by Matt Hilton
Moving on I checked out another shed, this one a three-sided structure, with a tin roof and a large board jammed at the front to act as a door. Through a gap between the planks I found what I was expecting, and that was even more troubling than the barn where women had been leashed. Frowning, I headed for the house, thinking now that just maybe there was more to this than I’d originally suspected. I hoped I was wrong, but it was imperative that I act and get Nicole and Ellie the hell away.
From across the wide basin I heard the pick-up return through the pass. At this distance I couldn’t see it, but Carson was talking on the radio again. ‘I’m going back to where I dropped you off, Sammy. If you can hear me, git your ass back there and I’ll pick you up. I think we’d better git a move on and prepare for some unwelcome company.’
The cowboy was beginning to think straight, but little did he know he’d just offered me a huge advantage. He’d no idea that Jay had escaped in a vehicle, and would be returning with the police, though not immediately. He thought the woman was on foot, and if she could make it across the desert safely it would still be many hours before she could raise help. He was going to waste valuable time waiting for Samuel to rendezvous with him, by which point I planned on being in and out again. If and when he came back to the house it would be with the intention of mounting some kind of damage limitation, more probably to plan a getaway, and he wouldn’t expect an armed man to be waiting for him. As long as he didn’t hook up with his cousin he’d remain ignorant of my presence until it was too late.
Ifs and whens: not something you could rely on.
I ran across the yard, heading for the back of the house where there was a door but no windows. Plan A was to crash through the door and shoot any man inside. Plan B was more sensible. I couldn’t count on the fact that Brent hadn’t prepared for such an assault and had placed the girls in front of him, so I had to check what to expect before going in. It didn’t rain here that often, and the caulking between the boards had been neglected for the last few years, so I found plenty of places to peer into the house. What I first looked upon was an untidy bedroom with two sets of bunks piled with dingy blankets and stained pillows. Soiled underwear lay piled in one corner, alongside dusty boots and a denim jacket on a peg. A crooked picture frame hung from a nail, but over time the painting had slipped and it now hung askew showing empty space between it and the frame at the top left corner. So the Logans weren’t art lovers. I moved on to the door itself, careful not to set my feet too hard on the wooden stoop. I couldn’t see through the door, but from within filtered the low buzz of voices in muted conversation. I couldn’t discern the individual voices, so wasn’t positive that it was the girls whispering together or if in fact Samuel had returned and was making plans with his cousin.
Continuing to the right, I again found a chink in the wall, and this time could make out a kitchen, replete with a pot sink and hand pump faucet. Dirty dishes were stacked on a draining board, but only enough to have been used during one meal. I could just make out the corner of a stove, and to the other side a table and chairs, and directly across from me a window overlooking the front porch. There was no movement, and the voices were quieter here. If things didn’t change in the next minute, that would place Brent and the girls at the front left corner of the house.
Returning to the door, I tried the handle. Bingo! The door swung open. I controlled it, teasing it an inch at a time so that it didn’t make a noise and alert anyone to my presence. Opening inward, left to right, it compromised my gun hand somewhat, so I had to stand well to the left jamb while opening the door. I continued pushing as the gap widened, making sure that no one was hiding behind the door by pressing it all the way against the wall it abutted at the hinges. The wind was still blowing and a gust chose then to dance its way inside. I could only hope that Brent wasn’t perceptive enough to notice the change in pressure and correlate it to an invasion of the house. In case he did, I moved quickly after the breeze, bringing up my gun.
To form the bunk room, an interior wall had been erected opposite a similar one that partitioned off the kitchen, so I moved through a short hallway. The air inside was rank: the stench of spoiled food, spilled alcohol, and unwashed bodies blended together. I breathed through my mouth. A threadbare rug softened my footfalls. Over my own movements I heard a thump, followed by the shifting of a body on floorboards. A voice snapped, ‘How many times have I to tell you to shut the hell up? If I have to come over there I’ll bust both your heads.’
