by Bush, Nancy
He’d just been congratulating himself on a job well done when he’d realized he was missing her cell phone. How? He’d been so meticulous, making sure the phone was tucked in her purse and that the purse and her overnight bag were stowed in the cab behind his seat. But when he’d hauled her body and belongings out, no cell phone.
Short panic. But he knew the phone wasn’t in the car he’d shoved down the mountain. He’d made certain of that before Douglas appeared. So, it had to be at the cemetery. He’d been forced to return and it was God’s will he arrived when he did, because that’s when he saw a woman traipsing down the road. She was turning toward the cemetery as Zach Benchley’s ATV zoomed the opposite direction back toward his family’s farm. Who? He’d thought, slowing the truck.
And then he’d seen the black RAV and he’d known. It was her vehicle. The Treadwell girl. He’d seen it outside the clinic that very morning.
He waited in his car, his breath coming fast. Waited until she’d had enough time to be far enough down the lane not to see his truck when he passed by. He drove several miles farther in the direction of the lookout, but then turned back, whipping the wheel around. That’s when the missing cell phone had skittered from under the seat and damn near jammed under his brake. He’d had to stop to remove it, and when he’d seen what it was, he pocketed it and said a small prayer. He almost chuckled at the miracle of timing. Instead of chancing running into her, he’d waited for nearly forty minutes, and by the time he drove back to that stretch of road, her vehicle was gone.
Had she found Bernadette? He couldn’t take the chance, so he bumped down the road to the cemetery again, jamming on the brake, the engine still running.
He had to move Bernie’s body. Couldn’t have Jordanna Treadwell call in the police, and that’s what she was bound to do. He was sorry she couldn’t stay there with the other lost souls. He needed to bring the afflicted ones to their family’s final resting place. That’s what God wanted. But the Treadwell bitch had foiled that plan, he thought, baring his teeth. He couldn’t let Satan win.
Now, in the stretch of woods east of the barn and between the fields on his own property, he dug past the pebbles and small rocks to the hard earth underneath, digging, digging, digging. It was temporary, just until he took care of Jordanna. Then he could move the sick ones away from the others.
You have to move them all. They’re coming for you. They’ll know.
Shuttering his mind to the edict, he kept digging and digging. Finally, he tossed down the shovel, threw back his head, and stared at the heavens, his heart thundering from exertion. He’d thrown off his shirt and perspiration slicked his skin. He took a look at the black holes he’d carved out of the stony ground. They were deep enough for now.
Trudging back to the truck, he pulled Bernie from the cab. Ten days dead, she smelled as putrid as her soul. He flung her into one of the pits and covered her up, dirt and pebbles raining down on her. The other pit yawned. The one for that other sorry, stinking bitch, Jordanna’s sister Kara.
Thinking of them, his mind flickered to the other sister, Emily, even though he’d told himself never, never, never to think about her again. He’d loved her like a soul mate. He’d saved her, as much as he could. But she’d been afflicted and nothing could have been between them. She hadn’t been responsible for her actions with other men. He knew that, but it had been so hard to witness her downfall.
Pulling his shirt back over his head, he reached down for the jacket he’d tossed on the ground, flinging it over one shoulder. He threw it onto the passenger seat as he climbed into the truck, then drove the short distance back to the barn. There were horses in the north field, just the few left from when the ranch had been in his father’s hands. The cows were in the south field and he glanced over where their dark humps studded the landscape. He heard one lowing in the dark as he reached the barn.
It suddenly started pouring rain, dispelling the last wisps of drifting fog, and he turned the truck around in a downpour, backing up to the yawning black hole of the open doorway. He’d hadn’t shut the door because he’d known he would be right back.
Once he was back in, he jumped out of the cab and strode straight to the brazier, lighting it up. He’d tossed a tarp over Kara’s body and left her on the barn floor. Now he eased the tarp back, looking down at her as he waited for the iron to heat. It took some time, but he was patient, staring into the oven heat of Satan’s furnace, watching the branding iron’s tip turn from black to molten orange.
He felt mesmerized, but was jarred out of his reverie by the merry ring of a cell phone. Her phone. In her purse still inside his cab. He loped back for it and waited for it to stop ringing, one eye on the flood of rain outside the open barn door. He hoped the hole he’d dug wasn’t filling up with water.
Picking up the phone, he carefully fingered the keys, pleased when the screen lit up and he realized it had no automatic locking mechanism. He read the name of the recent caller: JORDANNA.
“Poor sick bitch,” he whispered. Though he’d known it wasn’t Emily’s fault she was such a slut, he’d also known she was doomed. Her family had made a pact with the devil long before and there was no coming back from that.
He scrolled through Kara’s last texts. Jennie had been asking her to come to dinner tonight . . . must be Jennie Markum. A downright shame that Jennie, whose soul was pure, wanted to keep in contact with the Treadwell whores. She should know better.
The idea took form slowly and he let it percolate. He’d been accused of being a slow thinker more than once, and he knew he had to think things through carefully or he could make a mistake. Finally, he decided it was a good idea and he texted Jennie back: sory cant make it gotta go to porland
Smiling, he then ripped the phone apart. He removed the battery, then threw the phone on the floor and stomped on it, cracking the plastic and metal pieces beneath the heel of his boot. Gathering them up, he threw what was left of the phone into the brazier. The fire might not be hot enough to melt metal, but it would destroy any part that mattered.
