by Theresa Weir
“Her belongings should be in a bag in her closet.”
Daniel checked. “Are you sure this is where it would be?” he asked.
“Positive.”
The nurse loosened the tape on the back of Cleo’s hand then gently removed the needle. There were the customary release papers to sign, then the nurse bid Cleo a cheery farewell.
Alone with Daniel, Cleo picked up one of the bags he’d dropped on the bed. It felt weird to think of his going into a store and buying clothes for her.
Here they’d been as intimate as two people could be, yet his buying clothes seemed more familiar than the act of sex. Why? Was it because it would have required more thought on his part? Was it because he would have had to think about her, about her size, maybe even her likes and dislikes?
She hadn’t looked at his purchases yet, she told herself. For all she knew, he could have run into a store and grabbed the first thing he saw.
She pulled out a bundle of clothes. No pink polyester pantsuit, thank God. And nothing orange, which would have been even worse. And no Ozarks T-shirt. No, what he’d gotten was something she might have picked out herself. A skirt with a pattern of tiny flowers. A short-sleeved top with a V-neck. Panties. Plain bikinis of white cotton, with a bra to match. For her feet, sandals not unlike the ones she’d had.
She hadn’t cried, not once, during her entire ordeal. She hadn’t even begged for her life. But now she felt the pressure of tears against the back of her throat. She felt a stinging in her eyes. She blinked, her fingers curling tightly into the fabric of the top.
“Hey, if you don’t like them,” he said quickly, “I can get something else.”
He tried to take the clothes from her, but she wouldn’t let go.
“It’s okay.” His little show of panic got her past the danger point. She no longer felt like dissolving into a storm of weeping. “These are fine.”
“Right. Okay.” He dug into the front pocket of his jeans and pulled out a knife. He opened it and sliced the tags from the clothes. Finished, he threw the tags away and closed the knife blade against his leg before pocketing it. Then he stepped outside the door to give her privacy.
Cleo slipped on the panties, but couldn’t undo the knot in the gown. She ended up calling for Daniel’s help. She bent her head, chin to chest, while he fumbled at the back of her neck, untying the knot. Then he quickly disappeared again.
She let the gown fall to her waist, then went about trying to fasten the bra. Her arms were too weak, her fingers too stiff, and she had to give up. The top was easier. That was followed by the skirt, and finally the sandals, which she dropped to the floor, toed into position, and slipped on her feet. They were a half size too small, but it didn’t matter because of the open back. She stuck the bra in the bag.
Daniel appeared again, his eyes going over her, lingering on her chest, where the fabric clung to her breasts, then moving back to her face. “Okay?” he asked.
She grabbed the bag and stood, waiting a moment for a spell of light-headedness to pass.
Daniel had parked near the front door of the hospital, but her legs were shaking by the time she was inside the truck, Daniel closing the door behind her.
He was acting as if nothing had happened between them. And maybe that was good. She was in no shape to try to analyze the situation, if there was a situation to analyze. She didn’t know how to have any kind of relationship with anyone anymore. She didn’t want to know how. At least that’s what she told herself. It had been easy to be with Daniel that night because she’d thought she would never see him again. That knowledge had given her a freedom, a lack of inhibition, that she normally wouldn’t have had.
He put the truck in gear and pulled away from the curb. “There are no leads on Campbell -”
“It’s just my word against his, and who’s going to believe me?” she finished for him.
“What do you think about going back to the barn? Maybe you could do that trance thing and pick up something.”
“Does that mean you no longer think I’m a fraud?”
“You may have faked it last time, but earlier… I’m thinking that was real.”
She thought about what she’d seen that day, about the hole in the ground. She’d assumed it was a premonition, that she was the one in the hole, but maybe not.
“Go to the barn,” she told him.
“I didn’t mean now. I meant when you’re feeling stronger. I saw how you were shaking.”
“I won’t be able to rest until Campbell is in jail. Drive me to the barn.”
