by Sean Black
Mary swallowed hard, trying to compose herself. “I think it’s stopped bleeding.”
“Okay,” said Ruth. “That’s good. Now, you think you can walk some more?”
“It really hurts.”
“I know. But there might not be anyone out here for a while, so we need to keep moving. The further we can walk, the safer we’ll be.”
Mary seemed to comprehend that basic logic. Ruth lifted Mary’s good arm and draped it around her shoulder. “Here, you can lean on me.”
“Okay.”
Slowly, Ruth led her along the side of the road. Mary was slumped against her so heavily that it was difficult to keep her balance.
Looking up, Ruth saw two pinpricks of light off in the distance. She blinked, trying to make sure that her imagination wasn’t playing a trick on her.
The lights grew brighter. They were headed straight for them. A car maybe. Or a truck.
Ruth stopped walking. Mary slumped against her even more heavily, almost pulling her off her feet and down into the culvert that ran parallel to that stretch of the road.
The height of the lights from the road suggested it was a car rather than a truck or a bus. It was moving fast. Every second the headlights grew bigger and more vivid.
Ruth could barely stay still. Escape was close. So close she could almost taste it.
Soon Broken Ridge would be nothing more than a memory. There was no way that anyone, not even the local cops, would take one look at Mary and drive them back there. She would have to be taken to a hospital to be checked out. Questions would be asked. Phone calls would be made. Even if her dad hadn’t acknowledged her letters she was sure he wouldn’t ignore her when he found out where she’d been sent, and how she’d been treated.
“Okay,” Ruth told Mary. “We can’t risk this driver not seeing us out here.”
With Mary still hanging onto her, Ruth began to edge out into the road. Mary started to panic. She let go of Ruth, and began to hobble back to the side. “What if it’s Gretchen or someone? Out here to take us back?”
“We’re going to have to risk it,” said Ruth, as she moved to the very center of the road, held her arms above her head and began to wave frantically as the vehicle’s headlights carved a path toward her.
It was less than a quarter-mile away now. She waved her arms and screamed, “Stop! Stop!”
She heard the grinding metallic sound of brakes being applied. The vehicle slowed. She could see now that it was a Minivan. Gretchen didn’t own one. Neither did any of the other staff.
The van slowed and came to a stop. She couldn’t make out the driver through the glare. But she heard the driver’s door open. Looking down she saw heavy work boots hitting the black top.
A man moved toward her. He looked like someone who had fresh walked out of the Appalachian Mountains. He was wearing boot-cut denim jeans, and a plaid shirt. His head was shaved to the scalp and he had a bushy brown beard that had grown all the way down to his belly, and he wore small, round-wired eyeglasses.
As he drew closer, he towered over Ruth. She could feel herself shrinking back. He smiled, but he still looked intimidating. “What are you doing out here in the cold?”
Ruth stood her ground. So, he looked scary. But what did that tell her? Nothing. Hell, Gretchen looked like a sweet old grandma until you got to know her. Appearances were deceptive, especially when it came to adults.
And, what choice did they have? It could be another hour or more before someone else drove down this road. “We need a ride into town. My friend’s hurt.”
The man folded his arms. “Your friend?”
Ruth looked around. Mary was nowhere to be seen. She seemed to have vanished into the night. “She was here a second ago,” said Ruth, frantically scanning both sides of the road for a sign of Mary.
“Well, she ain’t here now, is she?”
There was still no sign of her. “Mary?” Ruth called out. “Where’d you go?”
The bearded man was looking at her like she had a screw loose. “You shouldn’t be out here on your own.”
Ruth didn’t know what to say. If she admitted it, and he realized where she’d come from, he might just put her in the van and drive her back there. Mary’s injuries had been their—her—ticket out of there. She had to find her.
“My friend, she’s hurt. Bleeding. I have to get her to hospital.”
The man’s face seemed to soften. “Hurt? How? What happened?”
Again, Ruth wasn’t sure what to say. Mary cutting herself felt private somehow. To tell a stranger that she had harmed herself seemed like a betrayal of confidence. “I have to find her,” Ruth told him, turning away.
“She was here a minute ago?”
Ruth walked back to the very edge of the road. She looked down into the culvert to see if Mary had climbed into it. Maybe she had freaked out when the van had stopped, panicked and decided to hide.
“Listen, I can’t stay here all night with you looking for this friend of yours. Get in the van and I’ll take you home.”
Ruth couldn’t see Mary. She walked back behind the van, along the side of the road, checking the culvert. There was still no sign of her.
The driver had gone back toward the van. He opened the driver’s door.
“Can you wait for a minute? She can’t have gone far.”
“Sorry,” said the driver. “You want me to give you a ride into town, then hop in. If you don’t, that’s fine, too, because I ain’t waiting around for your friend.”
Frantic, Ruth called out Mary’s name again. There was no response.
The man was offering her a ride. If she passed up this opportunity she might not get another. She could raise the alarm when she got to town. Get people out here to look for Mary.
“Okay,” Ruth told the driver. “I’m coming.”
