The Iron Ring

by Matty Dalrymple

  “You live nearby?”

  “No.”

  “Stay overnight in the parking lot?”

  “I thought Walmart let people do that.”

  “It’s a store-by-store policy.”

  “There were a bunch of other people here overnight!”

  They reached the van, and Wilson looked around the parking lot with theatrical surprise. “Really? And where are they now?”

  “They left,” said Lizzy. “They were on their way to somewhere else, and they left.”

  “Maybe you should be thinking about leaving, too.”

  “I’d love to,” she shot back, “but I thought you wanted to see the sales receipt from the garbage bags.”

  He crossed his arms. “Fine. Get it.”

  Lizzy circled to the far side of the van, to the driver’s door, and pushed the key into the lock. She tried turning it, but it wouldn’t turn. She jiggled it, to no avail.

  Wilson stepped up behind her. “Having a problem there?” he asked.

  “I’ll get it in a minute.”

  “I can wait here all day.”

  “I’ll bet you can,” muttered Lizzy.

  He took another step toward her, almost but not quite touching her, hemming her in against the door. She turned to face him.

  “Listen, girly, don’t give me any lip,” he said.

  Girly? Lizzy had never actually heard anyone use the term girly. An image popped into her head of a bad guy in a hard-boiled detective movie. A hard-boiled dick. Her lips twitched.

  The security guard scowled. “What?”

  Lizzy shook her head. “Nothing.”

  “You think this is funny?”

  She managed a strangled “No.” She began to turn back to the door, as much to disguise the giggles that threatened to bubble up as to return to the task of getting the door open.

  But then she felt his hand on her shoulder. She flinched and sidestepped, her laughter dying in her throat, suddenly afraid of the turn this encounter was taking.

  Wilson sidestepped after her and tripped. He grabbed her wrist, whether to keep her from running or to regain his balance wasn’t clear. If it was to regain his balance, it didn’t work—he fell to the ground, and dragged Lizzy down with him. She landed on her knees with a painful thud.

  “Let go of me,” she cried, trying to free her wrist from his grasp, her gaze shooting around the area.

  They were on the far side of the van from the store’s entrance—and from the rest of the parking lot. Next to the van was a thin strip of scraggly woods, on the other side of which Lizzy could hear cars passing on the road fifty yards away. No one could see her and Wilson—and, unless she yelled, no one would be likely to hear them.

  Wilson let go of her wrist and she began to scuttle away on her hands and knees, but before she could get out of his reach, he grabbed her ankle. She was about to kick out, to free her ankle from his grasp, when his grip loosened. She scrambled to her feet and turned back to him.

  He was trying to push himself up, but his right side wasn’t working—his leg lay unmoving on the ground, his arm buckled as he put his weight on it. He collapsed, face-first, onto the pavement.

  Her heart thumping and her stomach clenched, she approached him, cautious at first. He was lying still, except for his left hand, which was clawing ineffectually at the ground. He was saying something, but she couldn’t understand what it was.

  She squatted next to him and put her hand on his shoulder. “Mr. Wilson?” she asked, in a tremulous voice.

  “J-j-j—” His mouth was pressed onto the pavement and the sound was muffled.

  “Hold on,” she said, “I’m going to turn you over.”

  She pushed and tugged until she had succeeded in rolling him onto his back.

  His face was scraped where it had hit the pavement, and the right side of his mouth was pulled down.

  “Mr. Wilson, can you hear me?”

  “J-j-j—” The sound was less muffled, but no more clear.

  “Hold on, I’m going to get help.”

  His left hand shot out and grabbed her arm, and she suppressed another cry.

  “Joanie,” he groaned, his eyes staring wide and panicked over Lizzy’s shoulder. “Joanie …”

  An hour later, Lizzy climbed shakily back into the van. A sympathetic EMT had helped her get the door open. He had evidently chalked up her near-hysterical crying to the trauma of seeing the security guard suffer what was likely a stroke. He advised her not to try driving until she felt better.

