by Sarah Graves
See? Right there she proved how ignorant she was, how much she misunderstood the whole situation. “Uh-huh,” he said.
Let her chew on that, see how little effect anything she had to say could have on him.
Far away, the thin wail of a siren floated on the icy air. A cop car, Spud thought with an inner lurch of alarm. After the guy fired shots out there, someone must’ve called for help somehow. Now a bunch of reinforcements would swarm in and …
But no, Spud realized, relaxing slightly and sneering at the cops in front of him. First of all, they’d never find this place; the way in was twisty and hard to follow even without snow.
Anyway, the guy was out there; he’d take care of whatever—or whoever—needed to be dealt with. An arrow flying out of the darkness at some poor dope lit up by his own headlights …
Yeah, that would do it. Just like it had before. But Lizzie Snow wasn’t finished blabbering.
“I guess you’ve got to be a little upset, anyway, at the way things are going.”
Spud couldn’t help himself. “Yeah, right,” he replied. “I’m, like, totally shaking in my boots.”
Actually he was. Damn, it was cold out here. Still, he could keep it together for a little longer. Pretty soon the guy would come back.
“Good,” said Lizzie Snow, unfazed by his attempt at sarcasm. “Because you should be. I mean,” she added, glancing at the dying fire, “you’ve got to admit, things look pretty grim for you.”
He glanced up at her. On the one hand, he knew she was only trying to mess with his head, provoke him into doing something or not doing something that she could take advantage of.
But on the other hand …“What d’you mean by that?”
Carelessly she shrugged. “I mean your pal there, the Lion King or whoever it is he thinks he’s dressed up as—”
“Hey, don’t make fun of him.” Spud waved the gun, noting that his hand didn’t want to unclench from around its grip.
Too cold. Too stiff. Could you even pull the trigger?
He brushed the thought away. “He’s my friend,” he went on stubbornly. “We’re a team, him and me.”
At that, Sheriff Chevrier spoke up. “Yeah, he’s your pal, all right. That’s why he’s loading up his vehicle with his stash out there. What did he do, hide his van right near the road so he could make a quick getaway?”
Spud didn’t know. The guy, he realized suddenly, hadn’t confided his plans, only given orders.
“Hey, he’s probably got the heater running, too,” Chevrier said, “while you’re freezing your ass off here.”
Spud shifted uncomfortably, stopped when he noticed Chevrier watching. “Shut up. He’ll be back.”
But it hadn’t escaped Spud, either, that when the guy had left, he’d taken the kid with him. Lizzie Snow started in again:
“He’s not coming back, Spud. All he wants is his own child, not you or any of us. You know that, Spud, don’t you?”
Then Chevrier: “But hey, stick with him if you want. Believe whatever lie falls out of his mouth.”
Enough … If he could, he’d have shot them both right then just to shut them up.
“I promise you,” Lizzie Snow said, “that if he does come back, it’ll only be to take that weapon from you. And before he leaves, he’ll put a bullet in your head with it.”
“Shut up.” He was freezing now, really freezing to death. His feet ached all the way to his hips, his eyes burned, and his nose felt like it might crack and fall off his face.
Still she yammered on: “Because give me a break, Spud. I mean, think about it: what the hell does a guy like that need with you?”
“Shut up, shut up!” he bellowed. Where the hell was the guy, anyway? What the hell was he doing, lallygagging around out there in the warm van while Spud waited here, dying of cold?
He tried blowing his breath onto his fingers, to warm them. That way, they’d be all flexible and trigger-ready when the time came.
Noting this activity, Chevrier spoke. “Yeah, loosen up. He’s going to get you to do it, see? And then he’ll do it to you.”
“I told you, shut up.” Spud forced the words from between gritted teeth. But Chevrier only snorted dismissively.
“You think he wants a girl-killer riding shotgun with him?” Chevrier asked, sounding as calm as if he was sitting in a booth at Grammy’s Restaurant.
