by JC Gatlin
The frames were bent and the right lens was shattered. Specs of dried blood spotted the glass, and she immediately knew they were Darryl’s. She hadn’t noticed them before, and wondered if he’d wandered past here during the night.
She looked at the broken limbs and disturbed earth. Maybe Darryl saw it too. Maybe he found the wreck and was with Owen right now.
The sheriff stepped beside her and pointed in the direction of the truck. The woods looked impenetrable, despite the hole she’d carved through it a day before.
“I’m not going to be able to get my car through there,” he said.
“Then we’re going to have to walk.” Rayanne plunged forward into the woods, and yelled back to the sheriff, “It’s not far.”
She gripped Darryl’s glasses in her right hand as she picked up her pace, following the track left by the truck. The sheriff strode behind her, snapping branches as he went along. They walked a lot farther than Rayanne expected. In her mind, she’d only driven a few feet before they crashed. She ran faster as the sheriff struggled to keep up.
They slowed down when they came to the mangled boat trailer, and the sheriff walked to it, studying it. He touched a bent beam along the tow hitch. Rayanne came up beside him.
“We’re almost there,” she said, setting Darryl’s broken glasses on an overturned wheel. It looked shiny, with a rich blackness and deep grooves, and she realized it was the new tire Owen had replaced.
When they reached the stretch where the truck had fishtailed and dived into the ditch, Rayanne could see the elevated rear bumper. She couldn’t make out any more than the taillights and chrome, but she felt a wave of relief anyway.
She ran to the waiting Chevy. The sheriff chased after her, yelling for her to hold up. Rayanne ignored him and slid into the ditch. Mud covered her legs and butt, but didn’t slow her down. She called out for Owen and grasped the back bumper for support. The bottom of the ditch was a pool of shallow mud, and her feet splashed into it. Approaching the driver’s side door, she peered through the window.
The passenger seat was empty.
Rayanne opened the door and felt a wave of heat on her face, like an oven. She climbed into the truck. Owen was gone. She looked into the backseat. Darryl’s body lay stiff across it. She gasped as the sheriff poked his head through the driver’s side door.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Owen’s not here.”
Rayanne pushed him aside as she made her way out of the truck. She ran up the muddy slope and looked into the woods. She yelled for Owen. Her voice echoed through the trees, upsetting the crows flying not far above her.
“Owen!” she screamed again, louder this time.
The sheriff came up beside her. “Who’s that in the truck?” he asked.
Rayanne looked at him, her mind scrambling for answers. “Where’s Owen?”
She rushed past the sheriff, to the other side of the ditch, and called out again.
No one answered.
She brought her hands up to her mouth to scream again, when she noticed something at the bottom of the ditch. It chilled her, and she scrambled back down the slope, splashing into the mud, and coming to Owen’s guitar. She picked it up. The strings had snapped and were dangling along the arm. The bass was shattered, as if it had been smashed against something. Or someone.
“Ma’am …” The sheriff dropped into the ditch beside her. “Mrs. Meeks, who is in the truck?”
Rayanne turned her head, locking eyes with the sheriff for a second.
“Mrs. Meeks?”
She gaped at the guitar, and lightly ran her fingers along the arm. She didn’t look at the sheriff when she whispered, “Nobody ever calls me Mrs. Meeks. Call me Rayanne.”
“Who’s in the truck?”
Rayanne nodded at him, then looked at the Chevy. “That’s Darryl, my husband’s best friend.” She dropped the guitar, letting it splash into the muddy pool. “Those teenagers beat him. Savagely. At the boat ramp. He must’ve crawled away. Made it to the truck.”
She stepped back as the sheriff spoke. “Do you think your husband left the vehicle to find help,” he asked, “or possibly got worried and set out to find you?”
“No.” Rayanne climbed into the truck and kneeled on the driver’s seat, maneuvering around the broken steering wheel. There was barely enough room, but she squeezed in. She stared at the blood stains in the passenger seat. Brownish-red splotches covered the dashboard and center console. A bloody handprint marked the window.
