by Sharon Sala
“I don’t know. He’s an army vet. Came back from Afghanistan all fucked up. I heard he’s living way up on the mountain, away from the rest of polite society.”
“If you see him around the gates again, get him.”
Buell frowned. “What the fuck do you mean, ‘get him’? I’m not doing any of your dirty work. If you want him hurt, do it yourself.”
“I didn’t ask you to off him,” Lonnie snapped. “I’ll take care of that. If you see him again, I’m telling you to wrap him up for me. I’ll tend to the rest, and if you screw that up, don’t forget, I know where you live.”
Buell’s bowels roiled. “You telling me you’d actually come to this house and do me in right in front of your own mother and sister? If you think you can do that, then you better be prepared to kill them, too, because Portia would shoot you dead where you stood before she’d let you walk out.”
This was spinning out of control, and Lonnie knew it. He had to rein it in before he said too much.
“Look, Buell, we’re family. I’m just pissed, and I blew up at you. I didn’t mean it. Thanks for letting me know about Syd. I’ll check into what drugs the kid was on when he died. If it’s something else, then we’re in the clear. You forget, no one knows what’s going on up there. We’re growing mushrooms, remember? The little truck goes out loaded with ‘shrooms,’ money goes in the bank under the company name, the truck comes back with supplies to grow more. If at any time the cops want to take a tour of the facility, they’ll need a warrant, and there’s nothing to tie us to those deaths. It’s just a family tragedy. It’s all cool. I’ll be there before daylight, and I won’t leave until this is all cleared up. This is on me, and thanks for calling.”
Buell shifted the phone to his other ear.
“So, we’re cool?”
“Definitely. We’re cool. Just keep an eye out for Walker. If you see him hanging around the entrance again, I want him detained in any way you see fit until I can talk to him on my own.”
Buell sighed. He should have known he wouldn’t get all the way off the hook.
“Yeah, if I see him again,” he said, and sincerely hoped that didn’t happen.
* * *
It took one phone call to a computer hacker Lonnie knew to find out the results of the drug tests the M.E. had run on Willis Colvin’s body. He read the email in silence, but when he got to the words “pure cocaine” his gut knotted.
He knew good and well he had the only pure cocaine on Rebel Ridge, which meant what killed the kid came from his lab. And if Syd Colvin worked the night shift and had already offed himself, then he had to assume that was how the kid had gotten the coke. What he didn’t know was how Syd had managed to get it off the property, but he was going to find out and put a stop to it before all hell came down on his head.
Despite the hour, he called his pilot out to arrange a flight south, and in what felt like no time he was back in a chopper and on his way to the mine. The only plus side of this mess was that he’d been in Virginia looking at rental property, so it was going to be a quick trip back to the mine.
Twenty
The silence inside the cabin was the result of a serious night of lovemaking. Quinn was flat on his back, so deeply asleep that he was lightly snoring. Mariah’s head was on his shoulder, her arm across his chest and her leg across his knees, wearily lost in a dreamless sleep.
Moses was the first to wake up. He took off down the stairs and then ran to the window, looking up into a dark cloudless sky.
Mariah woke up next, in an immediate panic that it was happening again. The whup-whup-whup of spinning rotors was an unmistakable sound. She sat straight up in bed as her heart began to race.
Dear God, please make this stop.
Instead the sound got louder, and that was when she realized Moses was gone.
She rolled out of bed and looked over the railing. The pup was staring out the window, looking up. That was when it hit her. If this was just her imagination, he couldn’t be hearing it, too.
She ran back to the bed and began shaking Quinn.
“Quinn! Quinn! Wake up! Do you hear that? Wake up. Listen. Listen. Do you hear that?”
Quinn woke abruptly, and when he saw her panic, he grabbed her arm.
“What’s wrong, baby? Are you okay?”
“Listen! Do you hear that? Please tell me you hear that?”
He frowned. “Are you talking about the chopper?”
She felt like weeping. “You hear it? You really hear it?”
“Hell yes, I hear it. You’d have to be deaf not to. Why?”
She headed down the stairs, desperate to get outside before the chopper disappeared.
Quinn followed, confused by what was going on. The moment she opened the door, Moses was out on the deck and barking.
But just like before, the sky was dark.
“Where is it?” Quinn asked.
She grabbed his arms. “You hear it, right?”
He frowned. “Yes, baby, I hear it, but I don’t see it, and we should. As loud as it is, it has to be low.”
His frown deepened. He thought about what Marlow had told him about the possibility of a new drug operation in the area. If someone was making a pickup or a delivery, there was every possibility that he would fly blind until he’d cleared the area.
“Oh, my God, oh, my God,” Mariah whispered, and started to sob.
Quinn misunderstood what was happening and thought she was spinning back into PTSD.
“Look at me, Mariah. Talk to me. Don’t give in to the feeling. You’re not there anymore. You’re here on the mountain with me. With Moses. Can’t you feel him? He’s licking your bare feet.”
Mariah threw herself into his arms.
“You don’t understand. I don’t feel like I’m about to lose it. I thought I was already gone.”
