A Maiden's Grave

by Jeffery Deaver

  "No!" the little girl signed. "Let me--"

  Melanie did something she'd never in her life done: drew back her open palm and aimed directly at the girl's cheek. Kielle's eyes went wide. The teacher lowered her hand and glanced through the crack between two overturned vats. Brutus had turned, looking in their direction. Stoat was shrugging. "Wind," she saw him say. Unsmiling Bear was on his feet, carrying the shotgun, walking toward them.

  "Inside," Melanie signed fiercely, gesturing toward a large steel vat nearby, resting on its side. The girl hesitated for a moment and they climbed inside, pulling the lid closed, like a door. The sides were coated with a waxy substance that disgusted Melanie and made her skin crawl. The smell was overpowering and she struggled once again to keep from vomiting.

  A shadow fell over the vat and she felt a vibration as Bear stepped into the corridor. He was only two feet from them.

  Halfheartedly, he glanced around and then stepped back toward Shannon and the other men.

  Kielle turned to her. In the dim light Melanie could just make out the girl's words. "I'm going to kill him! Don't stop me, or I'll kill you too!"

  Melanie gasped as the little girl lifted the razor-sharp blade and pointed it at her. "Stop it!" Melanie signed brutally. What should I do? she wondered. Images of Susan were flashing through her mind. Mrs. Harstrawn, her father, her brother.

  And de l'Epee.

  Susan, help me.

  De l'Epee . . .

  Then Melanie thought suddenly: There is no Susan. She's dead. Dead and already cold.

  And Mrs. Harstrawn may as well be.

  De l'Epee? He's just a lie. A phony visitor to your phony little room. Another of your sick, imaginary friends, one of the dozens you grew up talking to, going out with, making very solitary love to while you hid from everything real. I get everything wrong! I hear music when there is no music, I hear nothing when people speak to me inches away, I'm afraid when I have to be brave . . . .

  A Maiden's Grave.

  The little girl reached for the lid of the vat.

  "Kielle!" Melanie signed angrily. "Jubilee . . . All right. Listen."

  The girl looked at her cautiously, nodded.

  "You really want to kill him?"

  "Yes!" Kielle's eyes glowed.

  "Okay. Then we'll do it together. We'll do it the right way."

  A ragged smile blossomed in Kielle's face.

  "I'll distract him. You go behind pipe there. See it? Go over there and hide."

  "What should I do?"

  "Wait until I give you signal to come out. He'll be talking to me, won't look for you."

  "And then?"

  "Stab him as hard as you can in back. Okay?"

  "Yes!" The little girl smiled, her eyes no longer fiery but cold as stone. "I'm Jubilee! No one can stop me!"

  Brutus had his back to the interior of the slaughterhouse but he must have seen her reflection in a pane of cracked glass. He turned. "Whatta we got here?"

  Melanie had slipped from the vat and circled back toward the killing room. Now she walked toward them, smiled at Shannon.

  She looked at Handy and mimicked writing. He handed her a yellow pad and pen. She wrote, I don't want you to hurt her. She nodded toward Shannon.

  "Hurt her? I'm giving . . . away. Understand?"

  Why not both her and the sick girl? she wrote. Mention her name, Melanie thought. Maybe he'll be more sympathetic. Beverly, she added.

  Brutus grinned and nodded at Bear. "My friend . . . wants to keep the pretty ones . . . for a while."

  He's saying this just to be cruel, she thought. Then reflected: He is cruel, yes. But what else is he, what else do I feel about him? Something strange; there's some connection. Is it because I can understand his words? Or do I understand him because of the connection?

  Stoat stepped away from the window and said, " . . . coming . . . two . . . packs." He winked and continued to chew on a toothpick. But Brutus wasn't looking out the window; he was scanning the slaughterhouse, looking around, squinting.

  What can I do to keep him from seeing Kielle?

  Try to seduce him? she thought suddenly.

  What she knew of love she knew from books, movies, and girl talk. Melanie had had boyfriends but had never slept with any of them. Always, the fear . . . Of what, she didn't know. The dark maybe. Trusting somebody that much. Of course there was the problem that she'd never met anyone interested in making love with her. Oh, there'd been plenty of boys who wanted to fuck her. But that was so different. Look at the two terms: Saying "fuck" pinched the nose and made your features tight and lonely. "Making love" . . . it was soft and opened up your face.

