by Ben Follows
The parking lot behind the Starbucks was half-full. There was a forest along the edge of the parking lot, but the trees were too spaced out to offer much cover.
He looked at Liam's car. The keys felt heavy in his pocket.
It was his best chance.
He glanced back at the Starbucks. The back door was opening.
He ran toward the car, unlocking it as he ran.
He opened the trunk and climbed inside. He pulled it most of the way shut and peered through the gap, praying his hiding place would work.
24
The cop exited the Starbucks and surveyed the area. Todd closed the trunk and held it shut. A thin line of light came through the gap.
“Are you out here?” the cop shouted. “Come out with your hands up."
Todd tried to reposition himself in the trunk but he didn't have enough room to get comfortable.
He stretched his neck and shook out his arms.
He checked the clock on his phone and waited. He decided to wait for ten minutes. Then, he'd check if the cops were still looking for him.
It felt like the longest ten minutes of his life.
After ten minutes had finally, mercifully, passed, he opened the trunk just a crack and looked out.
Two of the cops he had confronted, the fat one who’d pulled him over and the older one from the Starbucks, stood less than five feet away, their guns pointed at him.
“Come out, Todd,” said the older cop. “You’re under arrest.”
Todd waited for a moment, trying to think of another way to escape. After a moment, he let go of the trunk and let it swing open. He held his hands in the air and swung his legs out of the trunk.
“Get out slowly,” said the fat cop. His face was red and he was panting heavily. “Don't make any sudden movements. Get on your knees and put your hands behind your head. Do you have any weapons?”
Todd kneeled and put his hands behind his head. “No."
“We'll see."
The fat cop walked behind Todd. The older cop kept his gun trained on him. Somehow, having a gun pointed at him was less nerve-wracking to Todd than the chase had been.
The fat cop wrenched Todd's arms behind his back. Handcuffs snapped around his wrists and locked. He patted down his entire body until he was certain Todd was unarmed, then forced Todd to his feet. They walked toward the unmarked police car which had pulled Todd over, dragging Todd with him.
Todd stumbled a few times as they walked but the fat cop didn't seem to care.
The older cop kept his gun trained on Todd until he was shoved into the back seat of the cruiser.
“There's a few detectives in Harper's Mill interested in speaking with you," said the fat cop, climbing into the front seat.
Todd stared out the window. The older cop was climbing into his own car, glaring back at Todd. “How did you find me?”
"You were in the trunk of your car. Not exactly a tough spot."
"I meant the first time, when you pulled me over on the highway."
The cop guffawed as he turned on the car. “I was pulling you over for texting and driving, kid. It wasn’t until after you sped off that I found out about the Harper's Mill connection."
Todd silently cursed for not thinking of that.
He sighed and sunk into the seat, staring out the window as they drove past the same scenery he had driven past an hour earlier.
25
"Here you go," said the young woman, handing a folder over her desk. It had the name "Shembly" printed across the top.
“Thanks,” said Marcus, opening it. This was the fifth real estate office he had come to, and the first which had known who the Shembly's were.
"So," said the woman, "what is a private detective interested in that family for?"
"Sorry," said Marcus, reading through the folder and trying to look as professional as possible. "That's confidential. Thanks for your help."
Marcus left the office and drove fifteen minutes to the cottage the Shembly's had purchased eight years prior.
He turned onto a dirt road and took a few turns before coming to a log cabin surrounded by trees on all sides. Through the trees he could see the faint reflection of the setting sun off the lake. The light of a fire came from inside. The red pickup truck was sitting in the driveway.
Marcus parked on the road and took the defective gun from his pants.
He swallowed and tried to quell his nerves.
He crept through the trees as the sun set and the shadows grew.
No sound or light came from the adjacent cottages.
A shadow moved inside. Marcus waited until it passed by the window, then crept along the ground on all fours.
He got to the wall of the cottage and peaked over the window ledge. There was a single figure in a rocking chair in front of the fire.
A sound came from one of the bedrooms. Marcus began moving around the house toward the source.
A twig cracked behind him.
He froze.
Cold steel pressed into his back of his neck.
“Come with me," said a deep voice. "Drop the gun.”
Marcus stood and raised his hands, dropping the gun onto the ground. It bounced among the brown leaves.
The other man took a few steps back.
“Go inside," he said.
Marcus walked around the cottage, hands raised. He looked for an opening, but the man remained a few feet behind him, gun raised.
Marcus walked through the front door of the cottage.
The man in the rocking chair stood and placed a new log on the fire.
“Close the door,” said the man.
Marcus frowned. He recognized the voice, although he couldn't place it.
The front door closed.
In the doors to one of the bedrooms was a second goon with a gun at his waist.
Marcus looked around the cottage, his heartbeat racing.
“You're a tough man to find,” said the leader. He crouched down and took a cigar from his pocket. "It took me almost twelve hours."
