by Haylen Beck
‘Hello?’
He stifled a gasp of startlement.
‘Hello? Ronnie?’
‘Mary, listen to me. Don’t come back to the station. Don’t go home. Meet me in thirty minutes. You know where.’
‘Ronnie, what’s—’
Whiteside hung up, shoved the phone back into his pocket. He flushed the toilet, exited the stall, washed his hands. Then he strode through the office without looking at Mitchell, Showalter, or Abrahms, out to his car.
38
DANNY WOKE IN pure darkness, the nauseating sensation of falling, disoriented. a few moments passed before he remembered where he was: the upstairs storeroom of the soft-furnishings place he’d scouted earlier in the day.
Once he’d left Audra at the guesthouse, he’d gone straight to his car and driven out of Silver Water, climbed up out of the basin, into the hills. There, he’d pulled over, waited for the sky to turn from dark blue to black.
He’d watched the orange band on the horizon as it was devoured by the mountains, thought about the beauty of the country. Danny had not ventured out of San Francisco often in his life. Mya had talked about travelling when Sara was older. Explore America, maybe even Europe. That dream had turned to dust, along with his wife.
Once darkness had smothered the land, he headed back to town, switching off his headlights as he worked through the lowly houses on the outskirts, crossed the bridge, and turned into the alley at the top of Main Street. He left the car there, out of view of the street, and worked his way down the rear of the properties until he found the soft-furnishings place. He was inside within two minutes; the store wasn’t alarmed. Upstairs, he found a box full of uncovered cushions. He emptied them onto the floor, formed them into a nest, and set his phone’s alarm for three a.m.
Now awake and alert, he checked his watch: two forty-six. But what had woken him?
He listened.
There: movement, a footstep. A rustling. Leather on linoleum, fabric on fabric.
Danny reached for the small cluster of belongings he’d left by the nest, his shoes, wallet, phone. The Smith & Wesson Model 60 and the ammunition remained hidden in the rental car, in the trunk, beneath the spare wheel, along with the cable ties, wire cutters, tape, knife, and other items he’d bought at the hardware store in Phoenix.
Noise on the stairs. Two pairs of feet. One heavier than the other.
He knew then who it was, and he felt relief that he’d left the pistol behind. If he’d had it here, it would have provided all the excuse they needed to shoot him down. He got to his feet, stuffed his possessions into his pockets, backed toward the wall, put his hands up.
Shuffling and whispers on the other side of the door that led to the stairway. A sliver of light moved around the doorframe.
‘I hear you,’ Danny said. ‘Come on in. I’m not armed.’
Silence for a moment, then the door burst inward, the flashlight beam blinding him. He put his right hand out to shield his eyes.
A click, and the overhead fluorescent light stuttered into life.
Whiteside and Collins faced him, both dressed in civilian clothes. Collins aimed a Glock at his chest while Whiteside switched off the flashlight.
‘Just passing through, huh?’ Whiteside said.
‘Thought I’d stick around another day,’ Danny said, his hands still raised. ‘How’d you find me?’
‘Wasn’t hard. I knew you wouldn’t leave town like you were told, there’s plenty of empty properties, so I just checked for any sign of a B&E. And here you are.’
‘Here I am,’ Danny said.
‘You should’ve gone to the motel over in Gutteridge,’ Whiteside said. ‘It’s not much, but Jesus, it’s better than this.’
‘I’m easy to please.’
‘Yeah, and you got a smart mouth on you too. Now, this presents me with a dilemma. Do I arrest you for vagrancy, breaking-and-entering, or both?’
‘Or I could just be on my way,’ Danny said. ‘No harm done.’
‘No harm done?’ Whiteside laughed. ‘Boy, you crack me up, you really do. You done plenty of harm. You’re unarmed, you say.’
‘Yeah,’ Danny said, smiling. ‘Pity, right?’
Whiteside returned the smile. ‘Well, it might have simplified matters. You don’t mind if I check, though, do you? Just put your hands on your head and take a couple of steps forward.’
