Deadliest of Sins

by Sallie Bissell

  He ran for the shed. If he could beat Crump there in time to lock himself in, it might work. Crump might be able to run forever, but he couldn’t; his breath was already coming in ragged gasps, and the front of his shirt was soaked with blood.

  Clenching his fists, Chase dug his toes down into the earth and sprinted for the shed. He skidded through the still muddy ground around where the swimming pool had been and leapt over Gudger’s pile of blue plastic shards. Twenty feet beyond that, he turned toward the shed. As he turned, he saw Crump slip in the same mud and fall forward, sliding into the stack of shards. His heart soared! Now was his chance!

  He raced for the shed door and flung it open. Inside, Gudger’s new tractor sat gleaming in the dim light, smelling of machine oil and gasoline. Chase dived inside, slamming the door behind him and jamming the key into the lock. His shaking fingers managed to turn it just as Crump flung himself against the other side of the door.

  “What’s the matter with you, you little idiot?” Crump wheezed, wrenching the door knob. “I’m supposed to take you to the hospital!”

  “I know where exactly you want to take me,” said Chase. “And it’s no hospital!”

  As Crump tried to force the door open, Chase hurried over and crouched down beneath the shelf where Gudger cleaned his guns. He pulled the cell phone from his pocket and with shaking fingers, punched in 911. He was waiting for the call to go through when the world exploded. He heard a great bang, then tiny bits of glass rained down like sleet on his head and shoulders. When he opened his eyes, he saw Crump standing in front of him, pointing his gun at his head. He took a step closer and kicked the phone from Chase’s grasp, sending it clattering across the glass-strewn floor.

  “What kind of bullshit call were you making this time, you little faggot?” Crump asked, his eyes burning with a dark fire. “Drug dealers on the front porch? Spacemen in the back yard? Or is it still how Gudger stole your sister?”

  “It’s still that.” Chase swallowed hard, mustering his courage. “Only now it’s you, too.”

  Crump shook his head. “You’re dreaming, kid. I’m just here to take you to your mama.”

  “Then why’d you try to put me in the back of your car, in the meat locker? And what was the important stop you had to make before we went to the hospital?”

  Crump said, “Why don’t you tell me, since you’re such a clever little shit?”

  “Because Gudger freaked out when Mary Crow showed up. He called some men, to warn them. Only they came and took Gudger away and dumped his hand in acid. Gudger told those people they could have me. He called me fresh boy meat.”

  Crump sighted down the barrel of his gun. “So what do you reckon my part is in all this?”

  “You’re Gudger’s partner,” Chase said as his chin began to quiver. “And you know exactly what happened to Sam.”

  “How do you figure that?”

  “Because why else would you be pointing a gun at me now?”

  Crump studied him a moment, then he gave a mirthless smile. “I gotta hand it to you, boy. You’re just too fucking smart for your own good.”

  His whole body shaking, Chase put his head down on his knees. He couldn’t look into that gun barrel anymore. Nor could he get past Crump and run anywhere. He was going to die—right here in Gudger’s garage, next to his new green tractor. Chase thought of his mother and started to cry.

  “We can do this the easy way or the hard way, boy,” Crump said. “The easy way is we just go back to my cruiser and you let me take you to the men who are waiting for you. The hard way is I put a bullet in your head and dump you in a place where nobody will ever find you.”

  A silence stretched between them. Chase wished he were brave, wished he knew how to respond to that—though he didn’t know exactly what boy meat was, he knew dead. Dead was his father, stretched out in a pine box in their living room. Dead was Cousin Petey, stretched out in a fancier box at a funeral home. Dead could soon be him, a kid who’d just wanted to find his sister and wound up uncovering his stepfather’s secret evil. Finally, he lifted his head and looked at Crump. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “I do.” A voice came from just inside the shed door. A woman’s voice—high and delicate, but with steel in it, too. Crump turned. Chase peered around him to look—he gasped, amazed. His mother stood there, still in her work uniform, a shotgun pointed straight at Crump’s heart. Behind her stood Dr. Knox, her boss from the nursing home.

