by L. T. Vargus
Mark crept close. Pressed the muzzle against Loshak’s forehead.
“You think you’re pretty slick. All this goddamn talk that never ends. Running your mouth like some kind of fucking shrink or something.”
Loshak listened to his pulse pattering away in his ears, eyes drifting closed. He pictured the black hole where the gun pressed into his skin, the one the bullet would come from, if it did.
And every breath felt strange. Too long. Too smooth.
Hot air from Mark’s nostrils spiraled into Loshak’s face. He was right there. A drunken, wife-beating fiend. Sober, he probably wouldn’t have the balls to pull the trigger, even if he really wanted to. But this drunk? He was unpredictable. Not just an unknown variable in the equation Loshak had been trying to solve — an unknowable one.
Maybe he’d had him, too, if that text hadn’t come. Maybe he was just about to set the gun down, let this go, whatever it was. It had sure seemed that way.
In any case, Loshak thought it best to say nothing in his current situation. To listen for a while.
Mark went on.
“You think I don’t know what you’re doing? Setting me up. Fucking with my head.”
The barrel of the gun pressed harder at Loshak’s forehead, the pressure increasing until it stung a little bit, until he was certain it was leaving a mark — a pink circle indented just beneath his hairline, marking the place where the hole in his skull would be. A bull’s-eye.
And now he felt something at his side. Mark’s hand reaching into his jacket, removing the phone. The fabric tugged a little, making Mark work for it, and then the phone was gone. He felt the absence like an ache, the lack of weight, the little rectangular emptiness where the phone had been.
When the barrel of the gun peeled away from his skull, Loshak opened his eyes. Blinked at the kitchen lights which seemed so much brighter than before.
Mark stared into the glowing screen of Loshak’s phone, white light cast on his shiny face.
“Looks like you got a text message from, uh, Darger,” Mark said. He pronounced her name incorrectly, said it with a hard G like burger. “Could be important. Could be official FBI business, huh, big guy? Well, my God. I better file it in the special filing cabinet right away.”
He tossed the phone into the stainless steel sink and cranked on the faucet. The water gushed out, doused the glowing screen, aerated liquid slapping at the surface and puddling over it with a hiss.
Loshak could see the little blue box in the center of the screen, the one that he knew must say Darger’s name. He had just enough time to wonder if she was OK before the screen’s light guttered to a white point and went out.
Chapter 52
Darger woke to hissing sounds, fevered little whispers that made no sense, gibberish spoken in an endless raspy breath. The stream of syllables ebbed and flowed and stuttered, but their babble never ceased. Not all the way.
She peeled open her eyes, found herself face down on a high school desk, cheek plastered to the smooth plastic of the tabletop. Her wrists were cuffed to the desk, and the metal rings cinched tightly enough to pinch her skin, make it sting a little.
Trapped. Of course.
She sat up, blinked a few times. Her eyes spun around the room. Dizziness. Motion sickness. She pinched them closed to keep from throwing up, but the glimpse was enough.
She wasn’t in a classroom. She was in the room with the thick log walls. Stump’s torture room.
She stayed that way for a beat — eyes closed, chin up. Oxygen surged into her lungs. Deep breaths revealed the sour smell of this place — stale sweat and smoke.
The stabbing pain in her skull brought back blurry memories of the fight, but she couldn’t dwell on them. Not now. She opened her eyes and scanned the room instead, fought through the wooziness.
A fire raged in a cast iron stove on the far wall, flickering its orange glow everywhere — so there lay the source of the hissing.
Inky darkness smudged the rest of the room to various degrees, the black thickest at the corners. She squinted to look through the shadows, to discern the shapes the dark obscured.
The size of the room struck her first — it had to be close to 25 feet to that stove on the opposite wall. The length of the room and the ceramic tiles lining the floor lent a strange echoing ambiance to the fire’s cracks and pops.
