by R. J. Jagger
Then Durivage said, “You stay here and go to sleep. I’m going to stand guard in the living room.”
“Okay.”
99
Day Three
July 17
Thursday Night
The trunk opened and a heavy hand smacked Jina’s ass. Strong arms pulled her out and flung her over a shoulder, feet to the front and her head dangling at the man’s back. Then she was in motion, being carried.
“Stop!”
“Shut up.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
He slapped her ass.
The sting ran up her spine into her brain.
Then he slapped her again, even harder, which forced an unintelligible noise from her mouth. She concentrated on the pain, saying nothing.
The walking continued.
Then the man stopped, yanked Jina off his shoulder and laid her on the ground.
She felt dirt.
She smelled oil.
The man was doing something, possibly unlocking a lock, then a heavy metal door slid open. He pulled her off the ground, carried her up a short ladder and stepped inside something.
No doubt a building of some sort.
The door slammed shut.
The man laid her back down.
The floor was cold and hard.
Her hood was ripped off. What she saw she could hardly believe. Taylor Lee was in front of her, sitting on the floor with her back against some type of metal wall. Her arms were stretched above her head and held handcuffed to some kind of protrusion. Her mouth was gagged. The man shined a flashlight up and down Taylor’s body, giving Jina a good look.
Then he shined the light into Jina’s eyes.
“Now listen carefully,” he said. “Your little friend here is going to die, do you understand? She’s going to die unless you give me the scroll. You have it, don’t you? Admit that you have it.”
A pause.
“Yes.”
“I knew it,” he said. “Where is it?”
“It’s buried.”
“We’re going to go unbury it right now,” he said. “As soon as I have it, you’ll both go free.”
Taylor shook her head negative.
The man slapped her face.
“Shut up!” Then to Jina, “I’m not going to kill anyone so long as you cooperate. All I want is the scroll. Once I get it, we’ll all go our separate ways. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
He yanked her to her feet and put the hood back over her head.
“Let’s go.”
100
Day Three
July 17
Thursday Night
Wilde parked by the South Platte and headed into the industrial area on foot. The night was blacker than black. The buildings, the sky and the earth were all smothered with the same thick pitch. He could come within thirty steps of a parked car and never know it.
Come on, Alabama.
Be here somewhere.
He picked his way towards the tallest building, the five-story job with the blood on the concrete and the shack out back, the shack where Jessica Dent lived out her last days.
What was Johnny Pants’ role in all this?
Maybe Wilde had been pointed in the wrong direction all along. He’d been looking for a connection between Raven and the dead women. Maybe that connection didn’t exist. Maybe the connection was between Pants and the dead women, intertwined with a second connection between Pants and Raven. Maybe Raven killed the women but did it for Pants rather than himself.
Complicated.
That’s what it was, complicated.
Too complicated.
Right now he didn’t have time to think about it. Right now Alabama might be getting killed. That’s what he needed to stay focused on.
He carried the gun in his right hand.
The chambers were full.
The steel was hard.
He broke out of his walk into a trot, then powered the trot into a run. What he needed to see was a light, however brief, however faint, a splash of headlights or the jab of a flashlight or an orange cigarette tip, it didn’t matter, just something to give him a mark.
No marks came.
The building loomed ahead, still almost invisible but taking a greater and greater definition as he approached.
No car was parked in front.
No sounds came from anywhere.
No light came from anywhere.
He trotted around the side of the structure towards the back where the shack was.
Come on, be a creature of habit.
Do the same trick twice.
Suddenly he heard a noise.
It was faint.
It almost wasn’t there.
It was there enough, though, to bring him to a halt. He tried to get a bearing. His breathing was thick and heavy and drummed in his ears. He held his breath and focused.
The sound was coming from his right.
He turned his head directly at it.
Suddenly a yap split the air, something dog-like but not exactly. Then more yapping came, from three or four or five throats.
Coyotes.
Stupid coyotes.
He turned and made his way down the side of the structure, then around to the back. The shack was a hundred yards away. No sounds came from it. No lights came from it. If there was a vehicle parked in the area, Wilde couldn’t see it.
He headed that way with a heavy chest.
The uneven earth twisted his ankles and the wild grasses rubbed against his pants.
Alabama wouldn’t be there.
He could already tell.
101
Day Three
July 17
Thursday Night
“It’s buried off the service road by the railroad tracks, the ones you followed me to this afternoon.” That said, Jina was then put back in the trunk, still tied, still in the hood, until they got there. Then the car stopped, the trunk opened and she was jerked out.
The man ripped her hood off.
