Possession

by Rene Gutteridge

  Suddenly a door opened. Vance pointed his gun but quickly hid it as a businessman in a cheap suit walked out. Luckily he didn’t notice Vance until he’d shut his door. Vance leaned against the railing, pretended to be interested in the drab view.

  “Mornin’,” the man said and walked past uneventfully. He got in a pickup and left.

  Vance squeezed his eyes shut. The pain reached all the way to the fillings in his teeth.

  “Vance, you’ve got to get it together, man.”

  “Shut up,” Vance whispered.

  Then the bullet, gliding through the air, parting it. Glass shattering.

  He was losing it. Quickly.

  Harmon. Call Harmon.

  He reached in his pocket for his phone but grabbed nothing but material. It was in his car. He couldn’t leave now and risk their coming out and getting away.

  “Why are you just standing around?” Doug’s voice was harsh, accusatory.

  He wouldn’t listen to it. It was just a figment of his broken imagination. Everything in him was broken.

  “Just kick the door down, Graegan,” Doug barked.

  Sweat poured down his face, and in periodic spurts, everything would go black; then light would creep back in. His mind felt like one giant echo.

  “Go in there and get your family back. What are you waiting for?”

  What was he waiting for?

  There was another voice.

  Quiet. Simple. Wordless.

  It seemed to be carried by the wind, through his soul, and it calmed him.

  But he wasn’t quite sure he could hear it. Wasn’t sure if he should hear it.

  What was real proved distant.

  He clutched the railing, afraid the dizziness might topple him over.

  Vance heard more voices. He turned. He was pretty sure these came from room 288. They were muffled.

  The voices danced around one another, Doug barking orders, the wind whispering another plan, and his gut, for the first time, completely indecisive.

  He stared at the window. The curtains were drawn. If only he could peek inside.

  He knew he had to do something. The question was, which voice was real?

  * * *

  Lindy pretended to be interested in Erin’s instructions on how to use the gun, but instead she was trying to figure out how to use it to get Conner back. She wondered if she could shoot someone for the sake of saving her son. Shoot an innocent person?

  Let Conner go, forever?

  The only answer was to never go in the bank. She imagined Erin handing over the gun, probably in the bank parking lot. That would be the moment she would need to make her move. Shoot Erin point-blank. Right in front of Conner, if he came with them.

  She wondered, would Erin leave him here, chained to the bed?

  Erin slid the safety back on and set the gun in the duffel bag. “You got any questions?”

  “Yeah. Where is Conner going to be during all this?” She kept her voice low. She wanted Conner to keep sleeping.

  Erin turned, her eyes narrow. “He’ll be in the trunk.”

  “In the trunk?” Lindy gasped.

  “Tied up, with tape on his mouth.”

  “Erin, please. Don’t do this. He’s just a little boy.”

  “Exactly. Unpredictable. With his prayers. And his God talk. Plus,” she said, zipping the bag, “I figure there will probably come a point where you’ll need some extra incentive, and I think that’ll be a good picture for you to keep in the forefront of your mind if you get to thinking about doing something heroic. Or stupid.”

  Knock.

  Knock.

  Erin turned, grabbing a small gun out of her waistband. She cursed and mumbled something about putting up the sign that they didn’t want room service. She stepped to the door, bracing her shoulder against it. There was no peephole.

  “No room service.”

  Knock.

  Knock.

  Erin repeated, in Spanish, what she’d said before. This time her voice was louder. More tense. Conner sat up, rubbing his eyes and looking for Lindy. Lindy got off the bed and went to him, holding his shoulders and stroking his head.

  “Don’t you move,” Erin whispered to Lindy, waving her gun at them. For a third time, she repeated herself through the door.

  Silence.

  Then two more knocks.

  33

  He stood there face-to-face with her. Her eyes gleaming and wide. He could practically see the thoughts screaming through her mind.

  “I’m unarmed,” Vance said, raising his hands. Sweat poured down his face, into his eyes. He wiped it away with his arm. His shirt was soaked.

