by S. B. Caves
Cindy turned her head, her mouth agape. It was as though she’d just woken from a deep slumber and her senses hadn’t quite returned.
‘We’re going to walk into that office and get a room for the two of us, and you are going to keep your mouth shut. If I have even the slightest suspicion that you’re trying to make eyes at the clerk or do anything to jeopardise me, I’ll start shooting. Do you believe me?’
‘I’m not … I’m not gonna.’
‘You’re not gonna what?’
‘I’m not gonna do nothing bad, I promise.’
‘You better not, Cindy, I swear to God you better not, because up to now I think I’ve been pretty fair with you. And I’ll continue to be fair if you stay straight. So that means when I get this room you don’t try any funny stuff. Do we have a deal?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Good. Come on then.’
Francine gathered her backpack, which now contained several bottles of pills, and stepped out of the car. Cindy was slow in following, buckling against the door as she exited the vehicle. Francine strolled around and grabbed her by the arm.
‘What’s the matter with you?’ she whispered as she propped the woman up and dragged her across the gravel.
‘Tired,’ Cindy said.
‘Well you’re going to be sleeping soon, so just come on.’
A bell tinkled as they entered the empty reception of the motel. The smell of alcohol and cigarette smoke clung to the scuffed eggshell-coloured walls. A moment later, a woman appeared wrapped in a moth-eaten woollen cardigan, seemingly irritated at their arrival.
‘Need a room for the night,’ Francine said, wasting no energy on pleasantries.
‘How many?’ the woman asked, producing a clipboard with a form.
‘One room, one night,’ Francine replied.
‘Fill this in. It’ll be $34.50 for the night plus tax.’
Francine moved Cindy to a faux-leather chair and plonked her down, then returned to the desk and began scribbling through the form.
‘What’s wrong with her?’ the woman asked.
‘Too much to drink.’ Francine slid the clipboard back before producing her purse from her backpack. ‘Take a card?’
‘Sure.’ The woman reached under the desk, keeping her eyes on Cindy as she brought out the card machine.
Francine made the transaction and the woman handed her a key from the corkboard. ‘Number sixteen. Checkout’s at eleven, breakfast served from seven thirty until ten. You need a Wi-Fi code?’
‘No.’ Francine walked over to Cindy, who was slumped in the chair with her eyes closed. ‘Come on, up we get.’ She grabbed her by the armpits and hoisted her to her feet, then slung an arm around her waist and helped her out of the reception.
Once they were in their room, she clicked the light on, locked the door behind them and guided Cindy over to the bed. Even at a glance in the dingy light, she could tell it was broken in the middle. When Cindy shifted on the mattress, the springs whined. That was good. Francine would be able to hear every movement if Cindy had the bright idea of getting up in the night. The woman’s eyes were already closed and her head was sunk deep into the tatty pillows.
‘Hey, wake up.’ Francine slapped her cheek lightly until her eyes fluttered open. ‘One more briefing before you go to sleep.’
‘What is it?’ Cindy croaked.
‘I’ve locked the door and I have the key on me, so don’t bother trying it. I’ve got your pills too, and I’ll be more than happy to prescribe them to you tomorrow when we set off.’
‘I’m not gonna do anything,’ Cindy whispered. ‘I’m here to help you.’
‘Good.’ Francine thought about turning the light off, but decided against it. She wanted to be able to see at all times. Her body felt heavy as an anvil, but she needed to shower. Taking the backpack with her, she went into the bathroom, leaving the door wide open. She peeled off her stinking clothes and stepped into the tub, her legs trembling as the water hit her. Looking down at her body, she saw ribs protruding. She was in bad shape.
She thought about everything that had transpired over the course of the evening and wondered what Glenn Schilling was doing at this moment. Would he be worried that Cindy was gone? By now he would most likely have checked with George the gate man and discovered the ploy to get him away from the house. He would probably be frantic with worry. Would he go to his thinking room and notice the missing discs? Would he check the security camera footage and notice it had all been wiped? These thoughts brought some semblance of satisfaction. She wanted Schilling confused and enjoyed the idea of him being antsy. Hopefully he would lose plenty of sleep.
