by Matthew Iden
In his other hand was a gun. It was gray or black, a blocky thing, longer down the butt than it was down the barrel. Her brother could’ve told what type it was. He raised it like it was a trophy.
“This is a modified Glock 17,” the man said. “It can shoot one bullet at a time or I can empty the magazine before you can count to two. That means you’re going to stay in the car no matter what. If we get stopped, you’re my girlfriend and you got sick at a friend’s house, so I’m taking you home. I want you to groan and act like you’re too sick to talk. If you say anything more than that, I’m going to shoot whoever you’re talking to, then I’m going to shoot you, then I’m going to go shoot your grandparents. That’s right, I know all about them.”
She was quiet, watching him as a knot formed in her belly.
“But if you do what I tell you to and follow the rules, in four hours, you’ll never see me again. Easy enough?”
His Adam’s apple bobbed as he spoke and he glanced from the road back to her face between every few words. Blocks of light played over his face as they approached, drew even with, then passed highway lights. Done with the gun, he tugged at his armrest and a portion of the interior door panel fell away. He slid the gun into the empty space then pushed the panel back, pounding it with a fist a few times for good measure. And the gun was gone.
“You’re lying,” she said. It popped out without conscious thought.
He looked over, surprised, then shook his head. “Just do what I tell you.”
She watched him for a minute. “Who are you? Where are you taking me?”
“You don’t need to know and you don’t want to know,” he said.
She paused. “My brother is a cop.”
His lips twitched. “Sure he is.”
“Chuck Rhee,” she said like he’d taught her to say if she was ever pulled over or got into trouble. “With the Arlington PD. He’s looking for me right now.”
“Yeah? How does he know you’re gone?” the man asked. “You went and met Tuck on your own without telling your brother, right? You’ve probably spent the night before, or been out all night partying and your brother hasn’t checked on you. What makes tonight any different?”
Lucy was quiet.
“Face it, honey. Your brother ain’t looking for you and even if he was, it won’t be until tomorrow. And tomorrow will be too late.”
Lucy swallowed. “What do you mean?”
The man made a face. He’d said too much. “New rule. No talking.”
She curled back into a ball. Despite the window being closed, she was freezing cold. “Could I have the coat back?”
The look he gave her made her shrink back in her seat. But he reached into the backseat with one long arm and pulled his peacoat forward, draping it over her like a curtain. Despite the smell, she wrapped it tightly around her, burrowing into its folds. Then she closed her eyes as tears spilled down her cheeks.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THIS AFTERNOON
Sarah pulled out of the parking lot and made a lazy turn onto the road that would lead to the on-ramp heading west. Her foot eased forward on the accelerator until the cruiser was humming at just over forty-five miles an hour, then she flicked on cruise control and leaned back, settling in for the ride. She was about to make sure that the trek from Waterloo Barracks to the Washington County Sheriff’s Office hadn’t taken longer since the first pioneers crossing the Allegheny Mountains had struck westward to claim their own little slice of Manifest Destiny.
Kline had been literal when he’d said Sarah was to hand over the case to the local sheriff—not long after Jimmy Noles had talked her into doing a little moonlighting, her lieutenant had returned to the bull pen to tell her to get her gear and hit the road, taking with her not just all of the notes in her case files, but the suspect, too. She was to deliver the case lock, stock, and barrel.
As Kline swaggered back out of the room, she exchanged a look with Jimmy, who did everything but give her two thumbs up. Kline might think he was twisting the knife, but it was better than she could’ve hoped for. The assignment not only got her off highway patrol—always a bonus—it gave her more than an hour to grill the suspect off the books. She’d shoved the papers back in their folder and hurried down to the barracks’ temporary lockup to get Kevin Handley ready for the trip.
She adjusted the rearview mirror to look at Handley now. He was a poster boy for creeps. Late thirties, three days of stubble. A doughy, sallow face. A hairline that had lost both the battle and the war against male-pattern baldness. He wore a black, waffle-quilted long-sleeve shirt that said “VICIOUS” in silver Gothic script across the chest. Bony shoulders poked up at odd angles under the shirt, incongruous with the potbelly.