  The door was cracked about a foot.

  “Kick it in. She’ll go flying to the ground.”

  But Vance stayed motionless against Doug’s voice, only blinking to try to keep the sweat out of his eyes. He couldn’t see into the room. “Is my family here?”

  A gun was now visible, staring him down like a pit bull.

  “You’ve made a horrible mistake coming here.” Erin glanced to his left and right, her face coming out of the shadow of the door. “I thought you were in jail.”

  “We need to talk.”

  “Don’t. I will kill them.” She looked him up and down. “You look horrible.”

  He could barely stand. He held on to the doorframe. “I’m the one you want.”

  “Yes, well, the one I wanted. But you made it clear that you’re not interested.”

  “I’ve had time to think.”

  “You’re here for your family,” she snarled. And then she yanked him forward. He tripped over her foot as he fell to the ground, hitting his head. Everything went black. But sounds smothered his thoughts.

  “Vance!” It was Lindy. He tried to open his eyes and realized they were open, but he could see nothing. The pain canceled nearly everything out. He thought he heard Conner but wasn’t certain.

  A kick in the stomach caused him to gasp for air. It wouldn’t come for what seemed like minutes, and then his lungs filled. Slowly he began to see light. And then objects. He tried to sit up but only got to an elbow.

  Erin peered at him. “You came here with no gun?” She laughed. “What? Did you think you were going to talk me down with your charm and good looks?”

  “I want to talk to Lindy.”

  “Get on your belly,” Erin ordered.

  Vance obliged, and Erin patted him down for a weapon. Then she used her foot to kick him back over. Right in the ribs. She knelt beside him. “You’re quite the hero, aren’t you? Stumbling in here. Are you drunk? Look at you. You’re a mess. But I already knew that.” She stood, towering over him. “Does your wife know you talk to imaginary people? I mean, fun for your son and all that, but a little disturbing when it comes to you, don’t you think?” She smirked. “I saw what I saw. At the beach.”

  Vance rolled to his side. Lindy sat on the bed. He tried to focus on her, but she split into three. Wavy like fun-house mirrors. “Lindy . . .”

  “Shut up, you pathetic sicko.” There was a tense urgency in Erin’s voice. “Now what do I do? You’ve complicated things, Vance, and when things get complicated, things get messy.”

  “You were right,” Vance said. “We’ve been through a lot together. You understand me, Erin. You understand what it means to be a cop.” The words hurt coming out, but it was his only chance. He looked at Conner, who sat frozen on the other bed, his eyes unsure. Vance tried a smile, but maybe it was a grimace.

  He got to his knees, trying to catch his breath. His rib cage felt like it had come unhinged. “Erin, I need to tell Lindy the truth.”

  Erin looked confused. Vance tried not to pause.

  “Conner, go to the bathroom and shut the door. Don’t come out until I tell you to. No matter what happens.”

  “Stay right where you are, kid. I give the orders around here,” Erin said.

  “What I have to say, he can’t hear.”

  Erin, who was closer and in better focu
s for him, eyed him before nodding to Conner to go to the bathroom. Vance watched him. His hands were clenched together, his small fingers threaded through one another.

  As the bathroom door closed, Vance continued. “Lindy, we had a window of time to try to make it work. But our window is closing. We tried, but that was our window, you know?” He tried to breathe, sound calm, look into her eyes. But the pain in his head still blurred everything. “And now a different window has been opened for me.”

  “Vance, what are you saying?” Lindy’s voice was pained.

  “Yeah, Vance, what are you saying?” Doug stood beside him. His shadow crossed over Vance’s face, but Vance didn’t turn to him.

  “I’m saying that we had our last shot. We tried to find our target. And then we thought we had our window, but there’s just too much history. Our window has closed.”

  “You said you wanted Lindy, not me,” Erin said.