Danny did as he was told and stood quiet and still while Whiteside patted him down, went through his pockets. The sheriff examined what he found, leafing through the contents of the wallet, studying the cards, counting the cash. He pulled the driver’s license out, read the details, before slipping it back inside.
Whiteside handed the wallet and phone over. Danny lowered his hands, took them, and put them back into his pockets.
He saw Whiteside’s fist coming, but too late to block it.
The blow caught Danny on the left side of his jaw, rocked his head back and to the right. His legs disappeared from under him as the room tilted. He hit the floor shoulder first. Although every instinct told him to get up, fight back, he made himself stay down. As his mind and vision steadied, he put a hand to his cheek, tested his jaw. No break, maybe a tooth loosened, that’s all. He’d had worse.
‘Stand up,’ Whiteside said.
Danny spat on the floor, saw blood on the linoleum. ‘I’m okay here,’ he said.
‘Get up, goddamn it.’
Whiteside drove his boot into Danny’s flank, below the ribs. Danny’s diaphragm convulsed, expelled the air from his lungs, denied him breath to fill them again. He tried to get onto his hands and knees, crawl away, but Whiteside kicked again, this time connecting with his thigh. Danny rolled onto his side, held his hands up, enough.
‘Get on your feet,’ the sheriff said. ‘You got ten seconds before I kick every one of your ribs in.’
Danny got his knees under him, then doubled over with a coughing fit until his sight blurred. Whiteside’s hard hand gripped him under the arm, hauled him upright.
‘All right,’ Whiteside said, stepping away. ‘Mr Lee, I would appreciate it very much if you would put your shoes on and accompany Deputy Collins and me outside.’
‘Am I under arrest?’
Whiteside pulled a revolver from the back of his waistband. He cocked the hammer, levelled the muzzle at Danny’s stomach.
‘No,’ he said, ‘you are not under arrest.’
39
SEAN’S HANDS BLED and his shoulders ached. He’d been working at the wood all night, driving the blade in, stabbing, digging, twisting, chips and splinters falling away. By inserting the blade between the edge of the trapdoor and its frame and running it along the length, he’d been able to find where the bolt was located. The door was composed of nine boards screwed from the other sided to a Z-shaped frame. He had considered trying to pry the frame away from the boards, but he knew the blade would break long before he even loosened it. Instead, he concentrated on the area around the bolt. The board it was attached to was no more than a half inch thick, and the wood was old. Not rotten, but not as strong as it had once been. Even so, it was slow and hard work, and blood trickled down his forearms.
Sean had paused a while ago to rest and give Louise the second dose of antibiotics. The first had already seemed to have an effect, her forehead cooler to the touch, her shivering abated. Now she sat upright on the mattress, watching her brother at the top of the steps.
‘You nearly done?’ she said, her voice hoarse.
‘No,’ he said.
After a rattling cough, she asked, ‘When will you be done?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Not for a while yet.’
‘But when?’
‘In a while,’ he said, raising his voice.
‘When we get out, are we going to find Mommy?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Where will she be?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Then where do we go?’
‘I don’t know.
We just run, as far away as we can.’
‘But where?’
‘I don’t know. Look, just lie down and get some sleep. I’ll tell you when it’s done.’
She did as he suggested, lay down on the mattress, her hands clasped beneath her cheek for a pillow. Sean felt a tug of regret for getting snippy with her. He dismissed it and went back to work.
A memory crept in from a faraway place in his mind: a lecture from his father, one of the few times Patrick Kinney had tried to communicate with his son. About the importance of hard work. Nothing good in life could be gained without effort. Hard work was how he accounted for his wealth. But Sean suspected it was more to do with his grandmother’s money.
So far he had chipped the wood away from two of the screws that secured the lock to the door. He guessed there were four. All he had to do was weaken the wood around the screws, push up on the door as hard as he could, and the lock would tear away. It had taken a good many hours to locate the first screw, but from that he’d been able to figure out the position of the second. Now he was having trouble finding the third.