  Lizzy had thought about driving away after she had run to the store and alerted the greeter that there was an emergency in the parking lot. Then she realized that the store probably had security cameras covering the lot, maybe even ones that could pick out the van’s license plate. Besides, she would have had to drag Wilson away from the tires to make sure she didn’t run over him, and she didn’t think she could do it. Her legs were barely steady enough to keep herself upright.

  Now an equally sympathetic police officer had her—or rather, Tracy Coates’s—name, date of birth, address, and phone number, and a video of her was now logged in some official database, courtesy of the officer’s body camera. Other than a gentle joke about her hair color and length, the license hadn’t raised any issues.

  She sat in the van until the last of the emergency vehicles had left and the last of the gawkers had dispersed, then started it up and began to make her careful way across the parking lot. She could see people bustling in and out of the store, and could hear a clamor of children’s voices, cut short by a curt exclamation from an adult.

  She had told Ruby that she didn’t want to talk with her or Uncle Owen or Andy because it would make her homesick, but now she had another reason. She had no wish to let them know that she had injured, and possibly killed, another person with the squeeze.

  32

  The same young man who had driven Philip away from the hospital drove him to an airport—Hagerstown Regional, Philip saw on the sign by the entrance—and onto the ramp to the steps of a jet. He hopped out of the limo to open Philip’s door, but Philip was already out of the car. The driver turned to the trunk and removed a duffel bag.

  Philip reached for it.

  “I can take it on the plane for you, sir,” said the driver.

  “Thanks, but I can get it.”

  After a brief hesitation, the driver handed over the duffel. Philip draped the strap over his good shoulder.

  “Herr Viklund will videoconference with you on the plane,” said the driver.

  Philip nodded, then climbed the steps.

  A woman wearing a dark pantsuit and white blouse met him at the top of the stairs. Philip guessed her to be in her late twenties, and she had the blond hair and blue eyes of all of Theo Viklund’s employees.

  “Welcome aboard, Mr. Castillo,” she said with the hint of the Swedish accent that was also the common denominator among Viklund’s staff. “Please help yourself to drinks or snacks, then have a seat. We’ll be taking off in just a few minutes.”

  Philip had been on a plane only once before his flight out to Philadelphia at Owen McNally’s request—a decade before, to visit a girl he had met when she and her sister were visiting Sedona from Seattle. He hadn’t particularly enjoyed either experience, which had been noisy and uncomfortable. He was clearly not going to have to worry about crying babies or nonexistent legroom on this trip. The plane was more like a living room than an aircraft, with burnished wood fittings and large, heavily cushioned leather seats.

  He got a bottle of water from a buffet near the front of the cabin, then settled in. Within ten minutes, they were airborne.

  He was watching the towns and cultivated fields below him give way to serrated mountains as they flew west when a video monitor next to his seat flicked on.

  “Good morning, Mr. Castillo,” said Viklund from the monitor. “I trust you’re enjoying the ride?”

  “Very nice. You’ve ruined me for the airlines.”


  Viklund’s smile broadened. “Quite right. I myself am appalled by the conditions that the airlines expect their passengers to endure. And perhaps you’ve already met my niece, Rey, who will be accompanying you in Arizona. You should be aware of the compliment I pay you by giving up Rey’s assistance here in Maryland.”

  Philip looked toward the woman sitting at the front of the plane. She smiled blandly back at him. “Your niece, eh?”

  “Yes. Rey is my favorite niece and I would be most displeased should anything happen to her. I trust you will keep an eye on her.”

  “She doesn’t look like she needs anyone to keep an eye on her.”

  The woman’s smile widened fractionally.

  “You’re quite right. Rey will ensure that our plans in Arizona run smoothly.”

  “We have plans?”

  “We will shortly. It’s good that we have had a few days for me to put all the arrangements in place. I’ve established a new identity for you. There’s an envelope on the buffet.”

