Redemption Road

by John Hart

  Adrian followed the warden and felt Olivet and Jacks close up behind. He had no confidence his plan would work, but it was all he had: gold and men’s greed and his own readiness to die. He knew the warden, though. He was pushing sixty, tired of his job. Six million was a lot of money. Adrian thought the plan had a shot.

  That disappeared when he saw the kids.

  Before that moment, it was all or nothing. The plan worked or it did not. If Elizabeth died, he’d die with her. There’d been acceptance in that, and a kind of difficult peace. Liz made her choices. He made his.

  That had nothing to do with the kids.

  They huddled beneath the altar, not just frightened, but wounded. He knew Gideon, of course, who was as close as anything alive to the woman Adrian had loved with all his heart. The girl would be the one from the papers, Channing. A man was dead on the floor. Elizabeth’s father, he thought. The other man was Beckett, who was dead or close to it. Elizabeth was secured to a pew on the front row. “I want her free. Right now.”

  “Adrian—”

  “Hang on, now.” The warden cut her off. “This is still my show, so let’s try this again.” He drew his pistol and put the barrel against Elizabeth’s knee. “Where did you hide it?”

  “I’ll take you to it.”

  “I know you will.”

  “The five of us in a car,” Adrian said. “We drive east on back roads. No cops. No witnesses. Two hours later, you’re rich.”

  “My leverage is here.”

  “It’s the smart move. Six million dollars.”

  “Bring me the boy.”

  “No!” Elizabeth fought the cuffs. “You son of a bitch! You bastard!” She kicked the warden once.

  He struck her on the head, knocking her bloody. “The boy. Now.”

  Gideon tried to fight, but the guard was too strong. He dragged the boy down the steps and across the rotted carpet. He left him at the warden’s feet, screaming as a foot pushed on his throat and the barrel of a gun dug into the place he’d been shot. “You see how this works?” The warden leaned on the gun and twisted. “No one around. Lots of time.”

  “Stop it,” Adrian said.

  “Where’s Eli’s gold? Come on, Adrian.” The barrel twisted again. An edge of smile carved the warden’s face. “You remember how we do this.”

  Adrian tore his eyes from the boy. Three guards. Three guns.

  “Girl’s next,” the warden said. “Then, Liz.”

  He pushed harder, and Gideon screamed again, his voice as high and clear as that of any choirboy who’d ever sung in the ancient church.

  * * *

  Beckett was in all kinds of hurt, but alert enough to know how badly he’d messed up. The warden. Liz. The reverend …

  He saw the dead man, the open eyes.

  He found Liz, then blinked and thought of Carol.

  My beautiful lady …

  They were his life, the both of them, his partner and his wife. He loved them each, but the choice had never been in doubt.

  His wife.

  It would always be his wife.

  But this …

  Death and children and the way Liz looked at him. He’d never had a choice, but goddamn it was bad. The kids. The hole in his gut. He was dying; had to be. There were words he couldn’t understand, a musty smell and movement like a spill of color. He was fading, nearly gone.

  But there was also the pain.

  God …

  He blinked, and it chewed through him, dragged him in and out, and broke him like a bottle on a rock. Right now he was lucid, if only just. The boy was screaming; the guards were focused on Adrian.

  That left Channing.

  Beckett tried to speak, but couldn’t; tried to move, but his legs didn’t work. One arm was trapped beneath him, but the other was clear. He could barely move it—just his fingers—but he got fabric in his grip and worked the jacket up, an inch, then five. When the gun at his back was exposed, he tried to say her name, but came up empty. It hurt. Every bit of it hurt like hell. But this was his fault, so he asked God to take pity on a stupid, fucked-up, dying man. He prayed for strength, then drew air into his lungs and said her name again. It came out a croak, the barest whisper. But she heard it and saw the gun.

  The girl, who was bending above him.

  Channing, who could shoot like a dream.

  * * *

  Olivet saw it first, a slip of girl with a gun too large for such tiny hands. He wasn’t worried. She could barely stand, and thirty feet of carpet stretched between them. His instinct was to hold out an open hand and say, Careful, little girl. Instead, he said, “Warden.”

