by Lisa Jackson
“It was all supposed to be a joke,” he said, and the lawyer winced slightly.
“What was?”
“All of it. The monkey suit. I lifted it from the club, the Big Foot Believers, and yeah, I chased Bianca with it that night. It was kind of a joke, like I said, a prank, a big ‘Ha-ha!’ but I didn’t know anything about . . . Destiny. I swear. That was a total shocker, you know.”
Alvarez waited.
Another nod from the lawyer.
“And I got into a little more trouble. You were right, I was, like . . . involved with Lindsay. She was really Kywin’s friend. Hell—all the girls are, y’know.”
Alvarez didn’t.
“But she, Lindsay and I connected. I didn’t want Kywin to get wind of it and we share a room at the old man’s house—it’s really a pain—so Lindsay and me, we worked out this signal system. She’d butt dial me, like a mistake, y’know,” he said, trying to look honest when Alvarez knew him to be a liar. “And then she got real upset. Knew that Kywin had something to do with Destiny’s death. Destiny had texted her and told her she was going to meet Donny that night, the same as she texted Kywin, so . . . she wanted to go to the cops and tell everyone what she knew.” Some of his bravado slipped a little. “I told her to meet me up at Horsebrier Ridge at a park up there, we’d been there before. So she snuck out and I did a stupid thing. I went up ahead of her and left a dummy on the road, so that she’d see it, you know, and swerve. I just wanted to scare her. . . .”
“But she did just what you expected, swerved, overcorrected, and ended up driving her car into the canyon, where she died.”
He looked at his hands. “Yeah,” he said softly. “I didn’t expect her to die.”
“You thought she’d survive?” Alvarez didn’t bother hiding the skepticism in her voice.
“I didn’t know she’d actually drive off the damned cliff. Besides, she was going to rat out Kywin.”
“The brother you didn’t want to know that you and she were seeing each other.”
“That was before everything got so heavy, you know?” He was now searching for reasons to explain his unexplainable behavior.
Alvarez said, “So you thought it would be funny, a prank, to scare the living shit out of her by having her crash her car.”
“I already told you: I didn’t know that would happen.”
“Really?” Alvarez wanted to lean across the table and throttle the stupid ass, but she controlled herself by holding on to the edges of the table in a death grip.
Diane Moore said, “My client is here giving you information. This is obviously difficult for him.”
Difficult, my ass. A girl is dead! She wasn’t about to apologize to this jerk-wad. “So what happened to the body you left on the road—the dummy?”
“I picked it up. Still have it. In a shed at my dad’s place.”
“I’ll want to see it.”
“Of course,” Diane said before Kip could argue. “My client has offered full disclosure for leniency,” she said, reminding both Alvarez and Kip Bell of their deal.
“So did Kywin kill Destiny Rose Montclaire?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Kip said. “But . . . but Lindsay thought so.”
“How did the ape suit get in Marjory Tufts’s car?”
“I put it there,” he admitted. “I saw it parked in the dealership lot one night—she was out with her husband in his car and had left it there with the keys in it. It was parked out back, no cameras and no one was looking. I wanted it out of my rig, so I took a chance. I figured no one would ever find it.”
“Guess you figured wrong.” She leaned forward and looked him straight in the eye. “So where’s your brother? Where’s Kywin? I really need to talk to him.”
“I don’t know, Detective,” he said. “And that’s the fuckin’ truth!”
* * *
The truck shuddered to a stop, engine still thrumming in the darkness. Bianca forced herself to wait, to pretend that the effects of the stun gun hadn’t worn off. When her assailants came to do whatever it was they were planning, she’d lay there, still twitching, and act as if she were still tied and not in control of her body. The twine still covered her wrists, she’d retied pieces around each of them and held them tightly together, the little knife in her right palm.
Could she pull this off? she wondered, looking up, through the lacy canopy of branches, to a slice of moon. Thank God for the darkness. She swallowed hard, every muscle tight, her heart trip-hammering wildly.
Stay calm, Bianca. You can do this. Just keep your wits about you. Don’t panic. Do not freak.
