by Vella Day
“You confiscate it in a drug bust or something?”
“Or something.”
Derek rewrapped the pipe and held it on his lap.
Justin’s whole demeanor changed from curious to disgusted in a flash. “It’s Indian, isn’t it?”
Derek didn’t answer. Instead, he grabbed the pipe, hopped out of the cab, and stalked away. No way did he want the prejudiced prick to make fun of something so valuable.
His dad’s words came to him. Smoke the pipe. Whatever you wish for will come true. Right. Only those worthy could reach another level by praying.
Derek glanced over his shoulder. Justin fortunately hadn’t followed him out. Good. Derek turned on the flashlight he’d picked up at the store and headed over to a cement wall.
Alone.
Finally.
A small amount of leftover tobacco remained in the bowl. Perhaps he’d give the wish maker a try. What harm could come of it? With less than an hour left of Kelly’s sentence, Derek would try anything to save the woman he loved, even if she could barely stand the sight of him. He checked his cell to see if Seinkievitz had called since he too was supposed to be searching for Kelly.
Derek sat cross-legged and took several deep breaths. He had to chance that when he entered his trance state and ceased to be aware of his surroundings, Justin wouldn’t sneak up on him.
For Kelly, he’d risk it all.
After lighting the pipe, he inhaled deeply, and the powerful tobacco made him cough.
Wimp.
He steeled himself against the sudden loss of control that was sure to come, and he drew in another puff, willing the warm scent down his throat. The smoke swirled into his lungs, and Derek embraced the warmth, embraced the power.
With eyes closed, Derek slowly began to move away from his body. A small figure appeared cowering in a corner of a darkened space. He felt the smoke rattle along his insides, but his hands no longer moved.
It was the light from the bowl that illuminated her red hair.
“Kelly?” he said without opening his mouth.
She didn’t answer. Couldn’t she see him?
“Kelly?” He willed her to respond.
She was so near, yet Derek was unable to touch her.
He tried to make his feet move and his arms to grab her, but his spirit remained at a distance.
She looked up and seemed anxious, as if she could sense his presence. Derek scoped out the area, trying to get his bearings. The metal walls looked old and rusted. He’d seen many like it during his search today.
Frustration spurred him on. “Where are you, Kelly?”
The heat of his tears ran down on his cheeks, and gurgling water rushed past the container. A train horn hooted.
Then a hand rested on his shoulder. Startled, Derek’s eyes flew open. Justin stood above him, a flashlight in his hands.
“You scared the crap out of me,” Derek said. He jumped up and stepped back to get away from Justin’s grasp.
“What about me? I called you about a hundred times. Where did you go?”
Explaining his vision to Justin would open him to ridicule, not to mention a gazillion questions. “I know where Kelly is.”
Kelly had a hard time keeping her eyes open, but what was the use? Total blackness was total blackness. Her senses failed to record her surroundings. Every passing car had raised her hopes, but those hopes were dashed time and time again. Eventually, she stopped listening, stopped smelling the putrid air, and stopped having feeling in her hands or feet.
Her upper arms throbbed from having her arms tied behind her. She didn’t try to move her wrists anymore because the rope burn tortured her skin. At least the air inside the car was beginning to cool. The caked sweat and dirt had disgusted her at first, but now she didn’t care.
The worst part was that she had to pee—really, really badly. Sitting in hot urine was totally unacceptable however.
A loud clap of thunder aroused her out of her stupor, and then a thin light streamed in the cab. Oh shit. It wasn’t thunder, but the big metal door opening. She didn’t delude herself into thinking someone had come to rescue her. There hadn’t been any shouts. It must be Lilly Bladen.
A strong light blinded her, forcing Kelly to squint, and the insides of her eyes glowed red.
“I’m glad to see you looking so well,” Lilly said.
God, she sounded like the wicked witch of the North, or was it the East? Hell, did anyone really care which direction she came from?
“Ca ou ake oo i …” Kelly said. Even she knew she made no sense.
