by LS Hawker
“Is that a joke?” I said. “You can’t do that.”
“Watch me. I got the law on my side. You got shit.”
My voice shook. “I don’t know why Petty’s dad picked a douche like you to—”
“Douche? I’m a respected man in Niobe County. I’m an Elk and a Lion. I’m a great guy. Everybody knows it. And you’re nothing, a thief and a liar. A grocery boy. You’re a fugitive, and so is she.”
I said nothing.
“Why do you think her dad kept her locked up all those years, huh? Did you ever stop to think about it?”
I couldn’t help myself. “Because her dad was crazy.”
“Because he was crazy?” Randy said, “Or is she?”
This was a twist. She was odd, no question. But crazy?
“She almost got put in the mental ward after she tried to kill Justin Pencey at the dump.”
“She didn’t try to kill him,” I said. “She was defending herself. Justin and those kids ambushed her.”
“Right,” Randy said. “That’s the official story, but nobody attacked her. Those kids went out there to dump something, and for no reason at all she attacked them. Put Justin in the hospital, if you’ll recall. Dooley and Charlie concocted that story, and Charlie had to pay those kids and their parents off to go along with it.”
That couldn’t be true . . . could it? I knew what kind of an asshole Justin Pencey was. He’d brag about having sex with girls after they passed out from drinking too much. He tormented smaller boys in the school locker room. I’d always figured he’d deserved the ass-kicking that he’d received from Petty, that he’d provoked her or even snuck up on her in her little dump guard shack. But she was a volatile person with some weird ideas. Who knew what was really true?
“You’re so full of shit,” I said, but my confidence was wavering. Maybe Randy knew Petty was in the room, and he was saying all these things to provoke her. I hoped she wouldn’t rise to the bait—if that’s what it was.
“Listen. I’m going to make this easy for you. You bring Petty to me, I’ll give you a share of the insurance policy. I’ll give you one hundred thousand dollars.”
I inhaled sharply. For a split second I let myself imagine what it might be like to have that kind of money. To go back to college. To blend in with the rich kids. I shook my head, as if to dislodge the idea from it. I couldn’t possibly even entertain the idea of betraying Petty like that. Except I already had.
And maybe it was truly the best thing for her . . .
“If she’s so dangerous, how come her dad let her work at the dump? With a shotgun in her booth?”
“It wasn’t loaded, numb-nuts. Charlie let her think it was. As long as she wasn’t around people that much, she was okay. He kept her locked up so she wouldn’t hurt anyone else. And look what it got him.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I saw the coroner’s report. Her dad didn’t die of a heart attack. Someone held a pillow over his face. He was smothered to death.”
“BULLSHIT,” DEKKER SAID, sounding even more uncertain.
“Dooley’s planning for her to plead not guilty by reason of insanity. I’m guessing you know about the sealed envelope that Petty stole from Dooley’s office. There’s a report in there from a psychiatrist that says she’s a paranoid schizophrenic.”
That’s what I had feared was in that envelope. After that day at the dump, a lady had come to the house and we’d sat out front while she asked me all kinds of questions. Things like did I hear voices, and did I think that everyone was out to get me. She’d written my answers on a clipboard and then went away. I’d never heard any more about it.
But Randy’s words: Delusional. Paranoid. Suspicious. Odd.
That was me.
“He’s appointing me as her guardian,” Randy continued. “She’ll spend some time in the nuthouse, but we’ll get her the medication she needs, and then she’ll come home with me.”
I’d dreamed of killing Dad thousands of times. Of waiting until he fell asleep and taking a pillow and slowly lowering it over his face. Of getting comfortable with holding it down, with waiting until he started to fight. Of not being surprised when he didn’t.
Of imagining my life outside of his house.
Did I really only imagine it? Or had I killed the man I’d thought was my father? The man who trained me to kill?
How had I let myself believe in the last few days that I deserved to be around normal people?
Maybe Michael Rhones and Randy King knew what was best for me. Maybe I didn’t.
Because I didn’t know whether I had done the things he said I’d done, whether I was what he said I was. I felt like I was falling, tumbling through space, with nothing and no one to catch me. I’d seen shows about people who couldn’t tell the difference between what happened on television and what happened in the real world. And now this thought spiraled in on itself. Had I watched so many crime shows that I could no longer distinguish between what I’d seen on TV and what I’d done?
Not knowing made me desperate to get up to Paiute, to meet my biological father and discover the truth about myself and my past. To find out if my mother was up there with him. If I could just look them in the eye, somehow I would know the truth about everything.
“I’m getting tired of all this talking,” Randy said. “I’ve been driving all day. Now you’re going to tell me where she is.”
There was silence, and I pictured Dekker mouthing the words, She’s under there, and pointing at the bed. But instead he said, “I’m not going to tell you.”
Above me the box springs sagged as Randy added his weight to Dekker’s. I heard struggling, grunting, fists making contact with flesh.
