by L. T. Vargus
“Jesus, Emily. He’s going to kill you. Seems like the least you could do is peel open those peepers.”
Wait. Why is Gabriela even here? Does that make sense?
She stares into the darkness, but it offers no answers.
She hears the smack of Gabby’s lips touching the butt of the cigarette again, the sizzle of the cherry as she inhales, the snuffle of smoke spiraling into her friend’s lungs, hesitating for a beat, and then venting like exhaust during a long exhale.
Gabby speaks again:
“Yeah, you’re pretty much fucked.”
Emily jerks awake, breath rushing to fill her mouth and throat with a ragged gasp.
Pain pulses in her head, little tendrils of current that jolt through the rounded bone at her temple. It makes her eye twitch on that side.
She blinks a few times. Fighting off the hurt. Eyes swiveling in their sockets, trying and failing to make sense of her surroundings.
All she can discern is black with green smears in it. The scent of stale cigarette smoke mixed with some indefinable masculine smell that she can only relate to the odor of a leather belt.
Her chest and shoulders heave, the rhythm of her lungs unsteady. Lurching and jerky like a drummer who can’t keep time.
She catches herself at the apex of an inhale. Holds her breath for just a moment to try to help things even out.
Calm down. She needs to calm down.
After another flurry of blinks, the blur of her surroundings slowly sharpens around her. Dark. Foreign.
She sits in the passenger seat of a truck. The glowing dash lights tint the interior pale green.
Rain pelts the windshield. The water beads and drains down the slope.
Looking through the glass, she can only make out shadows. Dark shapes that don’t make much sense.
And now the sound of the radio seeps into her consciousness. Deep, compressed voices murmuring on and on. Corporate rock radio based on the cadence and tone of the deejay, but in her panic she can’t make out the words. An endless babble. Meaningless.
The truck. The dark. The pain in her skull. None of this makes sense. Some crucial piece of this puzzle is missing.
At last, her head rotates 90 degrees to the left.
The driver’s seat next to her is empty. And that’s when it all snaps back for her.
The man. The chase. That final blow to her brain stem and everything fading to black.
Her heart lurches in her chest, trying to match the wildness of her breathing.
A fresh wave of panic whittles her thoughts down to primal urges. Feelings. Smeared images. Simple phrases.
Run. She needs to run.
But somehow she knows she can’t.
Why?
She looks down at herself. Sees the ring of plastic circling her ankles. Pinning them together and pulling them taut.
Her wrists are stuck together just the same, fastened behind her back.
Zip ties. Yes. Her hands and feet are bound. Cinched tight. Some part of her knew this. She could feel the ties even before she saw.
She pumps her legs a few times. Tests the strength of the plastic fastening her ankles. Strains muscle and flesh against it, but it’s no use. It’s secure.
Light glitters in the rearview mirror just then.
Wheeling, gazing through the back windshield.
The glow of the gas station shimmers on the other side of what feels like a narrow sea of asphalt. The building appears small and distant — the pumps even farther — all lit up in the lot on the opposite side.
All that light. So close but out of reach.
The paltry ring of illumination spilling out of the windows and crawling over the ground cannot reach her. The light doesn’t even make it halfway over the parking lot.
She takes a breath. Her chest shaking on the inhale.
She knows she doesn’t stand a chance.
Even if she manages to get the truck door open with her hands secured the way they are, she’d never make it into the light. Tied up like this, feet bound? Wriggling over the ground like a worm?
Never.
But she has to try.
She watches for movement in the gas station windows for just a moment. Looking for any signs of life. But there are none. Just static scenes of a beer cooler and a rack of magazines, all those colorful heads and torsos of celebrities on the covers staring back at her.
She skids her shoulders over the back of the seat. Wobbling. Arms poking around behind her like clumsy crab legs.
Fingertips and the heels of her hands skim over the door. Cold and textured. The plastic transitions to a rubbery handle. The joints of her fingers flex over these surfaces, seeking out the small metal door handle, finding it.
Air gulps into her all at once as she grips the handle. It makes her cough twice.
She pulls.
Nothing.
It’s locked.
Fuck.
She wrenches her arms up, arcing her elbows out to the sides of her back, but it’s no use. She can’t reach the lock. Maybe if she dislocated her shoulders, but no.
And he’s there. A dark shape on the opposite side of the driver’s side window.
The door latch pops as he opens it, and she gasps once more.
It’s too late to play dead. Too late to move. Too late to pray.
His torso jerks into the car. A shadow stooping low. Almost touching the floor.
Through the tears she watches him jam an arm under the seat and root around. His hand comes back with a length of metal in it. A pipe or a club of some kind. Metal that seems to just keep spilling out from under the seat.
He speaks, his voice gruff but without malice.
“It’s going to be a long drive. Better keep still.”
He doesn’t hesitate.
His arm raises, draws taut like the string of a bow, snaps the pipe into the side of her head.
It’s heavy. Harder than his fist. The momentum rocks her face first into the dashboard.
The pain is enormous, a jolt of white current flowing through all of her.