She turned the shower off. She could have quite easily spent another hour under the hot water, washing the tension away, but she had to sleep, if only for a little while. She dried herself with the scratchy towel on the rail, then rooted through her backpack for sweatpants and a T-shirt. Once she was dressed, she lay down on the bed next to Cindy.
Now that she was finally in a position to get some sleep, she couldn’t seem to stop her mind from whirring. She thought about the journey ahead tomorrow, another long drive before the real work began. Everything had gone her way thus far, and it was only as she replayed the events in her head that she realised how remarkable her luck had been. It had almost been too easy. That thought worried her. Tomorrow she would try and lure Schilling to Little Peace, assuming he wasn’t already on his way there now. What if he didn’t play ball? What if he called her bluff? She had no plan B if things didn’t go well tomorrow, because in truth, she didn’t even have a plan A. All she had was a loose set of ideas and best-case scenarios.
She reached into the backpack and found Lena’s Polaroid. She spent a long time staring at it before she finally fell asleep.
20
Joseph Eames stood on the lawn with his radio in his sweaty palm, puffing on his ninth cigarette of the evening. He was sucking them down to the filter and his throat was beginning to feel scratchy. It was a cold night but he was hot inside his suit, his armpits and balls slippery with sweat. It had been over two hours now since the alert went out.
Wendy had been mucking out the pigs under the supervision of one of the guards when she’d apparently twisted her ankle in the mud. Lilli, the other girl on slop duty with her, had gasped and trembled violently against the neck ring as she’d told them what had happened. ‘The guard told her to get up and she said she couldn’t. She said she’d heard her ankle snap and she needed help. Then when he came over she stabbed him in the neck.’ She’d expelled her answers in quick bursts, her eyes wild with fear.
‘Stabbed him with what?’ Joseph had asked as he paced up and down the basement. The girls shouldn’t have been out there still doing chores at that time of night, but with the change in security it had taken a little while for them to get into the rhythm of things.
‘I think it was a knife, sir.’
‘What do you mean, you think it was a knife?’
‘I didn’t really see, sir,’ she’d said, easing her fingers into the collar to relieve the pressure on her neck. ‘He told me to carry on with my work, so I went over and poured the slop, sir. I just heard a sound, and when I turned around I saw Wendy running away and the guard on the floor.’
In all the years that Joseph had managed the house, very few girls had tried to escape and none of them had ever attempted violence. Now in the space of a month they’d had their first runaway and their first attack on a guard. He knew that he couldn’t be blamed for Leslie’s untimely heart attack, but there was a very real feeling that the man should have been released from his duties a long time ago. He had been at the house longer than even Joseph had, and he’d known how to handle the girls, but he’d let himself go in recent years. The problem was that finding suitable candidates for the job took a very long time. There were background checks that needed to be made, and everything had to be cleared with the higher-ups. It was easier to let things go on as they had done; if it ain’t bro
ke, don’t fix it.
Now things were beyond broken. Lena, who was too ugly to serve at the parties but who had remained at the house because she had become something of a fixture, had somehow got the smarts to run. This surprised Joseph for two reasons. Firstly, he hadn’t thought any of the girls would attempt to cross Daddy. And secondly, he’d doubted Lena had a coherent thought in her head. She was a slobbering idiot and madder than a March hare, but she was good around the house. She never complained, never seemed to get tired, and she helped break the new girls in when they arrived.
Despite the fact that they hadn’t managed to pick her up in the woods, Joseph didn’t believe for a second that Lena had found her way to the road. An experienced hiker would have trouble traversing the vast expanse of forest. No, in all likelihood she had curled up somewhere and died of exposure.