Sean tried a spot closer to the edge. He stabbed upward, burying the blade’s tip maybe a quarter inch. Then he rocked it back and forth in line with the grain, then against it, widening the cut. Another stab, more rocking and twisting, and a piece the size of a thumbnail fell away. One more and …
There. The hardness inside, something unyielding. The screw. Now he had to circle it, strip and chip away the wood, leaving the screw nothing to cling to.
He couldn’t help but grin, relish the savage pleasure of it.
A few minutes later he had worked about two thirds of the way around the screw. Already he could imagine the splintering, cracking sound the lock would make as it tore away, how the air would feel when he and Louise were out there in the trees. How wonderful it would be. Encouraged, he dug harder and deeper, twisted the knife further.
Then the blade snapped.
He’d been applying his weight to the knife, putting his shoulders behind it. Then it was gone and he was pushing against air, falling forward, the handle still gripped in his bloodied fingers. He let it go, reached out for the rail, grabbed hold, cried out as splinters bit into the already raw flesh. His body turned around that point, his legs carrying his momentum, and his shoulder taking the worst of it.
Sean hung there, one hand on the rail, his back against the steps, watching the knife handle bounce down the steps to the floor. He looked up, saw the blade still wedged in the wood. His feet found a step and he straightened, examined his palm and the splinters in the heel.
‘Shit,’ he said, picking the biggest of them away.
‘You said a curse,’ Louise said.
‘Yeah, and I’m gonna say some more.’
He looked back up at the blade, down at the handle, knew that their one chance had broken. He rested his forearm on his knees, lowered his head. Then he wept, too tired to care that Louise could see.
40
THEY HAD DRIVEN for almost an hour, Danny at the wheel of his rental car, Whiteside directly behind him. Occasionally Danny felt the muzzle of the pistol through the seat back. In the rearview mirror, he could see the single headlight of the motorcycle, Collins following them.
The car bounced and juddered along the track. They had left the road behind long ago, now using the unsurfaced trails that ranchers used for their ATVs and pickups. It occurred to Danny that this was about as far from civilization as he had ever been.
There was only one reason to bring him out here. They probably wouldn’t even attempt to bury him. Just leave him and the car out here in the desert, let the scavengers pick at his remains until someone chanced upon the scene, months from now, maybe years. He thought of Sara and wondered if she would be the same when he saw her again, frozen at the age she was taken, or would she have grown? If anyone had asked, Danny would have denied believing in such things, but deep down he felt it, the thread that attached him to his wife and child.
He thought of Audra Kinney and her children, knew they were alive out there somewhere. And he wondered if there was any hope for them, or were they already lost?
‘Slow down,’ Whiteside said.
Danny lifted his foot from the accelerator, eased it onto the brake. From twenty down to ten, to five, to a crawl.
‘Turn off here, to the left.’
The car jerked and thumped down a shallow slope as Danny steered it between the cacti. Ahead, the lights caught the shapes of rocky outcrops.
‘There,’ Whiteside said. ‘Between those. Now stop. Leave the engine running.’
Danny applied the handbrake, put both hands on the wheel. He watched Collins draw up beside the car. She shut the bike’s engine off, kicked out the stand, and dismounted. She hung the helmet from the handlebars. For the first time Danny noticed the second helmet fixed to the pillion seat, and he knew how they planned to get back to town.
Collins drew her Glock from its holster, aimed at Danny’s head through the glass. She reached out and opened the door.
‘Out,’ she said.
He did as he was told, took his time about it, smooth and easy movements. Collins couldn’t hide the tremors in her hand as she motioned with the pistol for him to move in front of the car. The rear door opened and Whiteside climbed out. He moved around to join the others, the three of them glowing in the headlights.
‘I guess you understand what’s happening here,’ Whiteside said.
‘Yeah,’ Danny said.
‘Then get down on your knees.’
‘No,’ Danny said.
Whiteside took a step closer. ‘What?’
‘I haven’t kneeled to any man since my father died,’ Danny said, ‘and I won’t kneel to you, motherfucker.’