It was early evening when Daniel pulled the truck to a stop in the same weed-filled lane he’d carried Cleo through the day before. All she recalled was a hazy sensation of relief, of feeling safe, the sun shining down with a brilliance that was blinding, the drugs Campbell had pumped into her, running warm and slow through her veins.
Now the sun was low in the sky, big and orange. My favorite color, she thought with a wry twist of her lips. The sun scattered light over everything, washing the sky, the air, in a hazy glow.
“We don’t have to do this now,” Daniel said, as if sensing her trepidation.
“I need to.” She slipped from the truck, her legs feeling a little stronger. She walked slowly in the direction of the barn, her feet, with their red toenails, moving over the packed dirt of the lane, like her vision, yet unlike it. In her vision she’d worn the black slip. In her vision she’d been barefoot. In her vision she’d been alone.
The shadow of the barn crept over her, blocking the sunlight, bringing with it a damp chill, even though the evening was warm. Without the brightness of the sun, everything turned colorless, awash in drab grays.
Daniel waited for her at the barn door.
She froze, unable to make herself take another step. “Maybe this is far enough.” She closed her eyes, trying to picture the interior. Stalls. A jagged hole in the ceiling. She imagined herself taking slow steps, finding herself drawn to the area of the barn where the floor was dirt.
Strange, she thought, to have a dirt floor. But the dirt was significant. There was a spot, a very certain spot… Something secret. Something no one is supposed to find.
She opened her eyes and stared at Daniel. He looked tired, as if he hadn’t slept in days. His eyes were glassy, bloodshot. Those eyebrows. Those beautiful, sun-bleached eyebrows. He had the most intriguing face. Looking at him made her feel safe…
If they’d met under other circumstances, would things have been different? What if they’d taken classes at a college somewhere, and during the break they’d had coffee together? Or maybe they’d used the same library and tried to check out the same book at the same time, realizing they shared an interest in ancient civilizations?
A different life. Another life. Far, far away.
“I have to go inside,” she told him.
He nodded and opened the door.
“The smell.” She brought a hand to her nose.
“It smells like an old barn.”
“No, this is different.” She stepped forward, into the darkness, into the smell, the putrid smell of bad things, bad places.
Light poured down from the hole above and cut through the cracks in the walls, looking like laser beams, starting out fine and condensed, to broaden and finally fade to nothing.
Her sandals whispered indistinct words, shushing across the floor as she moved toward the spot she needed to show Daniel. She walked past the stalls until she stood beneath the hole in the roof. “Here. You have to dig here.”
Daniel rummaged around to return a minute later with a rusty shovel. With his foot, he pressed the shovel deep, digging until sweat ran down his face and soaked his shirt.
She knew what he would find. “A pumpkin,” she said with conviction.
Leave. Turn around and leave.
Daniel stopped digging to lean over the hole, hands braced on his knees. “Maybe you’d better go.”
Her thoughts exactly, but her feet wouldn’t move.
“I don’t think you should see this.”
Too late. She’d already seen it in her mind. “A print dress,” she said. “Red, with white polka dots-no, white flowers on it.”
Suddenly Cleo was aware of a change. Something was different. Something wasn’t right. She turned-and saw Burton Campbell standing there with his elect-me-for-mayor smile, a gun in his hand.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Daniel heard Cleo’s gasp. Keeping a grip on the shovel, he slowly straightened from the hole to find himself looking down the barrel of a revolver.
“Burton Campbell,” he said with no surprise. A range of possible tactics raced through Daniel’s mind, each quickly discarded. Cleo was standing too close to Campbell. If Daniel could get her to step away without attracting the guy’s attention…
“I don’t know what you’ve done,” Daniel began in what he hoped was a conversational tone, “but anything more can only make things worse.”
“Don’t use those hostage negotiation tactics on me. You of all people should know they don’t work. Didn’t you single-handedly cause the death of a mother and her kids?”
Daniel stopped breathing.
