You Can't Escape (9781420134650)

by Bush, Nancy

  There was a sudden transformation. His eyes suddenly rolled heavenward and his body jerked like it had been shocked. A moment later, he observed her with an entirely different expression, almost a pleading one.

  “Buddy’s sorry about Todd. He liked him,” he said.

  She drew a shallow breath. What was this? “Did Buddy put Todd in Kara’s car?” she asked carefully.

  “Uh-huh. He had to.”

  “Do you know what happened to Kara?”

  “Buddy saved her. Sent her soul to heaven. Seared out the devil.”

  Jordanna’s jaw started to quiver. “Is she dead?”

  Tears filled his eyes. “Yes, but she’s with God now. She was Lucifer’s daughter, but Buddy saved her.”

  Jordanna’s shoulders sank. Grief filled her so completely she felt like she was going under. She believed him. She didn’t want to, but she did. Kara was dead.

  With an effort, she asked, “Who are you?”

  “I’m Boo.”

  “Boo?”

  “Yeah, like BOO, you’re it!” He suddenly laughed uproariously, causing Jordanna to flinch. “Buddy won’t let me play in the playground anymore. But now you’re here. You can help me talk him into it, okay?”

  Jordanna stared blankly at him. Find me, Dance. Hurry. Please, find me!

  Dance reached the outskirts of Rock Springs at four and planned to plow through town directly to the Treadwell homestead, but as soon as that thought coalesced, it seemed wrong. He took his foot off the gas. She wasn’t answering her phone. Something was wrong, and he didn’t think she was at the homestead. What had the last text said? She was at “gree.” Was that some kind of garbled word?

  He drove straight to the police station and limped through the rain, pushing through the front door. He spied Rusty almost immediately, waiting near the reception desk. He looked wrung out and half wild, his hair straggling, as if he’d been standing outside for hours. He was demanding the police do something, but no one was paying much attention to him, though they appeared sympathetic. It was grief talking more than anything.

  “Rusty,” Dance said.

  He turned around, his eyes hollow. “Where’s Jordanna?” he asked.

  “That’s what I was going to ask you. I just got back. She’s not answering her phone.”

  He shook his head dolefully. “I don’t know, man. I don’t know.”

  “Is the chief around?” Dance looked toward the front desk, where two officers were talking in low tones.

  “I think he’s with the doc . . . Jordanna’s father.”

  “At the clinic?”

  “Nah, I think he went home because of Kara.”

  Dance looked around, thinking hard. He didn’t have Dayton Winters’s number in his phone. “You know where Dr. Winters’s house is?”

  “Sure.” He gave Dance directions, pointing down the street in the direction he’d come. “You can’t miss it. It’s got a red birdhouse on a stick out in the yard, and if the chief’s there, you’ll see his car.”

  “Can I ask you a favor? Would you go out to the Winterses’ homestead and see if Jordanna’s there? I don’t think she is, but if she is . . .”

  “Sure, man. I’m not doing any good here.” He seemed almost relieved to have a call to action.

  “Thanks.”

  Dance headed back to his Highlander and waved a good-bye to Rusty as he walked toward a blue truck. He then made a three-point turn in the center of the street to reverse direction, drawing a honk from an incensed driver who flipped him off as he tore back the way he’d come. He wound through a housing development and, per Rusty’s directions, found the Winters house with ease. There was no black-and-white prowler out in front, so he assumed the chief had already left.

  He grabbed his cane and hurried, half hopping, up the walk. A porch light was on against the dark afternoon. It was June first, he realized. It had been less than a week since last Tuesday’s bombing.

  He knocked rapidly on the door, waiting impatiently until sharp footsteps came his way. The door swung inward and Jennie Winters stood in the aperture. “Oh, hi, um . . . Mr. Danziger.”

  “Call me Dance.”

  “Jordanna’s not here.”

  “You have any idea where she might be? I’ve been out of town and I’m looking for her.”

  She shook her head. “Maybe Dayton knows something. Have you heard that they found Kara’s rental car?” she asked as she stepped back inside. “And about Todd Douglas? It’s just terrible.”

