The River Is Dark

by Joe Hart

  The steel struck his legs with a solid thunk, and Peter made a deep, mewling sound of pain as he staggered to the side. Liam took the opportunity and spun away, running as fast as his injured foot would allow him down the walking path. Fog parted around him as he sprinted through it, and he heard uneven footsteps behind him, knowing that Peter was only a few strides away.

  The path narrowed, and the tar looped back in a tight curve—the end of the line. Liam saw the wooden fence turn at a ninety-degree angle and shoot off into the woods on his left, but there was a small gap just large enough for a person to walk through. He ran toward it, his ankles trying to turn on the rough ground beneath his feet. Chancing a look over his shoulder, he saw Peter lumbering after him, the serration of his sword like shark’s teeth. The fence flew past, and a well-worn hiking trail continued in the shape of a snake’s body. Twice he nearly ran straight into a tree or a bramble of bushes, as the path twisted and turned. Peter let out an angry bellow behind him, and he poured on the speed, fueled by how close the killer sounded.

  Liam rounded another curve and sensed the trees and brush opening up on both sides. His feet landed on smooth rock, and he pelted on, watching for what he knew must be there. After a dozen more steps, he saw it: a vast void of darkness sheeted with fog. All rational thought told him to stop, not to take another step, but he ran on, his eyes searching the ground, his arms pumping at his sides.

  Then it was there, the edge of the bluff, and he flung himself into the yawning darkness, fog ripping past him as he fell. Air howled in his ears, or maybe it was Peter on the cliff’s edge, he couldn’t be sure. The fall lasted forever and less than a second. He had only a moment to wonder whether his feet would touch water or stone. If he was wrong, he would know instantaneously with the crushing pain of broken legs and a shattered spine before his skull cracked open on the solid rock.

  Water swallowed him and slapped against his chest and face, knocking the wind from his lungs in a flurry of bubbles as he sunk deep into the river. The darkness was complete around him as he struggled, the Sig still held in one hand. Some of the bitter liquid flooded his open mouth, and he shut it, kicking toward the promise of air, although he might have been swimming toward the swirling muck of the riverbed instead for how dark it was. The water roared in his ears, and his lungs urged him to breathe, even if it was water, just breathe it in, he had to. As he opened his mouth to comply with the overwhelming need, his head burst into balmy air. Liam coughed, spluttering out water and heaving in oxygen. He’d never tasted anything so sweet in his life.

  Feeling the pull of the current, he stroked in the direction he thought was the correct shore, and confirmed it with the flash of heat lightning. He looked up, seeking out the bluff from which he’d plummeted, and in the wash of flashing light, he saw Peter silhouetted there, looking down from the sixty-odd feet that separated them.

  Without another glance, Liam swam as hard as he could toward the shore, and sent a prayer of thanks skyward when he felt his shoes touch bottom. After tucking the Sig into its sodden holster, he began to make his way up the rocky shore, toward the sullen glow of Tallston.

  CHAPTER 24

  Liam’s breath came in ragged gasps by the time he crawled over the rock wall beside his hotel.

  His clothes hung from him as though two sizes too big, and he felt a raw blister ready to burst on the bottom of his injured foot. The lighted windows in the hotel looked heavenly, and he jogged toward the front door, relishing the feeling of relative safety.

  One thing gnawed at his thoughts, and had since his leap from the cliff: where had the other person been? Peter obviously had an accomplice, but he was alone tonight. Liam threw a glance over his shoulder before pulling the front door open.

  If the clerk at the desk thought anything of his bedraggled and still-sopping clothes, he kept it to himself. After entering his room, Liam stripped and re-dressed in dry clothes, the feeling of the soft fabric delicious on his skin. Examining the wound on his foot, he saw that Peter’s blade had taken a chunk the size of a dime from between his big and second toes. The hole still seeped blood but didn’t look too serious. After he pushed a ball of gauze between his toes, he shoved his injured foot into a sock. He then disassembled the Sig in a few practiced motions and began to dry each part individually. When he felt satisfied, he reassembled the gun, racked the slide a few times, dry-fired it, and then shook it once more to make sure no moisture remained inside.