They were strong and fast and determined. She was lithe and smart and scared out of her mind. She felt a surge of adrenaline as the two doors opened simultaneously. The engine was cut, lights still illuminating the forest in front of the truck, the sudden silence deafening.
The passenger said, “Get her out. I gotta take a piss!” Tophman. She knew it was that loser Tophman! Cowering in the bed, trying to get her courage pulled together, she heard boots drop to the ground, one set of footprints heading away, into the beam of the headlights, the other, from the driver’s side, coming around the truck.
Her pulse pounded in her brain.
There was just enough ambient light filtering from the headlights that she could see him, his big body hulking around the side.
Oh, God. Help me.
With a metal squeak, the tailgate fell open.
Could she do it?
Leaning forward, Kywin Bell reached inside to grab her by the legs and pull her out of the truck.
Now!
Before he clamps a hand over your ankle.
Quick as a rattler striking, she kicked. Hard as she could. Hitting him hard in the face with her good foot, jamming the heel of her boot into his nose.
“Yeeeooowww!” Screaming, he fell backward a step. “What the fuck?” he cried, grabbing his head, stumbling to one knee.
Blood gushed out of his nose and ran down his face.
She scooted closer and hauled back.
Bam! She kicked him again. Harder. Aiming directly at his nose and eyes rather than kicking blindly.
Crack!
The cartilage in his nose splintered and he fell onto his butt. Another piercing yell.
“Hey!” Tophman. “What’s going on?”
She rolled out of the bed, her feet landing only inches from the half-blind Kywin. Before he could get his brain around the fact that she was escaping, she took off, running into the darkness, fast as she could, branches slapping at her face, cobwebs clinging to her hair, pine needles scratching her skin. Down the hill, faster and faster, her bad ankle screaming, her heart pounding, her brain on fire. At least her body was responding, but how far could she go, how long before he ran her to ground, tracked her like a lion on a wounded gazelle?
Don’t think like that!
Don’t give up. Do not.
Run, run, run!
She had no idea where she was, but she kept moving down the hillside. The truck had climbed from the main road. She’d felt it heading ever upward so the road had to be downhill. Had it been a mile? More? Less? Oh, God, she had no idea.
Just keep moving!
She couldn’t run flat-out. The terrain was too steep, and it was inky dark beneath the branches of the trees. She had to be careful, keeping her balance while her bad ankle began to throb.
Ignore it. Keep running. She hit a root or rock and fell, sliding and tumbling, her fall increasing. She thought of sliding over the rim of a canyon and scrabbled in the dirt and rocks, with her fingers, trying to break her fall, desperate to right herself. Clawing, fingernails breaking, her little knife flying from her hands, she tumbled until she was stopped, her body slamming against the hard trunk of a pine tree.
“Oof!” Her entire body jangled. Dust and dirt filled her nostrils. For a second, she didn’t know up from down.
“That little bitch!” Tophman cried, but his voice was more distant now.
She blinked, saw light. The truck. Up the hillside.
“And you, you dumb fuck,” Tophman roared. “You let her get away? What’s wrong with you? How the hell do you think we’ll ever get paid, huh?”
Paid? Someone was going to pay them for abducting her? Killing her? What in the world was that all about?
“Get the shotgun.” Bell’s voice.
Oh, crap!
“She ain’t gettin’ away. No way!” Bell again. “She needs to die.”
“I should shoot you for being such a dumb ass!” Tophman said.
She started moving, ever downward, her entire body aching. Surely she’d run into a path or a road or something. Or someone. Please. Oh, God.
“I’d love to kill her, but that wasn’t the deal. The old man, he doesn’t want her dead.”
The old man? What old man?
She heard the click of the shotgun being readied, a shell now in its chamber, and her heart stilled. She couldn’t do this. Though she heard Kywin moaning and knew that he was out of commission, Tophman was still coming after her, his footsteps crunching on leaves and debris. He had a flashlight, or the light from his iPhone, was shining it through the forest, the garish white-blue light swinging in a wide arc over the ground.