  Since Rey could obviously hear the conversation, Philip waited a moment to see if she was going to bring him the envelope. She raised an eyebrow at him. It was clear that Rey Viklund was more metaphorical pilot in command than flight attendant on this trip. He smiled at her, retrieved the envelope, returned to his seat, and opened it. It contained a driver’s license identifying him as Philip Begay of Ash Fork, Arizona.

  “I will arrange for you to be taken on as a temporary custodian at Williams,” said Viklund, “and will further arrange for you to be assigned to an area where Mr. Hanrick will be.”

  Philip raised an eyebrow. “How do you plan to do that?”

  Viklund waved a hand. “You needn’t worry about that. Although I have to admit it has posed an interesting challenge, prison operations not being an area that I have previously had a need to delve into. A learning experience.”

  “So the janitor kills the prisoner, and then gets put in prison himself?”

  “I’m well aware of your aversion to that outcome—and it would be suboptimal for me as well. I’m ironing out some of the details, but I feel confident I can arrange the encounter in such a way that you will be able to get away. Unless,” he added hopefully, “you are willing to let someone else kill Hanrick. That would be quite easily arranged.”

  “I’ll take my chances on your plan.”

  “Very well. You and Rey will go to Flagstaff and await further instructions. As soon as I have finalized the arrangements, I will let you know.”

  A little over five hours after leaving Maryland, they landed in Flagstaff and taxied to a satellite terminal. Rey followed Philip down the steps of the plane and pointed to a car parked next to a nearby hangar.

  “That’s for us.”

  She followed a few steps behind him, she in turn followed by the pilot, who carried her bag.

  The day was cool but the sun beat down on the asphalt, which radiated the heat. As the pilot stowed their bags in the trunk, Philip shrugged out of his coat.

  “You must be hot in that jacket,” he said to Rey.

  Rey pulled the jacket back far enough for Philip to see the gun in its shoulder holster.

  He tossed his coat into the trunk and sighed. “Yeah, I figured.”

  33

  A few hours after leaving the Walmart, Lizzy pulled into the parking lot of a shopping center anchored by a Dollar General and climbed into the back of the van for a late lunch. She checked her progress on the map app and groaned. Not only did the GPS expect her to be covering ground a lot faster than she was, but she was finding driving to be exhausting, and she didn’t think she’d be able to put in more than a half dozen hours behind the wheel each day.

  She ate a meal of packaged cheese and crackers, an apple, and a banana, then opened the browser app and typed in various searches to see if she could find any news or police reports about a Walmart security guard who had suffered a stroke. She could find nothing.

  She set the phone aside and stared out the van’s window, toward where a plastic shopping bag tumbled across the parking lot before snagging on a shopping cart abandoned in the far corner. She couldn’t forget the sound of that stuttered J-j-joanie that Wilson had uttered as his brain began to betray him and fear filled his eyes.

  Maybe once she had done what she needed to do in Arizona, she would go back to Pennsylvania and ask Uncle Owen to hide her away, the way her mom and dad had tried to do. That’s evidently what it would take to protect innocent bystanders like Wilson—who might have been a jerk, but not evil like Anton Rossi and Gerard Bonnay and Tobe Hanrick—from her power, and her lack of self-control.

  At the same time that she wanted to be able to withdraw into some safe isolation, she also realized that traveling alone made it more likely that incidents like the one with Wilson would occur. If Ruby had been with her, it never would have happened. A female traveling on her own, especially a seventeen-year-old female, would look like easy prey to jerks—and worse. And she felt no satisfaction in the fact that, unless they were armed, they were sure to come out of an encounter worse than their supposed prey.

  She considered her options. Despite Uncle Owen’s concern about the dangers of the predictability of public transportation, she could leave the van here and take a bus or train to Williams, but how would she get around once she was there? Based on the time she and Uncle Owen had spent in Arizona, she got the feeling there weren’t many transportation alternatives if you didn’t have a vehicle of your own.

  Hitchhiking wasn’t out of the question, but she wanted to save it as a last resort. She had seen a dozen hitchhikers since they had left Overbrook—male and female, young and old, clean and dirty. One had been holding a sign that said ANYWHERE WEST.

