I run my hand along the side of the trunk until I find the wires leading to the brake lights. Making a fist, I punch them out. Air and light stream in.
Through my peephole, I watch the asphalt unwind behind us. Eventually we turn onto a steep dirt road. Or maybe it's a driveway. Rocks and ruts scramble my insides as we bounce over them.
When the ground finally levels out, we stop. I glimpse Gardner's legs as he approaches the trunk and tells Lindsey, “I'm heading back to town for some Xanax and this guy's vehicle. We've got to make it look like an accident."
I think about the local canyons. Is he planning to drug me, strap me into my own driver's seat, and send me flying? I tell myself it will take him all day to match my key to my van. Then I remember my proof of insurance, folded inside my wallet. If Gardner sees that, he'll know the make and model and will be back in no time.
The trunk pops open. The sunlight is so bright it bleaches the color out of the sky.
"Get out."
Stiff as a prizefighter who's gone one round too many, I straighten my arms and legs and climb out of the trunk. The sweat around my mouth instantly evaporates, leaving behind a thin crust of salt.
I look around but have no idea where we are. A ranch house overlooks the driveway. Three horses, in the pasture to our right, crowd beneath the shade of a single cottonwood tree. The desert stretches for miles in all directions.
"Let's go.” Gardner waves my gun towards a wooden shed, unlocks it, and escorts Lindsey and me inside. Clay pots, a wheelbarrow, and collapsed lawn chairs crowd the windowless interior. Gardner hands Lindsey my gun, takes an extension cord from the wall, and binds my wrists so tightly behind my back, I fear my shoulders will pop out of their sockets. Then he turns over a bucket, orders me to sit down, and ties my ankles together with twine.
He takes the gun from Lindsey. “I'll be back."
She waits until his car has pulled out of the driveway before she tries the door. It's locked.
"Where are we?” I ask.
"A ranch Gardner takes care of. The owners live in Dallas."
"If you untie me, I can get us out of here. You don't think I'm the only one who's going to suffer an accident."
She stares at me, her eyes two smoldering coals unearthed from the ashes of an abandoned fire. “Gardner wouldn't kill me. He needs me."
"All he needs is your story. Think about it. He'll plant your diary in my apartment and tear out the blank pages to make it look like someone else got to it first. He'll tell the tabloids that you and I were lovers, that I talked you into suing Marble, and that we offered him a cut if he testified that he saw Marble touching you. The story will be worth more with you dead than alive, especially if he hints that Marble was behind our accident."
Lindsey frowns, looks around, then unties my wrists. The blood stings as it rushes back into my hands. As I rub my wrists, she kneels down in front of me and struggles with the knot that binds my ankles.
"There's a pair of pruning sheers on that wall."
She retrieves them and cuts through the twine.
"Where are we?” I ask again. “What road?"
"We took 54 out of El Paso, then we turned onto a side road."
"Marble lives off 54. How far are we from Sidewinder?"
"I don't know. I haven't been there since I was a kid.” She makes it sound like it was ten years ago instead of three.
"Do you have your cell phone?"
She pulls it from her pocket and hands it to me. I dial Marble's number, get his voice mail, and leave a message. Then I remove an axe from the wall. “Stand back."
I swing at the wall and the wood splinters as the head of the axe imbeds itself in one board. I yank it out and swing again. The board cracks in half.
Three minutes later, I've created a gap large enough for us to slip through sideways. We climb out, scan the horizon, and hike downhill.
The afternoon sun casts a watery mirage on the asphalt. We keep our distance from the road. If Gardner returns, the occasional cactus won't provide us with much cover.
We've walked a couple of miles before we spy a marker: Route 117. As we pass a fenced goat pasture, Lindsey's phone rings.
I recognize the number. “Marble, it's Jason. Are you home?"
"What's wrong?"
I tell him how Gardner caught me spying on Lindsey, how he forced me into his trunk, how he locked Lindsey and me in the shed, and how we escaped.
"Where are you now?"
"Route 117, off 54. We're outside a small ranch. There's a beige trailer set back from the road and a goat pasture with a lean-to in the middle."
"Stay there. I'll come get you."
I hand the phone to Lindsey. “He's coming."
