by TAYLOR ADAMS
“Ed,” Darby said. “Where did you say you guys are from?”
“Not now—”
“Answer the question, please.”
He pointed. “They’re right outside the door—”
“Answer the goddamn question, Ed.”
The brothers’ footsteps halted outside. They’d heard Darby raise her voice and now they were listening, too. Ashley was less than six feet away, waiting on the other side of that thin wooden door. She even heard Rodent Face’s familiar mouth-breathing outside, like a hospital ventilator.
“We . . . we drove from California,” Ed answered. “Why?”
“What city?”
“What?”
“Tell me the city you’re from.”
“Why does that matter?”
“Answer me.” Darby’s voice wobbled with adrenaline, with two strangers inside and two killers at the door outside. They were listening, too. Everyone was listening. Everything hinged on what this ex-veterinarian said next—
“Carlsbad,” Ed said. “We’re from Carlsbad.”
Not San Diego.
Darby blinked. Oh, thank God.
He threw up his arms. “There, Dara. You happy?”
She exhaled, like emptying her lungs after surfacing from a deep dive. It was just a coincidence. Jay had been mistaken. It’s easy to match faces among half-remembered strangers, and apparently Sandi had a doppelganger in San Diego with a morning bus route. California was a massive population center, so it wouldn’t be unheard of that Ed and Sandi would just so happen to hail from the same state as the abducted girl. Everything else — just nerves. Just paranoia.
Silence outside. The brothers were still listening through the door.
“I told you,” Jay whispered. “See? I was wrong—”
“Carlsbad,” Ed hissed to Darby, his face glistening with sweat. “Carlsbad, USA. What else do you need, for Christ’s sake? State? California. Zip code? 92018. Population? A hundred thousand—”
“Sorry, Ed. I just had to make sure—”
She was vaguely aware of Sandi moving up behind her, and she was turning to face the older woman when Ed continued — “County? San Diego county” — and that was the last clear thought that went through Darby’s mind before a pressurized spurt of icy liquid fired into her eyes.
Then pain.
White-hot pain.
WITCHING HOURS
3:33 a.m.
Ed screamed: “SANDI—”
But Darby’s world went bloody red. An acid-splash. She felt the cells of her corneas sizzling with violation, simultaneously scalding hot and freezing cold. Like bleach under her eyelids. It crowded out all of her thoughts.
She hit the floor on her kneecaps, eyes clammed shut, clawing at her face, rubbing away beads of chemical burn. Tiny fingers grasped her elbow, tugging her. Jay’s voice in her ears: “Darby. Rub your eyes—”
“Sandi, what the fuck are you doing?”
“Eddie, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry—”
Jay’s voice, louder: “Rub your eyes.”
Darby did, furiously, gasping with pain. Mashing them until her eyeballs squished in their sockets. She forced her eyelids open, peeling them back with her fingernails, and saw a cloudy soup of red and orange, blurred with incendiary tears. The watery outlines of flooring tiles. The room spun, hurtling around her like a rotating stage. She coughed, her throat thick with burbling snot. She saw dark droplets hitting the floor. Her nose was bleeding again.
“Hold still.” Jay lifted something heavy. Darby was about to wonder what it was — but then a crash of hot water came down on her face. The carafe, she realized, rubbing her eyes. Smart girl.
Enraged shadows moved above her. Stomping footsteps.
“Darby.” Jay yanked her elbow, harder. Twisting it against her shoulder socket: “Darby, come on. Crawl. Crawl.”
She did. Palms and kneecaps on the cold tile, half-blind, dripping. Jay guiding her with pushes and pulls. Behind her, the voices intensified, booming inside the room, pressurizing the air:
“Sandi. Just explain to me what’s going on—”
“I can save you.”
“Don’t touch that door—”
“Please, let me save you,” Sandi gasped, begging. “Eddie, honey, I can save your stupid life tonight, but only if you shut your mouth and do exactly what I say—”
Darby heard a hollow, metallic click behind her. It was familiar, but she couldn’t identify it. She’d heard it several times tonight, though, enough to elicit a strain of déjà vu. Then through the fog of pain, lightning struck, and her mind screamed: Deadbolt-deadbolt-deadbolt—
Sandi just unlocked the front door.