The night was dark.
They were on the service road.
“If you lied to me about the scroll being here, you’re going to learn a very hard lesson,” the man said. “Where is it?”
“It’s down the road.”
The man put her in the passenger seat and headed into the blackness.
“Tell me when to stop,” he said.
“It’s a ways.”
“How far?”
“I don’t know, a couple miles,” she said. “We’re looking for a pinion pine. That’s where we need to stop.”
The headlights punched eerily down the road.
There was no more desolate place on earth.
She swallowed and stole a sideways glance at the man.
The dashboard lights etched his face.
He was intense.
He looked like he was preparing to kill her.
“If I tell you where it is, you said you’d let me and Taylor go,” Jina said.
The man grunted.
“There is no if at this point,” he said. “You’re either going to tell me or you’re going to fall into a hole of pain so deep and dark that you’ll pee your pants a hundred times. I’m through screwing around. Get that through your head.”
She stared out the window.
In ten minutes she’d be dead.
She didn’t want to die.
Not out here.
Not alone.
Not like this.
It was going to happen, though. She couldn’t stop it. The thought consumed her. She felt a wetness on her seat, one she hadn’t noticed before, and realized that her bladder had released.
The man said, “Damn you,” and slapped her head.
Tears engulfed her eyes and ran down her face.
Suddenly the pinion appeared.
“Is that it?”
She said nothing.
“I said, is that it?”
�
�Yes.”
The man stopped at the side of the road, killed the engine and turned off the headlights.
The darkness was absolute.
Without the noise of the engine and the chafing of the tires, Jina heard the excess of her own breathing and realized she was hyperventilating.
“Where is it?”
“It’s out in the field a ways.”
“Show me.”
“How?”
The man reached in the glove compartment, pulled out a hunting knife and cut the ropes around Jina’s ankles. He left her arms tied behind her back, then he grabbed her by the throat and said, “Understand something right now and understand it good. If you try to run, you’ll pay for it. So will your little friend. Are we clear on that?”
She nodded.
“Say it.”
A beat.
“Yes.
“Yes what?”
“Yes I’m clear on it.”
“Good, stay where you are.”
The man got out, slammed his door shut, walked around the car and pulled Jina out. Then he turned on a flashlight, pointed it at the ground and said, “Now show me.”
“It’s this way.”
Jina counted off the steps until she got to the moss rock.
“It’s under that rock,” she said.
“How far down?”
“Not far, a foot or so.”
“It better be there,” he said.
“It is.”
He pushed her back a step.
“Stand right there and don’t move. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
The man pushed the rock to the side and dug with the knife. The soil was loose. The flashlight laid on the ground, pointed at Jina’s feet.
She watched.
Frozen.
Two minutes.
That’s all it would take before he reached the scroll.
Two more minutes.
As soon as he had it in hand, he’d shove the knife in her stomach. Then he’d go back to Taylor and do the same to her.
Poof.
All the witnesses would be gone.
The man was looking down, concentrating on the digging.
A primitive gene grabbed Jina’s brain.
She pulled her foot back and kicked it at the man’s face with every ounce of strength she had.
It landed squarely, so much so that his head snapped violently and he catapulted backwards onto his spine.
“You goddamn bitch!”
Jina ran.
Don’t fall!
Don’t fall!
Don’t fall!
She created a gap but the man was behind her, shouting, closing the distance with each passing second. Suddenly a fist of steel grabbed her hair from behind and yanked back so hard that it snapped her entire body backwards to the ground.
The man stood over her, panting heavily.
“I told you not to run,” he said. “You brought this on yourself.”
She closed her eyes as the man grabbed her face.
102
Day Four
July 18
Friday Morning
Something crawled across Wilde’s face. At first it registered as a sensation, neither good nor bad. As he became more and more conscious, it took on an increasingly dangerous aura. He opened his eyes to find something slithering. He frantically brushed it off to the side and twisted his head to the other. It was a rattlesnake.
He rolled as fast as he could.
The reptile curled up, raised its head and shook its tail.
Wilde got to his feet and stepped away.
He kicked dirt at it then looked around.
The first rays of dawn were seeping into the morning sky. He was in the warehouse district. Why? Then he remembered searching for Alabama for hours last night before finally collapsing on the ground to rest for a few minutes.
His stomach growled.
His tongue was sandpaper.
His clothes were filthy beyond repair.
He picked up his hat, slapped it against his leg until the dust stopped flying, then tilted it over his left eye and headed for the car.
Damn it.
No Alabama.
No Alabama all night.
