The Dead Run (11 page)

 

CHAPTER 17

K
ids?” Cantwell asked, out of the clear blue. They'd been sitting in the Audi for nineteen minutes by his watch, and she'd been jumpy as a jackrabbit on meth for each and every one. Some people weren't cut out for surveillance. Hell, Nichols would have counted himself among them, until he met her. There was a stupid pun to be made here about doctors and patience, Nichols was pretty sure, and he was a tiny bit proud of himself for leaving it on the table for the last nineteen minutes.

“How many you thinkin'?” he gave back. “Maybe we oughta just start with one, see where things go.”

“I'll take that as a no.”

He slid down in his seat a ways and then back up. “No kids. Not for a lack of trying. My ex-wife had . . . Jesus, I can't believe I forgot the name. I guess it's been that long. PCOS are the initials.”

“Polycystic ovarian syndrome.” Cantwell looked away. “I'm sorry.” Then, after a moment, “It's very common. Did you try—”

“We tried everything. Only thing that worked is divorce.” He forced a smile. “She's very happy now. Found somebody with kids. Kind of a ready-made family.”

“And you?”

Nichols spread his hands, to indicate the glory and fullness of his career. “I have all this. Your turn.”

“No man and no kids. I tend to go for . . . unsuitable guys.”

“Care to elaborate? There's a lotta ways to be unsuitable. You got your lives-at-home-with-his-mom types . . .”

“Ugh. What do you take me for?”

“ . . . your married men . . .”

“No, thanks.”

“ . . . your millionaire playboys . . .”

“Not in South Texas, you don't.”

“Your Billy Badasses . . .”

“That's the one.”

Nichols rolled his eyes. “Don't tell me you try to save 'em.”

“Hold that thought.” Ruth Cantwell wrapped her hand around the Audi's gearshift and eased it into drive.

Nichols angled his head until the passenger-side mirror afforded him the view he wanted and watched a shit-brown sedan corner onto the road, an old-fashioned black fedora pulled low over the driver's face.

He wished, not for the first time, that they'd taken his car. What the roller lacked in surveillance-vehicle subtlety it more than made up for in its ability to force mistakes, suss out guilt from fifty feet back. People saw a cop behind them, they got nervous. Made mistakes, or stopped making them. There was a whole psychology to following a suspect right out in the open, and Nichols considered himself a master of it.

Had to be.

In a real department, there'd have been some undercover cars.

At the very least, he wished Cantwell would let him get behind the wheel. He felt like a goddamn driver's ed teacher—particularly unpleasant since the guy who'd taught it to Nichols was currently serving time for statutory rape.

He reached out and covered her shift hand with his, before she could pull out. “Easy on the throttle, doc. I wanna wait on the bikers. Who knows, maybe you'll even meet your next Billy Badass.”

“Uh-uh. That's our man, right there. Melinda told me about him.”

Nichols squinted at the mirror, trying to buy himself a clearer view. His eyeglasses were sitting in the squad car's glove box. He'd considered grabbing them, and like a damn fool he'd let vanity dissuade him.

“Told you what? And how do you know that's—”

The sedan crept up behind them, and Nichols caught a glimpse of the guy's face as he flew past—quick, but enough to make the question die in his throat.

Hard to tell whether it was a birthmark or a burn scar at that distance—or even vitiligo, the skin disease Michael Jackson claimed was responsible for turning him porcelain. Either way, the man behind the wheel wasn't a guy you mistook for someone else.

The car rabbit-jumped as Cantwell applied the gas. Nichols reached out and threw it back in park before she could steer them onto the blacktop. The engine didn't like that. Neither did Ruth.

Nichols put on his most soothing voice. “Easy, easy. I know this is emotional for you, but we gotta be smart. Count to ten, then pull out slow. Stay as far back as you can without losing him—and that's plenty far, on a road like this. Meantime, you can tell me who the hell he is and what Melinda said.”

Cantwell leaned against the headrest, the effort of sitting still written all over her face. “I don't know his name. Melinda told me about an enormous guy at the compound with half his face burned off. Seth called him the Rod of Correction. A term he stole from Haile Selassie, incidentally.”

“I'll pretend I know who that is.”

“It doesn't matter. The point is, if you stepped out of line in any way—or if Seth wanted you to think you had—this son of a bitch showed up and pointed his finger at you.”

Cantwell eased the rubber onto the road.

“You were supposed to go with him, no questions asked. Sometimes it was an hour, sometimes a whole day. And when you came back, you weren't allowed to talk about it. Melinda never had to go, herself. Or so she claimed. I have my doubts.”

The engine strained beneath them and the RPM needle swung hard, Cantwell goading the Audi into fifth, the Audi much preferring fourth.

“You're accelerating, doc. Take it down a notch.”

She pursed her lips and acquiesced. The RPM needle swung back.

“The Rod of Correction. Bet you can guess what that was.”

Nichols took a beat to think about it, then looked at her, aghast.

“You don't mean—”

“I certainly do.”

“What about the men?”

“The men, too. Rape isn't about sex, Bob. It's about power. Humiliation. Control.”

