Stain of Guilt

by Brandilyn Collins

  We drove.

  Time passed. Twenty, maybe thirty minutes. With every curve in the road, Bland’s anger grew until it became a live and writhing creature. He hunched behind the wheel, cursing Edwin Tarell, cursing life.

  God, help me. Help my children. Just let me see Kelly and Stephen again.

  Would Chetterling and Delft run those lab tests as they’d promised? What if they didn’t but said they had just to encourage Bland to let me go? How could Bland know they would tell him the truth?

  I longed to ask where we were going, what he would do with me. How he expected to hide from the law now. Thank God he hadn’t seen my drawing of his face. He’d have ripped it to shreds. Chetterling no doubt took it immediately. By now copies were being made, circulated. The drawing wasn’t in full color, but under the circumstances, it was usable.

  They would catch Bland. I just needed to stay alive until they did.

  Bland glared at me. “You could have made this easier. My first plan failed because of you.”

  I saw a hairpin turn loom ahead, his foot hard on the accelerator, the road suddenly precarious beneath our wheels.

  “Watch out!”

  I braced my hands against the dashboard, every muscle clamping down. Bland whipped his head around to gauge the road and veered. Not far enough. Our front tires crunched off pavement, my side mirror barely missing a wayward tree branch.

  My scream reverberated through the car. We bumped over rough ground and bushes, our headlights bouncing, searing the forest. A redwood tree rushed toward us on the driver’s side. Bland smacked on the brakes. The final second stretched toward eternity. We wouldn’t stop in time.

  The front tires banged over something solid. My stomach jumped up to my throat, my head snapping. My shoulder hit the window. The force from whatever we rolled over began to slow us down. We skidded . . . skidded . . .

  The tree came closer.

  A final slide . . .

  We hit something else on the ground and crunched to a stop—inches from the tree. Bland shot forward, his forehead hitting the steering wheel.

  Earsplitting silence.

  I couldn’t move.

  Precious seconds passed. I gasped for breath, assessing myself, realizing I wasn’t hurt. I turned toward Bland, noting for the first time his lack of a seat belt. In his anger he’d forgotten to put it back on. He was raising his head from the wheel. Not badly hurt, but dazed.

  Escape.

  My thoughts blurred. Should I do it? Run into the forest, in the middle of nowhere? No purse, no money. What then?

  Annie, just go!

  Bland groaned, one hand against his head. Desperately, I fumbled with my seat belt. Unlatched it. Reached for the door.

  Goggles!With them I could see in the forest. I could run. Bland wouldn’t be able to find me. Where were they? Hadn’t he thrown them in the backseat?

  I swiveled around, and by a providence that could only have come from God, saw the goggles tossed from the impact of our wreck up on the console. I grabbed them and flung myself out the door.

  Chapter 33

  I ran for my life, dodging trunks, half tripping over logs. The goggles were too big for my head, but I had no time to stop and adjust them. With one hand I held the gear in place, crashing through the eerie, green-tinted forest. I didn’t care about the noise I made. I only wanted to put distance between myself and Bland. The car headlights were still on, bright over immediate trees, then quickly waning. I aimed in a diagonal away from them.

  Vaguely, I heard a car door slam, followed by Bland’s bellow of rage. Then silence. Still I ran, my mouth open, breath jagging in and out. Utter panic pushed me through the dense brush. If he caught me, he would kill me.

  Bland fell silent. What was he doing? A limb reached out, catching tiny end branches in my hair. I ducked and pulled away. Terror pushed strangled sounds from my throat. I flung myself behind a tree, then leaned out, seeking a straight shot of sight to the passenger side of Bland’s car. Its headlights were visible—two fuzzy green spots across my goggle lenses. Bland was nowhere to be seen. My fingers fumbled around the side of the goggles. Wasn’t there something that would make them magnify? I found a tiny dial and turned it. Instantly the car leapt into close-up. I could see an open rear door, Bland leaning inside the backseat, rifling through something. His body jerked this way and that, his movements erratic.

