He rolled on his side and started vomiting.
“Kieran,” she said, hand on his lower back and pushing his hair out his face. “You have to tell me what happened. Where is Rachel?”
“She...” Kieran looked up at Olivia, his eyes unfocused and bile dripping from his chin. “I don’t know. I don’t remember. Where’s my car?”
Olivia felt like screaming. She’d read about people who experienced concussion, then lost the immediate past in traumatic amnesia. But for it to happen now...
She gathered him up into her arms, aching with fury and frustration. That’s when she noticed the note.
There was a folded sheet of yellow paper sticking out of Kieran’s left coat pocket. It hadn’t been there before—when she left him and Rachel on the bridge. She was sure of it.
She pulled the note out of his pocket and unfolded it.
Dearest Demon Olivia,
Meet me at the place where we first met. The place where you shot your stepfather, and burned away my arm. Rachel and I will be waiting for you.
Do not call the police. Do not bring anyone else with you. Do not try anything stupid.
You have forty-eight hours to get there. That’s forty-eight hours before I start hurting your little sister in ways that will only leave scars on the inside. Forty-eight hours to trade your life for hers.
Love always,
Tony
For a moment, all Olivia could do was stare at the note in stunned disbelief. Understanding dawned within her.
This guy was the same cop who’d had a nervous breakdown at the scene of the fire, and taken wild potshots at her, spouting some kind of nonsense about demons. He’d been institutionalized after that incident, and she’d assumed he’d never be allowed to go free.
At first she’d been hung up on failing to kill Randall, and then her mother’s subsequent deterioration. So she never really gave the crazy cop a second thought.
But he’d obviously been thinking about her.
Why did he think she was responsible for what happened to his arm? She had no idea what had caused his injury.
When she looked up from the awful note, she saw Mrs. Gilbert and her goons on the far side of the lot. They were looking around, but didn’t seem to have noticed her. In another second, though, she would be spotted. She didn’t want to leave poor Kieran—not in the state he was in—but she couldn’t let herself be caught.
Rachel needed her.
“Kieran,” she said, clutching his hand. “Listen to me. Mrs. G. will find you and take care of your injuries, but I have to go. I have to save Rachel.”
“I’m going with you,” Kieran protested, struggling to stand but unable to do so.
“No,” Olivia said, gently laying him back down on the tarmac. “I have to go alone. If you want to help me, count to ten and then call for Mrs. G, okay?”
“Wait...” he said, but she didn’t wait to hear the rest.
She ducked behind a white minivan and waited to see if Kieran would do what she asked. By the time she’d counted to nine, she heard his voice.
“Mrs. Gilbert!” he called out weakly. “Help me!”
Olivia waited another few seconds for Mrs. G to respond. When she peered around the rear bumper of the van and saw the woman and her security guys running to Kieran, she headed the opposite way, up toward the street.
* * *
There was a middle-aged woman in a green square-back pulling up in front of a liquor store across the street. She had a strange, spiky, bleached hairstyle that didn’t seem to go with her soccer mom duds and frumpy beige coat. She got out of the car and went in to the store, leaving the engine running.
Olivia didn’t hesitate. She dashed across the street, causing an oncoming pick-up truck to stomp on the breaks, horn blaring. When she reached the square-back, she ducked down and got in behind the wheel.
She had just started driver’s education classes, and didn’t have her learner’s permit yet. She’d never operated a motor vehicle outside of the school parking lot. The interior of the car was laid out differently than the practice vehicle they’d been using in her classes.
But there was no time for hesitation. If she started thinking about all the traffic on the street—the pedestrians and other obstacles she’d need to navigate—she’d be paralyzed with self-doubt. She needed to think of Rachel, and nothing else.
The gearshift and the gas pedal were both pretty much in the same place as usual. So she pushed down the brake, and then carefully moved the gearshift from P to D. Her heart was pounding as she cautiously pressed down on the gas pedal.
The car leapt forward, and banged into the SUV parked in front of her.
Her heart was racing, cold sweat gathering under the collar of her coat. She cast an anxious glance back at the door to the liquor store, and shoved the gearshift to R, cranking the wheel and pressing the gas.
She must have turned the wheel the wrong way, because the back end of the car swung out toward the street and dented the left corner of the bumper on the Skylark behind her.
As she lifted her foot off the accelerator, she heard a shout.
The woman with the spiky hair came running out of the store with a carton of cigarettes, shaking her fist and swearing. She came running toward the car, and Olivia slammed the gearshift back into drive. Then she punched the gas.
There was a terrible squealing sound as she scraped the whole right side of the car against the rear corner of the SUV in front of her, taking off the passenger side mirror and several coats of paint in the process.
Miraculously, there was a lull in the traffic, and Olivia was able to pull out into the street without hitting or being hit by any other cars. She knew she was going way too fast, but couldn’t seem to make her foot ease off the gas. Her senses all felt cranked up to eleven, her eyes darting all over the road, hyper vigilant and terrified.
She followed the same street for several minutes, afraid to try and make any turns, but eventually she realized that she couldn’t just drive in a wild panic, with no direction or plan. She needed to pull over, figure out where she was going, and how she was going to get to Jacksonville. Driving a banged-up stolen car all the way to Florida wouldn’t be a great idea, even if she was an experienced driver.
