by C. C. Wall
Reed turned and whispered to Reagan. “But he has to pay for this. He just has to.”
Reagan patted him on the back. “He will.”
As Reed took Moe out of the station, Tom was still wild-eyed.
“Tom, I swear. Let me handle this,” Reagan said.
“We used to go to the falls you know,” Tom said. “Me and Jason. We used to go up there and swim when he was little and fish there at the stream.”
“Just give me a day or two to sort this out,” Reagan asked.
“He would go there I bet,” Tom said. “I bet he feels safe there.”
“Tom!” Reagan shouted. “I need you to let me handle this.”
Tom nodded.
48 - Above All Things
“Leonard!” Helen shouted. “Any help you can give me out here would be great!”
“I’m backed up on the grill as it is, hun,” Leonard shouted back.
Helen walked over to a table that had been waiting for service. “Oh hi Jack, What can I get you?”
“Just coffee and short stack,” Jack said.
“No bacon?” she asked.
“Why not,” he said. “Add the bacon.”
“Will do,” she said. “Sorry it took me longer than usual to get over here. Just with Ashley gone…”
“Don’t mention it,” he said. “Take your time. I got nothing important today.”
She smiled. “I’ll try to hurry.” She walked back behind the counter to pour his coffee when she saw a face she hadn’t seen in awhile. “Lawrence!”
“Hey Helen,” Chaney said. “How’s the coffee today?”
“Oh my God!” she cried out as she ran over to him. She gave him a hug. “I am so sorry to hear about…”
“Let’s not talk about that,” he said.
“Of course,” she said. “I’m so sorry. Anything you want, on the house.”
“I’m just meeting someone here for breakfast,” he said. “And there he is.” Chaney walked towards Jack.
“I’ll get you a coffee,” Helen said. “I like the outfit.”
Chaney sat down across from Jack, who immediately tried to get up. Chaney grabbed his wrist. “Sit down, it’s okay. I just want to ask you a few questions.”
“Last time I saw you,” Jack said. “You punched me in the face.”
“And you’re lucky that’s all that happened,” Chaney said. “You see, I’m looking for someone that has done something very hurtful to me and when I pressed some information about that person out of someone, they said I needed to talk to you.”
Jack’s face turned to worry.
“You could imagine my surprise when, out of all the people in Black Star Canyon, your name came up,” Chaney said. He smiled. “So we are going to sit here like civilized people. We are going to have breakfast and you are going to answer all of my questions to my satisfaction. Do you understand?”
“Here’s your coffee, gentlemen,” Helen said. She put the cups down. “Any food for you, Lawrence?”
“What’s he having?” Chaney asked.
“Short stack and bacon,” Helen said.
Chaney glared at Jack. “Toast will be fine. White.”
“Coming up,” Helen said.
Jack tried hard to act tough. “Listen here, pal, I don’t have to say anything…”
Jack rose in his seat once he felt something long and hard pressing against his crotch. He started to panic once he heard Chaney cock the gun.
“You don’t need to make a scene,” Chaney said. “That is a double barrel shotgun shoved against your balls there. If you don’t answer my questions, to my satisfaction, I’ll blow your dick off.” There was a twinkle in Chaney’s eye.
Jack tried to speak but was only able to mouth the words, “Oh my God.”
“Where is Gus?” Chaney smiled.
“I… I don’t know,” Jack said.
Chaney pushed harder on the gun.
Jack cringed. “I don’t…”
“I really hope you don’t think that I won’t blow a giant hole in you, just because we are the cafe,” Chaney said. “I’m not sure if you know, but the only thing I ever cared about in the world was horrifically taken from me. Then I went to a… place, let’s say, where all my fear, all my compassion, all my emotion was taken from me. The only reason why I came back was to settle the score. I have no ties here any longer. I have no problem making a hole in you that a car could drive through.” Chaney chuckled. “And if you think the crack law enforcement here is a deterrent for me? You haven’t even been reading your articles.”
“Deputies come in here all the time,” Jack said. “You can’t hold a gun to me.”
Chaney looked at Jack with an insane stare. “I am above all things. I am the only law.” He pushed harder on the gun. So hard, that he was shaking while he did it. With his other hand he picked up his cup of coffee and took a sip. “Now, where is Gus?”
“Okay, okay,” Jack said. “I really don’t know where he is, believe me, I think you’re crazy enough to shoot me, I do. I would tell you if I knew.”
Chaney nodded his head. “Okay, how about a cabin?”
“A cabin?” Jack asked.
“Does our friend Gus, have a cabin?” Chaney asked.
Jack’s eyes lit up. “Yes!”
“Keep your voice down please,” Chaney commanded.
“Sorry,” Jack said. “Yes he does. It’s out on the way towards Five Point Peak. It’s off the road quite a bit. It’s hard to find but there is a trail.”
“How do I get there?” Chaney said.
“It’s difficult to find but I could draw you a map,” Jack said.
“Start drawing,” Chaney said. “Grab a napkin. If it’s messy, you will try again.”
