by Kit Ehrman
"Don't kick him in the head," Robby said. "I don't want to have to carry the bastard."
"Say something, damn it."
He kicked me again and again, and in a very short time, I lost count. I gritted my teeth to keep myself from groaning. Maybe I could talk my way out of it. It was worth a try.
I struggled to regulate my breathing and said, "The police know you murdered Peters."
"Yeah right." He punctuated his words with kicks. "They don't know shit."
Each blow seemed to merge with the next. My skin burned, and I could feel my heart pounding in my chest.
I gulped some air. "And they know that you helped Sanders with his insurance swindles. Do you think he's going to keep his mouth shut when they come down on him?"
Harrison became very still. Somewhere in the room, flies droned above the drip of a faucet. He began to pace, and it seemed that his agitation increased with each passing second. His boots scraped across the grit on the cement, and his breathing grew louder, faster, out of sync with the sound of my pulse pounding in my ears.
Maybe I should have kept my mouth shut. He came to an abrupt stop a foot away from my nose. I had a close-up view of his boots, scuffed up cowboy boots with sharply-pointed toes.
"In that case, you're gonna pay. You're gonna wish you'd never been born."
He leaned over, and I felt his breath on my hair. "As a matter of fact, by mornin', you're gonna be in so much pain, you'll be beggin' me to put you down."
Robby laughed.
I closed my eyes and swallowed.
Harrison grabbed my arm, clenched his fingers in my hair, and yanked me to my feet. I could see the knife then. The blade was easily four inches long, a hunting knife.
"If you kill me, it'll be harder for you," I said and hated the tremor I heard in my voice.
"Awh . . . now he's worried about me. Better worry about yourself, you little shit. Where," he waved his arm, "where are they, huh? I don't see no cops round here."
He turned toward his brother. "They don't have squat."
"They know you're Drake's cousin," I said, "and Timbrook's brother-in-law and that T&T Industries has been wanting to buy Foxdale and--"
Harrison snatched the front of my shirt and shoved me against the wall. "It's all your fault."
I didn't say anything, and after a moment, he said, "Beg, damn it. Beg for your miserable life."
The faucet dripped into the lengthening silence.
Harrison looked over his shoulder. "You have something to soften him up, don't you, Robby?"
Robby had been watching us with about as much emotion as I would have expected if we'd been discussing a hay shipment.
Harrison yanked me off the wall and shoved me down the aisle toward the back of the room. He turned me to face the last stall.
"Kneel."
Oh, God. It can't be-- I thought back to the guard's phone call. Why had I assumed it was him.
I stiffened.
"Kneel down," Harrison screamed. His words echoed in the tiny room.
He kicked the back of my knee and pushed down on my shoulders, forcing me onto my knees. In my peripheral vision, I saw the knife in his right hand, his fingers curled loosely around the handle.
"Robby, open the door."
A slow smile spread across Robby's face. His eyes were curiously blank as he watched my face. He pushed back the stall door.
The security guard was slumped in the narrow space between the wall and toilet.
I swallowed and clenched my teeth.
His throat had been cut, and his head hung at an angle that could only be achieved in death. His eyes were open, staring without sight at the top ledge of the door frame. The stall walls above him and to his left were streaked with a spray of blood.
Bastards.
Movement caught my eye. Every muscle in my body tensed. Something crawled across the glistening white cartilage where his trachea had been severed. A blowfly. Another crawled along his uniform's sharply-creased collar. Others buzzed above our heads and bumped against the ceiling. Saliva flooded my mouth.
Fucking bastards! A scream in my mind.
Harrison grabbed my hair and pulled my head back so that I had to look. I closed my eyes, but it didn't make any difference. I could see him clearly in my mind, every detail.
That was it. What I'd missed. The guard wasn't a horseman. He wouldn't have known that the riding area in barn B was called an arena. It had been Harrison or Robby on the phone, not the guard.
I wondered how he'd felt when they'd marched him in here and thought I already knew. My stomach heaved. I swallowed hard and tasted bile at the back of my throat.