  “I wanted to try to make it work. I owed her that much.” Vance closed his eyes for a moment, trying to manage the pain. “But I don’t think she’ll ever understand me. And that’s not her fault. It’s mine. Erin saved my life. I owe her a debt I can’t repay. But now I want to try. She gave me the gift of life, and I want to live it to its fullest.”

  Erin suddenly sat down in the chair by the table, flopping herself into it like she didn’t have the strength to stand. “After it’s all come to this, Vance? Now you decide?” Her voice tensed with anger. “I am going to Mexico. My life is sunk. I have nothing left.”

  “That’s not true,” Vance whispered. These words burned his tongue. “Let them go.”

  Silence.

  Erin stroked the metal of her gun, her eyes tired, stressed, contemplative. “You never knew what you had,” she said quietly, turning her eyes toward Lindy. “He was there the whole time, and he was never good enough for you, was he?”

  Vance looked at Lindy, trying to focus on her. She was still blurry. He couldn’t see the details of her face.

  Lindy sat silently. “Vance is right,” she finally said. “We had our window. We had our one shot.”

  “You’re unbelievable,” Erin spat, staring at Lindy. “This is what I’ve been trying to tell you all these years,” she said, now looking at Vance.

  Vance nodded. Each movement caused a stab of pain through his head.

  Doug’s shadow passed over him again, but he couldn’t see him.

  “Get out of here,” Erin said, waving her gun. She sounded tired, her voice thin. Disgruntled.

  Nobody moved.

  “I said get out of here,” Erin repeated through clenched teeth.

  Lindy stood. “You’re just going to let us walk out?”

  “Not us,” Erin hissed. “You.”

  34

  Lindy froze. Something in Erin’s eyes terrorized her more than usual. She looked at Vance. She’d never seen him like this. He was sweating profusely and seemed to be in terrible pain. He was blinking and unable to focus on her. He grabbed his head again and again and sometimes even looked over his shoulder like there was something there.

  When she saw him at the door, hope had swelled in her heart. He was here with them. But he didn’t seem to have a plan, and that was unlike him. She was surprised he didn’t kick down the door, guns blazing.

  She glanced at Erin, who nudged her toward the door with the tip of her gun. Lindy turned toward the bathroom.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Erin asked.

  “To get my son.”

  “Your son is staying here. With his father. Where he belongs.”

  Lindy’s hand went over her mouth. She shuddered. “What are you talking about? I am not leaving Conner here.”

  “He is my ransom,” Erin said. “My leverage. You walk out of here and go call the police, right? I mean, that’s what any reasonable person would do. And Cripple here might not be trustworthy. Might want to get clever. So no, the kid stays with me.” She sighed, wiped her brow. “Now get out of here before I have to break another rib.”

  Lindy’s entire body shook. She couldn’t even get her feet to move. Suddenly Vance, stooped over like an old man and holding his ribs with one hand, shuffled toward her. Erin pointed her gun at him, but he didn’t stop.

  “I need to say good-bye,” he mumbled. His eyes were clouded, withdrawn, but his face held an intense expression that Lindy tried to read. He stood a little taller, grabbed each of her shoulders gently. He was breathing hard, his face oily with sweat. Dark circles clung to the skin under his eyes, weighing them down. “The window was our only shot,” he whispered to her. He touched her hair. She peered deeply into his eyes. And he looked at her, the mistiness seeming to lift a bit. “All I have left is a bullet whizzing past me and the sound of shattering glass.”

  That was all he said. Tears welled in his eyes and she expected more, but that was it. Lindy was confused. She wasn’t buying his sudden devotion to Erin and figured it was a ploy to get her out of there. But then his words seemed so startling, said with intense conviction. They’d had one shot. One window of time.

  Those were the words that seemed to hang in front of her. Once, before she began to understand the whole picture of her husband, she’d believed their window had closed.

  But did he?

  “You have to keep Conner safe,” Lindy said, tears gushing down her face. She sobbed into her hands.

  Vance slowly peeled them away. Lindy searched his eyes, his face, his lips, for anything, any answer.