  Slamming his final mag into the butt of the Sig, Liam reached for the phone near his bed but stopped, his hand hanging in midair. His intentions were to call the sheriff, but what if Barnes had taken him seriously and sent a cruiser up to the mayor’s cabin? The officer would find his truck smashed near the front door, two dead bodies, and shell casings strewn everywhere. Switching gears, he called Dani instead. Her phone rang several times before going to voice mail. Liam hung up and stared at the wall for almost a minute. If the authorities were already at the crime scene, they’d probably go to Dani’s hotel right after they paid his a visit.

  Pulling on his still-soaking shoes, he stood from the bed and tucked the Sig into the holster at his back. He needed to get to Dani, tell her what happened, and then figure out their next move. Even Phelps couldn’t deny his story now, with two more bodies piled up. It would be an arduous process, but necessary. Nut would be exonerated and Liam would have to endure a rigorous investigation.

  Liam left the hotel and jogged onto a back street that ran parallel to the main drag. Despite the ache in his foot, he covered the mile to Dani’s hotel in a little less than ten minutes, keeping his eyes peeled for police cars the entire time. Very little traffic graced the roads, and as soon as he turned into the hotel parking lot, he almost sighed with relief upon seeing Dani’s Toyota Corolla parked on one side of the building. As he began scanning the rest of the lot for patrol cars, something stopped his search and brought his eyes back to Dani’s car.

  Her driver’s-side door stood partially open.

  A frantic plea for his instincts to be wrong echoed inside his head as he made his way toward her car. She just left the door open accidentally, or maybe she ran back inside to grab something. When he got closer, his heart tried to seize. Several dark spots stained the pavement near the driver’s side. With the plea still ringing in his head, he pulled the door all the way open.

  Drops of blood coated the seat’s upholstery, soaked in like old coffee spills. Half a bloody handprint smeared the tan steering wheel with scarlet, and when he reached out to touch it, it came away tacky. Not dry yet. She couldn’t have been gone for more than half an hour.

  Liam stepped back, careful not to tread in any of the dollops of blood on the ground, and leaned against the car next to Dani’s. Now he knew why Peter had been alone at the mayor’s cabin. Tears threatened at the corners of his eyes, but he willed them away, replacing the panic in his chest with white-hot anger. She’d better be alive, or no one would walk away from this.

  Liam moved away from the car and was about to get out from beneath the overhead light of the parking lot when he spotted something on the ground. Bending down, he saw that it was Dani’s cell phone. When he turned it on, he immediately closed his eyes—his earlier call along with his number ready to be dialed on the screen seared all else from his mind.

  Swallowing the sickness in the back of his throat, he turned toward the way he’d come and began to run as fast as his foot would allow. There was only one place she could be now, and he hoped he wasn’t too late.

  CHAPTER 25

  The boat’s motor started on the first try.

  Keeping the noise at a minimum, Liam tossed away the ropes fastening the boat to the bait store’s dock and pushed away from the planking. After angling the craft into the black current of the river, he dug into his pocket for Dani’s cell phone and tapped in Barnes’s number. The sheriff answered in a hushed voice on the first ring.

 
“Hello?”

  “Barnes, it’s me.”

  “Boy, what the fuck?”

  “I’m assuming you’re at the mayor’s?”

  “You assume fucking right.” He heard the sheriff curse again and the rustle of clothing. “Where the hell are you?”

  “I’m going to the foundry.”

  “Boy, you’re past the point of trouble. This place is a bloodbath, and Phelps is on his way. Once he gets here, all hell is going to break loose, you copy?”

  “It’s already broken loose, Sheriff.” He stopped, steadying himself. “They took Dani.”

  Silence from Barnes’s end. Then, “Suzie’s cousin?”

