Stay

by Nicola Griffith

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  I had finished the coffee and refilled the cup with lukewarm tea from my flask when I saw movement in my peripheral vision: a car moving down the road to the Carpenters’ house. I put down the cup and focused the field glasses. My adrenal system switched from standby to power mode. A dark gray Maxima, a man driving and a woman in the back. Not the configuration for a social call.

  The Maxima parked three or four yards from the Carpenters’ front door, and the man took just long enough to remove the keys and open his door to tell me the car was probably a rental. He climbed out, looked around. Sloppy training. He should have looked around before he parked, and again before he left the car. He should have familiarized himself with his vehicle. He should have looked up. He closed his door, checked around one more time before opening the woman’s door.

  The woman who got out of the car wore expensive, beautifully draped trousers, handmade boots, and a cashmere twinset under a camel-hair overcoat. Gold earrings gleamed below her short blond hair. Subtle cosmetics; a touch of color on a strong, straight mouth. No purse. One in the car? Even royalty must show ID to board a scheduled flight. Her clothes were good, but not private plane level.

  They approached the door, him walking a yard ahead and a little to her left. Small steps, and slightly pigeon-toed, like an amateur weight lifter or college football player. Haircut from somewhere north and east of Arkansas. Gray suit, from one of the better department stores by its looks, and cleverly tailored around the shoulders and chest. The cleverness was wasted: the swing of his left arm was a little careful, a little self-conscious. Not a cop, though. Cops have to carry their guns all the time.

  My heart began to hum like a turbine.

  He knocked on the door, then stepped aside for the woman. I measured him against the doorframe: an inch or two taller than me and much, much wider. Not a good idea to get within closing distance of those arms. But maybe this had nothing to do with Luz. I finished my tea, crumpled the cup one-handed.

  The door opened. From the expression on Adeline Carpenter’s face it was plain that her visitors were not strangers but that their arrival was a surprise, and worrying.

  Adeline said something. The woman said something. Adeline stepped to one side and the woman, then the man, went in. The door closed. Muffled noise from the kitchen transmitter. Maybe they were talking in the hall. More noise. Definitely voices. I should have thought to put a bug in the hallway. Or the living room. It had seemed unused, not a good choice for my limited resources, but it was just the place Adeline would take guests, especially well-dressed ones. I flexed my knee, scanned the windows. Nothing.

  But then the kitchen door creaked, and Adeline’s voice came clearly.

  “—in the oven. Please, take a seat.”

  “You don’t seem pleased to see us, Adeline.” The woman’s voice was smooth and light, but with the occasional metallic Boston vowel.

  “I thought maybe you would write. Or call.”

  “Yes, well, I have the kind of news best delivered in person. I’m sorry to tell you that Mr. Karp is dead.” My hands tightened on the field glasses and I lost the focus for a moment. “—sending any more checks.”

  “Dead?”

  “At least so far as the courts would see it. He’s in a coma that he won’t be coming back out of. A vegetable. I can make up this month’s arrears from my own account, that’s only fair. But I have to tell you there won’t be any more to come.”

  “But I need …” The rest of Adeline’s soft voice was lost. Or maybe she just trailed off. She cleared her throat. “Hay prices were down this fall. With two children we depend on that money.”

  “Which is why I’ve come to take Luz off your hands.”

  Three hundred yards. With this knee it would take at least two minutes to get down there. Another two to disable the car. Two more to get back out of sight. I scanned for hiding places closer to the house.

  Someone shifted noisily in their chair. Probably the man. “Take Luz?” Adeline sounded bewildered.

  “It’s for the best,” the woman said. “Her sponsor can’t help her anymore, and there’s no provision in his will for her maintenance.” She couldn’t know that; he wasn’t dead yet.

  “But what—”

  “We’ve found another sponsor.”

  The hum in my chest climbed a note.

  “We could—”

  “He wants Luz to be fostered closer to his residence. Now, Adeline, I know you and Jud have done a fine job, and I’m prepared to offer you a bonus, something to help you redecorate her room, perhaps, after she’s gone. Where is the child?”