He headed home, hoping against hope that she found her way back last night. He bounded through the front door and shouted, “Alabama!”
No answer came.
“Alabama!”
Nothing.
Only silence.
Damn it.
Damn it to hell.
His body ached from the relentless hours on the dirt. He grabbed a quart of orange juice from the fridge and downed it as he stripped out of his pathetic clothes. Then he got the shower up to temperature and stayed in until the hot water ran out.
He dried off, combed his wet hair straight back and slipped into a fresh suit.
Then he headed for the office.
He was getting the coffee pot fired up when the door opened and a timid woman stuck her head in. Wilde didn’t know her but knew the look on her face.
It was one of fear.
One of uncertainty.
One of desperation.
It mirrored how he felt.
“Are you Bryson Wilde?”
He was.
“I really hope you can help me,” she said. “I have something desperate going on.”
He almost blurted out, No.
No way.
I’m sorry, I really am, but I already have more going on than the law allows. I don’t even have time to spell new client, much less have one.
The look on her face wouldn’t let his lips move in that direction though.
The look on her face made him say, “Do you want some coffee?”
She took a step inside but didn’t shut the door.
“I’ll pay you, whatever it is you charge, but I don’t have the money right now. I’ll have to save it up.”
Wilde shrugged.
“Was that a yes on the coffee?”
She nodded.
“That would be nice.”
103
Day Four
July 18
Friday Morning
Durivage, still alive, picked his achy body off the living room floor as the first rays of daylight bled through the curtains. Outside everything looked normal. He picked the knife off the floor, set it on the table and headed for the bedroom. Zongying was balled up under the covers snoring lightly. Durivage gave her an imperceptible kiss on the check and headed for the shower.
Halfway through Zongying stepped in.
“It looks like we’re still alive,” she said.
“It’s a good thing,” he said. “It’s my favorite way to start the day.”
She stuck her head under the spray and rubbed her face.
“Lather me up, Frenchman.”
Right.
Good idea.
He ran the soap over her neck and shoulders.
She turned and rested her hands against the wall above her head and let the spray hit her face. Durivage ran the soap over her underarms and breasts, then down to her incredibly taut stomach.
She wiggled her ass.
Durivage rubbed against her.
Then he took her from behind.
He took her until she screamed those little screams he loved so much.
Afterwards, over coffee and waffles, he said, “I have something I want to tell you. I have money.”
“I know.”
“I’m not talking about money money,” he said, “’I’m talking about insane money. I’m talking about the kind of money that you need a math degree to count.”
She studied him.
“Where’d you get all this insane money?”
He diverted his eyes, then looked at her. “I steal things. There. Now you know.” A beat. “I didn’t know if I’d tell you. I guess I know the answer now.”
She took a sip of coffee.
“What do you steal, exactly?”
“Things worth my time.”
“Things worth your time,” she repeated.
He nodded.
“I want you to come to Paris with me.”
She sat on his lap and ran her fingers through his hair.
“And what would I do in Paris?”
“You’d be my partner.”
“Partner? I thought you were going to say lover.”
“Partner includes lover,” he said.
“Is that what Emmanuelle was, your partner?”
“I thought she was,” he said. “This is different. This is real. So say yes.”
104
Day Four
July 18
Friday Morning
The man bent down, grabbed Jina’s face and started to pull her to her feet. She kicked with her right leg with all her might and landed a foot directly to his crotch. He shouted something incoherently and dropped to the ground.
Jina ran but a hand grabbed her ankle and pulled her down.
She pulled at her bonds.
Her hands wouldn’t loosen.
Not an inch.
The man still had her by the leg but was curling up into a ball. Jina got behind him with her back to his, then swung her hands around his neck and arched her back as tight as she could.
The rope dug into his throat.
He twisted and rolled violently.
The pain in Jina’s shoulders was unbearable.
She didn’t care.
She pulled and pulled and pulled.
It took a long time before the man stopped moving.
Five or six minutes.
Maybe longer.
When it was over, she got herself loose from the entanglement, muscled to her feet and walked back to the hole. The knife wasn’t there so she had to open the car door and rub the ropes on the edge of the metal for a long time before breaking free.
She reburied the scroll and placed the moss rock back on top.
Then she dragged the man’s body out of the field, to the road and put him in the trunk.
She drove out of the service road and headed away from the city.
The flatlands gave way to rolling hills, which then gave way to foothills. Half an hour later, she turned onto a dirt road that wound into ponderosa pines. She dragged the body as far as she could, which must have been a good three hundred yards. Then she got back in the car, headed for the city and abandoned it three miles from her house.