“You can’t get away from me,” he yelled. And he was right. God, he was right. Now, her weapon, reduced to a screwdriver, seemed pathetic. “Come out, come out wherever you are, cop kid,” he singsonged while Kywin groaned pathetically.
Tophman didn’t care about his friend, no way. He was on the hunt. Prowling through the night, searching out his prey, determined to catch her.
Screw that!
As long as he used the flashlight, she could see him and hopefully avoid the swath of light it produced. She was farther down the hill from him, and she moved to the side out of the swinging beam.
When he pointed the flashlight down the hill, she saw nothing but more forest, and rocks and brush. He paused. Listening. She froze, didn’t move a muscle. And then he started turning, rotating, swinging the beam of his flashlight in an arc. She pressed herself up against the bole of a tree and prayed that it was wide enough to hide her body.
Don’t let him see me. Don’t let him see me, she silently prayed as the light swept over the tree, pausing, the beams stretching out on either side, the tree itself making a shadow in the fake bluish light. She barely breathed.
“Where the hell are you?” Tophman said.
Sweat drizzled down her forehead and neck. Her heart pounded so loudly she was certain he could hear it.
“Bi-AN-ca!” Again the chilling singsong voice.
She licked her lips. Heard him call her name again and then the beam rotated, turned back down the hillside.
“Bitch,” he muttered and started down again.
Swallowing back fear, she reached into her shirt and bra, located the screwdriver, and slowly, noiselessly withdrew it. Her palms were slick with sweat and she nearly dropped it, but managed to hold on to it. For now.
Bianca waited. Let him go ahead of her and, once he was twenty yards lower on the hillside, begin to creep up to the truck, her one chance at escape. If she could just get past the wounded Kywin Bell and Tophman didn’t get wise to her plan.
Holding her breath, one eye on the flashlight heading ever downward, she inched upward toward the truck and, she hoped, freedom. Her heart was a jackhammer, her bad leg aching, every nerve end tight. But she was close.
She saw the truck, headlights burning, and kept moving, faster and faster. Twenty yards. Fifteen. Ten.
“Hey!” Tophman’s voice. Nearer than she expected. Had he turned around and seen her? Was he even now running up the hill toward her, pointing his gun, ready to blow her to smithereens?
Crap!
Throwing caution to the wind, she began to sprint the last five yards up the hill, through the leaves and sticks, upward, ever upward to the truck—
She let out her breath and kept in the shadows. What if there were no keys in the ignition? If she couldn’t get the truck started. If—
Nearly at the truck, she froze.
Kywin!
Where the hell was Kywin Bell?
Frantically she searched the area near the truck. She’d left him writhing on the ground, his face a bloody pulp, but . . .
Every hair on her scalp twitched. Goose pimples crawled up her arms, but she saw the open door to the cab and she flung herself toward it. Just as she heard a low growl and unsteady footsteps.
From the corner of her eye, she saw him. He launched himself through the air, a massive black monster. He hit her hard, his weight propelling her to the ground inches from the pickup.
“You fuckin’ bitch!” he growled on top of her, big fists curled, as he worked his legs to straddle her, pinning her arms with his tree-stump legs. “Did you really think you could get away?” He snarled, looming like a monster above her. His nose was mashed, his words nasal, his eyes bright with a need for personal revenge. “You’re gonna pay!” He turned his head and yelled into the darkness. “I got her! Up here! At the truck! Alive. For the old man.”
Her fingers tightened over the screwdriver. The way he was positioned, his legs spread wide, her arms pinned together beneath his crotch, she had one chance.
Now, she thought, do it now!
With all her strength, she reared up. Her clasped hands forced the screwdriver upward, through his shorts and deep into his scrotum.
He roared in pain, tried to jump away. “Aaaaagggh!”
She shoved again.
“Shit! Damn. Fuck. Aaaaah, Geeeeod!” Still he was atop her. And she heard running footsteps fast approaching.
Tophman!
She pulled back on the screwdriver. Heard a sucking sound, then with all her strength, thrust up again driving hard.
