The Edge of Alone - 07

by Sean Black

  Don hesitated.

  “It’s either this, or you’re on your own. I pull out and take Ty with me. Then there’s no one there to keep an eye out for your daughter. Those are your choices so take it or leave it.”

  They shook hands.

  “I have your word?” said Lock.

  “Yes,” said Don. “You have my word. But if they’ve hurt her. . .”

  Don Price didn’t need to finish the sentence. Lock knew how it would finish. Knowing what he did about Don’s background, he also knew that it he wasn’t a man who made idle threats.

  Saying a prayer that Ruth would be fine, Lock pulled out of the diner’s parking lot and onto the main road. It was a straight shot from here to Broken Ridge.

  “Take us about twenty minutes. A little less if I put my foot down,” Lock informed his passenger.

  “Then put your foot down,” said Don, his jacket riding up to reveal the gun on his hip.

  The gun was a Glock 19, standard State Department issue for a man with Don’s type of responsibilities. Not that Lock had ever seen anyone rolling through the State Department offices in D.C. with one on their hip.

  “You’re not thinking of using that are you?” Lock asked, with a brief nod to the gun.

  “Of course not.”

  Lock knew that was a lie. Don may not have been planning on drawing his weapon, but you didn’t carry a gun unless it was at least a possibility. But Lock was hardly going to take it from him.

  “Do me a favor, would you?”

  “What’s that? asked Don.

  “When we get there, leave the gun in the vehicle.”

  “I told you, I’m not planning on using it. And anyway, you’re packing.”

  “Yeah, but this is work for me. I’m not emotionally involved.”

  “”Okay, okay. Whatever. If it makes you happy, I’ll leave it in the car. Now can you step on the gas?”

  Lock jammed his foot down on the gas pedal. The Explorer lurched forward along the empty desert road. Lock wanted to get there so that Don could see his daughter and they could go back to the motel and decide upon their next move.

  “So?” said Lock “This guy with the rifle you thought was hanging around back at the motel before I got there, tell me what he looked like again?”

  “I dunno. Tall, heavy set, bushy beard. Like some kind of mountain man. Why? You have an idea who it might be?”

  “Yeah, but it doesn’t make any sense why he’d be looking for me.”

  66

  Ruth Price sat in the passenger seat and did her best to stay calm. Every few seconds the man would glance over at her and smile. Even if he hadn’t locked the doors there was no way she could get out while the van was moving. The worst part of it was that she had no idea who he was or what he wanted with her. At Broken Ridge she at least had the comfort of knowing what she was dealing with.

  The bearded man began to whistle. It was a soft, reedy sound. It sounded familiar but Ruth couldn’t place it.

  “So,” she said, doing her best to sound matter of fact. “Where are we headed?”

  The man smiled again, his eyes twinkling. “Already told you, I’m taking you home.”

  “Home?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Where else would be going at this time of night? Your mom’ll be excited to see you. You know, I knew it was you, as soon as I saw you standing out on that road.”

  He reached over and patted Ruth’s knee. She shrank back into the corner of the seat, leaning in against the door.

  “It’s going to be a surprise. You know her birthday’s coming up soon.”

  Ruth stared at him. Her mother’s birthday wasn’t for three more months.

  “She sent you to get me?” she asked, careful to stay out of knee patting reach.

  “Not exactly, no. Like I said, I wanted it to be a surprise. But it’s time you came home. We’ve missed you.”

  We? What did he mean we? He was talking like he knew her.

  “It’s not easy for me to say this. But we should have never sent you to that place.”

  Finally, Ruth’d had enough. If he was going to do something to her, he would do it.

  “Why do you keep saying we like you know me?”

  He looked over at her. The smile fell away. He didn’t look angry so much as sad.

  “It’s the beard, isn’t it?”

  “What is? What’s the beard?”

  “It’s why you don’t recognize me.”