She closed a fist around the steering wheel. Nichols watched her knuckles whiten and felt a corresponding tightness somewhere in his chest.

The bleat of a cell phone startled them both. “Guess I've finally got service.” Cantwell groped for her jacket, marooned in the backseat, and the Audi swerved momentarily across the double yellow.

The monster in the fedora lifted his head slightly, taking note of the commotion in the rearview mirror.

Great. Just what they needed.

Cantwell found the phone, tapped at it, furrowed her brow at the screen.

“I've got a voice mail from Melinda Richards. Or maybe from Sherry.” She brought the thing to her ear.

For no good reason at all, Nichols thought of Kat: the way she'd always answered her phone with the same chipper
Hello?
as if she had no idea who was calling. As if the name and number displayed on the screen were invisible to her. He'd found it annoying, when they were together. In retrospect, it was charming. Old-timey.

As Cantwell listened, all the color drained from her face. Nichols strained to make out the voice—female, high-pitched—but he could not. Ruth had the phone pressed tight to her head, as if afraid the words might leak out.

And then, abruptly, the message ended, and Ruth let the mobile slip from her hand. It fell to the floor beneath her feet, and for a moment, she was silent. Her face as blank as a department store mannequin's.

“What?” he asked. “Doc, talk to me.”

All at once, Cantwell's face came back into focus—sharper than Nichols had ever seen it, the expression hard, the cheeks aflame. Her foot mashed the gas, and the needles jumped.

The Audi redlined, and the scenery blurred. Goddamn, this thing had pep.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, doc—what the hell are you doing?”

They were coming up on the shit-brown sedan, quicker than seemed possible. Cantwell jerked the wheel. The sports car jagged into the other lane and streaked past.

Would've been a better move if an eighteen-wheeler weren't bearing down on them.

Nichols's protest was drowned out by the truck's foghorn. Cantwell threaded the needle, cut back into her lane with milliseconds to spare. Now it was the shit-brown sedan's turn to honk, the sound gone in an instant as Cantwell piloted them out of earshot, turned their quarry into a distant speck.

“What the fuck is going on?” the sheriff demanded.

Hysteria edged Ruth's voice. “Melinda Richards is dead. Murdered. Sherry's on the run, and I know where. We've gotta get to her first.”

Nichols's head spun, and the speed-blurred world spun with it.

“I'll call for backup,” he heard himself say, and leaned over to scoop up Cantwell's cell. Punched in some numbers. Waited.

It rang.

Nichols cursed his shitty, underfunded department.

It rang some more.

His morbidly obese dispatcher, probably on a midafternoon Arby's run.

It kept ringing. He hung up in disgust.

The needle on the speedometer quivered at one sixty, as if shaking its head in disbelief. Outside his window, all Nichols could see was tan and tan and flashing red and flashing blue.

Uh-oh.

The police cruiser had been hiding in a turnout, parked perpendicular to the road so the cop inside could clock drivers in both directions with his radar gun, a drill Nichols knew all too well. Not that this guy needed any technology to see that Cantwell was breaking the law.

The cruiser pulled out, tires squealing, lights awhirl. Any second now, he'd flip on the siren.

Nichols felt a sense of powerlessness he had not experienced in years.

Cantwell gritted her teeth and kept on burning up the pavement.

“Pull over, Ruth. If you don't, he'll just call for backup. And take you in for resisting arrest.”

She acted like she didn't hear him, so Nichols spoke louder.

“Look, there's no other choice. I've got my badge. We'll make something up and be on our way.”

She relented and flicked her turn signal. Slowed down gradually, responsibly. And there they were again, sitting on the shoulder of the highway.

The cruiser shouldered in behind them, lights still spinning. The heat was coming off Cantwell in waves.

There was nothing they could do but watch as the shit-brown sedan rumbled past.

 

CHAPTER 18

S
herry Richards was somewhere no light could reach, no one could touch, no feelings could penetrate. It was a kind of padded room inside herself, a secret mental chamber she had forged long ago, retreated to before.

It was hidden. It was safe. When you left, all memories of it disappeared, so that you'd never betray its location, never lead anyone there. How she'd found her way back now, Sherry didn't know.

But she wasn't ever going to leave.

Eric's hand encircled her arm. He was speaking. Perspiration danced on his forehead. Sherry looked down, saw her feet moving across a parking lot, heard her flip-flops slapping against her heels, deduced that she was no longer in the car. She couldn't remember where Eric had said they were going, and she didn't care.

A trail. Rocky, winding, steep. She stumbled, lost her footing, stubbed her toe, felt pain. Righted herself, trudged on. Envisioned wandering a vast and timeless wilderness, like the ancient Hebrews in the Book of Genesis: just Sherry and the boundless heavens and the featureless land, one foot trailing the other, no clouds in the sky, no thoughts in her head. Just emptiness, pure and brutal, the days of her life ticking and tocking away until she faded, becoming first a shadow and then disappearing entirely.

