Cracked

by Barbra Leslie

  Darren was yards ahead of me, lifting the third rock on the right from the door, and grabbing the front door key from underneath.

  “Everybody in Downs Mills knows where that key is,” I said. “I don’t know why they bother locking it.” I hugged myself. It was cold, and the snow had started again.

  “They didn’t,” Darren said, trying the front door. It was unlocked.

  My heart started beating faster. I had been kidding about the key – Skip was, for such a resolutely small-town man, pretty security conscious. Only the day before, he had told me that he was thinking about putting a security system into the old place because he was worried about Marie out there on her own when he was in Bangor at the car lot.

  Skipper would never have left the door unlocked.

  Darren had his hand up, indicating that I should stay where I was, while he checked it out.

  “Fuck that,” I said, marching toward him. As I did, I heard something, a high-pitched reverberating noise, and a muffled pop, and Darren stopped ahead of me. In what seemed like slow motion, he fell backwards, and I could see the hunter’s arrow stuck in his chest, burrowed past his jacket, into a point almost directly in the middle of his torso.

  I think I screamed. I know I looked up.

  Detective Harry Miller stood a few feet back from the doorway of Skipper’s house, my house, and in the time I had run to Darren, he had restrung his bow. He was pointing it at me.

  In the surreal way that the brain functions in extreme fear and panic, I noticed that he had shaved and had a haircut.

  And then I ran, straight at him.

  He fired.

  29

  Miller wasn’t as good as he thought he was.

  I threw myself over Darren, bounding over him like I was running hurdles, then broke into a somersault, keeping myself as low to the ground as I could while I ran. I had only about thirty feet to cover, but Miller had a crossbow, and it was already strung.

  I felt a burning pain in the side of my head, and then I couldn’t hear much of anything at all on my right side, but before he could string another arrow, I jumped up the stairs and dived into his legs. Miller saw it coming, knew that’s what I’d planned to do, and I could tell that he had tried to ground his legs firmly to give him purchase, but his balance was compromised by trying to restring his weapon. He went down, but not before he managed to kick the side of my head. The bad side. The side that had blood running from it.

  I held onto him with everything I had. I held his legs as closely together as I could, and realized that when he fell, Miller had hit his head on the hall table. He wasn’t out, but he was stunned. He was moaning. His shirt had pulled away from his shoulder, and I could see a large bandage there. This is where he had been shot. Good.

  Outside, Darren wasn’t making a sound, which was a very bad sign. I had to finish this, and get back to him.

  The bow had skittered a few feet away from Miller, and he was lying on a leather quiver of arrows that was strapped to his back. But one solitary arrow, the one that he had planned to kill me with, was on the floor, just beyond his head.

  I leapt for it, but it meant letting Miller go for a second. His eyes were open, and I could see a bit of blood on the floor. He had cut his head on the table. Head wounds bleed like crazy, but I knew it probably wasn’t serious.

  Miller grabbed my legs, but I had the arrow.

  In one movement, he surprised me by flipping me over onto my back, from my face plant on the floor.

  Blood was trickling down his face and onto mine as he wrapped his hands around my throat and squeezed.

  I closed my eyes and found myself praying to God and to Ginger as I grabbed the arrow firmly in my hands and plunged it, as hard as I could with the decreasing oxygen to my brain, into his neck. I might not have been able to, had he been able to squeeze even a fraction harder, but the wound on his shoulder had weakened him.

  Miller’s hands immediately left my throat, and I turned over and coughed, bringing up some bright red blood. I hoped nothing was too injured there. I had to save Darren, and my adrenaline was too high to feel immediate pain.

  But I had aimed well. The arrow had gone straight and deep into Miller’s neck, but he remained on his knees, making a gurgling sound. His hands went to the arrow. He was trying to take it out. Quickly I grabbed another arrow from the quiver on the floor, but I watched as he fell over to one side, knocking one of Marie’s Royal Doulton figurines from an end table onto the hardwood floor, smashing it.

