by Sam Sisavath
“Sure thing, boss,” Blondie said with all the manufactured respect of someone who wasn’t trying very hard. Then, to Allie, “Ladies first.”
“So what are you waiting for?” Allie asked.
Windbreaker snorted.
Blondie smirked. “Cute.”
Allie rolled her eyes back at him.
“Outside,” Blondie said. “Don’t make us carry you out.”
“What a gentleman,” Allie said.
There was supposed to be a large metal bar over the exit, but it had been pushed to the side. Windbreaker took the lead, opening the door. Chilly night air rushed inside, and Allie bristled for a moment. She had forgotten how cold it was out there after sitting in her warm cell for most of the day.
They exited the police station into the same rear parking area they’d used to sneak her in earlier in the day. It would have been empty this early in the morning, except for a massive black GMC parked in the shadows, straddling multiple parking spots as if it owned the entire lot.
“Nice car,” Allie said.
“Get in,” Blondie said.
“Who’s driving?”
“Me,” Windbreaker said.
“Can I drive?” Allie asked.
Blondie chuckled. “She’s a comedian, this one.”
“So funny I forgot to laugh,” Windbreaker said.
The older man walked on ahead to the vehicle, and Allie followed. Slowly. She took in her surroundings, looking for an opportunity. Blondie remained behind her, close enough that he could probably reach out and grab her if she took off, but far enough back that she couldn’t swing at him with her elbows.
They were the only three people in the parking lot, with the rest of Wells City asleep around them. Allie had expected a media crew out here, but they were either all camped out front or they, like the cops and detectives, had gone home for the day. If she made her move now, all Allie would need to do was deal with Blondie. He was bigger and taller and stronger, yes, but if she could put an elbow into that square jaw of his—
“Don’t even think about it,” Blondie said behind her.
Shit.
“Think about what?” Allie said.
A chuckle. Or what sounded like one.
“You’re imagining things,” Allie said.
“Oh, definitely,” Blondie said.
Blondie’s partner had opened the rear passenger side door of the GMC for her, and Allie walked toward it.
“I thought we were going for a walk,” Allie said.
“We did go for a walk,” Blondie said. “Now it’s time to go for a ride.”
“What about these handcuffs?”
“Too tight?”
“A little bit.”
“Too bad.”
Allie sighed. “Don’t be an asshole.”
“Sorry, it’s in the job description.”
And what job is that? Allie thought, but didn’t get the chance to ask because she was already at the GMC.
She leaned in through the open door.
There was a man already inside the back seat, looking across the plentiful plush upholstery at her. He was older than Windbreaker by at least twenty years, wearing a suit with a bloodred tie and a jacket over that. The man screamed “money,” and the luxurious confines of the SUV didn’t hurt that first impression.
“Try anything, and you’ll come back here in two pieces,” Windbreaker, holding the door open next to her, said.
Which means they intend to bring me back here alive, Allie thought as she climbed into the vehicle.
Blondie slipped into the front passenger seat while Windbreaker jogged his way around the large vehicle and got in behind the steering wheel.
Allie settled into the back next to the mysterious older man. Even after Windbreaker had closed his door and the ceiling light clicked off, Allie could make out the streaks of gray in her back seat companion’s hair. She could also see the lines on his face, pale lips, and hard gray eyes.
Windbreaker started the SUV and drove off, turning away from the front of the police station and into some kind of back street. They apparently knew their way around the area, so they were either locals, or they’d scouted ahead of time.
“Aubrey White,” the older man said.
Allie focused on him. “And you are…?”
“But that’s not your real name.”
“I have a driver’s license that proves otherwise.”
“Let’s cut the bullshit,” the man said. Then, to Blondie in the front passenger seat, “How long do we have?”
“Till dawn, sir,” Blondie said.
“More than enough time,” the older man said.
More than enough time for what? Allie thought, testing out the handcuffs around her wrists. They were just as strong now as they’d been when she slapped them on earlier in her cell.
And yet, Allie wasn’t afraid. It was the vibe in the car. Allie had been in trouble more times than she’d liked; she’d sat in vehicles with killers of a dozen stripes, and she had a sixth sense when it came to danger.
But here, now, there wasn’t any of that. Either her internal alarm wasn’t functioning properly and her survival instincts, honed from countless life-and-death situations, was on the fritz, or this wasn’t one of those moments.
So what was it?
“You said let’s cut the bullshit,” Allie said to the older man. “So let’s do that. Who are you, and what do you want with me?” And how the hell did you just walk me out of a police station with the cameras rolling the entire time? she thought.
The older man settled his hard gray eyes on her.
“My name is Archibald Marshall,” the man said. “They said you killed my son.”
Twenty
She waited for her survival instincts to kick into high gear, for her fight or flight reflex to demand commitment to one or the other. Except it didn’t happen, despite the presence of a man whose son she was supposed to have murdered sitting next to her and his two very large bodyguards up front.