  He nodded. “Jordanna left me a message about it. Kara hasn’t turned up?”

  “Nobody knows where she is. I thought she texted me, but Jordanna seems to think it wasn’t her.”

  She led Dance across an oak entryway, down a step to a sunken living room that turned a corner into a dining room, kitchen, and a family room, where Dance could see the flickering pictures of a television, the sound turned down. Dayton Winters was sitting in an easy chair, his eyes focused on the TV, but Dance could tell he wasn’t seeing anything. As soon as he saw Dance, he got to his feet.

  “Have they found her?” he asked anxiously.

  “Kara? I don’t know. I’m looking for Jordanna.”

  He said, “We haven’t seen her since she left the restaurant yesterday.” He ran a hand through his silvered hair. “I thought maybe you had news about Kara.”

  “Jordanna sent me a text, three texts, actually, about one o’clock with the message about Kara. That’s the last I heard from her.” He quickly brought Dayton up to speed on what he knew. “She’s not answering her phone.”

  Dayton’s worry meter inched upward. “Well, where is she, now?” he asked tensely. “Greer said Officer Drummond saw her at the crash site, but that she left.”

  “Do you have any idea where she was going?”

  Both of them hesitated, looking at each other as if willing the other to speak first. Jennie finally shook her head, and Dayton did the same.

  They were no help. “Let me show you her last text.” He pulled out his phone and showed Dayton what she’d written: Want to know who kara saw in town. Emilys boyfriend?? At gree

  “Is that supposed to be ‘agree’?” Dayton asked.

  “She never finished the thought. Maybe she got interrupted.”

  “What does she mean by Emily’s boyfriend?” Dayton asked.

  “The last time Jordanna was on the phone with Kara, Kara ran into someone she recognized. She was in Rock Springs, and she said something to Jordanna that led her to believe it was Emily’s boyfriend.”

  “Emily’s boyfriend . . .” Worry had carved deep lines in Dayton’s face. “Kara knew all the boys she dated.”

  Jennie suddenly spoke up. “Well, maybe not all of them.” When Dayton turned to look at her, a blush crept up her neck. “She dated quite a few, for a while. She was kind of secretive about it all.”

  “She started going to church,” Dayton said, trying to deny what Jennie was telling him, yet he was clearly aware enough of Emily’s indiscriminate dating. “She was putting her life together. It’s really what helped me turn to God and become a member of Green Pastures.”

  Dance’s pulse leapt, and he quickly turned on his phone again, sliding his finger across the screen and finding the message button, drawing up Jordanna’s last text. “She’s at Green Pastures,” he said.

  “Are you sure?” Dayton’s disbelief would have been comical if Dance weren’t so worried.

  Dance was already in motion, hurriedly making his way back through the house. “Emily’s boyfriend was a churchgoer,” he said over his shoulder.

  “Let me get my jacket,” Dayton said, moving toward an alcove at the back of the kitchen where there was a coatrack. “I’m going with you.”

  Dance opened his mouth to tell him no, when Dayton’s face suddenly took on a baffled look.

  “You don’t mean Dutton Sazlow, do you?” he said.

  “Who’s Dutton Sazlow?” Dance asked quickly.

  “Emily spent a lot of t
ime with him that last spring. I always credited him for helping her discover her spirituality and the Lord.”

  Dance was thinking fast. “He’s related to Chase Sazlow, Bernadette Fread’s boyfriend?”

  “They’re brothers.”

  “Where does he live?” Dance demanded.

  “Just south of town, the second homestead from Rock Springs.”

  If he could have run, Dance would have already been out the door. As it was, he limped, hopped, and half ran out the door and to the Highlander. Dayton had grabbed his coat and was on his heels.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  They were trekking through the rain, following the ruts that were now filled with water from the barn to where he’d taken the two bodies. “Haven’t had time to bury them yet,” he told her conversationally. Boo had wanted to show her the playground, but Buddy had returned with a rolling of the whites of his eyes and a hitch of shoulder muscles. He’d released her from her bonds, but was now walking behind her, the .22 pressed into her lower back. If she ran for it, she might escape, or he might hit her in the spine.