He started when his own cell phone began to ring. He’d zipped it into a pocket of his jacket and had pretty much forgotten about it. Now he went back to the cab again, pulled out his coat, and searched around till he had the phone in hand. He looked at the number, already knowing it would be her. “Yeah,” he answered flatly.
“Is it done?” she asked.
“Not completely.”
“What do you mean?” Sharp tone.
“I need to sear her flesh.”
“You didn’t touch her, did you?”
He thought back to those moments at the cemetery and then here in the barn, her body beneath him. To lie would be a sin, but he hadn’t done anything, not really. “I kept myself pure.”
“Your work is nearly done. You will be rewarded in heaven. There are so few left now.”
He licked his lips. “This one isn’t the reporter, but she’s a Treadwell.”
“What? What do you mean?” Even sharper yet.
“This one’s the youngest sister. She came to town and she recognized me.”
“Lord in heaven,” she whispered.
“It’s God’s will. He looks out for us.”
“He certainly does. But you need to take care of the other one. You need to hurry!”
He felt anger bubble inside him and he had to fight it back. He knew what to do. His next words were difficult, ripped from his heart. “Something needs to be done about Boo.”
“Stop talking about him.” Short and furious.
“He knows about the cemetery. And he might know about the burial grounds on our land.”
“Stop talking! Keep your mind off Boo and on our mission. Finish what you started with the youngest sister. Sear her clean.”
The phone went dead. He slipped it back in his jacket pocket, then turned to the dead girl. He knew he should be careful of touching her, careful to keep her sickness away from him, but she was too much like Emily for him to fe
el any repulsion.
The brazier threw orange shadows on her white skin. Slowly, he pulled the glowing iron from the fire. Propping up her hip with his hand, he pressed the cross upside down against her flesh, smelling the sweet, burned scent of seared meat.
Saying a quick prayer, he heaved her over his shoulder, tossed her limp body into the passenger seat, then drove back to the plot where Bernadette was, her temporary resting spot. Pulling her from the back of the truck, he carried her to the pit and rolled her into the muddy water with a splash. Rain came steadily down, running off the brim of his cowboy hat and onto her dirt-splattered body. He felt a weight on his soul. It was easier to kill men, even ones he liked.
Picking up the shovel, he covered Kara with dirt, making her disappear from view as he had Bernadette. He wanted to pat down his work and toss some branches over the makeshift grave, but the rain was making it difficult. There were three bodies here. Bernie, Kara, and the mean bitch who’d sired him. There should have been four, but when he was moving the fool who’d wandered onto their property, his body had fallen out of the back of the truck, landing on the side of the road outside the old cemetery, where he’d meant to bury him with his kin. When he’d realized what happened, he’d started to reverse, but then he’d seen headlights flash on through the trees that surrounded the cemetery. Someone had been there.
Instead, he’d moved his truck farther up the road and had sneaked back on foot. He’d been disgusted to see their car rock and hear their muffled groans and giggles as they giggled and fornicated like rabid vermin. He’d planned to pick up the body when he left, but all of a sudden their car engine was revving and he had to dive into the underbrush, smacking his head on a limb. As soon as they were gone he staggered back to his vehicle, dizzy and nauseous, and drove home. He vomited twice and slept like the dead and didn’t remember the body. Later, when he told her about it, she told him he’d had a concussion and was infuriated with him, but by that time Zach Benchley had discovered the body.
He’d worried that maybe the kids in the car had seen him, but that wasn’t the case. And then no one remembered who the body was anyway. Called him homeless. God’s will again, protecting him. She said they were lucky that the chief had decided to keep the branding a secret, though it kinda got out anyway. Didn’t matter. He’d done God’s work, and unburdened the souls of the afflicted.
Bernie, young Bernadette, had been much harder for him. But he’d seen her wild rolling eyes and known of her promiscuous ways. She’d been fucking Chase for months before he finally understood that she was another of Lucifer’s children. He’d caught them in the act, and that’s when he’d had to burn the devil out of her and save her soul. Someday, he would put her corporal remains back with her kin, where they needed to be, and he would add the Treadwells, too.
Throwing the shovel in the back of the truck, he then jumped back inside. The youngest Treadwell woman had been a bonus, but he needed to concentrate on the last sister now. He’d seen her with that man with the limp. She was probably fucking him, among others. That’s what Treadwells were like.
He hadn’t liked being told what to do, but she was right: Jordanna Treadwell needed to be saved and soon. With her younger sister gone, Jordanna was the last of child-bearing age, and above all else, Treadwells could not be allowed to procreate.
It had to end with Jordanna.
Chapter Twenty
Dance lay on the blow-up bed, tucked up against Jordanna, one arm wrapped around her naked body. It was early, still dark, but he could make out the line of her nape. It was strange. He felt like he’d been sleeping with her forever, and he sure as hell didn’t want it to stop.