  Suddenly Brutus laughed and stepped forward, grabbed her and pulled her close. Maybe he was far smarter than he seemed. Or maybe her eyes could keep nothing secret; in any event he knew exactly what she was thinking. He stroked her hair.

  She waited for the hands on her breasts, between her legs. She remembered how she'd recoiled when a boyfriend had slipped his hand up there quickly. She'd leapt off his knee like lightning, smacking her head on the car's hot dome light.

  Then Brutus turned his head and said something she didn't catch.

  Bear and Stoat were laughing.

  Abruptly he shoved her away, leaned his face close, and said, "Why'd I want you? A busted little thing like you? You're like a boy. I want women only." His black eyes bored into hers and she broke into sobs. With satisfaction he looked over the horror and shame in her face. "I got me a real woman. Pris's all I need. She's got herself a woman's body and a woman's eyes. We fuck for hours. You have a boyfriend?"

  Melanie couldn't answer. Her arms were weak and hung at her side. In the corner of her eye she saw Kielle slip through the shadows of machinery. She struggled to stop the tears, refused to wipe them away.

  "Pris's a real character. A ballbuster . . . Think I'm bad? She's badder. You hate me? You wouldn't like her one bit. Now, she might fuck you. She's a bit that way and I'd like to watch. If we get out of this we'll do that, her and me and you."

  Melanie stepped away but he took her by the arm. The grip cut off the blood to her hands and she felt them tingle painfully.

  Stoat, hand on his crew cut, was calling something. Brutus turned to the window, looked out. Melanie felt a vibration in the air. Brutus looked toward the phone. Smiling, he let go of Melanie's arm and picked up the receiver.

  "Hello . . ."

  Was he talking to de l'Epee? What were they saying?

  Behind the pipes near the door was Kielle's shadow. The girl held the knife in her hand.

  " . . . almost here," Stoat called, pointing his gun out the window.

  Brutus lowered his head and kept talking into the phone, fiddling with the pistol stuffed in his belt. He looked bored; he grimaced and hung up. Picked up a shotgun, pulled back a lever on it, and stepped to the doorway. His back was to Kielle, perhaps ten feet away. The girl leaned her head out. Light from outside, a shaft of brilliant white light, glinted off the blade in her hand. Melanie signed, "Wait."

  Stoat grabbed Shannon by the arm and pulled her to the door. Brutus stepped back, pointing the gun outward, and Stoat eased the door open.

  A figure appeared in the doorway--a trooper dressed in black. He handed in two six-packs of beer. Stoat shoved the girl out the door.

  Now!

  Melanie stepped slowly behind Brutus. She smiled at Kielle, who frowned, confused. Then Melanie reached down and simply scooped the little girl off the ground, grabbing the knife from her hand.

  Kielle shook her head violently.

  But Melanie spun around, moving so fast that Brutus froze in confusion, staring at them, no idea what was going on. Melanie continued to smile as she stepped around him, firmly gripping the astonished girl.

  Then flung Kielle out the door into the chest of the trooper.

  For an instant no one moved. Melanie, still smiling at Stoat, slowly eased the door closed, shooing her hand lethargically at the astonished cop as if he
were a bluetail fly.

  "Fuck," Brutus spat out. Stoat started forward, but Melanie slammed the door completely closed and wedged it tight with Kielle's knife. Stoat tugged at the large knob but it wouldn't budge.

  Then Melanie dropped to her knees and covered her face, trying to cushion herself from the blow as Stoat's bony fist slammed into her neck and jaw. He pulled her arms away and struck her hard on the forehead and chin.

  "You fucking bitch!" Brutus's tendons and jaw quivered.

  He hit her once hard and she fell against the floor. Trying to scrabble away, she pulled herself up by the windowsill, glanced outside and saw the trooper carrying both the young X-Men with him, tucked under his arms. Jogging awkwardly through the gully away from the slaughterhouse.

  On her neck she heard the vibrations of a man's voice shouting in anger. Brutus was running to the window on the other side of the door. He stepped back from it then aimed the shotgun outside.

  Melanie ran at him.

  It seemed that her feet didn't even touch the ground. Stoat grabbed for her but caught only a shred of silk collar that tore away. As she collided with Brutus's shoulder she had the satisfaction of seeing his pain and surprise and fear as he fell sideways into a square of butcher block. The gun hit the floor but didn't go off.