* * *
The doorknob turned freely in Ashley’s hand, surprising him, and he pressed his fingertips against the door and gave it a gentle push, revealing the visitor center’s interior in a slow wipe. He saw Sandi Schaeffer first, standing in the doorway, her cheeks flushed tomato-red.
“I have them,” she panted. “I have both of them, trapped in the bathroom—”
Both of them? That was a relief to Ashley. “Jaybird is here, then?”
“Why would she not be?”
“Long story.”
Sandi grimaced. “Of course. Of course—”
“It’s under control.”
“Under control? Really? Because I just maced someone—”
“Yeah, thanks for that.”
“All you had to do tonight was nothing and you still screwed it up.” Sandi coughed in the pepper-spray vapor, rubbing her nose. “I mean . . . God almighty, how’d you let this happen? How’d you let it get this bad?”
Ashley was sick of talking. He shoved his way inside, his eyes watering in the acidic air. Sandi tottered backward, suddenly alarmed, all of her harsh words momentarily stuck in her throat. She’d seen the orange Paslode nailer in his hand.
Christ, he loved this thing.
“It’s under control,” he assured her. “It’s fine.”
Lars came inside, too, his baby-blue ski jacket flaring under a growl of wind, the Beretta Cougar in his hand.
“You’re sick,” the lady snarled, taking another shaky step back. “You’re both sick. You weren’t supposed to hurt her—”
“We improvised.”
“I was right about you. About both of you—”
“Oh, yeah?” Ashley tapped Lars’s chest. “Listen. This’ll be good.”
“I knew you were both just hillbilly white trash—”
“Aw, Sandi, you’re hurtin’ my feels.”
“It’s like you’re trying to get caught.” She spat as she talked, a string of saliva swinging off her chin, still tottering backward as they advanced on her with drawn weapons. “You told me . . . you said you’d give her clean clothes every day. You said you’d watch her diet. You’d give her books. You promised me you wouldn’t harm a hair on Jay’s head—”
“Technically true. Her hair’s fine.”
“How can you think this is funny? You’re going to rot in prison. You and your little fetal-alcohol-syndrome—”
Brother, she would’ve finished, if Ashley hadn’t shoved her.
He wasn’t angry. It’s all under control, remember?
But it was still a rougher push than he’d intended. Sandi skidded backward, her shoes squealing, slamming her broad ass against the coffee counter. The radio toppled, antennae clattering. Her godawful black bowl cut covered her face, and she caught herself on the counter, gasping: “You ruined everything—”
Lars aimed his Beretta. “HEY.”
Ashley hadn’t noticed Ed until now — but yep, there he was. The goateed ex-veterinarian he’d walloped in Go Fish, who hated Apple products, whose biggest fear was facing his estranged family in Aurora this Christmas, stood now by the restrooms, a cross-shaped tire tool in his raised right hand, ready to swing.
“I can’t let you,” Ed said. “I can’t let you near them.”
“Sandi,” Ashley said quietly,
“please tell your cousin to drop that thing.”
“It’s a lug wrench, dumbass.”
“Ed, just do what he says.”
But the man stood firm. His back to the restroom doors. Perspiration beading on his forehead. The lug wrench trembling in his hand.
Ashley didn’t break eye contact, taking a little sideways step to give his brother a better shot. “Sandi,” he said calmly, speaking through the corner of his mouth, “let me be clear. If Cousin Ed here does not place the lug wrench on the floor right now, he will die.”
“Eddie, please, please, just do what Ashley says.”
Ed palmed sweat from his eyes, looking back to Sandi with dawning horror. He had to figure by now, but that had seemed to clinch it: “Jesus Christ, how do you . . . how do you know these people? What’s going on?”
Sandi winced. “Things got complicated—”
“What were you doing with that little girl, Sandi?”
“Drop it,” Ashley repeated, taking another step forward. “Drop it now, and I won’t hurt you. I promise.”