Lilly laughed. “You want me to take off that rag?” She bent down and placed something heavy on the metal floor. A gun, perhaps?
Slightly limping, Lilly stepped behind Kelly and undid the cloth. Freedom—sort of. Her jaw actually ached when she closed her mouth. Slowly, she stuck out her puffy tongue and ran it along her lips, but it didn’t do any good. There wasn’t a drop of fluid left in her body.
“Did you miss me?” Lilly said, acting as if she’d come home to cook dinner for the family.
Kelly said nothing, not wanting to set her off. Lilly flashed the light at her wrist. “My how time flies. I did so want be able to set you free, but alas, that jackass son of mine never called the police station. And I checked. You couldn’t believe how stupid the police are these days. I pretended to be Mrs. Benally and asked if anyone had confessed. Of course, no one had. If only my son had told them he’d killed Stefanie and Rayne, I could have set you free. But no. Justin chickened out. That weakling wouldn’t even lie to save me. Is that anyway to treat a mother?”
She hoped her question was rhetorical. Kelly tensed as bile shot up her throat. She pushed back against the metal wall. Her hips and shoulders ached, and the rope rubbing on her ankles and wrists nearly made her pass out from the pain, but she forced herself to remain quiet.
“Well, it’s time. Do you have any last words? Not that anyone will be around to hear them. Oh, my goodness, I denied you your last meal, didn’t I? The least I can do is listen to your dying wish.” She coughed. “Aren’t I witty? Your dying wish.”
“Why me?” Kelly croaked out, her voice a notch above audible.
“To tell you the truth, I thought my son liked you. I figured he might have a conscience and want to save you, but alas, not.”
“I hardly knew Justin. He was Rayne’s boyfriend.”
Ambient light from the flashlight wasn’t enough to see much of the woman’s face, but the sudden stillness told her she’d hit a nerve.
“That whore. She got pregnant with my son’s blood. The bastard would have been unclean. I had to kill her.”
“That’s between you and Justin.”
“I’m not going to fall for your stall tactics. It’s time for you to die.” Lilly bent down and picked up what Kelly could only guess was a gun.
Her heart sped up so fast, she thought it would jump out of her skin. Kelly ran through a ton of possible things to say to this crazy woman, but in the end, she understood nothing she said would do a damn thing to stop the inevitable.
Her one regret was not telling Derek that she never stopped loving him. Kelly finally understood how much comfort Derek’s spirit guides must have brought him in his time of need. She’d spent her whole life believing in hard facts and science.
Now she could see, she’d been the fool.
Justin widened his stance and squared his shoulders. He looked like a fucking gun fighter at the OK corral. “How do you know where Kelly is? Have you been stringing me along for some sick reason?”
“Hell no. I just figured it out. Come on,” Derek said.
Without giving the explanation Justin apparently wanted, Derek sprinted back to his truck. He trusted Justin would follow, if only to satisfy his curiosity.
The water gurgling, the boxcar, the train horn, all added up to the salvage yard near the Interstate. Why hadn’t he thought to look there?
Derek sped as fast as he could. If Justin kept up, fi
ne. If not, who cared. There would be no bargaining with Lilly Bladen tonight.
With no traffic, he made it to the train yard in less than ten minutes. To think they’d been so close, yet so far.
At the entrance to the yard, he slammed on his brakes. A blue Cavalier sat in the lot. That might not mean squat, but it could mean Lilly was here. He bet she never suspected Derek and her son would find her before Kelly’s time ran out.
Oh please, make her time not be up.
Justin’s headlights came to a halt behind him and his tires crunched on the graveled lot. Derek parked, hopped out, and motioned Justin to stay back.
“Why here?” Justin asked.
“I had a hunch. Let’s leave it at that.”
“Was there dope in that pipe? Is that you were doing? Smoking some hooch?”
“Sure. Just listen.”
Both stood silent. Derek focused his senses, hoping to hear voices, but nothing sounded. He motioned for Justin to take the north side and he the south.
Justin shook his head. “I don’t have a gun. If I find my mom, she’ll kill me.”
