58
CASEY
The man uses the pistol to threaten Ava out of her hiding place, and he takes us both into the house. She stops crying and gets that vacant look in her eyes again. Her nose is running and I wish I could wipe it.
The house is filthy and smells like rotting food and body odor, but the table is covered with yellow pill bottles and a quart-sized Ziploc bag full of pills. There’s tinfoil and wrappers, and another bag of white powder.
So this is the thing important enough for the Trendalls to trade their tiny daughter’s innocence.
For the first time, I’m glad there’s a hell.
He sits down across from me and keeps his gun on me, as he waits for what I assume are the Trendalls to come over and deal with me. His TV is on, and I see my face on the screen again.
“You look different,” he says, staring at me, “but I can see that it’s you.”
I don’t say a word. I just sit there and wait, looking around and taking stock of everything in the place that I can use if I’m given an opportunity. He’s locked the deadbolt on the back door. I look away, but in my mind I rehearse running to it, clicking the deadbolt to the right, throwing the door open, pushing through the screen door . . .
But what about Ava? I can’t leave her here, and I can’t just abduct her. But maybe she would follow me out and get away through the open gate.
I look around and see the dusty shelves with things I could throw or swing. There’s a chipped vase I could use if I could get close enough to it.
Next to me on the table is a heavy glass ashtray, full of butts and ashes, close enough for me to reach. I could throw that.
He’s taken my phone, but he’s got it in his front shirt pocket now. Dylan has kept calling, but the man has silenced it. I study his bloodshot eyes. If he’s a user and not just a dealer, that could work to my advantage.
Finally, I hear a vehicle outside, and the front door flies open. Nate and Tiffany rush in. “Mama!” Ava cries.
Tiffany and Nate ignore her. “Aw, man, this is perfect,” Nate says. “We couldn’t a planned this better.”
“You killed Cole,” I say through my teeth. “You ran him off the road. And you’re letting this scum molest your daughter in exchange for drugs.”
Defiant, Tiffany bends down in front of me. “You’re the one who ran him off the road. That’s what we told the cops. It’s all over the news. We could shoot you right now and tell them you came after us. The whole world would congratulate us.”
I glance at Ava, who’s standing silent by the door. “You can’t do this in front of your daughter,” I say.
“Ava’s mature for her age.”
The tragedy in that statement almost undoes me.
Nate lights a cigarette and inhales, then reaches for the man’s gun. But he won’t surrender it. Nate points to me. “You sit still and you don’t have to worry. Unless you give us a hard time, he’s not gon’ kill you.”
“What are you going to do?” I ask.
Nate pulls out his phone. “I’m just gon’ make a quick phone call.” He navigates with his thumb, then clicks Call.
I hold my breath as I hear a man answering. Nate says, “Detective Keegan, Nate Trendall here. You’ll never guess who’s sitting in front of me.”
59
CASEY
Sick, I spring to my feet at the name Keegan. I glance toward my phone, vibrating in the dealer’s pocket. I take a quick inventory again—the ashtray, the vase, the bottles . . .
Nate clicks off the phone. “He’ll be right here. Better clean up this place, Fred. Cops are on their way.”
Fred curses and grabs some wadded plastic grocery bags, shakes a couple of them open, and starts awkwardly bagging the drugs and bottles with just one hand, since the other one is holding the gun. It’s still pointed to me, but it moves around as he grabs the pills and bottles, shoving them into the bag.
I stand there a moment, rehearsing my choreography. Grab, throw, run . . . turn deadbolt, open door, push through screen door.
It’s too many steps. There are three of them, and they’ll catch me before I get there. I don’t move, and I wait, counting the seconds, imagining how far away Keegan is. Maybe he’s at Candace’s. How long will it take him to get here?
Fred drops a few pills, and Tiffany goes after them. He moves the gun from me to her. “Back off!” he yells.
I grab the ashtray and lunge for the door, throw the deadbolt. He swings back around with the pistol.