  He was looking for the goggles.

  I watched, praying.

  After an extended search he emerged from the car, smacking a fist against the door. He strode a few feet away, swiveling his head in search of me, yelling my name. As if I would return just because he demanded it.

  Even with the magnification, I couldn’t make out his facial expression. But I could imagine the fury upon it. What would he do now? I hadn’t thought to take his car keys. But maybe that was a good thing. Please, God, just let him give up on me. Let him drive away.

  I hadn’t taken the time to locate my cell phone, somewhere on the car floor. I consoled myself with the notion that there wasn’t any service out here anyway.

  Bland paced the side of the car with the ferocity of a caged lion, cursing. Back and forth. Back and forth. When his anger played out, he rested, breathing heavily, against the door. No doubt scheming his Plan C. He was assessing, unwilling to be pushed into impulsive action. How could he gain control again? He couldn’t find me in the dark. He couldn’t waste time here, with detectives fanning out in search of him . . .

  Bland gingerly felt his bruised forehead, then swiveled to crash his fist against the top of the car. He hung there for a long moment. Then, determination arching his shoulders, he straightened, stalked around the front of the car, and threw himself into the driver’s seat. His door slammed.

  I held my breath. Please let the tires not be flat. The engine gunned, as if he was testing it in neutral. Slowly, the car backed up, bumping over a small fallen branch and the uneven forest floor. The headlight beams swung over trees and downed branches. I pressed myself behind the tree until I heard the tires meet asphalt, the faint squeal as Bland smacked the car into drive. Leaning out once more, I watched him shoot forward, continuing to head away from Redding.

  His brown-tinted taillights disappeared around the hairpin turn.

  Nauseated relief rose in my stomach. I sagged against the tree and whispered tear-singed thank-yous to God.

  But my grateful prayers were short lived. Soon the night closed around me, the lingering precariousness of my situation threatening to steal my breath once more. I stood alone in the woods in the middle of the night. Not even sure what county I was in. No one knew where I was. I had no purse, no money, no cell phone . . .

  Come on, Annie, keep yourself together.

  Summoning all my willpower, I concentrated on preparing myself for what lay ahead. I adjusted the goggles to fit my head. Then fiddled with the magnification dial, familiarizing myself with its maximum power, how to snap it on and off quickly.

  The darkness snatched at me, but I had to capture it, make it my friend. I reminded myself that Bland could much more easily spot me in daylight. I needed to find help—before dawn.

  Getting lost in the forest would be the worst thing I could do. I needed to follow the road back to civilization.

  I slunk through the forest, aimed in a wide angle toward the road, away from the direction Bland had gone. What if he’d rounded that corner, turned off his car and lights, and sat waiting, the spider ready for the fly? I wanted to head that way, too, in case a house lay up ahead. I couldn’t remember passing a house until this point. But I had no choice. I had to head back from where we had come.

  Hitting the road, I strained with every fiber of my being to listen. Cicadas chirped and the sound of my own pulse filled my ears. The asphalt stretched emptily before me, tinted a deathly green-gray. Looking like the road to hell. I shuddered, realizing for the first time the chill of the night.

  I desperately needed a drink of water.

 
Drawing my arms across my chest, I started down the barren road.

  Minutes bunched around me, sodden with the fear of Bland’s return. All I could do was put one foot in front of the other. I rounded the first curve. Then a straight section. Another bend.

  Walk. Breathe. Loose pebbles crunching beneath my shoes.

  4-Annie-silly-girl-592.

  The stillness of the forest ululated through me, to the hollows of my bones. With each step, I imagined Bland materializing out of the night. My mental projector kicked on, throwing out scene after scene in frantic sequence. Flash! a

  close-up of his hand on the gun, trigger finger ready. The camera pulls back to show his hulking figure in the woods, watching my approach. The gun rises. A shot cracks the night. Without a sound, I fall . . .

  Flash! he

  rolls slowly down the road behind me, headlights off, patient. Knowing he will catch me. He drives with his left hand, the gun in his right, ready . . .

