by Logan Fox
“In contact?” Lars repeated carefully. “Well…we didn’t really end things on a good—”
“I need this, Lars.”
There was a moment’s silence. “What’s wrong?”
“I have a partial and I need the address. And I need it now.”
“Give it,” Lars said. Finn gave him the partial. Lars repeated it once and then hung up. Finn rested his head against the tree, trying to ignore the buzzing in his ears.
She could be dead already. Except… she was too precious for a quick death. Which didn’t mean she wasn’t being tortured or abused, just to pass the time.
He dragged his fingers over his eyes, blinking away stinging sweat and dust, and answered the phone as soon as the first ring chirped out.
“I got hold of her,” Lars said.”
“Turnaround?”
“She only gets in the office at nine, but she’s on her way there now. I’m guessing an hour?”
“An hour?” Finn tried to keep his voice calm, but it grew tight and low. “I don’t have a fucking hour.”
“They got her, didn’t they?” There wasn’t even a hint of reproach in Lars’s voice. No pity or sympathy. Simply professional interest. That’s how it always was with Lars; he could so easily switch from work to play. For Finn, the distinction was a blurred line a thousand miles across.
“Someone got her. I don’t know who.”
“But you got plates.”
“Security footage. Guy…” Finn paused and wiped sweat from his brow. Fuck, but it was hot out here in Cliff. “Guy did a real number on the shop owner. Got the partial from the video.”
“Lucky break,” Lars muttered. “Let’s hope your luck holds out.”
“Only two roads out of here,” Finn said.
“Yeah, but you choose the wrong one…?” Lars trailed off with a sigh. “You were supposed to take her to Texas, right? Which road goes in that direction?”
Finn gritted his teeth. “I could be wrong about this, Lars. I could be wrong and then—”
“And then you wouldn’t be the man I know,” Lars cut in calmly. “I’ve never known you to be wrong about these things, Milo. So go. Go towards Texas. It’s better…” Again, he trailed off. But Finn knew what he would have said.
It’s better than sitting here with a thumb up your fucking ass.
“You got this number, right?”
“That I do,” Lars said.
“You call me.”
He expected his friend to say something sarcastic, but all he got was a tight, “‘Course,” before Lars hung up again.
Finn began walking toward Route 180.
It was stupid to assume that whoever had been driving that sedan wouldn’t have switched cars, but he could only hope that the cartel — whichever one had decided to target Swan — would be too arrogant to care about covering their tracks.
Ahead, a young woman wearing stained dungarees stopped outside the diner across the 180 and began manhandling a produce sack from the trunk of her battered station wagon. Apparently, the place just loved organic anything. Finn glanced around to make sure no one was in sight, and then hurried forward and pressed his Five-seveN into her lower back.
Before she could make a sound, he slapped a hand over her mouth. “Scream, and you’re dead. Now get in.”
She shook so much, she almost couldn’t open her car door. He helped her, shoved her inside, and then forced her over the seat so he could get behind the wheel. As he sank into the seat, she twisted away and fumbled with the passenger door’s latch, trying to open the door.
“Don’t.” If she got out and called the cops, he’d not only be chasing Cora but running from law enforcement too.
The woman froze.
“Keys.”
Clattering keys appeared in her hand.
“Seatbelt.”
His mind served him a flash of Cora’s scream as the cartel’s SUV t-boned them. He squeezed his eyes shut just long enough to force the memory out and then shoved the keys into the ignition.
“P-P-Please j-just let—”
“Quiet.” The car was an automatic — he rested his pistol on his thigh, muzzle gaping at the woman’s belly, his finger curled around the trigger guard while his other hand held the steering wheel. He pulled onto the 180 and headed toward Silver City; if he were headed for Texas, this would be the only route worth taking.
For long moments, there was just the sound of the car on the road.
Lars called back thirty-five minutes later, just as Finn was passing through Silver City.