  The warden looked up from the bright-eyed, bled-out little boy. The girl staggered right, as if the gun were pulling her down. Her eyes were barely open. She was basically falling.

  “Somebody shoot that little bitch,” the warden said, and Olivet’s first thought was Damn. His own daughter was not much smaller and this one was kind of cute, trying to be brave and all. He’d rather just take the gun and sit her back down.

  But nobody crossed the warden.

  He took his aim off Adrian, but Jacks was faster, gun dropping low, then swinging up and going level. Olivet saw the little girl go still when the gun started coming her way. For a microsecond she seemed to slump; but it was not a slump. She dropped into a perfect stance and snapped off three shots as crisp and clean as anything Olivet had ever seen. Jacks’s head sprayed blood, as did Woods’s and the warden’s. Two seconds. Three shots. Olivet’s gun was on her, but he hesitated. She was fast and sure, and so like his own little girl. His last thought was to be impressed with whatever daddy taught her to shoot like that, then bright light appeared at the end of her barrel, and the world, entire, went dark.

  * * *

  When it was done, Adrian stood in disbelief. The warden’s head had been a bare foot above Gideon’s, and one of the guards had stood directly behind Adrian, so close that Adrian felt the bullet split air as it passed his ear. Now they were gone, all of them, and the church was graveyard still, the girl quietly crying. Adrian’s first instinct was to check the bodies, then see to Liz and the boy. Yet, he did none of those things, choosing instead to pick his way through the bodies until the girl appeared, small, beneath him. He took the gun from her fingers and placed it on the altar.

  “I killed them,” she said.

  “I know.”

  “What’s wrong with me?”

  There were no words beyond the obvious, so Adrian said them: “You saved our lives,” he said, then spread his arms and wrapped her up as she fell.

  * * *

  It took time, after that, to know what to do. Liz was out when he uncuffed her, and when she woke, they argued. “Charlie needs immediate medical attention,” she said. “So does Gideon.”

  “I’m not arguing that.”

  “I won’t leave until they’re safe.”

  Even in the carnage, she was fiercely protective and certain of what was right. Channing wanted to come with them, and Adrian thought that was just fine. But, Liz would not leave until an ambulance was at the church.

  “I can’t be here when the cops come,” Adrian said. “Neither can you. It means prison for both of us. Murder. Accessory to murder. The warrants haven’t gone away.”

  “Beckett’s shot through the spine,” Elizabeth said. “We can’t move him.”

  “I know, yes. And the boy may be bleeding inside. But, you and I can go. So can the girl.”

  Elizabeth turned to Channing, who was so small and rolled inward she looked no more than ten. Liz took her hand and knelt. “No one will blame you for what you did, sweetheart. You’re the victim. You can stay.”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “This is your home—”

  “Why would I stay?” Emptiness thinned the girl’s voice. “To be pointed at for life? To be the freak who was raped for a day and half, the dangerous, fucked-in-the-head little girl who killed two men and then four more?” She broke, and th
e sight dissolved every hard edge in Adrian’s soul. “I want to stay with you. You’re my friend. You understand.”

  “What about your parents?”

  “I’m eighteen. I’m not a child.”

  Adrian saw Liz accept it, the way she leaned in and placed her forehead against the girl’s. “How do we handle it?” he asked.

  Liz told them what she wanted to do. When it was agreed and understood, she stood one last time above her father’s body. Adrian had no idea what she was thinking, but she didn’t linger or touch her father or say a single word. Instead, she called 911 and said the words that would make everything happen: “Officer down,” she said, then knelt by Beckett and touched his forehead. “I don’t understand, and I’m not sure I ever will. But I hope you’re alive when they get here, and that one day you can explain.”

  Maybe Beckett heard her, and maybe he didn’t. His eyes were closed, his breathing shallow.

  “Liz.”

  “I know,” she said. “Clock’s ticking.”

  But Gideon was harder. He wanted to go, too. He begged. “Please, Liz. Please don’t leave me.”

  “You need a doctor.”

  “But I want to go with you! Please don’t leave me! Please!”