She walked round to the other side of the van, opened the passenger door, and climbed in. The driver got in next to her. He closed his door, started the engine and put the van into gear.
Ruth pressed her face against the window, hoping to glimpse her friend as the van moved off. She was free of Broken Ridge, but she couldn’t shake a nagging sensation that somehow she wasn’t free just yet.
She looked at the driver. His eyes were fixed on the road ahead, his features set. He reached a hand across and pushed a button that locked both doors.
“I can’t believe I finally found you,” he told her.
65
Lock sat in the Explorer with Donald Price. The diner’s parking lot was empty now, the place closed until morning. For the past ten minutes they had been going round in circles. Don wanted to go get his daughter, or at least speak to her. Lock attempted to persuade him it was a bad idea.
“We tried it your way,” said Don, not for the first time since Sandra had hung up on Lock. “Now let’s try it mine.”
“Don, it’s after midnight. Those kids are tucked up in bed by now. If we roll up there, they’ll call the cops, and we’ll be arrested. And then where will you be?”
“At least I’ll know my daughter’s safe.”
The argument was starting to wear on Lock. Why was it always the gigs that seemed like the easiest money that turned into the biggest nightmares?
He took a breath, and repeated pretty much what he’d been saying for the past ten minutes. “And then what? She’s still going to be there and you’ll have weakened your hand. There’s no point playing your best card until you have to.”
“Point taken. So why don’t I play it? Get in there, get Ruth and take her out.”
Lock sighed. “Perhaps because you don’t actually have custody.”
“Your partner Tyrone said that what she’s going through could cause her long-term problems. Come on, Ryan, what kind of father would I be if I just stood idly by and let that happen?”
He had a point. Lock knew he did. A lot of men walked away from their kids after a divorce. Not always because they wanted to, but because they felt it was for the best. The s
ystem was weighted against men in a divorce, especially when it came to children. Lock got why mothers were favored in court. But he also knew that divorce could sour people to the point where they forgot that what mattered above all else was the children caught in the middle. This situation was pretty much a textbook case. Only the stakes were a lot higher.
Don Price was not going to back down. His mind was set. The best thing Lock could do for a client under these circumstances was try to find a way to accommodate what they wanted without it coming back to bite either of them in the ass.
In this case, they might not be able to march straight in and demand to see Don’s daughter. But Ty had told him security was low grade. The main barrier to escape was the remote location and vastness of the landscape around Broken Ridge. If you were trying to break out, that was a problem. But if you were trying to break in, it offered an advantage.
Plus, Ruth was in some kind of a barn that was well away from the main dorms. That would also make things easier, and mean there was less chance of anyone else seeing them. Lock was worried about Ty, too. Not something that happened often. Ty was more than capable of taking care of himself. But his silence, even allowing for the communication problems they faced, had started to nag at him.
Lock started the engine.
“Where we going?” asked Don.
“We’re going to check on Ruth. But we’re doing it my way, and after you’ve seen her, assuming she’s safe and well, we’re going to leave. I need your word on that,” Lock said, taking one hand from the steering-wheel and reaching out so Don could shake on it.
Don hesitated.
“It’s either this, or you’re on your own. I pull out and take Ty with me. Then there’s no one to keep an eye out for your daughter. Those are your choices so take it or leave it.”
They shook hands.
“I have your word?” said Lock.
“Yes,” said Don. “You have my word. But if they’ve hurt her . . .”
He didn’t need to finish the sentence. Lock knew how it would have ended. Knowing what he did about Don’s background, he was aware that he wasn’t a man to make idle threats.
Saying a prayer that Ruth would be fine, Lock pulled out of the diner’s parking lot and onto the main road. It was a straight shot from there to Broken Ridge.
“Take us about twenty minutes. A little less if I put my foot down,” Lock informed his passenger.
“Then put your foot down,” said Don, his jacket riding up to reveal the gun on his hip. It was a Glock 19, standard State Department issue for a man with Don’s type of responsibilities. Not that Lock had ever seen anyone rolling through the State Department offices in D.C. with one.
“You’re not thinking of using that, are you?” he asked, with a brief nod to the gun.
“Of course not.”
Lock knew that was a lie. Don might not have been planning on drawing his weapon, but you didn’t carry a gun unless it was at least a possibility. But Lock was hardly going to take it from him. “Do me a favor, would you?”
“What’s that? asked Don.
“When we get there, leave the gun in the vehicle.”
“I told you, I’m not planning on using it. And, anyway, you’re packing.”
“Yeah, but this is work for me. I’m not emotionally involved.”
“Okay, okay. Whatever. If it makes you happy, I’ll leave it in the car. Now can you step on the gas?”
Lock jammed his foot on the pedal. The Explorer lurched forward along the empty desert road. Lock wanted to get there so that Don could see his daughter. Then they could go back to the motel and decide upon their next move.
“So?” said Lock. “This guy with the rifle you thought was hanging around back at the motel before I got there. Tell me what he looked like again.”
“I dunno. Tall, heavy-set, bushy beard. Like some kind of mountain man. Why? You have an idea who it might be?”
