No Coming Back (17 page)

“You might want to call for back-up,” I say.

Meeks snorts. “I think I can handle these two.” He slows the cruiser and brings it to a standstill several yards short. “Now stay here. Let me do the talking. I’ll fix this.” He climbs out and closes the door behind him.

He joins my abductors in the glare of the headlights. Neither Luckman nor Hendry look apologetic. Far from it. They’re hot with rage and eager to get on with my lynching. The trio engage in a heated discussion, muffled by the buzzing in my ears and the rock music still bellowing from Luckman’s pickup: Meeks with his hands on hips, Luckman gesticulating wildly, Hendry with the gun pointing my way.

It sounds like they’re justifying their actions. I can imagine what they’re saying:

They were out for an innocent drive. I appeared from nowhere and flagged them down. I commandeered their vehicle. My wounds are the result of their fighting back. Luckman ditched the truck off-road to take back control and I took off, in fear of being caught. I’m a convicted felon when all’s said. A murderer, right? My word isn’t worth jack over theirs.

It doesn’t explain how the zip ties got on my wrists.

Meeks glances over his shoulder, at me, his eyes narrowed against the glare of the headlights. He hasn’t instructed Hendry to put away his weapon, hasn’t told Luckman to back off and calm down. It doesn’t look like he’s about to arrest anybody. If anything, it looks like they sold him a sob story and he bought it.

In situations like this, a hundred miles from civilization, with tempers riled and intentions deadly, it all comes down to loyalties and a small-town mentality.

And Meeks isn’t in any hurry to do anything.

The keys are still in the ignition, I notice, engine running. Instinctively, I reach for the electronic door-lock button and push it. The bolts snap into place with a muffled
thwunk
.

Three pairs of eyes turn my way.

“What do you think you’re doing there, Olson?” Meeks calls.

“Buying life insurance,” I shout back. “I thought you were going to arrest them, Meeks?”

He gestures with his hand. “Unlock the doors.”

I don’t move.

He places the palm of the hand on the hood and the other on the butt of his firearm. “I’m not fooling around here, Olson. This a police vehicle and you’re very close to violating your parole. Now do as I say and unlock the doors before you make me do something you’ll regret.”

Still, I don’t move. Not yet.

I’m not exactly flavor of the month. If things head south for me here no one will come looking for me. Meeks will spin a very convincing story about me skipping town:
He’s gone back to the Cities or wherever. Who cares? Good riddance, I say. Harper is safer without him
. Meeks is the law around here. His word is golden. No one will dispute him. Luckman and Hendry will get away with murder, my murder, scot-free. Meeks will be complicit. But I don’t think that will bother him in the slightest.

Meeks leans his weight on the hood. “Last warning, Olson. I mean it. Don’t make this any worse for you than it already is. I will use deadly force to eject you. Now open the doors.”

“Arrest them, first.”

Meeks bangs a fist against the hood. “This isn’t open to debate, Olson! I said open the doors!” His face is suddenly flushed, eyes
flaring
.

Luckman and Hendry edge nearer, either side of the car, expressions hardening as they come. Hendry’s gun is pointed directly at my face.

Meeks gets out his own firearm and waggles it in my direction. “You have two seconds, and then I’m getting serious.”

I don’t take my eyes off him.

Sometimes in life we go down a one-way street the wrong way. We don’t stop and turn around. Not because we fail to recognize our mistake, but because we are committed and there’s no going back.

It’s three against one. Their word against mine. And Stillwater has programmed me to
survive
.

I grab the steering wheel with both manacled hands and haul myself over the center console and into the driver’s seat.

The movement is like putting a lit match to Meeks’s short fuse. He barges Luckman aside and rushes round to the driver’s door, bangs a fist against the glass. “Open this door, Olson! You’re making a big fucking mistake here. Open this door!”

He rattles at the door handle, thumps at the glass.

I throw the Mustang in reverse and stand on the pedal.

The wing mirror clips him, spinning him on the spot.

Then the cruiser is wheel-spinning on the icy asphalt, slewing backward and gathering speed. Luckman makes a futile grab at the hood as the vehicle backs away. Hendry stands his ground, raises his
handgun and squeezes off a shot. One half of the
windshield
becomes
a maze of crisscrossing cracks. The impact reverberates through the metalwork. I keep the pedal floored, head dipped, as the muzzle of Hendry’s gun lights up again and a loud clang sounds from under the hood. I spin the steering wheel. The
Mustang
turns through an arc. Another clang as another bullet hits its mark. I press the brake to straighten up the car, and the second it’s facing the opposite direction, I lean on the gas again and hear the responsive engine roar. In the same instant, the rear window blows inward, showering the cabin in glass crumbs.