  “Just tell the truth about what happened. You’ve done nothing wrong.” She kissed his face, and kissed it hard. “I’ll come back for you. I promise.”

  They left him calling her name; and Adrian realized then that he might never have a hard edge again.

  So much love.

  Such heartbreak.

  Outside, in the dusk, the sirens were drawing near. “They’ll be okay,” Liz said, but nobody answered. She was talking to herself.

  “We need to move.”

  She nodded to tell Adrian he was right and she knew it. “Will you drive?”

  “Of course.”

  She put Channing in the back and took the front seat for herself. “We’ll be okay,” she said, and no one responded to that, either. Adrian kept the lights off as he felt his way down the drive. “Wait here,” Liz said; and they waited until lights crested a far hill, and they were certain. Ambulances. Cop cars. Gideon would be okay, and even Beckett might make it. “Okay,” she said. “We can go now.”

  Adrian turned the car away from the sirens and the lights. When they were clear, he clicked on his headlights. “Where are we going?”

  “West,” Elizabeth said. “Very west.”

  Adrian nodded, and so did the girl.

  “We have to make one stop,” he said; and when the first chance came, he turned the car east.

  EPILOGUE

  Seven Months Later

  The view from the desert hilltop was extraordinary. Mountains rose all around, as brown and splintered as old bone. The house was the same color, ninety-year-old adobe that blended like a tortoise into the saguaro and eucalyptus and paloverde. The walls were two feet thick, the floors Spanish tile. In back was a walled courtyard with a swimming pool. The front was all about the covered porch and long views and morning coffee. Elizabeth was on her second cup when Adrian stepped through the door to join her. He wore no shoes, and jeans that were faded nearly white. The scars were white against the tan, but so were his teeth. “Where’s Channing?”

  He took the second rocking chair as Elizabeth pointed. Channing was a smudge on the valley floor, the horse beneath her dapple gray. They were picking their way along the arroyo that flooded when rains fell in the mountains to the north. Liz couldn’t see her face, but guessed she was smiling. That was the thing about the gray.

  “How’s she doing?” Adrian asked.

  “She’s strong.”

  “That’s not really an answer.”

  “The therapy helps.”

  Adrian glanced at the truck that sat, dusty, in the drive. Twice a week Elizabeth and Channing took it into town. They never discussed particulars with Adrian, but they both thought the therapist there was good. They were looser when they came back; the smiles came easier.

  “You should go sometime,” Elizabeth said. “It helps to talk to someone.”

  “I do that, already.”

  “Eli doesn’t count.”

  He smiled and sipped the coffee. She was wrong about Eli, but he didn’t expect her to understand. “And, how are you?” he asked.

  “Same answer,” she said, but he knew better. She woke screaming at times, and he often found her outside at three in the morning. He never bothered her, but watched to make sure she was safe from coyote or mountain lion or the dreams that came with such fierce predictability. She’d find her way to the same place at the edge of the arroyo, a flat, narrow stone that held the heat of the day. She’d stand straight in a thin gown or under a blanket, and always she looked at the stars, thinking of her mother or Gideon or the horrors inflicted by her father. Adrian didn’t know and never asked. His job was to be there on the porch, to nod quietly as she returned to the house and trailed a finger across his shoulder as if to say thanks.

  “Is today still the day?” he asked.

  “I think it’s time. Don’t you?”

  “Only if you’re ready.”

  “I am.”

  They sat in easy silence after that, the moment made comfortable by all the ones that had passed before it. They were good together in that easy way. Nobody pushed. Nobody took. But, something had changed in the past few weeks, and both of them felt it. An energy was there where none had been before, a spark if one’s skin brushed the other’s. They didn’t talk about it, yet—it was too small and fragile—but the time was coming and they both knew it.

  She was healing.

  They all were.

  “Are you sure you won’t change your mind?” He waited until she looked his way. She was as tanned as he, her face leaner, the lines at her eyes a little deeper. “I can come with you.”

  “Too dangerous, I think.” She brushed his hand. The lightest touch. “I’ll make sure we get back safe and sound.”

