by Susanne Beck
Still staring at me, her eyes narrowed. "Too? Who did you lose, Angel? What happened? Where are all those men?"
"They’re gone. They got what they came for and left."
"What did they come for?"
Teeth clenched, I swallowed hard. My lips refused to move; refused to help utter the word locked tight inside my throat.
"Angel?"
"Just . . . just keep still, Corinne. Ruby’s calling an ambulance. It should be here soon."
"Answer me, Angel."
I looked down at her, knowing she would see the answer in my eyes.
Her own widened. Her face became slack. "Oh, Angel," she breathed. "Oh no."
I tore my gaze away from the utter grief in her eyes, knowing that it was only mirroring my own. "Pop."
"What?"
"I’ve gotta call Pop. He’ll know what to do. I’ll just call him." I could feel my hold on sanity begin to slip as I rose from Corinne’s side as if in a dream, almost watching outside myself as I walked to the phone which was perched on a stand in the library. "That’s it. Pop will help. He has to. He’s the only one who can. Oh . . . god."
With an almost clinical detachment, I watched as my fingers stabbed at the buttons by rote, then pulled the phone up to my ear. Two rings, then three, then four, and I almost slammed the phone back down in frustration, before Pop’s sleep-blurred voice came over the line. "Yeah?"
"Pop, it’s Tyler. Please, come quick. I need your help."
"Tyler? What is it? What’s wrong? Is Corinne sick? Did Morgan get home alright? I know she left the truck here, it was runnin’ kinda . . . ."
"Just come. Please. And Pop?"
His voice was wary now. "Yeah?"
"Bring your gun."
Then I closed the phone on whatever answer he might have given, feeling my arms wrap around myself as my eyes darted around the library. The book Ice had been reading on our last day together sat neatly on one of the tables, the engraved silver bookmark I’d gotten her for Christmas shining from between the pages. Reaching out a trembling finger, I traced over her initials, remembering the look of quiet happiness that had come over her face when she’d opened her gift.
No, Ice. Please. Please.
"Angel?"
Corinne’s soft voice penetrated the thick fog in my brain, and I turned, realizing that I’d almost totally forgotten about her. "Corinne . . . I . . . ."
She smiled slightly. "It’s alright, Angel. It’s alright."
"No, Corinne. It most definitely is not alright. It’ll never be alright again." My hands came up to my head and, like great wrenching claws, latched onto my hair, pulling and tearing. "Noooooooo!!!"
"Angel!" Corinne’s voice was cutting, sharp, even given her head injury. "That’s enough. You’re a strong woman. We both know that. So start acting like one. I need that from you. And so does Ice."
Whirling, I stared down at her, my hands still in my hair. "Ice is dead!"
"You don’t know that for sure, Angel. If you did, you wouldn’t be calling Pop in to help. Some small part of you hasn’t given up hope yet. Use that to snap yourself out of this. You need to, or she really will be gone."
Inside, I could feel myself reacting to her words. That damnable flicker of useless hope straightened and grew stronger, much as the rest of me wanted to snuff it out for good. It was stupid and impossibly naïve for me to even think to believe that Ice had a chance in hell of getting out of the trap she was forced into. The odds were higher than high that she was dead already, laying somewhere, cold and lonely, waiting for the beasts of the forest to make a feast of her lifeless body.
And yet . . . .
The sounds of tires skidding to a halt outside the cabin made my decision for me, and after a quick, thankful glance toward Corinne, I ran back out the door in time to see Pop clamber out of his truck, rifle in hand, his hair sleep-tousled and his clothing hastily donned.
"Got here as fast as I could, Tyler. Now what the hell is goin’ on, eh?"
"They’ve got Ice, Pop. They’ve got her and we need to get her back."
"Who? Who’s got her?"
"Does it matter? Come on! We need to go after them!" I started for the passenger’s side of the truck, only to be halted by a firm hand to my elbow.
"Hold on just a second there, Tyler. Might not matter to you, but it matters a whole lot to me. Wasn’t born yesterday, and I ain’t near ta bein’ naïve enough ta think that those idiots Millicent’s payin ta do her dirty work could get the drop on Morgan even if she was tied up and blindfolded. And since you told me ta bring my gun, I’m guessin’ that these guys got balls enough ta kill if they’ve a mind to. So if I’m gonna have my ass blown clear off, I’d kinda like ta know who’s doin’ the shootin, eh?"
Looking into his shining eyes, I knew I was trapped between a rock and a very, very hard place. The seconds slipped by, taking Ice ever farther from me, and taking my hope with her. I honestly didn’t know what to do.
Pop’s eyes softened. "Tyler, you known me a long time, since you were a little kid. Not as well as ya do now, course, but well enough, I hope, ta know that anything ya tell me in confidence ain’t gonna go no further than my brain. Whatever it is ya gotta say, it won’t go nowhere else."
Being trapped with nowhere else to turn makes for strange bedfellows, as sure someone has said before me. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Pop. To the contrary, I trusted him with my life.
The question was, could I trust him with Ice’s life as well?
I didn’t really have a choice. Lies were too hard to think up and he deserved to know the truth.
"Who are they, Tyler?"
