Cassie Dewell 01 - Badlands

by C. J. Box

  Davis threw his head back and moaned, “Oh, man.”

  As the three of them thought about what had happened in silence, another deputy rolled up.

  Kirkbride noticed the late-arriving officer and his eyes narrowed in anger.

  When Lance Foster climbed out of his Yukon, Kirkbride said, “Nice you could make it, Surfer Dude. Too bad the party’s over.”

  Foster held up his hands, palms up, and shrugged before joining the rest of the deputies.

  * * *

  SEVERAL HOURS later, the all-clear was given by the railroad emergency team. The engine had been decoupled and the full tanker cars were being towed back to the distant yard. Firemen and emergency personnel were monitoring the long process and company track engineers were assembling temporary rails at the front to remove the damaged engine.

  Cassie watched as Sheriff Kirkbride was inundated with calls from county, state, and federal officials as well as the press. She felt sorry for him. Oil train derailments were obviously a hot-button issue, and the fact that it had apparently been caused by one of his employees made the explanation even more difficult. When asked what had motivated Cam Tollefsen to do what he did, Kirkbride said it was under investigation.

  She said to Davis, “There’s nothing we can do here. Let’s go find that boy on the bike.”

  “I think we should go back to Willie’s place first,” Davis said, putting the SUV in gear.

  Cassie said, “You’ve forgotten I’m the chief investigator here.”

  Davis blanched. He said, “You know what, I did. I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”

  “Happens a lot around here,” Cassie snapped. Then said, “Okay, let’s drive out and roust Willie first. We’re pretty sure he’s in the middle of this and if he isn’t he might know who is. But on the way out there I want to run my theory by you and I want your honest take on it. Deal?”

  Davis nodded. He said, “Really, I’m sorry. I was out of line.”

  “You were.”

  “I guess with all the shit that’s been going on around here I—”

  “Quit digging and drive,” Cassie said, fighting back a smile. “And quit saying you’re sorry.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  ALTHOUGH HE’D nearly been hit on Main Street by the sheriff’s department SUV with its lights and sirens going as well as a company pickup truck that pulled off the road to let the emergency vehicles by, Kyle didn’t slow down or look side to side as he weaved his bike in and out of traffic. The sirens and the scream of tires and air brakes couldn’t penetrate his mission to catch up with the pickup truck with his mom inside.

  He got glimpses of it in traffic ahead of him as he rode but it was still about a mile ahead. The pickup was hard to keep track of because of all the cop cars racing north on the road and all the trucks and other vehicles pulling to the side to let them pass.

  The nightmare vision that hung out there ahead of him was of his mom’s face appearing suddenly in the back window of a pickup and the splash of blood across the glass before her head was shoved back down out of view. It was like she spit the blood out on the glass. There was a look of pure terror in her eyes but also recognition: she’d seen him and he’d seen her and it was almost as if she’d cried out, Kyle.

  His tears froze into rivulets on his face as he rode. Every time he saw that the pickup with his mom in it had pulled over again and he thought he could catch it, it moved again and rejoined the flow of traffic. The men inside didn’t seem to realize he was trying to follow them. But despite the number of stops and starts, the pickup pulled too far ahead. The snow and ice on the shoulder of the road slowed him down, and twice he had to brake to a complete stop to let another car pull off the road as cars and trucks with flashers went by. He couldn’t keep up with the pickup with his mom in it. Eventually, he saw it more than a mile ahead, topping the rise before vanishing down the other side.

  He’d never seen her so scared before, and it was almost too much for him to even understand. She’d looked like a little girl, as young as him, a horrified little girl who happened to be his mom. He couldn’t sort it out and he didn’t know if he ever would or if that vision of her would stay in front of his face for the rest of his life.

  When he thought that maybe that would be it, that he would never even see her again, ever, and that his last glimpse of her was of a scared little girl spitting blood on the glass …

  Kyle opened his mouth and roared. His cry came out high-pitched and it cracked in the middle, but it sounded to him like he was a wounded animal.

  Because he was.