It doesn’t look like Meeks has any intention of ordering Hendry to stand down.

Put distance between us. This is my first thought. My second is to reach Krauss and let her know exactly what’s happened here.

On the dash, the police radio is spitting out hiss. I snatch up the microphone and hold it against the wheel. “This is Jake Olson. I’m out on the highway northeast of town. This is an emergency. To anyone who’s listening, I need your help.”

Something bangs inside the engine. The Mustang bucks,
yanking
the wheel from my fingertips. I drop the microphone and hold on. My foot is jammed hard on the accelerator pedal but the cruiser is slowing, losing power. Another metallic thud sounds and the dashboard lights go out. Unbelievably, the Mustang rolls to a stop—dead, killed by one of Hendry’s lucky bullets—less than a quarter mile from Meeks and my abductors who, according to the rearview mirror, have seen the Mustang die and are now sprinting my way.

Waiting for them to catch up would be like signing my own death warrant. I have no choice but to abandon the car and run, feet pounding against the sparkling roadway. Adrenaline spurting as I head down the gradient at a pace.

Behind me someone hollers “
Stop!”
and something too small to see skips past me on the pavement, followed a second later by a whip-cracking gunshot. Out here on the highway I’m a sitting duck, I realize, and certainly no match for two guns and three angry pursuers.

Without slowing, I switch tack, aiming for the woods sloping downhill toward town. Something shrills past my face, cutting me off. Another bullet, followed by another crack of the whip. The tiny projectile
thunks
into a tree at the side of the road, splintering wood. I skid to a stop, then dart the opposite way, cutting across the pavement and hurdling the three-foot-high ridge of plowed snow on the other side road.

Despite the full moon, it’s dark in the woods. I don’t let it stop me. I pound on, wading through crisp snow, shielding my face from branches keen to claw out my eyes. It’s the wrong side of the road, heading away from town, but there’s no turning back now. I head uphill, leaving great gouges in the snow as I go. Even at night my footprints are easy to track, but there’s nothing I can do about it. I know that beyond this rise lies the lake. And summer cabins are scattered around its shoreline. At least one of those cabins will have a working radio, or even some crazy trapper hibernating away the winter. If I can reach one of those lake houses, a telephone, or even a hunting rifle, I know I’ll stand a better chance of surviving the night.

As I climb, a memory pushes to the surface. It’s of Luckman visiting me in Duluth, eighteen years ago, as I sat out my pretrial wait from behind bars:

“This isn’t a social visit, duckweed,” he said with such force that his spittle pebbled the glass partition between us. “It’s a warning. You come back to Harper, you die. Simple as that.”

We glared at each other, neither of us giving an inch.

At that point, the St. Louis County Jail had been my home for several long weeks. Orange becoming my least-favorite color. Solitary confinement was keeping me safe, alive, stewing, but it was driving me crazy. My eighteenth birthday had come and gone without celebration. The lawyer, appointed and paid for by Lars
Grossinger
, had already informed me I would be tried as a
juvenile
, but sentenced as an adult. Aside from my Uncle Owen and
Kimberly
Krauss, Jenna’s vitriolic brother was my only oth
er visi
tor.

“I didn’t kill Jenna,” I breathed through tight lips, for the third or fourth time and feeling like a cornered rat.

Luckman’s thin face was puckered, like he could smell something noxious. “Shut the fuck up, Olson. You can lie all you like. You’ve proven you’re good at it. I’m just saying it like it is, is all. Doesn’t matter what you say or how you try to squirm your way out of it. Doesn’t change a thing in my mind. I know the truth. I know what you did to my baby sis.”

“That’s just it—I didn’t do anything. I’m innocent.”

Luckman came close to the glass, his voice low, angry. “Listen, you little piece of shit, I believe you killed my baby sister and that’s all I need to know.”

“But I loved her!”

He snickered. “Get a grip. You don’t even know what love is. You think screwing around with my little sis for a few months makes you an expert? She couldn’t stand you, duckweed. All she spoke about was how the sight of you sickened her.”

Now it was my turn to be drawn to the glass. “You’re a liar!”

His snicker ballooned into a smirk. “And you’re a dead man, Olson. Come back to Harper and I’ll take you to pieces.”

Eighteen years later, Luckman’s threat could be moments away from being realized.