Now he was really scared. “I don’t know what you mean, honey, but let’s go back inside out of the chill. Whatever you have to say, you know you can tell me. Okay?”
Still sobbing, she let him lead her inside and then collapsed on the sofa.
He took an afghan from the back of a rocker and put it over her bare legs, then called Moses inside and locked the door.
The pup curled up at Mariah’s feet as Quinn sat down beside her.
“I thought I was going crazy,” she said.
“Why, honey? Why would you think that?”
“I’ve been hearing that chopper for days now, but every time I looked, nothing was there. I thought I was having hallucinations. I thought something bad was happening inside my head and that I would keep getting worse until I died.”
“Oh, my God,” Quinn muttered, and pulled her into his lap. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I was scared. I didn’t want you to know I wasn’t getting better. I didn’t want to lose you.”
He held her closer, his chin on the crown of her head as his own tears welled.
“You can’t lose me, no matter what,” he whispered.
“But it wasn’t just the chopper. I was hearing voices, too.”
He frowned. “Here? You were hearing voices here?”
“No, in the cave. I heard them the first day you took me there, and then again the day Moses ran away.”
“Why didn’t you say something?”
The tears rolled unheeded down her face.
“For the same reason I didn’t mention the chopper. I thought I was getting worse. I even convinced myself I might be hearing ghosts. I called your mother and asked her if she’d ever heard anyone say the cave was haunted. She said no to the ghosts, but that she’d been told when she was little that the passage inside the cave goes all the way through the mountain and comes out in the park.”
Chills rolled through Quinn’s body. If that was true, the only open passage he knew of that was up that high and on that side of the mountain was where the old mine had been—the mine that Lonnie Farrell now owned. If there was a new drug operation, that would be a good place to
hide it. And if Mariah was hearing voices in the cave and that passage went all the way through to the old mine, then—given the way sound traveled in the cave—she could have been hearing Lonnie’s employees. As to what they were doing, that remained to be seen.
“I’ll tell you what, honey. Tomorrow we’re going back to that cave, and I don’t care how long it takes, we’re gonna stand there until we both hear the voices. Okay?”
“What if we don’t? What if it really is just me?”
“Then I’ll assume I have hearing loss, that’s what. That’s how much I believe in you. And there’s something you don’t know. Sheriff Marlow thinks there might be a new drug operation on the mountain. If there is, there’s a possibility that it could be hidden in that old mine where they’re growing those mushrooms. If Mama was right and the passage goes all the way through, the old mine is in the right spot for where it would come out. Those workers might be what you’re hearing.”
She tucked her head beneath his chin. Just the thought of a rational explanation gave her peace.
He pulled the afghan around her shoulders and closed his eyes, but he couldn’t stop his tears. It was the terror he’d heard in her voice that broke his heart. All this time and she’d carried the burden alone. Would the day ever come when she finally trusted him enough to share her heart as fully as she shared her body?
* * *
Lonnie landed at the mine just after 1:00 a.m. Because of the hour, it was only him and his pilot, who he’d left outside on standby. No armed muscle, just his flashlight and a semiautomatic.
The cavern was dark, and there was only a small outside light burning at the office door, while the office itself was in darkness. He punched a number in his speed dial and waited while the phone rang several times before he heard a man answer.
“This is Davis.”
“It’s me,” Lonnie said. “I’m at the office. Unlock the door. I’m coming in alone.”
“Uh…yeah, sure, Mr. Farrell. Do you need someone to walk you down? Do you have a light?”
“I have a flashlight. Just open the fucking door.”
“Yes, sir. Right away.”
Both Lonnie’s long stride and the set of his body would have been warning enough to those who knew him that he was angry enough to kill.
The chemist was standing in the doorway when he arrived, and from the expression on his face, Lonnie knew the men had been expecting the visit. He strode through the doorway without talking and slammed the door shut, then dropped the metal bar.
Eleven men in white jumpsuits wearing disposable masks sat at their work spaces, all frozen in the act of measuring or bagging the adulterated coke. Their street clothes were hanging on hooks on the wall where he was standing, and their work shoes were on the floor beneath the hooks. Except for disposable booties, their feet were bare. It was a cool sixty-one degrees year-round in here. He figured they were all uncomfortable, but he wasn’t paying them for comfort. He couldn’t see an obvious way for anyone to walk out with the coke without an accomplice, and in this case that had to be the man in charge.
Lonnie turned on Davis, his voice just above a whisper when he spoke.
“How the fuck did Syd Colvin get out of here with pure blow?”
Davis gasped. “He didn’t. He couldn’t.”
Lonnie strode toward the first table. “But he did. His nephew died of a drug overdose. It’s on record. But it’s not this shit,” he said, flinging what was sitting on the scale into Davis’s face. “He had pure coke in his system when he died. Pure coke…like this.” He grabbed Davis by the arm and shoved his face into a stack of unopened kilos.
Blood spurted from the man’s nose and lip.
Davis moaned but didn’t fight. He knew how close he was to dying.
“Where did Colvin sit?” Lonnie asked.
Davis pointed at the empty chair in the middle of the room.
The men sitting on either side knew they would be next on the hot seat.
“Walk me through your exit process. Now!”