I notice that her cheeks have turned a painful shade of pink. “Let's get out of the sun."
We walk towards the pasture, lie flat on our stomachs, and drag ourselves beneath the barbed-wire fence. The goats scatter as we scramble to our feet and approach their water trough. I turn on the faucet and pass one finger through a stream of scalding water. I give it a minute, then test it again. “Go ahead."
Lindsey bends down, twists her head, and drinks, oblivious to the water streaming sideways off her face. When she's done, I take a drink myself. Then we duck inside the lean-to. Lindsey leans her head against one post and closes her eyes.
Fifteen minutes later, we hear a car approaching. Lindsey's eyes snap open. “Marble?"
I peer out and spy my own van cresting the hill. “Gardner."
We press ourselves against the back of the lean-to. Instead of passing us, the van stops. How could Gardner possibly know we're there? Then I remember that he took my interceptor, still programmed with Lindsey's number. He must have picked up Marble's call.
I yank Lindsey's hand. “Let's go."
The driver's door slams as we run towards the back of the pasture. This time we drag ourselves too quickly beneath the fence. Lindsey cries out as a barb draws a bloody line along the back of her left calf. The fence tears my shirt, punctures my right shoulder.
Lindsey's leg leaves a thin trail of blood as we free ourselves and race towards the trailer. Gardner has already circled the pasture. Sunlight reflects off my gun, clutched in his right hand.
We keep running as he fires the first shot. An explosion of dirt marks the bullet's landing. The next shot strikes even closer.
"I can't,” Lindsey pants. She stops, raises her hands, and turns to face Gardner.
Blood runs from her wound. I can't leave her. I raise my hands and turn around too.
As Gardner takes a step towards us, Marble's Jaguar convertible appears at the top of the hill.
"Distract him,” I whisper.
Lindsey leans her weight on her good leg. “I'm hurt."
Gardner squints. “What the hell are you doing?"
"He had a knife hidden in his boot. He worked his way loose. He forced me to go with him."
Gardner doesn't look convinced.
Marble's car purrs to a stop.
"Listen,” I step forward, hands still in the air. “Let me join your side. I can tell the lawyers about the times I've seen Marble with his hands up girls’ shirts. How he invites foster kids to his ranch and pretends to love them the way their parents never did. Just give me a small cut."
As I speak, Marble climbs out of the car, a soccer ball in one hand, and approaches Gardner from behind. He drop-kicks the ball. With a loud thump, it strikes the back of Gardner's head. He sways forward and drops my Beretta as he crumples to the ground.
I grab my gun, then step back as Marble turns Gardner over. He's out cold, but he's breathing.
Marble calls 911. As soon as he's done, he turns to Lindsey. “Are you okay?"
She nods.
"We've got to do something about that leg.” He helps her to his car, opens his trunk, and pulls out a white towel and a shin pad. He folds the towel, places it over her cut, then puts the shin pad on backwards to hold it in place. I feel a twinge of envy a
s Lindsey climbs into the front seat and Marble slides in beside her.
Ten minutes later the police arrive, followed by an ambulance. The medics offer Lindsey a ride to the hospital, but Marble tells them he'll take her. After taking our statements, the cops tell me, “We'll have to impound your van. It's evidence."
What can I do? I climb into the back of the Jaguar. Lindsey's hair whips at my face as Marble drives us into town.
Marble and I sit beside Lindsey in the emergency room while she fills out a stack of forms. After she's turned them in, Marble asks her, “Why did you spread all those lies about me?"
"You made me believe that you cared about me, then you abandoned me. That night you took my hand was the first time I'd let anyone touch me in years, since my stepfather...” She looks down at the scuffed linoleum. “He's the reason they placed me in foster homes. I begged my mother to leave him, but she wouldn't."
I recall the times I asked my mother to leave the stepfathers who abused me. In the end, I was the one who had to go.
Lindsey looks at Marble. “Do you know what it's like to live with people who don't care about you? People the state pays to house you? Before I visited Sidewinder, I could stand my life. I didn't know any better. But afterwards the foster world was like this huge weight holding me down. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't move. Some mornings I couldn't get out of bed at all. I wrote to you every day for three months. I stole stamps from my foster mother's purse so I could mail them, but you never wrote back."