I had to get out of there, get up to Paiute now. I unholstered Baby Glock as I rolled out from under the bed, and saw Randy’s hands fastened around my friend’s neck, Dekker’s eyes bulging and limbs flailing ineffectually like a beetle on its back. His helplessness enraged me. I pulled back the slide on my gun and pushed the barrel against Randy’s temple. Somehow his Stetson remained on his sweaty head.
“Get off him,” I said. “I’m crazy. I will shoot you.” I hated the fact I was using the exact same words I’d said to Dekker a few days ago. But the slack surprise on Randy’s face as he loosened his grip on Dekker’s neck gave me a thrill. Dekker pushed him off and straightened, panting and gagging.
“I know you’ve got your hand cannon,” I said. “Put it on the nightstand.”
Randy glared at me and pulled the .357 Magnum out of his pocket. He laid it on the nightstand. I picked it up and ejected the clip, which I pocketed.
Dekker’s nose and mouth were bleeding and he had a knot on his forehead. The skin on his neck was bright pink.
“Get up,” I said to him.
Dekker rolled off the bed, wiping blood from his face, and Randy tried to stand.
“Not you, Randy. You stay where you are.”
He did.
“You all right, Dekker?”
Dekker nodded, his hands bloody, his face smeary and swollen.
“Petty,” Randy said.
“Take this,” I said to Dekker, holding out the Magnum butt first. “Then get our things together. We’re leaving.”
He took the gun, shoved it awkwardly into the waistband of his jeans, and started packing up.
“Petty, I’m talking to you,” Randy said.
I so wished I could take another shower after lying in the underbed filth, but it would have to wait. Dekker threw clothes and toiletries into the plastic Walmart shopping bags.
“Don’t forget the stuff in the bathroom,” I said.
“Petty!” Randy shouted. “I promised your dad I’d take care of you. I’m not going to stop coming after you. I won’t stop until I bring you home.”
I got in hi
s face. “Randy, you didn’t promise my dad anything. Because Charlie Moshen wasn’t my real dad. In fact, his name wasn’t Charlie Moshen. It was Michael Rhones. And you can go to hell along with him.”
“Well, whatever his name was, you knew him and what he was willing to do to keep you safe.”
What did that mean?
“He made it so he could find you if you were ever kidnapped. Trust me. I will find you wherever you go.” The smile on his face was insane—triumphant and gleeful.
“What are you talking about?”
“That bump on your left shoulder. He told you that was scar tissue from a fall, right?”
My scalp began tingling, the blood in my veins rushing and expanding. How did Randy know about the itchy little bump on my left shoulder? I felt it with my right hand. It now seemed to throb under my touch.
Randy held up his iPhone. On the screen was a pulsing yellow dot on a map. “Your dad implanted a microchip under your skin. Got it from the vet. Works like a charm. So you can run, Petty, but I’ll find you.”
I COULD NOT believe what I was hearing. Surely Randy was bluffing. The microchips for pets that I’d heard about were just for identification, they didn’t have GPS capabilities—that was science fiction stuff.
Petty stripped off her hoodie and stared at her own shoulder, her mouth open, horrified, as if it were covered in boils or slugs.
“You’re full of shit,” I said to Randy, and my voice was shaky and hoarse. “The technology doesn’t exist.”
“Fine,” he said. “How did I find you, then?”
A flash of light and movement in my peripheral vision drew my attention. Petty held a small knife on a clip in her hand, the same one she’d threatened Ray the truck driver with.
“You cut me and you’re going to the nuthouse or jail,” Randy said. “Your choice.”
But Petty clearly had other ideas. She slashed the blade across her shoulder. The knife was sharp enough that it easily sank into the flesh.
“No!” I yelled, reaching for her, but it was too late.
Sweat ran down her face as she gouged into the skin of her shoulder with her fingers, which were now coated with her own blood.
The hole in her shoulder widened, skin and muscle tearing as she dug. I watched her teeth sink into her bottom lip until blood appeared as she grunted and gasped through her nose. I stopped breathing, watching this, unable to help, afraid I might throw up.
With a final push, Petty pinched her fingers into her shoulder and withdrew a capsule, not much larger than a grain of rice, from the ragged fissure she’d made. With her shaking, gore-slicked hand, she held it out to me. But I couldn’t move, I was so horrified by what she’d just done to herself.
“Flush this,” she said in a quivering, ghostly voice.
When I didn’t take it from her, she seized my hand with hers and pressed the bloody microchip into my palm. I stifled my gag reflex and did as I was told, and even had the presence of mind to bring out a towel with me. Petty clutched it to her shoulder while I tied it clumsily in place. She pulled her hoodie on over it.
Randy sat staring in horror, gasping as if he’d been underwater for a long time. He wiped his face with his sleeve and gaped at Petty.
RANDY FOUND HIS voice at last. “See? She’s crazy.”
I felt light-headed and nauseated, but we had to get out of there and make sure Randy didn’t follow us.
“It doesn’t matter what you think,” I said to him. “You’re not going to remember any of this anyway.”
I wound up—using all the power in my hips for force—and punched through his temple with my right fist, knocking the hat from his head and the consciousness from his mind. He dropped over on his side.
Dekker stood staring, his mouth fallen open. “You killed him,” he said.