  “Yes. I think they took her to the foundry. I’m going there now, and I need backup.”

  “You got a lot of nerve, son. How am I supposed to believe you with all your shit lying around the bodies here?”

  “Oh, use your fucking eyes, Barnes!” Liam half yelled. “Does it look like the mayor and his girlfriend were killed by gunfire?” When he received no reply, he continued. “Look, I have to find her. They took her because they knew she was working with me on this, and they knew I’d come for her. They’re trying to end this, Barnes.”

  The sheriff wheezed. “I don’t know what I can do, Liam. Phelps is going to have a shit fit when he gets here, since this is blowing his little closed case wide open again.”

  Liam steered the boat past the park on his left, where Haines’s body had been found. “You know how little I care about how angry Phelps is going to be? I need help, Barnes. Your town needs help. Stand up and do something. Retirement or not, you have an obligation to do what’s right.” Liam’s anger boiled over, and he hit the end button.

  His eyes found the darker smudge on the southern shore that was the foundry and piloted the boat toward it, wishing the motor made less noise. Although, it didn’t matter; he knew he was expected. Liam swung the boat in on the far side of the decaying pier, which jutted like a mangled tongue into the water. When the boat was a few yards from the shore, he cut the motor and let the momentum carry him onto the soft soil of the bank. After climbing out, he pulled the nose of the craft farther inland and then faced the towering form of the building, its shadow an insurmountable wall in the night. He drew the Sig, making sure the safety was off before beginning to walk. A few strides in, he noticed a crushed area in the long river grass to his left, and when he moved closer, he saw that a small boat lay there, its aluminum belly toward the sky and two oars on the ground beside it. Turning toward the foundry again, he continued on.

  The grass rasped against his jeans, whispers of warning that he couldn’t heed. Fog hovered in patches of gossamer, with veins extending into the woods surrounding the structure. Liam swung the Sig to the left and right, knowing Peter and his accomplice could be anywhere. The foundry loomed closer, and as he neared the front façade, he veered left and traced the wall as closely as he could, his eyes searching the darkness of the woods on the other side. Soon he came to the large bushes growing from the base of the building’s foundation, their viny tendrils snaking into and through the cracked wall. With a blind effort, he pushed into them, letting his right shoulder rub the wall as he moved. After a minute, his outstretched hand touched what he knew must be there—a door.

  The steel door was of regular height and width, built out of heavy iron and sitting on a sliding mechanism no doubt hampered by the countless seasons that had attempted to rust the entrance shut. He knew if he tried to move it, the same screech would issue from its track that he and Dani had heard on their first visit. Now the door stood open, a rectangle of utter dark unlike anything he’d encountered before. It waited to swallow him, abysmal, beckoning. Liam paused at the threshold, listening for the soft inhalation of breath but hearing nothing save the clicking of leaves against one another in the nearby trees. Re-gripping the pistol, he stooped low and walked forward, turning left as soon as he entered the building. Something hard struck his shoulder as he sidled into the massive space, and he grunted with the pain that shot down his arm. With one hand, he reached out and felt a flat surface and a cold steel tube that sat at the end of what could only be a worktable.

  While he waited for his eyes to adjust to the thick darkness of the foundry, every regret he’d ever had came rushing back in a torrent of sorrow. His brother’s face played across his mind, followed by Suzie’s. Then it was Abford in the alley, the gun barrel pointing his way, its muzzle looking like a culvert it was so large. Then Kelly, her face obscured by the hair she’d just had cut, unaware that her and her son’s lives were seconds from over.

