Whitt’s head spun. He staggered back, blinking. There had been no decision to hit the officer, no warning from inside his brain. He’d just done it, like a muscle reflex.
He saw Vada running toward him from the end of the bridge. His heart was hammering. Officer Swartout was coming forward. Vada got between them.
The young couple from the car were clutching each other, staring in horror at the collapsed officer on the ground.
Vada had Whitt’s arm and was leading him toward their vehicle, throwing apologies and excuses over her shoulder.
“You’re shaking,” she said to Whitt. “Edward, what happened? Are you okay?”
He couldn’t answer. Didn’t have an explanation to offer her. The officer he’d slugged was slowly waking, trying to stand with the help of his partner. Whitt slid into the passenger seat and covered his face with his hands.
“I’ve messed up,” he said. “I’ve messed up bad.”
“I know,” Vada said.
“I’m…” He looked at her. Didn’t have the strength to say it. “I’m…”
“I know,” she said again. He was off his head, had been for days. She knew it. Of course she knew it. She shut the door on him, and Whitt grabbed for his leather satchel that was lying on the back seat. He needed to even out. He was scaring himself.
He pulled a hip flask from the front pocket of the bag.
Chapter 45
STAN THE TRUCK DRIVER dropped me at a roadside bar and walked inside, giving me a dirty look and saying nothing as he pushed through the doors. The rain was easing. It would be up to me to find another ride, but my confidence faltered at the sight of the bar’s crowded interior. There were many people here, men and women dressed alike in high-vis outfits, grabbing lunch, some cracking balls on pool tables at the back of the room. Some people were in suits, tucked into booths, and there were rowdy groups of road workers who’d had their workday canceled by the rain. There was one waitress letting empty schooner glasses stack up on the end of the counter while she talked to a fat man sagging over the edge of his stool.
I went to the bar, cagey about showing the small stack of money tucked into the pocket of my jeans, making sure I didn’t meet eyes with the bartender from under my cap.
“Bourbon, neat.”
“House is fine?” he asked.
“Anything’s fine.”
One drink, just to warm up and calm my nerves after the close call at the roadblock. I sat at the bar and listened to the coverage of Bonnie Risdale’s murder on the round-the-clock news channel on the television in the distant corner of the room, hardly able to hear it over Cold Chisel playing from the jukebox and the chorus of men at the front of the bar singing along. I thought I heard Whitt’s voice, but by the time I looked up, he was off the screen again.
“You been out walking?” the bartender asked as he handed me my drink. I realized I was still wet from trekking along beside the highway. The bottoms of my jeans were splattered with mud. I shrugged, didn’t offer an answer.
“Is that Old Stan you came in with?”
“Leave her alone, Brian,” someone said. “She’s clearly had a rough morning.”
I hadn’t even noticed the women at my side. The one who had come to my defense and her partner were much alike in fashion sense, though one was tall and lanky and the other a short, dumpy version hunched over a phone screen. The lanky one was wearing a denim jacket long ago torn at the shoulder and sleeve, revealing an arm full of tattoos that went with the studs in her bottom lip. She was pierced all up her ears. Her partner was, too. Aging biker chicks.
“Thanks,” I mumbled as the bartender retreated. The woman’s fingers were ringed with big stainless-steel ornaments, a wolf head and a skull vomiting another skull. Tattoos on her right knuckles read KAZZ.
“These bartenders,” Kazz said. “They get bored. Same people every day in this place. They see a new person come in, they get all nosy.”
“Uh-huh.” I nodded.
Her friend still hadn’t looked up from her phone screen. I knew women like this from the job. These ladies had probably been the busty, dangerous, trash-mouthed girlfriends of drug-dealing bikers back in the day. Now they were old, traded out for younger, fresher models after a few decades of loyal service. Exchanged for women who didn’t know so much about their partner’s crimes.
The women’s food arrived, two chicken schnitzels with mashed potato and peas. I watched out of the corner of my eye as Kazz poured gravy all over her food. My stomach growled. But I didn’t have time to hang around, stuffing my face. I needed a ride out of here, needed get to Narooma and Melina as fast as I could. I glanced around the bar for a potential ride.