  She rifled her brain. Had she seen this man somewhere before? No, she was sure she hadn’t. So why did he seem so sure that he knew her? Was he some kind of weird stalker who picked up kids who tried to run away from Broken Ridge?

  “It’s me, Jenny,” he said. “It’s your father.”

  “My father? You’re not my father. My father’s Donald Price.”

  The man scowled. “That’s not funny. Not funny at all. Did your mom put you up to this?”

  He reached over and made a grab for her arm. She pulled away.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re not my father, and my name’s not Jenny, it’s Ruth.”

  “She did, didn’t she? This was her idea. She’s always coming out with stuff like that, trying to confuse me. Telling me I have someone’s name wrong. But you listen to me, it’s not funny.”

  The van slowed. He pulled in off the road. Out of instinct, Ruth reached for the door handle. “Let me out of here, okay?” she screamed.

  “See!” he shouted back at her. “This is why we had to send you away in the first place. This kind of attitude. Now, you stop this right this minute. You hear me?”

  He leaned across towards her. She lifted her leg and kicked out as hard as she could. Her foot caught him in the chest.

  He raised his hand to strike her. She flinched. At the last second, he stopped himself.

  “I’m taking you home,” he said. “And no one’s going to stop me. You hear me?”

  67

  Ty pushed Chris on ahead of him. As far as he could tell, the bleeding from his shoulder had all but stopped. When Chris slowed, he jabbed the barrel of the SIG into the base of Chris’ spine. At one point, Chris half turned around.

  “Could you quit that?” he whined at Ty.

  “Listen, asshole, count yourself lucky I haven’t returned the favor and put a bullet in you yet.”

  Chris turned back round and kept walking. He didn’t say anything else until they had reached the ranch house. That was where the only working link to the outside world was. Before he did anything else, including searching for Ruth, he planned on calling up the cavalry in the form of his business partner.

  He prodded Chris up the stairs, onto the front porch, and towards the front door. The ranch house lay in darkness. Somehow, Ty doubted that Gretchen had retired to bed, not with everything that was going on.

  Chris stopped at the front door. Ty made sure he was close in behind him. It wouldn’t have surprised Ty if they found Gretchen on the other side of the door, cradling a shotgun over her lap while she sat in her rocking chair. Having already caught one bullet this evening, Ty didn’t plan on catching another one. That honor could go to the man in front of him.

  “Go ahead,” prompted Ty, with another dig to Chris’ spine.

  Maybe Chris had the same concerns, because he didn’t seem eager to walk in and face his boss.

  “Open the door.”

  Chris reached out turned the handle. It hadn’t been locked. He pushed through and into the gloom. Ty stayed a few paces behind him and scanned the hallway. There was no one to be seen.

  The place was quiet. Only the ticking of an old clock in the corner of the living room disturbed the peace.

  Chris called out to Gretchen.

  No answer.

  With Ty at his back, the two men moved through the ranch house. They found no one. If Gretchen had skipped out, they would have seen her on the road that led out of the ranch. She had to be somewhere.

  Not knowing where she was he
ightened Ty’s growing sense of unease. There was no way back from what had just happened. Gretchen and the local cops may have been able to explain away the last few deaths as misadventure or suicide. This would be different. They must have known that Ty and Lock would make sure the place was closed down and that people went to prison.

  That fact alone would raise the stakes for everyone here. The place generated huge sums of money. But it was also all that Gretchen had going for her. Take away Broken Ridge, and she was just a bat shit crazy woman with a bad attitude. This place was her life. Ty didn’t see her giving up on it without a fight.

  Standing in the middle of the ranch house, the thought put him on edge. There was one thing more dangerous than someone backed into a corner. Someone who also felt like they had nothing left to lose.

  They kept moving. Ty keeping Chris in front of him, as a human shield as they rounded every corner.

  In the office, Ty made straight for the phone. He picked it up from it’s cradle, held it in one hand and quickly punched in Lock’s cell phone number.