  Maybe she was thinking about the hitchhiking option backwards. And maybe a rethought approach would solve more than one problem.

  She washed her meal down with a drink from one of the gallon water bottles, and got back on the road.

  It took only about half an hour to spot a hitchhiker, but he was of the male, old, and dirty variety, and his scowl didn’t add to his charm. Shortly after that she passed a guy and a girl about her own age. They were not noticeably dirty or scowling, but she didn’t feel like taking on more than one fellow traveler.

  She was thinking she might have to pull over and take a nap—or at least give her fingers a chance to release the death grip they had on the wheel—when she spotted another hitchhiker. Lizzy guessed she was in her early- or mid-twenties, medium height and probably slender under her bulky blue coat, with straight blond hair tucked behind her ears. She stood next to a large backpack to which a bed roll was attached.

  Lizzy put on her turn signal and eased the van to the side of the road.

  The girl hefted her pack onto her back and jogged surprisingly quickly to the passenger door.

  “Hey, thanks for stopping,” she said.

  “Sure,” said Lizzy. “I’m only going about twenty miles, is that okay?” Twenty miles seemed like a good distance to decide if the girl seemed like a promising traveling companion. If she wasn’t, Lizzy would just let her off in whatever town came up in twenty miles.

  “Gets me twenty miles further on,” said the girl. She opened the back door and heaved her pack in, then clambered into the passenger seat. “I’m Daisy.”

  “Hi. I’m Tracy.”

  “Nice to meet you, Tracy.”

  Lizzy pulled carefully back onto the road.

  “So, what’s up?” Lizzy asked, trying to balance the need to find out enough about her passenger in the next twenty miles to know whether she wanted to extend the trip, while still keeping her attention on the road.

  “It’s a been a tough day to catch a ride,” said Daisy. “Although I’m glad I’m not a guy—nobody likes to pick up guys.”

  “Although I guess some of the people who are willing to pick up girls,” Lizzy said hesitantly, “aren’t necessarily the kind of person you want to get a ride with.”

  “That’s for
sure. That’s why I was excited when I saw you check me out and slow down.”

  “I didn’t ‘check you out,’” said Lizzy, somewhat embarrassed.

  “Sure you did. Or if you didn’t, you should have. Want to be careful who you let in your car with you.” She looked around. “Or van. Nice ride.”

  “Thanks. A friend loaned it to me. Do you hitchhike a lot?”

  “I do what I have to to get where I’m going.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “LA.”

  The traffic light they were approaching turned yellow. Although they were quite close to the intersection, Lizzy braked, eliciting a honk from the driver behind her.

  “People sure are antsy,” said Daisy sympathetically.

  “Yeah. I thought you were supposed to stop for yellow.”

  The light turned green, and the driver behind them gunned the engine and shot around the van.

  “Asshole,” said Daisy.

  Lizzy grinned.

  They traveled in silence for a few minutes, then Lizzy asked, “Do you drive?”

  “Sure. I don’t have a car, but I have my license.”

  “What kind of cars have you driven?”

  “I learned in my parents’ Honda Pilot. I had a Hyundai Accent for a while. My ex-boyfriend had a Toyota Tacoma that I drove sometimes.”

  “Have you ever driven a van?”

  “Like this one? No.”

  “Would you be able to?”

  Daisy looked over at Lizzy. “Yeah, I’m sure I could.”

  “Would you mind driving for a little while? I’m getting kind of tired.”

  “Sure,” said Daisy. “I’ll give it a try.”

  Lizzy pulled over and she and Daisy swapped places. Daisy fiddled with the seat adjustments and the rear-view mirror positioning, then put the van in gear and gave it gas. The van jumped forward. “Oops,” she said. “It’s just going to take me a little bit to get used to it.”

  For the first few minutes, the ride was a little rough—the starts a bit jackrabbit and the stops a bit abrupt—but Daisy got the hang of it quickly.