“Help yourself, honey,” Kazz said, shoving a bowl of chips toward me. “Gammy and me, we always order too much.”
I hesitated, and Kazz nudged Gammy, who nodded enthusiastically and licked her lips in response. I saw that she’d had her tongue surgically forked, and recently, too. The tips were red and swollen, the procedure probably done by a backyard body modifier.
“Thanks,” I said again, and relented, thinking I’d have a couple of chips and no more. Soon I was shoving handfuls into my mouth. I couldn’t recall the last time I’d had hot food. My whole body seemed tensed with hunger, my fingers trembling as I grabbed at the food.
“Jeez, you’re like the stray puppy come in from the rain.” Kazz laughed, pouring gravy on the chips for me. “Eat up, girl. There’s plenty to go around.” I hardly noticed how closely Kazz and Gammy were watching me eat. I was checking the back of the bar, where Stan was talking to his friends. He seemed to be describing where and how he had found me. I had to get a ride and get out of here. The guys by the door looked friendly. I turned and drained my drink, balking as the bartender placed another one in front of me.
“On me.” Kazz grinned, making a smiley-face tattoo on her cheekbone wink. “You look like you need it.”
“Thanks, really.” I drained the drink in one gulp. “I’ve got to get going, though. I don’t suppose either of you are heading Narooma way?”
“We could be, we could be.” Kazz nodded, thinking. “What do you think, Gam? Should help the pretty puppy get where she’s going?”
I looked to Gam for an answer, but I couldn’t see her face through a gray haze floating thickly through the bar. I shook my head, blinked, but the gray cloud was creeping in at the corners of my vision now, making a tunnel. Kazz and Gam had started talking in sounds rather than words, bumbling tones like a soft trumpet playing with a pillow crammed in its end. I gripped the bar as the fog cleared momentarily, everything zapping back into perfect clarity. I gulped a breath before I could sink back under the influence of the cloud.
“Oh, shit,” I managed to say. “Oh…No…”
I got off my stool, hanging on to the bar for support, and turned toward the men near the door. My eyelids were heavy. The fog was creeping back. When I tried to speak, my mind screamed the words I’ve been drugged!
Not a sound made it past my lips.
Chapter 46
I’D HEARD THIS story a hundred times.
I was having a good time. We hadn’t been at the bar very long. Everything seemed fine. I was talking to some friendly guy. Suddenly my friends were gone. I realized I couldn’t speak.
I couldn’t walk.
I couldn’t ask for help.
I hadn’t been targeted by a serial rapist in a nightclub, like the girls I’d taken statements from across my career in Sex Crimes. But the terror in my chest was just the same as my body and brain failed on me. A room full of people, and I couldn’t make a single person realize I was in trouble. Kazz put her arm around me, steadying me. Gammy slipped off her stool and walked ahead of us. This was all routine for her, I realized. I had no choice but to let Kazz guide me, or I’d fall flat on my face. I tried to grab at one of the men in the group by the door as we passed, but my fingers were numb. Looking back for Stan or the bartender sent my head spinning, the gray cloud swallowi
ng my vision.
I tried to scream as they half walked, half carried me toward the door.
Help me. Help me.
I tried to stop walking, fell into someone. But Kazz was stronger than she looked. Her fingers bit into my arm.
“Herrrrr,” I managed, slapping uselessly at a man’s chest. “Herrrr!”
“Is she all right?”
“She’s a real lightweight.” Kazz yanked me away, an arm encircling my waist. “Don’t worry about her. We’ll get her home.”
It had stopped raining, but a harsh wind howled. I knew no one would hear me, even if I finally managed to scream. They walked me around the side of the bar and down a wide, barren roadway. I tried to fall to my knees out of their grip, but Gammy slipped under my other arm, her shoulder jutting into my ribs. My toes dragged in the mud. Ahead, I glimpsed a large shed, its corrugated iron door lit by golden lamps from inside.
