Side by Side wm-3

by John Ramsey Miller

  He smiled.

  If they were prepared to kill him to keep him from finding out where the Dockerys were being held, it meant that Lucy and Elijah were still alive, and he was on track to finding them.

  As long as they thought Winter was ignorant of what they were up to and were sure he was coming back so they could keep an eye on him, they wouldn’t have any reason to try to stop him. By the time they figured out that he was not doing what he said, he would be ahead of them.

  He only had to move fast enough to stay ahead of everybody else. There were no more good guys versus bad guys-just bad guys and him.

  52

  As soon as Dixie Smoot left the room, Lucy stuck a finger down her throat and vomited the foul liquid cocktail into a wadded-up blanket to muffle the sounds of her retching. Gagging, she shoved the blanket between two padlocked crates. She crawled over to the door and lay down with her ear near the bottom of it, listening.

  Then she stood and, trembling, slid the door open a crack. The only light in the trailer was the flickering light from the TV. Dixie was lying on the sofa, a bottle of bourbon on the floor beside her, half-full glass in her hand.

  Lucy slid the door closed, turned on the flashlight, and used the hem of the T-shirt to cover the lens to soften the light. She had figured out why the dogs hadn’t attacked Eli and her earlier. The scent of the owner of the jacket had confused them. She knew that the bottle of spray she’d found beside the bed was designed to kill human scents to fool deer, and hoped it would work on dogs. She hoped they didn’t decide to bark after all.

  She used the spray, which smelled like rotting vegetation, on her legs, her arms, and, closing her eyes, on her face and hair. Putting on the hunting jacket, which was permeated with one of her captors’ scents, Lucy went to the window, removed the bolt, and slid open the screen. She took the empty pee bucket from beside the bed. Feet first, Lucy eased her body out. Once she was hanging from the sill by her fingertips, there was no turning back.

  She dropped to the dirt, landing on the balls of her feet. She prayed the sound of the television had kept the sound of her escape from alerting the dogs. She crept to the trailer’s edge and looked around the corner. The dogs weren’t coming out of the storage room’s cracked-open door. Taking a shaky breath, Lucy moved swiftly across the expanse, made it to the door just as one of the animal’s heads jutted out. She turned the flashlight, catching the dog full in the eyes. The animal’s head vanished back into the shadows. Lucy eased the door closed and flipped the catch to lock it.

  She crossed the dogs off her mental checklist and thought about the next step. The easy part was done. Now she had to do a couple of things out in the warehouse, go back inside, and get Elijah. If she remained calm, followed her plan, she would be outside the warehouse within ten minutes or so. That, or she would be a four-letter word for “no longer among the living.”

  53

  Winter Massey sped to the clinic, darted from the truck, swung open the pole gate, and parked his truck on the lot. Still wearing the camo coat, he sprinted down the steps, crossed the bridge over the creek, unlocked the front door, and hurried to disarm the alarm system. He ran back to the lockup ward, opened the door, and flipped the light on in Click’s cell right before unlocking and jerking it open.

  Click was wedged in a corner, frozen, his blank eyes as wide open as his mouth.

  He looked up at Winter and started crying. “I’m soooo sorry. I’m sorry. I’ll tell you. I’ll take you to find them. .”

  “Tell me where they are,” Winter said, kneeling beside the sobbing boy.

  Click put his hands on Winter’s forearms and squeezed. “And you’ll. . you’ll let me go? You. . prom. . prom. . ise?”

  “Tell me where Lucy and her son are, and I will take you out of here. Show me where they are. As soon as I have them, you’re as free as a bird. Word of honor.”

