Blood Echo

by Rice, Christopher

  When they’d all moved to Altamira, they’d driven her over that back road just up the coast because they said the views were beautiful, but it was barely two lanes wide, made of dirt, and there were no guardrails. The drops to one side were so steep she’d actually started screaming in the back seat and begging them to turn around. She’d always been afraid of heights, ever since she was a little girl and her dad took her on the gondola that traveled up the side of the mountain next to Palm Springs. At least her dad had allowed her to shield her face against his chest. But the men who drove her over that twisting mountain road had only laughed at her tears, joked about how they’d take her over the road on a motorcycle so she could really get a sense of its twists and turns. And she’d been forced to cover her head in the back seat and breathe as deeply as she could, imagining she was someplace else, someplace with level roads and better, kinder men.

  The blindfold clogs her hot tears.

  She’s grateful there’s no gag, because there’s a good chance she might throw up. But if they plan to drop her to her death, maybe choking on her own vomit would be preferable.

  Somehow not seeing what she’s dangling over is worse than seeing. Much worse. She can imagine the drop goes on forever and at any moment she could plunge face-first into the dark, her bound wrists depriving her of even the most desperate of last-minute attempts to break her fall with her arms.

  They think she’s weak.

  Should she be surprised? She’s been a disappointment to everyone. Try as she might, every night before she goes to sleep she sees the expression on her parents’ faces when they realized she was stealing pain pills from her grandmother’s hospice bed. She sees the look on Jordy’s smug, satisfied face every time she came crawling back, begging for forgiveness. Again.

  All her life she’s been weak. Up until recently, she’s only pretended to fight the urge. Only made promises to get her demons under control.

  When they let her go, that will change.

  Now she’ll be strong.

  What other choice does she have?

  It won’t last forever, whatever this torture is. They’re trying to find out what she knows, find out what she told the cops. And she didn’t tell them anything, at least not in the way they assume.

  But this current game will be followed by something worse. Something she might not survive.

  A sense of peace comes over her.

  She realizes, for the first time in her life, that deciding to be strong doesn’t mean you get to decide what you’ll endure and when.

  All her life she’s begged and pleaded and made empty threats to the people who stood in her way. The only way to get through what lies ahead with her dignity intact is to be the opposite of that person. It’s her only advantage. If she transforms herself into a person they don’t recognize, then they won’t know how to control her.

  Silence.

  The word’s always made her feel anxious before. Now it fills her with calm.

  She can still talk, but only to herself.

  Someone will find it, she tells herself. They have to. They’ve got cameras. They’ll find it, and then they’ll know everything. Even if I’m gone by then.

  Just as Lacey Shannon starts to turn these words into a mantra, another rock cracks against the cliff face nearby and begins its long, echoing plummet.

  22

  Luke announced the week before that he was sick of cards, so he and the guys who’ve been gathering at his house every Saturday since Charlotte left have started sampling board games. So far Monopoly’s been the only one to meet with their collective approval, but they’re still hunting for alternates.

  Scattergories and Cards Against Humanity are out. Both made them feel like bougie married couples in the big city who needed giant glasses of merlot to do spit takes with—not four dudes, three with criminal records, brought together just a few months earlier by the world’s strangest hunt for a serial killer.

  When Trev Rucker, a wiry, heavily tattooed former marine sniper, walks through the door of Luke’s house holding up a Battleship box and sporting the most eager smile Luke’s ever seen on the guy, Martin Cahill, the group’s resident father figure, laughs so hard he literally doubles over where he’s standing in the door to Luke’s kitchen. Marty’s laughing a lot easier than he has these past few weeks. Luke’s not surprised. If anyone’s as relieved as he is that Charley’s coming soon, it’s the man who’s always been the closest thing Charley’s had to a real, loving dad.

  Rucker’s good buddy Dave Brasher—who’s already parked in front of Luke’s TV with a root beer and the remote he’s just used to mute an episode of some reality show about truck accidents in the snow—turns his head to see what all the fuss is about. His silent laughter causes his giant body to shake like a sleeping dog trying to slough off flies.