"Johnny," Robby said, "his eyes are closed. Think he's asleep?"
"Let's wake him up." Harrison leaned into me and placed the knife under my ear. "This is how Robby did it." He drew the blade across my throat. "Just like that. Shit, Cline, you're shaking so much, you made me cut you." He chuckled. "Next time it's gonna go all the way in, got it?"
"I think he's got it," Robby said.
Harrison pulled me to my feet and shoved me against the wall. He stuck the point of the knife under my chin and squinted at my face.
I forced myself to hold his gaze.
"Say something, damn it."
"Fuck you."
He pushed the knife in deeper, and I had nowhere to go. I think he would have killed me then and there. It was certainly in his eyes. But Robby yelled, "Don't kill him, Johnny. Not yet. We run into the cops, we can use him."
Harrison eased up on the knife.
More blood trickled down my neck.
After a moment, Robby said, "Come on, Johnny. We gotta get outta here."
Harrison wiped his knife off on my shirt and slid it into a sheath on his belt. He reached into his waistband, pulled out the gun, and casually aimed it at my chest. "Don't try anything, Cline."
Robby grabbed hold of my arm and steered me toward the door.
"Robby," Harrison said, "move over. You're blocking my aim. You--"
I swung round in front of Robby, kneed him in the balls, and wrenched free of his grasp. I bolted for the door.
Rich was outside, but I didn't give a shit. I was getting out of there.
As I twisted around to get hold of the door handle, Harrison slammed into me. I hit the wall so hard, my teeth rattled.
"Nice try, Cline." He gripped my chin and turned my face toward his. "But you're not gettin' outta this. Not until I put you in the ground." He shoved my face sideways. "And it ain't gonna be no easy trip, is it Robby?"
Robby grinned, though he was no longer standing upright. "Not for him, it ain't."
"You know," Harrison said, "he's gonna be fun the way he don't wanna give in."
My skin prickled.
He held the gun to my head and waved me outside. Rich spun around at the sound of the door opening.
It had stopped raining. As I stepped onto the sidewalk, it seemed as if time had become suspended, and I was overcome with a feeling of disbelief.
As we turned toward the barns, Robby screeched, "Rich, you stupid sonofabitch! All the time we were in there, and you couldn't think to turn off the lights?"
"But John told me to be a lookout," Rich whined.
"What?" Harrison said. "You couldn't watch the road and turn off the lights?" He shoved me toward the barn. "Jesus Christ. Put out a neon sign, why don't ya? Send out engraved invitations. Before you know it, everybody and his brother'll be down here."
Harrison yanked on my arm, and I stumbled. Rich followed alongside, glancing nervously from Harrison to Robby. He wasn't afraid for me, though. He couldn't care less. His only concern was for his own hide. We walked into the barn aisle and stopped in front of the feed room.
"Go turn off the lights," Robby said.
Rich ran down the lane. The lights went out in aisle two, and he was back in less than half a minute. "Come on, John," his voice was high-pitched, "we gotta get outta here. We've been here way too long and--"
<
br /> "Shut up," Harrison said. "I'm sick of your sniveling and whining. You should take a lesson from Cline, here. He's gonna be dead soon, and he ain't whining like you." He turned to face me. "Ain't that right, boy?"
I stared at him with what I hoped was an expression devoid of emotion. The longer we were on the farm, the greater the chance someone would realize that something was wrong.
Harrison pulled me into him, then slammed me against the feed room wall. "I want to hear you beg, damn it."
"No."
He leaned into me. His facial muscles were stretched tight, and a fine sheen of sweat coated his skin.
"You will, you know." A thought moved in his eyes, and he smiled. "After you're dead and buried, I'll go visit that cute, little honey of yours. Make her feel better."
Robby laughed.
I felt the blood drain from my face. I pushed against him. "You bastard!"
He swung the gun up hard and fast and broadsided me. I sagged against the wall and closed my eyes. Pain coursed through my head and settled in my eye. I heard a clicking sound--metal against metal--and instinctively knew what it was. I held my breath and opened my eyes. He was holding the gun in front of my nose, and the hammer was cocked.
