"How's Cal gonna feel, knowing you killed his favorite singer-songwriter?"
Bo turned at the stairs. "Caleb is young. He'll find someone else to admire."
"Wait—I'm hungry," Rainey said, pleading. "I want my dog. Please… let me at least have my dog. It so dark down here… I think I saw spiders…"
"You think on that deal a bit, and I'll consider whether you deserve them. But you make any more racket and the next time I come down here I'll be feeding you a bullet."
Bo gave her a challenging look: I dare you to backtalk. Rainey's shoulders slumped in reply. Satisfied, Bo rose to the main house, and lowered the hatch.
7 – Sweat
THE BITCH WASN'T going to let her go, she knew that much for certain. The longer she stayed here, the less believable Bo's story would be. Why did you wait so long to come forward? the police would say. She knew it. The bitch had to know it too. Deal or no deal, Rainey Layne was a dead woman.
Something heavy dragged over the hatch. Probably the table. No way out up the stairs. No way out down here, not unless she could get her hands untied. The knots were too tight. Something sharp might help, but it meant scrabbling around on her hands and knees in the dirt, risking cutting her legs on the same glass she hoped to use on the ropes.
The kid was her only option. She had to get him alone.
At least now she had her voice back. Once the bitch left—she could hear the truck wheels the last two times she'd come and gone—she'd call up to him. Convince him to come down and let her go.
He looked soft. Probably crushing on her a bit, too.
Her stomach rumbled. She thought about eating some of the preserves, but most of what she'd knocked off the shelves had fallen in the dirt, and she couldn't be sure it didn’t have bits of glass in it. She was in enough pain without adding lacerated bowels to the list.
Did she really crash the car?
Gah, molly and booze do not mix! Worst fucking hangover of my life.
Probably shouldn't have gotten in the car. Couldn't even remember why she'd come out here in the first place. Something to do with the kid, according to the bitch. She had felt sorry for him. She knew what it was like to grow up living hand to mouth, wearing hand-me-down everything. God—did she tell his cray mother about getting emancipated?
One thing she was sure Bo didn't know: her ass was just skinny enough to slip her hands under with her wrists still tied, and her legs through her arms. It was how she'd discovered there was no way out of the basement aside from the hatch. She slipped her hands free again now, stood up and stretched her joints. Her shoulder popped. Felt good. The rest of her felt like absolute doodoo.
The other thing Bo didn't know was she'd planned to let Darius go for a while now. He'd been drinking too much. He'd let himself go. He wasn't as loyal as he used to be, bossing her around, throwing shade behind her back—she'd just heard him trash-talking her music a few minutes before that ratchet bitch shot him in the head, when everyone knew her new shit was on fleek.
Killing him had just spared her the trouble of firing him. Callous maybe, but true. It wasn't like she'd wanted to get him killed. She'd hoped he would have taken the upper hand. Wasn't that what she paid an Executive Protection Professional for? What he'd trained for? He was ex-military, for fuck's sake. Ex-Dallas detective.
Now he's ex-living, Rainey thought, swallowing a hard clot of blood and snot.
Sure, she felt bad. Felt like shit, actually. But it was a tough business. People moved in and out of her life all the time. Like her producers. Like her agent. Like her daddy.
Her need to tweet, to text, to Instagram, manifested itself in a physical ache. Serious internet withdrawal. The molly she could quit any time. She needed her girlfriends. She needed her fans.
Hottie barked upstairs. He sounded happy. At least the kid was treating him right. If it was up to the bitch, she'd have probably shot him by now and mounted his head on the wall above the fireplace.
"I'll kill her if she lays a finger on my dog," Rainey whispered. She thought of the Wicked Witch of the West, and laughed to herself in the dark.
Pour some water on the bitch, let her fucking melt.
BO WASHED THE breakfast dishes, and went outside to chop kindling.
Mindless work. Grab a piece, stand it up on the block, swing the hatchet. THUNK! Stand up the smaller pieces, cut them again lengthwise. Toss the kindling into the pile. Repeat as necessary.