“Of course,” Jack said. He grabbed his napkin and his pen and started drawing.
“Now,” Chaney said. “Tell me how you know of this place.”
“I have been there once… no, twice,” Jack said.
“Why though?” Chaney asked. “You and Gus don’t seem the type that would be chummy.”
“We weren’t,” Jack said. “It was a sort of, business relationship.”
“So,” Chaney said, “What kind of business were you in with the fat man?”
“You really don’t want to know,” Jack said.
“Oh, but I do,” Chaney said.
Jack finished the map and slid it over to Chaney.
“Here, the trail you turn on is about fifty yards from the school bus wreckage, it’s sort of a long way up from there,” Jack said. “But, I assure you, you are not going to like what you find.”
“I think, I will,” Chaney said.
“Do yourself a favor,” Jack said. “When you find him, don’t ask any questions. Just kill him.”
49 - Quietly Looking For Answers
To Dakota’s disbelief, once he was all alone in the cell block, he couldn’t sleep. His brain wandered quickly and the sound of it was driving him mad. He couldn’t help but think about where his brother’s body was. He knew he was dead. He had to be. Where could he have gone? And his bike too? Something wasn’t right and he had no clue where to start looking for answers.
He thought about all the friends that Colt had. That list was very, very short. It included Gus and himself. Colt didn’t make friends. He leveraged people. Dakota didn’t think that anyone would want to help Colt. Gus was already on the run by the time Dakota ran him off the road. He also didn’t think that Gus would come back to town if there was any heat on him whatsoever. So Gus was out of the question.
Who else could be left, he thought. There wasn’t anyone else.
Wait.
Bekka!
What if he got a hold of Bekka, he thought. Could Bekka have got him and his bike out of there and then nurse him back to health? He was pretty far gone and if she would have picked him up, she would have had to have taken him to the hospital. The deputies didn’t say anything about Colt being at the hospital so that was probably out of the
question too.
Dakota paced back and forth in his cell.
If it wasn’t Bekka that helped him, and it wasn’t his friends, then who else could there be?
An idea dawned on him. It was a hard idea to wrap his head around. Yet, it was the only idea that seemed to make any sense. If it wasn’t Bekka and wasn’t one of his friends, it had to be an enemy. Not one of Colt’s, but one of Dakota’s.
This made Dakota’s mind race even faster. Dakota had pissed a lot of people off over the years, but if it was one of his enemies, they would have to be able to also put up with Colt. Dakota thought long and hard about who would hate him but like Colt. It seemed to be a paradox. He couldn’t make heads or tails of anything. One thing was for sure though, he had to definitely be able to cross names off the list.
The cell block door opened and Reagan brought in Jonathan.
“Now play nice, boys.” Reagan said as he put Jonathan in his cell.
“Sheriff?” Dakota said.
“Yep?” Reagan answered.
“Don’t I get a phone call?”
50 - Dirty Glass
Bekka rinsed her mouth out. She hated the taste of vomit in her mouth. She blew her nose because some got up there too. She hated everything about vomiting, even though she usually always drank until she vomited. That’s how she knew when to stop. Every time she did, she would say to herself, “I’m never drinking again.” But she always did.
She was hungry and wanted something to settle her stomach but knew if she opened the refrigerator that the smell might make her throw up again. She didn’t want that. So she decided to stick with bread. She folded up a piece of bread and took a bite. It wasn’t great but it wasn’t making her sick so that made it tolerable.
She checked the answering machine next to the phone to see if the light was flashing, meaning there was a message. There was no flashing light.
She looked into the living room and saw the empty seats that her parents used to sit in. They glowed green from the light from the television.
She chewed her bread and sulked back to her room. She sat on her bed and pulled her comforter up and bunched it up on her lap. She took the final bite of bread and realized that it was a big bite and she had nothing to wash it down with. The bread seemed to grow in her mouth the more she chewed it and it was making her mouth drier each time she bit down.
She picked up an unopened beer she had in a box next to the bed. She popped the top off and tried to wet the bread enough with beer in order for her to swallow.
Her phone rang.
She couldn’t believe it. It had been days of silence.
“O mi good!” she tried to yell with a mouth full of beer and bread. She picked up her phone. “Hewhoa?” she said. She knew she couldn’t be understood. She chewed and swallowed hard to get it all down. “Hello?”
“Bekka?”
“Who is this?” she said. “Dakota?”
“Yeah,” he said. “How are you?”
Tears of joy flew out of her. “My God, Dakota! Where have you been? I need you so bad right now?”
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“My sister ran off. My parents are missing. The cops are no help,” she said. “And, I think I’m going crazy.”
The other end of the phone was silent.
“Dakota?” she said. “Could you please come over?”
“I actually don’t think I can,” he said. “But, I’m really sorry that you’re going through all that by yourself.”
“Why can’t you come?” she asked. “Where are you?”
“I’m actually at the sheriff’s station,” he said.
“Why?” she asked. “Why are you there?”
“Something happened with Colt,” he said.
“Colt?” she said. “What happened with him? Is he okay?”