Hurt. Everywhere.
It surges deep into her eye sockets, the wet of her lungs, the bones of her fingers, the squish of her guts, but just for a second, and then everything gets farther away. Numbed. Confused.
That familiar thock sound fills her skull, and all of her consciousness sucks back into that black hole all at once.
Chapter 3
The rain was still coming down when Darger turned off the highway. The tires almost sounded resentful as they rolled through a pool of water collecting in a low spot on the road.
She leaned forward, trying to squint through the sheets of rain. The GPS said she was close, but she couldn’t see a damn thing out here.
And then she saw the first pulse of red and blue through the mist. Police lights.
She crawled up behind a fire engine and tugged the key from the ignition. The steady beat of the wipers cut out all at once, leaving her in the drowning white noise of pattering rain. It dribbled down on her arm when she opened the door, and she watched the water soak into the sleeve of her jacket. She hadn’t brought an umbrella. Who would on a trip to the desert?
Two open-sided police tents had been erected farther up the road. As she approached, Darger could see that a blackened car took up most of the space at one end. A cluster of police and other first responders stood out of the rain at the other. But it was the car that caught Darger’s attention.
Her heart started beating a little harder.
Quickening her pace, she veered only slightly from her path to avoid a large puddle of murky water. She was wet enough as it was, the last thing she needed was soggy boots and socks.
She stepped under the shelter of the canopy and flashed her ID at the group of men and women huddled inside, eyes never straying from the burned-out car.
A toxic perfume of scorched plastic, rubber, and automotive paint hung in the air. It was a sedan, but most of the exterior was so m
arred and blackened she couldn’t place the make or model. Where the paint hadn’t been consumed, it was bubbled or flaking off. Anything plastic or glass had melted or broken away — taillights, bumper, logo decals.
She could see where the flames had inched toward the front half of the car, igniting the paint before dying out. It was evident from this detail that the fire had started at the rear of the car. This more or less confirmed what she’d known as soon as she laid eyes on it: the fire had been set intentionally.
A strand of hair clung to the moistness near Darger’s temple, and she reached up to brush it away. She wondered where she’d find the courage to step around to the trunk.
The hatch was open, and likely it was practically welded that way now from the heat of the fire. She had a feeling what she’d find inside, but she wasn’t ready. No one was ever truly ready to see such things.
Another few seconds ticked by while she pulled on a pair of gloves, and then it was time. She couldn’t put it off any longer.
She took a deep breath through her mouth, trying to avoid the lingering smell of smoke and char. Instead, she tasted notes of scorched upholstery on her tongue. So much for that idea.
Careful to keep her boots out of the blackened bits of debris all over, she crept toward the rear end of the car.
A new odor joined the mix as she moved closer to the trunk — something that somehow registered as sweet, sour, and savory all at once.
When Darger was in middle school, she’d once forgotten a pan of Chef Boyardee ravioli heating on the stove. By the time the smoke filtered into her bedroom, there was a good one-inch-thick layer of pasta and sauce burned onto the bottom of the pan. The smell was awful, with a bitter note that reminded her of vomit.
The memory of that stink came to her now, as she leaned forward to gaze into the gaping maw of the trunk.
There were two bodies, small and shriveled. Both were curled into a fetal position, hands together as if in prayer, though she knew it was more than likely that their wrists had been bound. The flesh of the lips had burned away, leaving the teeth exposed in a permanent grimace. One mouth stretched open, frozen in a silent scream.
Darger swallowed, feeling hot and sick. She took a few steps back, eager to put even a small distance between her and the car and the burned up young women inside. The fact that the victims were female was another detail she didn’t need anyone to tell her.
The nitrile gloves clung to the moistness on her palms, snapping like rubber bands when they finally came free. She stuffed them in her pocket and dragged the back of her knuckles through the perspiration on her forehead.
Closing her eyes, photographs from the old Leonard Stump crime scenes flashed in her mind. The scene here was nearly identical. Two bodies curled in the trunk, burned beyond recognition. Could it really be him?
When her eyelids rolled open, she caught sight of her partner crossing the tent to meet her.
Loshak stopped when he drew even with her and took in the rain-spattered jacket and stringy hair.
“No umbrella?”
Darger met his eyes. “What tipped you off?”
He smirked, but there was a tension in the line of his mouth that didn’t quite go away.
“What the hell is this, Loshak?”
Loshak glanced over his shoulder, ensuring no one was within earshot.
“I know you have a million questions, and I promise I’ll explain everything. But right now, I need you to do me a favor and not mention Leonard Stump.”
Darger blinked, trying to make sense of the words. After all this, he wanted her to not talk about Stump?
“Fuck that, Loshak. I want to know what’s going on.”
“I told you—”
Before he could say more, one of the uniformed men broke off from the nearby huddle.
“You must be Agent Darger,” the man said, thrusting a hand at her. “Assistant Sheriff Wayne Corby. Pleased to meet you.”
He had big, fleshy sausage fingers, and Darger watched her own hand disappear in his fist when they shook.