That was how close he and Cora had been to safety; a thirty-five-minute drive. But Jimmy hadn’t been going to Silver City. And he’d been the one to divert them up fucking Turkey Creek mountain, thinking he was moving her to safety.
In that half-hour, his reluctant passenger had sobbed, begged him to let her go, and then fallen into a near-catatonic stupor.
“Got a plate,” Lars said as soon as Finn answered. “Car’s registered to Noah Green. Lives in Truth or Consequences.”
“Which one?”
“No, it’s called Truth or Consequences.”
Finn’s head reeled. “Where the fuck’s that?”
“Sierra County, New Mexico. Where you at?”
“Just passed Silver City.”
There was a long pause from Lars’s end of the line.
“The irony,” Finn muttered, “is not lost on me.”
“Good. Because I thought you might be going senile in your old age.”
Despite every-fucking-thing, Lars could still make him smile. He huffed, and rolled his shoulders back, giving his silent passenger a quick glance. Tears ran down her cheeks, but she didn’t seem to notice them.
“How far, Lars?”
“‘Bout 130 miles south-east.”
It would take him at least two hours to drive that distance. And if he was wrong…it would put him two hours behind. “Fuck.”
“It’s all you got, Milo. What the fuck else you going to do?”
“What the fuck else, right?” he muttered. “Message me the address.”
“Sure you should be going after this guy?”
“The fuck else am I going to do?” Finn grated.
There was a moment’s silence, thick enough to slice and serve with whipped cream. Then Lars said, “Don’t you go on a killing spree now. They didn’t know who they were dealing with when they took that girl.”
“Send me the fucking address,” Finn said, furious that he felt on the edge of hysterical laughter.
“Already done,” Lars murmured.
Finn ended the call, but Lars had probably hung up already. “Your phone have GPS?” he asked, making his passenger jump in her seat.
The woman shivered, and then rummaged in the console for her cellphone. She handed it to him, flinching when he trained the pistol on her as he typed the address Lars had messaged him into the phone’s map app.
He set the phone in the console.
“Proceed straight for eight miles.”
The woman looked at the phone and perhaps saw the destination because then she began to cry — as if she’d just realized she would be stuck in the car with a gun-wielding madman for the next two hours.
31
Lickety Split
“Eleodora.” Cora glanced across the table at her father. He smiled at her, his fork raised with a single pea speared on one of the tines. “No pudding if you don’t eat your food.”
“Mi corazón,” came a voice filled with laughter. “Why do you tease her so?”
Cora turned her head and everything blurred for a moment. The room was small. Staccato walls the color of brandy cream. This wasn’t the dining room at the manor.
Someone giggled. A child, but not her.
“It will stunt her growth if she doesn’t eat her meat.”
“You want her to grow taller?”
Cora focused on the woman with the musical voice. A flawless, heart-shaped face. Golden eyes widened at her
father, as if in challenge.
“As tall as her mother?” Her father was trying to suppress his smile. He ate the pea and then dabbed a paper napkin to his lips as he stood. “Nothing would make me happier.”
Naomie reached for him across the table, but Papá came around instead. The air moved with him; swirling into muted rainbows, like an oil slick on the surface of a lake disturbed by a child’s breath.
He embraced his wife, glancing up at Cora over the top of her glossy hair. “One day, Elle, you’ll be as beautiful as your mother. As tall, and as lovely—”
“And as spoiled,” Naomie cut in with another laugh. “A child shouldn’t be spoiled, mi corazón.”
“My family will never want for anything,” Papá said.
Another giggle. Cora’s eyes slid away from her parents, fixing on the small girl sitting opposite her. Her hair was raven black, short, wild. She couldn’t have been older than three. She banged her spoon on the table and then looked at her parents with wide eyes as if expecting a reprimand for the noise.
But they just laughed, Papá smoothing back her mother’s hair so he could plant a soft kiss on the side of her neck.
“Luis! Not in front of the children.”