  “What?” Rucker whines.

  “It’s a two-person game, Trev,” Luke says.

  “And you’re a goddamn marine,” Martin manages between cackles.

  “Dishonorably discharged,” Rucker curses as he tosses the game onto the sofa beside Brasher. “And I didn’t serve on a goddamn battleship, all right? Shut up, all of you. What then, charades?”

  Luke takes a seat at the dining room table Charlotte made him buy at a flea market in Paso Robles right before she left. She said the ring marks on the hardwood gave it character. When he started getting antsy before her departure, she made him promise they’d refinish it together once she was back. Make it a project. Something to look forward to. Now that he knows she’s OK, his fingers aren’t sweaty when he runs them over the tabletop. But still, he wants her home.

  “Maybe we don’t need a game to cut the tension tonight,” Luke says.

  Marty takes a seat next to Luke. “I didn’t think we were trying to cut the tension so much as just . . . you know, trying to be friends, given how hard that is for some of us.”

  “I know how to make friends.” Luke gestures at all of them.

  “Learning and knowing are different things,” Marty says.

  “Thanks, Buddha.”

  “More like Oprah.” Brasher rises from the sofa as if it’s the hardest thing he’s ever done, which given his formidable size, it just might be.

  Soon, they’re all seated at the table, no board game or deck of cards between them. A few months earlier, Brasher’s Oprah comment might have been a little more cutting. Maybe something that used words like wuss, or included some more articulate weaponization of the idea that any exchange of feelings between men rendered at least one of them unmanly. Of late, the group’s taste for gendered, if not flat-out sexist, remarks is leaving them. Watching a woman crush a man’s entire hand with one of her own does that.

  Or maybe the guys hear themselves clearly and learn from their mistakes quickly now because they’re always sober. Luke’s not really sure. The guys don’t talk about their recovery much, even though all three of them met in AA, and Luke’s pretty sure Marty’s their mentor, or whatever they call it. Sponsor. Though they never lecture Luke about the occasional beer he drinks in their presence.

  And God knows, Marty’s more than capable of lecturing people when he sets his mind to it.

  “Heard you got into it with Jordy Clements yesterday,” Brasher says.

  “No law enforcement talk at the table,” Martin says.

  “That’s during game play,” Brasher whines. “There’s no game. What are we going to talk about?”

  “Lacey Shannon, any of you know her?” Luke asks.

  “She’s Clements’s girlfriend, I think,” Brasher grumbles. “Seems a little on edge, few times I’ve seen her.”

  “She a drinker? She ever pop into one of your meetings?” Luke asks.

  “Couldn’t tell you if she had,” Marty says. “It’s an anonymous program.”

  “Never seen her at the clubhouse,” Rucker says, then bows his head when he sees Marty’s withering look.

  “Any ideas why Cole Graydon called and told me to let Jordy
go last night after he beat her up?”

  This question—and the news wrapped inside it—settles over the table like a thick blanket, and for the next few seconds, it’s like they’re trying to take deep breaths through it and failing. You could say Charlotte’s the one who brought them all together. Or you could say it’s Marty, since he’s the one who brought Brasher and Rucker into the hunt for the Mask Maker at the eleventh hour. But not really.

  Cole Graydon’s the reason they’re all sitting where they are now.

  Cole’s the reason Marty, who up until a few months ago was just a small-town contractor whose specialty was hot tub installs and floor refinishing, was made a highly paid key foreman on the construction of the expansive luxury resort, and Brasher and Rucker his two suspiciously well-paid point men. Maybe Cole’s buying their silence about what went down with the Mask Maker, or maybe he really does just want to ensure Charlotte’s happiness by ensuring the happiness of everyone around her.

  If that’s the case, Luke wonders, why didn’t he at least let me force Jordy to spend the night in holding? That would have made me very, very happy.