Something else followed Brent’s warning that I hadn’t expected. There was a high-pitched squeak followed by a rising and falling wail, then a buzz. Brent was trying to get a CB radio working, and didn’t seem to be having much joy. Perhaps he was trying to patch into what his father and Samuel were saying over their walkie-talkies, which boded well for me because it meant Samuel hadn’t returned yet. Also, his warning revealed that both girls were in the same room as him.
I chose to step directly into the living space, my gun twisting towards the static shriek emitted by the CB radio.
What I saw made ice flood my veins and I’d no second thoughts about shooting Brent Logan.
Both girls were there, Nicole and Ellie, sitting side by side like conjoined twins in the corner of the room, a rope fixed between their ankles so they’d have to walk in unison. Otherwise they were as naked as babies, and that’s what infuriated me the most. It was a probability that their bodies had been violated, a sick enough thought, but the Logans had gone further than that and sought to humiliate them by constantly parading their nudity.
There was an ounce of me that wanted questions, primarily why the Logans had done this, but the rest of my being screamed for vengeance for these girls, and also the ones I’d been too late to save. If Brent hadn’t already started to rise at my sudden appearance I would have ordered him to stand, because before he died I wanted to shoot off his balls.
As it was, the young man came up with startling speed and made a grab for something propped next to the CB base station. It was the stock of a sawn-off shotgun. Hanging from his mouth was the white paper stick of a lollipop. In the dim light it was a flag to the business end of my gun. I aimed and fired, the gun bucking in recoil.
The remains of Brent’s lollipop flew across the room and landed at the feet of the girls, who both flinched back, emitting squeals of horror. Not so much at the sight of the lollipop as at the chunk of lip that adhered to it.
Brent fell over backwards, upsetting the chair he’d been sitting in, and crashing against a low couch with sunken cushions. He wasn’t dead and was trying to scream in protest, but it was difficult with half his lower jaw missing. I felt a savage sense of justice uncommon to me, knowing that he must be insane with agony, and tempered my next shot so that he continued to suffer a little longer. Normally I take no satisfaction in killing, but for what he’d forced these girls to endure, I gladly made an exception. I shot him square in the gut.
Coming from a Special Forces background, I preferred a lower calibre shell than the .357s I used here. When conducting hostage rescues the last thing you wanted was for your bullet to pass through the bad guy and kill their prisoner behind them. In the heat of the moment I’d forgotten about that, but Brent was well away from the girls, so the bullet just went into the cushions. As he rolled to the floor, I saw a huge open wound in his back. Nevertheless the man wasn’t dead yet and he was still gripping the shotgun. No way could he bring it on me, but it was aimed at the girls. I couldn’t take the chance he’d get off a shot so put him out of his misery far too soon for my liking. My bullet almost split his skull in two, leaving bloodied tendrils of his straw-like hair jutting out of the wound.
Hurrying over, I plucked the shotgun from his grasp. His finger was twisted through the trigger guard but pulled loose and allowed his arm to drop lifeless to the floor. I stood, looking around quickly to check that nobody had followed me into the room. The girls were horrified at my appearance, but there was also a note of h
ope in their gaze.
‘I’m a friend. Don’t be afraid, I’m here to help you.’
There was a knife on the table near to the CB radio. I retrieved it, having jammed the S&W into my belt. As I approached the two young women they flinched, grabbing at each other. I decided on a new tactic. ‘I’m a friend of Jay Walker. I’m here to get you both free.’
Nicole Challinor was slight of build, but there was no denying she was all woman: on the contrary Ellie was still a child in my eyes and it made my skin crawl to view her nakedness. I felt dirty approaching them the way I did, but there was nothing for it. I crouched, then split the rope binding them together with one yank of the blade. It seemed that Jay’s name did the trick of winning over Nicole, just as mentioning Jay’s dad had for her. She stood up, unabashed by her state of undress, and reached back to help the younger girl off the floor. ‘I told you everything would turn out fine,’ she said to Ellie. Then, with Ellie held in her arms, Nicole said to me, ‘Is she safe? Did Jay make it?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘She’s safe.’