He saw Collins move from the corner of his eye, felt her foot catch him behind his left knee, buckling it. Grit dug into his kneecap.
‘Just answer me one thing,’ Danny said.
‘Sorry, friend, you don’t get any last words.’
‘Why are you doing this? You know what those children are going to suffer. You think the money’s going to keep the nightmares out of your head?’
‘I served in the Gulf,’ Whiteside said. ‘I saw more horrible shit than you can imagine. I haven’t had a good night’s sleep since I left the military, so I don’t believe this will leave me any worse off. As for why, it’s pretty simple. I am sick and fucking tired of being poor. I’m fifty-five years old and I have nothing. Not a goddamn thing. That a good enough reason for you?’
Danny squinted through the glare of the headlights, seeking to meet Whiteside’s gaze.
‘My daughter’s name was Sara,’ he said. ‘She liked dancing and reading. She wanted to be a gymnast or a dog trainer, she could never make up her mind. She was six years old when they took her. I try not to think about what they did to her. But I can’t help it. It killed my wife. It killed me too; I just didn’t lie down.’
‘Go on and do it,’ Whiteside said to Collins.
She put the Glock to Danny’s temple. He turned his head so he could see the fear on her face. The terror. The rise and fall of her shoulders, the quickness of her eyes.
‘Their names are Sean and Louise. He’s ten years old. She’s six. Same age as my little girl was. You know what they’re going to do to them.’
‘Shut up,’ Collins said.
‘Pull the trigger,’ Whiteside said.
‘You got any kids?’ Danny asked. He saw the flicker in her expression. ‘You do, don’t you? Two? Three?’
‘Shut up.’
Whiteside took another step. ‘Goddamn it, Collins.’
‘Maybe just the one,’ Danny said. ‘One, right? Boy or girl?’
Collins slammed the Glock into the back of Danny’s head. A starburst back there, a brilliant flash behind his eyes. He fell forward, got his hands down, pushed himself up again.
‘You doing this for your kid? So long as your child doesn’t suffer, right? But Sean and Lo
uise, they’re going to suffer. Every dollar you spend cost those children their—’
Another blow, another luminous starburst, and this time Danny collapsed to the ground, sand and grit scouring his cheek. A sickly swell of pain inside his skull, like a balloon expanding. Don’t pass out, he told himself. Don’t. He got his hands under his chest, pushed himself up once more.
‘For Christ’s sake, just do it,’ Whiteside said. ‘Or do I have to?’
Danny ignored him, turned once more to Collins. Her eyes wide, her breath ragged, her teeth bared.
‘Are you really willing to make those children, Sean and Louise, suffer and die for money?’ Danny nodded toward Whiteside. ‘He can live with it. But you’re not like him. Are you? Can you face—’
She swung once more, but this time Danny was ready.
He ducked to the side, seized her wrist with his left hand, used her momentum, let her fall into him. His right hand enclosed hers, pulled her arm out and up, found her trigger finger, squeezed one shot, then another. Both cracked the air over Whiteside’s shoulder. No chance of a hit, but it was enough to make Whiteside drop to the ground.
Danny wrested the pistol from Collins’ hand, pressed the hot muzzle to her temple as Whiteside sprawled in the dirt. Collins struggled, but Danny pressed the Glock harder into her temple.
‘Stop,’ he said. ‘Be still.’
She did so, and Danny got his soles on the ground, his back against the car’s grille. He pushed up with his legs, bringing Collins with him. Whiteside got to his knees, but Danny let another shot ring over his head.
‘Stay down,’ he said. ‘Toss the weapon.’
Whiteside licked his lips, flexed his fingers.
‘Don’t do it,’ Danny said. ‘I’ll take your head off. Toss it.’
Whiteside remained still for a few moments, hate in his eyes. Then he threw the revolver away, out into the dark pools beyond the reach of the car’s headlights.
‘Put your hands on your head,’ Danny said. Then into Collins’ ear, ‘Take the keys for the bike out of your pocket. Throw them that way.’