  “Thoughts?” Luke asks.

  “Keep an eye on him,” Marty says, “but don’t make a mess.”

  “Cole or Jordy?”

  “Jordy.”

  Luke feels like he’s been shoved.

  It’s not the injustice of letting Cole decide which of Altamira’s woman beaters gets to walk free. It’s that never-minces-words Marty—fierce defender of the downtrodden, the guy who seemed willing to defend Charlotte’s honor with his fists when Luke first crossed his path as a grown-up with a badge—is the one saying it’s a good idea.

  It’s that Cole is frightening enough to scare Marty.

  “Look,” Marty says into the tense silence, “it may feel like we’re the only ones who know Altamira might have made a deal with the devil, but other people have got their suspicions. True, they haven’t seen the side of Graydon Pharmaceuticals that we have, but still . . . If more bad elements come rolling into town, there’s going to be pushback, and then you and Charley can both say something to Cole.”

  “Unless Cole’s the one putting them here,” Rucker says quietly.

  “Say what?” Marty asks.

  “Unless Cole’s putting the bad elements here for a reason. Because there’s a profit to him.”

  “He runs a billion-dollar company,” Marty says. “He’s not messing around in organized crime.”

  “So that’s what you think we’ve got now?” Luke asks. “Organized crime?”

  “No,” Marty says as he shakes his head, but he’s staring down at his Coke can as if he’s not sure his next words are the truth, but he’d like them to be. “No, I think we’ve got hookers. And I think we’ve got Jordy Clements thinking he can get away with whatever. And when the resort’s finished and the tunnel’s built and the roads are done, Jordy and everybody else who’s come here for a piece will move on to the next feeding frenzy.”

  “So the mess isn’t permanent, is what you’re saying,” Luke says.

  “Look, this is how it always goes when there’s a building boom or an oil strike. Everybody tries to get a piece of the action, and for a while it’s chaos. Then the project’s done and things settle and the locals are all fat and happy.”

  “Until they run out of oil,” Brasher grumbles.

  “The oil’s the tunnel and Pearsons Road. Once that’s done, we’re set.”

  Only there hasn’t been an oil strike, Luke thinks. None of this is natural. It’s all been engineered by Cole Graydon, and they’ve got no idea what tricks he’s pulled behind the scenes to make it happen.

  But there’s still a lot of truth in what Marty’s saying. Even if the resort goes bust, the tunnel and the widening of the road that leads to it will turn Altamira into a well-placed stop on a safe, new thoroughfare between a heavily trafficked freeway and one of the most beloved scenic highways in the world. For the first time, Altamira will be something more than a name on a freeway sign most people blow past on their way to Los Angeles or San Francisco.

  Brasher hears the car first and turns in his chair.

  Luke and Marty both jump to their feet at the same time. Then they’re all standing in the front yard. A Lincoln Town Car’s pulling away from the curb, and a short figure about Charlotte’s height is headed up the front walk, toting the same rolling suitcase Charlotte left with. The baseball cap is distinctly un-Charlotte, however. Either her shoulder-length hair’s been gathered up under it, or she chopped it all off. This reminds Luke too much of his mother’s chemo baldness, and for a second, he actually hopes it’s not Charlotte walking toward them but one of Cole’s minions whose brought her stuff back ahead of time.

  Because that wouldn’t be a bad sign at all.

  But it’s Charley. And when he sees the bright-eyed smile she’s giving them, something inside him turns soft, then gives way. Suddenly he’s closed the distance between them and she’s in his arms, her feet actually coming up off the sidewalk as her suitcase lists to one side behind her.

  “Easy, tiger,” she gasps, but she doesn’t sound like she wants him to let her go. Not yet. So the only concession he makes is to set her back down on the pavement and tighten his embrace a little and lean back so he can see her face.

  If the guys weren’t there, he’d channel all his relief into a showstopper of a kiss, but they’re already moving forward and ushering them inside, and Marty’s asking Charley what she’d like to drink. So Luke’s forced to share her for the time being, even though that’s the last thing he wants to do.