‘Where is she? The men discovered that she’d escaped from the hole and were chasing her.’
‘She’s safe,’ I repeated, as I ducked and secreted the knife inside my boot. ‘She’s in my car and already on her way to the police.’
The expression that descended over Nicole’s face took me by surprise. Her eyes welled with tears and she sobbed. Something in the look told me it wasn’t entirely in relief.
20
The Yukon was a huge, very masculine beast of a vehicle, but Jay found that it handled the desert in a way her father’s SUV would never have managed; the lighter model car would have been bouncing and skipping all over the place. It was a good job that the Yukon was so massive, because Jay often had to apply brute force to keep her heading in a straight line. Sand drifts and even some of the smaller rocks were no object and it blasted through with no problem. Twice her concentration was so distracted that she ploughed through mounds of grit and stone she’d have been better avoiding, but they didn’t halt the Yukon. It suffered a few dints to the paintwork, that was all.
Jay had no idea how long she had been driving. Probably nowhere near as long as it felt. Her mind was working at hyper-speed as she tried to make sense of all that had happened, and all that still needed doing. Coupled with that, dozens of what if? scenarios concerning Joe Hunter, Nicole, Ellie and the Logan family were tumbling through her mind. Most of the developments she imagined ended with Joe and her friends dead, and it made her sick with anxiety. She should drive faster, but to do that could mean her mission ceasing abruptly when the Yukon met an obstruction even it couldn’t handle and she ended up dead in the mangled wreckage. More prudent to take things steady, make it to the highway in one piece and then call the cops as Joe had commanded. She glanced over at his phone where she’d placed it on the passenger seat, but no signal registered. The red SOS icon that flashed in place of the signal strength bars was an ominous reminder of her situation.
She thought about her parents, as well as Nicole’s. They must be frantic with worry by now and she had mixed feelings about their reunion. Though they’d be infinitely relieved that their daughter had returned home to them, Jay could expect huge recriminations. It was her idea to come on this damned trip, after all, she who’d promised that she would keep Nicole safe from harm. Well, she’d failed in that, hadn’t she? Blame might go unsaid, but it would be there, in the looks she received and the loss of trust she’d have to work hard to regain. That was supposing they ever did have the reunion, because it wasn’t a sure bet yet. No, she had to stop thinking like that. Joe Hunter would save Nicole and Ellie as she would bring back help.
Again she pictured what might be happening back there in the sun-parched desert. Was Joe Hunter even alive? She didn’t doubt his abilities, but he was going up against three monsters who had no care for the sanctity of life. They thrived on hurting others and would have no compunction about murdering Hunter or the girls. What if their savagery proved too much for Hunter? What would they do to him? What would they do to Nicole and Ellie?
‘Stop it!’
Her voice surprised her.
She had not meant to shout out loud. Since it was the first time she’d said anything above a whisper in the last few hours her voice sounded alien, the shout of a stranger.
The desperation was enough to clear her mind and she understood how close to hysteria she’d come. She hadn’t even been aware of the tears smearing her face and wobbling on her lashes. She batted them aside with a grimy hand, before fixing both hands on the steering wheel again. ‘Stop it, stop it, stop it,’ she said, much calmer now. Worrying about hypothetical scenarios was getting her nowhere, and certainly wasn’t helping her friends. Be strong, she commanded herself, and do what you have to do.
Hunter had told her to keep the sun over her right shoulder. She had mostly done so during her flight from the desert. Occasionally the trail had disappeared under drifting sand, or had followed the contours of the land around some of the larger mesas, but she was happy that she had not deviated from her heading. Soon she should see the highway and a route south to Holbrook.
A check of Hunter’s phone showed the SOS symbol still displayed.