  * * *

  DRENCHED IN sweat, Kyle pulled out of the traffic on Main Street into the ditch and rode back toward town. He’d never catch the silver pickup and he didn’t know where it had gone.

  The thoughts racing through his head made him reckless and manic and he rode down the middle of the snow-packed streets and let cars and truck get out of his way. Someone yelled at him, called him a “peckerhead.”

  He rode through a gap in a chain-link fence that ran along the length of the service road, across the parking lot of the Work Wearhouse, down a snow-clogged alley made nearly impassable due to frozen ruts.

  He decided to tell Grandma Lottie because he didn’t know who else to tell. Maybe Raheem, he thought. Maybe Raheem’s dad would know what to do.

  When he roared a second time it sounded weaker. He couldn’t feel his limbs, even though he could still move them. Kyle realized he’d worked up such a sweat and it was so cold that he was in the process of freezing to death. The only way to stay alive was to keep riding, keep his blood pumping, keep sweating.

  And within a few minutes, he found himself back on his block.

  The van he’d seen T-Lock driving was backing out of the driveway.

  “Hey!” Kyle yelled.

  Kyle saw a flash of brake lights in the street, and T-Lock drove away.

  Kyle wondered what he’d been doing there, and if he had any idea what had happened to his mom.

  * * *

  HE WAS so cold when he coasted to a stop on the side of the house that he couldn’t work the hand brake and the front tire of his bike thumped into the washing machine. Kyle stiffly dismounted and trudged up the steps to the back door, praying it had been left unlocked because he didn’t want to take the time to dig through his pockets beneath his coat for the key his mom had given him. It was locked.

  Kyle moaned against the cold and fumbled with the key as it stuck to his frozen fingers, but he finally managed to slip it into the knob and turn it and he was inside.

  Once inside he paced, flexing his fingers to get the blood flowing again. He tried to figure out what to do to save his mom. He wished T-Lock would come back but at the same time he didn’t.

  So Kyle plucked the telephone off the stand and dialed 911.

  “Emergency operator,” a woman’s voice said. “If you’re calling about the train accident we’re well aware of it and we’re in the process of sending emergency teams—”

  Kyle said, “There’s a lady—okay, she’s my mom—well, she’s being held prisoner in a pickup truck.”

  “Can you please slow down and enunciate?” the dispatcher said, drawing the last word out. She sounded annoyed.

  “My mom,” he croaked.

  “Please identify yourself, sir.”

  “This is Kyle. Some guys—three guys—grabbed my mom and put her in a truck outside McDonald’s and drove her away. Her face was bloody—”

  “Sir,” she interrupted, “I’m sorry but I can’t understand a word you’re saying. Now maybe if you slowed down.”

  “My mom. Three men grabbed my mom.” He hated that his voice cracked with emotion as he spoke.

  “Sir, have you been drinking?”

  “No!”

  She must have understood, because she said, “Look, sir, I need you to do something for me right now. I need you to hang up and call back later when you sober up and can make some sense. The whole town is in an e
mergency right now, and we need to clear the lines.”

  “You aren’t going to help me?” he asked.

  Kyle stood there for a moment, gasping. Then he slammed the phone down on the counter so hard the 1 and the 7 keys popped off the receiver.

  * * *

  KYLE CRIED out loud in the hot shower. As his limbs and trunk warmed under the harsh stream of water, he ached all over as he thawed out. He sobbed and was grateful the hiss of the water drowned out the horrible sounds.

  Why couldn’t the 911 lady understand him? How could he save his mom?

  * * *

  HE DRESSED in dry clothes—jeans, thick socks, T-shirt, hoodie—and walked through the house. He wondered what T-Lock had done and why he’d been there. He hoped T-Lock had left for good but the man’s clothes were still in the closet in his mom’s room, and there was a huge pile of them on the closet floor, along with his work boots and cowboy boots. T-Lock’s razor and his hair products were still in the bathroom. So he was likely coming back, Kyle decided.