Without Kieran and his credit cards, she didn’t have enough money for a plane ticket. She was feeling gun-shy about taking the train, and couldn’t risk trying to hitchhike, so that only left one other option.
She had to find a bus station. It was far from ideal, but it was her only hope of making it to Jacksonville in forty-eight hours or less.
27
Tony didn’t know if he really needed to hog-tie the little sister or not, since she’d been pretty much paralyzed with fear since he’d pistol-whipped that geeky loser back in the train station parking lot, and taken his car. Still, he figured it was best to be on the safe side.
He pulled around behind an old warehouse and turned to the shivering and terrified girl.
“You try anything funny, and I’ll cut your eyes out,” he said. “Do you believe me?”
The girl nodded, keeping her face turned away toward the window, her body curled into a trembling C shape.
He got out of the car and scanned the weedy lot. There was no one around. It was bordered by two-story buildings on two sides, and a windowless, graffitied flank of an adult bookshop. No security cameras.
Perfect.
He popped the trunk and walked around to the back of the car. It was empty—nothing but a set of jumper cables, a flashlight, and a blue plastic tarp.
Walking to the passenger side, he pulled open the door and grabbed the girl by her fuzzy pink jacket. She let out a little animal whimper and stumbled against the car as he marched her around to the open trunk.
“Get in,” he said, shoving her toward the opening.
Her eyes went huge, head whipping back and forth in a wordless negative as she tried to squirm away. He cracked her in the temple with his prosthet
ic arm, knocking her stupid, but not completely out. She slumped against him, head lolling, and he caught her with his good arm before she could slide down to the concrete.
He shoved her upper body into the trunk, and then lifted her legs and tossed them in after it.
He’d brought along a small roll of duct tape for just such an occasion. He used it to bind her skinny little ankles and wrists. Then he bent her legs at the knees and fastened her ankles to her wrists. Lastly, he tore off a strip with his teeth and slapped it over her mouth.
She was just starting to get her wits about her again, twisting her head from side to side and moaning behind the tape gag. As he watched her become aware of her predicament, it occurred to him that he could just kill her, and not have to worry about the practical challenges posed by transporting an underage hostage across state lines.
But he was worried about what Olivia might do if she came into the old house and didn’t see her sister there. Not only that, but he had this strange feeling of pride in being a man of his word. He was on the side of good, and Olivia was pure evil. It was as if they were destined to meet in this way, and any deviation from the plan would result in disaster.
He closed the trunk, ignoring the scuffle and thumps coming from the interior, and walked back around to the driver’s side.
As he got in behind the wheel, he was already making plans for getting rid of this car and procuring a new one. Something nice and roomy for the long haul. Preferably with an intact rear windshield.
If he didn’t sleep, they could be in Jacksonville by tomorrow morning. Then, all he would have to do is wait.
* * *
Olivia sat on a Greyhound bus, leaning against the window and watching the bare, leafless trees go whizzing by. The ride was long and dull, and she had nothing to do but think.
She felt simultaneously keyed up and utterly exhausted, and had absolutely no idea what she was going to do when she got to the old house. She wanted to try to come up with some clever plan, but couldn’t seem to focus. Instead, she kept running awful scenarios in her head of what might be happening to Rachel.
If anything bad happened to her sister, she didn’t think she would ever be able to forgive herself.
She was also terribly worried about Kieran. She wanted desperately to call him and make sure that he was okay, but another part of her felt that she should distance herself from him right now. That being close to her was clearly dangerous, and he was better off staying as far away from her as possible.
Again and again, she found herself wishing that she were older. She already felt like an adult, and had for some time, but while she had shouldered many adult responsibilities in her young life, she didn’t have any of the privileges and freedom given to most adults.
Most significantly, the privilege to purchase a rifle without parental permission.
If only she could find a way to get her hands on one, she had a perfect plan. She could hide across the street from the old house and wait for that one-armed bastard to show his face, so she could put a bullet between his eyes.
She had no doubt that she could hit the target. Shooting was as natural to her as breathing, and she’d made plenty of tougher shots in the past without breaking a sweat. But since she was preparing to join the Marines as soon as she graduated, she’d often wondered if she’d still be able to make a shot, knowing it would end the life of a fellow human being.
Now, knowing that her sister was in danger, Olivia had no doubt that she could pull the trigger—without hesitation or remorse.
Only she would never get the chance, because she had no way of getting access to any kind of firearm. Even if she were old enough, or able to find some unscrupulous person willing to overlook her age, she’d spent almost all her money on the bus ticket.
So she had to come up with some kind of plan that relied only on her bare hands, and her wits.
For the moment, however, the exhaustion was winning, and she found herself drifting. Not quite asleep, but not quite lucid. Drifting, eyes half shut, random, dream-like thoughts flapping like trapped bats inside her skull.
* * *
Tony cased several suburban neighborhoods around the outskirts of Boston before he found one he liked. It was generic, middle class, and mostly white. A complacent neighborhood, just nice enough to make the residents feel safe, but not nice enough that the homeowners would take paranoid measures in order to protect their possessions.