I pause to catch my breath, work out the lay of the land. In every direction, black tree columns divide the sloping snowfield into parallel lines of alternating tone. My breathing is hoarse, brow lacquered in cold sweat. I can barely make out the highway a hundred yards downhill. Even less chance of spying anyone following. I strain my ears, listening for the sounds of men crashing through the woods and calling out death threats, but aside from my own panting it’s deathly quiet up here.

I scoop up a handful of snow and pack it against the swelling on my cheek, hold it there until my lungs stop screaming. The cold burns. Then I keep moving upslope, weaving between trees, swiping aside bony branches as I go.

Fifty yards later, a break in the canopy reveals a snowy trail cutting diagonally across my path, glowing in the moonlight.
Overlapping
wheel impressions forming deep runnels. I follow them on heavy legs until I come to a spatter of elongated footprints climbing into the woods on the opposite side. Then I retrace my own boot imprints from earlier in the day, repeating the steps Krauss and I both took to Hangman Falls.

Chapter Twenty-One

W
hen we were kids we made these woods our own. We carved out tracks from one feature to the next, drawing our own adventure map and redefining the landscape to suit our play. Hangman Falls was at the center of this imaginary realm. A sixty-foot plunge of thundering water, fed by the lake over the hill. To aid our world domination we cleared away loose rubble and tangled undergrowth from the shattered rocks shouldering the falls, creating primitive steps to the top.

I slow to a walk before I get there, stomach knotted, lungs
aching
.

A circular patch of disturbed soil marks my mother’s grave.

In the moonlight I can see the snow is flattened and muddied around it, refrozen. Small piles of black soil where the Sheriff’s Office has dug deeper, searching for clues.

While we frolicked in the falls, splashing and laughing on lazy summer days, she was here the whole time, a few feet underground, being invaded by roots and turning to dust.

Back then, I never felt her watching me. But I do now.

Darkness churns within me.

The makeshift steps are overgrown and clogged with snow. I haul myself up, grabbing handfuls of woody shrub in my manacled hands. My gloves are sodden, fingers numb. Barely a few feet to the side, the frozen waterfall drops into a black abyss, treacherous, seemingly bottomless. One misstep and it will be game over. I focus on the ascent, leaving the ghost of my mother behind. Then I’m clambering out into the shallower gully that connects The Falls to the lake, trudging through knee-deep snow, through thinning trees, lungs laboring as the picturesque view of rolling woodlands opens up as far as the eye can see.

Everywhere is still, silent. Gleaming ghostly in the moonlight.

I check my phone. One fluctuating bar on the signal meter. I try Krauss’s number. It tries to connect, then drops out. With rubbery fingers I type in a short text, press
Send
, and then copy it to Lars’s number. I have no idea if either text will get through.

Pristine snow slopes through a quarter mile to a flat white oval in the distance. The lake is completely iced over and coated in snow, the far side butted up against petrified woodlands that stretch all the way into Canada. A dozen cabins are dotted around this frozen shoreline, I know, but even in the moonlight it’s impossible to pick out individual dwellings unless they are internally lit. Luckily for me one of them is; faint lights barely visible, off to my right.

I go for it. But wading through snow is exhausting, and by the time I reach the cabin my legs are sluggish, energy almost spent. The threat of hypothermia knocking at my door. I trudge my way around front, glance up to see a large hand-painted sign hung over the doorway. Black letters against a white background:

Krauss Outfitters

A renewed rush of hot hope fizzes through me.

This is Chief Krauss’s place, I realize—home to Grizzly Adams and a two-way radio.

I hammer frozen hands against the door. “Chief, open up! It’s Jake Olson. Chief! I need your help!”

With a creak, the door opens to reveal a male figure framed in yellow light.

“Glad you could finally make it,” he says.

But it isn’t Chief Krauss. And the air goes out of my lungs.

“Meeks? You’ve got to be kidding me.”

He smiles a smile that is anything but welcoming. “Who were
you expecting, Santa Claus?” Then he steps back,
showing
the
firearm
he’s holding at hip level. “For a moment there we were think
ing a bear had beaten us to it. We got the truck out,” he adds in response to my stunned expression. “Won’t you come in? Don’t be shy. I promise the party hasn’t started without you.”

For a second I contemplate running. But I know I won’t get very far before Meeks puts a hole in the back of my head. What I need to do is buy myself some time, keep him talking, engaged, hope that my text reaches its destination and Krauss comes to my rescue.

The inside of the cabin has been remodeled into a single cavernous room, lined with stock-filled shelves and racks of equipment. A wooden counter stands to the side, with a cash register at one end. Several colorful kayaks are suspended on wires from the rafters, together with crisscrossing paddles. A ladder at the back leads to the loft space where Krauss’s dad calls home. Luckman and Hendry are loitering either side of a stuffed brown bear raised up on its hind legs. Hendry is sporting a big jagged blade and Luckman is
holding
the tire iron.

