The Burning Man (16 page)

Where the hell was he?

When she got to the ticket booth, he pretended to study the timetable on the wall beside the doorway, but each passing second was excruciating. The more time that passed without him coming through the doorway, the more nervous she became. Eventually, she was compelled to check back out on the platform.

He wasn’t there.

He couldn’t have gone past without her seeing him. There was only one other way he could have gone. Up across the bridge, and onto the other side.

He’d gone after Kieran and Rachel.

She sprinted across the platform and jumped down onto the tracks, bypassing the other platform and running straight for the parking lot.

She had to get to them first.

Kieran had a protective arm around Rachel as he unlocked the passenger side of the car.

It struck him how absurd it had been to lock the door, what with the back window missing.

“She’s gonna be fine,” he said, wishing he believed it himself.

“What about us?” Rachel asked.

Kieran didn’t have an answer for that.

“Let’s go,” he said instead, opening the door and gesturing for her to get in.

She did as she was told. Kieran shut the door and walked around to the driver’s side. He was sick with worry about Olivia. The fact that she was much tougher than he was didn’t stop him from feeling this primal caveman urge to protect her—at all cost. It didn’t feel right to let her go off alone.

But at the same time, Rachel needed him, too, and he had promised to look out for her. If he couldn’t protect Olivia, he could still protect her sister.

He opened the driver’s side door and got in behind the wheel. He was about to shut the door when the one-armed cop stepped out of nowhere and pushed in between the door and the frame, stopping it from closing.

He jammed a gun up under Kieran’s chin.

“Get out,” he said.

Rachel let out a breathless shriek, pressing herself against the passenger door and balling her body up on the seat, with her knees pulled up under her chin. Her eyes were huge in her pale face.

“Run, Rachel!” Kieran cried, twisting his body to keep it between Rachel and the gunman.

“Stay right where you are, Rachel,” the cop said. “Unless you want to wear your buddy’s brains.”

“Please,” Kieran said, his heart thumping erratically inside the prison of his ribs. “Do whatever you want to me, but let her go. She’s just a kid.”

But the man wasn’t listening.

“Are you getting out, or am I throwing you out?”

“Don’t,” he said. “Please...”

The cop used the metal hook then, to grab Kieran’s shirt, and brought the butt of the pistol down on the bridge of his still-healing nose. Pain exploded in his head.

When Olivia reached the parking lot, she found the car gone, and Kieran lying on the tarmac with a pool of blood around his head.

“Oh,
god
,” she said, running to his side. “Kieran, where’s Rachel?”

“Olivia...?” His eyelids fluttered. “I...”

He rolled on his side and started vomiting.

“Kieran,” she said, hand on his lower back and pushing his hair out his face. “You have to tell me what happened.
Where is Rachel
?”

“She...” Kieran looked up at Olivia, his eyes unfocused and bile dripping from his chin. “I don’t know. I don’t remember. Where’s my car?”

Olivia felt like screaming. She’d read about people who experienced concussion, then lost the immediate past in traumatic amnesia. But for it to happen
now...

She gathered him up into her arms, aching with fury and frustration. That’s when she noticed the note.

There was a folded sheet of yellow paper sticking out of Kieran’s left coat pocket. It hadn’t been there before—when she left him and Rachel on the bridge. She was sure of it.

She pulled the note out of his pocket and unfolded it.

Dearest Demon Olivia,

Meet me at the place where we first met. The place where you shot your stepfather, and burned away my arm. Rachel and I will be waiting for you.

Do not call the police. Do not bring anyone else with you. Do not try anything stupid.

You have forty-eight hours to get there. That’s forty-eight hours before I start hurting your little sister in ways that will only leave scars on the inside. Forty-eight hours to trade your life for hers.

Love always,

Tony

For a moment, all Olivia could do was stare at the note in stunned disbelief. Understanding dawned within her.