Most of the houses on the sleepy residential block he chose had two-car garages, which was his first requirement. The second requirement was that the garage in the target house have only one car in it. Third, he wanted a dwelling with a single, preferably female occupant with no kids or dogs.
It took some doing, but by mid-afternoon he’d located the perfect target.
It was a neat little place, yellow with flowerboxes and wind chimes. There was ceramic duck by the mailbox and a wrought iron sign that read WELCOME TO GRANDMA’S HOUSE.
He parked the kid’s car around the corner and walked around to the back of the house, pulling a latex glove over his good hand. The back door wasn’t locked.
Perfect.
The door led him into a small, tidy kitchen that smelled like cookies. The harvest gold appliances were dated, but well maintained. Children’s drawings were stuck to the refrigerator with magnets shaped like fruit. A stained-glass cross hung in the window, casting patches of colored light across the worn orange linoleum. He could hear the television nattering in another room, and silently made his way down a carpeted hallway toward the sound.
He found the occupant sitting in a blue velvet easy chair in the living room. He’d glimpsed the back of her white head through the window, and now that he could see her face, it was pretty much exactly what he expected. Big, owlish glasses balanced on a thin, aristocratic nose. Deeply wrinkled lips painted garish pink, and fake choppers that were way too white. Hair like dandelion fluff that looked like it might be blown off her head by a light breeze.
She was dressed in a bulky magenta sweater and a pair of white velour trackpants. She had a gaudy polyester scarf loosely knotted around her wattled neck and furry pink slippers on her tiny feet.
When she saw Tony, she seemed more baffled than frightened. At first, anyway.
* * *
Olivia had a gun stuck in the waistband of her jeans, but she didn’t want to use it on the old woman because of the noise. But that scarf around her neck gave Olivia an idea.
She lifted the woman up like a ragdoll and threw her to the dusty carpet, jumping on top of her so that her knees were on the old woman’s shoulders. The lady was starting to make noises like a frightened turkey, so Olivia punched her in the face. That shut her up, but Olivia instantly regretted the action because the old woman’s big false teeth cut into her left knuckles.
She shook out her stinging hand and then grabbed the woman’s scarf and cinched it tight around her wrinkly neck.
As she choked the life out of the flailing figure, she found her attention drifting to the television screen. Some kind of talk show. Two pregnant women were shoving each other while a lascivious male host hovered over them, clutching his microphone and grinning. A frightened man with stringy hair and a scraggly beard hovered nearby.
By the time the fight between the women had been broken up by a pair of handsy security guards, the old woman was dead.
Olivia stayed on top of her for a few more minutes, though, watching the television, curious to see the paternity results for the angry pregnant women. When it was revealed that neither baby had been fathered by guy with the stringy hair, Olivia shrugged and went to find the old woman’s car keys.
* * *
Olivia woke with a little aborted cry stuck in her throat. She was soaked with sweat, her heart racing, and she was suddenly afraid that she was going to throw up.
She shook her head and tried to calm her pounding heart.
She was under tremendous stress, but that didn’t explain the recurrence of
these terrible dreams. Was she losing her mind? Cracking under the pressure?
Maybe it was a manifestation of her murderous thoughts about the dark-haired man. That might have led to her latest nightmare, but what about the earlier ones?
There was no way of knowing, but she couldn’t let herself be rattled by dreams. She had more than enough bad reality ahead of her.
* * *
Tony found the dead woman’s keys in a ceramic dish full of candy and change. He took only the car keys and left the rest, including the I Love My Grandbabies key chain with a photo of a couple of pale, potato-faced brats.
At the far side of the kitchen he found the door leading to the garage. Turning on the light, he let himself into a blue ’91 Vista he’d spotted through the dirty garage window. There was an automatic garage door opener, which he pocketed, along with the keys.
He went back through the kitchen and out the back door, and walked back to the kid’s car. He didn’t hear any sounds coming from the trunk, and hoped it was just because Rachel had worn herself out struggling. But he couldn’t worry about that now. This next bit would be tricky, and he had to stay focused.
He got into the car and started it up, then drove around to the front of the dead woman’s house. He circled the block twice, just to be sure there was no one watching, and then on the third pass he used the garage door opener to let himself in. He parked next to her sedan, and then killed the engine and popped the trunk. He got out went around the back to check on Rachel.
The girl had wet her pants—the sharp reek of it was like a slap in the face when he leaned in over her. She was shivering, cheeks pink with shame, and wouldn’t meet his gaze.
“I tell you what,” he said, opening the trunk of the old lady’s sedan. “You be a good girl for the next thirty minutes or so, and I might let you clean up. Try anything stupid, and you can lie in your own filth until we get to Jacksonville. Capice?”
She nodded, but her face was still turned away.
He lifted her out of the trunk, wrinkling his nose and reluctant to touch the wet spot on her jeans even with his gloved hand. Then he transferred her over to the new trunk. She made some kind of pleading noise behind her tape gag, tangled hair falling over her desperate eyes, but he closed the lid anyway.
The Burning Man Page 13