"I'm sorry."
"After I finished high school, I had nowhere to go. Gardner found me living in Mission Park. He got me a room and helped me find a job. When he suggested the lawsuit, I felt like I owed him and I figured you had so much money, you'd settle out of court and never miss it."
Marble looks at her. “Do you have any idea how much damage you've caused? My team's suspended me, my endorsements have been cancelled, and my own sister won't let me take my niece to the zoo."
A woman opens the door at the back of the waiting room. “Lindsey Stillwell."
Lindsey rises and limps towards her. Marble and I stay behind.
* * * *
Marble and I are drinking Balkan beer in his vaulted living room when his picture appears on the ten o'clock news. Marble turns up the volume. In a strange twist of events today, Marble Melendez's ex-security guard, Phillip Gardner, allegedly abducted Lindsey Stillwell and her companion Jason Lightfoot.
I choke on my beer. “Companion?"
The two of them escaped and Stillwell was treated for minor injuries at St. Luke's Hospital. Stillwell recently filed a lawsuit against Melendez claiming that he had seduced her when she visited his ranch three years ago, at age fifteen. This afternoon Stillwell reported that she is withdrawing that suit.
Lindsey, standing outside St. Luke's, answers a reporter's questions. "The lawsuit was Gardner's idea. He twisted my memories of a gentle, caring man into something ugly. After Jason talked me out of filing the lawsuit, Gardner went crazy."
I put down my beer. “I need something stronger."
Marble pours me a double shot of mescal.
* * * *
I spend the next two nights at Sidewinder. On the third day, the police release my van. When I pull up in front of my apartment, I wonder whether there's been a murder. Reporters, photographers, and cameramen mob the sidewalk. The moment I climb out, they surround me.
"How long have you and Lindsey Stillwell been lovers?"
"Is it true that you and Marble played on the same team in high school?"
"Did Marble ask you to date Lindsey so you could talk her out of the lawsuit?"
Before I can speak, Marble's sedan skids to a stop in the middle of the street. He opens the rear door. “Jason!"
I shove my way through the reporters and climb into the back. “What the hell is going on?"
"Lindsey was on Good Morning America. She's sold the movie rights to her story for a hundred and fifty thousand dollars."
"Her story?"
"Growing up in foster care, her life on the streets, how you two met, the kidnapping.” He pauses, then asks, “Did you sleep with her?"
"No."
I imagine what it would have been like if I had. As we reach Highway 54 and put El Paso behind us, I think out loud. “I guess she got what she wanted in the end, a nice fat check and lots of attention to make up for being ignored as a child. I just wish she wouldn't share all that attention with me."
Marble leans back in his seat. “Welcome to the club."
"What club?"
"The club where delicate young women prey on strong, virile men."
"And truth is auctioned off to the highest bidder?"
"Some days I think the world is turning into one big reality show.” He leans forward and tells the driver to floor it.
I glance over my shoulder at the van that's tailing us. A man hangs out the window and aims his camera at the back of our sedan as we pick up speed and zoom off into the desert.
Copyright ©2006 by Terry Barbieri
[Back to Table of Contents]
CAREERS by Barbara Mayor
Carrie had a quirky vice.
She dearly loved to steal.
It helped her insecurity.
It made her feel more real.
* * * *
It calmed her when she felt too fat,
or in-between or thin.
It soothed her when her hair hung long
or zits attacked her skin.
* * * *
At first she took just petty things.
But soon she gathered more,
from cars to clothes to furniture,
and finally the store.
* * * *
It got so bad that everyone
could recognize her face.
They barred her from the baseball game
for fear she'd steal third base.
* * * *
When fame grows so gigantic,
it's time to change one's vice—
to burgle, forge or Enron,
or something not as nice.
* * * *
Copyright ©2006 by Barbara Mayor
[Back to Table of Contents]
NEXT ISSUE...
The Missing Elevator Puzzle by JON L. BREEN
Dear Dr. Watson by STEVE HOCKENSMITH
Garbo Writes by LOREN D. ESTLEMAN
Where There's a Will... by Amy Myers
* * * *
Visit us at:
www.themysteryplace.com
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