In Absentia

by Melissa F. Miller

  He was thankful he’d been chosen for a less grisly task. Then a worry seized him: What if it had been a test by Al Sharqi to see if he would do what was needed, even if he hadn’t been asked to?

  Dread and reluctance clawed at his throat, trying to trap the words inside, but he coughed and forced them out. “How do you want to do this? Will you need … my help?”

  Youssef glanced at him, surprise rounding his eyes, and laughed softly. “No, I won’t need your help, brother. I am very tidy when I take out the trash. That’s why Zayed’s unclean cousin chose me, I’m sure.”

  A chill tingled at the base of Omar’s neck. He wondered how many people had disappeared at Youssef’s hands, untraceable, never to be found.

  He pushed the thought out of his mind. “Aliviyah is his cousin?”

  He waved a hand. “Perhaps not cousin. His sister married her uncle. They are distantly related. And she is vile.”

  “Uh ….”

  “She took up with a white man. A Christian. Disgusting.”

  “Oh. So—”

  “Her family put a stop to it. But for Zayed to now rely on her to relay his orders while he is in Yemen … it’s too much. Too much.” He pounded his fist into his thigh.

  It was unusual. Omar would grant him that much. The hierarchy in the Al Sharqi organization was carefully arranged, strictly enforced, and almost entirely patriarchal.

  “Do you know who this man is? The man who knows where Mr. Al Sharqi’s money is?”

  Youssef shook his head dismissively, signaling that he didn’t know and he didn’t care.

  Omar dropped the subject and scanned the parking lot for a rusted-out train car. Donny had said he’d parked the Mercedes-Benz behind some dilapidated hunk of junk that had apparently been abandoned by the railway’s previous owners decades ago. Both Aliviyah and Youssef had nodded familiarly at the mention of the landmark during the phone call.

  “I don’t see—oh, there it is.”

  The junked car sat at the far end of the lot, well past the train platform. Tall, spiky weeds had grown up around the thing, giving the appearance of a grassy field. Omar hadn’t realized the nominally paved parking lot extended beyond the weeds, but sure enough, he spotted a lone, white Mercedes parked at the very edge of the lot. He eased the car through the weeds and came to a rest beside the luxury sedan.

  A slight, wiry man sprang to his feet and appeared in the rearview mirror. He’d been sitting in the shadow of the abandoned train car. Now, as he approached the sedan, he radiated a nervous energy.

  Omar kept his eyes locked on the man in the mirror and jerked his chin. “There’s our guy.”

  Youssef shifted his weight almost imperceptibly to the right and let his gaze fall upon the side mirror. “Junkie.”

  Omar had to agree with his disapproving assessment. Donny loped toward them with the unsteady gate and thousand-yard stare that Omar had grown to recognize. Zayed Al Sharqi did business with anyone in West Virginia who could lay hands on prescription pills. As a result, most of his associates were drug users, addicted to one degree or another, to the stuff they sold—mostly, but not exclusively, narcotics. Al Sharqi, however, enforced strict rules among his foot soldiers. Sobriety was one.

  Usually, Omar found it frustrating and inefficient to deal with the addicted medical professionals and strung-out street dealers that bookended Zayed’s role in the distribution chain. In this case, however, he was pleased to see that Donny was high. It should render him even slower and stupider than nature had made him.

  Omar switched off the engine but left the key in place in the ignition lock cylinder. Just in case. Youssef noticed and gave a short nod of approval.

  Donny’s shadow fell over the passenger’s side window. He rapped on the glass. A low growl, no louder than a cat’s purr, sounded in Youssef’s throat. Omar shook out his hands, releasing some tension.

  “Ready?”

  “Yes.”

  As Youssef opened his door, Omar imagined he might slam it into Donny’s gut with great force, knocking him to the ground and brutally slitting his throat. In fact, Youssef eased the door open and unfolded himself elegantly to stand in front of the white man.

  “Ah, Donny, yes? I am Youssef.” Youssef lowered his head respectfully before clasping Donny’s right hand between his two hands and shaking it.

