The Messenger: A Novel

by Burke, Jan

  Tyler Hawthorne. Could her humiliation be any more complete?

  “Mind your own fucking business, asshole!” Todd said. He let go of her, then took a swing at Tyler.

  It missed.

  “Oh, thank you for that,” Tyler said. His fist flew into Todd’s face.

  Women screamed as Todd toppled backward into the bar, then hit the floor.

  “Apologize to her,” Tyler said.

  “It’s not necessary,” Amanda muttered, mortified. She ducked her head and stumbled away through the crowd surrounding them.

  She heard Todd say, “Apologize to that—”

  But before he could finish his sentence, there was the sound of blows, the crash of furniture, and more shouts and screams.

  She hurried out the door and all but ran to her car.

  Driving through the desert night helped to calm her. A motorcycle had passed her old Honda several miles ago, pulling far ahead of her on the narrow road, then settling at a steady speed that kept her car about half a mile behind it. Whoever it was had to have come from the party—although she had since passed some small side roads, there weren’t any between the mansion and the point where she had first noticed the motorcycle.

  Since everyone at the party had been three sheets to the wind, she was happy to let the biker pass her. Having her car rear-ended by a drunk on a bike in the middle of the desert would, she thought, be enough to send her right over the edge. When he pulled ahead, it seemed to her he was holding steadily to a straight line. Great. She had missed meeting the one other sober person there.

  The motorcycle slowed a bit, and the gap between them narrowed. She was no sooner aware of this than she realized they were approaching an intersection of some kind. She saw something moving in the darkness off to the right. A truck. With its lights off.

  The truck was moving, raising a plume of dust as it sped along the intersecting dirt road.

  The motorcycle’s brake light flared—too late.

  She screamed a futile warning as she stomped on her brake pedal. The screech of tires skidding on pavement added to her wail.

  She heard the bang of impact just ahead.

  She caught the briefest glimpse of the rider, parted from the motorcycle like a horseman thrown from a metallic bronco, before all her attention was focused on dodging the sparking pinwheel of the bike on the asphalt of this narrow road, its gleaming mass spinning toward her car.

  It struck the front end of the Honda with a second bang, coming up over the hood and shattering her windshield. Her airbag went off as the car fishtailed, then spun off the road, coming to a lopsided halt in a shallow ditch and soft sand.

  Shaken by the accident, Amanda sat dazed in her car. The airbag had stung, and had given her a small nosebleed. She found a tissue and held it to her face, watching as two hulking figures dressed in white-hooded coveralls and heavy work boots emerged from the pickup truck, hurried to the still figure on the ground, and pulled the motorcycle helmet from his head.

  She thought they were about to offer their victim aid, and was wondering if it had been wise of them to move him even so much, when, to her horror, they began to viciously kick his ribs, his back, his head. It was only then she saw that, in addition to the hoods, their faces were masked. She unfastened her seat belt and unlocked her car doors—then hesitated. She was no match for the brawny attackers. She locked the doors again. Lot of good it would do with the windshield smashed out, she thought.

  She cowered behind the steering wheel.

  They turned to stare toward her car.

  She quickly dropped her head down onto the wheel, closed her eyes, and slumped, trying to assume the posture of someone who was passed out cold. She heard the approach of their footsteps and felt a sickening certainty that they would see she no longer wore her seat belt, that they had heard the door locks, that they would see the tension she could feel in every muscle of her body. I’m unconscious. I don’t hear anything. I am as lifeless as that man on the road.

  They were very near now. She kept her eyes closed. One of them rapped on the window next to her. She did not respond, nor did she open her eyes when one of them reached in through the broken windshield and touched her shoulder, undoubtedly intending to shake her—until he cut himself on a piece of broken glass.

  “Son of a bitch!”

  The hand withdrew. She heard the other one try the passenger-side door.

  “You hear something?” the one who had cut himself said.

  They stood still, listening.

  “Shit,” the other one said softly. She strained her own ears but heard no approaching vehicles or other signs of rescue.

  “See anything?”

  “See anything!” the other mocked. “By then it will be too late.”

  “Shhh! Listen!”

  After what seemed to her to be several hours, but was really only a few seconds, she heard them move away, a few steps at a walk, then at a run.

  She kept her head down. They had not spoken more than those few words, so she did not know their plans. Would they return from the truck with a crowbar or a tire jack or something else to use to ensure her silence? A gun? She hadn’t seen their faces. She whimpered a prayer that they had not seen hers. She heard the doors of the pickup truck slamming shut. She heard the truck drive off, but some time passed before she could make herself sit up and peer over the dash again.

  They were gone.

  Hands trembling, she pulled her cell phone from her purse.

  No signal.

  She took a flashlight and a small first-aid kit from the glove compartment and stepped out of the car, feeling wobbly but mentally pushing herself to set her own troubles aside.