Regardless of how far she’d made it, the result was the same. The other girls knew that she was gone, and it sparked something inside them. Or maybe this was all planned. The rogue thought drifted through his head. Maybe Lena wasn’t as fucking silly as she made herself out to be. Maybe she had enough smarts to pull the wool over all our eyes. *Christ, how could he not have foreseen this? *
He’d thought that the crop of new guards, who’d been given instructions to be firm with the girls and keep an eye on them at all times, would make a world of difference. But now look. They’d already let their defences down and one of the guards was dead. Less than a fortnight on duty and that fucking little bitch Wendy had cut his throat. The man had been a war veteran, with two tours in Afghanistan; he had survived a hail of bullets, bombs and missiles only to have his life cut short by a sixteen-year-old girl. It was lunacy, it was unthinkable and it was … scary. The girls were starting to turn, slowly but surely, and this spelled danger for the house.
Joseph saw a Jeep returning with its spotlight turned off. He took one final drag on the cigarette and then flicked the butt into the grass. The Jeep slowed as it reached the edge of the lawn and he walked to the passenger door. ‘What’s the latest?’
The guard held up a finger, indicating for Joseph to hold on as he listened to his muffled radio. When it silenced, he said, ‘They got her.’
‘Positive?’ Joseph asked.
‘It seems so.’
‘I don’t need “seems so”, I need yes or no.’
The guard frowned, and Joseph noticed the web of thin scars running down his chin. ‘Yes, they got her.’
‘Then where is she?’
‘Charley’s bringing her in.’
‘Alive?’
‘I don’t know,’ the guard shrugged.
‘Do you think I’m asking you these questions for my health?’ Joseph smacked his own radio against the Jeep door. It had been no good to him; he hadn’t been able to decipher a damn word through the blasts of static. ‘Find out!’
The guard spoke without averting his eyes from Joseph. ‘Charley? Is the girl alive? Over.’
There was a pause before the radio returned an answer. ‘She’s breathing. Dog locked onto her leg so it’s chewed to hamburger meat, but she’ll live.’
Joseph snatched the radio out of the scarred guard’s hand. ‘Get her into the basement. Have her leg dressed so she doesn’t bleed out. Can you do that for me, Charley? Over.’
‘Affirmative,’ Charley replied, and the radio went dead.
Joseph exhaled. The nervous energy had been bubbling for so long, but now the pan was off the stove. He wasn’t ready to laugh just yet, but the relief he felt at that particular moment was almost orgasmic. He ran his palm down his face and then wiped his nose on the back of his hand.
‘Tell the others that I want all the cars off the lawn and the dogs back in the pens. Let’s wind this clusterfuck up as fast as we can.’
He turned and jogged up the steps and into the house. Joseph had been in love with this house from the very first moment he had set foot inside it. He adored the spaciousness, the unashamedly old-fashioned decor that made you feel as though you were stuck in some earlier period of time. When he’d discovered that Daddy – Mr Wydebird – had originally intended the house to be an addition to his Wydebird Lodge hotel chain back in the fifties, his love for the building swelled even more. He was enchanted by the idea that it was part of a hidden history, and proud to serve in a place that very few people had seen. Yet he did not feel that way now as he strode through the reception. The air was still and the silence was cloying. The heels of his shoes clicked as he walked. He entered the elevator and pressed the button for the fourth floor before assessing his appearance in the mirrors. His hair, usually gelled into a neat comb-over with a perfect parting, was tousled and wild. He smoothed it down as best he could, and straightened his red tie. His cheeks were blotchy from the cold and his forehead shone with sweat.
The elevator doors opened and he made the walk to Mr Wydebird’s chambers, rapping lightly on the door. He heard heavy, thudding footsteps from inside before Horace answered.
Horace looked one generation removed from Neanderthal man, with a big flat face and a brow so heavy it was difficult to see his eyes. He was not a talkative man, nor had his duties ever required him to be, but his brutish facial expression told Joseph everything he needed to know: You better have good news.
Joseph bypassed Horace and strode over to the bed, where Mr Wydebird was propped up on a stack of pillows. The old man looked frail and sickly, with his cheesy skin and his cotton pyjamas and the stink of oils and antibiotics wafting from him. But deep in his bony, furrowed face, his misty eyes glinted with cruel intelligence. He didn’t open his mouth, which was curled inward without his dentures, nor did he react as Joseph gently took his hand and kissed it.