Chapter 47
THE FRANTIC SCREAMING in my mind stopped as I was dumped on the hard wooden floor of the shed, my breath leaving my chest in a harsh yelp. I needed to think, assess my situation. I knew about date-rape drugs. I’d studied their various forms and uses. There were clues about what I had been given, and so far those clues were telling me good things.
First, I wasn’t hallucinating. Though my vision was blurred and my body useless, I still had a firm grip on reality and wasn’t spinning off into psychedelic dreams. When my vision cleared, I could make out the benches around me cluttered with greasy tools and machines, the jars of screws and bolts. I was still conscious, and that was good. The fact that I wasn’t out, and that Gammy was taping my wrists in front of me, told me the drug probably started to work fast but wore off quickly. I was probably going to be back in full working order soon. It was a drug designed to stun and incapacitate, rather than have me out for long periods of time. I’d seen men and women slipped this type of drug, then dragged into an alleyway and robbed, the assailant fleeing before the victim could recover. These drugs were low-risk, cheap. The victim wasn’t going to stop breathing on them and die for the contents of their wallet.
Gammy taped my wrists and mouth before emptying my pockets, seizing the cash with a cheer. I lay watching the ceiling ticking slowly around in a circle and listened to them going through my backpack.
“There’s nothing else here but papers,” Kazz was muttering. “What is all this stuff? It’s like criminal records or something.”
“There’s a phone,” Gammy slurred. I heard the phone tumble to the ground. “Cheap.”
“Jesus fuck!” Kazz laughed. I heard her action my gun. “Check this out!”
I rolled onto my front, tried to lift my head. My legs felt like lead. There was a pause while the two women tried to piece the situation together. The cash. The gun. The papers. I heard them get quickly to their feet.
“She’s a…” Gammy whispered.
A cop. I was a cop. Kazz rummaged through the bag and grabbed my wallet. My badge.
“Detective Harriet Blue,” Kazz read.
“Oh, shit.” Gammy laughed. “We sure know how to pick ’em.”
They weren’t worried. Most cops would never report being tricked and robbed in such a basic scam out of sheer pride, and if they were concerned that I’d come back with my colleagues and bust them for their hustle, all they had to do was move their game up the road into another jurisdiction. As long as they didn’t figure out who I was, I would be fine.
I breathed, dragged my legs into a kneeling position. The spinning in my head was slowing, but I wasn’t going to let them know my strength was returning. I knelt, bent double, my hands beneath me on the dirt, my eyes closed. I silently willed them to simply take the cash and run for their miserable, thieving lives. You robbed a cop, I thought. Big deal. Run now and gloat, and don’t think about it any further.
I wasn’t so lucky.
“Harriet Blue,” Gammy said. “Isn’t that…?”
I could feel them staring at me. I squeezed my eyes shut, prayed to the universe that they would not say the words. Anything but those terrible words.
“There’s a reward out for this chick,” Kazz said.
Chapter 48
THEY CAME FOR ME. The duct tape had been a quick, ill-planned, temporary restraint. Now they had to get me bound up properly and out of sight. I couldn’t hide that I was recovering any longer. As Gammy came over the top of me, I rolled and kicked upward with both feet. I’d aimed for her chest, hoping to propel her backward, but I was still dizzy. One foot glanced off her side, the other sinking into her fleshy stomach. She gave a breathy groan and doubled over, Kazz backing off in shock.
I rolled away, tried to stagger to my feet, but I wasn’t completely in control yet. Balancing on one knee, I ripped the duct tape off my mouth. I thought about screaming for help but doubted anyone in the bar would hear me. The music had been pretty loud, and Kazz and Gammy’s familiarity with the shed suggested they brought their victims here regularly. The bartender might have been in on it. Even if I thought I’d have a chance of being heard, I wasn’t going to cry for help in front of these bitches. Half a fight is bluffing, looking like you know what you’re doing. They had to know I was prepared to defend myself, that I didn’t appreciate being lured and captured like an animal.
“I’ll let one of you run,” I offered. “There’s no need for both of you to get hurt.” I didn’t expect them to take the bait, but it was worth a try—getting down to one opponent might have equalized things in my incapacitated state.