Over the past month she'd cut a full cord of kindling and firewood from trees she'd felled out in the woods. Mostly pine and spruce. A few maples and paper birches. She hated chopping the birch, and usually threw it on the fire whole. Hard as stone sometimes, and not worth the effort.
Only a matter of time before somebody finds the Escalade and comes searching. Would they come to her? She had no clue. If they really could track the cell phone like Caleb seemed to think—from his time studying radio news stories, apparently—they might have a record on some satellite of it being out here and back to the Escalade before she drove the bodyguard out to the wildfire and dropped him off the cliff.
Easy enough to explain away. Your story still covers it.
Trouble was, even if Rainey agreed to go along with it, Bo couldn't be sure she wouldn't sell her out anyway. Everything she'd done up until now proved just how absolutely untrustworthy she was.
She's a loose cannon. Just like Roy.
Stand it up, cut it down.
THUNK!
Stand it up—
Maybe I should just give up. Caleb'd visit me in prison, so long as his new parents or the foster home lets him come. Might consider me a bad influence. But I'd fight it to the highest court. Just try keeping a son away from his Momma.
—cut it down.
She looked at her watch. One more hour to go, and she would have her answer.
But could she trust it?
CALEB SAT ON his bed, playing keep-away with the dog.
"You want it? You want it?"
He held up the toy, a stretchy rubber wrestling man, unrecognizable with most of its paint flaked off even if he hadn't been too young to remember it. The dog got up on his hind legs and turned around in a bouncy circle.
"Too late," he said, snatching the toy away.
The dog sat and looked up at Caleb's closed fist.
"Something's wrong with my Momma. Wronger than normal, I mean."
The dog cocked his head to the side, perking up his ears.
Caleb scooped the dog up into his lap. He squeezed its face close to his, basking in the dog's warmth.
"Ever since Daddy run off, she's been getting weirder and weirder. You think maybe she's going crazy?"
Hottie's little wet tongue stroked his nose, and he couldn't help but giggle despite his anxiety. No matter what Momma said, he was a murderer now. He'd taken a man's life. It wasn't like shooting an animal. There were hundreds of animals exactly like the ones Momma had made him hunt. Sounded the same, looked the same. Ate the same things, built the same homes. Darius Dawson was unique. No single person on Earth was exactly like him. He'd had memories, emotions, dreams, goals.
He'd had a son. He'd shown Caleb the kid's picture.
Caleb watched the light go out of his eyes, and then the man was gone. Taken out of the equation. Out of the food chain.
Momma always said we hunt because we have to, and we use every part of the animal we kill. We eat its meat, we cook its bones, we tan the hide, and sell what we don't need to pay the bills. That's how we always done it. Then she goes and burns him. A human man. Burnt him up just like firewood. Like his life didn't mean nothin.
"This whole deal… it just ain't right." He nodded, having made up his mind. "I gotta do somethin. I gotta… I gotta help your Momma get out of here, before she makes it worse."
The dog jumped off the bed and scurried over to the door. Caleb got up, following as Hottie scratched at the bottom of it, wanting out. He opened the door, glad she hadn't locked him in again. Immediately the little
dog ran out and trotted past the sofa to the table, where he began to bark at the hatch.
Momma had dragged the heavy table onto it. She wasn't gonna make it easy.
The dog scratched on the floor.
Rainey's voice drifted up from below. Ragged, tired. Not at all like her songs. "Hottie? That you, honeybunch?"
Hottie barked obediently.
Caleb stepped on a creaky board on his way to scoop up the dog to stop him from barking, and froze.
"Cal? That's you, isn't it?"
He said nothing. No idea where Momma was, whether she was close or had gone off somewhere to blow off steam like she did.
"Your mom around? Nah, if she was, she woulda told me to shut up by now." Her ragged cough muffled by the floor between them. "Listen, you gotta get me outta here. I'll do anything, I swear to God, I'll— Whatever you want. Money. Cars. You want a girlfriend, I could like, hook you up with one of my friends' little sisters or some shit. Probably even get one of my girlfriends to fuck you, if that's what you want."