  Melanie looked out the window once more and saw the two girls and the trooper disappear over a small hill. And then Stoat's gun caught her above the ear that had first gone deaf, years ago, and she dropped to her knees. She fainted not so much from the pain as from the terror that the darkness taking her vision was from a broken nerve and that she would now be blind as well as deaf forever and ever.

  5:34 P.M.

  "You gave us a bonus, Lou. Thanks much."

  "Wasn't me," Handy grumbled.

  "No? What happened?"

  "Listen here, I'm pissed."

  "Why's that?"

  "Just shut up and listen, Art. I don't wanta hear your bullshit." His voice was colder than it'd been all day.

  "Forty-five minutes for that helicopter. That's all you got and I'll tell you, mister, I'm itching to kill somebody. I almost hope it don't show up. I'm not doing any more bargaining with you."

  "How's your beer?"

  "I picked the little bitch already. She's ten or eleven. Wearing a pretty dress."

  "Emily," Angie said.

  "And I'm gonna let Bonner have her first. You know 'bout Bonner, don't you? You got your fucking files on us. You must know all 'bout his little problem."

  A negotiator never imposes his own values on the situation--either approval or criticism. Doing so suggests that there are standards of what is and isn't acceptable and is apt to irritate the taker or make his bad behavior seem justified. Even offering reassuring cliches can be dangerous, suggesting that you're not taking the situation seriously.

  Reluctantly Potter now said in as blase a voice as he could muster, "You don't want to do that, Lou. You know you don't."

  The cackle of vicious laughter filled the van. "Everybody's telling me what I don't want to do. I hate that!"

  "We're working on the chopper, Lou. Look outside. We've got twenty-mile-an-hour winds, low overcast, and fog. You wanted pontoons. Well, pontoons don't grow on trees."

  "You got twelve-mile-an-hour winds, ceilings of two thousand feet, and no fucking fog that I can see."

  The television, Potter remembered, angry with himself for forgetting. Maybe Handy was watching the Live at Five weather report at that moment. A long minute of silence. Potter, staring at the speaker above his head, decided they were too focused on the mechanics of the negotiating. It was time for something personal.

  "Lou?"

  "Yeah."

  "You asked me what I looked like. Let me ask you about yourself."

  "Fuck, you've got pictures in there, I'll bet."

  "What do mug shots show?" Potter asked, and laughed.

  When Handy spoke, his voice had calmed considerably. "What do I look like?" he mused. "Let me tell you a story, Art. I was in a prison riot one time. All kindsa shit was going down like usual in things like that. What the fuck happens but I find myself in the laundry room with a fellow I'd had it in for for a long time. Now, you know where you hide things when you're inside, don't you? So I crapped this glass knife, unwrapped it, and started to work on him. You know why?"

  Echo his questions and comments, Arthur Potter the negotiator thought. But Arthur Potter remained silent.

  " 'Cause when I first was in he come up to me, all macho and that shit, and said he didn't like the way I looked."

  "So you killed him." A matter-of-fact statement.

  "Fuck yes, but that's not my point. While he was dying there, his gut all split open, I leaned down. See, I was curious. I leaned down real close and I asked him what exactly it was he didn't like about the way I looked. And you know what he said? He said, 'You looked like cold death.' Know something, Art? I was sorry I killed him after he told me that. Yessir, cold death."

  Don't play his game, Potter thought suddenly. You're falling under his spell. With an edge to his voice he asked, "Lou, give us until seven. You do me that, I think we'll have some good news for you."

  "I--"

  "That's all. What difference does it make?" Potter kept all supplication from his voice. He made it sound that Handy was being unreasonable. It was a risk but Potter assessed that the man would have no respect at all for whiners.

  Still, he was very surprised when Handy said, "All right. Jesus! But have the chopper here, Art. Or the little one in the dress goes."

  Click.

  Potter calmly instructed Tobe to adjust the deadline clock accordingly.

  The door to the van opened and a trooper looked in. "The two girls are here, sir. They're in the medical tent."

  "Are they okay?"

  "One fell and scraped her elbow. Otherwise they're fine."

  "I'll go over there. I could use some fresh air. Frances, could you translate? Henry, get yourself unplugged and come with us. Angie too?"

