“Evening, Officer Grijalva. Your sergeant said you need to search the grounds for a suspected kidnapping.”
Rafe replied in his professional manner. “Correct. We’re not sure what section—.”
“B52s,” I spouted it, surprising me, Rafe, and maybe the MP.
Rafe turned to me. “Are you sure?”
The MP leaned down and peered at me. “Your sergeant didn’t say you had a partner.”
Rafe ignored her. “What makes you think that?”
“His tattoo. He’s got a new one. A B52 he showed to me.”
Rafe swiveled back to the MP. “B52s. That’s where he’s keeping the girl.”
She eyed me and hesitated. “Okay.”
The aisles were wide, with the moonlight from a half moon giving scant light. Row after row of old airplanes seemed to stretch into a Twilight Zone of endless military history. A sea of metal and wings, sand and weeds. Miles and miles.
The MPs would think this was a futile errand. Maybe not too terrible on a boring night. No one could crawl into the Boneyard with a kidnapping victim. Government security and patrols would keep them out.
But Shax had managed to break into my home and steal my treasures. He’d taken Kaycee from her home and left her on the desert, maybe even knew where the rattler lived and put her in harm’s way.
He knew my weaknesses. Knew I’d been hospitalized. Knew Mom had helped him get away with murder. He used everything.
Maybe he snuck under a fence. Maybe he got in during a tour. However he did, I knew Shax was here.
He’s here.
She’s dead.
Too late.
We climbed into the Hummer and it moved at a snail’s pace, the night growing thicker around us. With our windows down, the creak of crickets, the rumbled of our engine, and the grind of the Hummer were the only outside sounds.
Inside, Frank and Maggie argued. Peanut cried. The three chanted and the Chorus whispered, moaned and kept up the roar of a crowd waiting for a rock concert.
Shax.
Shax.
Shax.
With full night, the planes were hulking dragons. The Hummer finally turned up an endless, wide passage. The desert floor made up the hard-packed road, probably covered in low green weeds during monsoon season, but a brown thatch the rest of the year. The Hummer slowed and came to a stop.
The driver turned off the ignition. He popped the glove box and pulled out a flashlight. “Anyone need a light?”
Rafe pulled the flashlight from his utility belt. The MPs had their own. I took the offered light.
We climbed out to the hot smell of desert beginning to cool off. The MPs boots crunched on the dirt lane, both with flashlights pointed to the ground. They kept their voices low, as if speaking in a cemetery after dark.
The man said, “These are the B 52s. Big planes. I guess if you think someone is hiding in one of these babies, we should take a look.”
Though the woman kept her flashlight trained on the ground, she studied me. “I don’t want to insult you, but since your sergeant didn’t mention you, can you show me your badge?”
“I’m off-duty.” It came out without guilt, as if it wasn’t a lie.
She looked at my tennis shoes and shorts, my t-shirt. “This place is full of jagged metal and nails. A million ways to cut you up. I’m going to ask you to stay away from the hardware. I don’t mind if you walk up and down the road here, but no going into the planes.”
“I’ll be careful,” I said. “We can search quicker if I help.”
The man shook his head. “Can’t allow it. With no badge, it’s pushing it for you to be out here at all. Last thing we need is for you to cut yourself, get tetanus, and go after the U.S. of A.”
“She can stay with me,” Rafe said.
“We can cover more ground if you let me go.” The urgency in my voice might alarm them.
“No can do,” the man stood firm.
Damn it. “Go on. We’re wasting time arguing.”
Rafe put a hand on my arm. “Search from the road and if you see something, get one of us.”
“Tell him he’s got a pencil dick,” Frank said.
“Fine.” I waved my hands to send them off.
They went in three directions, each shining a light on a desiccated pile of steel, mummified on the desert, rust slowed to a crawl, but still disintegrating bit by bit.
46
My flashlight only illuminated a few yards around me and I scanned the area. Where would he be? The lights of the other three bounced along the ground and slid over the shells of the looming mountains of planes. I turned in another direction. Keeping to the center of ground hard as concrete, I moved slowly and listened for any sound of movement.