Caleb blushed, the insides of his underwear suddenly feeling uncomfortably close to his skin. He said nothing, embarrassed into silence.
"Fine, you don't wanna help, fuck you. Little shit. You know, she's ruined you for life and you don't even know it. When's the last time you talked to somebody who wasn't your Momma, huh? And I ain't talkin about that old Indian dude down at the General Store."
Caleb continued across the floor. He didn't want to hear the things she was saying. She was scared. Hurt. His own mother had kidnapped her. Probably hurt her. She had a right to be angry. But he didn't have to listen.
Caleb grabbed the dog under his arm and returned to the back of the house. In the bathroom, he opened the cabinet behind the toothpaste-spattered mirror and took down Milk of Magnesia. He poured it straight down the sink, shaking the bottle until every last drop was gone. Then he put it back in the cabinet.
Under the house, Rainey was screaming again.
"You better shut up, or Momma's gonna get mad," he warned under his breath.
Caleb got down on his knees in front of the toilet. He hated to puke. Much worse than diarrhea. It always made him cry, always tore his throat. But Momma was always nicest to him when he was sick. She would get him whatever he wanted. When he was littler he used to take advantage. If Daddy got mean, Caleb would fake sick, and Momma would be even nicer to him.
He shoved two fingers down his throat and gagged immediately. Regretting it already.
The dog looked up at him, curious.
Caleb rammed his fingers down his throat, and up came a scorching glob of spit and bile. He shoved them down again, twiddling them back and forth, flicking the roof of his mouth, the back of his tongue, his uvula. Felt his gorge rise. Hot chunks of partially digested sausage and pancakes splashed over his hand, splattering into the toilet. He choked, the tears stinging, his throat raw.
He almost flushed.
Rising to his feet, he let the tears spill down his cheeks as he left the toilet. Rainey let out one last desperate screech as he returned to his bedroom, where he flicked on the bedside lamp and waited for it to heat up.
SHERIFF ED BOISE waited at the scene of the accident, turret lights flashing, until the Alaska Bureau of Investigations' Major Crimes Unit detective arrived in a sleek black sedan. He was surprised to see the detective was a woman. Alaska wasn't quite as female-deprived as myths made it out to be, but there was a definite lack of them among the ranks. Ed had only worked with two in his thirty-five years at Fort Garry's Sheriff's Department, and both had moved on quickly to greener pastures. Regardless, he was careful not to register surprise seeing shiny, pulled-taut raven hair, high cheekbones and olive skin above her black suit. Might be seen as sexual and/or racial discrimination, and Lord knows that was one rock he did not want to turn over.
"Howdy," Ed said, sticking out a hand. "Sheriff Ed Boise."
"Detective Okalik," she said, shaking his hand. Hers was cool and damp with sweat, and Ed fought the urge to wipe his hand on his pants, thinking she'd likely take it the wrong way. "When did you find the vehicle?"
He looked down into the ditch, smoothing his thick gray mustache. "Oh, Jim Grady called 'er in around eight in the A.M.…"
"Eight. Sheriff Boise, it's past ten."
"I have a watch," he said.
"Do you know who this vehicle is registered to? Did you call in the plate?"
"I did."
"And?"
"Fella by the name of Dawson," Ed said with the special pride of a man showing up a know-it-all woman. "Name's on the registration in the glove box, too."
"Darius Dawson is a retired Dallas detective," she told him, and he wondered why she'd bothered to ask if she'd already known the answer. "Shot in the line of duty. Moved on to private security. That car was purchased under his name because the girl in his charge is an emancipated youth not old enough to have insurance. A girl I've been assigned to find, since it appears she didn't check in for a morning Skype meeting with her PR rep, and Mr. Dawson has been unreachable."
He gave the closed passenger door—closed by his own hand—a thoughtful study. "Well, are we going to be mysterious all afternoon, or are you planning to tell me who the girl is?"
The detective pinched the bridge of her nose. He thought she probably made the same gesture when her husband tried to initiate sexual activity. That is if she's even married, Ed thought.