“Jo told me all about it,” Campbell said. “She tells me a lot of things. You know Jo. There’s nothing she likes better than being the first link in the gossip chain.”
The deaths had been Daniel’s fault, brought about by an error in judgment and his damn inability to follow rules, follow protocol. He hadn’t thought the kidnapper-who was no more than a scared kid-would pull the trigger. But Daniel had been mistaken. He’d pushed too hard too fast, and by the time he and his team rushed the house, no one was left alive, not even the kidnapper.
“You’re just some charity case of Jo’s,” Campbell said. “She hired you out of pity. She told me you’d never get a job anywhere else. Nobody wants a mess like you. How old were those kids?”
“Shut up,” Daniel said.
“Just goes to show what a fuck-up you are.”
Daniel repositioned his grip on the shovel handle.
“He’s baiting you,” Cleo said. “Don’t listen to him.”
“You pretend to be in Egypt because of that brother of yours, but I know you’re using him as an excuse. You’re afraid. Isn’t that right? You’re nothing but a loser with a pitiful moron for a brother.”
A cry of rage tore from Daniel’s throat. With one hand, he shoved Cleo out of the way, with the other he swung at Campbell. The shovel connected with flesh and bone, the blade breaking away, leaving Daniel holding a piece of rotten wood. He threw down the handle and dove, grabbing Campbell with both hands. Daniel heard the crack of a gunshot. Pain, hot and searing, ripped through his shoulder, the impact throwing him to the ground.
“Daniel!” Cleo screamed.
Time stuttered, stopped, then started again.
Cleo’s mind pulled back-a way of distancing herself from the horror playing out before her. She watched Campbell raise his arm until the gun in his hand pointed straight at Daniel. Cleo lunged, throwing her body into Campbell. As he went down, the gun exploded, a bullet hit the wall with a pitht.
“Run!” Daniel shouted. He was lying on the ground, one hand pressed to his shoulder. “Go!” he yelled, his voice thick with agony.
Campbell shoved himself to his feet, face flushed, composure gone. “Outside!” He waved the gun wildly. When nobody moved, his face turned an even brighter red. “Now!”
Cleo took a step toward Daniel.
“Stay away from him,” Campbell ordered.
She ignored his command. Instead, she grabbed Daniel’s good arm and helped him to his feet. Sweat trailed down the side of his face. Blood, shiny and red, glistened against the dark green plaid of his shirt.
They left through a back door. From there, Campbell prodded them forward into a densely wooded area. Brambles cut Cleo’s arms and ripped her skirt. Tangled, twisting vines caught her ankles and pulled her hair.
The thickness of the vegetation forced them to walk in a line. Cleo took the lead while Daniel stumbled along behind her. She heard his labored breathing, heard him crash to the ground.
She swung around in time to see him struggling to his feet. Once upright, he looked into her eyes. In them, she saw so many things, but the main one, the one that broke her heart, was regret.
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” she told him.
He squeezed his eyes shut. He straightened and his breath caught.
“Go,” Campbell commanded. “Move.”
He was taking them to a place where no one would find them.
From behind, Campbell barked out directions until they finally worked their way down an embankment.
Cleo stopped and Daniel ran into her.
Yards away, an open well protruded from the ground, the low walls lined with stone, the stones covered with years of moss. No one would find them there.
“I’m going to rush him again,” Daniel whispered, his lips barely moving. “When I do, I want you to run like hell and don’t look back.”
“He’ll kill you.”
“He’s going to kill us both anyway. At least you’ll have a chance.”
“I’ll rush him,” she whispered back. “You run.”
He gave her a crooked smile that said, Come on. You know that won’t work.
“I came across this the other day when I was looking for a good place to hide a body,” Campbell said. “It’s deep. Toss a pebble down there. Takes forever to hit bottom.”
When nobody moved, he repeated his command. Cleo found a small rock and dropped it in the well. She never heard it hit.
She didn’t see a way out. Daniel’s idea of rushing Campbell was maybe the only option, and that didn’t seem promising. She was so weak, she could hardly stand, let alone outrun someone. She looked at Daniel, silently begging him not to try it. There had to be another way.