“How’d you know I’d come here?”

Meeks closes the door behind us. “Law of averages. Plus, you’re not exactly the unpredictable type. The route you took only goes one way. Doesn’t take a genius to figure out you’d head for the
nearest
cabin with signs of occupancy.”

“This is the chief’s place.”

“I’m the chief.”

“Whatever floats your boat, Meeks. You know what I mean. So where is he? He was never a fan of mine but he wouldn’t subscribe to pack mentality.”

Luckman takes a menacing step forward. “Who gives a fuck where he’s at? This is none of his business.”

“We’re in his cabin. I’d say you’ve just made it his business. And knowing the chief, he won’t be happy about it.”

Luckman raises the tire iron above his head.

I don’t even flinch. He won’t take me by surprise this time.

“Hold it,” Meeks intervenes. “He’s right. Maybe we should do this someplace else.”

“Yeah? Like where?” Luckman’s eager to meter out eighteen years of revenge and won’t be talked down easily.

“Preferably someplace we won’t leave trace evidence.”

“So we’ll burn the place down when we’re done.”

It makes sense and I can see Meeks knows it.

“Got my vote,” Hendry speaks up. “I say we slice and dice him right here.” He takes a step toward me, brandishing the blade.

I raise my manacled hands. “Wait. Just wait a second and hear me out. I phoned Kim from the top of the ridge. She’s on her way here, right now. She knows everything. Don’t make this any worse than it already is.”

But Meeks just laughs and pushes me forcibly to the middle of the room. “Nice try, Olson. Pity for you I know there’s no cell reception out here in the wintertime. Which means no one’s
rushing
to your rescue.” With the gun aimed at my face he forces me to my knees.

Then the three of them surround me like schoolyard bullies.

“You’re making a big mistake. All of you. I can prove I didn’t kill Jenna. The killer’s a member of Six Pack.”

Meeks pushes me down with the toe of his boot. “Six Pack doesn’t exist anymore.”

“Just speak with Ruby Dickinson. She’ll confirm I’m telling the truth.”

“Ruby’s dead.”

I look up at Meeks, unable to hide my surprise.

“We received a nine-one-one earlier this evening. I went over there myself, right before I came out here. She overdosed—or at least that’s what somebody wanted us to believe. I found a used syringe in her hand. The plunger wasn’t fully down. I could see there were no traces of any chemicals in the needle. Ask me and I’d say someone shot her full of fresh air. So where’d you go, Olson, after you left the station with Kim?”

I went back to the house he shares with the woman he’d planned to marry, made love to her in a bed that was once his. It’s an airtight alibi, the best, but how do I tell the town bully I slept with his girl without incurring his wrath and a bullet in the head?

“He was at your place.” Luckman spits it out before I can compose an alternate story. “We followed them from the station. Waited down the street for over two hours before duckweed here came out. The lights were on and the drapes open the whole time. They spent most of it in the bedroom.”

Something like a red mist descends over Meeks’s face.

He doesn’t ask me if I slept with Krauss; he doesn’t need to, my cheeks are burning like hot coals.

“You son of a bitch!” He swings the gun and cuffs me on the side of the head. Electric pain flashes through my brain, vision spangling.

Luckman joins in and plants a boot in my stomach. The blow folds me in half and ignites flames in my lungs. He drops to his haunches, grabs me by the hair, and yanks my head back to face him.

“You know something, you weren’t always number one on my hit list. There was a time I thought that dipshit brother of yours killed Jenna.”

“Aaron?” It comes out a gasp. The thought is as alien to me as trying to think in Japanese.

For a moment I am catapulted back to The Falls, against my will, immersed in the dream sequence where I am standing at the rim of the ravine, with blood draining from my hands, heart
beating
so hard it hurts. Aaron is the least aggressive person I have ever known, but his competitive nature meant he never stood down from a challenge. When I lacked the balls to thwart my bullies, he stood strong on my behalf, and yet he never once landed a blow on my account. Aaron was solidly built, athletic, and could wear an unfathomable poker face. To get the job done, all it took was the promise of a swift and overwhelming response and my bully always backed down.

But Aaron isn’t here now and I have three to contend with.

Luckman’s breath is putrid against my face. “Yeah, he dropped off the radar round about the same time my sis disappeared. Weird, don’t you think? At first I thought they’d eloped or something. My sister and your dipshit brother, having a secret affair. How about that, Shane?”