  Omar emerged from the driver’s side and circled the car to join the two men. Youssef gestured toward him. “And this is my friend, Omar.”

  Omar smiled and nodded.

  Donny’s eyes darted from Youssef to Omar and back to Youssef. He bounced on his heels, “Yeah, yeah. Okay. You got the money?”

  Youssef frowned. Then he patted the inside pocket of his suit jacket. “Yes. This is not the place, though. Where is our friend?”

  Donny shot him a blank look. “Uh … oh, right. Sure, I’ll take you back to the house.”

  Sasha’s hands were still shaking when the long, winding road from Clive’s cabin finally emerged from the forest. She spotted a handful of forlorn farmhouses and, then, a little further down, a feed store.

  Civilization. Yes.

  She slowed the car to a crawl to peer into the store’s front window. Closed. She slammed her palm against the steering wheel in frustration.

  But maybe she finally had a cell signal. She could call Connelly. Call the local police. Call the FBI. Call any of them, all of them. Get backup.

  She steadied the wheel with her left hand and maintained her slow pace as she patted the passenger seat until she connected with her mobile phone. She lifted the screen into her field of vision. No data. No voice signal.

  An emergency call should still go through, though.

  The realization filled her with purpose. She’d find a safe place to pull over, call for help, and regroup.

  Good. A plan. Plans are good.

  She slid the phone into the center console and accelerated. This portion of the road lacked a shoulder and cut deep ribbons into the land, banking wildly, weaving left and right. Blind curve after blind curve whizzed past her window as she sped along. She needed to get to a better spot, somewhere she could park.

  As the miles slipped by, her waning anxiety returned and crested as she realized she hadn’t seen another living person since she’d left the cabin. Not a car or truck. Not a homeowner sitting on a glider on his porch. Not a dog walker or a kid riding a bike. It was as if she were the last person on earth.

  She grabbed the phone again. Still no signal. Her throat threatened to close, and she swallowed hard.

  She glanced at her speed, digitally displayed on her rearview mirror. She was driving entirely too fast on an unfamiliar, treacherous road. She pressed down on the gas anyway and urged the car forward faster still.

  Faster and faster she drove. Around another bend in the road; then she came upon the outskirts of a town. A small, rundown town. But a town.

  First, a smattering of falling-down homes and boarded-up businesses, scattered at seemingly random intervals on the left side of the road. Then the structures began to appear closer together, still in disrepair, still shockingly decrepit, but packed in tight. Like buildings near a town’s center might be spaced.

  She slowed slightly, casting about for a place to pull over and make her emergency call. And then she saw it. A long chain-link fence running along the right side of the road ended. A white garage, paint peeling, the structure leaning to its side, slumped against the fence. And on the other side of the garage, a wide parking lot. A train station. A meadow with a horse ring.

  People. Cell signals. Help.

  She peered to her right, searching for the entrance to the lot. It was unmarked, and she shot right past it.

  She jammed down on the brakes and lurched forward as the car slammed to a stop. She threw the wagon into reverse and backed up until she was even with the entrance to the lot.

  Would it have killed you to put up a sign? she grumbled to no one.

  As she sped over the uneven ground, she
realized that even now, in what could only be the heart of this flyspeck of a town, she still had yet to see another person.

  She jostled and bounced along the unpaved entrance road. She didn’t bother driving into the lot. She just parked on the shoulder, near a meadow that appeared to be fenced for horses, and snatched up her phone, relief flooding her body.

  And then disbelief crowded out the feeling as she stared down at the display.

  No. Flipping. Signal.

  Still?

  After a heartbeat, she shook her head. Doesn’t matter. Make an emergency call.

  She touched an unsteady finger to her screen and pressed 9-1-1 on her screen. She was still shaky from her discovery at Clive’s cabin and the harrowing drive into—she craned her neck, looking for a sign that bore the town’s name—Tannerville, judging by the Tannerville Fishing and Hunting Outfitter Store across the street, which displayed a large sign informing her that it was ‘Permanently Closed.’