“No, Owen was hurt too bad to leave the truck, much less walk through the woods.”
She noticed the shotgun was missing as well, and she forced herself to look in the back again. At Darryl’s body. He almost didn’t even look like a real person, more like a department store mannequin. A broken, bloody mannequin with one hand lying across his chest and the other bent over the edge of the seat, resting on the floorboard. His face was beaten, swollen. He died in pain, she thought.
“Backup is on the way.” The sheriff was next to her.
“Poor Darryl,” she said, unable to take her eyes off the body, no matter how much she wanted to.
The sheriff shifted in the seat beside her, and she could feel his arm touch her leg.
“He came into the diner yesterday morning,” the sheriff said, “after your husband dropped his drink on the floor.” He crouched beside her for a better view of the backseat.
Rayanne didn’t budge, though, giving him very little room.
He twisted his neck to look at her. “He seemed like a good man,” he said in a soft voice.
Rayanne nodded. “Those boys. They did this.”
The sheriff got out of the truck, saying, “I’ll check the area.”
She reached to touch Darryl’s knee. Her hand moved up and grazed his cold hand resting over his chest. Her eyes teared, and she pulled her hand away. Then she noticed a bulge in his breast pocket. Something was inside it.
She reached for his shirt, slipping her fingers into the pocket. They felt something soft, furry, and she pulled out the rabbit’s foot. She held it up in her hand and stared at it. The little pink foot seemed so delicate and precious, yet there was something hard inside. A bone?
Her fingers caressed the soft pink fur and she held it in her palm. She squeezed her hand shut around it, gripping it tighter. So tight her knuckles ached. Somehow it soothed her. It was a familiar feeling, like being a child at her grandparents’ house, and Rayanne now understood why this thing had been so important to Owen.
Outside the truck, the sheriff said something, and Rayanne snapped back to reality.
She looked at Darryl’s body, then slipped the rabbit’s foot into her jeans pocket. She shouted to the sheriff, “Come again?”
“Maybe someone found the truck and helped your husband.” The sheriff came over to the driver’s side door. “Hunters, maybe?”
Rayanne swiveled, maneuvering around the bent steering wheel. She looked over at the sheriff, then made her way out of the truck.
“I think those kids found him,” she said.
“You’re jumping to conclusions.” The sheriff moved away from the truck and climbed up the slope. “Let’s get back to my car and call in. We’ll—”
He stopped talking. Rayanne noticed it and came to the edge of the slope behind him to see what had happened. The sheriff stood frozen at the top of the ditch, his right hand reaching for his holster. She followed his gaze up the ditch and saw the black Rottweiler standing on the edge, looking down at them.
“Luger,” she yelled, as the dog scrambled down the slope, past the sheriff, toward her. She reached for him when he greeted her. She looked at the sheriff. “He found us,” she said.
“Obviously.” He shook his head. “We’ve got to get to my squad car.”
Luger cocked his head and Rayanne pulled her hand away. The dog ran to the front of the smashed truck and sniffed the edge of the grille. He went under the truck, toward the passenger side.
; “Wait,” Rayanne called to the sheriff. “He smells something.”
She watched the dog sniff the area around the side of the truck, then make his way up the slope on the opposite side. He hesitated a moment, looking back at Rayanne. A minute later, he was at the top and scrambling into the weeds surrounding the ditch.
Rayanne looked back at the sheriff. “I think his owners are out there.”
“Let the dog go,” the sheriff said. “We need to get to the car. Help is on the way.”
“No,” Rayanne yelled, splashing into the muddy pool at the bottom of the ditch and climbing up the other side. She scrambled up the slope after Luger. “He can smell them, hear them, track them, whatever!”
“Mrs. Meeks!” The sheriff jumped down into the ditch, his boots splashing mud and leaves, and he followed her up to the other side, yelling for her to stop. Scrambling to the top, he grabbed her arm, halting her. “Rayanne, please. We need to go back.”
