by Blake Crouch
"…testing, we have confirmed that at least seventeen of the hearts found on East Street belong to the corresponding names. We have several leads, but I can't discuss further…"
The telephone rang, destroying my concentration. I left my drink half-made and walked into the kitchen, grabbing it on the third ring.
"Hello?"
"You son of a bitch." Her voice was heartless.
"Beth?"
"Why are you doing this to me?" she asked.
"What are you talking…"
"I know you called me, Andy. I just dialed Star69 and you picked up the phone!"
"Beth, I don't understand…"
"Bullshit! Why didn't you call from a payphone this time?"
"I haven't called you, Beth."
"What'd you do to my husband?!" she screamed through tears. "Tell me where he is!"
"I don't know."
"You said insects were crawling in him. What does that mean?!"
"I didn't…" A chill descended my spine. "Wait," I whispered. I brought the phone to my chest and listened. The television blared through the house, so I set the phone on the counter, walked into the living room, and cut it off. Now I could hear nothing but my heart, pounding like a blacksmith's hammer. I returned to the phone. "Beth," I whispered.
"I'm calling the police."
"I didn't call you. I got home five minutes ago, and that means someone has been in my house. You said this person has called you before?"
"Yes." Her voice trembled.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"He said he'd kill me and my children if I told anyone. He said he'd know."
"You have to believe that wasn't me," I said. "I promise you, Beth. Do you believe me?"
"Yes," she said, though still hesitant.
"You're in danger," I said. "We both are. You have someplace you can take your kids?"
"Yes, I have an…"
"Don't tell me. Just go. Go right now and stay there till you hear from me. I'll leave a message on your answering machine. Don't tell anyone you're leaving. Not a soul."
"What about the police?"
"Not even them."
"This has to do with Walter, doesn't it?"
"We don't have much time," I said, glancing at the living room, then up the staircase towards the darker second floor. "I'll explain it to you later. You have to trust me now."
"I have to know about my husband," she said, crying again. "Please tell me."
"If you don't leave now, you and your children will die tonight. Now go." I hung up the phone and wiped my sweaty hands across my jeans. A gun, I thought. Shit, I don't have a gun. My Glock, Walter's 9mm, the silencers, and even the boxes of rounds sat on the bottom of the lake. So I grabbed a butcher knife from the cutting block and walked towards the staircase.
My footsteps echoed through the house as I ascended the steps. The second floor hallway was dark, along with the open guestroom. I moved from the hardwood steps into the carpeted hall and flipped on the ceiling lamp. The white walls became yellow under the orange light, and the sickening pulse of fear ran through me, making my stomach hurt, my legs weak. Turning right, I walked towards the end of the hallway to my bedroom. The door was closed, but I couldn't remember shutting it.
With the knife in my right hand, I turned the doorknob and cracked the door, then kicked it open and turned on the light. My bedroom seemed empty. The two windows on the left wall, which looked out on the meandering drive, were hidden behind their blinds. I walked quickly through the threshold to the walk-in closet on the right, and without giving consideration to my fear, opened the door and pulled the light switch. Empty. Moving to the bathroom beside it, I opened the door, and in the dim glow of the nightlight, ripped off the shower curtain. Empty.
Coming out of the bathroom, I noticed an impression on the bedspread. I ran my hand across the warm, ruffled blanket, sat down, and picked up the phone on the bedside table. Pressing redial, the numbers blitzed through silence, followed by two rings.
"Hello?"
"Beth, it's Andy. I wanted to make sure you're leaving."
"I'm packing now."
"Good girl. I'll call you soon." I hung up the phone and stood up. My hands shook, still holding the knife. As I walked towards the door, something on the dresser facing the bed caught my eye. An unmarked envelope, which hadn't been there before, lay on a stack of New Yorkers. Opening it, I expected to find a sheet of paper with that horrible black ink. But I only withdrew an airline ticket. Under the illumination of a stained-glass lamp standing on the dresser, I examined the ticket: November 21st, 8:00 a.m., Billings, Montana. Two weeks away.
Setting the knife on the dresser, I closed my eyes for a moment. I was tired of this. Tired of the fear. When I opened my eyes again, I looked into the circular mirror above the dresser and gasped. In black magic marker, there was something written on the glass, and I couldn't imagine how I'd missed it:
RENT A CAR AND DRIVE TO THE C.M. RUSSELL
WILDLIFE REFUGE FIRST THING 11/22
WAIT FOR ME WHERE 19 CROSSES THE MISSOURI R.
I collapsed onto the bed. For a long time, I stared up at the bumpy ceiling, my eyes traversing the tiny clumps of paint that looked like a vast, snow-covered range of mountains.
# # #
Fifty miles north of Billings, Montana, in the midst of an empty, nothing land, I pulled off the road to piss. I left the car running on the flat shoulder and stepped out into swaying grass. It was bitter cold, and dry, sterile grassland extended in every direction, as far as I could see. The crystal sky had clouded, now a uniform gray, and a biting wind blew incessantly across the plain.