  Is she ever going to be mad, I thought, and almost started laughing.

  I watched Miller’s face. The blood was coming quickly now. With some difficulty, I pulled the arrow out myself, to hasten the process. Looked like I had hit his carotid artery; it was gushing. He was trying to cover his neck but with every bit of strength I had, I speared one hand down into the floor with the arrow. Then I grabbed another, raised it above my head and with a guttural cry and the last of my strength, I crucified his other hand to the floor. Miller looked at me and with the fear and pain, there was something else on his face. Something like pride, or respect. Or at least that’s what I told myself.

  For the second time in days, I was covered in the blood of a dying man.

  I thought Miller almost tried to grin at me. He was aware enough to hear me. I squatted down and put my face a few inches from his. I heard myself saying, “Rot in hell,” almost conversationally. Miller shook for what seemed like five minutes, but couldn’t have been. Then he went still.

  Done.

  “Darren!” I yelled, and managed to get to my feet and run outside.

  * * *

  As I ran toward Darren, something from a poem popped into my head. Something about the woods being lovely and dark? I couldn’t tell if it was from the silence of the snow and the dark woods surrounding us, or if the arrow that had cut my head and taken a chunk of my earlobe had done even more damage, but outside the world was a muffled, beautiful wonder. And in the middle of it lay my brother, his eyes open and glassy, his whole body shaking.

  First aid courses don’t tend to prepare you for hunting arrows, and besides, I hadn’t taken a class in eight years. Jack had made sure I knew a lot about first aid, though. He said it was only responsible, the amount of fighting we did.

  “Okay, Darren,” I said, as calmly as I could, “okay. Hang in there. You’re not as bad as that, I promise.” His eyes were aware enough to follow me, which was a good sign, but the shaking meant that he was either in shock, or heading there. Or worse. I tried to remember what I knew about shock – whiskey? Warmth? I took off my jacket and did my best to cover his centre. At least, the part that didn’t have an arrow sticking out of it.

  I couldn’t take the arrow out. That could kill him, and I didn’t feel confident enough that it was the right thing to do. But I could tell by the position and angle of it that it probably hadn’t pierced his heart. I was equally aware that it probably had hit his right lung.

  “Take care, the boys,” Darren said. His voice was a wheeze.

  “Stop it,” I said. “Take care of them yourself.”

  For a couple of long moments, I stayed crouched over my brother, holding his hand. As quickly as I had been able to act before, I was immobilized now. Should I try to drag him to the car? I might be able to do that, and kill him in the process. And if the dragging didn’t do it, trying to hoist him into the car might. Getting him into the house posed the same problem, though it seemed like a better solution.

  One thing was sure: if I left him to lay in the snow much longer, in shock, he would be dead. And soon.

  The thought propelled me up. I was wasting precious seconds.

  “Darren,” I said. His eyes were closed now, and he wasn’t shaking any more. But I could hear his laboured breathing. “D! I’m going to call for help. I’ll be right back.” Without thinking or pausing any further, I ran back to the house. If I had lost my way in those thirty feet, I could have followed the trail of blood I’d left in
the light dusting of snow on my way out.

  I didn’t want to touch my ear. I didn’t want to think about it. Adrenaline was keeping me going, and if I stopped, I might never go again.

  Miller’s body was where I had left it. I had half expected him not to be there, a figment of my imagination, or carried off by unseen forces. But he was sprawled there, obscenely crucified, pinned to the old oak floors, more blood quickly pooling under him. Skip and Marie would never get that out of the wood, I found myself thinking. And also, I did that? I had to run past his body to get to the phone in the kitchen, and it looked so big and cumbersome there. He wasn’t too large a man, but he seemed to take up a lot of space, lying there.

  I had killed him. Almost with my bare hands. As I had promised myself I would. The thought gave me a small burst of strength.

  The phone was on the wall where it had always been, but instead of the old black rotary dial that had been there, there was now hanging a cordless phone. I grabbed it, and looked for the talk button, starting to shake myself. I screamed in frustration as I pushed the end button instead of talk, but then I got it right.