To his right, Lars took a diligent firing stance with the Beretta Cougar, just the way Ashley had once taught him. Two knuckled hands, thumbs high, index finger curling around the trigger. But Ashley knew he wouldn’t fire. Not without permission. He was waiting, oh-so-obediently, for a cue to execute Ed, which could come in many forms — including a baseball reference.
A drop of sweat hit the floor.
“I promise we won’t hurt you,” Ashley restated. “You have my word.”
“Eddie, please.” Sandi’s voice softened. “You’re drunk. Just put it down, and I’ll explain everything.”
But to his credit, he didn’t give in. He stood firm, not even acknowledging Lars’s gun, staring back at Ashley, only Ashley, like he was the only person in the world. Rock-hard eyes, daring him to do it. The lug wrench rattled with adrenaline. When he finally spoke, it was a low growl: “I knew I hated you.”
“Really?” Ashley said. “I liked you.”
“The moment I first met you tonight, when I shook your hand, I just . . . I somehow knew.” The old animal doctor smiled a strange, sad smile. “I caught a flash, I think, of exactly who you are. Behind the circle time, behind the bad jokes and the card games. You’re the sum of every trait I’ve ever hated in a human being. You’re smug, you’re irritating, you talk too much, you’re not half as clever as you think you are, and under it all? You’re pure evil.”
And you’re batting a thousand, Ashley almost said.
But then Ed sighed, and something broke behind his eyes, like he was finally recognizing the futility of this little standoff. He raised both hands and opened his right in grudging surrender. The lug wrench dropped and banged off the tile floor. The echo rang in the air, and Ashley grinned.
Lars lowered his Beretta.
“Thank you.” Sandi exhaled, tears in her eyes. “Thank you, Eddie, for—”
THWUMP.
Ed made an oafish face, like a man surprised by a belch. For a confused moment, he still held eye contact with Ashley, same as before. But his eyes were wide now, panicked, searching—
“You forgot,” Ashley told him. “I’m a liar, too.”
He lowered the nailer.
Ed’s eyes followed it, glistening with caged horror. His lips tightened wetly, contracting flesh, like he was trying to speak, but a surreal thing happened — his jaw wasn’t moving. Not even a centimeter. His voice escaped through his nostrils, a strangled moan. A sloppy red bubble — saliva thickened with blood — blistered through his front teeth and splashed down to the floor.
Ashley stepped back, so it wouldn’t spatter his shoes.
Sandi screamed. It was earsplitting.
“Lars.” Ashley snapped his fingers and pointed. “Control her, please.”
Ed slapped both hands to his throat, clearly trying to scream, too, but his body wouldn’t let him. His mouth was nailed shut — literally — by a steel framing nail, pierced through his lower jaw at an upward angle, harpooning his tongue to the roof of his mouth. Ashley imagined it wriggling in there like a bloody eel. And he was genuinely curious how deep the 16-penny nail had tunneled — could its needle-tip be tickling the floor of Ed’s brain?
He pushed the man over with his foot. Ed slumped against the regional map of Colorado and slid down the wall, sobbing silently into his hands, blood pooling in his palms and dribbling dime-sized blots on the floor.
“Have a seat. You should know, Eddie-boy, I hate alcoholics . . .”
Sandi was in hysterics. She cried out again, a hyena scream, another big glob of shiny snot hanging from her chin. Lars thrust the Beretta’s muzzle into her face, and she promptly shut up.
“Change of plan,” Ashley said, tapping Lars’s shoulder, and the fluorescent lights shuddered above him. “See, you and me, baby brother, we’ve already carpet-bombed this little building with forensic evidence, and we don’t have nearly enough bleach, or time, to scrub everything down. So we’re going to have to get creative, if you catch my drift.”
Lars nodded once. Spy Code message received.
Ashley continued, stepping over a spreading puddle of Ed’s blood. “And as for Darby and—”
Wait.
He realized something.
“Wait, wait . . .” He grabbed Sandi by the elbow, snapping his fingers in her face. “Hey. Look at me. You said . . . you trapped Darby and Jaybird in the restroom, right? The men’s restroom?”
She sniffled, looking up at him with bloodshot eyes, and nodded.
No.
Lars looked at him, too, not getting it. But Ashley did.
