  ‘What speed do you think I can get up before we hit those trees? Sixty? Seventy?’

  ‘You’re crazy,’ she screamed.

  ‘Is that fast enough to kill us outright? So we’re not vegetables the rest of our lives.’

  ‘I don’t know. Please stop.’

  ‘Do you know how many times I wanted to do something like this in the past two years?’ All trace of the happy maniac was gone from his voice. What replaced it cut her insides like a knife. ‘How many times I wished I was dead?’

  She tried to say something, anything. Nothing came out. Her mouth opened and closed uselessly, fear stealing her voice.

  ‘Do you?’ he screamed.

  The trees were only yards away. Huge, impenetrable.

  ‘Do you?’

  The track ended abruptly at the base of a massive pine right in front of them.

  ‘I can’t hear you.’

  ‘Dear Jesus.’

  She raised her arms up in front of her face. He opened his mouth wide enough to swallow the steering wheel.

  ‘Bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch.’

  She’d never heard anything so loud in all her life.

  ‘Noooo!’

  He stomped on the brakes. The wheels locked. Her forearms slammed into the windshield as the car went into a skid on the loose dirt. He came off the brakes. Nearly ripped the wheel off turning it. The car spun to the right, threw her against him. She felt the heat coming off him. Smelled the testosterone. The back end swung around in a perfect arc, clipped the big tree. The bumper pinged right off, took most of the momentum with it. They slid gracefully sideways. Hit a smaller sapling. Came to a sudden stop.

  He let out a scream that sounded like it’d been building ever since they turned onto the track. Beat a crazy tattoo on the wheel with his fists.

  ‘I don’t care what anybody says, that was better than sex, any day. I think I shot my load.’

  Chapter 46

  JACKSON GOT OUT OF the car. He went around to Carly’s side and pulled her out. She caught her foot on the door sill. Ended up flat on her face in the dirt. He prodded her in the ribs with the toe of his boot.

  ‘Let’s go.’

  She scrambled to her feet. Stayed put when he started to walk off into the woods. She looked inside the car. He wasn’t so stupid as to leave the keys in the ignition.

  He saw she wasn’t following, gave a small shrug like it was no skin off his nose if he had to drag her by the hair.

  ‘This is perfect.’ The happy maniac had returned to his voice. ‘The car belongs to Chico. And so does this.’ He pulled a nine millimeter Glock out of the back of his waistband. Waved it in her face. ‘You know what that means?’

  He was waiting for an answer. She couldn’t think of a thing to say. She looked at the gun in his hand. Looked around at the flat, empty fields, the dark woods behind them.

  Is this how it all ends?

  He helped her out.

  ‘It means I can do whatever I want with you without the slightest risk of getting caught. You think Chico’s got a shovel in his trunk? Let’s take a look.’

  He walked around to the back. Popped the trunk.

  ‘Damn. Looks like the critters get a free meal. Won’t even have to do any digging. Come on.’

  She looked again at the emptiness all around them. There was nowhere to run. She couldn’t make her legs work. He walked back. Took hold of her wrist, pulled her along behind him like a naughty little girl who’d been acting up in the mall.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  Her eyes darted around her, looking to see if there was anything to use as a weapon.

  ‘Where’d you like to go?’

  His voice was pleasant. As if they were discussing the day’s picnic arrangements and it was her turn to choose.

  ‘Home?’

  He dropped her wrist. Turned to look at her.

  ‘You grow a sense of humor since I last saw you?’ He set off again. ‘I think this might be your home now.’ He waved his arm, took in the woods surrounding them. ‘And in the critters’ tummies, of course.’

  ‘I had nothing to do with that job going wrong. You have to believe me.’

  Liar, liar, pants on fire, drifted on the breeze towards her.

  ‘I didn’t,’ she screamed.

  He stopped and turned to face her again.

  ‘Why don’t you stamp your foot on the ground? Have a hissy fit? Maybe that’ll make me believe you.’

  She stared at him. At the stupid little boy’s grin plastered across his face. Her skin crawling and her teeth on edge at the gloating, mocking satisfaction in his voice. More than anything she wanted to shove his oh-so-tough-when-you’ve-got-the-gun threats down his cock-sucking throat and jam the barrel of his pistol in after them until he choked and pull the trigger and feel the sweet rush of his blood on her face and in her hair. . .