With a shriek, he grabbed his crotch as something warm poured from his shorts. He rolled off her, allowing her just enough room to slither away.
Screaming in pain, holding the juncture of his legs, he rolled in the earth and cursed at her.
“What the hell?” Tophman’s voice—too close—boomed over the whimpering and swearing of the man curled into a fetal position.
She didn’t wait. Clawed her way to her feet. Nearly fell into the cab and forced herself inside.
The keys—the blessed keys—dangled from the ignition.
She turned the switch and the big engine roared to life.
Yanking the door closed, she caught a glimpse of Tophman, running now, not far away, the shotgun at his shoulder.
She found reverse and hit the gas, the truck backing up. Tophman jumped out of the way as the pickup bucked wildly over the rough earth, hitting something solid as it stopped. Bell screamed again.
She’d run over him!
“Hey! Hey!” Tophman was yelling, but she threw the truck into first and, sitting on the edge of the driver’s seat, floored it. Gravel and dust sprayed from under the tires.
A horrifying shriek split the night.
Tophman yelled, “No! No! No! You fucking—oh, hell. Fuck her old man!”
She was going to do it! She would make it! If Tophman didn’t shoot her first.
What? Fuck her old man? Who were they talking about? Lucky? He was behind this? “No,” she whispered. That had to be all wrong. He would never . . . not even for fame or glory or money or . . . “No, no, no!” She pounded on the steering wheel with a fist as the truth hit her. Hard. Understanding, vile as it was, burned through her veins. Her heart thundering, her whole world turned upside down to a dark oblivion, she tried to pull herself together. To save herself. She stared at the break in the trees that had once been a road and now was just dry earth in a narrow swath cutting through the forest. Good enough! She nearly stood on the accelerator, the truck bouncing and shimmying as the big tires hit rocks and roots and snags.
Somewhere, not far, she hoped, was the county road. If she could only get there . . .
Blam!
Glass shat
tered, the back window exploding.
Shards of glass sprayed into the cab.
The truck shuddered. She wondered if the shotgun was capable of hitting the gas line or the tires. Maybe she was lucky that he didn’t have a rifle with bullets rather than shells.
Just drive!
Checking the rearview, she saw something on the crest of the hill where the sun was beginning to rise, dawn breaking.
Bryant Tophman, shotgun stock at his shoulder, barrel aimed at the truck was visible in silhouette. “Try it,” she muttered under her breath and shifted down as she started around what had once been a corner.
Blam!
The truck shuddered, but kept moving, and Bianca, determined to make it back to Grizzly Falls, to her mother, to her new baby brother and her bastard of a father who would dare sell her, tromped on the gas pedal.
CHAPTER 33
When Lucky Pescoli opened a bleary eye, the sun was streaming through the bedroom windows and his head pounded from a hangover that wouldn’t quit. His stomach was queasy and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d tied one on like this. It was a mother, a real rager.
He stumbled into the bathroom and peed as if he’d never quit before he really woke up, blinking, shaking off, then seeing himself in the mirror, a middle-aged man who needed to get his act together. Bits and pieces of the night before were starting to tumble through his brain, but in painful shards, scraping and slicing his gray matter. He opened the medicine cabinet, found a bottle of ibuprofen, tried to remember the dosage, and said, screw it, pouring out three or four liquid gels and swallowing them dry.
He closed the cabinet door, saw his reflection again, and recoiled. When had he gotten so old? When had life passed him by? Suddenly he felt as if he were riding a dying pony and everyone else in the world was racing by on thoroughbreds. He knew he’d done something he shouldn’t the night before, and he had a vague feeling that whatever it was would come back to haunt him. It was that bad.
Still bleary, his booze-soaked consciousness trying to surface, he nearly fell into the shower, then turned on the spray, the cold needles eventually turning hot. Hands pressed against the plastic stall, he let the water run over his head, clear his mind. Something was wrong. Very, very wrong. Otherwise he wouldn’t have passed out . . . oh, man, how had he gotten home?