“Yeah, but it doesn’t make any sense why he’d be looking for me.”
66
Ruth Price sat in the passenger seat and did her best to stay calm. Every few seconds the man would glance at her and smile. Even if he hadn’t locked the doors there was no way she could get out while the van was moving. The worst part was that she had no idea who he was or what he wanted with her. At Broken Ridge she at least had the comfort of knowing what she was dealing with.
The bearded man began to whistle, a soft, reedy sound. It sounded familiar but Ruth couldn’t place it.
“So,” she said, doing her best to sound matter-of-fact, “where are we headed?”
The man smiled again, his eyes twinkling. “Already told you, I’m taking you home.”
“Home?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Where else would we be going at this time of night? Your mom will be excited to see you. You know, I knew it was you, as soon as I saw you standing out on that road.”
He reached over and patted Ruth’s knee. She shrank into the corner of the seat, leaning in against the door.
“It’s going to be a surprise. You know her birthday’s coming up soon.”
Ruth stared at him. Her mother’s birthday wasn’t for three more months. “She sent you to get me?” she asked, careful to stay out of knee-patting reach.
“Not exactly, no. Like I said, I wanted it to be a surprise. But it’s time you came home. We’ve missed you.”
We? What did he mean “we”? He was talking like he knew her.
“It’s not easy for me to say this but we should have never sent you to that place.”
Finally, Ruth had had enough. If he was going to do something to her, he would do it.
“Why do you keep saying “we” like you know me?”
He looked over at her. The smile fell away. He didn’t look angry so much as sad. “It’s the beard, isn’t it?”
“What is? What’s the beard?”
“It’s why you don’t recognize me.”
She rifled her brain. Had she seen this man somewhere before? No, she was sure she hadn’t. So why did he seem so sure that he knew her? Was he some kind of weird stalker who picked up kids trying to run away from Broken Ridge?
“It’s me, Jenny,” he said. “It’s your father.”
“My father? You’re not my father. My father’s Donald Price.”
The man scowled. “That’s not funny. Not funny at all. Did your mom put you up to this?” He reached over and made a grab for her arm.
She pulled away. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re not my father, and my name’s not Jenny. It’s Ruth.”
“She did, didn’t she? This was her idea. She’s always coming out with stuff like that, trying to confuse me. Telling me I have someone’s name wrong. But you listen to me, it’s not funny.”
The van slowed. He pulled in off the road. Out of instinct, Ruth reached for the door handle. “Let me out of here, okay?” she screamed.
“See?” he shouted back at her. “This is why we had to send you away in the first place. This kind of attitude. Now, you stop this right this minute. You hear me?”
He leaned across toward her. She lifted her leg and kicked out as hard as she could. Her foot caught him in the chest.
He raised his hand to strike her. She flinched. At the last second, he stopped himself. “I’m taking you home,” he said. “And no one’s going to stop me. You hear me?”
67
Ty pushed Chris on ahead of him. As far as he could tell, the bleeding from his shoulder had all but stopped. When his captive slowed, he jabbed the barrel of the SIG into the base of Chris’s spine. At one point, Chris half turned around. “Could you quit that?” he whined at Ty.
“Listen, asshole, count yourself lucky I haven’t returned the favor and put a bullet in you yet.”
Chris turned back round and kept walking. He didn’t say anything else until they had reached the ranch house. That was where the only working link to the outside world was. Before he did anything else, including searching f
or Ruth, he planned on calling up the cavalry in the form of his business partner.
He prodded Chris up the stairs, onto the front porch, and toward the front door. The ranch house lay in darkness. Somehow, Ty doubted that Gretchen had retired to bed, not with everything that was going on.
Chris stopped at the front door. Ty made sure he was close in behind him. It wouldn’t have surprised him if they found Gretchen on the other side, cradling a shotgun over her lap while she sat in her rocking chair. Having already caught one bullet this evening, Ty didn’t plan on catching another. That honor could go to the man in front of him.
“Go ahead,” prompted Ty, with another dig to Chris’s spine.
Maybe Chris had the same concerns, because he didn’t seem eager to walk in and face his boss.
“Open the door.”
Chris reached out and turned the handle. It hadn’t been locked. He pushed through and into the gloom. Ty stayed a few paces behind him and scanned the hallway. There was no one to be seen.
The place was quiet. Only the ticking of an old clock in the corner of the living room disturbed the peace.
Chris called out to Gretchen.
No answer.
With Ty at his back, the two men moved through the ranch house. They found no one. If Gretchen had skipped out, they would have seen her on the road that led out of the ranch. She had to be somewhere.
Not knowing where she was heightened Ty’s growing sense of unease. There was no way back from what had just happened. Gretchen and the local cops might have been able to explain away the last few deaths as misadventure or suicide. This would be different. They must know that Ty and Lock would make sure the place was closed down and that people went to prison.
That alone would raise the stakes for everyone here. The place generated huge sums of money. But it was also all that Gretchen had going for her. Take away Broken Ridge, and she was just a bat-shit crazy woman with a bad attitude. This place was her life. Ty didn’t see her giving up on it without a fight.