Allie had been in so many scrapes, and faced with too many life and death situations that she had developed an intimate understanding of danger. Except she didn’t recognize it here. She didn’t know why, given all the criteria available, but try as she might, she couldn’t taste the growing fear in the back of her throat.
Instead, there was calmness. From herself, from Marshall, and his drivers.
What’s happening here?
“My question is, why?” Marshall was asking her.
“I didn’t kill your son,” Allie said.
“The evidence says otherwise.”
“The evidence is lying.”
“You were at the house.”
“But I wasn’t in the house.”
“So you admit you were at the house.”
“I parked down the street in my car. There’s a big difference.”
Allie took a breath, then pushed it back out. It was warm inside the SUV. Maybe a little too warm.
“I didn’t kill your son,” she said again, wondering why she was telling this man the truth.
Would he even believe her? What reasons did he have to assume anything but guilt? She knew what the police had on her, and though it might not be ironclad, she’d seen prosecutions succeed on much less.
And yet, here she was, in the back of a moving GMC telling a stranger the truth about his son’s murder while two men—bodyguards, she knew now—drove them around the dark streets of Wells City. And it was dark out there. She wasn’t sure if that was just her imagination, or if Windbreaker had purposefully chosen the darkest parts of the city he could find for effect.
“If you didn’t kill him, then who did?” Archibald Marshall asked.
“I don’t know,” Allie said. “That’s what I plan to find out.”
“How?”
“I don’t know that either. But I’ll find out.”
“Why would you care who’s responsible, if you didn’t do it?”
“Because someo
ne’s pinning the crime on me. And I don’t like that. I don’t like being set up.”
“Is that what’s happening here? Someone is setting you up?”
She couldn’t tell by just the sound of his voice if he believed her or not. She couldn’t tell much of anything about the man. There was a steadiness to his words that, if she didn’t know better, she wouldn’t have guessed he’d just lost his one and only son not more than twenty-four hours ago. And that said nothing about the disappearance of his daughter-in-law and grandson.
“Yes,” Allie said. “Someone is setting me up.”
“Who would do such a thing?”
“That’s the question I have to find out.”
“And why should I believe you?”
“I frankly don’t care if you believe me or not,” Allie lied, hoping it was somewhat believable.
The truth was, she did care, she just didn’t want him to know it. Right now, this man sitting next to her held her fate in his hands. If he gave the order, would Blondie pull out a gun he’d been concealing all this time and shoot her in the head? Were Blondie and Windbreaker more than just bodyguards?
She didn’t want to find out.
“Fact is, if Blondie and Windbreaker were going to hurt me, they would have done it already,” Allie said.
She glimpsed Blondie out of the corner of one eye glancing over at Windbreaker, sitting across from him. She couldn’t quite see their expressions, but it looked like confusion. For a brief second or two, anyway, until Blondie “got” it. Windbreaker, on the other hand, still appeared to be in the dark.
“That can still change,” Marshall was saying. “The night is young.”
“You’re not going to tell them to do anything except take me back to the police station when we’re done having our little chat,” Allie said, and thought, Jesus, I think I almost believed myself that time.
The older man turned to look at her (was that for the first time?), narrowing his eyes slightly as he did so. “You seem very sure of that.”
“You didn’t come here to harm me. We both know that.”
“Do we?”
“You’re Archibald Marshall. Your family was here before there was even a Timber Creek County. Yes, you could have me killed, but you’re not going to. Besides the fact that you don’t have to get your hands dirty, if you want me found guilty of Tom’s death, I’ll be found guilty. I think we both know that.”
Marshall didn’t confirm or deny, but there was something on his face—almost a smirk, but not quite—that told her she wasn’t wrong.
Which Allie wasn’t sure was good or bad.
Oh, who was she kidding? It was bad. It was very bad.
“You came here for answers,” Allie said.
“I thought that was obvious,” Marshall said. “I came to find out why you killed my son.”
“You already know I didn’t kill your son.”
“You’re being very presumptuous for someone wearing handcuffs.”
“You don’t look like a dumb man to me. Everything I’ve heard about you says that you’re not. You’ve probably already seen all the evidence. Or what’s passing for evidence. That means someone has given you the files on my arrest.”
Marshall said nothing, and instead turned to look out his window. Allie couldn’t quite make out his reflection in the tinted glass. It was as dark out there as the last time she’d looked. Where was Windbreaker driving them? They were still within the city limits; she could tell that much by the occasional red lights. Whenever they parked, they were the only vehicle for what seemed like miles. If Blondie or Windbreaker took out a gun now, there would be no one to stop them. Certainly she couldn’t in her current position.
Or could she?
Yes, she was handcuffed, but this wasn’t a completely new situation for Allie. Her only way out was Marshall next to her. Figuratively and literally. For a man his age—sixties, though she couldn’t be sure if that was early or late sixties—he looked to be in relatively good shape. But he was still much older than her, and sitting close enough that she could envision herself grabbing him and using him as a shield against his men. Thankfully the handcuffs were in front of her, and if she could get them over his head and around his throat…
Allie flexed her fingers, glad that both hands were hidden in the shadows of the back seat. Not that Marshall was keeping an eye on her, but she did catch Blondie looking up at the rearview mirror from time to time. Windbreaker only had eyes for the very desolate streets around them.