  Winter lifted Click to his feet. He felt a sharp pang of remorse when he realized that the kid had urinated on himself. Winter led him out of the padded room and down the long hallway. They stopped at the counter just long enough for Click to blow his nose and tell Winter how to find the land in South Carolina where the Dockerys were almost certainly being held. Winter gave Click a sheet of clear plastic from the floor to keep him dry on their walk to the truck. Turning off the lights, he set the alarm, after which, he led Click though the door, closed and locked it. Reflexively, Winter checked out the route up the slope, holding Click by his left arm to support him and to make sure he didn’t try anything. The kid might have lied to Winter about the location, figuring it would be a while before his deception was discovered. Click was extremely intelligent and crooked as a sow’s tail.

  “So, tell me the truth, are you a cop?” Click asked him as they walked.

  “I used to be.”

  “Ever really killed anybody?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’ll really let me go?”

  “As soon as I know for sure you’ve told me the truth.”

  Winter opened the truck door and let Click climb in, crossing the console and buckling his belt before he followed him in. He cranked the truck and started out.

  “They’ll kill me if they find out it was me,” Click said. “Kin or not. I’m breaking the code.”

  “I won’t tell them,” Winter said.

  “How many people you taking in there?”

  “Just me.”

  “In that case, if they don’t kill you outright, you’ll tell them I did.”

  “You can tell them you knew they’d kill me so you tricked me into coming to them.”

  Click was silent a moment. Then he said, “You said I could go free.”

  “You will. But while I’m getting the Dockerys, you’re going to be cuffed to my steering wheel.”

  Click looked down at the floor. Winter raced down the winding driveway.

  “So, knowing that,” he told the kid, “you maybe want to make any amendments to the directions you just gave me?”

  Winter came around the final bend and saw that the heavy yellow pole was back in place. His gut twisted because he’d intentionally left it standing open.

  “Duck!” he yelled, flooring the accelerator. He cut the wheel at the last second, aiming at the boxwoods between the security pole’s upright steel post and the sign kiosk. He saw a head rise above the shrubs, and he ducked lower just as the automatic weapons opened up. He felt the impact as the truck exploded through the shrubbery and caught the shooter behind it, punting the man’s body in a high arc. Winter’s tires bounced as he ran over the assailant’s body. He jerked the wheel and skidded sideways, straightening as the automatic weapons shattered the rear windshield and then the front one.

  “Shee-at,” Click said, straightening to peer over his shoulder.

  “Down!” Winter yelled. There was a sound like a bottle of cola being dropped. The back tires went flat and what remained of the front windshield was peppered with gore as Click folded at the waist. The truck crested the hill.

  They would be coming after them.

  He didn’t have to look at the gauges to know the truck was mortally wounded. He smelled the radiator fluid, and it was all he could do to hold the truck in the road with two flat tires that would be sliced off the rims in a matter of seconds. He turned onto a narrow county road, waited until he saw the headlights swing onto the road behind him, then he jammed the accelerator and aimed the truck at the tree line beyond the ditch.

  Winter’s truck went into the ditch, came up the other side, and went airborne. Tumbling, it finally stopped on its left side in the muddy field, its headlights illuminating the scraggly trees fifty yards ahead.

  54

  The pursuing Tahoe came to a stop, and the driver got out to look at the wreck. He spoke into his cell phone. “Massey’s done. Truck’s finished. We’ll just make sure and we’re out of here. Yeah, I know how dangerous he was. You get Blocker out of the street, we can handle this. Meet you back at the place in an hour.�
��

  The passenger climbed out of the Tahoe and walked in front of the headlights, carrying an MP5-SD. The driver came slowly around the SUV holding a tactical shotgun with a high-intensity flashlight mounted under the barrel.

  After the killers crossed the ditch and were advancing toward the overturned truck, Winter sat up behind them. He had been lying on his back since jumping out into the mud as the truck left the ground. Silently, he put a pair of.40-caliber rounds into the back of the SUV passenger’s head. As the driver pivoted at the sound of his shots, Winter put one into his right ear and a second into his neck below his jaw. He knew neither man was Randall or Sarnov because he’d seen them in the headlights.