“I’ve seen a lot of shit in my time, but never anything quite as grisly as this.” He paused to adjust his belt, hiking it a little higher on his waist. “I imagine you two are privy to some things in your travels. Ever seen anything like it?”
Darger’s gaze flicked over to Loshak, who gave an almost imperceptible head shake. Again, warning her off mentioning Stump. Why the hell was he being so cagey?
“Only in pictures,” she said, not willing to lie outright. Her eyes fell back on the blackened remains in the trunk. “And I’d say they didn’t quite do the horror of it justice.”
“It’s the smell I can’t get over,” Corby said. “I’m the grill master in the family. Come Saturday afternoon, I’m on the back patio with an ice cold beer in one hand and a pair of kitchen tongs in the other.”
He pantomimed clutching each item in his meaty digits.
“But after this…” the man paused and shook his head. “Well, it’s gonna be a while before I can stomach firing up the grill. Let alone eating the, uh, meat.”
Not wanting to linger on the topic of chargrilled animal flesh, Darger pushed on.
“Do we know who the victims are? Or who the car belongs to?”
“Nothing on the car, yet. VIN numbers are obliterated, but the lab guys tell me they have some tricks. We’re gonna have a hell of a time IDing the bodies with the state they’re in, but we’ll do our damnedest. Figure it’ll come down to dental records, most likely. The medical examiner is waiting on the bodies as we speak. As soon as I give the word, they’ll start packing things up here. I think we’re set on our end, but if you need more time with the scene…”
With a wordless exchange, she and Loshak agreed that they were finished.
“We’re good,” Loshak said.
Corby nodded once. “Myself and the lead investigators are meeting back at my office in a few hours. We’d appreciate any insight you could bring to the table.”
“We’ll be there,” Loshak said.
With that, they turned to leave. Even though the rain had slowed to a sprinkle, Loshak produced an umbrella and insisted on walking Darger to her car. When they reached her rented Taurus, she rounded on him.
“What the fuck was that? If this is Stump, then they have a right to know who they’re dealing with,” she said.
Loshak glanced back at the tent.
“Not here.”
With a growl, Darger slammed the door and started the car.
Chapter 4
Darger spent the entire drive back to the city stewing in damp clothes and a sense of righteous indignation. He’d done it again. Loshak — the man who was supposed to be her partner — had left her out again.
And not just her. He hadn’t wanted her to mention Leonard Stump near the local cops. Why? She went over it again, trying to give him the benefit of the doubt. He’d waited until she’d taken in the crime scene before mentioning Stump. Maybe he hadn’t wanted to cloud her objectivity. But after one look at that car, her objectivity had flown out the window.
So he could have been trying to keep her from jumping to conclusions. That was fair, she supposed. She wasn’t being clear-headed about this. Stump had entered her mind as soon as she stepped foot on that scene.
But then why had Loshak run out here on his own? What had he been up to before this double murder landed in his lap? He’d known something.
The radio was on in the background, two DJs arguing about the college football playoff selections. Darger jabbed at the volume knob, thrusting the car into silence.
Whatever was going on here, the fact remained that Loshak obviously didn’t trust her.
Her mind flashed to Ohio, back to their first case together. Loshak had been sick, but refused to see a doctor, lied to her about just how ill he was. He’d almost died because of it.
She’d thought things had changed since then. That they’d grown to trust one another. But now here they were, back at squar
e one with Loshak keeping secrets. Running off to do things on his own.
By the time she changed into dry clothes and went downstairs to meet Loshak in the lounge of their hotel, she was practically steaming with fury.
He must have seen it on her face. Before she even sat down, he was trying to smooth things over. He pulled a manila folder from his lap.
“I’ve got something for you. Fresh out of the hotel office laser printer. Still warm, even.”
This was classic Loshak. Holding back key information. Keeping her in the dark until he decided it was time to let her in. Then he’d wave some juicy bit of info in front of her, knowing her innate curiosity always got the better of her. Well, not this time.
“Oh no, you don’t. I’ve got something for you.” She tossed her phone down on the table in front of him.
“What’s this?”
“That,” she said, pointing at the text on the screen, “is the Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary definition of the word partner. I thought you might need a refresher. Would you care to read it aloud?”
As usual, he seemed unruffled by her outburst. He only sniffed and looked away from the phone.
“No, thanks.”
This only irritated her more. She snatched the phone from the table and started reading.
“Partner: one that shares. One associated with another, especially in action. Oh, here. I like this one. One of two or more persons who play together in a game against an opposing side.”
“Enough,” Loshak interrupted. “You’re pissed. I get it.”
He picked up the manila folder again and waved it at her.
“That’s why I’m trying to give you this. To bring you up to speed.”
“See, I don’t think you actually do get it. You lied to me about why you were coming out here. And it’s not just about this case. It’s about all of them. Ohio, Washington, Georgia. This isn’t an isolated incident. This is a pattern where you keep all the cards to yourself. And then, when you’ve decided you’ll let me play, you parcel out what you’re willing to give. And that’s usually only because you have some errand you want me to run. I’m not your fucking assistant.”
