by TAYLOR ADAMS
Well? Here I am.
He couldn’t see a mirror, but he reckoned Lena’s bullet had punched through his upper lip. Coppery blood filled his mouth, drooling through his lips. His jaw was all wrong. His teeth grazed, snagged, and crunched together in ways new and sublimely awful.
That little bitch.
The truck had stopped rolling at least, raised askew on a tangle of crunched guardrail. He was grateful for this—the ten tons of weight could have just as easily snapped through the bridge’s thin bars and plunged. But the railing held. Barely.
The cab wobbled in a precarious seesaw. A metal groan. One tire hung over the void.
He lifted his Winchester rifle from the floor, still warm. Still locked and loaded. He hoisted it weakly into his lap. “Yes.” His tongue explored the new contours of his harelipped mouth.
Yes, yes, yes.
Twins share a soul, they say. It’s an abomination when one dies. The other is cursed to wander the earth incomplete and alone. Ray and Rick were doomed to be apart forever and nothing could change that, but the Nguyen sisters should go together. They would, here on Hairpin Bridge.
Theo would make sure of it.
Chapter 24
“Ten-foot doctrine, Lena.”
She felt his hot breath on her face. Stinging the cuts on her cheeks. His huge hands were clamped over hers vise-tight, fighting for control of the Beretta.
It fired into the sky. An earsplitting blast.
For a man who’d taken three bullets to the sternum, Corporal Raycevic was still shockingly strong. He thrashed the weapon against her two-handed grip, rag-dolling her body left and right, forcing her to backpedal on scraping heels. Like the thrashing jaws of a pit bull. Lena’s only advantage: she’d already fatally wounded him. She just had to hold on to the gun long enough for the handcuffed giant to bleed out, to watch his big eyes go flat inches from hers—
They didn’t.
His smile grew. Another warm breath hissed through his teeth. The sickly sweet odor of his sweat. Something was wrong.
Click. A small object hit the concrete between them. A coin? She was afraid to glance down—she kept staring into his eyes. Trying not to blink. Trying to appear fearless. All that mattered was the firearm in their clenched knuckles. She wouldn’t let go of it.
Two more strange sounds—click, click—and moth wings of terror fluttered in her chest. Raycevic’s smile widened until she could count his teeth and see their gritty tartar. He was daring her to look down now. He wanted her to see it.
Don’t look down, Lena. It’s a distraction.
She had to.
Don’t—
She did.
At three metal objects on the pavement. Flattened into mushroom shapes. Crushed upon impact against a solid and impenetrable shield; something under his uniform, and she remembered the strange tungsten click she’d heard hours ago when he tapped his chest.
He’s wearing a—
Raycevic swung her with full strength. Lena’s feet left the concrete, a wild and weightless centrifuge—like the way her uncle used to twirl her as a little girl with the summer air rushing in her ears—until she crashed spine-first into the door of his Charger. She felt her ribs pop with jagged pain. The air blasted from her lungs and she cried out in a wheezing voice she didn’t recognize.
He was already lifting her by their interlocked hands and slammed her again. Again. She felt the door dent inward. The window crumbled. The Beretta fired another concussive blast inches from her face and her ears rang. She didn’t let go. She held the pistol with both hands between his, refusing to budge, her index finger locked behind the trigger.
His furious breath in her eyes. “Let go, Lena.”
Before she could answer, the huge man lifted and spun her again, whiplashing her into the cruiser’s front panel. Face-first. She felt her cheekbone crack. She bit into her tongue with a spurt of coppery blood. The car shook with the impact.
The Shoebox recorder slid off the hood and clattered to the concrete. Still running, still listening, recording every hit and gasp and cry.
“Mom and Dad,” she screamed at it, “I love you so much—”
“They can’t help you, Lena.”
“Cambry did not kill herself.” Her voice heaved as Raycevic lifted her again and slammed her against the cruiser’s hood. “I found her killers.”
“Why bother?” he grunted. “I’m just going to smash it.”
“I’ll always be with you, Mom.” She struggled as he raised the gun high in their locked hands, wrenching hers upward. “Whatever he does to me, Cambry is not in hell.”