Sarah had kept him cuffed and he’d shifted to his side rather than make the whole ride sitting hunched forward. The position forced him to watch the world pass by out the rear windshield. From the mirror, he looked to Sarah like a teenager being driven back to school, distraught by the indifference of an unfeeling world.
“Kevin,” she called, then cleared her throat. Her voice never carried the way she wanted it to. But he’d raised his head. “Why’d you do it?”
He looked at her in the mirror for a second, expressionless, then put his head back down on the seat.
“I’m not asking so I can charge you,” she said. “Nothing you say during transport can be used against you in court. I’m more curious than anything else.”
He was quiet. The only sound was the thrum of the tires on the road and the occasional squawk from the police radio. She turned the volume down until it was a low hiss. The sky was overcast, bleached gray as bones. Weeks-old snow was piled in dirty brown banks three feet high along the entire stretch of highway. It was a world leached of color.
“Did you get angry at her? Did she try to run?”
Silence. Flecks of sleet dotted the windshield and she turned on her wipers. The rhythmic thumping was the perfect soundtrack to the monotony of the day.
“We know Tiffany was turning tricks,” she continued. “Local girl, probably just starting out and totally clueless. We’re thinking she and a friend hung around the FastGas, picking guys up and sleeping with them for a quick buck. Is that how it happened to you?”
Handley shifted, as though to get more comfortable.
“See, I’m asking because I think you’re the victim here,” she said, grasping at straws. She couldn’t think of a single reason Kevin Handley would confess anything to her. Except, maybe, anger that he was the only one who’d been caught. No one liked to go up the river alone. “We know that Tiffany was being pimped out by a guy driving a Mustang. He sounds like the pro in this situation. Which means he should’ve known better than to let you meet with Tiffany at the gas station. That’s how we found you, you know. One of her friends saw you and wrote down your plates. It was child’s play tracking you down.”
Handley sighed and squirmed in place.
“The problem is,” Sarah continued, “we barely know anything about this guy or his operation. Which means he’s free and clear while you’re probably on the hook for murder one. He’s out there, pimping more girls and making tons of money while you’re going to be fighting for your life inside a Washington County prison.”
She had no idea what life was like inside a Washington County prison, but even at forty-five miles an hour she would run out of time before she could pry something useful from Handley unless she shocked him into a reaction.
“It was an accident.” The words were so soft, Sarah wasn’t sure she’d heard him. She turned off the wipers and let the sleet accumulate.
“What?”
“She said she was nervous and hadn’t done much . . . hooking . . . before,” he said. “She thought that acting like it was a party would put her in the mood.”
Sarah was quiet. She could see Handley’s eyes flicking back
and forth, remembering.
“We put on some music and she told me to turn the lights down, that it was too bright. She wanted to smoke some weed and then we started doing shots. I had some Beam and some Ronrico under the sink. It was fun. We met a few more times. I always tried to make sure it was like a party for her.”
She watched him in the mirror. He wasn’t in the car anymore, not mentally or emotionally, at least. He sighed again. His eyes glistened.
“That night, the night you showed up, she’d had a lot to drink, maybe popped some pills. She passed out and I started to undress her. That’s when I felt her skin. It was . . . was . . .” He stopped and gulped. “She was like a piece of wood. Like furniture.”
“What did you do then?” Sarah asked after a long minute, hoping to stretch the moment out.
“I freaked out. I didn’t know what I was going to tell Gerry. I wasn’t thinking straight. All I knew was that I had to get her out of my house. Then you showed.”
“Who’s Gerry, Kevin?” Sarah asked. “Is he the man in the Mustang?”
He looked at her in the mirror for the first time, his face blank. “I don’t know anything about a Mustang. I only dealt with Gerry.”