  Winter sprinted to the running Tahoe, turned it around, and drove away. He needed to catch Max Randall before he picked up the run-over corpse and left. When Winter got there, Randall was gone. Only a dark circular oil-slick-looking stain showed where the dead man had been. Winter itched to chase Randall down and kill him, but he had more important things to do. He had to find a pay phone.

  55

  Lucy Dockery went directly from locking the dogs’ door to the gasoline drums lined up against the warehouse wall. She took the pee bucket off her arm and set it down. Taking the nozzle in one hand, she moved the lever up and down to pump gasoline into the bucket. Luckily, the pump mechanism was well greased, so the only sound was the jets of gas shooting into the container. After filling the bucket, she also filled a large-mouth gallon jar almost to the rim with gas. She carried the containers over and set them down beside the porch, where she could get to them after coming out the door with Eli.

  A pickax and a pair of shovels leaning against the little porch hadn’t been there earlier or she was sure she would have seen them. Her heart fell when she realized that the twins had probably brought them inside after digging the graves they intended for her and Eli. The pickax sparked an idea that added an additional facet to her plan-one that brought a painful smile to her split lips. This could actually work.

  Lucy propped an old wooden ladder against the back wall of the trailer so she could get back into her room through the window. She took off the coat and laid it on the bottom of the window over the track edges of the aluminum frame.

  All she had to do was to sneak out of the room and into the kitchen, get one of the cast-iron skillets without Dixie hearing her, then get back in her room and call out so Dixie would come stomping back there to shut her up. When she came in, Lucy would hit her in the head and knock her out cold.

  Then she would get some of the matches she’d seen stuffed in a shot glass on the counter near the stove, grab her son, and go out the front door and pour the gasoline all around the outside of the trailer in the dirt and light it to draw the other Smoots from outside the building to fight the fire. When they came into the warehouse, she’d have Eli in the corner, which would be behind the door when it was open, effectively hiding them from view of the in-rushers. She’d take Eli out, close the door, and lock all the kidnappers in. She’d push a matchstick into the lock and break it off to jam it. Maybe Dixie would have a concussion, or maybe she would even die from the blow. That wasn’t Lucy’s concern. All she had to do to escape was to do everything. . perfectly.

  Then she felt the floor vibrate and heard the sound of Dixie’s footsteps coming into the kitchen.

  Lucy froze.

  56

  Sergeant Hank Trammel strode down a desolate stretch of south Texas highway with his olive-drab canvas duffel over his shoulder. He wore a dress uniform. His shoes were polished to a mirror finish, which allowed him to see the green beret perched on his head, the brown mustache and aviator sunglasses.

  The cloudless white sky allowed the midday sun to beat down on him mercilessly and he wiped the sweat from his brow with a handkerchief. He was going to get to the ranch before Millie put little Tommy to sleep.

  Since there was no traffic, he had walked the five miles from the bus stop outside the tiny community of Los Terras, Texas, to the Flying T Ranch. Millie didn’t know he was coming in for another week because he wanted to surprise her.

  His mind was filled with the idea that little Tommy and Millie would be waiting for him, and how excited his wife would be when she saw him approaching the farmhouse. It wouldn’t be a complete surprise, though: He couldn’t get to the house without his hounds setting up a ruckus.

  When the house was no more than a hundred yards away, he realized that the dogs weren’t announcing his approach.

  The house looked the same, but it looked different than he remembered it. He could see that the white paint was weathered off, and as he reached the porch he noticed that some of the windows were broken, and that the front door was standing open.

  Hank dropped his bag in the dirt and took the steps two at a time. Slowly he entered the foyer, and although nothing had changed about the house’s furnishings, he was struck by how much dust there was covering everything. And not just the dust, but spiderwebs too.

  He climbed the stairs, waving the webs aside. As he approached the bedroom he heard a phone ringing, and he opened the door to see a pedestal with a shiny black telephone perched atop it.

  Hank opened his eyes and the dream evaporated, leaving him momentarily confused as to where his wife and son were.