Eric's palm pressed against the small of her back, urged speed. Sherry complied. It didn't matter. Nothing did. She stared at the sun and let the brightness invade her, flood in through her eyes and burn her brain away, turn it to a glowing mound of ash. Kept walking.

Then it was dark and cool, the damp air scented with rock and moss and water. Sherry inhaled deep and closed her eyes, watched the sunspots playing on the insides of her lids like a private fireworks display. She let the breath out slow, contemplated whether to take another. Opened her eyes, allowed herself to come into focus, just a little bit.

Sherry looked around, confused. It was as if she'd stepped inside that hidden room—as if that part of herself had been actualized, projected onto the world, made manifest in stone and color. The image of her mother lying in the hallway—lying there like
that—
lurked on the periphery of her consciousness, and Sherry concentrated on keeping it at bay. On toeing the edge of reality, without stepping fully over the threshold.

“I used to come here with my Scout troop,” Eric said, his voice right by her ear, soft and breathy, the cave limning it with reverb. “I'd find a place to hide, and nobody would bother me for hours. I always felt so . . . safe.” He took her by the hand, his warm, hers dead. “Come on, let me show—”

And just like that, they were falling. Tumbling through blackness without end, no bottom visible, no light above. It was over in a second and a half, Eric hitting the ground ten feet below with an
oof
and Sherry coming down atop him, rolling off unharmed.

But that moment of free fall, of plummeting through a seemingly infinite void, was like a lifetime. Or a taste of death. And though it was so quick it had barely happened at all, Sherry was a different person when she clambered to her feet and stared up at the sheer wall they'd stepped off, the weak light trickling through the cavern's mouth above.

She'd learned something about herself.

She didn't want to die.

She didn't want to wander, or fade, or disappear.

She wanted to kill.

All of them.

Every last one of the bastards.

She pulled her father's gun out of her waistband, weighed it in her hand. Wondered what he would do.

He'd make them pay.

Eric's labored breathing echoed through the cavern, and Sherry's head snapped over, the new alertness spreading through her body like heat.

“You okay?” she asked.

“I think I sprained my ankle. Guess I don't remember this place as well as I thought—this isn't the cave I thought it was. Guess that's why the sign said it was off limits.” He stood gingerly and took a couple of steps. “It's not so bad.” But Sherry could see that he was favoring his left leg, putting as little weight on it as he could.

“So what's the plan?” she asked, and heard her voice bounce crisply off the walls.

“Fuck,” Eric muttered, hobbling in a small circle.

“Excuse me?”

“Sorry. Talking to my ankle.” He looked up at her. “The plan is, we hide out here awhile, until things blow over.”

Sherry cocked her head at him. “
Blow over?
Eric, this is never going to blow over. We're talking about murder.” She gestured with the gun and saw his eyes go wide. “I don't
want
it to blow over. I want justice for my mother.”

Eric raised both hands, palms flat. Like a mime inside a box. “Sherry. Put . . . the gun . . . away. Before you make a mistake.”

She scowled at him and jammed it back into her jeans. “Sitting around here isn't going to do us any goddamn good.”

The curse word startled Sherry as it rolled off her tongue; she'd never said it in her life. But what did it matter? Who was left to chide her for taking the Lord's name in vain?

And what the fuck had He done for her, lately?

From the look on Eric's face, he was as taken aback by Sherry's take-charge attitude as she was.

“Is there another way out of here?” she demanded. “Because I don't know how we're going to climb back up that wall. Why'd you ignore the sign, anyway?”

“I dunno, I thought—”

He was interrupted by a low, scratchy voice from above.

“No, Sherry. There's no other way out of there.”

Her heart leapt into her throat, and Sherry looked up to see the enormous, backlit bulk of a man.

A man in a fedora.

Oh no. Oh God. Not him.

“It's lucky for you,” he continued in the same phlegmy, inflectionless tone, “that you're needed alive.”

His hand flashed across his body, withdrew a handgun from the holster strapped around his waist. Waved it in the air so they could see.

“Your little boyfriend there, he's not needed at all. So whether he makes it out of here still breathing depends on whether you're a good girl for me. Do we understand each other, Sherry?”

She was shaking so hard she couldn't speak—much less reach for her own pistol. It was as if all the world's air had been sucked away. As if that monster up there had pulled every last bit into his vacuum-cleaner lungs.

His arm arced through the air, and
thwack
.

A coil of rope landed on the floor of the cavern, inches from Sherry's feet.

She stared down at it, then up at him. Even if she'd wanted to, she couldn't have moved.

“Why don't you come down and get us?” Eric called.

“Nobody's talking to you,” the monster volleyed back. He spread his arms, the gun in one hand and some sort of sack clutched in the other. “Come now, Sherry. Climb on up here like a good girl, and I'll let you talk to your mother.”

As abruptly as it had begun, the shaking stopped. Rage suffused her body, and Sherry went stiff.

“My mother's dead, you son of a bitch.”

A snort of laughter from the monster.

“That doesn't mean you can't talk to her,” he said, and shoved his gun back in its holster.

Then he showed Sherry what was in the bag, and her scream filled the cavern.