But she didn’t want them to stop. Not ever. Hot, heavy tears filled Cora’s eyes, making the room blur into pale smudges.
Papá looked up at her and then cocked his head to the side as if surprised she was still watching them.
“Elle!” came his gentle reprimand. “Eat your food.”
She looked down. Her fingers moved on their own — one holding a fork, the other a knife. They were in the wrong hands, but that was just how she’d learned to eat.
“No…” her voice was soft, barely a whisper.
“Eat, Ella.” The voice was no longer soft, it was urgent. Desperate.
“Please, child. Just eat.” Naomie’s voice. Rough, rasping. “Just do as they say, and eat.”
Her plate crawled with maggots. Those pale, undulating worms with their blind heads oozed from the slab of meat where it sat in a pool of its own blood.
Her fork speared a corner of the fillet. Her knife came down and sliced it free, severing two maggots.
“No. No, please.” She heard the words, but her mouth didn’t move because she wasn’t controlling this body anymore. Someone else was.
Six-year-old Eleodora Rivera had control.
The fork lifted.
“Please, Elle!” Naomie screamed. “They’ll let us go, I promise. Just—” a sob cut through the words “—just do what they want!”
Cora blinked, and the dining room was gone. A voice beside her. Strange, yet familiar.
“—know this wasn’t the plan, but she was all alone. By the time someone came to—” he cut off with an irritated sound. “Was I just supposed to—?” He slapped his hand into the steering wheel, ducked his head. “Yes, jefe.”
He glanced at Cora and then did a double-take. He lifted his chin, giving her a crooked smile. She smiled back. He was so nice to look at. Fidgety, but nice. He was nice.
He was taking her somewhere.
Where was he taking her?
She pushed herself up, surprised at how much effort it took.
“No, she’s fine. Color’s good. Promise, I didn’t give her too much.” Noah nodded his head a few times. “No, I left the other two behind. They said they’d gut him if he followed.”
Every time he spoke, she felt a subtle tug inside her chest. His voice was low and deep, but he kept jolting her out of her warm cocoon.
“When are you sending the sicarios?”
Pressing the phone to his shoulder for a few seconds, Noah whispered, “Why are you crying, Cora?”
Was she? Unease fluttered through her, as faint as the crack before the surface of a frozen lake fragmented and sent you plummeting into its icy depths. But just as quickly, a wave of warm, gooey happiness surged over it. Forcing down that tension. Suffocating it.
“Sure, Don Zachary. I’ll be ready.” Noah looked at her again. This time, his smile was wider but less friendly. His smile stretched to show teeth. “I’ll even get her all cleaned up for you.”
Noah slid his phone into his pocket. He reached for her, his arm a blur. She flinched when he touched her cheek. There was a flash of cold, and then it was gone.
His grin hiked up a bit. “We’re almost there. Are you excited?”
Her eyes slid away from him. Sunlight reflected from the windshield. There was dust around them. They were moving slower now, over a dirt road. The car bucked and dipped like an animal. It almost felt like riding. Like a canter. She didn’t like cantering, the way it jolted her hips and made her breasts jiggle.
She shifted on the seat. Something didn’t feel right. Her fingers explored the button of her jeans. It was open. Her zip was only halfway up.
Why hadn’t she closed it properly?
A hand grabbed her wrist, and she focused with effort on Noah’s face.
“Don’t worry about that.”
She smiled at him.
He used a long finger to part her jacket. Hooked the hem of it and dragged it up. “Someone been mean to you, Elle? Lots of blood. Lots of bruises. You can tell Noah.”
She shrugged at him without moving.
“Don’t worry. We’ll get you in some clean clothes lickety-split.”
Lickety-split.
Cora laughed, and Noah’s eyes twinkled. “You like that?” he asked.
He kept looking at her, eyes darting between her and the road. He bit at his lip, one crooked tooth pushing out his top lip.
“I can’t believe how gorgeous you are,” Noah whispered. “You’re absolutely gorgeous.”