  The force of the impact had thrown the man a short distance down the dirt road. She played the flashlight over the ground between the intersection and where the man lay, and was surprised to see a third path, a trail of some kind, which led away from the intersection. Could there be help within reach? A small house? The flashlight didn’t illuminate much, though, and within the range of its beam she could see only a low, broken-down picket fence that bore all the signs of long abandonment. She began to run down the dirt road toward the man, glad she had decided in favor of comfortable sandals rather than high heels tonight, but wishing she was dressed in her usual jeans and T-shirt rather than the dressier pants and top she’d worn to the party. Nothing to be done about that now.

  “Are you all right?” she shouted.

  A stupid question, she thought angrily as she reached his unmoving form. She was half afraid of what she might see, that the damage done to him might be horrific. But although he did not stir or respond in any way, at first sight he seemed to have simply fallen asleep on the road. In a rather red-stained condition.

  She knelt beside him and aimed the beam of the flashlight on his bloodied face. She received a shock. Tyler Hawthorne. Although she had known the person on the bike would be someone who had been at the large party, most of the attendees were strangers to her. She hadn’t expected to recognize the rider.

  “Mr. Hawthorne? Tyler?”

  No response.

  Beneath the already drying blood, his face was gray. She touched his cheek. It was cold. She drew her hand back quickly, then told herself not to be a fool. She moved her hand to his neck. No pulse.

  She fought an urge to be sick.

  Pull yourself together. He could still be alive. Help him!

  She silently begged him to live.

  She opened his soft leather jacket, unbuttoned the shirt beneath it, felt again for his heartbeat. There was none. She pressed her ear against his chest, heard nothing, and shouted his name again. No whisper of breath left him. She quickly looked for any sign of bleeding, found none. Not necessarily good, she knew—dead men didn’t bleed. She tilted his head back and began CPR.

  With each exhalation of her warm breath into his mouth, with every compression of his chest, she silently exhorted him to live.

  No answering breath or
heartbeat returned.

  He’s dead. He’s dead.

  But if you’re wrong?

  She did not stop. She began to lose all sense of time and her surroundings, the world distilled down to pressing her hands together just so, just here, counting to thirty, softly pinching his nose, covering his mouth, exhaling, watching his chest rise with the air she sent to his lungs. She was growing weary, and she felt tears of frustration and helplessness spilling down her cheeks, salting her lips and Tyler’s cold face. She ordered herself to stop crying, telling herself she would not be able to breathe if her nose was stopped up with tears.

  She kept working, ignoring how tired her arms felt now.

  She was exhaling when she felt something very cold touch her neck. She froze. She could hear panting.

  She turned slowly, and screamed.

  11

  The biggest, blackest dog she had ever seen stood inches from her face. Its eyes seemed to glow, its fangs glistened. Its ears were pitched forward, and it was staring at her.

  She swallowed hard and held up a commanding—if shaking—hand. “No!”

  It came out much weaker than she liked.

  The dog ignored her, moving around her to the opposite side of Tyler. It began to lean its face toward his. It made a sound like a sigh.

  “Stay away from him!” she shouted.

  The dog’s head lifted, then cocked to one side.

  She heard a low moan.

  Startled, she looked down at Tyler’s face. He was still very pale, but something had changed—his skin was no longer the ashen color it had been. She leaned closer. He was breathing.

  “Tyler!”

  He moaned again.

  This time, she let the tears fall.

  She watched him carefully as she rested a moment, catching her breath, regaining her composure. The dog made her uneasy, but it had moved a little farther away from them now. Its nose was lifted, as if scenting something down the dirt road.

  As she noticed this, it occurred to her again that they might not have seen the last of the men from the pickup truck.

  “Tyler!”

  He half-opened his eyes, then closed them again.

  “Tyler, we have to get out of here. Those men might come back. Do you know who they were?”

  She doubted that he had heard or understood her. But at least his eyes opened again. He stared at her a moment, frowning. He looked around him. When he saw the dog, he made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sigh.

  “Can you move?” she asked.

  He didn’t answer, but he rolled to his side. She stood, and felt the needles of returning circulation in her feet. She didn’t know how long she had been kneeling beside him. She picked up the flashlight and turned it off. The moon had risen, a nearly full moon, bright enough to see nearby objects. She pocketed the flashlight and her cell phone. Well, big pockets were good for something, weren’t they?

  She watched him carefully as she stood beside him. After what seemed like a long time, Tyler raised a hand.

  “Yes?” she asked.

  He made another sound that was not quite a laugh. “Hell and the devil—I’m not in a schoolroom, am I? Help me to stand up…please.”

  Embarrassed, she took hold of his hand, but his grasp was weak, and she didn’t think she had enough strength to help him up. The dog came back to them, circled them, and barked. It scared some last reserve of adrenaline into her, and she pulled Tyler to his feet. Tyler swayed and grabbed hold of her in a clumsy embrace.

  “Wait,” he said, leaning heavily on her.

  She did her best to keep her balance. The dog kept circling them, its tail wagging now.

  Tyler was taking in odd, shallow breaths, as if breathing was painful.

  “Are your ribs broken?” she asked.

  He shook his head, a no.

  “How can you be sure?”

  “We have to get out of here,” he said, ignoring her question, but he spoke in the manner of a person who is short of breath, or who dares not take a deep breath.

  “Will they be coming back?”

  “Undoubtedly. Your car—?”