The man put one end in his mouth and leaned forward, lighting the cigar on the blazing fire. He stood and let the smoke hang in the air. He dropped the hand holding the cigar to his waist and turned to face Marcus.
Marcus's eyes opened wide. “Ricky?”
26
“Surprise!” Ricky waved his hands in air. He smiled and walked around the couch. “Didn’t expect to see me, did you?”
Marcus stared at him. “Ricky, how are you here?"
“That's not important. What is important is the message I have. It's time you stopped chasing this daughter of yours and came back to Angela and your real life.” He took a long inhale on the cigar. "Marcus, you're coming back with me. Then you are going to raise as much money as you can for that bullshit charity. General Thompson did you a mighty favor and got you some publicity. You should be rolling in dough pretty soon. Think of all the things you can buy. You can buy a nice shiny wheelchair.”
Marcus stared at him. “Why are you doing this?”
“Why does anyone do anything? I'm doing it for money. That's capitalism for you.”
“I need to find my daughter.”
Ricky scoffed. “Your daughter does not get me money, sweetheart.”
“Is Angela paying you?”
“A good amount. She was always good at that, even if she didn't understand some other things."
Marcus looked around the cottage, growing more and more unnerved by Ricky's presence and the absence of the Shembly's.
“Please, Ricky," he said, "do you have children?”
Ricky laughed so hard he coughed up smoke. “Why would I have children? That sounds awful."
Ricky took another drag on the cigar. There was a gold ring on his finger, although Marcus couldn't make out what the engraving said.
“Where are they?" said Marcus. "Where is Danielle and the Shembly's? What have you done with them?”
Ricky sighed, spinning the cigar in his fi
ngers. “I don't have them. It would have made it easier for me, wouldn’t it? Put a bullet in each of their heads and drag you back to Angela. They seem to have only been here for an hour or so. They left that truck here, then they were gone. They’re in the wind, Marcus.”
The moment he heard Danielle wasn't here, Marcus jumped to his feet and ran for the door.
A gunshot rang out and Marcus pitched forward, his left leg crumbling underneath him. He threw his arms out to catch himself. His forearms took the brunt of the fall.
Marcus looked over his shoulder. The goons hadn’t moved.
Ricky cocked his handgun and sent the bullet casing into the air.
Marcus felt a fierce pain spreading from his knee as his pants turned a deep red.
“Come on, Marcus,” said Ricky. “We were having a nice talk. Don’t run away. I was going to give you the option to come with me of your own accord and start getting in line, but that doesn't seem fair anymore, does it? I suppose I'm going with Plan B.”
“Please, it’s my daughter,” he said, looking back at Ricky and clenching his teeth to quell the pain. “I’ll do anything to save her.”
Ricky walked toward him, the gun in one hand and the smoldering cigar in the other. “Boys, come and help me with this.”
“Please!” Marcus crawled for the door and the goon who stood in front of it. Tears streamed down his face.
His knee left behind a trail of blood.
A large foot stepped on Marcus's arm, followed by another on his other arm. He tried to squirm free but the two huge men didn't budge. Two more weights came down on his thighs.
Marcus looked back.
Ricky knelt on his thighs. The cigar hung from his lips. He reached up and pulled the cigar from his mouth. He leaned over and shoved the burning embers into Marcus's back, where his spine intersected with his hip bone.
Marcus screamed through his clenched teeth as the cigar burned a hole through his shirt and into his skin.
“What are you doing?” he said through clenched teeth.
“I'm marking my spot.”
“Marking the spot for what?”
Ricky grinned. “Angela and I always had this as a backup plan. It was her idea. It was clever."
"What are you talking about?"
Ricky raised his gun in the air. “All this time you've spent pretending to be paralyzed, stealing money from people under the guise of helping missing children, there must have been some part of you that knew retribution was coming. You knew that one day you'd pay for your lies."
Ricky pushed the cold steel of his gun into the burn on Marcus's spine.
“What are you doing?” Marcus gritted his teeth against the pain.
“You’ve been claiming to have a bullet lodged in your spine for over a decade. Maybe you weren't lying, maybe reality is just catching up."
Marcus suddenly realized what Ricky was talking about. “Please! Don't do this! I’m begging you!”
Ricky looked up at him. “It's fascinating how much you and Danielle have in common."
Marcus felt a rage building up inside him. "What the hell do you know about Danielle? What have you done?"
"It doesn't matter. Pretty soon what you do will be irrelevant.
"Please, for the love of god."
Ricky laughed. "What can you possibly offer me that would make me stop?"
Marcus looked through his tears at the shadow of Ricky the fire cast on the door. In the shadow, he thought he saw Ricky reach into his belt and take out a different gun. “Can't you find it in your heart to understand a father's grieving?"
“That's not even close to good enough.” Ricky inhaled on the cigar and blew the smoke out at Marcus. He coughed as he breathed some in. “You should consider yourself lucky," said Ricky. "When most people become paralyzed, they have to go through a transition period. They have to get used to using a wheelchair, how people treat them, to the idea that they’ll always be different. You already know all that. You’re ahead of the ball. Really, your foresight and preparation is impeccable.”