  Before she knew what happened, she’d launched herself at him. It was a pathetic attempt. Laughable. He leaned, almost in slow motion, to the side. Stuck his leg out, sent her flying. She hit the ground chin fi
rst with a muffled whomp instead of a bang, her fall softened by thousands of years’ worth of pine needles. He dropped down onto her back. Pinned her to the ground with a knee between her shoulder blades. He stuck the barrel of his gun hard into the back of her neck.

  ‘I was planning on going a bit further in before we got to this part. But, hey, it’s your funeral.’

  He made a strangled sound in the back of his throat like he was choking on a fish bone. Then he stopped abruptly as if even he had gotten tired of his jokes.

  ‘Last chance for a deathbed confession, Carly. Meet your maker with a clean conscience.’

  ‘No,’ she screamed into the pine needles. ‘It wasn’t me—’

  There was a loud, metallic click behind her ear. She screamed as her bladder gave up its contents.

  ‘Damn. I forgot to put the clip in.’ He looked over his shoulder at the dark stain seeping out from her crotch. ‘That’s gross.’

  ‘No, no, no, no, no,’ she screamed hysterically until he pushed her face back in the needles. She felt him place the gun on her back, guessed he was hunting in his pocket for the clip and didn’t want to let go of her head.

  ‘There you go.’ He wedged the gun between his knee and her back. She heard and felt a click as the clip snapped into place. ‘Okay, let’s try that again.’ He sounded like a man who’d put new batteries in the TV remote after discovering the kids had taken the old ones.

  Who knows where the strength comes from? But she found some from somewhere. She pushed against the hand clamped onto the back of her head, eyes losing focus with the exertion. Lifted her face an inch out of the pine needles. Screamed.

  ‘I can tell you who killed Dixie.’

  Chapter 47

  IT WAS SUDDENLY EERILY quiet. The birds held their breath, not daring to cheep. The chipmunks and squirrels stopped fussing with their nuts, sat watching them. Even the breeze had dropped, the leaves on the trees still. Jackson didn’t move or say anything for a very long time. He shifted on top of her, pressing her harder into the ground momentarily as he stood up.

  ‘Dixie’s dead?’

  It was barely a whisper. He stood with his arms hanging as limply as his head, the gun hanging loosely on his fingertips.

  ‘He can’t be. I only met with him the other day. Spoke to him yesterday.’

  ‘You didn’t know?’

  His eyes snapped into focus. He looked down at her, surprised she was there. He shook his head.

  ‘The police haven’t contacted you?’

  ‘When . . .’ His voice was thick. He cleared his throat. ‘When was this?’

  ‘A couple of days ago.’

  He nodded like it meant something to him. Then all hell was let loose. He pushed her onto her back with his foot. Dropped onto her chest with his knees. She screamed. He jammed the barrel of his gun in her mouth. She gagged, her eyes bulging, the metal setting her teeth on edge, sharp against the back of her throat.

  ‘How comes you know about it?’

  ‘Ungh, ungh, ungh,’ she said into the barrel of the gun.

  He pulled the gun out of her mouth. Pushed it into her eye.

  ‘I didn’t catch that.’

  Her mind went blank. All she could think about was the gun in her eye. Mouth or eye, it didn’t make any difference. Dead was dead. But there’s something about eyes. The fear paralyzed her.

  He pushed the gun harder. Bright flashes of light exploded behind her eyelid.

  ‘How. Come. You. Know?’

  He pushed down on her chest with each word, pumping gasps of air out of her mouth. Made her feel like a whore under an energetic fatman.

  ‘She told me.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘My friend. The one I was with tonight.’

  He laughed. A high-pitched squeal. A dangerously unstable noise, the sort of thing only a prolonged course of strong medication can help.

  ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

  ‘Get off me. I can’t breathe.’

  He thought about it a few beats. Then pulled the gun away from her eye. She groaned as he pushed himself off her chest. Scrambled to her feet. Backed away a few paces.

  ‘It better be good, Carly. The way I’m feeling right now, I’m looking for somebody to hurt. I’m not sure I even care who it is.’

  ‘I hired a guy to find Dixie for me.’

  She needed to watch every word. But how she was supposed to know which particular word would set this lunatic off was anybody’s guess.

  Something was going on behind his eyes. He nodded dully. As if she might have to repeat herself a few more times before he got it.

  But it wasn’t that he didn’t understand. It just didn’t stack up.

  Bad start.

  ‘Why would you want to find him? After what you did?’

  She opened her mouth to speak. Before she could say a thing, she was sitting on her butt again.

  ‘Stop doing that,’ she screamed, scrambling back up again. She tried to hit him. He caught her hand easily. Threw it to the side.

  ‘Stop lying, then.’