I climbed back into the warm rental, a red, four-door Buick, and continued north on 87. This time, I carried no gun. I’d packed only a small suitcase with provisions for several days. In a way, I was calmly putting my head to the chopping block, leaving my life in Orson's hands. He’d won. Invulnerable, he'd already set in motion the events that were destroying my world. Walking out of my lake house yesterday morning, I listened in the doorway as Detective Prosser left a message on my answering machine, all but ordering me to come to Winston that afternoon for more questioning. They suspected me, and it was only a matter of time before they indicted me. Then what? How hard would they have to look to find that I'd been to Vermont with Walter, now missing? It didn't surprise me that at my weakest hour, Orson had wanted to meet.
I entered the C.M. Russell Wildlife Refuge on highway 19 after five o'clock. The sun had nearly set, and on the horizon, above a distant range of mountains, it managed to peek through the clouds and set the prairie on fire. Yellow grasses turned gold, and miles ahead, I saw glittering radiance like sunbeams dancing on moving water. I hadn’t passed another car in the last hour, and I was beginning to understand why Orson had chosen this place. The vacancy was overwhelming. A distant migraine pounded in my head, and I knew it'd torture me in the coming hours. Only fear would overshadow it, and I felt it, too, deep in my gut. The river was close.
The prairie became a network of bare, rolling hills. There were gentle slopes and ridges now along which the highway ran and below, the valleys, cut by streams. Thickets of pines followed the water which meandered towards the Missouri, the first trees I'd seen since Billings.
As I crested the rounded peak of a low foothill, the Missouri opened up before me, like a river of crimson gold beneath the brilliance of the falling sun. More than a quarter mile wide in places, it flowed quickly eastward, out of the breaks, towards the flatlands of North Dakota. I wondered what remote mountain spring gave birth to such a mighty body of water.
The highway descended to the river, and approaching the water, I saw the bridge, barely noticeable in this oversized country. It crossed the Missouri in a narrow spot, traversing only fifty yards of water before ascending another treeless foothill on the other side and disappearing over a yellow ridge.
When the road straightened and widened as it prepared to cross the water, the sky turned purpl
e and gray. The sun slipped behind the mountains, and the red and orange escaped from the clouds, leaving a dreary darkness upon the plain. I slowed down and veered off the road, into the tall grass. The ground felt soft beneath the tires, like after days of steady rain. I turned off the car and took my brown leather jacket from the passenger seat. A raw wind whipped my face as I slipped into the jacket, stepped outside, and slammed the door. With the loss of the sun it was much colder, and I dug my hands deep into my pockets. From where I stood, the hillside sloped down a hundred feet to the river. Pines and shrubs grew along the sandy bank. I looked into the trees but saw no movement, only branches swaying in the wind.
I reached the bridge. Thirty feet above the water, a stone wall, three feet high, served as a guardrail. Traversing the double yellow lines, I watched my feet, trying not to think about how cold I was as the fierce wind pressed into me head on. Walking became difficult, and I'd just thought to myself, "Fuck this," when I looked up and saw him.
Even in the blue dusk, I wasn't sure how I'd missed him before. On the left side of the road, near the end of the bridge, he sat on the stone wall. I squinted through the poor light. The dull throbbing of my heart pushed up into my throat, and I shuddered at his silhouette.
My first instinct was to run back to the car. I kept thinking, "He's gonna kill you. You've come out here to let him kill you." Twenty yards away, I knew for certain it was Orson. On the stone railing, facing west, his legs dangled over the river. I know he heard my footsteps, but he never turned his head. He just stared straight ahead at the magenta clouds in the sun's wake.
Cautiously, I climbed onto the wall. We sat four feet apart, and I let my legs hang out over the water, too. I eyed my brother, warily, for he had yet to acknowledge my presence. He wore dark jeans, a white fleece pullover, and worn hiking boots. His brown hair had grown out and was messy from the wind. I glanced down at the swift, silent current as it glided beneath the bridge, then spit and counted how long it took to reach the water.
"Where's your car?" I asked.
"Hitched a ride with a transfer truck this morning."
"You were pretty confident I was coming. You been out here all day?"
"Since noon."
We were quiet for some time. There was a somberness about him I'd rarely seen. He seemed deflated, like after a kill, when his victim could no longer suffer and the reality of his useless existence came crashing down on him.
"How are things back at the homestead?" he asked, smirking through his words.
"They think I murdered Mom," I said. "Beth Lancing wants to know where her husband is. That's the guy you killed in Vermont."
"Well, I'm glad you came, Andy. It was the right thing to do. There's been a bunch of shit between us."
"That surprises you after Mom?"
"It surprises me after last summer. I thought you knew me better. I tried to make you understand." He turned, and we locked eyes. "Did you come after me because of Mom?"