  It was only when he put the phone to his ear that he realized it was dead. he walked over to where it was plugged into the wall socket. The cable had been ripped out, the wall socket smashed, the wires inside pulled out.

  Ty turned to Chris. “Where does she keep the cell phone blocker?”

  Chris hesitated.

  Ty pointed the gun straight at him. “Let me explain a couple of things to you real quick. You’ve already shot me, so I’m not all that fussed about keeping you alive. And if you don’t help me out here then I truly don’t have any reason to keep you around.”

  It’s over there,” said Chris, pointing to a cabinet behind the desk.

  “You know how to disable it?”

  “Gretchen doesn’t let anyone near it apart from her.”

  Ty marched over to the cabinet. It was padlocked. No great surprise.

  He raised the SIG, leveling the barrel at the lock.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Chris shouted.

  Ty shrugged. “What? You’re worried that I’m going to damage it?”

  He blasted two quick rounds into the cabinet. He dug out his cell phone. He was low on battery, but he had a signal.

  Hallelujah.

  He tapped on the screen, pulled out Lock’s number and hit the call icon. the connection was fussy. Static crackled. But after a few seconds, Lock answered.

  “Ty? Where are you?”

  “Up here in the ranch house.”

  “Okay, good, we’re almost there. Be about five minutes.”

  “We?” asked Ty.

  “I got Donald Price with me.”

  Terrific, thought Ty. That was all they needed.

  When Don Price arrived to find his daughter missing, and all this chaos, he’d go ballistic. Their biggest problem would be preventing him for burning the place to the ground.

  A thought struck Ty. Something that Gretchen had mentioned earlier.

  “Where does she keep the guns? She told me she had a gun safe.”

  “I don’t know,” said Chris. “She gave me yours after she told me you’d be sent in to spy on us. I don’t know anything about a gun safe.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Why would I lie?”

  “Okay then, start looking.”

  Together they began to search the office. Ty found it first, concealed behind a regular looking wooden cabinet door. He pulled the door open. The safe wasn’t locked. Ty pulled that door open.

  It was empty.

  68

  “So what do you plan on doing with me?” Chris asked Ty as they headed back out of the ranch house and towards the dormitories.

  “That depends.”

  “On what?”

  “Whether you give me any more trouble or not. If you do, I’m going to shoot you.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  Ty took a second to think about what he should tell him. “Tell you what, you help me find Gretchen, make sure these kids are safe, and you explain to the authorities how badly this place needs to be shut down, and I’ll try to help you out.”

  “How are you going to do that? I shot you.”

  “I can say the gun went off accidentally. Happens all the time.”

  “You would do that for me?” said Chris, sounding so grateful it bordered on the pathetic.

  “If you do what I ask then sure,” said Ty.

  In truth, Ty had no intention of helping Chris Fontaine once this was resolved. None at all. Ty wasn’t going to hurt him., but the guy deserved to stand before a judge and jury.

  “I can’t believe you’d do that for me after what I did.”

  “Neither can I,” said Ty.

  Thirty seconds later, they reached the first dormitory. Chris pulled the door open, and walked in, Ty close behind him. For once the arrows marked on the walls performed a useful function. If Ty stayed two arrows behind he would have enough time to deal with Chris turning round and attempting to disarm him.

  Inside, the quiet was eerie. They came to a classroom. Ty gestured for Chris to walk past. Ty stopped at the door, pushed it open with the toe of his boot. It took him a second to process what he was looking at.

  Papers and work sheets were crumpled up, torn and scattered across the floor. The partitions that were there to separate each student from their neighbor had been ripped down. One had been thrown through one of the windows. It sat, held in place by jagged shards of glass, half inside and half outside.

  Chris followed behind Ty and stood there, taking in the chaos. Ty pulled out his cell phone, and tapped the light function on. He swept the beam of the light across the walls, picking out fragments of graffiti.