  She pushed aside her growing unease about the apparent ghost town and hit send. She waited.

  Nothing happened. No ringtone sounded. No operator answered in a soothing yet efficient voice to ask what her emergency was. No noise of any kind.

  What in the ever-living heck? Even in her dismay, she censored her cursing, an ingrained habit thanks to Finn’s talent for mimicry.

  No matter what, cell phones were supposed to make emergency calls so long as there was some network, somewhere to ping off. Even without a SIM card, an emergency call would go through. This could not be happening. Yet, it was.

  She wanted to bash the phone against her dashboard in frustration and watch it explode into dozens of pieces. Instead she closed her eyes and took a deep, centering breath. Then another. And one more for good measure.

  She opened her eyes. It’s okay, she consoled herself. There’ll be someone at the train station. And they’ll have a phone. She scooped up her useless phone and her keys and painted on a smile. Presumably the bored soul at the train’s ticket window would be eager for some human contact. She might as well make it pleasant for both of them.

  She hadn’t walked more than ten feet when she saw it, off to the right. A phone booth. She rubbed her eyes with her fists and tried to recall the last time she’d encountered a pay phone. She couldn’t. But she knew this much: she could make an emergency call from a pay phone and it wouldn’t even cost her the quarter. And the operator would be able to trace her location instead of relying on directions from an out-of-towner who didn’t have a clue where she was.

  She broke into a run.

  She was sprinting toward the phone, coming up on a rusty old train car, when she finally saw another living being. Three of them, to be exact. At the very far end of the parking lot, partially obscured from view by some abandoned train equipment. And they were clustered around a gleaming white car. A gleaming white Mercedes-Benz C-class. With Pennsylvania plates.

  She pulled up short and crouched behind the train car, her heartbeat thudding in her ears. In part from the run, but in part from the discovery: Clive’s car was here. Which meant Clive was probably nearby.

  She could keep going. Reach the phone booth. Call the police, and hope the guys were still lurking around when an officer arrived. Or she could wait and watch and see if the trio led her to Clive.

  In the end, the men made her decision for her. The scrawny white guy, flanked by two men in suits, both of whom appeared to be of Middle Eastern descent, gestured across the street, pointing in the direction from which Sasha had just come.

  He spoke more loudly than necessary, and his words carried across the quiet lot. “Over there. It’s not far. We can walk, and you can come back for the cars later. Better not to park them where we have him stashed anyway. Don’t want to draw attention, right?” He barked out a nervous, stuttering laugh.

  The other men exchanged a look. Then the older of the two nodded. “Lead the way, friend.”

  Yes, friend. Lead the way.

  She pressed herself against the side of the car until they’d passed by her. Then she slipped through the tall grass like a cat and followed them out of the train yard.

  12

  Clive waited while Jamie relieved himself in what Clive supposed was now ‘his’ corner of the junk-festooned back alley. Clive had lied, told Jamie he needed to go, too, just for the opportunity to be outside, to see the sky for a moment or two.

  The pretext also meant he got to walk around—or, more accurately, shuffle zombie-like, his range of motion limited by the length of the ropes binding his ankles together. And, because Jamie thankfully had no interest in touching Clive’s member, he’d also untied Clive’s wrists so he could handle the aiming and shaking dry of his penis independently. Clive marveled at the luxury of having his hands unbound. He turned his raw wrists in two fanning half-circles, like a card dealer shuffling a deck of cards, just to enjoy the movement.

  He wondered if he’d ever again have the chance to play a hand of cards? Such a simple activity. And it seemed impossibly out of reach now. A sob caught in his throat.

  You’re losing it. Don’t lose it. Keep it together. Look for your opening and take it.

  He tensed his body, ready to spring into action and take a chance. He knew any escape attempt was doomed, but he had to try. Now, before Donny returned with Al Sharqi’s men.

  As if you have the stones to do it.

  It was Liv’s voice he heard in his mind, berating him. She’d be surprised what he had the stones to do. He chortled, rocking from front to back. Then his eyes widened and his body went rigid as understanding tore through him.

