Long Way Home

by Tom Crown

  He fired, sending a bullet right through Steve’s chest.

  He fired again, senselessly. It was already done.

  Slowly his adrenaline started to subside. He looked at Katia, not quite able read her expressions, but he knew there was no need for him to stand there and guess. That was exactly what he had done wrong before.

  He stepped over the body and let the gun fall from his hand. It clattered against the asphalt, and after that all he heard was Katia’s quiet sobbing. She was watching him with utter fear in her eyes, and he realized her gaze had drifted to the gun behind him.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  RYAN FLINCHED WHEN the phone rang inside the Land Rover. He had forgotten all about the call, about Jenny being on the line when Steve pulled his gun, and everything that must have happened over at the house to make her call like she had. He looked at Katia standing there by the Volvo, frightened, holding on to the door, unsure where to go. He could hear his music blasting from her stereo and smiled, but at the same time wondered if she was simply waiting to dive right back in behind the wheel and take off again. She had run many times before, and been smart about it every time, but then he reminded himself she was the one who had stopped this time.

  “Hold on,” he said and gestured for her to stay. He backtracked toward the Land Rover as the phone kept ringing inside. He made sure to avoid the body as he moved, but took a moment to kick the gun farther way.

  The phone was still in the center console where he had left it. He sat down in the passenger seat with his feet still on the asphalt and reached for it.

  “Ryan here,” he said, putting the phone to his ear.

  “Ryan, my God!” Jenny’s voice was frantic. “You’re okay? Where’s Steve?”

  “I’m okay. What about you?”

  “Is Steve there?”

  Ryan looked over his shoulder. The body was still where he had left it, with the same three bullet holes and blood that had just stopped flowing.

  “Steve’s dead,” he said.

  “Thank God.” She sighed deeply, and after that he only heard a long silence.

  “Jenny?”

  After a moment he began to hear noises in the background, footsteps, a chair moving across the floor.

  “Ryan,” Jenny said. “There’s a police officer here who wants to talk to you.”

  “Not now.” He looked at Katia, who was still waiting by the Volvo, still holding on to the door.

  “Look,” Jenny said, “I killed Alex.”

  “What? No—“

  “He came back,” Jenny continued, her voice quivering. “He was wounded, but he came back. And he killed two of the girls, and I... And I shot him.”

  “Oh no.”

  “Yes.” She began to cry again.

  “My God, Jenny. I’m so sorry.” He could only imagine the horror she must have endured, alone in the house, with the girls, when Alex came to exact his revenge. Of all the people involved in this Jenny was the one least accustomed to violence.

  She didn’t say anything more, but after a moment he heard the voice of a man whispering soothingly to her as he took the phone from her hand.

  Ryan disconnected. He knew he would end up spending weeks talking to the police, local, state, Interpol, the FBI even, but for now that would have to wait another couple of minutes. He left the phone in the Land Rover and stepped out again. Katia was still watching him.

  “Hey,” he said and slowly raised a hand in a cautious wave, in want for something better. He had just killed a man with that hand and wasn’t surprised to see her still holding on to the open car door as if for protection. He had accused her, driven her away, and killed in front of her, all in the last half hour.

  “Steve?” she asked uncertainly, looking at the body behind him. “It was Steve?”

  “Yeah.” Ryan glanced over his shoulder, at the dead body behind him. “But not anymore.”

  Katia nodded and took a step forward, around the car door, and finally let go, one finger at a time. She seemed to accept Steve’s guilt just as readily as he had. There had always been something off about how he first showed up, and how he always seemed so willing to participate in their terrible ordeal.

  “I thought you died,” she said and looked up and down his body, as if to make sure he was really there.

  He remembered the blood and fur still sticking to his clothes. He had tried to clean himself, and had wrestled Steve still drenched in that mess, but he saw now that he had only smeared the blood and rendered himself an even more frightening appearance.

  “It’s not mine,” he said. “I’m all right. It’s reindeer. The train hit some reindeer. It happened just when we got there. Just after you... It’s not mine.”

  She simply nodded.

  “I thought you died,” he said after a moment.

  “No.”

  A sudden noise made him turn and he saw a timber truck approaching in the distance. He peered back and forth between the Volvo and the Land Rover, positioned badly near the center of the road, and wondered whether the driver would see Steve’s body. The thought was cut short by the truck’s deafening horns. He reached for Katia and pulled her to the side just as the vehicle roared right past them. The wind rustled her hair as dust and bark swirled through the air and landed in their eyes.

  “We better get out of here,” he said, just as he realized he was hearing sirens in the distance, a garbled high-pitched sound that indicated multiple vehicles on rapid approach. Jenny had probably called them, and the truck driver was likely already helping with the exact location.

  “No,” Katia said, shaking her head. “No more running.”

  He looked at the forest around them, sloping abruptly on their right, where the river ran, somewhere out of view from where he was standing.

  “The river then,” he suggested and took a slight bow, presenting himself to her in all his blood-covered furriness.

  Katia smiled and nodded.

  “Let’s go.” Ryan led the way down toward the river, navigating the steep hillside, the patchy underbrush, the slippery boulders, and it was right there, as the rush of the water grew louder in his ears, that he felt the healing finally begin. He took a deep breath of the fresh Lapland air and felt himself walk taller as he trudged ahead. Something had changed inside him. He wouldn’t bring the fear with him anymore, but far more important, he wouldn’t bring the anger.

  He finally stopped. The river was right in front of him now, clear water rushing over exposed granite, a fine mist filtering the pale sunlight.

  A minute from now, police would join them. Weapons would be pointed their way, and they would raise their hands in the air, drop to their knees perhaps, and then be dragged up the slope again in handcuffs. They would face a very long night in some local police station, and after that days in interrogation somewhere neither one of them had ever been. But before that, they would share this moment right here, in this place of tranquility and unspoiled beauty.

  Katia had stopped by his side. Blood still stained her face and clothes, contrasting eerily with that faint smile on her face. It seemed she too needed this moment, something to hold on to, something good and pure, even if it was only the memory of a hazy fairytale landscape illuminated by the midnight sun.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Thank you so much for reading Long Way Home. If you enjoyed it, please consider leaving a review or lending or recommending the book to a friend.

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  Thank you again for your support!

 

 

 
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