  It only took a few seconds to get the message that the person or persons who had written it had wanted to convey. Chris must have got the same message because before Ty could stop him, he had turned on his heel, and made a mad rush back towards the door and down the corridor.

  Ty stared after him, and then stopped. Running made his shoulder scream with pain. But that wasn’t why he had decided not to go after Chris. If he’d been in Chris’ shoes, Ty would have run too. And he wouldn’t have stopped until he was a long way from Broken Ridge.

  Ty pulled up Lock’s number again. He hit the call icon.

  “Almost there, Ty. You okay?”

  “Yeah. But keep your eyes wide open, I think we got some real bad shit about to go down.”

  On the other end of the line, he heard Lock shout something he couldn’t make out. The call dropped.

  Outside, someone let out a high pitched scream. the scream was followed by the whip crack of a single gun shot and then more shouting. Punching his gun out ahead of him, Ty charged for the door and out into the corridor.

  The corridor was empty. Ty moved as quickly as he could to the first dorm room. He kicked the door open, and rushed in, gun high. He took in the room with a single sweep from left to right.

  No one.

  He backed out. Went to the next room. Repeated. No one there either.

  The gun safe had been empty, and now so was the dormitory.

  69

  Seventy eight seconds earlier

  As Lock made the turn onto the approach road to Broken Ridge, Ty’s name flashed on Lock’s cell.

  “Almost there, Ty. You okay?”

  “Yeah, cool, but keep your eyes wide open, I think we got some real bad shit about to go down.”

  Before he could respond there was rush of movement from the side of the road. Someone moved fast from the side of the road, running directly in front of the front of the Explorer.

  Yanking down hard on the steering wheel, Lock stood on the brake pedal. The wheels spun, struggling to maintain grip on the dirt. The Explorer shuddered and shook. Next to him, Don was thrown hard against the cabin door.

  The person who’d run in front of them disappeared from Lock’s view. Lock struggled with the wheel, and eased up on the brakes, trying to stop the Explorer from topplin
g over as it hurtled off the dirt road.

  The Explorer spun round. Lock felt it tilt.He struggled to keep hold of the steering wheel as the tires on the passenger side lost contact with the ground.

  The vehicle rolled. There was a whooshing sound as front and side airbags deployed, throwing Lock back into his seat. The Explorer rolled again. Everything that wasn’t secured flew about the cabin.

  Lock’s mind inexorably flashed to a lonely Topanga Canyon road on a rain lashed night that had changed him forever. An acid-splash of bile rose at the back of his throat.

  Finally, the Explorer settled in the dust. Lock’s hand fell immediately to his side. He flipped open the pouch holding his Gerber, and pulled out his knife. Reaching up, he slashed through the seat belt. He jabbed the point of the knife into the front air bag, and slashed that too. He repeated the same action with the side air bag.

  He took a moment to get his bearings. Aligning his position with land and sky, he realised the Explorer had done a full roll, landing back on its wheels. A stroke of luck, making getting out a lot easier than if it had finished on its side.

  He looked across at Don Price. His eyes were closed. Lock reached over, and touched his neck, feeling for a pulse. Don stirred, pushing out his hand to swat Lock away.

  “Get the hell off me,” Don protested.

  “You okay?” he asked him.

  “Terrific. Now what the hell was that?”

  Lock reached for his door. “Why don’t we go see?”

  Shoving the heavy door open, Lock jumped out, his legs wobbly from the aftermath of the crash. He looked around, unable to make out anyone in the darkness. Drawing his gun, he walked to the front of the Explorer. He checked the front for a person-sized dent. It was intact. So was the windshield. Good news for whoever had run in front of them.

  He heard someone move close by. He spun round, pointing his SIG in their direction as behind him, Don clambered out of the passenger side, his gun also in his hand.

  If the bad trouble Ty had warned him about had just forced him off the road like this then Lock was about to give them the good news. He narrowed his eyes, adjusting to the gloom. The pad of his index finger settled on the trigger.