His strength nearly lifted her, too. Tugging her elbows straight. For a moment, the gorilla shoulders of Corporal Raycevic blocked the red sun—his biceps nearly bursting through his sleeves—before he smashed the Beretta’s aluminum heel down on her temple like a bludgeon. A piercing white flash behind her eyes. A glassy crack inside her skull.
“Mom,” she burbled, her mouth filling with blood. A front tooth wiggling loosely now, whistling to her last words: “Mom!”
Raycevic raised the Beretta in their hands again. Like a club, directly above her face—
“Mom, Cambry is not in hell—”
He shattered her nose with a sickening wet crunch. Her sinuses detonated like firecrackers behind rubbery cartilage and she saw scalding red. Her grip loosened on the gun and Raycevic almost tore it from her clenched fingers. Almost.
She held on.
“Let go,” he huffed. “Just let go—”
“Let go, Cambry.”
She grips the bridge’s guardrail with her toes at the edge, blinking away cold tears as Raycevic’s voice softens behind her, becoming almost sympathetic. Almost soothing.
“Please. Let go.” He’s closer now, his black rifle lowering. “I don’t want to go after your family this weekend, okay? I don’t want to shoot your parents in their bed. I don’t want to slip into Lena’s apartment like a shadow and cut her throat. That’s not me. I’m a good guy.”
She shuts her eyes. His voice creeps closer.
“Please, Cambry. Please don’t make me do all of that ugly stuff. I’m not a bad person.”
No. She tightens her grip on the railing. No, he’s lying, most of all to himself. Raycevic isn’t a good guy. He’s not even a bad person—he’s a rancid person. He’s worse than evil. He’s a virus with a social security number. He’s a walking, talking, six-foot insect.
“Six,” he counts. “Cambry, you can save them—”
With her elbow hooked around the guardrail, she looks down. Her eyes must have adjusted to the blackness by now. She can see the plunge below her perched shoes in awful vivid clarity, two hundred vertical feet to a gravel creek bed studded with boulders and pale driftwood. Not many people get to see the very thing that is about to kill them.
What went through my sister’s mind, before she died?
I have a guess.
The wild girl who sabotaged a toilet in junior high, who boondocked across the country with a dirtbag and boondocked back without him—she doesn’t give up. She’s too hardheaded. Too fierce. Not even now, with a rifle at her back and a fatal drop at her feet. She thinks, I can’t let go. If I do that, the Raycevics win. I have to force him to shoot me. I have to be a pain in the ass. I have to fight him, with every dwindling breath and heartbeat, and even when I’m dead, I have to fight him—
He urges: “Let go. Please.”
Nope. I’m never, ever going to let go of this railing, and I’m going to force him to shoot me in the head. And then, if he’s not bluffing, he’ll come after my family. He’ll probably come for you first, Lena. Your Seattle apartment will be on his way to Olympia.
I’m sorry. It’s my fault.
He’s coming for you, sis, with all his guns and training and muscle. So you need to fight him. You need to fight Raycevic head on. Don’t be afraid of him. Fight smart. Fight dirty. And above all, no matter how bad it gets, don’t let go, Lena.
&n
bsp; Don’t.
Let.
Go.
He ripped the gun from her clenched fingers.
I’m sorry, Cambry. He’s too strong.
She knew it was over, even while the inertia of Raycevic’s throw carried her over the Charger’s hood. She bruised her tailbone on the windshield, kicking off a wiper, and slammed mouth-first against the railing. Then she landed on hard concrete, sprawled half over the bridge’s edge. She caught herself by an elbow, both legs dangling over the terrifying void. Two hundred feet down.
“Finally,” the cop huffed.
He had the gun now.
Lena’s thoughts came slowly, taking odd shapes in her dented mind. She blinked away starbursts of rotten color. Fresh blood pumped from her broken nose, clogging her throat.
Get up, Lena.