Thick boards lay over the windows, and she could just make out the steel door off to her right.
But if this was the room, the girl should be here. Shouldn’t she?
Darger swiveled her head again.
There. Behind and to her left. Nicole took shape in the shadows, chained to a desk of her own.
What the fuck with the desks? She remembered playing pretend games of school as a kid, making up fake homework assignments, handing out made-up grades. But this was the nightmare version. Psycho 101, Intro to Murder.
Nicole looked to be asleep sitting up. Neck limp, chin tucked and resting against her chest. Black eyeliner smeared all around her eyes, trailing down at the corners where the tears had spilled.
“Nicole,” Darger said, her voice just louder than a whisper.
Apart from the rise and fall of her chest, the girl didn’t move. She was out.
Darger grit her teeth. She went to wipe a hand at her brow, but the cuffs yanked at her arm, stopped her hand short of its destination.
And this moment somehow snapped Darger back to reality. Awareness cut through the fog in her head — she had become one of Stump’s pets. One of his captive girls. One of his victims. The thought sent an electric prickle of fear over her flesh, made all of the hair stand on end.
The panic rippled outward in her mind, swirled everything together into a sludgy mess of feelings and fractured thoughts, but no. She couldn’t let that happen.
She took a deep breath, let it out in slow motion. She had to think. Now more than ever, she had to think.
Based on the Stump profile, they at least had time, and that was something huge in their favor. Time to plan. Time to act. He always kept the girls for a few days, doing God knows what to them, but that left an opening, however small. It left a reason to hope.
“Nicole,” Darger said again, lifting her voice to normal volume.
Still no response.
She looked down at the metal fastening her in place and noted that Stump had used two sets of cuffs on her — each one attaching a wrist to the steel bar under the desktop. He’d only used one set on Nicole, cuffing both wrists and looping the chain around the bar.
He was being more careful with Darger. He feared her. That made sense. The FBI agent was a bigger threat, of course. Could she use that to her advantage in some way? Try to get in his head? Maybe.
A log shifted in the stove, and the fiery reflections danced on the walls, orange shapes writhing all around her.
He would move them eventually, wouldn’t he? He would move them to the bathtub where he’d bleed the first girl out for his audience. That was her chance. He’d unlock them at that point. Unlock the door and the cuffs both. And they had to be ready to pounce when the time came, to risk everything in that one moment.
Now she had to wake Nicole up. Get her on the same page. If they worked together, they might have a chance.
“Nicole.” Her voice was loud. Piercing.
And still, Nicole didn’t stir, the point of her chin still jabbing into her sternum.
That settled it. Talking wasn’t going to work. Darger needed to get closer.
She wound her fingers around the steel bar and braced herself. Took a few breaths.
She bounced her legs and sort of bucked her hips at the same time. The desk legs screeched something awful against the tile floor, a multi-throated sound like a flock of wounded birds, but the thing scooted a few inches in the right direction.
OK. This would work. It would take a few minutes and make a lot of noise, but it would work.
She repeated the hip slide — a pair of rapid reps — but the dizzine
ss invaded her head again, so she had to stop and close her eyes for a bit. She took it slower after that. Worked at it little by little. Patient. Methodical.
A giddy feeling welled in her chest as she got closer to Nicole, a crazy optimism she hadn’t felt in a long time. It tingled outward from her core, surged into her arms and legs. Made her cheeks go warm.
Just as quickly, the fear overtook that feeling. Something between a sob and a laugh coughed out of her lungs. What an idiot she was. Sitting here pretending this would work. Pretending two unarmed women could take out Leonard Stump so long as they worked together. It was preposterous.
And some part of her told her that she would die here, in this house, at the hands of Leonard Stump like so many others. All those girls dumped out in the desert. All those shallow graves in the sand.
But no. She couldn’t think like that. Not yet. They had time. They just had to work out a plan. Had to blindside him somehow. Maybe one of her texts had gone through. Maybe the cavalry was on their way even now. She couldn’t give up hope. Not ever. She would fight, would fight until the end.