He pressed the muzzle into my cheek. "Ask me not to."
Whatever I said, it wouldn't make any difference. The longer I held out, the longer I had to live. If I was wrong, if I had misread him, I would never know.
"Screw you."
Harrison looked over his shoulder at Robby.
"You've got his number," Robby said. "He doesn't like the thought of you doing his girl."
Harrison turned to face me. "You done it with her, boy? I can hardly wait to get my hands on her."
"Go to hell!" I choked on the words. Not her. Not Rachel.
Harrison studied my face, then nodded. "It's a start. Let's get the fuck outta here." He pulled me away from the wall, and Rich headed toward the doorway. "We'll drive by his apartment," Harrison said. "See if she's there."
Robby jiggled the coins in his pocket and cleared his throat. "Better not, Johnny. We gotta start tyin' up some loose ends, startin' with him."
Rich poked his head out the door, then jumped back as if he'd been shocked by a cattle prod. When he spun around, his eyes were wide with terror.
"There's a cop car parked outside the office." He almost screamed it.
"Shit." Harrison pushed me against the wall. "You're gonna get rid of him. If you don't, he's dead, and you're dead. Understand?"
I nodded.
Chapter 20
Harrison spun me around to face the wall, then cut through the rope that bound my wrists.
"Now," he said, "get rid of him. If I even think he's getting suspicious, I'll kill you both. Got it?"
I nodded.
"Good. Don't move out of my line of sight, or you're dead."
I concentrated on keeping my legs steady and stepped out of the barn.
Officer Walter Dorsett, tall, lean, and muscular, was headed straight for me. Fifteen yards separated us. He stopped when I did, and his hand moved instinctively to his gun.
I cleared my throat. "Hi, Harry. Nice night." My voice was hoarse.
Dorsett removed his gun from its holster and held it at his side. He looked toward the barn door and, without looking at me, said, "What are you doing here?"
"Just checking on a horse."
"Everything all right?"
"Couldn't be better, Harry."
He signaled for me to approach him. When I didn't move, he raised the gun with both hands and sighted on the barn door.
"I'll catch up with you tomorrow, Steve," he said loudly, then jerked his head toward the door. "What time?"
What time? What was he talking about? Oh . . . "Three . . . three o'clock."
Dorsett glanced at me, and in that instant, I saw movement in my peripheral vision. I turned toward the barn door in time to see Harrison squeeze off three shots. The muzzle flash was brilliant in the dark.
"No!" I screamed and spun around.
The force of the bullet slamming into Dorsett's chest knocked him off his feet. The gun slipped from his hand and clattered onto the asphalt.
"God, no," I sobbed. "No-o-o."
Harrison yanked me back into the barn. In my mind, I could still see Dorsett's lifeless form, dark and silent on the asphalt, his hand empty, palm face up, fingers curled toward the black sky.
"You killed a cop!" Rich screamed. "I can't believe it! You killed a fucking cop!"
"Shut up." Harrison shoved me against the wall.
"What are we gonna do now? We don't have a chance. They hunt--"
"Shut the fuck up." Harrison's voice cracked. "It's all your fault we're in this mess--"
"What?" Rich whined.
"If you hadn't done such a lousy job tying him up last time, he wouldn't of got away from us, and I wouldn't be here right now, finishing the job. A job you screwed up."
"It wasn't my fault. I did what you said. No one thought he'd get loose. At least I didn't do something stupid," Rich flailed his arms, "like kill a cop."
"Yeah, and I'd be stupider if I let you continue to fuck us up, wouldn't I?"
"Yeah," Rich suddenly became very still, "eh, I mean no."
Harrison casually pointed the gun at Rich and pulled the trigger.
The sound in the confines of the barn was deafening. The horse behind Rich crashed against the back wall of his stall. All of the horses near us shied and whinnied. I hardly noticed. Rich slid down the wall and crumpled onto the floor.
The bullet had shattered the ridge of bone above his right eye. The other eye was wide open, seeing nothing. His head lolled to the side, and a stream of watery blood trickled from his nose and mouth. There was blood spatter on the grillwork of the stall front and on the horse that stood trembling at the back of his stall.