She couldn’t stop laughing. Everything was so damn amazing. Noah, the dust motes swirling through the air, the distant sound of a dog barking. Even the rattle of the car as the road changed to something rockier. Gravel.
“We’re here.” Noah ran his thumb over her lips. The touch made her legs clench together.
* * *
Noah had her car door open. He beckoned her, but she was happy just to stay in the warm seat with the dust settling around her like too-fine snow.
He gave her a shy smile. “Should I carry you inside, huh? You want to feel like a bride on your wedding day?”
“Yeah.” Her voice was faint, but he must have heard because he leaned forward and scooped her up.
His warm smell enveloped her. He smelled like a stable; oiled leather, hay, and horses. Familiar and inviting and like everything that made her feel safe. A dog barked insistently in the background.
They stood outside a rustic farmhouse. Whitewashed but dull. Bushy trees enclosed the property, casting the house in deep shadow. It had a screen door with a small hole torn in the lower right corner. The door creaked like something in pain when Noah grabbed it and jerked it open for them.
He sidled inside, setting her down as soon as they were clear.
“You like it?”
Cora turned in a slow circle, grabbing onto his shirt when her legs threatened to crumble under her. A hush filled the house like it was holding its breath. It smelled stale and old. But faintly sweet too, like something had crawled under the floorboards and died a long time ago.
She didn’t like it. It reminded her of her grandparent’s house in Guadalupe. The only thing missing was the skeletal relics of Santa Muerte and the masses of votive candles crowding every available space. That hadn’t been why she’d hated the house; it had been the smell. Death had hung thick in the air there. It was like they lived with it.
Maybe that was why they’d turned to Santa Muerte.
In the dining room, someone had been boarding up the windows. One of the windows was still bare as if they’d been interrupted, but it cast very little light inside the house.
Noah took her hand and led her past a kitchen. He moved faster now, impatient almost. It made her giddy, how everything streamed past her.
“Slow down.” Her words were out
of sync with her mouth.
The kitchen had a large, retro fridge in it with its grimy, scratched door standing ajar.
One of the faucets in the deep basins dripped water. Flies buzzed around a stack of dishes and take away boxes piled close to an overflowing trash can. Things moved in that pile.
How could you make food in a kitchen like this?
“Where we going?”
“Almost there.”
He opened an ill-fitting door. Beyond it, a staircase leading down into pure darkness.
She didn’t want to go through that door. But her body didn’t resist when Noah urged her through, his hand still tight around hers.
“Why so dark?” she asked.
Noah flicked on a flashlight. “Better?”
Where’d he got it from? Or did he just walk around with one on him?
He kept it pointed at the floor by their feet. It wasn’t a very good flashlight — it flickered like the batteries were loose.
He led her into a room.
This was where the darkness had been oozing from. The room had no windows, no lights…no end. It felt so big, there couldn’t possibly have been walls.
But she didn’t care.
There was something insanely wrong with all of this… and she didn’t care one bit. She watched herself from somewhere far away, knowing how wrong this all was, but unable to find a morsel of fear or panic to latch onto. She was flooded by some inner warmth that made her feel like, whatever happened, it didn’t matter. Even when Noah urged her onto the cool floor. Even when something ice cold went around one ankle, then the other.
Some kind of thick bracelet. A chain — she could hear it slinking over the floor like the frozen scales of a metallurgical snake.
Noah stroked a hand down her hair, cupped her face in his palm.
“You don’t mind the dark, do you?” he whispered. “I gotta tidy up some. Wasn’t expectin’ company, see? It’s only for a little while. Then I’ll be back, and we’ll get you cleaned up.”
Cora slid onto her side with her cheek pressed to the icy floor.
She was glad it was cold. The longer it burned against her skin, the more she knew it couldn’t affect her. Because she didn’t care if she was cold. She didn’t care if she didn’t know who Noah was. Couldn’t rouse a spark of terror at the thought that he wanted to take her upstairs and wash her down.