"Tell me you know Rainey Layne was in town," she said. "Tell me you know that much."
"Right, the uh, international teen sensation. Protesting the wolf cull. Didn't she have a meeting with that Indian group this morning?"
"Missed it, according to her rep," Detective Okalik said.
"There's blood on the airbag," he told her. "And the passenger seat." The detective didn't seem all that interested in the car. She was looking up the road.
"What's up that way?"
"Not a whole heckuva lot. Couple private residences. A clearcut or two. Passenger door was open, too, by the way," he added.
Now she was all ears. She headed down into the ditch, approaching the vehicle from the side. Looked up once she reached the door, squinting into the sun.
"You closed it?"
"Didn't think it mattered, so long as I remembered it'd been open."
Ed caught her brief scowl of annoyance. Don't sweat the small stuff, he told himself.
"Is it possible she stumbled off…?" The road led off to an endless expanse of green in the direction she pointed.
"That was my contention," Ed said. "Is this an official missing persons case?"
The detective put on a latex glove and opened the door. "It is now," she said, and before she leaned into the car, she added, "Radio it in to the DOC. We need to put out an AMBER Alert."
"You got it, Chief," he said, and immediately regretted the slip. As he returned to his cruiser, Sheriff Boise finally began to sweat.
8 – Guts
"WE'RE ALL OUT of Milk of Magnesia?"
Caleb was sick, running a fever. Burning up, actually. Worst possible timing. She'd flushed his vomit down the toilet, and hunted through the cabinet. Found nothing but an empty bottle.
"Shit," she muttered under her breath. Bo was coming unraveled. There'd been a time when she'd have given Roy the silent treatment for hours just for uttering a curse word in the house. Now she was throwing them around like she used to, before Caleb.
She understood Rainey's rebellious streak more than the girl knew. Knew it in her bones. Falling back into the pattern was like putting on an old pair of boots.
"It hurts, Momma!" the boy moaned from his room.
The girl below remained quiet.
Bo returned to his room. The dog sat protectively at Caleb's hip. Caleb with the covers pulled up to his chin, shivering despite his fever.
Can't take him to Doc Henson's. Can't leave her alone. God knows what she'd get up to while we're gone.
She might find the hole under the porch. Hadn'
t noticed it when the lights were on, that much Bo was sure of. She'd been watching the girl's eyes, and never once did they stray toward the dirt hole in the south wall.
Might've found it in the dark, though. When she'd been stumbling around, knocking my jams and jellies off the shelf.
Bo went to Caleb's bedside. She reached out to him, and the dog's little black lips quivered, displaying its teeth. "You'll be all right, Caleb. I'm gonna get you something for your guts."
"No, don't leave me!" he said, so much fear in his voice it tore her apart.
Poor boy thinks he's gonna die.
"I won't be long. You got your dog," she said, noticing she'd substituted the with your. Was the outcome already so inevitable? "He'll protect you."
Caleb reached a quivering hand out of the blanket to pat the dog's head.
"I'll be back in a few, all right?"
He nodded weakly. His face tightened as his body wracked with coughing.
Bo closed the door behind him. Instinctually she made to draw the bolt, then thought better of it. If he needed the toilet, he'd end up puking all over his bedroom floor. Or worse. Not like he couldn't get out the window if he absolutely needed to anyhow.
The floor creaked as she strode over the root cellar. She imagined dust shaking loose from the underside of the boards, falling in the girl's once-shiny hair. The girl stayed quiet.
You just know she's gonna start screamin her head off the second you leave, she thought, and immediately countered, "Good. Let her scream herself hoarse."
She got in the truck, started it, and wheeled around onto the two-rut drive.
CALEB WORKED FAST.
The second he heard the truck retreating down the drive, he tore off the stifling blanket, startling the dog off the bed. He had twenty minutes, half an hour at the most if he wanted to be safe.
Momma hadn't locked him in, like he'd worried she might. Probably thought he'd end up puking on the floor. He crept out, stepping over the creaking board. Didn't want her yelling at him before she understood his intentions, making him change his mind.
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