The two women reassessed the situation, Gammy clutching her stomach, eyes watering. Three breathless adversaries, already twitching with adrenaline. If I could convince either of them, it seemed likely to be Gammy. She was younger, simple-looking, the sidekick hanging around the tougher, stronger Kazz. Gammy was dumb, but she could see I knew how to fight.
“It’s only money,” I told Gammy. “Whoever stays is going to leave here in an ambulance.”
“It’s a hundred fucking grand,” Kazz sneered. “Don’t let her mess with your head, Gam. We got this.”
“Be smart, Gammy,” I warned. “You can leave here and continue your miserable, parasitic life hustling small change out of unsuspecting drifters. Or you can roll the dice for some hard cash and end up eating your next meal through a tube.”
While they calculated their chances, I tried not to look at my gun lying on my backpack just a few meters away. The women appeared to have forgotten it. But if I leaped for it, I knew I’d remind them and they’d get to the weapon before me. The room was still slowly turning, blurring. I didn’t have the time to unbind my wrists. I reached for the nearest weapon—a good-sized wrench sitting on a set of shelves.
Kazz came first. Her eyes were on the wrench, so I faked, knowing she’d duck, and swung at the side of her head. My movements were exaggerated by the drugs, off-balance. The heavy wrench had been a bad choice. In a downward chopping motion, I missed her head completely. She sank her fist into my stomach. I fell into the shelves, sending glass jars falling, smashing, spraying screws and bolts. Gammy rushed in, emboldened by Kazz’s success, and grabbed a handful of my hair. I dropped the wrench and reached up, sank my nails into her hands, raked down as hard as I could.
They were both on me, a tangle of arms. I reached out, grabbed an iron clamp that had fallen off the table and swung wildly. With a lucky shot I got Kazz right on her collarbone. I heard the dull thunk of the iron hitting the bone through the denim of her jacket and through her skin. She wailed in pain, struggled away, and I swung again, holding the clamp like brass knuckles, hitting Gammy with a half-strength blow in the side.
They backed off once more, but not for long. I was proving a nuisance, but I hadn’t scared either of them yet. I needed to draw blood. Break bones.
In the seconds before they came again, I ripped at the duct tape on my wrists with my teeth, slashing through the sticky plastic. I pulled, and my wrists parted reluctantly. The clamp wasn’t enough. I needed something long-
range. I ditched the clamp and fumbled over the glass and screws and metal on the bench behind me, never taking my eyes off my opponents. There wasn’t time to choose carefully. I lifted something.
A claw hammer. We all looked at the tool. I turned it in my hand so that the claws faced forward. I was feeling pretty good about myself until Kazz reached for a weapon on the bench beside her and pulled up a shiny new hatchet.
Chapter 49
“THAT IS NOT a good idea,” I said, trying to keep my voice strong. Kazz examined the hatchet. Gammy, looking as confident as I did about her partner’s choice, stood trembling nearby.
“If we kill her, she’s not worth nothing,” Gammy mumbled. The hatchet was so new, it still had a price sticker on it and a plastic guard over the blade. Kazz peeled the guard off and smiled. I could see the handle of my gun beyond them, poking out from beneath some of the papers they’d discovered in my bag.
Kazz hefted the hatchet in her hand, gave it an experimental swing. “Get on the fucking ground,” she ordered, pointing to the floor with her free hand. Big mistake. The pointing caused her pain. She winced. I realized I had indeed done some significant damage to her collarbone, maybe cracked or dislocated it. Weak spot. I sidestepped along the bench, the hammer feeling like a lead weight in my fist.
“I’m leaving here,” I told the women. I looked at Gammy, whose commitment to the fight seemed to be waning. “I’m leaving alone, and of my own free will. That’s a fact, ladies. You just have to decide how much blood you’d like to donate to the floorboards before I walk out that door.”
“You got a lot of fucking nerve.” Kazz shook her head. “You’re losing. Look at you.” I felt a dribble on my lip and realized my nose was bleeding. I must have caught a stray hand or elbow in the scuffle, and the drugs had been masking my pain. There was blood running down my ankle. My breath was coming in hoarse growls, like my ribs were crushed. I sidestepped a little more, making my way toward the gun.
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