Her left foot looped out, a circular kicking motion probing for Nicole. She suspected she was a few inches shy still, but her big toe caught the girl’s ankle.
The contact jolted through Nicole’s body and wobbled her head. On the second kick, her eyelashes fluttered.
“Nicole,” Darger said, that warmth coming over her again. Hope.
The girl’s chin lifted in slow motion, eyelids parting. She was awake, but dazed.
“Why are you here?”
Now Darger lowered her voice.
“Listen to me. We’re in danger, but I need you to stay sharp, OK? We have time, and we’ll have our chances to get out of this, if we work together. Follow my lead. Keep your mind clear. And be ready to fight.”
“It’s him?”
“It’s him.”
But the alarmed look in Nicole’s eyes told Darger that she’d misunderstood. She followed the girl’s gaze to that steel door.
It was him. At the door. She could hear the rattle of the keys at the latch, the snick of the deadbolt sliding out of the way.
Without thought, Darger slid herself backward, some instinct to hide her actions taking over.
She managed to scrape perhaps halfway back to her original position when the swollen door popped out from the frame and Leonard Stump stepped into the room.
He was a dark spot, the blackest shade among the shadows. He stopped three paces inside the doorway and stood, his body language hard to read in the dark.
The air from the other side of the door was cooler, fresher. It spiraled against Darger’s cheeks and the bridge of her nose. A light draft.
Like a child murmuring in the midst of a nightmare, Nicole shifted and twitched. Darger perked up as if someone had slapped her across the face. The fear was contagious. Intoxicating and strange.
She traced the path of Nicole’s gaze, and then she saw it. The hard lines of the metal so striking in the blackness. The silhouette of the gun in his hand.
She gasped, breath creaking into her. That wasn’t right. Stump didn’t use guns.
The clinical words that occurred to her sounded weak in her head, powerless and small: This doesn’t fit the profile.
“Violet.”
He sounded intelligent. Younger than his age.
“You know, I never dreamed it would go like this. Our meeting, I mean.”
He lifted the gun some, and Darger jumped in her seat, the cuffs gouging at her wrists, but he was just adjusting his grip.
“I mean, this is probably where I’m supposed to give my big speech or whatever. Lay everything out. Give you your chance to say or do something heroic.”
She wanted to answer, wanted to play this little game with him, but her mind was blank. Empty.
“It’s a bad time, I guess. I’ve given it a lot of thought. Wish it could go some other way. My plate is full for the moment, and you’re too dangerous to keep around, so….”
He stepped forward, the details coming clearer as he moved. His face showed no great aggression like she might have expected. Instead, his features portrayed a somber expression. Perhaps thoughtful.
The gun lifted at the end of his arm. A Glock much like her own, if only she’d brought it.
She stared into the depths of the barrel, the black hole that seemed endless. Looked for something there, though she knew not what.
He did not delay.
His forearm flexed. He squeezed the trigger.
The metal bucked in his hand. The muzzle blazed and popped.
And the bullet sheared off the top of Violet Darger’s head.
Chapter 53
Choppy breaths sucked in and out of Nicole’s mouth and nostrils. Little choked sounds that seemed muffled in the aftermath of the splitting crack of gunfire.
Still, she could hear the gasps from inside her head. A closed off sound with her hearing blown out. Muted and moist. Wind rushing through a throat and sinus cavity wet with saliva.
Shock. She was in shock.
She watched Darger slump forward, head and shoulders flopping onto the desktop. The agent looked limp. Lifeless. Dead.
Nicole couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. Couldn’t slow those stuttering breaths. She could only stare at the wounded being before her, the red puddle spreading outward from the broken head, shiny and dark, creeping closer and closer to the edges of the desktop.