“Not without my husband,” she said, twisting her arm free.
She trailed behind Luger, running into the tall weeds.
The sheriff stayed at her heels. “If hunters came by,” he said, his voice sounding winded, “maybe they took him to the hospital.”
“They have him.” She didn’t look back, running faster, trying to keep up with the dog.
He reached out and grabbed her arm again, stopping her. “You don’t know that,” he said, tightening his grip.
Rayanne looked at his hand on her arm, then back up into his eyes. “Yes, I do. And they will kill him.”
He glared at her as if he wanted to say more, then released her. She pulled her arm to her side. Turning, she headed deeper into the woods, after the Rottweiler. The sheriff removed his hat. Running a hand once over his bristly white crew cut, he heaved a loud sigh and rushed to catch up.
22
Luger ran purposefully between the trees as Rayanne and the sheriff struggled to keep up with him. They could barely see more than a flash of black fur some twenty feet ahead.
Finally, Rayanne paused under a large oak. She no longer had the dog in her sights, and waited for the sheriff.
“Where do you think he’s going?” he asked, coming up beside her and bending. He put his hands on his knees to catch his breath.
“I don’t know.” Rayanne pointed south. “But I think he went that way.”
Headed in that direction, she slipped among the trees for another ten minutes before pausing. The sheriff was behind her. She pushed branches away from her face so she could look into a clearing, and saw Luger again. The dog was already running across a cluttered yard, toward a small structure.
Rayanne recognized it. She was looking at the rear of the dark trapper’s shack. In the backyard, a stone shed faced the back porch. It looked equally dark and inhospitable, with a dirty fire pit on the ground in front of it. The boar carcass still hung on a rack to its side. And, giving her a sense of déjà vu, Rayanne noticed a wire cage rattling near the shed entrance.
A raccoon was trapped inside it. Possibly the same one she’d rescued yesterday. It cried and struggled to get out. Rayanne wouldn’t be able to help it this time.
A loud knock from inside the shack caught her attention, as if someone had dropped something. She turned her head toward the dark structure.
The sheriff crouched beside her as she watched Luger disappear around the corner of the shack, headed to the front yard. Several excited voices called his name.
“It’s those teenagers,” she whispered to the sheriff. “They’re here.”
“Don’t move. I’ll go investigate.” The sheriff removed his gun from its holster.
She grabbed his free arm and stood with him. “My husband is in there.”
“You don’t know that.” He pulled his arm away and held a finger to his lips, hushing her. “Now stay here out of sight and be quiet.”
Rayanne crouched down behind the cover of the thorny bushes and watched the sheriff step into the clearing. He ran along the tree line until he was parallel to the side of the shack and then, crouching, he sprinted across the ground to the building. Crawling along the side wall, he peered in a window. Rayanne watched him, and then left the safety of the shadows and came up alongside him.
The sheriff glared at her. “I told you to stay back.”
“And I told you my husband is in there.”
Rayanne froze for a moment when she saw a shadow streak on the ground near the front corner of the shack.
Then, inching along under the windows, they crawled, spiderlike, to the next window, and rose slightly to look into it. The front room was dark except for sunlight spilling in through the wide front windows. A door to a back room was closed and outlined in light. In front of it, a man sat in a wheelchair. He hunched over a body, her husband. Rayanne gasped.
Owen was tied up with what looked like thick wire, and rested against the back wall. His head was slumped; she couldn’t tell if he was asleep or something worse.
She whispered to the sheriff, “We’ve got to help him.”
“I will. Now, stay here.”
Rayanne shook her head in protest.
The sheriff pushed her to a crouched position below the window. “I’m not telling you again,” he said in a rough whisper.
Rayanne stared up at him and watched helplessly as he stepped away from her, to the front corner of the shack. Defying his orders, Rayanne snuck along the wall and came up behind him. She peered around the corner with him.