“Can you tell me about him?”
Handley let his head fall back onto the seat. “Gerry’s a guy I knew from the mill. He worked the rollers. I was in supply. We hit it off, hung out at lunch. Drank some together. Lost track of each other after we got laid off. Then I seen him at a crab shack in Columbia. He told me he was into a new line of work.”
Sarah gripped the wheel, willing Handley to keep talking. Something caught her eye and she looked in the side-view mirror. A line of traffic stretched fifteen cars behind her. She frowned . . . then realized she’d been so engrossed in Handley’s story that she’d drifted out of her lane and was now straddling the dotted line. The drivers following her had been too scared to pass a state police cruiser or honk the horn and were now crawling along like they were all in a parade together, with her leading the way. Burning with embarrassment, she yanked the car to the right and put a stern, businesslike expression on her face as the passenger of each passing car looked over at her, wondering what her problem was.
“Did Gerry want you to help him out?” she asked Handley. “With the business, I mean.”
“Yeah,” he said, shrugging. “When he told me about it, I said no way. But he kept popping up at the bars and the stores I went to. Eventually he asked if I wanted to sample what he had.”
“One of the girls?”
Handley nodded.
“And that was Tiffany?” No answer. “Kevin?”
“Yeah.”
“And where is Gerry now?”
“I don’t know. Probably out looking for me.”
“What’s Gerry’s last name, Kevin?”
Handley shrugged. “Tena. Gerald Tena. He’s got a place in Glenwood.”
“Did he bring Tiffany to you?”
“Yeah.”
Something nagged her. “Why were you at the FastGas?” There was no answer. “Kevin? If Gerry brought Tiffany to you, why were you at the gas station? You already had the girl.”
There was a pregnant silence. Then, the tears that had been threatening spilled down the gray, stubbled cheeks. “I wanted to show her off.”
Sarah watched the man’s face for a long minute, then pushed down on the gas and headed for Washington County.
CHAPTER TWELVE
She woke a second—or was it a third?—time, thirsty and with the same headache. She couldn’t believe she’d fallen asleep. It must’ve been the drugs that Tuck had given her. At least she wasn’t puking anymore. There hadn’t been anything to vomit for what seemed like hours, but that hadn’t kept her body from convulsing anyway.
Lucy kept her eyes closed, wishing she were back in Chuck’s Integra, like that time he’d brought her home from the hospital when she’d had pneumonia. She’d been twelve and terrified that it was all a ruse, that he was going to drive around in a big circle and take her back to the hospital where it was lonely and dark. He’d brought her Hello Kitty blanket from home and she’d clutched it to her chin, afraid, until they’d pulled into the driveway of their grandparents’ home.
But there wasn’t any blanket and she wasn’t in Chuck’s Integra. She was in a stranger’s car, driving in the night, cold and clueless as to why she was even here. Wild plans for escape passed through her head, like unlocking the door and throwing herself out of the car in one quick motion. The man was obeying the speed limit, keeping the needle pinned at exactly fifty-five miles an hour. Compared to the speeds Chuck tore around at, it felt like she could practically step out and walk.
But she didn’t have to be a physics professor to know that her body would be nothing but bloody rags by the time it stopped rolling. She’d tried roller blades the year before and had taken a tumble after building up some speed on the smallest hill imaginable at Gravelly Point. Even with pads, gloves, and a helmet, it had taken a month before the scabs had healed. And she’d been doing maybe five miles an hour . . . ten times that speed would kill her.
Would it be preferable to what was going to happen, though? Every so often, Chuck had tried to scare her, telling horror stories about what he’d seen on the job. She’d blown most of it off—she knew he was trying to warn her with scare tactics, and the more gruesome the story the better—but now she wondered if he’d embellished any of it. She choked down a lump that started in her stomach and rolled up to her throat. This time it wasn’t nausea . . . it was fear.