A ribbon of blood fluttered out of the head wound, a red stream about the width of a pencil — one burst and then it seemed to slow. To stop? She couldn’t be sure. The puddle still advanced, but the spurt from the head subsided.
Movement finally tugged her eyes away from the gore.
Stump shifted his weight from foot to foot. He stood over his latest victim — a shadow hovering there, the gun dangling at his side — but Nicole realized that his shoulders weren’t squared at Darger anymore.
He was facing her. Looking at her. Staring straight at her.
She hiccupped a few times in panic. Squirmed in her seat until the cuffs gnawed at her wrists. She squinted to see him better.
His face took shape in the charcoal smears of shade, and at last she could read his expression.
A disappointed frown jutted his lips out, and his eyes looked dead. Disinterested. Bored.
Now Stump turned back to Darger and stepped forward, a slow pace in the agent’s direction, raising the gun again partially. His tongue flicked out, wet his lips, and there was a quirk in his chest and shoulders — the slightest hitch in his breath.
He shuffled another step and a half. Careful. Cautious. Nicole read no fear in his body language, but the vigilance was obvious.
He kicked at Darger’s ankle. Twice. The muscles in his arms coiled as he leveled the gun at her skull again, and he hesitated, waited for any sign of movement.
But the agent was still. Inert. No response at all.
He crept closer. Pushed her shoulder with the barrel of the gun. Waited a beat. Still nothing.
His tongue brushed over his lips again, and the tension in his shoulders seemed to sag a little. A deep breath rushing in and removing some of the stiffness on its way out.
He stooped, leaned over the bloody woman, began to work at her cuffs.
Now the blood spilled over the lip of the desk. Thick droplets gathering at the precipice and raining down in fits and starts. The spatter sounded different than rain. The pitch was wrong, somehow — the viscosity and temperature making it wholly distinct from the sound of falling water.
Metal scraped against metal as the cuffs came loose, and the dead weight of her arms pulled away from the steel bar all at once.
Stump stood, getting a little off balance, bumping her on the way up.
The slack figure spilled from the desk like liquid, tumbled to the floor, arms and legs and torso so flimsy, so malleable.
She landed face down in the puddle of her own blood, and the impact of her cheek hitting the
tile echoed its wet slap around the room, a shrill sound.
Stump took a step back at this, and both he and Nicole held their breath, the room going silent as they watched the fallen figure.
Crumpled. That was how she looked on the floor. A lifeless thing. So small.
And still some part of Nicole expected her to get up. To move an arm or leg. To do something. Anything.
But Darger lay silent and motionless, her arms pinned under her torso, an awkward resting place.
Jesus, she looked dead. She looked dead, dead, dead. That wasn’t supposed to happen, was it?
Stump snorted once and turned, his shadow trailing away for the door, his silhouette growing darker with every step. He disappeared through the doorway, leaving it open behind him.
Nicole’s eyes snapped back to the broken girl on the floor. She was alone with her now. Alone with a dead body.
Again, she held her breath, the quiet rising up to fill the emptiness in this place, in this room.
Darger didn’t move. No rise and fall of the chest. No quiver from laying on the cold floor.
And that pool of blood surrounding her had ceased its advance over the tile, going static at last.
Dead.
Nicole’s heart picked up speed. She had never seen a dead body before — not in person — and it was a terrifying thing.
No.
Beyond terrifying.
Meaningless.
Seeing it up close, she saw how meaningless it was. A massive gaping hole where any purpose or reason should be. A vacancy at the center of the universe. A void where the heart was supposed to lay.
Nicole’s breathing grew loud again. Ragged. Spasming in and out of her. Her gasps were the only sound in the nothingness, in the darkness.
Stump’s shadow took shape in the doorway then. Something clutched in his arms.
He advanced toward the girls, the details of what he held filling in little by little.
A tarp. A blue vinyl tarp.
He spread it partially on the floor, careful to avoid the blood, and flopped Darger onto it, rolling her so she lay on her back.