Spud made himself remain still. Guessing, Chevrier was only guessing. There was no way anyone could’ve …
“Kid gave you a ride, didn’t he?” Chevrier went on, wearing that look Spud hated, that I’m-better-than-you look. The girls had all worn it, too … until they didn’t.
“Uh-huh,” said Chevrier, either not noticing or not caring that Spud was ready to shoot him in the head right now, just to shut his freaking mouth for him.
But first he had to hear what that freaking mouth said.
“Dropped you in Bangor, on his way back to school,” said Chevrier. “But after he dropped you off, he turned around and came back.”
Didn’t, thought Spud. No, he damned well …
“Yep. Forgot to bring along a term paper he wrote.”
Chevrier turned to Lizzie. “Yeah, I never got the chance to get you up to speed on that part, did I?”
He went on. “I talked to the kid’s folks. Turns out he had to have that paper, turn it in on time to keep his scholarship. But there was nobody home to email it to him, so he had to go back and get it himself.”
“You’re lying,” Spud managed. Because for one thing, even if the kid had come back, how would—
Chevrier shook his head. “But then he rolled his car on the highway just outside of Bearkill. And when we got to the scene, guess what we found? That nose stud of yours, the one you don’t have anymore. And that’s why you don’t have it, isn’t it?”
Spud forced himself to shrug carelessly. “Lots of people have those.”
But the sheriff had an answer for that, too, and where was the guy, anyway? By now he could’ve loaded up a tractor-trailer full of whatever it was he was hauling out of here.
“Yeah. They don’t all have your DNA, though, Spud. DNA that I swabbed off of your little nose doodad and that the lab down in Augusta is going to match with some of the spit I took off your coffee cup from Lizzie’s office. Heck, results are probably back by now.”
Now Spud knew he was lying. That wasn’t even possible, was it? Or at least not so soon …
Surely it wasn’t. But the cop’s smirk broadened. “Yeah, we got you. So I just hope your pal left you some bullets to go with that little popgun you’re holding, buddy.”
Spud glanced nervously at the gun, realized he didn’t even know how to tell if it was loaded.
Now Chevrier laughed. “Just funnin’ with you, kid. See the clip sticking out of the bottom of the grip?”
Spud tipped the weapon slightly as Chevrier went on. “Yeah, there’s bullets in it.”
A brief pause, then: “So, listen, whyn’t you just put one in your brain right now, save yourself and everyone else a whole lot of trouble? I promise,” Chevrier added, “I solemnly promise you that if you do, it won’t hurt a damned bit.”
From the woods came the echoing report of a single gunshot, so near that Spud jumped and for an instant thought he had actually done it.
But he hadn’t. “Shut your mouth,” he told the sheriff, then sat back down on the log, reassuring himself again that the delay meant nothing ominous.
That a single gunshot meant only that the guy had abandoned the bow and arrow for a deadlier weapon, and when he came back, he and Spud could get the hell out of here.
And if the guy wanted Spud to shoot anyone first, like these two cops and the woman with the scar, too, maybe …
Hell, at this point he’d be delighted to do it.
The little girl was crying. “Get in there, tell her to shut that kid up,” Spud ordered Lizzie irritably.
She slipped into the lean-to, now dim-lit by a battery lamp. The l
ittle girl’s blond head popped up from behind the woman. Blue eyes full of tears, that cornsilk hair …
“Nicki?” The child’s eyes widened, but she didn’t answer.
Forcing herself to stay calm, Lizzie sat back on her heels and waited. The little girl wiggled free of the blankets.
“Hi. My name’s Lizzie. What’s yours?”
No answer. The little girl crept forward. By the weakening battery lantern’s dim glow, her eyes gleamed blue.
But then the first unwelcome prickle of doubt came. Nicki’s eyes were blue. But the bright aqua hue of this little girl’s eyes wasn’t a normal human eye color. And that cornsilk hair …
She forced herself to remain still even as sorrow hit her. The child gazed up at Lizzie, the part in her pale hair showing the dark brown at its roots.
Biting her lip, Lizzie smiled through her tears. The hair color on this child wasn’t real. It had been bleached, the most recent application several weeks ago by the look of it.