When I spotted the flash of yellow, I knew I’d found the trail Shax laid for me. My guess is that he’d been watching, waiting for me to break away, and he’d lead me to Cali.
I picked up Cali’s cheerleader top. Dirt streaked across the bright fabric. Maybe a swatch of blood. Shax’s sick game led me away from the packed road and down a row of planes. Like cairns strung along a mountain trail, he left clues. A sock. A tennis shoe. Farther from the main path, through a maze of dead planes. I left the items where they lay.
Another sock. Her skirt. Isolating me from Rafe and the others. My voices cursed and rioted.
Too late.
She’s dead.
You’re dead.
Her shoe lay in the middle of a narrow path, pointing toward one of the planes. The seal on the door had been ripped and a sliver of weak light seeped into the darkness of the Boneyard. Pink cotton panties hung limp from a bolt.
Shax had planted the Hansel and Gretel game after we’d arrived, so I knew he watched every move. If I pulled out my phone to contact Rafe, Shax would know his time was up. If Cali still survived, he’d surely kill her then.
I had to face him alone.
The B52 rested on its belly on the ground, the wheels retracted or removed. The metal of the door still clung to the warmth of the day. It took strength to wedge my fingers into the gap between the door and ease it open.
I stepped into the belly of the metal whale. Inside, the temperature rose ten degrees. The smell of feces and urine snaked up my nose and I gagged. In midday, this place would be Hell. A candle, not more than six inches high, burned in the far corner, showing a pile of blankets.
Except it wasn’t only blankets. Wisps of blonde hair swirled at the edges of the lump. A stretch of pale skin, maybe an arm or leg, spilled from the jumbled heap of blankets.
“Cali!” I ran forward, skidding on my knees.
Before I touched her, Shax materialized from the dark corner, holding a serrated hunting knife. “Officer Butler. Glad you could make it.”
“You walked into his trap. You moron.” Frank shouted.
“Shut up,” I said to Frank.
Shax grinned, his teeth a shocking white in the dim light. “Yes. The voices. What are they telling you? To kill yourself?” He gave me a sly sneer. “Again.”
I stared at him, trying to place his face. Without the Halloween prop of the false damaged teeth, he looked familiar. But how?
A garbled mess of fabric twitched in a dark corner of the plane and a weak whimper slipped across the room. By squinting into the gloom, I made out a tiny face and tangled blonde hair. “Zoey?”
She whimpered again and her glassy eyes blinked slowly.
Shax’s white teeth gleamed. “Don’t worry about the little one. I’ve been saving her. With the right dosages, she’s been quiet as a mouse, waiting for her turn.”
How had I let this happen? It was all my fault.
The man in the blue shirt. Shax, was the man watching me at the playground that day, the same one outside Tara’s office. Probably the driver of the gray car in my neighborhood. He’d been stalking me. There was more but the memory lay hidden beneath my consciousness. Someone needed to tell me.
Satisfaction oozed from him. “Surprised I
know about your voices? I’ve still got a medical license in New York, even though no one would ever hire me again. If you’re smart and connected, it’s not that hard to skirt HIPPA and find your files.”
He knew. Every secret spread before him like a frog splayed for dissection.
Zoey dropped her head and closed her eyes. I prayed the drugs filling her system would block out this whole experience.
I scrambled to appear in control. “If you read my records you know I was released and declared mentally stable. I’m not about to kill myself.”
He tapped the knife on his open palm. “Your records say a number of things that are only half true. Your mother is adept at manipulating official documents, because a crazy daughter wouldn’t look good on Sheriff Carmichael, would it?”
I could repeat it a million times and it wouldn’t make it true. “I’m not crazy.”
“But you’re not really sane, are you?”
Who was he? Frank and the others shouted and jostled for my attention but I held Shax in focus. “You’re crazier than I’ll ever be. You killed my daughter. And now another.”