  “She’s out back.” Her voice got stronger. “On the land. Might not be back till suppertime.”

  “Then you’d better start looking for her now. Mike here would be glad to help. These things are best done quickly.”

  “But her things …”

  “Not necessary. Her new sponsor will see to it that she has everything she—”

  A crash. The stew dishes? The hum in my chest rose to a whine. Someone was saying something quietly, over and over again, softly at first, but then loud enough for me to hear. “… not right. That’s not right.” Adeline. Her voice grew thick and stubborn. “We’ve cared for that child for close on two years, me and Jud. She’s like our—”

  The woman talked right over her. “But she’s not. She’s your paying guest, no more. And now I think we’ve wasted enough time on this. Any more argument and you won’t get that check I mentioned. Mike, go find the girl.”

  Scrape of chair. Creak and soft slam of door. I waited, but there was no shriek of pain as Adeline threw her boiling stew in the woman’s face, no solid crack of plate on self-satisfied Boston skull, nothing but silence. Adeline would do nothing to stop this woman bundling Luz into the rented Maxima and driving away. Because I don’t know how, Tammy had said.

  My breath poured in and out, in and out.

  Choose, Julia had said.

  I swore viciously, rolled up the mat around my gear, picked it up with one hand, and ran for the truck.

  I drove fast, yanking the truck through the turns. The man and woman would be leaving soon, with the girl. The man had a gun and I did not. I would need a diversion. On the way to the trailer I watched for turnoffs and side roads, looking for hedges or trees or other potential screens for a roadblock. Nothing big enough.

  I slammed into the campground in a cloud of dust. The trailer wasn’t hooked up to power or sewage, but it still took precious minutes to get it hitched to the truck. There was no time for precautions; anything loose would just have to break. Halfway down the dirt road, I braked hard, found the thermos, and got out. I kicked a hole in the dirt with my heel, poured in the tea, and scrabbled it about with a stick until it was mud. I picked up a double handful: one went on the truck’s front license plate, the other on the trailer’s. It would dry on the way.

  Driving more than sixty on a narrow Arkansas road while pulling six and a half tons of trailer behind you is not fun but I was all out of options. When the familiar rise came into view I didn’t slow: six hundred yards, five hundred, four, and at three hundred yards I stood on the brakes and pulled a long, curving skid, fighting the wheel, feeling the trailer begin to catch up with the truck, easing the brakes and goosing the engine just enough to stay ahead of a disastrous jackknife, hanging on, braking again, until I heard a sharp crack and the rig juddered to a halt, slewed right across both lanes, blocking them. I jumped down from the cab, swore at the spike of pain in my knee. The rubber burn was long, and stank of danger only just averted. It looked convincing, at least at first glance, which was all I’d need.

  But that crack had not been part of the plan. A quick look under the chassis showed no ominous leaking of fluid. I couldn’t see anything when I walked around the trailer and truck. Could be the hitch. But this wasn’t the time to find out. I got back in the cab, made sure the truck would still start, turned it off, and climbed out again with the field
glasses. I hurried, but with my knee it took nearly two minutes to work myself around the rise without the possibility of being seen from the house. The car was still there. I lay on my belly and focused on the front door.

  The door opened. Mike came out first, carrying a child’s suitcase. Luz’s. She’d get to take some of her things after all. It looked ridiculously small and light, or perhaps Mike just made it seem so. He put the case in the trunk of the car. He turned, and even from this distance I saw his surprise. I pulled back on the focus: Jud stood immobile and as far as I could see unspeaking on the far right of the house. Then he walked off around the back. Mike shrugged to himself, then leaned against the car, legs crossed at the ankles, arms folded, lifting his face to the weak afternoon sunlight. I focused back in. He stood up and unfolded his arms when the woman stepped through the door, her hand on Luz’s shoulder. Luz’s face was very pale. She kept twisting her head to look back, and now Adeline appeared in the doorway. Adult and child stretched their hands to each other. I couldn’t imagine what Adeline was saying. They didn’t touch. Adeline followed Luz and the woman to the Maxima. Mike lifted his hands and spread them as though he was about to step in front of Adeline and take her by the arms, stop her from going any further, when suddenly everything changed. They were all looking to the right. I pulled out again: Jud stood by the side of the house, a shotgun at his shoulder. His cheeks glittered in the sun.