  As he went through the kitchen back to his bedroom for his coat and boots, he saw a cop car cruise slowly down the alley and stop in back of his house. It was one of the SUVs like the one that had nearly hit him on the road a half hour before. The driver’s door opened. Kyle stepped back from the window so he couldn’t be seen by the cop who climbed out. The cop pulled on a pair of thick gloves and tugged on the bill of a green woolen hat with the sheriff’s department logo on the front.

  At first, Kyle thought the cop had arrived because of his 911 call. Then he recognized the cop as the one who had arrived second at the scene of the rollover car wreck—the younger one. He was by himself and he didn’t march up to the back door like Kyle suspected he would. Instead, the cop was peering around, as if checking to see if anyone was looking out their window at him.

  The cop approached the house cautiously with his right hand on the grip of his holstered pistol. Kyle thought maybe he was looking for T-Lock.

  But instead of walking straight toward the back door, the cop hesitated when he saw something that interested him on the side of the house. Again, he paused and looked all around before changing his route. Then he walked out of Kyle’s view.

  Kyle padded into his mom’s bedroom. The window that overlooked the side of the house was frosted with ice, but Kyle could make out the dark form of the cop as he passed by it and then came back. He was interested in something just below Kyle’s view.

  When the cop bent over, Kyle approached the window, ready to duck and run if the man looked up.

  The cop was hunched over in front of Kyle’s bike. Through a three-inch oval in the center of the window that was not obscured by frost, Kyle could see the man remove something blocky and white from his parka pocket and place it on the front tire of the bike. Whatever it was seemed to fit perfectly, and the cop nodded with some kind of inner knowledge and stood up and pocketed the white block. Kyle quickly stepped aside from the window as the cop turned toward it and leaned to the glass. Kyle flattened himself against the wall as the cop cupped his eyes with his hands and peered inside. His breath steamed the window.

  And then he was gone.

  Kyle went over to his mom’s chest of drawers and pulled out the bottom-left drawer. Her small semiautomatic .25 Taurus was there beneath a heap of old sweaters. There was a box of .25 ammunition in there, too. He left the drawer open but didn’t take the gun. If a cop saw him with a gun …

  Kyle thought about the back door and was sure he hadn’t locked it. He started to move that way when he heard the thump of boots on the back stairs.

  Kyle doubled back and ran to his bedroom and rolled under his bed.

  * * *

  “ANYBODY HOME?” the cop called out from the kitchen.

  It was dirty and cold under the bed. Kyle lay still on his belly in the dust motes, the shaft of the arrow in his right hand. There was an old balled-up sock under there and a pair of white briefs he hadn’t seen for months. He clamped his jaws tight to try and prevent his teeth from chattering.

  “Hey, is anyone home? T-Lock, are you here? Gig’s up, man.”

  Kyle heard the cop clomp around. Into his mom’s bedroom, into the bathroom, through the living room. The accordion doors of the laundry closet squeaked open and then shut.

  In a moment he saw the bottom of his own door swing open. Kyle could see the lower half of a big pair of snow-covered boots.

  “Anyone here?”

  Kyle tried not to breathe in. The dust on the floor was thick and he didn’t want to choke or sneeze.

  The cop moved from the door to his closet. Kyle could hear the rustle of clothing as the man shoved his clothes aside. Then he waited for the cop to drop to his hands and knees and find him.

  Kyle gripped so hard on the shaft of the arrow he could barely feel his fingers. He’d aim for an eye.

  “Crap,” the cop said, and turned on his heel and left the bedroom.

  Kyle closed his eyes and breathed in slowly. He could feel his heart beat in his chest.

  The cop strode through his house toward the back door. Kyle heard the chirp of a cell phone and heard the cop say, “Nobody home,” and continue on as he went out the back door.

  He waited for he didn’t know how long. It felt like an hour. Then Kyle slithered out from beneath his bed. He was covered in dust, the front of his clothing white from it. He wiped it off his face.

  When he went into the kitchen he saw that the cop car was gone. But Kyle wondered about the white block the cop had pressed against his bike tire.