The black van was parked in front of the shack. There were two teenagers, Scut and Rude Roddy, standing in front of the grille and headlights, arguing.
Dru was on the side of the van with Luger. She buckled a collar around the Rottweiler’s thick neck. Glancing over her shoulder at the arguing boys, she shook her head in disgust and opened the van door. She whistled for Luger to jump inside.
This seemed to catch Scut’s attention and he marched over to her. “You think you’re goin’ somewhere?”
“Luger’s hurt,” she said, brushing past him. “I’m taking him to town.”
“You’re not goin’ nowhere.” He grabbed her arm, halting her.
They stared at each other, neither saying a word. Then she shook her arm, forcing him to release her. She opened the driver’s side door.
“I don’t know who those kids are, but they aren’t from ’round here,” the sheriff whispered as he turned to Rayanne.
In front of them, the black van was pulling away, leaving Scut and Roddy standing in the yard. Rayanne watched them a moment, then slipped behind the sheriff and flattened her back to the wall.
“Maybe they’re all from Tarpon Springs,” she said.
“I’ll find out. Wait here and don’t move this time.” With his gun in hand, the sheriff got up and rounded the front corner.
Rayanne stayed crouched at the corner, watching, as he approached the front porch. He stepped onto it. A plank creaked under his foot.
The teens stopped talking. Their heads turned.
Rayanne gulped a breath and moved her head back. She heard the sheriff’s voice. He was telling the teens to back off … then there was some kind of commotion. It scared her and she ran back along the wall, toward the rear corner. She could hear their raised voices. The sheriff yelled. Gunshots—two, back to back. She ignored them, though, and rounded the corner to the back porch. The worn wood squeaked when she set foot on it.
The back door, not firmly closed, opened and drifted inward. Rayanne pushed it and peered inside. The room held more than its share of darkness, considering the bright day outside. Slowly, her eyes adjusted.
She padded cautiously around the cluttered room, her sandals lightly squeaking on the wood floorboards. The place smelled musty. There was a table in the center of the room, with metal foldout chairs around it. A small TV sat on a crate in a corner. A kitchenette with a microwave and a sink took up the corner on her left, and two closed doors—possibly to bedrooms—lined the wall on her right.
&nb
sp; It took some seconds for Rayanne to see the one figure in the room. The other man, the one in the wheelchair, was gone.
She called out, “Owen?”
Owen wasn’t moving, sitting slumped on the floor, his back against the wall. She dropped to her knees in front of him.
He was unconscious. To her horror, she saw that his body was tied with barbed wire. It had torn his shirt and scratched his arms and chest. She kissed him, then wiped the sweat and blood away from his eyes and cleaned his forehead with her shirt. Slowly, his eyes opened.
“Owen.” She wrapped her arms gently around his neck, cradling his head. “Oh dear Lord, you’re alive.”
“Babe?” he whispered, barely able to speak.
She leaned his head back. “I’m getting you out of here.”
Finding the end of the wire, she unraveled the barbed cord from around his chest. It was looped several times, and he flinched as the dirty spikes popped out of his skin. Next she removed the wire wrapped around his wrists. He flinched again, clearly fighting the urge to cry out in pain.
“I know this hurts,” she said. “Just a second and I’ll have you free.”
He attempted to stand, and Rayanne positioned his right arm behind her neck and across her shoulder to support his weight. She saw that the simple exertion left him dizzy and out of breath, and she hoped the sheriff would come in and help them.
More gunshots rang out, and she stopped and turned her head. She heard something heavy hit the outside wall, like someone had thrown a bag of potatoes against it. Or a body. She could hear the teenagers’ muffled voices through the wall, but couldn’t make out what they were saying. They were excited. Angry. Arguing.
They were coming inside!
“We need to hurry.” Rayanne lifted Owen to his feet. His arm was wrapped around her shoulder, the full brunt of his weight on her. She inhaled deeply, and moved him toward the back door.