Dakota held back his rage at her showing any care for Colt. “I think, I killed him.”
“What?” Bekka shouted. “You killed him?”
“I thought I did, but when I turned myself in and we went and checked, the body was gone. So was his bike,” Dakota said.
“Why…” Bekka stopped.
“You know why, Bekka. I’m not stupid,” he said. “But, that’s not why I called you. I just needed to know that you were all right and to warn you that he might still be out there and if he is, you might be in danger.”
“From Colt?” Bekka said. “Colt wouldn’t hurt me.”
Dakota clinched his jaw. “Think what you want, but you don’t know him as well as you think.”
“You killed him?” she asked. “How?”
Dakota smiled through his gritted teeth. “I ran his ass off the road then I shot him in the face.”
Bekka gasped on the other end of the phone.
Dakota continued, “Just minutes after your goodbye kiss in front of Cook’s.”
Bekka felt her heart drop.
“Bekka? Are you there?” Dakota felt horrible for making her feel bad. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“You killed him?” Bekka asked. “Don’t call me again.” Bekka hung up her phone.
Bekka screamed out into the empty house. Her cries echoed through it. She buried her face in her pillow and screamed repeatedly at the top of her lungs to vent her frustration and anguish. She liked it better this way. She hated hearing her voice echo. It made her feel more alone.
She jumped up and ran out to the living room and fell to the floor in front of where her parents would sit. She ran her hands over the seats. “Where are you guys?” she cried. “I need you!” She cried louder and louder. Her tears made her cheeks reflect the green glow from the television so much more than anything in the room. Bekka sat in the seat her mom would always sit in. She put her face in her hands and sobbed.
A sound was coming from somewhere. It sounded like a squeak. Bekka thought nothing of it at first, but then it became louder and more constant. She was afraid to take her hands off of her face for fear of what horror she would see. She slid her fingers down her face slowly. As soon as her finger tips passed her eyes, she knew where to look. Right in front of her, on the television. It looked as if someone were writing with their finger on a steamed mirror or a dirty car window. Someone was writing her a message from inside the television! The message however was backwards and took Bekka a moment to figure out. Once she did, tears of joy and sadness raced each other down her face. The message read, DON’T TURN US OFF.
51 - Walking Away
He had not been there since the night he vanished. He stood out front for almost an hour. It wasn’t that Chaney was afraid to go inside his house, it was that he knew that this would be the last time. When he arrived, he wasn’t sure why he was there. There wasn’t anything for him there any longer. There was no wife to come home to. There was no future to build. Maybe, it was just to say goodbye.
He walked up the stone steps to the front door. He stumbled a little on that stone that Sara had been pestering him to fix. He welled up a bit when he realized that he had failed her. He meant to fix the stone but just never got around to it.
He opened the door and stood in the doorway and looked inside. Everything was pretty much the way he had left it. It was still in disarray. He inhaled deeply through his nostrils. He could almost smell Sara. He lifted his foot as if he was taking a step inside but hesitated. Fear was keeping him from placing his foot inside the house. He closed his eyes tightly and let his foot fall inside. He exhaled loudly and opened his eyes.
He walked throughout the living room, looking at pictures of the two of them from happier times. He went to the fire place and threw a couple logs in and made a fire. He used to really enjoy doing that and Sara was always afraid to. So, in the winter, when he would come home from work, she would be sitting on the couch, bundled up in blankets. She would be so happy to have him start the fire. It always made him happy knowing he could do that for her.
He walked down the hallway. Along the walls in the hallway were a timeline
of pictures and portraits from when he and Sara had first got together, all the way to last Christmas. Years of memories all filed away on the walls of a moderately long hallway. As Chaney walked down the hallway, he ran his fingers along the pictures making them slanted on the wall.
He walked into their bedroom. The room where they shared there love physically and held each other at night. It was there where they felt perfectly safe from the outside world. Nothing could come between them in there. Chaney went in and sat on Sara’s side of the bed. In all the years they were married, he had never done that. He looked around the room trying to see the world from her side of the bed. It was so different yet it was only a couple feet from where he sat every morning.
He lifted her pillow to his face and tried to smell her. The smell was faint, but he could smell her hair. A small grin curled the corners of his lips. He buried his face in the pillow once more. He walked over to her dresser and pulled out his favorite nighty of hers. It was red silk. It formed to her figure nicely. It felt amazing on his skin. He ran it over his face. He held back the tears.
He went into the bathroom and found her brush in the top drawer. There was still hair in it. He pulled the hair out of the brush and rubbed the hair along his lips and then placed the hair in his pocket. He looked up into the mirror and was taken aback. He hadn’t looked at himself since his return. His lips quivered. He couldn’t believe how much older he looked. His hair had so much more gray in it. The lines in his face were so much deeper. His eyes weren’t as bright as they once were.
He grabbed the bottle of her favorite perfume and headed back down the hallway. He turned the corner to go into the kitchen. He stood in the exact place he stood when his whole world shattered. The same place his soul died. The same place where he stumbled upon Sara’s body lying mangled on the floor, lifeless.