  “You shouldn’t have found Bernie,” he said. “She’s supposed to be at the Benchley cemetery. That’s where they’re all supposed to be. Now, what am I gonna do, huh? Where can I put ’em?” He nudged her hard with the rifle and she stumbled and nearly fell into the puddles of dirt.

  She wished she was still with the “Boo” persona. Buddy was far more dangerous.

  “Who was the man that was under the tarp?” she asked, searching for conversation.

  “Abel.”

  “Abel Fread?”

  “I like talking to you,” he said on a note of discovery. “I never got to talk to the others, except for Emily . . . and Mama . . .”

  Jordanna wiped rain off her lips. “Is Mama somewhere here, too?”

  “I killed Mama first,” he said, his voice chilling in its lack of emotion. “I didn’t want to, but she was a sick bitch, like you. Not a Treadwell, but she had it, too.”

  “You mean, she was a Benchley?”

  He was silent for a moment. She sensed that she’d given him something hard to think about. “What’s it to you?” he finally demanded.

  “Benchleys have the disease, not Treadwells,” she told him.

  He grabbed her shoulder and whirled her around, glaring down at her, his face shadowed by his cowboy hat and the softly falling rain. She braced herself for another hit, but then he laid a palm against her cheek and started to chuckle. “You’re a good liar. Satan taught you well.”

  “I’m not lying. Margaret told you to get the Treadwell girls, but she was wrong. It’s not us. We’re not the ones who got sick.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  “No.”

  “You’re all whores. And Bernadette was fucking Chase. She wasn’t clean!”

  Jordanna reheard Margaret’s voice in her argument with Buddy. That’s all you were supposed to do, the Treadwell girls!

  “You killed Bernadette,” she said, trying to keep the fear out of her voice. “What happened to Chase?”

  “Caught them fornicating. Shot him in the stall.”

  “In the barn?”

  “You smelled him, didn’t you?” he stated.

  Her stomach revolted at the remembered scent. She visualized the door with the wooden bar. Chase Sazlow was rotting in the barn.

  He pushed her hard with his hand, and she stumbled and trudged toward a copse of trees, the ground rising a bit, becoming stonier.

  “Over there,” he said, stopping her, then grabbing her head and turning her to her right. He nudged her in the new direction and she could scarcely make her legs propel her forward.

  “Where’s Boo?” she asked, her steps slowing as she saw the mounds of dirt ahead. He was digging graves, she realized. She could see a rain-damped, denim-clad leg. Abel Fread.

  “Boo’s not here,” he snapped. “He’s back at the house, where he should stay.”

  Jordanna wondered what would happen if she told him that he and Boo were one and the same. Her jaw was quivering and to keep her teeth from chattering, she said, “I don’t remember you. I don’t remember anyone called Buddy in high school.”

  “That’s not my name.” He made a sound of disgust. “That was Mama’s name for Boo. She liked Boo, but he hid from her, so she hit me with the strap. Sent me to Calverson’s place to work. Old man Calverson. What a fucker. Hit me with the hot branding iron once. Said it was a mistake, but it wasn’t. He meant it. Got the scar to prove it.”

  They were at a makeshift graveyard. The rain was diminishing and a mist was rising from the ground. She could see the new dirt over what she assumed were several bodies. Was one of them Kara? she wondered, bile rising up her throat. Margaret Bicknell and Abel Fread were lying on the ground. He’d started several new holes, but had apparently grown tired and come back for her.

  “See?” he said. Then, “They’ll be okay for tonight.”

  “How many . . . are here?”

  “Mama, Bernie, Kara,” he said, deliberately stressing her name, “and now Aunt Margaret and Abel. Liam fell out of the truck before I could bury him. Don’t worry.... There’s room for you.”

  Jordanna felt dizzy. Liam? Liam Benchley? He was long dead, wasn’t he? She wondered if she was going to pass out, from whatever drug he’d given her, from grief, from fear. “Margaret Bicknell’s your aunt?” she asked, hearing her voice as if from a long ways away.

  “She’s the one that told me about you Treadwells,” he said. “She said you had the putrid disease and it was up to me to save you all.”