No, no, no—
He threw Sandi to the floor, stomping past her, past Ed, toward the restrooms, and he elbowed the MEN door open to see . . . an empty room. Snowflakes wafting in through the triangular window.
Lars watched.
Ashley Garver stepped back out and slammed the door violently. “I’m so sick of that fucking window—”
* * *
Darby twisted Sandi’s key and the truck’s engine revved to life. A diesel roar shattered the silence of the parking lot.
Jay crawled into the passenger seat. “What if Ashley hears?”
She cranked the shifter knob. “He just did.”
She’d already scraped away a viewing hole in the windshield and dug out a few scraping armfuls around the rear tires. Just enough to form icy ramps, to gain some momentum. Sandi had come prepared; this F-150 was a beast of a truck with studded tires, jangling chains, and a monstrous eighteen inches of lift. If anything parked here could it make it down the mountain, it was this rig. And if it couldn’t . . . well, Darby remembered Ashley’s lame little Ford joke: Found on road, dead.
Let’s hope not. She rubbed the chemical sting from her eyes. Her face was still drenched from that carafe, the hot water rapidly cooling on her skin.
“Everyone here is bad,” Jay whispered.
“Not me.”
“Yeah, but everyone else—”
Darby tried not to think about it. Her head was still spinning, too. First Ashley had presented himself as an ally before betraying her. And now Sandi had revealed her involvement in the kidnapping plot. She couldn’t possibly know where Ed Schaeffer stood in all of this chaos, but she hoped he was still alive in there.
If he’s even on our side to begin with.
She hoped he was, but with every passing second, the Wanapani rest area seemed to become more hostile. The plastic tightened around her face. Her allies dwindled. Her enemies multiplied. The conspiracy was dizzying.
“What was my bus driver doing here?” Jay asked.
Darby gripped the steering wheel. “Moment of truth.”
She pressed the gas pedal and the Ford inched forward in the sludgy snow, tires spinning, throwing sheets of hard ice. Steady pressure under her toes. Not too hard, not too soft. Grinding, skidding motion — but it was motion.
“Come on. Come on, come on—”
“
How far away are the police?” Jay asked.
She remembered the CDOT broadcast Ed had described to her. The jackknifed semi at the bottom of the pass. “Seven, uh, maybe eight miles.”
“That’s not far, right?”
Darby spun the wheel into a sloppy half-turn, sliding Sandi’s truck into icy divots, twisting south now. Downhill, down the off-ramp, facing oncoming traffic — if there were any. She searched for the Ford’s headlights and flicked them on. Ashley and Lars had already been alerted by the lope of the motor, so stealth was out. They were coming, right now.
“You stole her truck,” Jay whispered.
“She pepper-sprayed me. We’re even.”
The girl laughed, a fragile little sound, as a slice of orange light appeared on the glass behind her. It was the visitor center’s front door swinging open. A shaft of light, and in it, a thin figure.
It was Lars.
Rodent Face. All black shadow. The silhouette raised its right arm, as casually as a man aiming a television remote, and Darby understood instinctively, grabbing Jay by the shoulder and hurling her down against the cold leather seat—
“Get down—”
CRACK.
The passenger window exploded. Gummy shards chattered off the dash. Jay yelped, covering her face.
Darby huddled low under a hailstorm of settling glass. The gunshot echoed like a firecracker in the thin air. Her body urged her to stay down in her seat, as low as possible, beneath Rodent Face’s line of fire, but her brain knew better: He’s coming toward us. Right now.
Go, go, go—
She found the gas pedal with her toes and stomped it. The truck surged forward, engine thrumming with power, knocking them back into the seats. The world heaved. Luggage thudded noisily in the back. Then Darby righted herself against the clammy leather, peered sideways over the steering wheel — just exposing an eye, an inch — and guided Sandi’s F150 toward the highway.
Jay grabbed her wrist. “Darby—”
“Stay down.”
“Darby, he’s shooting at us—”
“Yes, I noticed—”
CRACK. A bullet pierced the truck’s windshield and Darby flinched. A chilly breeze whistled to her left; her side window was blown out, too. Snowflakes blew inside, slashing her cheek.