I swallowed. The bitter smell of burnt gunpowder hung so thickly in the air around us, I could taste it at the back of my throat.
"Damn it, Johnny. You shouldn't have popped him here. The police might be able to connect him with us. And you shouldn't have used your gun."
"So what? I'll dump it when we're done."
"Well, we can't leave him here," Robby said.
"You!" Harrison grabbed my arm. "Drag him down past the hay barn."
I thought about the old abandoned fire road and the gate Dave and I had never gotten around to installing.
"Good idea." Robby studied my face. "We'll put 'em both in the trunk. That oughta make for an interesting ride, huh lover-boy?"
Asshole. I looked down at Rich and couldn't imagine it.
"Go ahead." Harrison shoved me toward Rich's body. "Get movin'. We ain't got all night."
I gulped a lungful of air and gripped Rich's ankles. When I lifted his legs and stepped backward, his body slid the rest of the way down the stall front, and his head hit the asphalt with a sickening thud. My stomach churned. I leaned against the stall.
The gun's barrel butted against my shoulder. "Get movin', boy."
I kept my gaze on Rich's legs, tightened my grip on his ankles, and dragged him toward the end of the barn.
"Robby, go switch off the lights," Harrison said. "We can make the rest of the aisle in the dark."
I watched Robby saunter toward the doorway, then as unobtrusively as possible, I glanced behind me. I had forty-eight feet to go--the length of four stalls--before I was level with the cut-through to the arena. If I timed it right . . .
I slowed my pace. Robby was almost to the bank of light switches. He paused and peeked out the doorway. Hurry it up, I thought. I slowed even more.
Twenty-four feet to go.
Robby's hand moved down over the switches and plummeted the barn into darkness. I continued backward more slowly and forced myself to wait until the timing was in my favor.
Robby and Harrison were silhouetted by the sodium vapor light, and I hoped the lighting would work to my advantage. Hoped they couldn't see me as easily as
I could them. I watched Robby move down the aisle toward us. I drew level with the cut-through as he reached the halfway mark between the lights and us. I quietly lowered Rich's legs to the asphalt, then bolted into the arena. I figured I had about eight seconds before Robby made it back to the light switch.
Harrison didn't wait for the lights. He bellowed and shot wildly. The bullet cracked harmlessly into the arena wall to my left as I neared the opposite cut-through that led into aisle two. As I turned the corner into the aisle, I grabbed a lead rope off its hook and thanked God that someone had hung it where it belonged for a change. Another gunshot. Wood splitting. Closer this time.
The lights in aisle one flashed on. I skidded to a halt in front of the third stall from the end and threw open the door. Chase stood in the center of the stall, legs splayed, eyes wide with fear. The only horse in the barn who wore a halter twenty-four hours a day. I clipped on the lead, grabbed a handful of mane, and vaulted onto his back.
I kicked him out of the stall and leaned to my right, knowing he would move to stay balanced under my weight. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Harrison step into the aisle behind us. His arm came up. Almost fifty yards separated us, but it didn't much matter. Not with that gun of his. I ignored the fact that Chase's shoes were slipping on the asphalt and kicked him into a canter.
When Harrison fired again, Chase didn't need any encouragement. As we crossed the threshold, a bullet splintered the doorjamb at shoulder level. Only a foot away.
But it was enough.
In another second, we would be out of his line of sight. I leaned to my right, signaling to Chase that I wanted him to head down the corridor between the paddocks, when something hit my left side. I tipped forward over the horse's shoulder.
I had a clear view of his hooves skidding on the asphalt as he floundered under my shifting weight, uncertain what I wanted, and I nearly came off. I anchored my right hand in his mane, pressed my left hand against his shoulder, and pushed myself back into position. He had slowed to a trot. I kicked him into a gallop, and we sailed down the hill and slipped into darkness.
As we neared the woods, I straightened, weighted my seat, and brought him back to the trot. Where the lane emptied onto the trails, I spun him around and looked up the hill toward the barn.