  He pulled on his coat and went outside. The cold stung him immediately on his face and hands, but he retraced the steps of the cop to the side of his house.

  His bike was fine, but there was a fine white powder on the black rubber of his tires and within the tread. It made no sense to Kyle and he shook his head.

  Then he noticed something he hadn’t noticed before. Apparently, the cop had missed it, too, or had not realized what it meant.

  The snow was trampled down all around the washing machine, and the layer of snow on top had been disturbed. Someone had been there and had relocated the chain, although it was still locked tight with a heavy padlock.

  T-Lock had told his mom a couple of days before that he’d moved the duffel bag out of the house so it couldn’t be found there. But Kyle knew T-Lock. The man never did anything beyond the bare minimum.

  “Out of the house” could mean “to the side of the house.”

  And T-Lock had been there when Kyle arrived, maybe checking on his stash. Maybe retrieving a little of it for personal use.

  Kyle didn’t have any idea where T-Lock kept his keys or if there was a spare key to the padlock somewhere inside the house. His mom might know, but …

  Tears filled Kyle’s eyes again when he thought of her face through the bloody window, and he stamped his foot out of frustration.

  There were ways to cut through a chain, he knew. Raheem’s dad had a bunch of tools in his garage. Maybe he could borrow some kind of cutter.

  And with the duffel bag back, Kyle could save his mom. After all, he’d found it in the first place.

  * * *

  KYLE RAN up the steps and was halfway through the kitchen when T-Lock reached out and grabbed his arm and said, “What in the fuck were you doing out there, you little shit?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  T-LOCK LOOKED bad, Kyle thought. His eyes were sunken and hollow, and his hair was matted on the side of his head. He sat on a chair near the table but maintained his firm grip on Kyle’s arm. When he leaned in, Kyle could smell cigarette smoke and alcohol. His glassy eyes said something else was working in there, too.

  T-Lock said, “Everything’s gone to shit because I’m surrounded by fuckin’ morons. Why is it everybody I know is a fuckin’ moron? Why is it, Kyle?”

  Kyle shook his head. T-Lock seemed dangerous.

  “All I ask Winkie to do is set up a meeting. I tell him what to say and what to do. I make him
repeat it back to me three times. Then he goes off and just fucking disappears.”

  T-Lock shook his head. “And your mom, man, I know she’s your mom and all, but all she had to do is make change at McDonald’s. I wasn’t asking her to do fucking brain surgery. Just make change. So I go in there a few minutes ago to see her and they tell me she walked off the job. Just walked away! And now she’s gone. Fuck me.”

  T-Lock looked up and his eyes bored into Kyle. He grasped Kyle’s other arm and pulled him closer. “Tell me where she is. She’s got my money, Kyle. I know you know. I can see it in your damned face.”

  Kyle said, “Some men took her outside of McDonald’s. I saw them drive away with her in a truck. Her face was bloody. I chased it but I couldn’t catch it.”

  “Jesus Christ,” T-Lock said, grimacing. “How many men?”

  “I saw three.”

  “Three? Three? Who were they? Were they cops?”

  “No. It was that same truck that was outside of the house this morning.”

  That struck a nerve in T-Lock and he looked away and cursed.

  Kyle tried to wriggle free of T-Lock’s hands but his grip was too tight.

  “I saw those three guys,” T-Lock said. “Two greasers and someone in the back. California plates. I kept going when I saw them. Oh man, oh shit.”

  Kyle heard T-Lock’s cell phone burr from his front jeans pocket.

  “You just stay right here, Kyle. Don’t you fucking move,” T-Lock said as he released Kyle, leaned back, and fished in his pants for his phone. First he removed a ring of keys and tossed them on the top of the table, then came the phone.

  T-Lock stared at the screen but didn’t answer it.

  “It’s her phone,” he said.

  “Aren’t you going to talk to her?” Kyle asked, upset. He thought of his mom holding her phone up to her bloody face. Was she somewhere warm?

  “I gotta think,” T-Lock said, running his free hand through his hair. “If they still have her they’ll want to trade her for my stash. Then I’ll end up with nothing.”