Whisper Lake (The Turning Book 2)

by Micky Neilson

  "Mrs. Emblock?" they heard Bagby call. Jason was leaning out, looking into his room. With his curtains closed he couldn't see out his window. The two of them waited in silence. Then two loud knocks sounded against the glass, making both of them jump.

  "Anyone home?" Bagby asked loudly. Then: "Miss Armistead?"

  Steely fingers dug into Jason's shoulder; Celine's voice was in his ear saying, "My Jeep's out back."

  "Shit," Jason whispered under his breath.

  The two of them waited. And waited. Finally, footsteps sounded as the agent walked away. Jason and Celine ran back to where they could peek into the living room. More silence. In his mind's eye Jason saw the agent breaking down the door, producing some kind of automatic weapon that fired silver bullets, and mowing down the both of them.

  Seconds later he heard a car door close, the engine start, and then wheels on gravel as Bagby pulled away.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Celine had been waiting since an hour before sundown, parked off of the road but still close enough to see traffic to and from the yard.

  Ghost had said that they would make the move at night, but Celine and Jason hadn't wanted to take any chances. The unnerving possibility that they had moved Ghost early crossed Celine's mind several times while she had been waiting. She thought also of Bagby, and the visit to Jason's house. It had freaked both of them out.

  She reminded herself that the most important thing right now was helping Trish. Of course, there was no guarantee that Ghost would be able to do that. He could be incapable, or maybe they could be flat-out wrong about the chemicals in the dirt, about any kind of safe way to prevent what was happening to Trish. Then what? What did Celine's future look like then? What would her relationship with Jason look like? And what more could they possibly do to save his sister?

  One step at a time. Concentrate on the here and now and what you do have control over. Celine took a deep breath and turned up the radio to drown out her thoughts.

  Hours passed and the moon, just past half-full, rose. She quickly found herself staring at it, lost in it… wanting to run naked in its light. More time had passed, she had no idea how long, when noises pulled her out of the moon's trance. She looked over to see the RV pulling up just inside the junkyard gate. The skinny man who had been guarding Ghost got out from the passenger side and opened the gate. The RV pulled through, the man closed the gate behind it and reentered the vehicle.

  As the RV drove away, Celine coasted onto the road, headlights off, and followed.

  ***

  "I gots me a conflict," Mamba said.

  The dreadlocked gang leader was sitting back in his wooden chair amid a shifting cloud of marijuana, his fingers steepled. A red-headed bimbo sat on the floor, one arm wrapped around his right leg, head leaning in like some wench from the cover of a Conan comic.

  Carter stood silently, waiting. Boil had sent him to deliver the dope while a couple of the boys relocated the genius. Bags of the synthetic heroin, roughly four keys' worth, sat on the floor between them. The delivery had been made with fifteen minutes left on the deadline.

  "Me and my boys hard as fuck," Mamba said. "But them Dominguez motherfuckers got some o' they shit sorted out and caught on to what we doin'. Wanna know where this new smack come from that's competin' with they shit."

  Mamba lowered his hands and leaned forward. "Motherfuckers dropped a trash bag by one o' my stash houses. Street dealer inside. My boy Lucky. What was left of him anyway. They chopped his black ass up. Not so fuckin' lucky after all."

  If Mamba was hoping to get a reaction, Carter didn't give him one. The leader continued: "So now I gots to ask is it worth it? I don't know."

  "We held up our end," Carter said.

  "Tell you what, you leave that shit here, let me think on it. I'll let you know if we gonna hold up our end."

  Carter considered killing him; killing all of them. But he knew that there was still a great deal of money to be made if the Baggerz moved Boil's product. Besides, if they tried to renege, he could always kill them then.

  Five minutes later he was driving a used car provided by the boss, a 78 Camaro, heading back toward the freeway. The streets were mostly empty, but one vehicle drew his attention: the beat-up Corolla that had been following him for the last several blocks—maybe even from the housing project.

  When the traffic light ahead of him turned red, Carter decided to make his move. He stopped the car, put it in park, jumped out, and walked toward the Toyota, paying little attention to the vehicle that approached in the next lane. A Mexican in a black snow coat sat behind the Corolla's wheel.