He laughed. “Oh, she’s no more dead than Zoey. What fun would that be? I want you to see when I take two girls for the two you took from me.”
Shax had the only weapon. He held every advantage. Foolish desperation made me say, “The others are pretty far away. I won’t tell them I saw you. Let me take the girls.”
He tsked. “You know better than that. It wasn’t easy keeping her alive and quiet. I’m not about to let that effort go to waste.”
There was nothing I could do or say to stop him. If I shouted for help, he’d kill us before Rafe got here. “You don’t have to do this.”
“Exactly. I said those same words to you six years ago. And you know what you said?”
Six years ago. Buffalo, New York. I looked in his eyes, searched his face, and I couldn’t remember. “No. What did I say?”
His mouth twisted and he used a falsetto voice as if imitating me. “‘If you didn’t want to be arrested, you shouldn’t have done it.’”
“If I was wrong, why punish Cali and Zoey? Or Bethany? Kill me, instead.”
He smirked. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Then you could end all the pain and guilt. But you should be punished for what you stole.”
“I didn’t steal anything from you.”
He lifted his eyebrows in scorn. “Oh? You arrested me, exposed my secrets to the world. I wasn’t hurting anyone. And you ruined me.”
“How does that make it okay for you to murder innocent people?” Reasoning with him wouldn’t make him change his mind, but it might give Rafe time to find us, or give me opportunity to make a plan.
“You don’t remember me, do you?” He seemed disappointed.
If I said no, it might enrage that ego he so clearly fed. “Sure, I do.”
Tap, tap, tap. The knife slapped into his palm. The reek of the plane made me shudder and my stomach lurched. He taunted me. “Someone inside your head knows.”
Peanut. But I can’t ask her.
Shax bent over and whisked the blanket back, revealing a naked, blood-smeared Cali. She lay on her stomach, her blonde hair tangled and matted, hiding her face. “Wake up, darling.”
Shax grabbed an arm and jerked her up. A muffled scream escaped from her. He yanked her over and she landed on her back. A soaked and grimy bandana gag cut into the sides of her mouth, tied snug around her face. He’d beaten her face and the skin under both eyes ranged in color from deep purple to spoiled meat yellow. Bruises lined her arms and legs.
Cali opened her eyes, revealing dark, dilated pupils. Her glassy stare, full of terror, made me think she was confused about where, and why, and who. But she knew pain.
“Remind you of anything?” Shax asked.
The moaning came from my throat. I raised my eyes to Shax. “Why are you doing this?”
He leaned over and placed the sharp tip of the knife on Cali’s flat belly and pressed, drawing a bead of blood. She writhed and choked against the gag.
Zoey whimpered again.
I lunged for him and with a quick thrust, he rammed the knife toward me. It tore through my shorts into the side of my thigh, missing the artery. He didn’t strike deep but it burned, the serrated edge shredding my skin.
“You stay over there, Officer Butler.” Shax held up the bloody knife. “I can kill you now, and maybe that’s what you prefer. But I think you’d rather stay alive and look for a chance to save them.”
Frank coiled and rattled inside me. The rest stayed quiet, except Peanut’s sobbing.
“Tell me. What do you remember about me?” He smiled with perfect white teeth.
Nothing. I remembered nothing. There was noise in my head and the flames of Frank’s hatred licked at me.
Shax pressed the knife to Cali’s left breast and drew blood. She shrieked, a horrible sound clogged by the gag.
“Think about it. Six years ago. Late night. Parking lot.”
It could be anything. Anyone. Maggie spoke through the haze of voices. “Ask her. Ask Peanut. She knows.”
Shax ran the blade across Cali’s breast bone. She sobbed and fought but her movements were feeble.
“No. Stop!” I shouted at him.
He grinned and held the knife in front of his face. “I want you to remember who I was so you can see what you did to me. So you know at the end of the day, this is all your fault.”
Maggie finally spoke. “Ask her, dear. She knows.”
If I spoke to Peanut, it would kill me.