  “Drop the gun, Crump,” his mother ordered.

  “Hey, Amy, I was just kidding around,” Crump began, his face suddenly the color of chalk.

  “Do what she says, officer,” Dr. Knox said, his own pistol at the ready. “You don’t corner a little boy in a garden shed and point a gun at his head.”

  Crump just stood there, ashen-faced but still gripping his weapon. For an awful moment Chase thought he might shoot everybody, but finally, he lowered his gun, putting it gently on the hood of Gudger’s tractor. His mother’s eyes did not leave Crump’s face once as Dr. Knox hurried forward to retrieve the weapon.

  “Chase?” his mother said, her gaze still level on Crump. “Are you all right, sweetheart? That chin looks right bad.”

  “I’m okay,” Chase croaked, relief coursing through his veins like warm honey. “It looks a lot worse than it is.”

  “Then you come over here by me and Dr. Knox,” his mother said. “We heard everything Crump said. The police are on their way. Until they get here, we’re going to find out exactly happened to your sister.”

  Thirty-Two

  Mary opened the door of her room and slipped into a dimly lit hall. A threadbare carpet the color of dirt covered the floor, while dark spots of old knotty pine paneling seemed to crawl up the walls. Again, she looked around for surveillance cameras, but the only thing she saw near the ceiling were swollen lumps of drywall and wisps of rotting insulation. She fumbled with the dozen or so keys on Yusuf’s key ring, looking for the one that would lock her door. She knew he would be out for a while, but eventually he would wake up, mad as hell and very sore. Better that a mad, sore Yusuf be locked in her old room than be coming after her with fire in those cold, dark eyes.

  Hurriedly she tried the keys, finally finding the one that turned the lock of her door. If nothing else, it would buy her time. That room would be the first place the Russian would look for her; even a moment’s delay would put her that much farther away.

  She tested the door to make sure it was locked, then she stepped back into the middle of the hall. She seemed to be midway down a long, door-lined corridor. To her right she could hear the sound of a television—some kind of ball game—she guessed by the constant cheering. No sound came from rest of the hall—it stood empty—just door after door, all closed. Not wanting to surprise any sports fans, she turned left. There had to be an exit down here somewhere. Even old motels had doors to the outside. She was halfway down the hall when she remembered the Russian’s parting instructions to Yusuf. Feed this one, then the other. When I come back, we’ll load them up.

  “Oh my God,” she whispered, stopping in her tracks. “There must be somebody else in here.” But where? Which room? Did she even have time to search before the Russian came back?

  “Make time,” she told herself, remembering the sad little I want to go home written on bathroom wall.

  Hurrying, she tiptoed toward the sound of the television, trying the doors along the way. All opened easily, revealing rooms similar to hers—lumpy, stained mattresses on battered bed frames, fast food wrappers littering the floor. Some rooms had old TV sets, others had nothing but a bed. All were empty. She worked her way down the hall quickly. After she checked the last room, she was tempted to go and find out who was watching television. The noise was coming from what used to be the office—it was only a few feet away. Perhaps she could disarm the TV watcher as quickly as she had Yusuf. But just as she
was starting to tiptoe forward, the TV program grew silent. She shrank back against the wall, her heart pounding. Through the open office door, she could see a shadow moving on the wall as a man began to speak.

  “Everything’s cool,” he said in English, sounding as if he were from New York or New Jersey. “It’s feeding time.”

  He’s on the phone, Mary realized, watching the shadow move back and forth. Probably to the Russian.

  “He knows what to do, Boyko.”

  Mary held her breath, listening.

  “Fifteen minutes? No sweat. We’ll be ready.”

  Then the shadow ceased its pacing. She heard what sounded like the squeak of a chair, and the television came on again. Fifteen minutes, she told herself. Then the Russian will be here. To load us up.