“This bridge . . .” He wheezed. “The Suicide Bridge isn’t really haunted, by the way. Never was. My daddy’s first few kills were here. He’d fake car trouble, flag down a passerby, and then push the poor fella right off the edge. Didn’t even know he’d made the bridge famous. Apparently four is all it takes.”
She heard a car door open, then a click. He was unlocking his handcuffs.
She heaved herself away from the precipice and pulled her legs back up. Each one felt like a log. She tried to stand up but could only crawl. The world hurtled dizzily around her, brown sky and smoke and rocks and concrete in nauseous orbit. She tried to focus her blurry eyes and realized her contact lenses were knocked out. She couldn’t see him.
“Want to hear the funny part?” His rancid voice on the other side of the car, coming closer. “I’ve been wanting to kill my dad for years. Can you believe it? And you just saved me the trouble—”
Her mind screamed: Stand up. Fight him. Now.
But she was spent. Muscles burning. Every bone ached. Legally blind without contacts, one eye already swelling shut, her teeth clicking in her gums. She couldn’t stand up, let alone try to fight two-hundred-fifty-pound Corporal Raycevic. Not again.
I’m sorry, Cambry. I’m failing you.
“I wanted to, but I’m not like him. I’m a born cop.” He roared, hoarse with smoke: “I’m a good guy—”
She looked back, blinking away blood and tears. She saw the blurred shadow of Corporal Raycevic approaching around his car, like an executioner silhouetted by fire. His wrists were free. He carried a gun. Her Beretta, in his hand.
She heaved her body to crawl away. Not fast enough.
“Two days ago, the little boy in the well—never again.” His footsteps followed her. He forced a barking laugh. “I love my dad, but Christ, I have forty more years to think of. He doesn’t.”
She kept crawling. Closing her eyes. Bracing for the gunshot.
I’m so sorry, Cambry.
“And now it’s over.” His voice was so close now. She could feel his breath on her neck. “My dad will never take another stray. Which means I’ll never have to burn another . . .”
It took Lena a few breaths to realize Raycevic had stopped midstep.
He’d noticed something.
Chapter 25
He’d forgotten about the audio recorder. He lifted it from the pavement now.
Lena turned and saw. “Wait—”
He hefted it—large but surprisingly light. It had studiously recorded every word, every accusation, every gasp and gunshot. It was Lena’s ultimate backup plan, containing the admission of Corporal Raymond Raycevic to aiding and concealing fourteen homicides, plus the murder of a little boy. And once this shitstorm of a day was cleaned up, it wouldn’t exist at all.
Just like his dad’s body. Just like Lena’s body. Just like their bullet-riddled vehicles.
He watched Lena pull herself upright on her elbows, drooling blood. Christ, her face was a grisly Halloween mask. Her skin was swelling purple. The cartilage of her nose was dented in, her lip split and leaking heavy globs.
“I’ve been making things disappear my entire life.” He grinned, feeling the world align just for him. “You think you’re special? You’re just one more skeleton with meat on it. You solved the biggest problem of my life, and I’ll be back to work on Monday.”
She gurgled, “Please, wait—”
He raised the Shoebox high.
“No, no, no—”
And he hurled it against the pavement. The gadget exploded into plastic fragments before Lena’s helpless eyes. For good measure, he found the cassette tape and crunched it under his boot. The entire day’s conversation, every detail and admission—all instantly, irreversibly gone.
“You didn’t stop me, Lena. You set me free.”
* * *
Tomorrow, one of two outcomes will happen.
1. I am killed by Raycevic. This is possible, and even likely. I’ll be confronting an armed killer alone, with only a concealed gun and my instincts. If either of those things fails me, there will be no cell signal and no backup to help me.
And the second outcome?
2. I win. I record Corporal Raycevic’s confession to the murder of Cambry Nguyen. He ends up dead or handcuffed, and I’m a hero.
Then what?
I’ll . . . drive back home, I guess.
I’ll stop at a diner, maybe, and have one of those stupid banana split sundaes Cambry and I used to share as kids. I’ll rejoin life. I’ll sell my gun. I’ll go back to work, pay bills, and try to be the person I was before she died. The Lena Nguyen who twists her hair, who’s never had a boyfriend, who hides behind online personas and rarely leaves her apartment.