I gritted my teeth and nodded. The stinging of wind on my cheeks had vanished.
"Would you like to know about Vermont?" he asked. "Like who you murdered? Why you were so blindly convinced he was me?" He smiled, but I said nothing. I was used to his baiting. "You like it out here?" he asked.
"It's all right."
He laughed. "It's fucking better than all right. You ever seen a sky this big? I come out here all the time," he said. "You can lose yourself in that sky. But you wouldn't know anything about that, would you? You like hiding in the trees where no one can see you. You like the claustrophobic forests in the East. These wide open spaces scare the shit out…"
"Fuck off," I said. "You gonna mentally abuse me? Was that your plan? Guess what? I don't give a fuck anymore. I'm looking at prison, Orson. It's a lot scarier than you."
"You aren't going to prison," he said.
"Well unless you're planning on turning yourself in, I don't see any other…"
"I am."
I looked up from the dark river into his blue eyes. "Why? I'm not trying to talk you out of it. I just don't understand. It doesn't seem like something you'd ever do."
He sighed. "I don't know how to explain it without you hating me more. I'm proud of what I've done, Andy. It's on the news everyday, in the papers. I'm out there. The world just doesn't know me yet. I'm a nightmare, and I want the fear I bring to last. I don't wanna be caught, but because of the national attention that's inevitable. So I'm gonna act. I want people to wonder, 'What if he'd never turned himself in? How many more would he have taken?'"
"So kill yourself."
"I won't do that," he said, a flash of anger surfacing in his eyes before descending again, back to its infinite source. "That's what those cowards who shoot up fast-food restaurants and schools do after they've killed thirty people, because they weren't happy. Besides, you can't do interviews when you're dead. You can't have criminologists lining up to meet you. You can't watch movies about yourself, or read your own biography written by your famous brother."
"No," I said.
"Well, that's the price of your freedom, Andy. And I won't fucking argue with you about it. You'll spend the rest of your long life in prison or your short one on death row if I do anything but turn myself in. You see, killing me won't save you now. They already think you killed your own mother, and eventually Walter's blood'll find its way onto your hands, too."
I turned from my brother and looked across the plain. It grew darker each second. Moments ago, the river glittered. Now it moved, a stream of liquid black, as if flowing from a cold hell. The mountain range was indistinguishable now from the clumps of purple clouds hovering above the sunless horizon. The land had lost its texture to night.
"They'll execute you," I said. "You won't gloat long."
"Twelve years is the average from courtroom to death chamber. I can live with that."
The wind had begun to die down. "I had to come to Montana to hear this?" I asked.
"There's a town west of here. Choteau. I'm turning myself in there tomorrow, and I want you to be with me. It'd be a brotherly thing to do, and it might help you with your biography."
It made me sick on my stomach to think of writing a book about him. "Why Montana?"
"I'm in love with this state, Andy. I want to die at the prison in Deer Lodge."
"You've killed in too many states, Orson. Everybody's gonna want to prosecute you. You may end up on death row in Missouri or Kansas. It could be anywhere."
"But I can influence that decision before I turn myself in by making people think of me when they think of big sky country. I can do something so terrible here, everyone will want Montana to have the privilege of putting me to death."
I could feel my hands beginning to tremble. "How?" I asked, but he hopped off the wall.
Running towards the car, he shouted, "Let's go! I want a soft bed tonight!"
The pounding inside my head was excruciating. I needed a drink. As I climbed down and followed Orson back across the bridge, I searched myself for the hate towards him that had burned inside me, but it only felt like a vacuum in my chest. I just wanted it all to be over.
# # #
We hurtled west along the straight, lonely highway. Nothing existed outside the car save the pavement in the headlights. The landscape was draped in blackness, no moon or stars, and the drone of the engine had become imperceptible. Orson hadn't spoken since we left the wildlife refuge nearly two hours ago. He'd turned away from me, now leaning his head against the window as if he slept, but I couldn't tell for sure.
"You awake?" I whispered, but he didn't answer. "Orson, we're fifteen miles from Great Falls. Where are we stopping?"
"I'll let you know when. I'm not sleeping."
I glanced over to the passenger seat, hesitant, but then asked, "Who was David Parker?"
"If you just wait," he said, "you'll know everything. And I mean everything."
"When?"
"This time tomorrow," he said, becoming annoyed. "Every questio
n you can possibly think of will be answered. But for now, please shut the fuck up."
I drove in silence for the next forty-five minutes, through the small town of Great Falls, with its truck stops, 24-hour gas stations, and dirty motels. I wanted to stay in town because of all the restaurants, but I didn't ask. Even though I was starving, I drove on through and watched the collection of lights grow dim again in the rearview mirror.
Twenty miles west of town, where 87 branched off into 89, there was a gas station, the New Atlas Bar, and the Blue Sky Motel. According to several signs, this spot was the last place to get gas, lodging, and a cold beer for the next seventy miles.