  It started with Margaret, Jordanna realized dully. Margaret, the pharmacist, who’d known her father for years, and who had access to all kinds of drugs. In a vague corner of her mind, she remembered her mother saying to her father, “If Maggie Bicknell had her way, the girls and I would disappear. Poof!” And she snapped her fingers, and added, “Then she could have you all to herself.”

  “You’ve seen ’em. Time to go back,” he said, grabbing her and physically turning her around.

  She gazed at the barn. Thought of the branding iron. “Boo said he wanted to go to the playground.”

  “Don’t listen to Boo!”

  “He said I could talk you into it.”

  “Noooooo!” And then he went through that peculiar hitch and he threw his head back and she saw the eye roll. And then Boo was back, looking at her from under the hat with sadness, she thought.

  Jordanna took off running for the barn.

  The gun . . . the gun . . . she thought wildly. She zigged to the left. Racing full out. She stumbled a little against rain-slick grass and mud, but kept barreling forward. It was still light out, but fog was starting to roll in. Her ears were full of noise: Her stuttered, gasping breathing. The rush of air. The silence behind her. Was he aiming?

  She bent forward, then had to catch herself, her strides shortening, becoming uneven. She listened for the report. Expected it. But what she heard were pounding footsteps. He was chasing her.

  She doubled her speed, avoiding the ruts from the tires, staying on the grass. The barn was ahead to her left. No, don’t go there! Death waited. Torture. The house, then?

  Her eyes shot to the right, where the farmhouse stood. Dilapidated, gutters overflowing, back porch roof sagging. Foreclose, Margaret had said.

  . . . you dumb bunny, you . . .

  She made it halfway to the house before he tackled her. Her breath rushed out with an oof. Her face plowed into the wet grass.

  “Bitch! I’ll kill you.”

  He was rolling on her, turning her over. She hauled back a fist and hit him in the face, but it only served to infuriate him. His hands were around her throat.

  “Succubus!” he screamed.

  The light around her narrowed to a tiny white bead.

  “Dance,” she said softly, then the light was gone.

  The Highlander screamed through Rock Springs and onto Wilhoit Road. Dance hoped he’d pick up a poli
ce car. “Call the chief,” he ordered Dayton, who was hanging on to his seat and staring grimly through the windshield.

  Dance had left his phone charging in the car and Dayton picked it up. He punched in the number from memory. Too slowly, Dance thought, his teeth grinding.

  But he got through and said succinctly enough that he and Jay Danziger were heading to the Sazlow farm in the belief Jordanna was in danger at the hands of Dutton Sazlow.

  “Who’s this Dutton?” Dance demanded as soon as Jordanna’s father broke the connection.

  “His father was an alcoholic. Died when Dutton turned eighteen. His mother left when Dutton and Chase were in grade school. That farm was one of the last pieces the Benchleys hung on to, but they were losing it, and Kate Benchley married John Sazlow to keep it in the family. Now, I think . . . she may have suffered from the disease. She was beautiful. We all had a crush on her. It was a shock when she married Sazlow, but I think now he was malleable.” He threw Dance a look. “Dutton’s ten years older than Chase and there was a rumor that Kate was pregnant when she married Sazlow. Probably no truth in it. What is true is there was no money. They had the land and John Sazlow’s skill as a farmer, but it was hard. Kate shoulda just let the land go. She grew unhappy . . . antisocial. There were stories about her acting out in the grocery store, at church, wherever, though I never saw any of that. She became a recluse and then she was just gone.”

  “You think she had the curse.” He said it as a statement, eyes glued to the road.

  “Well, there’s something that runs through the Benchley family,” he admitted reluctantly. “Emily showed symptoms. It was heartbreaking.”

  “Emily was a Benchley?” he asked in surprise.

  “Jordanna hasn’t told you?”

  “I haven’t really had a chance to talk to her.”

  Briefly, the doctor explained the history surrounding his eldest daughter and Dance realized what Jordanna had been processing when she’d returned from her aunt’s and sounded so unhappy.

  “I thought Dutton was good for her. He took her to church. They were friends, not lovers,” Dayton said. “At least that’s what I thought.”