  Her fingers moved away, but the charge lingered. “When will you leave?”

  She kept her eyes on the girl. “When I finish this cup of coffee.”

  She sipped slowly, and Adrian watched her as she rocked in the old chair that had come with the house. She wore peacefulness as if it were a blanket she’d decided to wrap around her shoulders. Even now that couldn’t be easy, not with her father a monster and the story out there for everyone to see. Both had followed the news as events played out after the church. Dyer used two bloody fingerprints found on the dash of the old car to tie Reverend Black to the murdered women. They were Ramona Morgan’s prints, and reporters speculated she’d left them there after tearing skin trying to claw her way out of some dark and lonely place. Nothing yet tied him to the other victims, but there was little doubt, official or otherwise. Liz lost sleep, at times, thinking she should go back and fill in the blanks. But, nights like that were growing less frequent. What further insight could she offer? The victims would be just as gone. Their families would have the same person to blame.

  Besides, her father was dead.

  The story of the warden and his corrupt guards was the one that lingered. The fury over why they were dead in the church soon gave way to larger questions. What were they doing there? Why did they die? An old man came forward a few days later, an ex-con with an almost unbelievable story of how he’d been tortured, once, and how others had died hard deaths in the warden’s care. He was not the most credible person, though, and the story almost ended with him. But, two more convicts came forward, then a guard who’d seen things he should have talked about sooner. That was the crack that blew the story wide open.

  Torture. Murder.

  The attorney general had ordered a full review.

  Charges still stood against Adrian, and he’d go down if the authorities ever found him. They stood against Liz, too, but no one was looking for her, and she had no plans to make a life anywhere but the desert. She liked the heat of it, she said, its emptiness and unchanging nature. P
lus, Channing and Adrian were in the desert. No one said it out loud, but the words hung like a shimmer far out on the valley floor.

  Family.

  Future.

  Adrian stood and leaned against the rail. He wanted her to see his face, so she’d think about it as she drove. “Will you be okay if he says no?”

  “Gideon?” The look in her eyes was gentle, the smile easy and slow. “I don’t think it’ll be a problem.”

  * * *

  Elizabeth took the truck and drove ten-hour stretches. Sunglasses covered her eyes. A white Stetson rode her head. She stayed in inexpensive motels, though money was not a problem. On the eighth hour of the third day, she crossed the county line and was back. Nothing had changed, but an ill wind pressed against her as if she were somehow different and every living creature in the county sensed it.

  She drove the side streets, then went to her mother’s house, stopping first at the boarded-up church. The clapboards were dirty and peeling. Windows were broken, and someone had used black paint on the walls, spelling words such as killer and sinner and devil. Circling to the back, she found the parsonage little different than the church. Shattered glass. The same paint. The door was locked, but she took the tire iron from the truck and forced it. Inside, she found bare floors and dust and difficult memories. She stood for a while at the kitchen window, thinking of the last time she’d had a drink there with her mother. Had she known, then, the depth of her husband’s evil? Had she ever sensed it? Elizabeth wanted an answer and found it on the mantelpiece above the small fireplace in the empty living room. The envelope was yellowed and dry. The name Elizabeth was written in her mother’s hand.

  Liz, my darling girl. I can’t imagine a daughter’s pain in learning such darkness dwelled in her father’s heart, or in knowing the death and suffering he’d caused so many for so many years. Please know I share your bewilderment. Your letters have been so helpful—life-affirming, actually—and it pains me that you live in some secret place to which I can neither respond, nor seek you out. I’ve never doubted your assurances, the promise that we would once again be together. But I can no longer live in this place. The hatred of your father overwhelms me, and I find myself bereft. I leave this letter in hopes you’ll discover it when you deem it safe, at last, to return. I’ve gone to stay with my old friend in the north. You’ve met her, the one from college. I won’t leave her name or address for obvious reasons, but trust you will seek me out, in time. I miss you so much, my lovely child. Please do not let this path lead you to self-doubt or your own dark place. Be strong and of good heart. I wait for you in patience and in love, your friend and trusting ally, your mother for all time.