She was thirsty and the water was a temptation but she ignored the container. It would be unwise to try driving in this rough terrain while juggling the container to her lips. Nor did she want to stop; while she was moving she felt she was doing something positive and she wouldn’t jeopardise that sense of worth for anything.
Regularly her gaze slipped from the road to her mirrors. She expected to see that damn pick-up truck materialise from the dust haze as it had when the Logans chased her from the gas station. Had Samuel made it back to a rendezvous with Carson, and were they even now chasing her down? She didn’t think so, but it was always a possibility. One thing she knew for sure was that she wouldn’t stop this time. If a gun was pointed at her head again then she’d rather chance a bullet than let them have their way with her.
She thought about how easily she’d given in that first time when she should have fought harder to get away. Had she done so then Nicole wouldn’t have had to suffer the way she had, but what of Ellie? Jay was under no illusions; she’d have put the run-in with the Logans down to the crazy antics of some rednecks letting off steam, would have fled the desert and picked up the route west as they’d initially intended doing. She wouldn’t have reported the incident to the police, having no desire to have to attend court hearings and face those crazies a second time. No one would have known that the Logans had the teenager. God, she didn’t want to think about that. Maybe the torture she and Nicole had been put through was for a greater cause; perhaps a controlling force was ensuring that Ellie’s suffering wasn’t prolonged. No, she realised after a moment, no unseen hand was at work here, just a sequence of unfortunate events that had enmeshed her in the warped plans of a group of mad men. She’d had no power over these events, but things had changed in the shape of Joe Hunter. He was the only thing she could rely on now, not divine intervention, and by a strange quirk of fate he was now relying on her.
Power lines, strung from poles like serried ranks of soldiers, were the first indication that she was approaching the highway. The power grid led all the way from Holbrook towards Indian Wells, adjacent much of the time to Highway 77. Seeing the tall steel structures looming from the dust haze, she almost cried out in joy. It was way too soon for that, though, so she only gritted her teeth, fixed her hands on the wheel and headed directly for them. The phone’s SOS symbol had been replaced by a single white cross. Still no signal; and it would only get worse as she drove closer to the pylons. Nevertheless, she believed that there’d be booster stations at several locations along the route where she could raise the alarm.
Within minutes she was under the power lines and seconds after that the Yukon found asphalt beneath its tyres and Jay swerved wildly on to the highway. She recalled the last time she w
as on a similar road and how she’d longed for a freightliner to be heading in the opposite direction; she was thankful that the road was deserted now. She floored the gas, shooting south, her concentration split between the road ahead and the phone which she’d now grabbed up and held against the wheel.
With only five miles until the truck stop, she finally found a signal.
21
It made sense to leave the ranch as soon as possible, but there were considerations to be taken care of first. Primarily the girls’ nakedness: they would last no time out under the sun in such a state of undress. Not to mention that I felt self-conscious each time my gaze swept over them. To get them away safely I required their full trust, and I couldn’t gain that by averting my eyes all the time. I asked Nicole about their clothing, but they had no idea where it was. Apparently they’d been stripped naked on their arrival and had remained that way since, with the Logans deriving great joy from their embarrassment. I pulled off my shirt and handed it to Ellie. Buttoned, it covered her and reached all the way to her knees. For Nicole I snatched the denim jacket in the bunk room off its hook, and found a pair of boxer shorts that were grimy but would have to do. There was no footwear fitting for the girls, so I had to fashion makeshift shoes from the stinking bedding which I tied on to their feet with lengths of string. Standing side by side, their fingers entwined, the girls looked like waifs from the poorest ghetto.
While engaged in making them decent, I kept one ear cocked on the door, but it appeared that Carson and Samuel still hadn’t found each other. The CB radio had been quiet for some time, as had the radio I’d taken from Samuel. The silence could be a harbinger of bad luck, I decided, because my first assumption could be wrong. The cousins could have rendezvoused and Samuel would have admitted that he’d lost his radio in the fight with me. Even now, they could be approaching on foot so as not to warn me of their arrival.