  Liam forced his eyes shut, the swimming darkness becoming rolling fountains of color with the pressure. He would not fail again; he would not let her die here alone. When he opened his eyes, he could make out more features of the room he stood in. Innumerable support beams slanted toward the lofted ceiling, which had a long row of skylights. The room itself spanned the entire building, ending in the older portion of the original structure fifty yards to his left, the chipped concrete floor marred by remnants of the work that toiled here half a century ago. Several unnamed pieces of machinery stood a few paces apart near the opposite wall, their purpose shrouded in obscurity by both the lack of light and his ignorance of the jobs that had taken place here. A line of girders close to the sidewalls supported what appeared to be a catwalk with banks of stairs leading up and down at either end of the massive space. Everywhere on the floor were the shapes of I-beams, some only inches long, while others stretched fifty feet or more.

  Liam glared into the dark and watched for movement. The soft tick of metal expanding or contracting was the only sound, mocking his vigilance with its shifting resonance. Heat lightning spiderwebbed across the sky directly over the foundry and bathed the interior in a strange red illumination that allowed him to scan his surroundings again. He seemed to be alone.

  Liam moved forward, skirting the long worktable, which was coated in dust and grime. A few forgotten hand tools lay on the floor, and he stepped over and between them. The vast space around him stunk of old grease and burned steel, the ozone muted but still there. The place had the feel of a sepulcher, quiet with the waiting of secrets. As he neared a set of stairs leading to the catwalk above him, he stopped, his eardrums straining for a new sound somewhere ahead. It came again, and there was no mistaking it this time.

  Crying.

  Dani was somewhere ahead, her soft sobs barely audible through the doorway leading into the old part of the structure. She was still alive. A massive chunk of fear fell away and dissolved at the knowledge that he would not find her mangled body amongst the wreckage of this place. Moving even more carefully, he slid up against the old building’s rough brick and peered through the doorless opening.

  A few candles burned inside on various surfaces, their light paltry but better than the darkness he stood in now. The next room was large but not near the size of the newer section. A conglomeration of broken chairs and piled canvas bags sat everywhere. A few long tables stood in the center of the space, their tops devoid of anything but dust.

  Swinging into the room in a low stance, Liam scuttled to the nearest table and knelt beside it, covering his left and then his right with the gun. Nothing moved besides the slow waving of the candle flames. Dani whimpered and sniffed somewhere ahead. He ran fast across the room, leaping over a pile of I-beams and sliding to a stop near a small archway. With his back to the wall, he glanced around, watching the faint outline of the doorway for the darkening of a shadow.

  A few cables as thick as his middle finger snaked in tangled lines near his feet and disappeared in a cloak of filth on the floor. In the corner nearest to him, he made out a large pile of canvas arranged like some sort of nest, its center depressed and filled with heaps of blankets. A nearby shelf held several stacks of canned goods along with what looked like large bottles of water. A smell of unwashed flesh and soiled laundry emana
ted from the corner. The sight disturbed him, mostly because the area looked lived in. Shuffling closer to the archway, he peeked inside the next room.

  It was much smaller than the space he stood in now, an antechamber of sorts. It was square and lacked features, measuring fifteen feet across at the most. Candles littered the floor, their meager light illuminating the far wall, where Dani sat with her hands and feet bound together.

  Hope surged in his chest, but he resisted the impulse to run to her. This was a trap, but what choice did he have? He leaned farther into the doorway, waiting for the sound of movement or a glimpse of clothing shifting against the backdrop of darkness. Other than Dani, the room looked to be empty. He stood and pivoted inside, the Sig straight out in front of him. His feet made a hollow sound on the floor as he entered, and Dani looked up, her face a mask of fear and matted with blood. When her eyes found him, a look of sheer relief flooded her features, and it nearly broke his heart.

  “You found me,” she whispered as he hurried forward and hit his knees beside her. With one arm, he hugged her awkwardly, kissing her bloodied temple.

  “Of course I did.” Liam stood just enough to pull out the straight razor, then crouched again, opening the blade. The bindings at her hands and feet were coils of oily rope. As delicately as he could, he began to slice the strands away from her wrists.

  “Do you know where they are?”

  Dani shook her head. “Just one attacked me in the parking lot. I think I cut his face, but he hit me with something and I blacked out.”