  Dial tone was there. Thank God. I dialed 911, and put the phone to my left ear.

  Nothing. No signal, no dial tone, no dialing. No efficient emergency operator asking me what I needed. Dead. Dead like Darren was going to be.

  Then a feeling started creeping along my neck, and the hairs there stood up.

  I felt like someone, or something, was whispering into my bad ear, whispering promises of pain and horror still to come. It felt like an evil breeze had blown past me.

  I whipped around, but I was alone.

  I tried the phone again, and it was dead. Definitely no dial tone this time.

  In the couple of seconds between picking up the phone and dialing 911, it had died. Which meant, probably, that someone – or something? – had cut the line.

  I looked at the basement door, six or seven feet from where I was standing. Downstairs was Dad’s old gun locker. I took the stairs three at a time, twisting my ankle on the bottom stair and landing on my butt on the cold floor. The pain was unbelievable, making the stinging on the side of my face feel like a paper cut. But I didn’t stop. I couldn’t.

  Someone else was in this house. I could now hear footsteps above me. And I was pretty sure it wasn’t Miller, risen from the dead.

  I half hopped, half ran to the old office at the back of the basement. Despite all the improvements to the rest of the house, down here it was the same dark, dank place it had always been.

  Which was good. I knew what I was looking for.

  The gun locker was in the back corner, and I fell to my knees in front of it.

  There was a loose section of cement in the floor where Dad had always kept the key. He had always locked the cabinet, and I couldn’t imagine that Skipper would do any differently. And if I was lucky – if Darren was lucky – he would keep the key in Dad’s old hiding spot.

  I could hear the footsteps in the kitchen now. Why were they so slow? Maybe whoever it was didn’t realize I was down here. But I doubted it.

  I found the key, and stood up with difficulty, nearly knocking the whole locker on top of myself as I grabbed it for balance.

  The key still fit. I sobbed in relief, and opened the door, grabbing the first gun I could find, an old pistol Dad had first used with me for target practice when I was thirteen or fourteen. It would be unloaded, and I had to find the ammo.

  Luckily, Skipper was as organized as our father had been. The ammunition was right where it was supposed to be, in the drawer at the bottom. I pulled out a box of cartridges, and started loading, my hands steady now.

  Then Jeanette Vasquez stepped out of the darkness, an AK-47 pointed at me.

  30

  You should really have killed me while you had the chance,” she said, and my stomach turned over. “Drop the gun,” she said. “Do it now, please, Danny.” She looked uncomfortable and awkward in winter clothes. Something about her stance made me feel slightly hopeful.

  My hand tightened around my gun, and with fingers that were now sweaty, I released the safety.

  Off to my right, I could hear chuckling. It was an odd sound, made odder by the fact that I was hearing it only from my left. I seemed to have lost all hearing in my right ear.

  “You are one tough nut,” a familiar male voice said, descending the stairs. “Really. I am really impressed, Danny.”

  My knees nearly gave way.

  “Fancy meeting you here,” I said. I clutched the gun tighter. What the fuck.

  I had thought it was nearly over. Save Darren, find Luke, get them both to safety, and I could go back to my life. Or even to rehab, ’cause I owed Darren at least that much, especially now.

  But it wasn’t over. It was far from over.

  I controlled myself, with a greater force of will than I thought myself capable of.

  “Hello, Chandler,” I said. “Or should I call you Michael?” Chandler. Fred’s friend. His lawyer. I flashed back to Fred, standing in the desert, mentioning that his lawyer had recommended Jeanette to Fred as a nanny. I didn’t take my eyes off Jeanette’s face, hoping she would take her attention off me for one second so I could shoot her. Then him. But no such luck. She didn’t even break eye contact with me.

  “I love Maine. It’s home, as you may know. This is where I raised my children. California has its charms of course, but you know what they say – home is where the heart is.”

  “What do you want?” I said. I was in danger of losing it. Darren was outside in the snow. He was going to die, and I had a gun pointed at my head. Again.