“All right,” Derek whispered, pissed Justin turned out to be such a wimp. “Follow me, but don’t say anything.”
They started two-thirds the way down the line of cars, near where the blue car was parked. Derek stopped at each train car, placed his ear on the door, and listened.
Justin broke away and walked toward the car behind the last one Derek checked. Derek raced over to him and grabbed his arm.
Justin pulled away. “I smell bleach.”
“Huh?”
“My mom cleaned the world with bleach.”
While his logic made no sense to Derek, he was willing to give the train car a try.
Before he got ten feet away, a scream burst through the metal walls.
32
Derek didn’t remember actually running to the train, only grabbing the handle and ripping back the sliding door. A loud, squeaky groan sliced through him. Heart drumming his gun drawn, and the flashlight shining straight ahead, he hopped into the car in one leap.
Lilly Bladen raised an arm to shield her face from the glare but kept her small caliber gun pointed at his chest.
“Drop your weapon,” Derek said in his most threatening tone.
“That you Benally?”
Had she expected him? “I said, drop it or I’ll shoot.”
“Like hell I will. I want you to see her die, you filthy Indian.”
He wanted to blast a hole in her chest right there, but he had to try to reason with her. He wanted her to confess and tell him why she killed his sister.
Lilly stepped back, lowered her gun and pointed the weapon at Kelly, her gaze still on him. Derek chanced looking at Kelly for a split second, and his knees almost buckled. Lilly’s flashlight shone on Kelly’s face. Puffy lips, bruised face, and cut neck. His heart sank. Derek wanted to go to her, but he would have had to go through Lilly Bladen to reach to her.
“You know you won’t get away with this?” Derek changed his tone to soft, almost caring, as he edged closer to Kelly. He had to reach he, needed to reach her.
“I don’t care. I want you to feel the same pain I did when that Indian killed my husband.” Spittle dripped down her chin.
Killed her husband? Try suicide.
“Hi, Mom.” Justin stepped from behind Derek. “Put the gun down. Kelly didn’t do anything to you.”
Her beady eyes squinted and her mouth formed a tight circle. “What are you doing here? How did you get loose?”
Justin held up his hands, and her flashlight swung over to him. “It took a lot of work, but I freed myself.”
“You slept with that disgusting woman. How could you?”
“You cleaned her house. How could you do that?”
Her arm shook and the light bounced up and down. “You never should have left me.”
Derek had to hand it to Justin for keeping his cool. He slid another foot closer to his destination.
“Mrs. Bladen, for the love of God, put down the gun,” Derek said with as much patience as he could muster. “I won’t let you kill three people.”
“I only need to kill one.”
With that, she swung her gun arm and flashlight toward Derek.
He aimed his gun to nail the bitch just as Justin jumped between them. Before Derek could push him to safety, her gun report sounded, and Justin staggered backward, the smell of cordite filling the small chamber. A casing bounced on the metal floor.
Derek then fired two rounds into Lilly Bladen’s chest. She dropped to her knees, and the gun clanked to the ground. Her eyes widened. “I wanted you to suffer. I wanted your father to suffer,” she huffed out, her words angry, bitter, and spiteful.
At the mention of his father’s name, Derek sprung forward and kicked the gun away from her reach. “What did you do to my father?”
He wanted to shake her and beat her senseless, but he needed answers.
She smiled. Blood stained her teeth. “I poisoned him. He’s going to die, just like Rayne. You’re going to suffer, you filthy Indian.”
With that she melted into the floor. She was dead.
Derek couldn’t begin to understand the depths of this woman’s evil.
“Derek?” Kelly’s weak voice shook him out of his trance.
He spun around and dropped down beside Kelly. There was so much to tell her, so much joy to share that he’d found her in time.
First, he had to undo her bindings. With his flashlight in his mouth, he withdrew his knife from the sheath at his leg. In no time, he’d cut her bindings, and then drew her into his lap and wrapped his arms around her. She might have smelled of sweat and blood, but to him, she’d never been sweeter. Kelly was alive and that’s all that mattered.