  She crept back down the hall, trying to both hurry and remain silent. Fifteen minutes was not much time—she still had doors she needed to check and then she had to figure a way out of here for herself. When she reached her old room and pressed an ear to the door, she heard only silence. Good, she thought. Yusuf must still be unconscious.

  She took a deep breath, then continued her search of the rooms. As she made her way to the end of the hall, she wondered if she hadn’t just dreamed someone crying and misunderstood what the Russian had told Yusuf.

  Lots of languages flying around, it would be an easy mistake to make. She reached for the last doorknob, grateful that this was the final one, but the thing didn’t turn in her hand. She tried again, pushing and pulling against the door, but it was locked tight. She stepped back, wondering if this was just the storeroom at the end of the hall, or if somebody else was in there. With a glance toward the office, she risked a soft knock.

  “Anyone there?” she whispered. She put her ear to the door. Nothing. “Hello?” she whispered again.

  To her amazement, she heard the creak of bedsprings.

  “I’m here,” came a small, young voice.

  Mary fumbled through her keys—going through each of them, quickly, always checking to make sure the TV watcher wasn’t barreling down the hall. She’d just begun to think none of them fit this lock when one slid into place. She caught her breath as the cylinder clicked open. What or who was behind the door? The girl who’d written I want to go home? Or just some stupid thing with tapes and wires, like the fake baby in the car seat?

  Readying her inner tiger again, she grasped the knob and opened the door slowly. She found a pretty blond girl standing there, clutching her bedpost. Somewhere in her mid-teens, she wore pink shorts and a dirty T-shirt, and she looked as if she might cry. Mary recognized the blond hair and wide blue eyes immediately—it was Chase Buchanan’s sister.

  “Who are you?” the girl asked, her voice thready.

  “My name is Mary Crow,” said Mary. “You’re Samantha Buchanan, aren’t you?”

  “Yes!” The girl peered over Mary’s shoulder. “Did Chase send you here? Are he and Mama outside?”

  Mary closed her eyes, ashamed of her own stupidity. Why had she not listened to the little boy? Why had she been so quick to dismiss him? “Uh, not quite,” she finally replied. “It’s a long story that we’ll have to discuss later. Right now, we need to get out of here fast. Do you know how many men they have here?”

  “There’s Boyko,” said Samantha. “He’s the boss. And Smiley and Yusuf, who brings the food. More men come, but not all the time.”

  “Well, we can count Yusuf out for now,” said Mary. “He’ll be on all fours for the next several days. But the Russian is on his way back to get us.”

  Samantha swallowed hard. “They’re taking us away tonight?”

  “Only if we’re here when they get back,” said Mary. “Come on, we need to hurry.”

  “Wait.” Sam ran to the bathroom, extracted the long shard of glass she’d worked loose from the mirror. She held it up for Mary to see. “It isn’t much, but it’s my way out. I decided I’d kill myself before I’d go with those men.”

  “I don’t blame you a bit.” Mary smiled, thinking the girl had as much moxie as her little brother. “But use it on somebody else, okay?”

  They crept out into the hall. It was still deserted, with only the sounds of the distant television wafting through. “Do you know of any other girls in these rooms?” asked Mary.

  “Not that I’ve heard,” said Samantha. “I guess American virgins are pretty hard to come by.”

  They padded toward the end of the long, shadowy hall, where a single exit door stood chained and padlocked. Halfway there, they heard a door open, far down the opposite end of the hall. Pressing themselves against a doorway, they listened. Soon laughter and the echo of foreign voices replaced the sound of the television.

  “The Russian’s back,” whispered Mary. “Come on!”

  They ran to the exit door. Mary knew that if none of Yusuf’s keys worked, they would have to make a stand. The men would probably be armed now, even if they hadn’t been before. Pretty, virginal Samantha was likely too valuable a commodity to kill; Mary was not. She might be able to take one down before he could fire his weapon, but that would be all. On the other hand, if they think we’re just too much damn trouble, then they might kill us both.