  I screamed in my own head for the film to stop. Shivering, I hunched through the void, every sound echoing in my ears. How long had I been walking? Thirty minutes? An hour? Time had vanished, consumed by the incessant scuff of my feet.

  The sky mocked me, clouds obliterating the stars and moon. The sickly green of my world turned smothering, claustrophobic. I was a refugee, abandoned on some unknown planet where perpetual half-night stretched for eternity. Where the threat of death hovered just beyond my reach, its vaporous, fatal fingers poised to pluck.

  The distant chirr of cicadas stopped.

  I froze.

  Fright gripped my throat with an iron hand. I held my breath, nerves acrawl with the frenzy of a million insects. They milled and swarmed down my arms, my legs, in the cavities between my ribs.

  The night turned jokester, strewing colors and lights at the outer reach of my vision. I whirled toward a metallic gleam to see—nothing. Wrenched my head the other way to a flash of movement that vaporized before my eyes could land upon it.

  No Bland. Come on, Annie. Move.

  Shush-shush. My shoes against asphalt. My heart clattered against my ribs, the wind kicking up a faint keen through the trees.

  I tried to occupy my mind. Anything to keep the scenes from flashing.

  Had Bland used my cell phone to call Chetterling? Or had Chetterling called him back? What would Bland say when they talked? He would lie to them. Tell them I was with him. Tell them I was safe. It would buy him time.

  Was Chetterling at our house with Jenna?

  What was happening with my children? They must be petrified. Kelly would be crying, shaking. The mere thought pulled fresh tears into my eyes.

  Kelly would call Erin. No. Not necessary. All the cars and deputies and dogs would wake the entire neighborhood.

  Bushes rustled. I halted, air backing up in my lungs. My ankles trembled, fingers digging into my thighs.

  An animal?

  Bland.

  I cocked my head, moving my ear to the right, to the left. Then turned all the way around, acutely aware of the vulnerability of my back. I searched the road, the woods. Nothing. Again. Just the wind and the thwack of my heart.

  Forward, Annie.

  I forced one foot in front of the other.

  Please, God, help me. Just get me back to my children.

  Something in the distance. A vague light. Before I could react, headlights crested a hill. I leaped with wild instinct off the road, stumbling toward a grove of trees, and threw myself on the ground.

  The headlights grew closer.

  Only then did I remember that the car was coming from the opposite direction of Bland. What if it was someone else? The driver could help me.

  But how to know if the driver could be trusted? What if it was a man alone? Why should I trust a strange man on an empty road in the middle of the night?

  What if it was law enforcement? What if I hid only to see a sheriff’s or police car go by? I would be sick.

  I could rush out onto the road, wave my arms.

  They would never see me. Not in this darkness.

  The lights approached. Ambivalence wrapped a rope around me, played tug-of-war. I hugged the ground, fighting against the desperate desire to race back to the road and wave my arms, praying to God that the person would save me.

  Beams cut a swath through the green darkness. I could hear the car engine, tires singing. Panic swept through me, and I dug fingers into the earth as if any second it might fall away, leave me exposed.

  The car sped past. Solid dark color. Not Bland. Not law enforcement.

  My lungs jellied. I lowered my head to the earth, throat tightening. God, help me. Please, just help me get home.

  The tears would be held back no longer. I don’t know how long I lay there, crying. Once I started, I couldn’t stop. Couldn’t quiet myself. If Bland had hulked by on foot, he would have heard me for sure.

  Finally, head throbbing, I lurched to my feet. I had to keep going. For my children. Had to.

  4-Annie-silly-girl-592

  My brain treated me to the scene of a policeman spotting Bland’s license plate. Stopping the car. Bland coming out with his hands raised.

  Next shot: Choog, choog. Copies of my drawing spitting out of a machine. They are picked up, passed through impatient hands . . .

  Vengeance smeared my soul. I couldn’t wait to see Bland behind bars. Couldn’t wait to testify against him.

  I stumbled along, my mind a leaky pan. Thoughts out of focus. Stress and enervation took its toll, and my limbs began to wobble. I yearned for rest.