  In a grove of trees not far from the van Potter ushered the girls into folding chairs. Henry LeBow joined them, portable computer in hand. He sat down and smiled at the girls, who stared at the Toshiba.

  Potter tried to recall what Frances had taught him and spelled their names in sign language. S-H-A-N-N-O-N and K-I-E-L-L-E, bringing a smile to Shannon's face. They were the same age, Potter knew--eight--but Shannon was taller. Kielle, however, with her grim face and cynical eyes, gave the impression of being far older.

  "What's the matter?" Potter asked Kielle.

  Frances's face went cold when she received a response. "She said she tried to kill him."

  "Who?"

  "Handy, I think she means. She calls him Mr. Sinister."

  Potter produced the flyer of the fugitives. Kielle's face screwed into a tight mask and she poked a finger at Handy's picture.

  "She says he killed Susan and she was going to kill him. Melanie betrayed her. Melanie is a Judas."

  "Why?" Angie asked.

  More brutal signing.

  "She threw her out the door."

  "Melanie did that?"

  Potter felt the chill down his spine. He knew there'd be a payback of some kind.

  Shannon confirmed that the men didn't seem to have any rifles, only shotguns--her father hunted and she knew something about guns. Beverly's asthma was bad, though Handy had given her the medicine. She reiterated that the "big man," Bonner, hovered over the girls and kept looking at Emily because she was "prettier and looked more like a girl."

  Angie asked delicately, "Has anyone touched any of you?"

  Shannon said that they had. But Kielle waved her hand and signed, "Not the way you mean. But Bear looks a lot."

  So, Potter reflected, Bonner's a discrete threat, separate from Handy. And probably more dangerous. Lust-driven criminals always are.

  "Who picked you to be released?" Angie asked Shannon.

  "Him." She pointed at Handy.

  "Th
e one Melanie calls Brutus, right?"

  Shannon nodded. "We call him Mr. Sinister. Or Magneto."

  "Why did he pick you, do you think? Was there any reason?"

  "Because Bear"--Shannon pointed at Bonner's picture--"told him to." Frances looked at Angie and said, "Shannon kicked him and he was mad."

  "I didn't mean to kick him. I just didn't think . . . . And then I got really scared. I thought it was my fault he was going to burn us up."

  "Burn you up? Why'd you think that?"

  Shannon told them about the gas can rigged right above their heads.

  Frances's face went pale. "He wouldn't."

  "Oh, yes he would," Angie said. "Fire. His new toy."

  "Damn," Potter muttered. This virtually eliminated the possibility of an HRT rescue. Henry LeBow's concession to the horror was to pause before he typed a description of the device.

  Potter walked to the doorway of the van, called Budd out, and then motioned Dean Stillwell over. The negotiator said to them both, "We've got a hot trap inside--"

  "Hot?" Budd asked.

  "Armed," Potter continued. "We can't give him the least excuse to trip it. There's to be absolutely no action that could be construed as offensive. Double-check--all weapons unchambered."

  "Yessir," Stillwell said.

  Potter then asked Shannon if there was anything else she could remember about the men and what they did inside.

  "They watch TV," Frances translated. "They walk around. Eat. Talk. They're pretty relaxed."

  Relaxed. Jocylyn had said the same. Well, this was a first for a barricade.

  "You saw the tools they have?"

  Shannon nodded.

  "Have they used them?"

  "No."

  "Do you remember what tools they had?"

  She shook her head no.

  "Can you tell what they talk about?" Potter asked.

  "No," Frances explained. "Neither of them can lip-read."

  "They watch you all the time?" Angie asked.

  "Pretty much. He's scary. Him." Shannon was pointing at Handy. Kielle reached forward viciously and grabbed the picture. She tore it up and signed violently.

  "She says she hates Melanie. She could have killed him. And now he's alive to kill more people. She says she wouldn't have minded dying. But Melanie's a coward and she hates her."

  As he had done with Jocylyn, Potter warmly shook the girls' hands and thanked them. Shannon smiled; Kielle did not but it was with a strong, self-assured grip that the little girl grasped the agent's hand. Then he sent the two girls off with a trooper, to meet their parents at the motel in Crow Ridge. He conferred with Angie for a few minutes then climbed into the van. She followed him.