‘Sir, today has been full of surprises. I wish I could say that they have all been pleasant, but I would be lying. We’ve had a few scares, but I am delighted to tell you that everything is fine now. It’s all back on track. We’ve apprehended the girl and she is being linked up in the basement as we speak, awaiting your judgement.’
Mr Wydebird’s mouth moved as though he were gumming a hard-boiled candy, and his gaze was fixed on the window. ‘You’re sure everything is all right?’ he asked.
‘Yes, absolutely, one hundred per cent.’ Joseph laughed airily.
‘You’re a liar,’ Mr Wydebird croaked, turning his head slowly like a piece of rusted machinery. ‘We are not all right.’
‘I apologise,’ Joseph said, looking at the floor. ‘I think perhaps I misunderstood the context of your question.’
‘We are far from all right, Joseph. So we have the girl back – that’s all very dandy, isn’t it? But it doesn’t make things all right. Not by a long shot.’ The old man jerked forward from the pillows, spittle flying from his gums. At the other end of the chamber, Horace began to approach but was waved away. ‘Answer me this, Joseph. Is Hendricks all right?’
‘Hendricks? I’m, uh … I’m not …’
‘You don’t know who he is, do you?’ Mr Wydebird smacked his thin lips. ‘He’s the young man whose throat the girl slashed. You hired the fucking man, Joseph, surely you remember his bloody name!’
‘Yes, of course I do,’ Joseph said, closing his eyes in concentration as he located the ex-soldier’s details in his memory. ‘Benson Hendricks, inducted through the Chicago branch of the Group, served four years as—’
‘I don’t need his biography, you stupid boy. He’s dead. That is the only detail that matters at this very minute.’ Mr Wydebird coughed into his fist, but the coughs evolved into splutters and he was soon fighting for breath. This time he did not shoo Horace away as the man clomped over with a handkerchief to collect the almost neon-yellow phlegm from his master’s lips. Horace reached for a sippy cup from beside the bed. Mr Wydebird turned his head away petulantly, but Horace persisted until the straw found its home and the old man took a few sips. Satisfied, he folded the phlegm-filled handkerchief and backed away.
‘The man died,’ Mr Wydebird said, stabbing his ind
ex finger down onto the mattress beside him to punctuate his point. ‘The man died and the girl got away. So you’ve provided the house with not one, but two problems. The first was locating the stupid child, and the second is burying this incompetent that you hired. What do you have to say for yourself?’
Joseph shook his head. ‘I can’t say anything that will make it any better, except that we have the girl back now.’
‘Girl. You haven’t even told me which one it was that tried to run.’
‘Um … Wendy.’
‘Are you asking me or telling me?’
‘It was Wendy. Definitely Wendy.’
Mr Wydebird chewed this over, his dull eyes rolling slowly in their sockets. ‘Very good-looking child. It’s a shame she wasn’t watched more closely. Perhaps if you had been doing your job correctly in the first …’ he stopped, coughed, and sighed, ‘the first place, then you would have spotted the signs a lot sooner.’
The room was stifling. They kept it hot because Mr Wydebird didn’t like to be cold and couldn’t afford to catch a chill. The heat amplified the synthetic smells and made Joseph feel as though someone were blowing a hairdryer on him from a foot away.
‘With all due respect, sir,’ he began, his neck itching as sweat dripped off the back of his head, ‘her actions weren’t planned. This all stems back to Lena. The girls have become bold, arrogant almost. I checked the rota, and today was the first day since Lena’s disappearance that Wendy has had chores outside. She acted on impulse and she didn’t get very far. I think it was actually a very rewarding exercise for the new guards.’
‘You think she acted on impulse, do you?’ Mr Wydebird asked.
‘Yes. Truly I do.’
‘Then perhaps I should have Horace crack your head open to see what’s going on in there. I am starting to think that the guards are not the only things that need to be upgraded around here.’
Joseph opened his mouth to speak but could only produce a weak whistling sound from deep in his throat. His mouth clicked shut. He tried again. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Wydebird. I’ve been here for a long time but I don’t have your wisdom. There are very few that do. I can absolutely assure you, though, that I am watching these girls like a hawk. The guards I’ve hired are all trained professionals, all specially recruited through the Group. They—’