  Nobody moved for two or three seconds, then Mike lifted both hands as if to say, Hey, I’m harmless, and Adeline stepped in front of her husband. She touched Jud’s cheek, said something. Not this way, maybe. Or perhaps, It’s not worth it. Or even, I don’t want to lose you, too. Whatever it was, it worked. He lowered the gun. Mike started forward, but the woman said something and he stopped. The woman spoke again, and he opened the back door of the car. The woman put one hand on the handle and gestured to Luz with the other: Get in. Luz shook her head, and looked at Adeline. Adeline tried to smile, tried to blow a kiss to Luz, but her mouth wouldn’t shape it properly. Instead she nodded. Luz climbed in. The woman slammed the door. She smiled pleasantly at the Carpenters, then walked around to the other side of the car. Mike started the engine. The woman got in the back and closed the door, and the car pulled onto the road.

  Watching in dumb show and from a distance made the whole thing look like some strange puppet performance, utterly divorced from me and my life.

  When the car came over the rise, I was standing between truck and trailer, looking in fake feminine annoyance at the hitch. Mike braked, and I prayed that Luz was either too smart or too much in shock to speak. I waved in that awkward, windscreen wiper way people with no physical coordination do, and smiled, and then threw my hands up as if to say, It just broke! Mike looked back at the woman and said something. She nodded. He climbed out of the car, already wearing that tolerant, capable-urban-man-approaching-silly-rural-woman expression I had counted on.

  “I am so glad to see you!” I said. “If this just doesn’t beat all. I had to put the brake on so hard I thought that was it, time to visit Jesus. You’re just the man I want to see. See here? Around this side?” I walked around the truck so that the hitch was between us. He followed. We were now out of the woman’s line of sight. “I’m just not strong enough to lift this thingie back on.”

  I pointed, and when he leaned forward I stepped behind him, shoved him against the side of the truck bed, and yanked his belt up with my right hand so his pants crushed his scrotum. While he concentrated on not fainting I slipped my left hand inside his jacket and slid out the gun. A Glock with the seventeen-shot magazine. Oversize, like his muscles. I thumbed off the safety and pressed the snout under his left ear. “Take out your wallet.”

  “I don’t have much—”

  A hard upward yank cut him off mid-sentence. “Now.” Didn’t he understand it would be easier to just shoot him, then shoot the woman and drive away?

  He reached behind him and lifted it from his back right-hand pocket. He didn’t try to drop it. Good. Still in the first phase of shock.

  I’d left my gloves in the truck.

  “Open it.”

  His hands shook as he unfolded it.

  “Not the money. Your driver’s license and insurance card. Put them on the bed so I can see them.” He did. It had been about fifteen seconds. He would start to recover his wits very soon. “Don’t even think about trying anything.”

  I scanned the cards over his shoulder. Michael Turner, a White Plains, New York, address. Social security number on the insurance card.

  “Tip out the rest of the wallet. Spread it all apart.”

  American Express, MasterCard, debit card, frequent flyer cards, AAA card, an emergency contact number card.

  His muscles tensed but I dropped his belt, punched him irritably over the right kidney, and had hold of the leather again before he could translate thought to action. He went limp and the rhythm of his breathing broke. No concealed weapons permit for this or any other state. No private investigator license.

  “I know your name, address, and social security number.” I glanced at the emergency contact card: the name Nicki Taormino, the designation fiancée, and a phone number in the person-to-be-contacted slot. “And I have your girlfriend’s number. Do exactly as I tell you and I won’t ever have to use any of that information. Upset me and I’ll shoot you in the gut. Walk two paces to your left and kneel down.”