Lizzie put her hand out, turned the little girl’s face very gently to see the faint line of the blue contact lenses in her eyes, knowing now that the child had been deliberately disguised.
Dark hair, eyes some other color besides blue … it wasn’t Nicki. “Lovely,” Lizzie managed, caressing the pale hair lightly. “Now get back under those blankets, hmm? It’s cold.”
She didn’t know how she got the words out past the lump in her throat, how she smiled again at the child.
So pretty, so sweet and obedient. And so not the child that she sought. It’s not her. It’s just not.
For a moment, disappointment overwhelmed her: I came all this way, I gave up everything …
But none of that mattered now. It was over, and it had all been for nothing.
“Are you a cop?”
Lizzie jumped startledly. The woman with the scarred face was looking at her; she’d been so silent that Lizzie had nearly forgotten her.
“Yeah,” Lizzie answered. “That’s the county sheriff out there. We’re here to take your boyfriend into custody.”
Outside, Chevrier tried another angle with Spud. “So who’s the woman?” he asked. “In the lean-to, with the little girl. You know her?”
“Nah” came Spud’s response. “She’s with him.” His tone was dismissive.
“I see.” Chevrier sounded calm. “So what’s the deal, then? You’re all going to be one big, happy family? Or,” he added insinuatingly, “do you think maybe you’ve got a chance with her?”
Spud made a sound of disgust. “You kidding? Jeeze, have you seen the face on that chick?”
Inside the lean-to, the woman looked down at her hands.
“She’s like the Joker from the Batman movies,” Spud went on as the woman listened.
Thoughtfully, turning some small object that Lizzie couldn’t see over and over in her lap.
“Guy prob’ly took pity on her,” Spud elaborated, “took her in when no one else’d have her, you know?”
The woman’s lips pursed in a near smile. She seemed to be thinking hard about something. Then she got up, gesturing at the child to stay back while she crept toward the lean-to’s mouth.
Lizzie moved, too, sudden suspicion seizing her. “Wait,” she began. But it was already too late.
Chevrier turned, his eyes narrowing in surprise. Then Spud looked up, frowning.
“Hey,” he objected, “you’re not supposed to—”
Damn, thought Lizzie, she’s got a—
“Gun,” Chevrier said flatly, gathering himself to charge at the woman, but at her sharp gesture with the weapon he sank back.
“You,” she said clearly to Spud. “You’re a fool, you know?”
Her voice wavered on the edge of hysteria. But she kept it together long enough to finish what she had to say.
“You think he took me in. That I’m so ugly that nobody else would have me. So it’s a kindness, him keeping me here.” She jerked the gun at him. “Is that it?”
He looked around helplessly, seeming to realize he couldn’t take back any of what he’d said.
Still, he tried. “Y-yes. I mean, it’s nice of him, I—”
The woman laughed, a sound like ice breaking. “That’s what I thought you said,” she told him calmly, then paused, angling her head to give Spud a clear view of her face.
The scar, Lizzie thought, could probably be repaired by a good surgeon, or at least lessened somewhat. But right now it was a terrifying extension of her smile.
“Who,” she inquired, “do you think did this to me?”
Spud got up, fumbling with the gun he held, and opened his mouth to answer or protest.
But before he could, she shot him.
Twice.
THIRTEEN
The guy entered the clearing again, this time with a rifle in his hands. Scanning around wildly, he searched for where the shots had come from.
Finally his gaze found Spud, who stood swaying. The woman’s first shot had taken his left earlobe cleanly off, along with the ring that had been in it. Lizzie hadn’t seen the second shot hit him. Now she watched as his eyes finally rolled up and he fell. How, the tattooed teenager’s expression seemed to ask, could the universe have betrayed him so completely?
Turning, the woman got off a wild shot in the instant before Chevrier hurled himself at her, shoving her and Lizzie both into the lean-to where the little girl still huddled in terror, then following them in.
“What’s this supposed to accomplish?” Lizzie hissed as he urged her toward where the child crouched.