  The road forked. Which way should I go? I couldn’t remember from which direction we’d come. I should try the other way, hope for a house . . .

  Come on, Annie, which way?

  I veered right.

  The shirt . . . The gun . . . How could Bland have staged his evidence? What had I missed?

  So tired. Maybe I should rest for a while. Just lie down, sleep a little. When I woke it would be morning. Bland would be far away by then. Or he would be caught. I would be safe.

  My head sagged, so heavy.

  I forced myself to keep going. My insides shook like gelatin.

  In the distance, something swam in half focus. My brain wouldn’t register the shape. It bobbed before me, amorphous and blurry. The blurriness confused me; I wasn’t crying anymore. I didn’t think I had one drop of moisture left in my body. I felt like a lake bed scorched by the sun.

  The thing drew closer. I watched it, obsessed with my need for water, sleep.

  Keep walking. Just keep walking.

  Some minutes passed. Then, like a weakened laser, the object’s meaning beamed.

  Mailbox.

  My breath hitched. Mailbox . . . meant a driveway . . . meant a house.

  Keep walking.

  Somehow I managed to pick up speed. But the mailbox seemed to draw no closer. Would I never reach it?

  Why couldn’t I even swallow? My throat snagged on its own dryness.

  The world fuzzed at the edges. The next thing I remember, I stood by the mailbox, peering down a driveway at a small wood house. Tinted green, like my world. No lights on.

  God? Please get me there.

  I started down the vast sea of unpaved driveway, rocks rolling like waves beneath my feet. What if no one was home? What if they wouldn’t come to the door?

  I couldn’t sort out answers. Logic had fled my mind, ghosted away like a spirit riding the wind.

  Just take the next step.

  The house loomed before me. It had a porch. Three stairs. No railing. My leg lifted, toes hitting the rise of the first stair. Lift a little higher. I felt the first step, hoisted myself up. Took the second. The third. Wood squeaked as I forged a path toward the front door.

  What if someone heard me? What if they met me with a shotgun?

  What if Bland lived here?

  That stopped me cold. My hand, raised to ring the doorbell, hung in the air.

  I struggled for coherent thinking. Could Bla
nd live here?

  Who knew? All I knew was I needed sleep. And a glass of water.

  Somebody’s finger rang the bell. Somebody’s ear heard the distant chime.

  I swayed before the door.

  An upper window lit up. Then nothing.

  Maybe I should leave. Maybe I’ll find another house soon . . .

  Another window shimmered. A sound from the house. Someone walking down creaky stairs?

  The goggles. I would look like some kind of monster. With one hand I slipped them off. Vaguely, I heard them clatter to the porch.

  Footsteps. Kind of a scuffle. Like my slippers on the hardwood floor of our great room.

  “Who’s there?”

  A male voice. I drew back. A strange man wouldn’t be safe, would he? Alone in his house?

  My mouth opened. No response formed.

  “Who is it, Clay?”

  A softer voice. Female.

  “I don’t know.”

  A woman. A couple.

  My body listed to one side. I put out a hand against the door, steadying myself.

  “Who is it?” The male again.

  My mouth answered. “Annie Kingston. This man . . . I was kidnapped. Do you have any water?”

  Something clicked. The door pulled back a few inches. Wary eyes looked me over. Another head appeared—the woman, gawking at me.

  “For heaven’s sake, Clay, let her in.”

  The door receded, opening up the house like a yawning cavern. I thought it would swallow me whole. The two figures undulated before me.

  My foot moved across the threshold. Then somehow I just folded over on myself. The floor rose up to meet me, almost in slow motion. Next thing I knew, my bleary eyes were blinking at a pink fuzzy slipper. My lips parted. There was something I had to tell them. Something very important . . .

  “Four. Annie-silly-girl. Five-nine-two.”

  My lids weighted. Calloused hands cradled my head as blackness enveloped me.

  “Four . . . Annie . . . sil . . . ”

  Chapter 34