“He’ll be fine. Let’s go.”
I withdrew the .357 from Dekker’s jeans and laid it on the pillow next to Randy’s head.
“Don’t we want to take that?” Dekker said.
“I’m not stealing the guy’s gun,” I said. “That wouldn’t be right.”
“Have you lost your mind?”
“I’m starting to think I never had it in the first place,” I said.
THE SUN WAS setting as we drove west. Along the sides of the highway, massive red rocks were strewn about like a giant’s carelessly discarded Legos.
“Petty,” Dekker said, his eyes on the road.
“Yes?” I was busy applying pressure to my shoulder, which felt hot and sore, and really itched now that it had mostly stopped bleeding.
“I’m only going to ask this one time,” he said, his voice chapped, whether from recent trauma or fear, I didn’t know. “Did you kill Charlie Moshen? Michael Rhones? Your mom’s husband?”
The shadowy boulders started to look like giant, angry faces in the dark.
“What difference does it make?” I said.
“Did you?”
I didn’t answer. We were silent for a long while, driving up and up into the mountains.
“I’m wondering,” I said, “if you’re thinking hard about that hundred thousand dollars.”
More silence.
“I remember that day,” Dekker said.
At first I thought he meant the day my dad died. But then he went on.
“I remember the day it happened. It was around Halloween, I remember, because the sky was dark and there were construction-paper pumpkins and Kleenex ghosts in the school halls. I remember Justin’s face when he came back to school.”
“Let me explain,” I said. I couldn’t bear to think of that horrible day, to remember my terror, what it had felt like to be attacked and forced to maim another human being.
It was as if he hadn’t heard me. “I remember every Halloween from then on we all talked about you, about how you were cursed and lived in a haunted house. Everyone had a Petty Moshen story. You were an urban legend. You were the boogeyman. We all talked about how you tried to break into our houses at night to kill us.”
I’d never had any sense of myself outside of my house and the dump. I’d never realized the town knew what I was—a mentally ill freak.
“I was feeling like we’d kind of gotten to know each other over past couple of days, but I’ve been sitting here thinking back over our conversations, and I realize it was always me talking. I don’t know what you think about anything, I don’t know who you are at all, so I don’t know what to believe about what Randy said.”
“I guess I’m not sure either.”
Dekker groaned, clearly frustrated. He didn’t say anything for a moment. “That doesn’t make me feel better.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“I want you to answer my question.”
I turned back to the window. “It doesn’t matter.”
We drove in silence, endless headlights cutting bright streamers into the dark. I grieved for the trust that had been shattered on both sides. My heart felt like it was shredding itself because something had been lost. Randy King had taken it. I wanted to talk to my friend about how scared I was about meeting my real dad, but I didn’t think he could hear me anymore.
Between two mountains, we came over a rise into a flat valley cut in half by a glittering river.
I had cotton mouth, and I wished I’d thought to bring some of our bottled water. I wished Randy had showed up earlier in the day so we wouldn’t be sneaking up on Mitchell Bellandini after dark like this. I rubbed my sweating palms on my jeans. What if he wasn’t interested in meeting me? What if he was like my other dad?
Dekker missed the turnoff and we had to double back. Then we took a steep dirt road to the top of a hill that overlooked the valley. We almost didn’t see the little cabin all by its lonesome back there in the midst of the pine forest. There was a light on inside
though.
I was afraid I was going to be sick. Plus we were now at a higher elevation, which had me gasping for air again.
Dekker pulled the car over to the side of the dirt road, which was twenty feet below the cabin. “Are you ready?”
“I guess,” I said.
We found a place to climb up, and as soon as our heads cleared the embankment, brilliant light flooded the yard and a big black dog came tearing out of the darkness, followed quickly by the black silhouette of a man with a rifle.
“Who the hell’s in my yard at nine o’clock at night? Show yourself or I’ll blow your head off.”
Chapter 24
OH, YEAH, I thought. That’s definitely her dad.
Petty and I held our hands in the air, trying to simultaneously shield our eyes from the blinding lights. I froze so the dog wouldn’t attack us, but Petty kept making some sort of signal with her right hand.
“Stop it,” I hissed. “What are you doing?”
“It’s the hand signal for sit,” Petty said. “But this dog hasn’t been trained at all.”
It was all over the place, snapping at us with a menacing bark.
“Dekker,” Petty said. “Don’t make eye contact with the dog, and don’t smile. Okay?”
“No problem,” I said.
“Who’s out there?” the man on the porch yelled.
I wasn’t sure what to say. This girl is the product of your affair with her mother twenty-two years ago?
“Could you put the gun down?” I said.
“Not until you tell me who you are and what you’re doing here in the middle of the night.”
“Mr. Bellandini?” I said.
“Who the hell wants to know?”
“Did you know Marianne Rhones?”
Silence.
“You get the hell out of here, you damn kids! Out! I’m giving you until the count of three!”
“Mr. Bellandini, let me explain,” I said, one hand still in the air and the other blocking the light. “This girl here is Marianne’s daughter.”
A pause. “What did you say?”
“This is Anne Marie Rhones.”