This guy was the same cop who’d had a nervous breakdown at the scene of the fire, and taken wild potshots at her, spouting some kind of nonsense about demons. He’d been institutionalized after that incident, and she’d assumed he’d never be allowed to go free.

At first she’d been hung up on failing to kill Randall, and then her mother’s subsequent deterioration. So she never really gave the crazy cop a second thought.

But he’d obviously been thinking about her.

Why did he think she was responsible for what happened to his arm? She had no idea what had caused his injury.

When she looked up from the awful note, she saw Mrs. Gilbert and her goons on the far side of the lot. They were looking around, but didn’t seem to have noticed her. In another second, though, she would be spotted. She didn’t want to leave poor Kieran—not in the state he was in—but she couldn’t let herself be caught.

Rachel needed her.

“Kieran,” she said, clutching his hand. “Listen to me. Mrs. G. will find you and take care of your injuries, but I have to go. I have to save Rachel.”

“I’m going with you,” Kieran protested, struggling to stand but unable to do so.

“No,” Olivia said, gently laying him back down on the tarmac. “I have to go alone. If you want to help me, count to ten and then call for Mrs. G, okay?”

“Wait...” he said, but she didn’t wait to hear the rest.

She ducked behind a white minivan and waited to see if Kieran would do what she asked. By the time she’d counted to nine, she heard his voice.

“Mrs. Gilbert!” he called out weakly. “Help me!”

Olivia waited another few seconds for Mrs. G to respond. When she peered around the rear bumper of the van and saw the woman and her security guys running to Kieran, she headed the opposite way, up toward the street.

* * *

There was a middle-aged woman in a green square-back pulling up in front of a liquor store across the street. She had a strange, spiky, bleached hairstyle that didn’t seem to go with her soccer mom duds and frumpy beige coat. She got out of the car and went in to the store, leaving the engine running.

Olivia didn’t hesitate. She dashed across the street, causing an oncoming pick-up truck to stomp on the breaks, horn blaring. When she reached the square-back, she ducked down and got in behind the wheel.

She had just started driver’s education classes, and didn’t have her learner’s permit yet. She’d never operated a motor vehicle outside of the school parking lot. The interior of the car was laid out differently than the practice vehicle they’d been using in her classes.

But there was no time for hesitation. If she started thinking about all the traffic on the street—the pedestrians and other obstacles she’d need to navigate—she’d be paralyzed with self-doubt. She needed to think of Rachel, and nothing else.

The gearshift and the gas pedal were both pretty much in the same place as usual. So she pushed down the brake, and then carefully moved the gearshift from P to D. Her heart was pounding as she cautiously pressed down on the gas pedal.

The car leapt forward, and banged into the SUV parked in front of her.

Her heart was racing, cold sweat gathering under the collar of her coat. She cast an anxious glance back at the door to the liquor store, and shoved the gearshift to R, cranking the wheel and pressing the gas.

She must have turned the wheel the wrong way, because the back end of the car swung out toward the street and dented the left corner of the bumper on the Skylark behind her.

As she lifted her foot off the accelerator, she heard a shout.

The woman with the spiky hair came running out of the store with a carton of cigarettes, shaking her fist and swearing. She came running toward the car, and Olivia slammed the gearshift back into drive. Then she punched the gas.

There was a terrible squealing sound as she scraped the whole right side of the car against the rear corner of the SUV in front of her, taking off the passenger side mirror and several coats of paint in the process.

Miraculously, there was a lull in the traffic, and Olivia was able to pull out into the street without hitting or being hit by any other cars. She knew she was going way too fast, but couldn’t seem to make her foot ease off the gas. Her senses all felt cranked up to eleven, her eyes darting all over the road, hyper vigilant and terrified.

She followed the same street for several minutes, afraid to try and make any turns, but eventually she realized that she couldn’t just drive in a wild panic, with no direction or plan. She needed to pull over, figure out where she was going, and how she was going to get to Jacksonville. Driving a banged-up stolen car all the way to Florida wouldn’t be a great idea, even if she was an experienced driver.