  Then, when they’re in the dining room, under the harsh overhead light, he sees it.

  He’s looking for a ghostly, shell-shocked expression, but what he sees is much different. There’s a radiance to her that’s distinctly new, and he finds himself rushing to explain it away. Even the blandest food will taste like a delicacy to a starving man, and maybe the fact that he’s missed her so much has him regarding every tilt of her chin or cock of her head as if it were ballet. Then he has a darker suspicion—that she’s both deeply satisfied and energized by whatever gruesome punishment she meted out against her target, the name of whom she’s forbidden to share with him.

  But as he studies her, as he guides her to the dining table by one hand while the other guys pelt her with small talk all designed to distract everyone from the fact that they can’t ask her questions about where she’s been, Luke realizes none of these explanations will suffice. This radiance is in her flesh, her coloring. Even the dome of her forehead looks smoother, younger.

  Shouldn’t she look the opposite? Exhausted and worn out? Recovering, that’s the word Cole used. Whatever happened out there, she actually needed some recovery time. And here she is, a day later, looking younger and fresher than when she left.

  “When are we refinishing this table?” she asks.

  “Didn’t know we’d signed on for that project,” Marty says.

  “You didn’t. I’m talking to Luke.”

  Luke smiles, and he sees, despite her improved appearance, the tension and nervousness that comes from not being able to discuss the operation. It’s jarring for all of them, Luke realizes, given what they went through together to get the Mask Maker.

  “Figured you’d need some time to rest first,” he says.

  “Ah, I’m fine.”

  “Well, we can start tonight, then.”

  “Not tonight. Just . . . soon.”

  “Soon.” He closes the distance between them, takes her in his arms, then reaches up to try to get a peek under her cap.

  “Ew, don’t,” she says.

  “What happened?”

  “Oh, it wasn’t during. It was before. I thought we were going to use a wig, but . . .”

  “Gotcha.”

  But the way she just trailed off leaves them all awkwardly looking at anything that’s not her. Finally, Marty says, “Did you get him at least? Can you tell us that?”

  The
shadow of something passes through Charlotte’s expression as she turns to look at the most important man in her life besides Luke.

  “Yeah. We got him.”

  Marty smiles.

  Rucker and Brasher both raise their soft drinks in toast, and Luke pulls her in tighter.

  “So,” Charley says, drawing him close again.

  “So?”

  “I’ve got an idea for my hair,” she says.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah, and I figure you might be able to help me with it.”

  23

  The ragged strands of hair they’d left her with fall in clumps around her shoulders as Luke runs the clippers across her head. Some of it lands on the bath towel he’s tucked over her shoulders, the rest of it around the legs of the chair he’s pulled into the bathroom for this little impromptu haircut. “Maybe the guys shouldn’t wait on us,” she says.

  “You’ve never shaved your head before, have you,” Luke asks.

  “No.”

  “OK, well, it goes by real fast.”

  “Are these the ones you use on yourself?”

  “The clippers? Yeah, but not everywhere.” He waggles his eyebrows. She gives him a playful slap on the hip. “What? You’re the one who likes things under control down there.”

  He’s been patient with her in the bedroom—he’s only the second man she’s ever been with, and she can’t even remember the first guy’s name—but right before she shipped out, their shared anxiety about her imminent departure brought the heat between them to a boil. They went from slow, careful lovemaking to her tying his wrists to the bedposts and saying, “Just give me an hour to see where you’re sensitive,” to which he nodded enthusiastically. In those last few weeks, her inexperience and curiosity around sex became a kind of expeditionary hunger, and he was more than happy to be explored. Her memories of these last hungry couplings quieted her heart during the long periods of isolation and waiting that followed.

  “What do you think?” he asks. “You want to leave a little or go cue ball?” He runs his fingers gently over the straw-colored fuzz.