He shook his head. No other way, his eyes said. The regret was there again. And she knew it had nothing to do with Campbell, nothing to do with what was happening now.
It’s okay. You didn’t mean to hurt me.
“These old farms are notorious for abandoned wells like this,” Campbell said. “I should adapt that to my rural renewal plan. Really, they should all be sealed so no one can fall in one, don’t you think?” His mood had improved now that everything was under control and going his way. “Both of you move a little closer,” he instructed, like someone preparing to take a snapshot rather than perform an execution.
“Don’t I get a last cigarette?” Daniel asked.
“Too much of a cliché. Besides,” Campbell looking above his head past the canopy of green, “it’ll be getting dark soon.” He pulled back the gun hammer. “Who wants to be first? You?” He pointed the weapon at Daniel. “Or you?” The gun shifted slightly until it was aimed at Cleo.
“Me.” They spoke in unison.
Campbell laughed.
He was still laughing when a breeze kicked up from somewhere, somehow penetrating the thick foliage. Campbell tipped his head slightly, thinking he heard something.
A little kid.
There it was. A little kid, chanting one of those verses.
“Old lady, old lady, turn around.
Old lady, old lady, touch the ground.”
Campbell turned his head, his eyes scanning the hillside, trying to find where the voice was coming from. There! A flash of red. Someone dashing from one tree to the next.
“Not last night, but the night before,
Twenty-four robbers came knocking at the door,
I went downstairs to let them in,
They hit me over the head with a rolling pin.”
“Hey!” Campbell shouted, his eyes straining for another flash of red, his ears intent upon the high-pitched voice. “Hey, kid! Come out of there!”
Daniel lunged. “Run!” he shouted to Cleo as the momentum of his attack sent both men to the ground. He tried to wrench the gun from Campbell ’s grip, surprise
d at the man’s strength. They rolled, grunting, evenly matched. Daniel didn’t need to win. He just needed to give Cleo a chance to get away.
Daniel’s surge of strength was quickly fading.
Campbell jabbed him in the shoulder. Daniel gasped, almost letting go of the wrist that held the gun. In a last-ditch effort, he pounded Campbell ’s arm against a stone that marked the perimeter of the well.
The gun clattered. Daniel shoved. They rolled again, leaving the gun behind. The absence of the weapon left Campbell ’s hand free. He used it to pummel Daniel’s wounded shoulder. Pain flashed red and black. Campbell struck him until Daniel tasted blood, until the ground beneath him slanted, the trees above spun. Had it been enough time? Enough time for Cleo to get away?
A voice cut through the haze and pain. Cleo’s voice. “Get away from him.”
Oh, shit. Why didn’t you run? Daniel held his breath, waiting to feel another punch that didn’t come. The grip on his shirt loosened until he was released completely. Daniel staggered and fell, a hand to his shoulder. He blinked through a haze of pain to see Cleo standing with her legs braced apart, the revolver in her hands.
“Get up.”
Stupefied, Daniel could only watch as Campbell shoved himself to his feet.
“You won’t shoot me,” Campbell said.
“You don’t know me very well.”
She was right, Daniel thought. She’d waste the guy in a second. Then he had another thought. I’m in love.
Campbell wiped at a cut on the side of his face. Daniel was bleeding from his nose, his mouth, and his side-and Campbell had gotten off with a little cut.
“Listen, Cleo,” Campbell said. “I wasn’t really going to shoot you. You know that, don’t you?” He started to move toward her.
“Back!”
The gun wavered. In fact, it was wobbling all over the place. And then Daniel noticed that her whole body was trembling.
“Get back!” she repeated.
Daniel rolled to his knees. Then he went about the extremely unpleasant task of shoving himself to his feet.
Campbell stopped, hands up, palms out. “Why don’t we just forget about this?” He began to retreat. “I’ll go my way, you go yours. What do you say?”