  Carter was nearly at the driver's door, about to lean in the open window and start breaking bones, when he first sensed his mistake. The eyes of the Mexican in the driver's seat were calm, almost as cold and detached as Carter imagined his own eyes to be.

  Shouldn't have gotten out of the car.

  The vehicle in the next lane swerved, accelerated, and struck him before he could jump away. The impact sent him flying, cracking his head on the asphalt.

  Foolish, was the last thought in his mind before blacking out.

  ***

  There was only one main road, Bear Creek, leading to the highway from Whisper Lake. The highway was the only sensible route to Salem, where Ghost had said he was being taken.

  The tree at Jason's feet—a deadfall that Celine and Jason had found not far from the highway—was roughly a foot and a half in diameter and over thirty feet long. It was tall enough to reach across the road and had few branches. Though it should have been heavy, together he and Celine had barely felt the weight as they had dragged it to the wayside. Celine had left and as night fell Jason had waited, pacing next to the tree for hours. He hid when vehicles passed, trying not to think of the waxing moon, or of what nightmares Trish might be undergoing or putting Father Dreiling through, or whether Agent Bagby was hunting him.

  Trying, and failing.

  Jason had tried raising Celine a few times on the radio but she was still out of range. He was just about to try again when her voice came through: "Hey, it's me, can you hear me?"

  Jason hit the talk button and responded. "I hear you."

  "We're on our way; just passed the dairy farm."

  "Copy that," Jason said.

  The time had come to see if their plan might actually work. He swung one end of the red cedar out and across the blacktop. Then he went back to the roadside, pulled a ski mask from inside his jacket, picked up the rifle, and waited.

  Minutes later he heard the motor and then he saw the lights. When the lights reached the cedar, the RV's brakes engaged. The driver, an older man with a beer gut, exited along with a second skinny man from the passenger side. The two men were just a few feet away from the roadblock when Jason rushed out with the hunting rifle, yelling at the men to put their hands above their heads. On the opposite side of the road was a ditch. Jason directed them to it, told them to lie down and that if they moved, he would shoot them.

  Bright lights signaled the arrival of Celine's Jeep. She pulled up a few yards behind the motor home and got out, wearing her own mask. Jason handed her the rifle, picked up the end of the tree, and swung it to the side of the road opposite where Boil's men lay, rolling it into the ditch. He closed the RV's passenger door then walked around and hopped into the cab. The entire vehicle smelled of chemicals—the same ones Jason had smelled at the Haversaw property.

  "Yo, what the fuck?" Came a shaky voice from further back. "Just sit back, shut up and don't do anything stupid," Jason said, leaving the mask on for now. The more scared the kid was for the time being, the better. Outside, Celine took the rifle and jumped into her Jeep.

  Ghost stayed silent as Jason put the motorhome in gear and moved out.

  ***

  Carter's wrists were cuffed behind his back.

  Shifting his weight made crinkling noises. He was in a van with a drop cloth-lined interior.

  This was where they chopped up bodies
.

  He identified the man sitting across from him as the driver of the Corolla. That man was rubbing his thumb across the blade of a machete that looked as if it had seen its fair share of use. There was a vibration then, accompanied by the rumbling noise of a big rig somewhere above. They were parked near an overpass.

  Carter turned. Another man sat cross-legged just in front of the back doors. He had what looked like a simple steak knife in his right hand. Leaning forward and looking the opposite way, Carter could see past the front seats and barely make out a silhouette through the windshield. A lookout. Carter returned his attention to the Corolla driver.

  The man said "I could have just followed you, punto. You lead us to the supplier… Simple, no? But you fucked that up. So now, you're gonna' tell me who your boss is and where to find him, comprende? Do that, and you die quick. Don't…"

  He held up the machete. "I start cutting."

  Carter smiled. That smile widened as he dipped his head, and a low rumbling began in his gut that worked its way up and eventually burst forth as laughter. He hadn't laughed in a long, long time.