  “Wrecked—not drivable, I’m afraid.”

  For another long minute he simply stood there, his arm across her shoulders. “Too heavy?” he asked, starting to straighten. “Should have asked—were you injured?”

  “No, no—just relax. I’m fine. I only wonder—maybe you should lie down just a little longer?”

  “I’ll be all right.”

  “You might have a concussion,” she said. “You were kicked in the head.”

  “Hmm…” He reached up and touched his lips, which she could see were swollen.

  “CPR,” she said.

  He looked at her own swollen lips. “Amazing,” he said. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” she said, and looked away.

  “Let’s walk to my place.”

  “You do have a concussion. We can’t walk to Los Angeles.”

  “No—my home here. It’s not far.” He paused, caught his breath. “On the other side of the cemetery.”

  “Cemetery!”

  She looked in the direction he pointed—she now saw that the dilapidated picket fence surrounded a few weatherworn gravestones. Near a cluster of trees, she could just make out the edge of a low building.

  “My van is there,” he said. “Do you think you could drive it?”

  “Is it an automatic?”

  “Yes.” He didn’t smile as he said it, but she thought she detected amusement.

  “Oh. Then yes, I can drive it.”

  “Do you need to get…any belongings from your car?”

  “My purse is in it,” she said. “That’s all I need from it now.”

  “I’ll wait here. Get your purse…and anything that has your address…or name on it…set out flares if you have them.”

  “Maybe it would be smarter to call the police from your place. And ask them to send an ambulance and a tow truck or two.”

  “Don’t have a phone here.” At her look of surprise, he added, “It’s something of a retreat…No computers, no phone, very low tech.”

  Since this speech seemed to exhaust him, she told him not to say anything more, contradicted this immediately by telling him to call out to her if he needed her, and saying that she’d hurry back, hurried off.

  “So she believes she’s saved my life,” Tyler said to Shade.

  Shade regarded him steadily.

  “No, of course I won’t behave as if I’m ungrateful.” He drew a painful breath. His ribs hurt like hell. “It’s going to cause complications, though.”

  Shade turned his back, staring off toward the intersection, where Amanda was lighting flares.

  “Go ahead and ignore me.”

  The dog seemed to take full advantage of this permission.

  Amanda came running back toward them, the purse banging at her side. She dropped something—the car registration? She stooped to pick it up, nearly fell over, but clambered back up and kept coming. He wondered if he had ever seen a more ungainly young woman in his life. And yet, he decided, there was some sort of grace there, wasn’t there? A kind of sweet, unconscious freedom in her movements. As he kept watching, he remembered that Ron had once said she was only clumsy when she was nervous or upset. Why wouldn’t she be upset, given what she must have experienced tonight? And, of course, he made her nervous. The thought made him frown.

  She saw him, then came to a lurching halt, her eyes widening. Clearly frightened. He made an effort to stop frowning. He felt certain his smile looked like a grimace.

  Then he realized she was staring at the dog. “I thought he would run off again,” she said.

  Belatedly, he remembered that Ron had told him she was afraid of dogs. “His name is Shade. He won’t hurt you, I promise.”

  “He’s yours?” She sounded horrified.

  “You might say I’m his. He’s a very good dog, very smart.”

  She rubbed at a plac
e on her face, near her eyebrow.

  Shade approached her, rolled over on his back to expose his belly, and wagged his tail.

  Tyler could only stare at the dog in shock. He had never seen Shade do this for anyone but himself.

  When she stood frozen in place, Tyler said, “I believe he wants to be friends.”

  She bent slowly, hand shaking, and quickly touched the dog’s chest.

  Shade waited until she straightened. He stayed low, tongue lolling from a doggy smile, tail still wagging. Looking for all the world like the most obsequious mutt on the planet.

  “Does he always roam around at night?” she asked.

  “Rarely. He usually stays close to me.”

  Shade looked back at him.

  “We’d better get going,” Tyler said, and tried taking a few steps.

  She rushed to his side, heedless of the dog now. It was easier to walk with her help. He told himself that even when he reached the point when he knew he could manage on his own.

  Except to hold the hand of someone who was dying, he had not allowed himself to be in physical contact—even such limited contact—with a woman in years. He told himself that was why he was responding to her so strongly.

  A young man’s body, a young man’s thoughts, he told himself bitterly, but kept his arm around her until they reached his front door.

  He unlocked the door, and pulled a matchbook from his pocket. He lit the candle near the door, then used this to light an oil lamp. A quick look assured him that the men who had attacked him had not vandalized his home.

  “No electricity?” she asked.

  “No. Entirely rustic—well, almost.”

  “Almost?”

  “Indoor plumbing.”

  “No use carrying nostalgia too far,” she agreed. She looked about her. He wondered what she made of the simple furnishings. A plain pine table. Four wooden chairs, the number a matter of tradition, since never more than one had been occupied at any given time. A fireplace. Unadorned thick walls. All the color in the room came from one throw rug and the bowls and cups on a simple sideboard. Amanda Clarke was undoubtedly used to far more elegant surroundings.

  To his surprise, she smiled and said, “I like it. It’s peaceful.”