  He heard Faith Ann pick up the receiver in the kitchen and say, “Hello.”

  He remembered that his dear Millie was dead.

  His son, Tommy, a child when he went, had been dead over thirty years.

  So much pain in his heart.

  So fresh were the wounds.

  He heard his niece coming and he reached for his glasses on the bedside table before she tapped.

  “Uncle Hank, you awake?” she asked softly.

  “Of course I am,” he snorted. “How can a man sleep with the phone ringing off the wall?”

  The door opened and Faith Ann stuck her head in. “It’s Mr. Massey. I think it’s real important. He sounds sort of winded.”

  Hank reached for the telephone and sat up, causing a bolt of pain to shoot from his ankle to the base of his spine. He took a deep breath, then said, “Hi there, Win. What’s the deal?”

  He listened to the request, and the brief explanation his dear friend offered.

  “You called the right guy,” Hank said. “Consider it done.”

  Hank hung up, turned on the lamp, and called out, “Faith Ann!”

  She came back to the door.

  “I have to go out for a while to help a friend,” he said. “You lock the door and if you need anything, call Sean.”

  Despite the urgency of his mission, it took Hank ten minutes to dress, and the pain had him sweating profusely. He slipped on a pair of muck shoes, knowing he couldn’t take the time to pull on his boots.

  It had been over a year since he had truly felt needed by anyone for anything important. He knew he was hardly more than a ward of Winter and Sean’s. Officially he was Faith Ann’s guardian, but the truth be told, his niece was more his caregiver than he was hers.

  He reached for his crutches and, with tears in his eyes, headed for the door.

  Faith Ann met him in the kitchen, arms crossed. She had put on a raincoat and her jeans bloused where they were tucked into the tops of her cowboy boots.

  “You cold?” he asked her.

  “Not yet. But it’s chilly and wet out there.”

  “You’re staying here,” he said.

  Her concerned frown told him that she didn’t think he could go anywhere on his own, but he knew better. Winter needed him. Just like the old days.

  “I mean it, Faith Ann. You lock up and if you need anything, call Sean.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “On a mission.”

  “Important?”

  “Life and death.”

  Hank leaned over and kissed the girl’s cheek and she returned it.

  “Okay,” she said, nodding. “Go get it done.”

  Hank took the keys to his Jeep and w
ent out the door. He was almost at the driver’s door when his leg went numb and he pitched into the side of the vehicle and tumbled into the ditch, striking his head. As he lay there on his back, cold rain filled his eyes.

  It was immediately obvious to him that he wasn’t going to be getting up without help. He heard the back door fly open and Faith Ann’s feet on the gravel as she came at a run.

  “Oh, Uncle Hank!” She knelt beside him, a look of horror in her eyes.

  “I’m okay, Faith Ann. My stupid leg just went stiff on me. I’ll be able to get up in a minute.”

  “I’ll help you.” She grabbed his wrist and began tugging at it. He couldn’t do more than sit up. He wondered if he might have broken his hip.

  “Go get Sean,” he told the girl.

  Faith Ann wriggled out of her raincoat and put it over Hank’s head to protect him from the rain. Then she turned and ran off toward the big house.

  Hank was thankful she hadn’t hung around to see him crying.

  57

  Sean Massey answered the phone on the third ring. “Hello?”

  “Sean, it’s Alexa Keen. I hope I didn’t wake you.”

  “Hello, Alexa. Anything wrong?”

  “No, everything’s fine,” Alexa assured her. “I was just wondering if you’d heard from Winter this evening.”

  “He called earlier when I was putting Olivia down. Maybe two hours ago. Why?”

  “I’ll tell you in a minute. What exactly did he say to you?”

  “He told me he loved me and asked about Rush, Olivia, and Faith Ann. Said you guys had split up. Said it wasn’t dangerous, which I naturally assumed was a lie designed to make me feel better. That’s about it. Tell me why you’re asking. I can handle anything but not knowing.”