Davis grabbed a handful of paper towels, wadded them up and stuffed them under his nose.
“They get up one at a time and bring me their work tray with the baggies. There’s nothing but the scale and their mask left on their station when they go to change. They stop over there—” he pointed “—and strip. Their jumpsuits go into that bin. Their booties go into that basket. They have absolutely nothing on them when they go over by the door to get dressed.”
“Then what?” Lonnie asked.
“Carter, the other chemist, is always at the door waiting to come on shift. He lets them out one by one. They’re never together. No way can they pass anything between them unseen.”
“And Colvin did the very same thing as everyone else?”
Davis nodded. “Yeah. Exactly the same. He was a hell of a worker, too. He was always going above and beyond, ready to pick up the slack if someone needed to take a shit—that kind of thing.”
Lonnie’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. Colvin had been real helpful to him, too. Maybe he’d been playing them all.
“What kind of extra work are we talking about?”
Davis mopped at his bloody nose. It was beginning to throb.
“Well, after everyone leaves, we always clean up between shifts so nobody’s walking out of here with blow in their hair or whatever. Syd helped with that a time or two. Said since he didn’t have a woman to go home to, he didn’t mind.”
“Clean up how? Show me,” Lonnie said.
Davis pointed to a small upright vacuum. “We use that on the floor. If you sweep, it just stirs it up into the air, and then we all go out of here with it in our eyes and hair, which isn’t good.”
Lonnie stared at the vacuum for a few seconds, looking at the way it was made.
“Show me how it works,” he said.
Davis plugged it right in and ran it back and forth, then turned it off.
“Now what?” Lonnie asked.
Davis shrugged. “Now nothing. The floor’s clean and ready for the next shift.”
“What about what’s inside?”
Davis turned and stared, then his cheeks turned red as he popped the container off the shaft. It was empty.
“I guess Carter dumps it.”
“Where’s Carter?” Lonnie snapped.
“He’s in the trailer—asleep.”
“Call him. Tell him to get his ass here now and not to waste time getting dressed.”
Davis nodded and made the call without looking at the crew. Less than three minutes later Carter was knocking on the door.
“Let him in,” Lonnie snapped.
Davis unbarred the door.
Lonnie caught the look that passed between the two chemists. He didn’t know what it meant, but he was about to find out.
“You! Get in here,” he said.
Carter stumbled in his haste to obey.
“You see that vacuum?”
Carter nodded.
“Did you let Syd Colvin use it?”
“Uh, no, sir, I didn’t give him permission. He’s not on my shift.”
“But you saw him using it, right?”
He glanced at Davis and then nodded.
“So what happened when Syd was finished ‘helping’ you two?”
“He changed clothes like everybody else and went home.”
“Did you empty the vacuum when Syd was finished?”
“Nobody emptied the vacuum,” Carter said.
Lonnie picked up the empty canister and flung it at him.
“Then one of you better tell me how the fuck it got emptied and where it was dumped.”
Both men looked nervous, but they were old pros in the business. They knew bosses blew up and spouted off, but they also knew that their expertise was invaluable. They hated to get an ass-chewing, but they didn’t fear for their lives.
Davis shrugged. “I didn’t see Syd anywhere near it when he finished.”
“Neither did I,” Carter adde
d.
“Then one or both of you were in on this with him. He didn’t get out of this place with my blow on his own.”
“Hell no! I’ve been in the business for years. I’m not that stupid,” Davis insisted.
“Me, either,” Carter said. “You can check everything. All the totals balance out. We’re not missing a fucking ounce.”
“Except for what got vacuumed up,” Lonnie snapped. “You two hotshots come in from the city, think you’re smarter than one of these hillbillies because they talk and walk slower than you, and now you know different, don’t you? Somehow Colvin slipped enough unadulterated coke out of here to get his family killed. We may never know exactly how, but we all know it happened, don’t we?”
The hush that hung over the lab was like the calm before the storm. All of a sudden someone farted.
Davis grinned.
Lonnie pulled his gun and shot Davis in the foot.
The echo ricocheted off the walls and out into the open passage that led deeper into the mountain.
Davis dropped to the floor, screaming as blood ran in every direction.
Lonnie jammed the gun against the man’s forehead.
“You wanna laugh at that?”
“No, no,” Davis sobbed. “I’m not laughing.”
Lonnie waved at Carter. “Clean him up and get this blood off the floor.” He turned toward the other men, who sat frozen in their seats. “Get back to work. All of you. And if anyone tries to pull shit like this again, I’ll kill the whole damn lot of you. I’ll be long gone and in another country before anyone ever knows you’re dead. Do you understand?”
Everyone nodded.
“Work, and do it fast!” Lonnie screamed. “Because Colvin was a greedy bastard, we may have the cops breathing down our necks. I want all of this cut and packaged within the next thirty-six hours.”
The men’s hands were shaking as they went back to what they’d been doing. Davis was in the corner, moaning with every breath as Lonnie walked past him.
“Shut the fuck up,” he said.
Davis shuddered, then bit his lip without uttering another sound.
Lonnie threw the bar aside. “Lock this fucker up behind me. Don’t make me come back here like this again.”