“You’ve read the police reports,” Allie continued. “You know things don’t add up. The most obvious is why a woman that has no ties to Wells City or your family would show up one day and kill your son, then abduct his wife and child.”
“It’s a crazy world,” Marshall said. “People do crazy things.”
“Then why did I stick around? In fact, why did I walk into a bar on the side of the highway, hours after supposedly committing such a heinous crime? None of it makes any sense. And you know it.”
Marshall didn’t say anything, and Allie thought, He knows more than he’s saying. A lot more.
How much more, was the question.
“Go on,” Marshall said.
“The truth is, I didn’t kill your son,” Allie said. “I went there last night to stop him.”
“Stop him?” Marshall said, turning back to her.
And into the breach we go, Allie thought.
Then: You better hope you’re right.
“His wife, Sarah, left a message for me at the Don’t Stop In bar,” Allie said.
“The same bar you took the policeman hostage,” Marshall said.
“The one and same.”
“What about Sarah?”
“She left a note for me at the bar last night that read, and I quote, ‘My husband is going to kill me tonight.’”
“Where is this note?”
I ate it, Allie thought but said, “I destroyed it.”
“That’s convenient.”
“It’s the truth.”
“So you keep insisting.”
“Your son beats his wife, Mr. Marshall. Did you know that?”
Marshall narrowed his eyes at her just before he turned back to the window and looked outside.
He knows. Because Tom has a history.
She said, “That’s why I went to the house. But I didn’t go in. I didn’t get the chance. Sarah came out with the baby first. She got in her car and drove away, and I followed. But she was hurt and didn’t get very far.”
“Hurt?” Marshall said.
“She had a fight with Tom. She was bleeding. Half of her face was covered in blood.”
Marshall kept quiet. He also hadn’t defended his son, and Allie thought again, Oh yeah, he definitely knows about Tom’s past.
She continued: “I put her in my car, along with the baby, and took them to the cabin I was renting, where the police found her blood when she cleaned herself last night. I wasn’t sure what to do, and she wouldn’t go to the hospital. She said no one would believe her if it came to her word against Tom’s.”
More silence from the other side of the vehicle.
How long have you known about your son? she wanted to ask but didn’t.
She said instead, “The next morning, I went to the Don’t Stop In to try to find some news about what had happened last night. That’s when I found out Tom was dead.”
She considered telling Marshall about the man that had tried to break into the cabin, then later, took a shot at her in the woods. It was, she realized, something that only she and Sarah knew about. (The breaking in but not the shooting part, anyway.) Even the police didn’t know, because Dawson had never brought it up during the interview yesterday.
“That’s quite a story,” Marshall said after a while.
“It’s the truth,” Allie said.
“Your truth.”
“The truth is the truth.”
“Where is she now? Sarah and baby William?”
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br /> “I don’t know. They weren’t at the cabin when I returned after the incident at the Don’t Stop In. Before I could look for them, the police were everywhere. They got there very fast. Too fast.”
“You took a cop hostage at the bar.”
“Yes, I did, but they still shouldn’t have known where I was staying that quickly. Also, there was a gun there, under my bed, in my room. It wasn’t there when I left.”
“A gun?”
“A revolver. It wasn’t mine.” Then, “What caliber weapon was your son killed with?”
Marshall said, “Frank.”
Blondie turned around in his seat to look back at them. “Forensics said a .38 caliber weapon was used, sir.”
“The revolver I found was a .38,” Allie said. “Someone put it in my cabin before they called the police. That same someone probably also took Sarah and William.”
“Probably?” Marshall said. “It sounds like you don’t have any answers, just theories.”
“It’s not like I’ve had a lot of time to look for those answers. In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been a little busy.”
Allie heard Blondie, a.k.a. Frank, chuckle softly to himself in the front passenger seat.
“You’re right,” Marshall said. “I’ve seen the police files, and there are many unanswered questions.”
I knew it.
So what else do you know that you’re not telling me?
She didn’t believe that Marshall had scanned the evidence and concluded from just that that she wasn’t guilty. No, it couldn’t have been that simple. There had to be more. The man knew something—maybe a lot of somethings—that he wasn’t telling her.
“What do you know?” Allie asked. “You know more than even the police, don’t you? You were already convinced that I didn’t kill Tom even before I stepped into this car. So what do you know, Mr. Marshall?”
“That’s for you to find out,” Marshall said.
That’s not a denial. Definitely not a denial.
“Why don’t you just tell me now? Save me a lot of time,” Allie said.
“It’s your neck on the line. It’s only fair you do all the legwork.”
“Meaning?”
Instead of answering her, Marshall said, “Frank.”