She’d been quiet when they’d returned the night before, her eyes looking bruised. She’d hung in there at the Longhorn, but then he could practically see her energy wash away. He’d understood completely, even before she’d said, “There was a woman’s body there.”
“Write it down,” he’d told her.
“Somebody knew I was there, and they moved it.”
“You’ve got a story. The missing body, the reluctant police force, your own history with this town . . . write it up.”
“My own history,” she repeated with an ironic twist of her lips.
For a moment he’d thought she was going to ignore him, but then she’d seemed to catch fire. She’d switched on her laptop, opened a Word document, and started writing. Her style was more descriptive than his own straight, terse journalism, so initially he offered editing changes. Her steel spine returned, however, and she started fighting for her words, which he took as a good sign.
He’d left her to it, knowing how often writing had helped organize his own thoughts, forcing him to list events and information in a logical progression. He’d headed to the kitchen and heated up some instant coffee in the microwave, his thoughts turning to the Saldanos, knowing it was time to go to the police with the audiotape. Not the cops here in Rock Springs—like Jordanna, he didn’t truly trust their efficiency, maybe even their honesty. No, it was time to go back to Portland.
He’d returned to the living room, aware this could be his last night, struck by a feeling of loss already as he looked at Jordanna, her face illuminated by the light coming off her laptop screen. Aware of him, she’d glanced up, meeting his gaze, and said, “It’s rough, but I’ve got a lot of it down. Somebody saw me and moved the body. I don’t know why it was there in the first place, but I disturbed them. How did he see me?”
“He was there and you didn’t know it?” he’d suggested. “Nearby, anyway.”
She hadn’t liked the sound of that. “Does he live around there? Zach said Mrs. Fowler was old. He didn’t act like anyone lived with her.”
“One of the neighbors?”
“We’re one of the neighbors,” she’d reminded him. “But I don’t know the rest of them. This land was all Benchley land once, and they were the ones who built the cemetery. I saw some of the names on the crosses.”
“You need to talk to Mrs. Fowler,” he’d told her, seating himself down beside her on the couch.
She’d written a few more words, but he could tell his proximity distracted her. “What are you doing?” she’d asked slowly, but he’d quelled the smile in her voice by saying, “I’m going to take the audiotape to the police.”
“You do think it’s why Saldano Industries was bombed, then?” She’d sounded faintly surprised, because he’d dismissed that notion from the outset.
“I haven’t changed my mind. The tape only alludes to possible smuggling of an unnamed something. It may not be the Saldanos behind the smuggling. That’s why I gave a copy to Max, so he could figure it out internally.”
“Thought you’d started to believe they weren’t on the up-and-up.”
“I was doing some checking behind the scenes,” he’d admitted. “I knew something was off. Then the bombing, the hospital . . . and you showed up. I probably should have gone to the police immediately, but I have a tendency to not trust them.”
“We have that in common,” she’d said, and he’d leaned in and kissed her, wanting her in a way he hadn’t wanted anything in a long time. After that, they’d fallen into each other’s arms and stumbled their way to his room, making love twice before falling asleep.
Now, he wanted to make love to her again. It was crazy. Too many years with Carmen, who was all heat and fire and anger and not enough true connection. He hadn’t even realized what he was missing until yesterday.
Jordanna stirred in his arms, slowly turning to face him. He couldn’t see her expression in the dark.
“When do you want me to drive you back to Portland?” she asked.
“Tomorrow’s fine.”
“So that gives us today.”
He heard the echo of his own feelings, of not wanting their time together to end. “Yeah.”
“You’re going to let them all know where you are.”
He didn’t know how to tell her he felt less vulnerable now, less out of
control. She’d extracted him from a volatile situation that he hadn’t been strong enough to handle, but it went against his nature to hide out for long.
“I need to show my face to the Saldanos” was his answer. Hers was to wrap herself around him one more time and make love to him with a thread of desperation that he answered in kind.
Auggie rolled over in bed and reached an arm out for Liv, but she was already out of bed. He groaned and buried his head beneath his pillow. He was working a case that wasn’t really his anymore, and he’d already been told that he couldn’t “harass” the Saldanos any longer.
His lieutenant had called him late Saturday evening. A weekend phone call was unlikely to be about something positive, and when he answered and heard, “What are you doing, Rafferty?” he knew it was about the Saldanos.
He’d tried to plead his case. Yes, the feds had taken over, but he was following another lead. He just needed a little more time.
“I’d like you to go undercover on another case,” Lieutenant Cawthorne had answered when he finished.
“I’d like to stay on this one,” he’d stubbornly replied.
And that’s when Cawthorne said, “Victor Saldano called Captain Jarvis and complained about you. Agent Bethwick had some things to say, too, and the words ‘budget cuts’ were tossed about. Your record’s good, but it’s getting political around here. If you want me to go to bat for you, you gotta stop being a maverick.”
Auggie hadn’t known quite how to answer. He’d worked undercover for the Portland PD on a number of cases. He’d been recruited from Laurelton PD for just that kind of work. But meeting Liv had changed what he wanted to do. Undercover work meant all hours, all the time. Taking on a new persona. Living a double life. Always the threat of danger. Being outside of so-called normal life.