Meeks grunts something unintelligible. He is pissed with me for being in his home, for being with Kim. He’s unable to compute the notion of Aaron being with Jenna, the same way he could never come to grips with the fact she was with me.

“But I guess if Olson’s dipshit brother did have eyes for Jenna you’d have known about it. Right, Shane?”

“He didn’t.” Meeks’s tone is flat. He’s seething, roping it in and then playing it out in his head: me and Krauss, in his home, his bed.
Bastard.
“Let it go. Aaron was never a person of interest. We all know which piece of shit killed your sister.”

Luckman’s mouth turns down at the edges, his eyes dark with hate. He forces the tire iron under my chin. “So why’d you do it, duckweed? Why’d you kill my baby sister?”

I press against his resistance. “Why don’t you ask your friend here the same question? We all know Meeks had a hard-on for Jenna. He was the jealous one. Don’t tell me you didn’t see it.”

Suddenly, Meeks looks like he’s got a mouthful of boiling water. “Zip it, Olson.”

The pressure on the tire iron slackens off a little and I push home my advantage. “Listen to me, Luckman. Your sister confided in me. She told me she was scared to be alone with Meeks. She told me he tried groping her one night, when you were drunk and out of it. She had to fight him off.”

“That’s bullshit,” Meeks growls.

“What’s he talking about?”

“He’s trying to deflect, buy himself time.”

I push against the tire iron. “She showed me the bruises.”

Meeks leans in and slugs me on the jaw. “Shut the hell up!”

Pain crackles and teeth clash.

Meeks recoils, shaking his fist. “You hard-headed son of a bitch!”

I spit out blood, unmoving; I’ve been hit harder. “Why do you think he was so eager to pin her death on me? This all happened the day before she disappeared. Your best friend here roughed her up. She came to me crying, told me she was afraid of him, that she was in fear for her life. We had an argument about it in school. I wanted her to go to the cops, but she wouldn’t. She said Meeks was the cops and he’d make her pay with her life if she told anyone. So go ahead, Luckman, ask him where he was the night Jenna disappeared. I guess if he couldn’t have her, no one would. Isn’t that right, Meeks?”

Stunned silence fills the cabin.

Then Meeks steps forward and aims his firearm at my face. “That’s enough of your bullshit, Olson. It’s lights out for you.”

For a split second reality drops a gear and falls into slow motion. The whole of my universe revolves around the black hole in the muzzle of Meeks’s gun. It dominates the scene, in sharp detail, inches from my face, with everything behind it out of focus:
Luckman
at one side, doubting eyes directed at Meeks; Hendry on the other, keen to see Meeks blow my head off; and something else, something small and silvery, streaking across the room from the direction of the doorway, blurred by speed. Blink and I will miss it. So I don’t blink. I watch the metallic object slice through the scene. It moves in a slight arc, toppling end-over-end, soundlessly, toward Meeks’s livid face. I see it connect with the side of his neck, just beneath the ear. I see half of it disappear into his neck. Then the black hole in my vision shifts position. It migrates north, elevated as Meeks tips back on his heels. Lightning bursts from the barrel and thunder booms. I feel my hair part, heat scorch, ears ring, knowing I have escaped death by a whisker. But I am too busy watching his face, Meeks’s blood-red face, mesmerized by unfolding events, as his bitter eyes roll up in their sockets like barrels in a slot machine.

Luckman and Hendry are slow to react: Luckman is still trying to grapple with the thought of his best friend harming his sister; Hendry is looking on, jaw slowly dropping as realization dawns. Meeks continues to tilt backward, stiff as a toppling statue. Briefly, his balance is in perfect equilibrium. Nothing moves. Then he crashes to the canvas like a KO’d boxer, and his gun goes skittering across the planking. An arc of frothy blood squirts from his
ruptured
jugular, spraying across Hendry’s stricken face. Luckman is now looking past him, disbelieving eyes picking out the man hulking near the doorway at the back of the room: he’s a bald
African
American as big as a bear, bigger, with both arms pulled back, as if ready to pitch two baseballs, simultaneously, imminently.

Then reality snatches up a gear and everything kicks into real time.

If Luckman or Hendry intend to fight or flee they are given no time to do either. They hesitate, which is always the worst move in any dire situation. The giant near the doorway doesn’t. He pitches. Both arms snap forward like highly sprung catapults and two identical slivers of metal cartwheel through the air, hitting their
targets
with military precision. Luckman and Hendry collapse under
controlled
demolition, joining Meeks on the floor. The aim is
perfect
. The strikes swift and fatal.