“Justin. What about Justin?” she asked. She appeared more concerned for him than for herself.
Derek had forgotten about the guy in the haste of the moment. He turned. Justin was on the ground, his eyes closed. His chest rose and fell in spasms. “I have to set you down for a moment.”
Her lips formed a small smile. “Yes. Help Justin. He saved your life. Go.”
Derek replayed the event. Justin had stepped in front of him as Lilly had raised her gun. He couldn’t comprehend why Justin had given his life for him—for an Indian.
Derek raced to Justin’s side, and then called 9-1-1. He requested two ambulances and one medical examiner. Then he called the hospital to report his father had been poisoned. With what, he didn’t know.
“I can help,” Kelly said, her voice scratchy and weak.
As much as he wanted Kelly to rest, he could hear the need in her voice. Derek returned to her and helped her over to Justin. Her legs shook, but otherwise, she appeared okay. “I have a med kit in the car. Let me get it,” he said.
“Good.”
In a flash he was back. “Here you—”
She shook her heard. “He’s dead. I couldn’t do anything for him. The bullet must have pierced an artery.” Justin’s flashlight cast enough light to see the tears on her cheeks.
As if the gods pushed them together, Kelly crawled into Derek’s arms and sobbed until her body shook no more.
He rubbed her back, careful not to bump her ankles or touch her tender wrists. “It’s over, Kelly. No one will harm you again.”
“I thought I’d never see you again.”
Her words confused him. Because he believed she never wanted to see him again, Derek didn’t know how to answer her.
Sirens sounded in the distance, and seconds later, strobe lights from the cruiser and ambulance trailed into the parking lot. Kelly gripped him hard.
“It’s time to get you cleaned up,” he said.
She nodded as the paramedics helped her out of the car and then into the ambulance.
“Benally.”
Derek held up his hands to block the light. “Yeah?”
Medina and Seinkievitz climbed up on the bed of the train car. “When yo
u go after a killer, you go after a killer. What the hell went down?”
He filled them in on the scary night.
Seinkievitz smiled. “You just solved my case. Thanks! And best part is you get to do the paperwork.”
Great. He’d be buried for years. “I’m going to let you two dufuses handle this clean up though. I want to check on Kelly.”
“You got it.”
Kelly shivered in the emergency room as a nurse cleaned and bandaged her wrists and ankles. She smelled of stale sweat and cow dung. Of all the cars for Lilly Bladen to put her in, why did it have to be one that had carried animals? The bleach she poured on the floor hadn’t helped.
Her skin crawled at the thought. She didn’t dare count the number of bug bites on her legs. All Kelly wanted to do was go home and take the longest shower known to mankind. Then if it wasn’t too late, she’d make amends with Derek.
Hunger pangs sent out a rumble from her stomach. She hadn’t eaten in over a day and a half. It was no wonder her legs had trouble holding her up.
After having her blood pressure measured, which was a tad too low and her temperature taken, which was thankfully normal, they agreed to release her.
“You have to drink a lot of fluids,” the pretty nurse told her.
“I promise.” Kelly didn’t mention that she was a doctor and perfectly capable of taking care of herself.
“Wait here a moment, I’ll be right back with a prescription for some pain meds for your cuts and bruises.”
Kelly slid off the examination table and attempted to straighten her bloody shirt and pants. Uh oh. How was she to get home? Without a purse, she couldn’t even pay a cabdriver. If she hadn’t known an administrator in the hospital, she wondered if they would have cared for her.
Good thing she’d stashed a spare key under the flowerpot near the front door or else she wouldn’t be able to get into her house. At first, she thought about calling Chip for a ride, but she hated to disturb him. He had to be at work in five hours.
She bet Derek would be working the case for another few hours. Poor man looked beat.
Derek.
He’d showed no reaction when she told him she didn’t think she’d see him again. He probably thought she meant she didn’t want to see him again, not that she didn’t think she’d be rescued.