I spin the ashtray like a Frisbee toward Fred’s head. It hits him, knocking him back, and I get the door open and throw open the screen. It bounces behind me as I race across the yard toward the open gate.
A gunshot jerks me—pain crashing like lightning—as I reach the gate. I keep going . . . outside the fence, through the neighbor’s backyard . . . between the houses on the other side.
I’m bleeding as I run, and the pain is almost paralyzing, but I make myself keep going. I emerge from between the houses on the street where the car is, but there’s a family in the front yard near it, so I can’t get to it. I race across the street, through some woods and up a side street, until I see a gas station up ahead. There’s a bathroom on the outside. I stumble toward it and go in, locking the door. I try to catch my breath. I’m dizzy, nauseated, shivering, and sweating. I look in the smudged mirror.
My shoulder is soaked with blood and I can’t move my arm. I press my hand against the wound and turn around to see my back. The back of my shoulder is bloody too. Exit wound, I think. I don’t know if that’s good or bad.
I sit on the lid of the toilet and hug myself. It’s over. Keegan will find me now. I’m too weak to run. Keegan will murder me before I get to the jail, and they’ll say my killing spree is over. Little Ava will go on suffering, and no one will stop them.
All I can do is wait for them to come.
60
CASEY
I don’t know how much time has passed when I hear banging on the bathroom door. It’s time, I think. They’re here.
I don’t answer. I stay back from the door, sure they’ll kick it in. Then they’ll throw me to the filthy floor, handcuff me, and drag me out in front of everyone.
But instead of the door crashing open, I hear a voice. “It’s Dylan. Open the door!”
Gratitude propels me up and I turn the lock, pull the heavy door open. “Dylan!”
He glances at my bloody shoulder but doesn’t miss a beat. “Come on. Into the car.”
My new car is a couple feet from the door. He opens the back door and I fall onto the seat. He slams the door shut and runs around to the driver’s side.
I lie down, shivering. He doesn’t say a word until we’re several miles away. Finally, I ask, “How did you find me?”
“The blood trail,” he says. “I got to the house right after you got away and saw them running after you. They thought I was Keegan and told me they shot you and you ran away. I told them I’d take it from there.”
“They called him. He’s coming.” I look down at my wound. The blood spot is bigger, and blood covers my hand. “Where are we going? Back to Wichita?”
“No,” he says. “I’m taking you to the hospital.”
I sit up. “No, you can’t. I’m fine. There’s an exit wound.”
“You’re not fine. The bullet could have nicked an artery. I’m not going to let you bleed to death.”
“I ran half a mile like this. I’m okay.” I don’t know why my breath is so short. “Dylan, you can’t take me to the hospital. You know what will happen. Just . . . just give me something to compress it. We can stop the bleeding.”
“You can’t even use your arm.”
I’m sweating but freezing. My teeth are chattering.
He takes off his shirt, leaving only his undershirt. He turns down a dirt road off the main road we’re on and drives for a mile or so. Then he pulls over and gets into the backseat.
“Sit up,” he says, and I pull myself up. He
gets a jacket I was lying on and drapes it over my shoulders. “You’re going into shock,” he says.
He wads his shirt and presses it to my exit wound beneath the jacket. “Lean back on this,” he says. “Press against it.”
I do what he says, gritting my teeth with the pain.
He presses the front wound with the heel of his hand and slips his arm around me, sliding me against him. “Warm up,” he says, and I lean into him, warming.
My teeth stop chattering, and I lean my head against his shoulder. He pulls my wig off and leans his jaw against my head. “I don’t think it’s as much blood as I thought. I mean, it’s bad, but it seems to be slowing. If it were an artery, it would keep bleeding. But you have to go to the hospital, Casey. None of this matters if you don’t.”
Nothing seems to matter anyway. “I’ve been praying,” I whisper. “Talking to God. I feel him listening.”
“He is, Casey. I promise you, he is.”