That terrifies me.
I guess I’m realizing that I have very little interest in surviving my date with Raycevic tomorrow. If I make it out alive, it’s not really a victory, because my problems will continue and his will end.
I’ve absorbed this mission, internalized it, externalized it, obsessed toward it with every cell in my body—the endless trips to the shooting range, exhaustively punching five-round groups into every card in every deck of fifty-two—and once I set the record straight and bring Raycevic down, I have no idea who I’ll be afterward. Am I me anymore? In a way, I think Lena Nguyen died at the same moment you did, Cambry. Raycevic murdered us both.
You committed suicide, they say?
I guess I will, too.
I think my plan is to die on Hairpin Bridge tomorrow. I didn’t request the days off work. I didn’t pay this month’s rent (practice ammo is expensive). I didn’t tell anyone where I’m going or what I’m doing, because they would surely try to stop me.
I guess, in my usual roundabout way, this makes my blog post here on Lights and Sounds my suicide note. The final writing of Lena Nguyen. English major, absentee sister, sandwich enthusiast. April 11, 1995—September 21, 2019.
Sorry, dear readers.
There probably won’t be a book review next week.
Be honest. You had to have figured it was heading this direction. Do I seem okay? Are the prior 5,000 words the thoughts and observations of an emotionally well person? And if (or when) I die tomorrow, just know, dear readers, that I do have a backup plan. And it’s a good one.
I’m suicidal, yes.
But not stupid.
* * *
“Take another look at it,” the girl whispered.
“What?”
“The thing you smashed. Look at it.”
Are you serious? He kicked a fragment with his boot.
“No, Rick.” There was a condescending sharpness to her voice—Rick—that made his guts stir with rage. “Really, actually look at it.”
“You’re concussed.”
“I’ll wait.” She spat red on the pavement, still gazing up at him with an eerie calm. Brain damage, maybe? Her cheekbone swelled under her eye, taking the color of rotten pumpkin.
He knew he didn’t have time for this. He had to move fast, to kill Lena and pack the bodies into his trunk and move the vehicles off the bridge before the approaching wildfire drew firefighters. He had two bodies, a semitruck, and
a Corolla to disappear in the middle of a forest fire, for Christ’s sake. He’d have a hell of a busy weekend—but somehow his pride was tangled up in this, and he had to indulge her, just to prove her wrong.
The first piece he picked up was a green circuit board. Nothing. He lifted another fragment—a white plastic spoke. Nothing special there, either. Just a standard outdated digital cassette, like the kind they still used at the Howard County hearing office.
He looked up. “Satisfied?”
She kept staring with dreamy calm. Not at him—not anymore—but down at the road, at the scattered debris. At one particular piece.
He followed her gaze. To a black polymer casing, shell-like, fractured down the middle. Made of a different material than the Shoebox recorder. It must have been fastened to the back with electrical tape. There was white lettering stenciled on the side.
He turned it over with his boot. It spun on the concrete and twirled to a halt, the blocky letters rotating into view: Motorola.
A chill wriggled up his spine.
Lena looked up at him and smiled a wicked grin with bloodstained teeth.
* * *
This Lights and Sounds blog post will go live on a delay, set to auto-publish on Sunday, September 22, at midnight Pacific time. (So if you’re reading this, that means it’s already too late to stop me.) Sorry, but it’s necessary.
And since Hairpin Bridge occupies a well-documented cellular dead zone, I’ll record Raycevic with Cambry’s old Shoebox recorder and—as a backup—via a walkie-talkie duct-taped to the back. The companion walkie will be digitally linked to my laptop, recording to the cloud. It’ll all upload automatically. It’ll all cache. And, come midnight, it’ll hit the internet embedded in this post. With or without me.
Don’t believe me?
Well, here it is.
If you’ll simply click the hyperlink below, you can listen to it. Wow! You yourself can download my entire September 21 conversation with Corporal Raymond R. Raycevic:
Corporal Raymond R. Raycevic: SS9.21.19Raycevic.gxf