Marcus tried to spin over, to throw Ricky off him, but the goons holding him held firm. “Please don’t do this!"
"L-5 Vertebrae, right? That's what you've been telling everyone?"
"Stop!"
"There are two things in the world which, once broken, can never be fixed. The first is trust. Do you want to know the other?"
"I'll do anything. Please don't do this!" Tears poured down Marcus's face.
The gun fired, echoing through the cabin.
Birds scattered outside.
Marcus lay on the floor of the cabin.
The pain was all-consuming.
27
Marcus jerked awake. He was covered in sweat.
He grabbed for his legs in the darkness and found them beneath the sheets. He couldn't feel his legs. He tried moving them and was unable. He stared at his legs, then traced his hand down his spine. He winced when he touched the point Ricky had shot, but there was no hole in his back where the bullet should have entered. It was sensitive, but hadn't broken the skin.
He felt tears coming to his eyes as he desperately tried to move his legs and failed.
There was a bottle of painkillers on the side table, beside the unopened letter from Jeff Candor. He vaguely remembered using the painkillers while he had been coming in and out of consciousness.
Ricky must have supplied those.
Marcus breathed heavily and looked around. At some point, he had been brought back to the base.
Angela's persistent snoring came from the other side of the room.
Marcus stared through the pre-dawn light at his legs. Tears brimmed over the edge of his eyes and he felt a rage unlike anything he had ever felt. It was more than he had felt when Cassandra had been killed and Danielle had been kidnapped. It was a rage he had never known was possible.
He thought back to Ricky switching out his gun before the shot. He must have used a gun with blanks. The bruise and nerve damage caused by the force would be enough to cause temporary paralysis, but they wouldn't want him completely paralyzed.
This was a warning. They wanted him to have hope, and they wanted to retain the threat of actually, permanently, paralyzing him.
In that moment, he decided this wasn't over. They wouldn't intimidate him into being their puppet.
He was going to get Danielle, and nothing that Ricky or Angela could do was going to stop him. They had handicapped him, but he wasn't defeated.
Marcus went to stand but his legs didn't react.
He took a deep breath. It would be a while before his habits and thoughts caught up to the reality of his situation.
He used his arms to roll himself out of the bed.
The wheelchair was lying in the middle of the room, folded up.
He grunted as he landed and looked at Angela's bed.
Her snores reassured him she was still asleep.
He looked back. His feet were still hooked onto the side of the bed.
He reached back and pulled them off.
He listened for Angela's snores.
Once he was certain she was still asleep, he began crawling across the floor toward the wheelchair.
His arms and legs scraped along the floor.
He grabbed the wheelchair and pulled it closer to his bed so the sounds wouldn't wake Angela.
Angela grunted.
Marcus looked over at her, quiet and motionless as a statue. He waited for an eternity, until finally Angela rolled onto her side, her arm flopped over the side of the bed, and her snoring resumed.
Marcus swallowed and began assembling the chair. He looked at Angela periodically, feeling a strange mix of fear and pure rage toward her. A part of him wanted to suffocate her to death with her own pillow, but logic won out.
He had no idea how effective he could be without the use of his legs.
To save Danielle, he needed help from someone else.
He managed to get the wheelchair set up an
d pull himself into it, grunting and scrambling at the arms. He grabbed the painkillers off the side table and popped a few into his mouth.
Angela turned over in her sleep and a deep snore reverberated through the quarters.
Marcus froze and waited until her snoring had returned to a normal decibel before moving.
It took Marcus a few tries to get his legs into a reasonable position.
He let out a breath of relief when he did so.
He stared at his legs. He pinched his thigh and felt nothing. He touched his spine again to reassure himself that his paralysis was temporary, but it did little to quell his fear.
He stared at his leg then up at the sunlight coming through the door.
There was no time to feel sorry for himself.
He turned around and wheeled across the room. He stopped beside the desk and grabbed the commendation medal. He shoved it into his pocket.
He wheeled himself to the door and waited for an opportunity. In the middle of one of Angela's longer snores, he opened the door and rolled out, closing the door behind him as quietly as he could.
Marcus squinted against the sun and saw military personnel moving around the base. He waited until he could hear Angela's consistent snoring through the closed door before he moved.
Soldiers got out of his way and saluted as he rolled past them. He wheeled into the waiting room of General Thompson's office and went straight for the door.
“The general is a little busy at the moment,” said his secretary, jumping from her chair and blocking Marcus's path. “If you wait out here, I'll let him know you're here."
Marcus stared at her with his most serious gaze. “I need to talk to him now.”
The secretary shied away but didn't move out of his way. “Unless this is an urgent military matter, I can't let you in!"
“This is an urgent matter!" Marcus screamed at her.
The secretary swallowed and nodded, clearly unnerved.
She disappeared into the office, then emerged a minute later. She said, “The General will see you now.”
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