Chuck had tried to give her tips, too, not just warnings. Things he’d learned in ten years as a cop. Her mind was blank. Think, Luce! Something about wires. Wires? What wires? If they put you in the trunk, pull the wires. A car with its taillights out got pulled over nine times out of ten or something like that. Whatever. That wasn’t going to help her now, sitting in the front seat.
Maybe there weren’t any wires to pull, but there might be something else. The idea was to attract attention, to get pulled over so she could start kicking and screaming until a cop helped her get out of this mess. She’d awoke facing the window again, so she turned her head slightly to look forward, looking for something, anything to help her.
Her eyes traced the interior of the car. Grabbing the keys was too obvious. The headlights were on the left side of the steering wheel, which meant they might as well be on the other side of the moon. Not to mention, if by some miracle she was able to reach them, he’d simply turn them on again. Deal with what you’ve got, she chided herself. You’re in the passenger’s seat. What can you reach? She imagined extending her arm in every direction, cataloging what she’d be able to touch. The radio, the glove compartment, the heater and AC—that’s useful—the stick shift. And, right next to her, the emergency brake.
The brake? Lucy swallowed nervously. Would the brake stop the car in its tracks and throw her through the windshield? Or would it slow the car down gradually? She kind of hoped for the sudden stop—otherwise, the guy would just pull her hands away and take the brake off. And then what would he do to her?
It didn’t matter. The most important thing to do, Chuck had told her, was to fight back. If you didn’t, you were giving in, which was exactly what a kidnapper or a rapist wanted. Yanking the brake and slowing the car or coming to a complete stop on a highway would attract the attention she needed. Or she could try plan A and throw herself out of the car.
She eyed the brake. In the Integra, it was a lever in the middle of the console between the seats. Here it was closer to the driver, almost resting alongside his leg. She’d have to turn and dive across the seat to grab it. Of course, she’d have to make sure she didn’t go through the windshield in case the car stopped on a dime. She didn’t have her seat belt on, which was bad for the plan. On the other hand, she could also imagine having the belt on and lurching forward to grab the emergenc
y brake, only to have the seat belt lock from the sudden movement and throw her back, plan foiled. She’d have to have her seat belt on and slowly ease toward the handle of the brake until she was sure the belt wouldn’t throttle her.
She glanced at the man out of the corner of her eye. He was quiet, watchful. His head moved with small ticks in a machinelike rotation: the side mirror, the rearview mirror, the speedometer, back to the road.
She averted her eyes from the brake, as though looking at it would make it glow and give the plan away. But her eyes slid back, judging the distance, wondering how quickly she could do everything before the man tried to stop her. She was staring at the lever when the man suddenly braked and then downshifted as a merging car swerved into their lane. Her heart leapt into her throat. The movement had been automatic. His hand had moved so quickly from being on the steering wheel to wrapped around the stick shift. How was she supposed to put on her seat belt, yank the brake, and then run from the car when he could move that fast?
First things first. Obviously, he wanted her alive or he wouldn’t have gone to all this trouble. They were driving on a highway at night in the winter. It stood to reason he’d want her to stay safe. For now, she thought, then smothered the fear that welled up inside her.
It seemed that he wanted her to be comfortable for some reason—the blanket and the jacket seemed a strange touch, but she remembered they’d been wrapped around her the few times she’d surfaced from unconsciousness. But the blanket had since slid to the floor near her feet, which gave her an idea.
Lucy cleared her throat and he glanced over at her, his pale blue eyes glassy in the dim lighting. “I’m . . . really cold. May I pull the blanket up? Please?”
He frowned, as if trying to read something in her question, then shrugged. “Sure, whatever.”
When Lucy was nine years old, Cupie and Leila had talked her into going off the high dive at school. She’d never been one to give in to peer pressure, but she’d always had an analytical mind coupled with a trust for authority that had only recently started to erode. If the school had seen fit to put a high dive in, she reasoned, they expected students to live through the experience. It was unlikely they’d installed the thing in order to kill trusting students.