  I let go of his belt and he did as he was told.

  I made sure he could see the gun trained on him. “Do you have a handkerchief? Good. Throw it to me.” He tossed me a clean, folded square, still warm from his pocket. “And your tie.” He obeyed silently. I put the tie and hankie on the truck bed with his wallet. “Now take off your belt.” He took off the belt. “Make a big loop.” It took him a moment to understand that I wanted him to thread the tongue through the buckle. The brain does not work well when the system is adrenaline-charged. “Hold it in your left hand, put that hand behind you.” His reaction time was getting slower as his system began to shut down. In three or four minutes it would rev back up, but by then he’d be helpless. “Now the right hand. Wrists together.”

  I stepped behind him and yanked the loop tight.

  “Lean back, as though you’re reaching for your heels.”

  Good thing his waist was so big; there was enough leather to wrap around his ankles, tuck under the loop, pull tight, then knot.

  “I’m going to tip you over.” I gave him a second to brace himself, then pushed one shoulder with my foot. I stepped over him to the truck bed, retrieved the hankie and tie. “Open your mouth.” He knew what was coming and began to thrash. I racked the slide on the Glock, pointed the muzzle at his stomach. “Gag or gun.” He opened his mouth. I stuffed the hankie in, then pulled the tie over his mouth to keep the gag in place and knotted it behind his head. He’d probably be able to work it loose in an hour or so, but I wouldn’t take nearly that long. I went back to the truck, fished the driver’s license and insurance card from the pile, and slipped them in my pocket. I needed a minute to stop, to think, but I didn’t have a minute.

  I slid the safety back on, tucked the gun in the back of my waistband, and stepped into view of the Maxima. When the woman saw me I waved, opened my mouth to speak, then shut it again with an apologetic smile, as though remembering it wasn’t ladylike to shout.

  The woman watched me calmly as I approached, though her shoulders and back looked tight. Her window slid down, but instead of speaking to her I leaned in the driver’s side and took the keys. That bothered her. I smiled at Luz and shook my head slightly, hoping she would understand. She didn’t smile back, just watched me the way you’d watch a rabid dog.

  “Step out of the car please, ma’am,” I said to the woman, and the tension in her spine eased a little: law enforcement generally pay attention to well-paid lawyers. Hijackers and thugs don’t. She got out of the car.

  I closed her door and window, then used the master control on the dri
ver’s side to lock the car up. I didn’t want Luz running off.

  “Well, officer,” she said, “or is it agent? I’d say prior knowledge of my travel plans means some kind of wiretap, which rules out local involvement.” She didn’t look worried. “FBI or INS? Not that it matters. I’ve been through this before. It’s a waste of my time and yours. You have nothing in the way of documentation.”

  My eyes felt hot and a little too big for their sockets. This was all her fault. “I don’t need proof.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Since when—” Then she got it. She took a step back. “Where’s my driver? What do you want?”

  “Your purse.”

  Like Mike Turner, she immediately assumed I wanted to rob her and turned to the car with relief, but unlike him, she realized within a second or two that no one would go to such trouble for a few bucks and a handful of credit cards, and her hand dropped before it touched the handle. “Who are you?”

  I got out the gun and pointed it at her. “Someone who is getting more irritated every second.” There was no one here to stop me. Aud rhymes with allowed. I used the key remote and her door lock thunked open. I nodded at the car. “Your purse.”

  Luz suddenly wriggled out of her seat belt and lunged to the front of the car, reaching for the horn. She managed to hit it once, just enough for a light pap that no one would hear, before I got the door open and yanked her out with one arm.

  I stood her up on the pavement. “Don’t.” I switched to Spanish. “Estoy salvando te de esta mujer. En unos minutos, te devolvere a … a Aba.” And in the middle of explaining to her I was rescuing her, that I would take her back to Adeline, she gave me that bird-eyed look again, and I understood, then, why I recognized it. I had looked at my own mother the same way all those times she had said, Yes, Aud, this time I will be there for the school sports day, or, Of course I don’t have to work on your birthday.