Without Kieran and his credit cards, she didn’t have enough money for a plane ticket. She was feeling gun-shy about taking the train, and couldn’t risk trying to hitchhike, so that only left one other option.

She had to find a bus station. It was far from ideal, but it was her only hope of making it to Jacksonville in forty-eight hours or less.

Tony didn’t know if he really needed to hog-tie the little sister or not, since she’d been pretty much paralyzed with fear since he’d pistol-whipped that geeky loser back in the train station parking lot, and taken his car. Still, he figured it was best to be on the safe side.

He pulled around behind an old warehouse and turned to the shivering and terrified girl.

“You try anything funny, and I’ll cut your eyes out,” he said. “Do you believe me?”

The girl nodded, keeping her face turned away toward the window, her body curled into a trembling C shape.

He got out of the car and scanned the weedy lot. There was no one around. It was bordered by two-story buildings on two sides, and a windowless, graffitied flank of an adult bookshop. No security cameras.

Perfect.

He popped the trunk and walked around to the back of the car. It was empty—nothing but a set of jumper cables, a flashlight, and a blue plastic tarp.

Walking to the passenger side, he pulled open the door and grabbed the girl by her fuzzy pink jacket. She let out a little animal whimper and stumbled against the car as he marched her around to the open trunk.

“Get in,” he said, shoving her toward the opening.

Her eyes went huge, head whipping back and forth in a wordless negative as she tried to squirm away. He cracked her in the temple with his prosthetic arm, knocking her stupid, but not completely out. She slumped against him, head lolling, and he caught her with his good arm before she could slide down to the concrete.

He shoved her upper body into the trunk, and then lifted her legs and tossed them in after it.

He’d brought along a small roll of duct tape for just such an occasion. He used it to bind her skinny little ankles and wrists. Then he bent her legs at the knees and fastened her ankles to her wrists. Lastly, he tore off a strip with his teeth and slapped it over her mouth.

She was just starting to get her wits about her again, twisting her head from side to side and moaning behind the tape gag. As he watched her become aware of her predicament, it occurred to him that he could just kill her, and not have to worry about the practical challenges posed by transporting an underage hostage across state lines.

But he was worried about what Olivia might do if she came into the old house and didn’t see her sister there. Not only that, but he had this strange feeling of pride in being a man of his word. He was on the side of good, and Olivia was pure evil. It was as if they were destined to meet in this way, and any deviation from the plan would result in disaster.

He closed the trunk, ignoring the scuffle and thumps coming from the interior, and walked back around to the driver’s side.

As he got in behind the wheel, he was already making plans for getting rid of this car and procuring a new one. Something nice and roomy for the long haul. Preferably with an intact rear windshield.

If he didn’t sleep, they could be in Jacksonville by tomorrow morning. Then, all he would have to do is wait.

* * *

Olivia sat on a Greyhound bus, leaning against the window and watching the bare, leafless trees go whizzing by. The ride was long and dull, and she had nothing to do but think.

She felt simultaneously keyed up and utterly exhausted, and had absolutely no idea what she was going to do when she got to the old house. She wanted to try to come up with some clever plan, but couldn’t seem to focus. Instead, she kept running awful scenarios in her head of what might be happening to Rachel.

If anything bad happened to her sister, she didn’t think she would ever be able to forgive herself.

She was also terribly worried about Kieran. She wanted desperately to call him and make sure that he was okay, but another part of her felt that she should distance herself from him right now. That being close to her was clearly dangerous, and he was better off staying as far away from her as possible.

Again and again, she found herself wishing that she were older. She already felt like an adult, and had for some time, but while she had shouldered many adult responsibilities in her young life, she didn’t have any of the privileges and freedom given to most adults.

Most significantly, the privilege to purchase a rifle without parental permission.

If only she could find a way to get her hands on one, she had a perfect plan. She could hide across the street from the old house and wait for that one-armed bastard to show his face, so she could put a bullet between his eyes.