  She jammed her fists onto her hips. It made him smile. He looked at her like a dog might look at a snake, trying to determine how dangerous this little thing was.

  ‘I’m not lying.’ She glared at him. ‘Okay, I—’

  ‘Double crossed him?’

  ‘I was going to say I was stupid. I made a mistake, okay? I wanted to sort things out with him. I didn’t want to spend my whole life running away from him.’

  ‘So you hired a guy to find him.’

  She nodded.

  ‘He was meant to pass a message on, let him know that I wanted to talk.’

  He cocked his head, waiting for the rest of it.

  ‘But?’

  She gave an irritated head shake. ‘I was so stupid.’ She put a lot of emphasis on the stupid. ‘I let slip what it was all about.’

  His face said you got that right. ‘So he got his own ideas,’ was what came out of his mouth.

  She looked down at her feet. Kicked a pine cone. Took a gamble.

  ‘It is my fault in a way . . . but I was only trying to make things right.’

  He stared long and hard at her. That was uncomfortable enough. At least he didn’t hit her or shoot her. She let out a long breath through her nose she hoped he hadn’t seen her holding.

  ‘What exactly happened?’

  ‘I can’t believe I trusted the guy. I asked him to find Dixie but . . . I told him where the money was.’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t know why I did it. He told me he couldn’t find Dixie, couldn’t waste any more time. Then suddenly I can’t get hold of him. And the money’s gone.’

  He was shaking his head. Pretty soon she was going to be on her ass again. Or worse.

  ‘I don’t see what that has to do with Dixie.’

  ‘All I know is what my friend told me. She works as a dispatcher. She overheard them talking. They’ve got his fingerprints on the shell casings.’

  He was quiet a long time. She wished her heart would get the hell out of her mouth and back between her lungs.

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘Evan Buckley.’

  He froze.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Describe him to me.’

  She described Evan, watched the transformation in Jackson’s face.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘What? Apart from the fact that I sat next to him and talked to him at lunchtime today.’ His expression, already murderous, had darkened further. He looked at his hand, flexed it. ‘He even told me he’d met a guy with the same tattoo. He looked as if he’d been in a fight too.’

  ‘He—’

  Jackson silenced her with a dismissive wave.

  ‘But he was in there with a cop. He called her Guildford, something like that.’

  She shook her head, never heard of her.

  ‘Maybe she’s dirty.’

  But he wasn’t listening, already on his way to his car. He left her t
here in the middle of nowhere. Lucky to be allowed to walk away at all.

  It was a bad decision.

  Chapter 48

  ‘DETECTIVE GUILDFORD?’ JACKSON SAID, sticking out his hand before Ryder had a chance to introduce himself. He’d come to collect any of Dixie’s possessions that the police were prepared to release to him.

  Ryder developed a few new creases on his forehead. He cocked his head.

  ‘Guillory, you mean?’

  ‘Sorry, my mistake.’

  Jackson gave him a big, apologetic smile. He sat back down.

  Ryder pulled over a chair, sat on it backwards. Prick, Jackson thought to himself.

  ‘No, I’m not Guillory. My name’s Ryder.’

  It was Jackson’s turn to throw a frown onto his face. He made sure it was a good one.

  ‘Oh. I thought Detective Guillory was in charge of the investigation.’

  The creases in Ryder’s chubby face deepened further.

  ‘I don’t know where you got that information, Sir’—Jackson gave a noncommittal shrug—‘but I’m the lead detective on this investigation.’

  Jackson nodded. Gave a happy to be in safe hands smile.

  ‘Ah, right. You’re Guillory’s boss. I’m flattered you took the time to come down yourself. You should have sent Guillory.’

  ‘Detective Guillory is on a leave of absence, Sir.’

  Ryder said it more to the table top than Jackson, hoping it might shut him up. What was it with him and Guillory?

  ‘Right. A leave of absence.’

  That explained a lot as far as Jackson was concerned. He knew damn well that half the time leave of absence was a euphemism for suspended.

  Ryder handed over a small plastic bag. He waited, arms crossed, thumbs in his armpits.

  ‘I’m afraid we need to hold onto your brother’s cell phone.’

  Jackson opened the bag. Tipped the contents onto the table. He picked up the Serenity Prayer and turned it over. A small smile appeared on his lips. Ryder misunderstood the sentiment.

  ‘It’s a beautiful prayer.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  Jackson worked the smile into something a little sadder.

  There was a small key wrapped in a piece of paper. He unwrapped the paper, looked at the string of random letters written on it.