“That back wall,” he pointed out. “It’s just pine boughs. We can—”
He’d snatched Spud’s gun. Catching on to Chevrier’s plan, Lizzie turned to the woman.
“Start pushing your way through. Not all the way, though, just so you can get out when I signal. And stay alert, we’re only going to get one chance at this.”
The woman nodded. Not stupid, Lizzie realized. You didn’t have to be stupid to get into an awful fix like this. Just in love.
Or something. Lizzie turned to Chevrier. “He knows there’s at least one gun in here. He must’ve left her with the one she’s been firing, probably to use against us if it came to that.”
“But then why didn’t she shoot him just now?”
“I was afraid I’d hit the baby,” the woman said dully as she pushed her way to the rear of the lean-to.
Which explained that. But it didn’t explain why she’d sat there so passively afterward. Unless, like Spud, she’d hung onto the hope that the guy was coming back for her, too?
Stockholm syndrome, Lizzie thought. People could get pretty screwed up in how they felt about their captors, especially if the relationship had started out as something else. After enough time went by, they got confused, unable to tell friend from foe.
Now, though, it was clear that the woman had switched sides.
And they could figure out the why of that part later.
“He’s probably thinking he’d better take us out quick,” Lizzie said.
“Right,” Chevrier began, then yanked her down hard as a line of gunfire stitched through the lean-to’s roof.
They scrambled to where the woman had already made good progress on pushing through the layered pine boughs. Cautiously Lizzie pushed her head the rest of the way out between the prickly branches and peered around the campsite, now fully moonlit.
With the clearing skies, bone-hard cold was setting in, too. Her breath made puffs in the frigid air; she pulled her face in as shouts came from a distance. Those reinforcements Chevrier had summoned were finding their way here, guided by the gunfire, probably, and they weren’t being subtle about it.
So now the guy’d be in even more of a hurry, and Chevrier thought the same. “Good news, bad news,” he uttered in a voice tight with pain, which was when she realized he’d been hit.
And meanwhile we’re pinned down in a goddamned primeval forest by some meth-tweaking loony tune with a weapon …
&nbs
p; Chevrier passed her the gun, but to use it she’d have to be able to see the guy. She tugged again at the woven-together pine boughs of the lean-to’s rear wall.
Guy deserves a freaking merit badge, building this thing, she thought, the rough bark and sap-laden needles jabbing her hands mercilessly. She peered out and suddenly he was …
There. Forty yards, and he hadn’t seen her. She braced her elbow, leveled the pistol … but now he’d moved, sliding behind a thick-trunked evergreen. Or … had he?
“Damn. He’s circling around,” she told Chevrier.
But which way? Meanwhile help was getting closer, by the sound of it, so maybe Dylan was getting help, too …
If he could be helped. With a pang of anguish, she turned from the thought as Chevrier pushed out alongside her, then angled his head sharply. She followed the gesture, and sure enough, there the guy was again. But she still had no good shot.
Besides … She gathered the woman and little girl close. “Okay, now, when I say so, you’re going to go out this hole …”
She gestured at the gap in the lean-to’s rear wall. “And then you’re going to run. Just keep on running, don’t stop. I’ll come and find you afterward, okay?”
The woman’s dark eyes were not quite focused. Yeah, killing somebody will do that to you.
“Okay?” Lizzie demanded again; this time the woman nodded, then grasped the child’s hand just as footsteps sounded, faint creaks on the thin, cold snow.
“Get ready.” Chevrier nodded. The footsteps stopped.
“Go.” Lizzie shoved the woman and little girl out the hole in the lean-to’s wall, then felt Chevrier’s hands doing the same to her. Gunfire lit the campsite in orange flashes.
“Run!” Lizzie ordered as the guy’s weapon fired again, and a pain like a whip’s lash stung her left thigh; she stumbled, cursing her left foot, now dragging instead of sprinting as she fought her way over a snow-covered fallen tree.
Then as she hunched behind it she saw that Chevrier wasn’t with her. The snow all around lay silent and empty. No sound from the woman or the little girl, either, and she didn’t see the guy with the gun.