“Your car,” I say, following random thoughts. “It’s parked on the street behind that house. Keegan will see it when he’s looking for me.”
“I know,” he says. “I saw it when I was looking. I got your stuff out of it. It’s in your trunk. We’ll worry about getting my car back later. When I was following your blood trail, I called the detective on Cole’s case and told her where the truck was, and that the man has been abusing Ava.”
“You did?”
“Yes. That’ll explain my car being there. They’ll just think I’m looking for you on foot.”
“He had drugs and pill bottles—white powder and about a gallon of white pills. Tell them that. Tell them he cleaned them up when Trendall called Keegan but I don’t know where he hid them. Ava was terrified. He may have abused her since Cole’s death—maybe today. They could examine her . . .”
“Ava’s probably okay for now as long as they think cops are all over that place.” He slides his arm out from behind me and leans up to his cup holder. He grabs a bottle of water, opens it. “Here, drink this.”
I gulp the water down, so thirsty. It’s like liquid energy.
“I think the bleeding has stopped,” he says. “But I need someone to look at you. I have an idea.”
He lays me back down, makes sure I’m comfortable. Then he dials a number as he gets back into the driver’s seat. “Dex, it’s me. Dylan.”
I can hear a man’s voice on the other end. “Dude, I’ve been calling you and calling you. Your phone goes straight to voice mail.”
“Yeah, that phone is in the belly of an eighteen-wheeler. Where are you, man?”
“I was headed to Dallas. I’m about halfway there. I thought I might need to rescue you.”
“You do. Can you meet me in Tyler in about an hour?”
“You bet.”
“I have a patient for you,” he says. “Your medic skills still sharp?”
“Like riding a bicycle,” he says. “What you got?”
“Gunshot wound.”
“You?”
“No, her.”
I realize he’s told a friend about me. I wonder who this guy is, why Dylan trusts him. But if he does, I do too.
61
DYLAN
We get to Tyler in forty-five minutes, and as I enter the city limits, I call Dex back. “You there yet?”
“Yeah, I’m at a drugstore here, getting supplies. You?”
“Just now. Where should we meet?”
“There’s a deer camp a friend of mine took me to once. Hit Rio Range and go south about three miles. There’s a mile marker sign. Don’t remember the number, but right after that is a dirt driveway. Nobody’ll be there this time of year.”
“Can you get in?”
“Nope. But there’s a gazebo on a pond, and I think it’s a good place to work. Real private. Not your usual deer camp. How is she?”
“Okay,” I say. “The bleeding stopped.”
I’ve been keeping her talking all the way, just to make sure she wasn’t losing consciousness. She’s told me about when she and Hannah were kids, things they used to do with her mom and dad, where they went for Thanksgivings, what they got each Christmas, where they went on vacations . . . anything I can think of to keep her with me.
I make my way to Rio Range and turn south. I set my mileage to count off three miles, and then I see the marker. The dirt driveway is right past it, and there are fresh tire tracks. I turn in and drive up the dirt road and see Dex getting out of his truck.
“Forgot to tell you,” I tell Casey. “Dex is an amputee.”
“What did he lose?” she asks.
“Arm and leg.”
“And he’s going to do surgery on me?”
“I’ll help. Don’t worry.”
“How did it happen?” she asks.
“IED explosion.” I don’t say more about that. “You can trust him. He’s a good guy, and he’s been helping me build our case.”
I stop the car and get out, bump my fist against Dex’s hook, then I open the back door and help Casey out. She’s clearly weak, but she’s sitting up and I see that there isn’t more blood on the seat than there was before. I pull her to her feet and put my arm around her to steady her. “Dex, this is Casey.”
He doesn’t offer his hook, but extends his left hand instead. “Nice to meet you.”
She holds up her hands. “Sorry, I’m kind of bloody. Thank you for coming.”
“Yeah, let me take a look at that. Let’s get you over here to the picnic table.”
“Is this where they gut the deer?” she asks.