  “What do I want,” Chandler said, pacing a bit. I was never going to be able to think of him as Michael, despite everything I knew. He still looked every inch the prosperous, elegant lawyer I had met in Orange County. “What I want, Danny, is for you to put that ridiculous gun on the floor, and I will save your brother’s life.” He was wearing a dark-gray wool coat and black driving gloves. His hair was slicked back, and he was wearing a white shirt and a dark tie. He looked wealthy. And dangerous.

  “What do you mean,” I said, still holding the gun.

  “Just this,” Chandler said. “If you put that gun on the floor in the next thirty seconds, I will call 911 from my cell phone and say that there was a hunting accident out here. Then all three of us will get out of this house and into my car, and we will head back to a little place I keep in the woods out here. Very cosy. And we will have a talk. You’re a wealthy woman now, you know. Or you will be very soon,” he said. “Did you know that your husband – my son – left you everything in his will?” I paused for a couple of seconds of silence, keeping the gun in my hand. “Tick tock, Danny,” Chandler said lightly. “Ten seconds.”

  I put the gun on the floor, and my hands in the air. “Call,” I said. “Call now.”

  Chandler tossed me the phone. “You do it,” he said.

  I half expected to get no signal, but the four bars were all glowing. I dialed 911.

  “Danny,” Chandler said softly, coming closer to me, “if you say anything I don’t like, Jeanette will shoot you, and then go outside and finish Darren off, and she and I will be pulling out of here in just over a minute. Sound good?”

  Calmly, I gave the 911 operator directions to the house, and told her that there was a man in the snow with a hunter’s arrow in his chest, and that he would die if they didn’t get here in minutes. Then I flipped the phone shut as she asked my name and told me to stay on the line.

  “Good girl,” Chandler said. He motioned for me to toss the phone back to him, and I did.

  He caught the phone deftly and stuck it in his pocket, first checking to make sure it was, in fact, 911 that I had called.

  “What did you think,” I said, watching him. “I would risk Darren’s life?”

  “No,” he said. “You’re remarkably loyal. I wish I had known you as a child. You would have made a great addition to our family. Wouldn’t she, Je
anette?”

  “Always room for one more,” she said.

  “Where’s Luke?” I said. I swallowed. “Please.”

  “Safe as houses,” Chandler-slash-Michael said. “Back at mine having a nap.”

  Having a nap. Drugged, probably.

  “Anyway,” he continued, “we’d better get the lead out. As it were,” he laughed. “This weather is going to make driving difficult.”

  We went back up the basement stairs, Jeanette behind us and Chandler gallantly helping me up the stairs. I knew my ankle might have been broken, and I had definitely torn some ligaments. I wouldn’t be able to walk properly for a couple of months.

  If I lived that long.

  Chandler’s car was outside the back kitchen door, and I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed it through the window when I came bounding in to use the phone. Sure enough, it was a dark sedan, a Cadillac, shiny under a thin layer of snow.

  “Nice car,” I said, as Chandler held the door open for me. He followed.

  “Have to buy American if you’re going to spend any time around here,” he replied. “They’re all such patriots.”

  “Bastards,” I said. Chandler smiled at me.

  “You make me laugh, Danny,” he said. The car pulled around the house, and I could see Darren lying in the snow.

  “Is that why I’m still alive?” I asked. My eyes were stinging. There was simply no way I was going to let this man see me cry. “But no – it’s because you think I have money, right? You’re going to bleed me like you did Jack?”

  “You’re alive because you’re more valuable alive.” Chandler’s voice was jovial, nauseating. I looked out the window. He looked carefully at me. “You must be in pain.”

  I ignored him, and continued looking out the window.

  “Don’t worry,” he continued. “You won’t be for much longer. That, I promise you.”

  Darren was probably dead. Ginger was dead. Jack was dead, and Gene was beaten beyond recognition and traumatized for life. The pain in my ankle was intensifying, blood was pouring down the side of my head, and I was starting to hear things from a distance.