  "Cutting," he said, and started laughing all over again. The Corolla driver had a perplexed look on his face. His eyes flicked to the man by the rear doors, then back to Carter. Apparently this wasn't the kind of response these men were used to when a victim was being threatened. That made Carter laugh even harder. Soon there were tears in his eyes.

  "Some funny shit, huh?" Corolla Driver said and then swiped his arm in a horizontal arc, burying the machete in the meat of Carter's shoulder.

  Carter continued to chuckle, leaning his head back against the plastic.

  Corolla Driver wiggled the blade a bit, leaned in and said "Still funny, pendejo?"

  There was pain, but not enough to make him scream. He harbored zero doubts in his ability to withstand unrelenting torture and continue smiling the whole way through. Though, what if the Mexicans succeeded in hacking off a limb? Would it grow back? There he had doubts.

  In one strong, smooth motion, Carter shot forward and smashed his forehead into Corolla Driver's nose. He felt and heard the bone crunch; blood spattered his shirt and jeans, and Corolla Driver fell backward dazed. The machete dropped to the plastic. Carter turned to face the second Mexican, who rushed forward and buried the steak knife to the handle in Carter's gut. Carter squinted at the man and shook his head. On the other's face, expectation was soon replaced by absolute befuddlement, and quickly followed by stark fear. The Mexican beat a hasty retreat through the van's back doors. Carter repositioned and drove his head once more into Corolla Driver's face as that man attempted to rise.

  Breaking the handcuff chain could have been an option—Carter felt strong enough—had the first Mexican not severed the lateral deltoid on his left side. However, digging around in Corolla Man's jeans pockets to locate the key didn't take long. After a few seconds of fumbling with his right hand to find the keyhole, he succeeded and was free. The lookout, glimpsed earlier through the windshield, chose that moment to enter the van with handgun drawn. Carter withdrew the knife from his stomach, batted the gun aside and thrust the blade into the lookout's throat.

  Over that man's shoulder and through the open rear doors Carter could see the fleeing Mexican. An instant later Carter was in the driver's seat, pleased to find the keys in the ignition. He cranked the engine and gunned it, the momentum and slippery surface of the drop cloth sending the lookout tumbling out the back. Carter spun the wheel, fishtailed, and soon had the running man in his sights. The out of shape Mexican was no match for the van's horsepower. One second he was there, terror-filled eyes gaping over his shoulder, the next he was gone, with only a bucking of the van to mark his disappearance. Carter halted the vehicle, threw it in park, went back and punched Corolla Driver in the face as the man once again sat up. It took just a brief search to find the machete. He hauled Corolla Driver to a seated position against the van wall, held the machete before the man's disbelieving eyes and said:

  "Now you'll tell me where to find your friends. You don't, and I start cutting. Comprende?"

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Just before the intersection where Bear Creek met the highway, there was what looked like an old, narrow logging road. In fact it was a rail bed for the tracks that had once led from Speakers' Mill and took a somewhat roundabout path into Salem. The rails and ties were long since gone, but the bed remained, cutting a path for miles through the timber to the mill.

  Celine had passed and turned onto it first, followed by Jason in the RV. Once the motor home had penetrated a good distance into the woods, both vehicles stopped. Jason had then gone into the back, removed his mask, and told Ghost in no uncertain terms that the kid was going to help them. He then forced Ghost to help in their next undertaking, mainly because he didn't trust the kid not to run away at the first opportunity. Together they had taken pine branches he and Celine had set aside the day before, and brushed away any and all traces left in the dirt by their vehicles' passing.

  Then they had continued on, Ghost now sitting in the passenger seat. He had grabbed one of his Rubik's Cubes, and aside from the shuffle-click sounds of the puzzle box, he stayed silent. A few miles in they reached a point too choked by branches overhead to allow for the RV's continued passage. Here Jason had gotten his first look at the living space, which had been converted for Ghost's use. An assortment of equipment and paraphernalia—almost all of it completely foreign to him—littered the interior.