  He was losing his grip on reality. The thought was as lucid as any he’d had in the past twenty-four hours, and the truth of it gnawed at him. Even if he survived this living hell, he’d be forever damaged. Insane or traumatized or otherwise unable to function in the world.

  Maybe instead of running, he should just surrender. Lay himself down on the broken bricks and die, surrounded by empty cans, and cigarette butts, and weeds. The idea pulled at him, irresistible. He started to sink to his knees. As he lowered himself to the ground, he felt as though he were at once both inside and outside his body. He was controlling his legs, and at the same time he was watching a Clive form being manipulated by an unseen hand, pushing down on his shoulders, making him kneel.

  Later, he’d convince himself that the out-of-body experience was the result of the enormous mental and physical stress he’d been under. But a part of him would always wonder if there were another, less rational explanation for it. After all, it was the fact that he was kneeling that saved his life.

  As he balanced on his kneecaps, ready to give up, footsteps and male voices approached from the left. Clive squinted down the shared alleyway that ran behind the entire block of crumbling homes. He threw a panicked look over his shoulder at Jamie. Donny and Al Sharqi’s men, two of them, were coming this way. For whatever reason, they’d decided to enter the house from the rear.

  Jamie froze, his fly still half-down.

  An accented, melodious voice floated toward them, midway through an explanation for the stealth, “… better that we’re not seen together, don’t you agree?”

  A rough laugh from Donny in response. “There’s nobody around to see us, fellas. Tannerville’s nothing but a dried-up company town. Tannery moved out in the nineties. Town’s been slowly dyin’ ever since.”

  “Yes, I see it’s fallen on hard times,” a third voice chimed in. No accent. Perfect diction. A vanilla American speaker.

  “So, about hard times. You do have the money your boss owes us, right?”

  “As I’ve already assured you, you and your friend Jamie will be compensated as promised. I believe the agreed-upon rate was four thousand dollars. An even split between you and your partner, yes?”

  Two thousand dollars apiece. That’s what his life was worth to Jamie and Donny?

  Clive shot Jamie a glare. Jamie had the grace to hang his head.

  And then, Don
ny cleared his throat. “Uh, actually, no. It’s three grand for me, and one for Jamie. This is my job. He just helped.”

  As the trio stepped into the sad excuse for a yard, several things happened in quick succession.

  Jamie reared back and rushed the group, shouting in betrayed outrage at Donny’s double-dealing.

  Donny, whose head was bent, his attention focused on the contents of a thick envelope that he leafed through as he walked, missed the moment when the older of the two men who bookended him reached under his jacket and pulled out a handgun with a fast, practiced motion.

  Clive dove, pressing himself flat against the ground and watched, unable to drag his eyes away, as the man pressed the gun against the back of Donny’s head and fired, twice, rapidly. Pop, pop. Donny crumpled.

  The man squeezed off a third shot, a fraction too late, where Donny had been standing. The bullet whizzed over Donny’s prone body and then over Clive’s head. It punched through the brick wall where he’d been standing seconds ago, at about the height of his throat. Clive heaved.

  Jamie lurched out of the line of fire, crashed into a sagging chain-link fence, and took off. He hopped the fence and cut a diagonal path through the maze of rotting sheds and squalid homes, his arms and legs pumping.

  The man with the gun shouted and took off after him, chasing him with the weapon drawn. His partner looked around the small yard and started to approach Donny’s body. Then his gaze fell on Clive and he changed course, storming across the space, headed directly for him.

  Just before Clive squeezed his eyes closed and strong hands yanked him to his feet roughly, he swore he saw a girl—no, a woman. A slight, petite slip of a woman with a mass of dark auburn waves piled high on the top of her head crept behind the neighboring house’s pottery shed. Her eyes bore into Clive’s and she placed a finger over her lips in a warning.

  Shhh.

  Clive closed his eyes and laughed, the sound muffled by the duct tape over his mouth, until his shoulders shook. Hysterical at the fact that, in its final break from reality, his glitching brain had decided to hallucinate an improbable savior.