  Suddenly a hand grabbed her shirt, ripping it at the shoulder. She was pushed toward the door, a fist shoving her right between the shoulder blades.

  “Time to go.”

  Lindy felt herself growing hysterical. Sobs turned into hyperventilation. She couldn’t catch her breath.

  “I will take care of him,” Vance said to her, but his voice brought her no comfort.

  Until she noticed something.

  His hands. On his pinkie finger was her wedding ring.

  And both hands were clasped together. Like Conner’s.

  Then a soft, warm tingle spread over the top of her head and down her body. It felt like a warm shower, except inside. In her soul.

  She stopped crying. Heaving. Shaking.

  Something was happening in the room, something she couldn’t explain.

  She looked at Vance, who gave her a slight nod. Then she stepped backward, out onto the concrete—the very thing that everything in her told her not to do.

  Erin kept the gun close, but visible. “If you call the police, this is going to get very ugly. And very bloody. Stay out of sight for two days. I’ll be in touch. And don’t worry. Once we reach Mexico, I’ll send one of them back to you.”

  The door shut. Lindy stood staring at its stark gray metal. Its black numbers. One? Which one?

  Hysteria bubbled up, but something kept her steady. She didn’t know how, but she was in complete control.

  And then she saw it.

  A gun. Sitting on the concrete.

  Right below the window.

  * * *

  Vance’s heart felt shredded. He was their only hope? His stupid, idiotic plan. He’d felt compelled. It had made sense at the time. But Lindy looked hopelessly confused. He thought they would have a connection, that she would see what he was trying to say to her.

  Now a cold-blooded killer was staring him down.

  “Daddy?” Conner called from the bathroom.

  “Stay in there, Son.”

  “But it stinks.”

  “Just a little longer.”

  Erin pushed Vance into the chair she’d sat in. She circled him like a vulture, the shiny black gun dangling by her side. “You’ve completely lost your mind, haven’t you?” There was glee in her voice. “I mean, Vance, dude, I was just going to mess with you a little. The call to your mother-in-law was intended to be pretty torturous. I knew how much you hated that woman. I figured she’d stir plenty of chaos into your life.”

  “The mud flaps.”

>   “You saw those too, huh? Yeah, I thought that was a nice touch. Subtle, though, right?” Her crooked grin contrasted with her cold eyes.

  Then her expression melded into sadness. He’d seen the same expression the day he’d told her they had to part ways. “You know we’re probably not going to make it out of this alive.”

  Vance didn’t answer. But he noticed something. The pain in his head was fading. His vision was becoming less blurry. It felt like he’d been crushed by a mountain and now something was lifting it away.

  Erin stared him down. “You’re looking a little better. You’ve got color in your face. For a while there I thought you were about to drop dead.”

  “We need to leave for Mexico soon.”

  She smiled a little. “I like the sound of that. We.” She scratched the side of her face with the barrel of her gun. “But I’m not buying it.”

  The pain was now gone, like it had never been there. He saw clearly. The ringing in his ears subsided. He glanced around. Doug had vanished.

  He felt strong, like he’d just woken up from a good night’s sleep. His mind was clear. But he was troubled immediately by the disjointed plan he’d come up with to try to save his family. Lindy was free, but he was certain she did not know what to do with the freedom.

  And Erin wasn’t buying his story. Which was making the passing minutes more and more desperate.

  Erin shook her head. “Except . . . here you are, like the plague’s been lifted from you. Was she that great of a burden to carry? Just minutes ago you were sweating like a pig. Now you look perfectly normal.”

  Vance had no explanation for it either. But he wasn’t complaining. He needed his mind back. Fully.

  And he put it to work immediately. He wondered if he could take Erin down. She had a gun and also two decades of martial arts training. He’d seen her take down men twice her size. He tried to talk to her while he thought through his options.

  “When did you decide to come to California? after we talked? You got here fast.”

  “Vance,” she said with a small laugh, “you don’t get it.”

  “Get what?”

  “I’ve been here the whole time.”

  The hair stood straight up on his arm.