  They had transferred a few small items to Celine's Jeep and driven the rest of the way to the mill. Once unloaded, they returned, picked up a few more items, and then dropped them off. This routine repeated until they removed all the necessary equipment from the motor home.

  Jason had explained, immediately after snatching Ghost, what it was that he needed. At first the kid had quietly protested, stating that the whole idea was crazy. But Jason had persisted until Ghost had said in a breaking voice "Yeah okay dog…" Ghost stopped, appeared to think about his choice of words and said. "I mean, okay, J. Maybe I can think of something."

  They had set up a space with blankets for Ghost on the second floor of the old mill, in the file room, where saw blades had been kept. Just before Ghost went to bed, Jason told him: "You know what I am, and you know how dangerous that is. That's why I need your help. My sister needs your help. You can do some real good here."

  The kid had nodded and sunk down beneath the blankets.

  Jason sat now on the deck facing the log pond and the rising sun, knowing that Ghost had not slept a wink. Celine had been exhausted and still slept in the boiler house. Their biggest consideration now, aside from Trish, even aside from Bagby, was Boil. Ghost was the goose that laid the golden eggs, and Jason had him. Boil would find out, and come after him, federal agent or no federal agent. Jason had talked to Celine about not showing her face in town for a while. But, for the event set to take place in just a few hours, there would be no keeping Celine away.

  ***

  It seemed like the whole town attended Ty's funeral.

  Flags all over Whisper Lake were flown at half-staff. Father Dreiling had presided at the church after the color guard had presented colors. Celine noted the absence of Dreiling's wife—she would be at the pastor's home, with Bethany and Trish. Trumbull and Embury had both gotten up and spoken. They had worn black strips of cloth over their badges. Trumbull had asked Celine if she wanted to say a few words, but she declined. What she had to say to Ty was between her and Ty, no one else. As for her mom, Lucie, she was a mess—couldn't stop sobbing throughout. As if the circumstances weren't already bad enough, so many of the eyes of those gathered were directed at both Lucie and Celine. Some of those eyes were accusatory, others just nosy. As far as Celine was concerned, they could all go to hell… but Mom was more sensitive. Celine was glad that she had agreed to go away for a while after the funeral, to visit Roland in Seattle. It would temporarily take her away from danger in case Boil decided to use her as l
everage.

  The old shitbag himself was nowhere to be seen. Probably still trying to figure out exactly what the fuck happened the night before.

  Kyra had shown up, and Celine took a few moments to catch up with her best friend, who looked great considering all the shit she'd been through. Connor was still in jail awaiting trial. Celine hoped the judge would throw the book at him. If she ever saw the prick again, she'd rip his throat out. As for Kyra, she was concentrating on moving on, focusing on school. Celine had no doubt she'd bounce back and be good as new in no time, and Celine told her as much.

  After the religious ceremony, the procession had moved slowly from the church to Clearcut Cemetery for the graveside service. There, Celine had experienced the added discomfort of knowing that further up the hill was where Jason had been shot, first by Carter, then by CJ.

  Rather than a twenty-one-gun salute, a bell from the fire house rang twenty one times. A light rain had fallen as the final radio call was given, and Ty's badge number was retired. The colors had been retired next, and then Trumbull folded the flag draped over Ty's casket and gave it to Celine, where she sat facing the grave. She would give the flag to Mom before she left for Seattle.

  When the ceremony was over, as folks began heading out to a reception at the Careless Whisper, Celine told her mom she'd meet her in a minute. She stood now at the graveside, flag clasped in her hands. She wondered how much of Ty's body had been left; morbidly considered how much of his charred remains occupied the coffin. Then she forced her thoughts to why she had stayed behind… there was so much she wanted to say but she didn't even know where to begin.

  She spoke in a whisper: "I wish I would have known sooner. I would have spent more time with you. You were a good man, such a good man… I don't know if there's a better place after this life but if there is, I hope you're there. And I hope Mom joins you when she's gone. You were taken from me, from us, too soon. But this much I promise you: I'm gonna make it right. I swear to you, Dad, right here and now I'm gonna kill the son of a bitch who cut our time short."