Shax’s blade bit into Cali’s right side, sending a trickle of blood to the blanket. She turned her eyes to me, pleading, crying, grunting around the gag.
“Peanut keeps the secrets, dear. You have to ask.”
My sobs echoed in the plane’s belly. At the end of the day. At the end of the day. Shax repeated that. Who else said that?
“Tell me.” I cried. “Peanut, talk to me.”
She sniffed. In a small voice, so quiet I barely heard her, she began. Shax, Zoey, Cali, the horror of the plane’s interior faded. I dropped to my knees, no longer feeling the wound in my thigh.
Peanut started in halting words but as I let her talk she grew stronger. I don’t know how long it went on. She told me everything and I remembered.
Frost hangs in the air, making a hazy circle around the orange street-light that casts enough shadow to see the telephone and cable wires crisscrossed through the alley.
All I see at first is a man, head back in his Lexus. Then a young boy pops from the back and leans over the seat, watching something on the floor of the driver’s side. The man jerks into the seat, then he too, looks to the floor.
The little girl shimmies from the floor between his legs and scrambles to the back seat.
No child should be awake at three a.m. A girl her age should be tucked into bed, her flannel pajamas protecting her against the night chill, the glowing warmth of a nightlight holding back scary dreams. Not out on a frosty night, naked on the floor of a monster’s car.
Frank finally interrupted. “Enough!”
I opened my eyes, still on my knees. Everyone shouted in my head, Frank loudest of all.
Shax stood in front of me. Cali lay bleeding to his side and I didn’t see that he’d done any more damage while I’d been away. He studied me. “I never get tired of watching schizophrenics interact with their various personalities.”
“You should know better, Dr. Wainright. Not all voice hearers have split personalities. Some of us function quite well. Might even seem normal.”
His face broke into a wide grin. “You know me. Amazing. One of the personalities told you.”
I placed my hands on the floor and pushed to my feet, favoring the injured leg. “She told me a lot of things. But I remembered most of it.”
“So you know how you ruined my life?”
“I know you’re the worst scum that walked the planet. Child pornography. Exploiting children not even
old enough to see an R rated movie.”
He bristled. “Puritan. Those kids loved it. They got paid good money. Got attention. And it felt good to them.”
I nearly gagged. “It doesn’t feel good. It’s a living horror.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Sounds like experience talking.”
“You deserved to go to jail. You should be rotting there still.”
He slapped the knife into his palm again. “But I’m not. Released early for good behavior. By Sheriff Carmichael, who needed tax cuts to win the election.”
Growing rage bubbled like hot tar.
He sneered at me. “Because of you, I lost my wife and my daughters. Once you exposed me, they had to leave. We were a loving family. My daughters were in private school, excelling, probably going to be accepted at all the Ivy Leagues. My practice was thriving. But no one wants to see a psychiatrist who’s been convicted of child molesting. So,” he snapped the fingers of one hand, “poof. It’s all gone. Thanks to you.”
“I didn’t do those horrible things to children. You did.”
“I’m not a man without resources, though. Way too smart for you or your mother or that wetback cop. You’re wondering how I got into your house? The keycode isn’t hard to figure out from a parked car and a set of high powered binoculars.”
My head pounded and I couldn’t concentrate on his explanation.
Another wet crimson line jumped from his knife point as he ran it along Cali’s bicep. This time she didn’t move. “Getting that little girl to come to me was clever. Your quiet neighborhood where everyone retreats behind their doors in the heat of the day was a blessing to me. I slipped in the front door, told her the baby birds needed her help. She came with me easily, and no one heard her scream when I grabbed her.”
I fought to keep my hands from my ears.
“If you looked behind you on your run, you might have seen me trailing you. Of course, the bushes and cactus hid me well enough. How you manage to run that far in this heat is admirable. You know rattle snakes only venture in about a hundred and fifty feet radius their whole lives? A little rope around her feet kept her in place long enough for me to roust that thing.”
The Desert Behind Me Page 25