He chuckles. “No, they do that over there. This is for eating and performing minor surgery on gunshot victims. So what happened?”
I tell him as he examines her wound.
A little while later, he’s cleaned her up and sewn up her wounds with my help, then bandaged them and made her a sling. “I don’t think the shoulder is broken, but I can’t vouch for the tendons and ligaments.”
He puts the sling over her head and helps her put her arm in it. “At least it’s your left arm. You’re right-handed, right?”
“Yeah,” she says. “Were you right-handed?”
“Was. I’ve learned to do things with my left hand, but I still write like a third grader. They say learning to write with the other hand sharpens your brain, though, so . . . I’m probably up to a 180 IQ by now.”
“Were you and Dylan in the same explosion?” she asks.
I’m quiet as Dex answers. “Yeah. If he wasn’t there, I’d be dead.”
“I remember that differently,” I say.
“You got me out of the fire, Pretty Boy. Must have dragged me a block.”
I seriously have no memory of that. I just remember his body blocking mine as the bomb went off.
“He saved me too,” she says, and she smiles at me. Her face is pale, but I can see that she feels better.
“Well, I don’t know what y’all plan to do next, but you’re both gonna need new clothes. You can’t be seen with blood all over you. Why don’t I run to Walmart or somewhere and get you some clothes?”
Casey gives him her size and some cash that she has in her wallet in her jeans pocket. “Can you also get two new burner phones? They took mine, which will lead them to his.”
Dex gives me a look.
“I destroyed mine on the way over,” I say.
Dex heads off, leaving us here alone.
She’s sitting on the picnic table, looking out at the pond, and I go sit beside her.
“I like him,” she says.
“Told you. I brought him in when I couldn’t be two places at once. He’s been trailing Keegan and Rollins for me. He’s been helpful.”
I put my arm around her and pull her against me, and she lays her head on my shoulder.
“You remember when we talked on the phone that first time,” she asks, “and you told me to look where God is working? To see it?”
“Yeah,” I say.
“I have been looking. I’ve seen. You know h
ow he’s been working?”
“How?”
“He brought you to me. He does care.”
There’s a knot in my throat, but I try to talk around it. “Yes, he does.”
She looks up at me and I gaze down at her for a stricken moment, my heart breaking at the paleness of her eyes. Tears fill them as I move closer, fearing she might jerk back. But she moves infinitesimally closer, and as our lips meet, a thousand emotions roil up inside me . . . drowning me . . . breathing life into me. She touches my jaw, her fingertips like feathers. I touch hers, the soft, baby skin of her cheekbone, wet with salty tears. She smells of rubbing alcohol, but it hits me like a perfume that will forevermore remind me of her. When the kiss breaks, she looks at me, keeping her hand where it is. I press my forehead against hers.
She speaks in a whisper. “I have to go, you know. You have to stay.”
I pull back. “No, I’ll go with you. I’ll take you where you want to go, and we’ll work on—”
“No, it won’t work. If they find out you were with me, that you helped me, you’ll go to jail at the very least. Obstruction, accessory, harboring . . . We need more. You’re the only one who can get it.”
“But I don’t want you out there alone.”
“I’ve done it before. I can do it again.”
“But you’re too identifiable now.”
“I’m good with disguises.”
My mind races. I try to think it through, her lost again, me here. “You have to tell me where you’re going. I can’t be in the dark.”
“I will when I get there. I still have my Liana Winter ID.”
I can’t stand the thought of losing her again, now that I’ve found her. “Casey, I don’t want you to. I feel like I’ve waited my whole life . . .”
“What’s the alternative?” she whispers. “I could turn myself in now, take our chances, try to get what we have to the press. But Keegan’s too smart. They might be investigated for the money thing, but how can we prove they killed my dad or Brent or Sara Meadows? Their partners at the department will cover it up like they’ve done for years. They’ll make my family suffer. If I ever make it to a cell, I’ll wind up hanging from the light fixture, and they’ll say it’s suicide. We need more.”
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