  “Keep watch,” Mary told Sam as she started trying the keys in the lock. “If they start coming down the hall, then we’ll have to go to plan B.”

  “What’s that?” asked Sam.

  “I’m not sure. But keep that shard of glass close.”

  Mary fumbled with the keys—the darkness that hid them from Boyko and company also hid the keys and the lock from her. She finally gave up on squinting at the thing and started trying the keys by feel alone. One key was a dud, then the next, then the one after that. She was about to curse all of them when Sam squeaked. “Oh God—here they come!”

  Mary shrank back against the shadowy wall, pulling Sam with her. In the dimness she saw Boyko, in his white suit, unlock the door to her room. It would only be seconds until they found Yusuf stretched out in the bathroom with his pants in the toilet. Then everything will be over.

  She returned to the lock, frantically searching for the right key, knowing that Boyko and Smiley and whatever other scumbags were around would soon come screaming out of that room.

  She tried another key—no good—then another, still no good. Then one more. This one felt different, caught differently. It was tight, but she gritted her teeth and turned it with all her strength. With a rusty squeak, the padlock opened. She flung it from the chain, then as quietly as she could, removed the chain from the door. Grabbing Samantha, she opened the door into a dark and moonless night.

  “Come on—follow me. And run as fast as you can!”

  Thirty-Three

  Mary grabbed Samantha’s hand and pulled her blindly across a scrub-filled parking lot, through a boggy, bad-smelling creek, then surprisingly, into pine trees. They pushed their way through soft branches as they ran uphill, their fingers growing sticky with sap as they slipped on the dead needles from the previous fall. Despite the hard going, Mary wanted to weep with relief. Woods she knew. Though she had no weapon and no real clue as to where they were in North Carolina or North Dakota, trees were trees and would, for her, level the playing field a bit.

  Samantha felt less at home. “Can we stop just a minute?” She gasped. “I can’t catch my breath.”

  “Okay,” said Mary. “But for not long. We need to keep moving.” She squinted into the darkness and made out a tall hemlock, its branches draping graceful as a skirt. “Come on.”

  They ducked under the leafy tent the tree offered. While Samantha crouched down and gulped deep breaths of air, Mary turned and looked back down the hill. They’d put about a hundred yards between themselves and the motel. The back door that they’d just unlocked remained open, spilling a rectangle of pale light on to the ground. In that puddle of light stood the white-suited man she�
�d seen in her room and two other men who were dressed in black. The two strangers cradled what looked like assault weapons, while the tall man held a single pistol the size of hand cannon. They conferred among themselves, their voices strident as they pointed into the woods. For one awful minute the Russian seemed to look directly at her, then he turned back to the men. From their sweeping gestures, Mary guessed they were probably getting ready to spread out like a grouse hunt, the assault rifles flanking the hand cannon, firing bursts to drive the two of them into his range.

  “We need to get moving, Sam,” she told the girl. “They’re fanning out, to come after us.”

  “Okay,” she said. “I’m ready.”

  Mary parted the hemlock branches so Sam could crawl out, then they went on, scrambling up the hill as quietly as they could. Mary figured the going would be easier at the top of the ridge; if they could get up there before the men caught up with them, they could circle around the motel and start looking for whatever road that led to this place. Once they found that, they could follow it back to some sort of civilization. For a while the idea buoyed her, then she glanced at the young girl beside her. Already Sam was breathing heavily again, struggling to keep up.

  “I’m sorry,” she wheezed when they were just yards away from the crest of the ridge. “But I need to stop again. My legs just feel so weak.”

  “Just for a minute,” said Mary. “Sit down and I’ll keep watch.”

  While Sam caught her breath, Mary turned to peer down the hillside. She thought she would have heard bursts of gunfire by now, but the woods had remained silent. Closing her eyes, she opened all her senses to the forest, but still she heard nothing. This is not good, she thought. Everybody makes some kind of noise in the woods.