I hesitated a second more, then threw all caution to the wind. "The Mafia."
His eyes widened. "Like in the Godfather? That Mafia?"
I nodded.
"What do they gotta do with the price of tea in Tibet?"
"Do I have your word?"
"You got it, Tyler. Cross my heart."
"Ice is . . .was . . .a Mafia assassin."
"Father God and Sonny Je-sus," he whispered. "I knew she wasn’t no small-town mechanic."
"No. She’s not. Six years ago, she was convicted of murdering a witness, which she didn’t do, and put in jail." I took in a deep breath, then let it out slowly. Make or break time, Angel. If he bales, take his gun, hop in his truck, and drive. "That’s where I met her."
His eyes widened still further. I would have laughed at the picture he presented, if I had it in me. "Prison? Were you a guard or somethin?"
"No. I was a prisoner too."
"You?!? Naw. Yer havin’ me on, Tyler."
"No, I’m not. Listen, can we continue this on the road? We need to get going!!"
The sirens of the approaching ambulance could be heard drawing nearer, and I relaxed slightly, knowing Corinne would soon be in good hands. Ruby appeared as if from the night itself, her face a huge question-mark. "It’s Corinne. She’s hurt. Can you go to the hospital with her and make sure she’s alright for me? There’s something Pop and I have to do."
She looked about to argue, but something in my face must have changed her mind, because instead of words, she gave me a brisk nod, and headed into the house.
I turned back to Pop. "Please?"
Shaking himself as if rousing from a dream, he blinked, then released my arm. "Right. Let’s go."
Nodding, I ran to the other side of the truck and jumped in. Pop started it up with one hand, while grabbing his CB mike with the other and shouting some terse directions in it before racking it again. "Got us some help," he bit off before gunning the accelerator and sending us off in a cloud of dust. "Hang on, Tyler. We got some assholes ta find."
We headed off into the woods, with me pointing the way (or what little of it I knew) as Pop concentrated on driving. The trail was, at first, pretty easy to follow. The sedan had gone fishtailing into the forest for several hundred yards before getting back out onto the road again, heading south.
We chased the truc
k’s headlights down that road, both with our eyes glued to our respective sides of the road to see if the car we were tracking had made any other sudden detours.
My eyes caught a sudden flash, and when I looked up, I could see the fast approach of at least two trucks pulling up behind us. "Pop?"
He glanced in the rearview mirror briefly before returning his attention to the road. "The Drew boys. They’re about the best trackers in these parts. Ain’t shy ‘bout getting into it, either, if it comes ta that."
We continued for another few miles in silence until the road intersected with another, running east and west. "Which way?" I asked.
"Did they say where they was goin’ with her?"
"No. They didn’t say much of anything at all, except that they wouldn’t kill her in the house." I wiped angrily at the tears which started to fall again, blurring my vision. "Big of ‘em, huh?"
"Think they’d try to get back to the States with her?"
I shook my head. "I don’t know. Are there any roads that cross the border legally but aren’t patrolled?"
"Not around here, there ain’t. And tryin ta cross through the woods in a car is plain suicide. Tear the wheels right off before ya got a mile in. Some rough country around these parts."
I could feel myself slump down into the seat. "So what do we do?"
Pulling the truck to a stop still some distance from the intersection, Pop hopped out and walked up slowly to where the roads crossed. As I pulled myself from the cab, I heard the other two trucks pull to stops behind us, doors open, and the heavy tread of the two brothers as they hopped from their own cabs. Together, we joined Pop, who was looking down at the blacktop. "How many in the car?"
I thought for a moment. "Six. And one in the trunk."
He looked up at me. "Morgan?"
I shook my head. "No. She . . .um . . .she killed one of them. They put his body in the trunk. She’s in the car with them. I think."
Pop grinned, as did the Drews. "Damn good for her." He looked down at the road again which was bleached a pale, bone white by the brilliant beams of three trucks’ headlights. "Big car, then. Probably goin’ pretty fast, at that."
John Drew walked across the intersection, then squatted down on his haunches, examining something in the southeast corner. I squinted hard, but couldn’t make out what had caught his interest. He stood up, dusting his hands on his trousers and looking over at us. "Looks like they turned east," he pronounced.
Pop nodded. "Makes sense if they’re goin for the border."
"How can you be so sure?" I asked.
"There’s a deep track where a car took this turn pretty sharply. No skid marks, but the gravel’s sprayed out in a pretty representative pattern."
I looked at him. "Are you a police officer or something?"
Behind me, Tom snorted, which helped put me more at ease. A little, anyway.
John grinned. "Nope. Used to be a bounty hunter, though."
Wide eyed, I looked over at Pop, knowing I was giving much too much away, but unable to do anything else. Pop grinned. "Sometimes he liked the bad guys better’n the good guys. Damn near got him in trouble more’n once." He gave me a covert wink and I finally relaxed fully, accepting his judgement on the matter.
I turned back to John. "What if it wasn’t them, though? What if it was some other car? Or truck?"
"Oh, it was a car, alright. A truck couldn’t have made the turn that fast."
"Yeah, but I’m sure there’s been more than one car that’s made that turn since . . . ."
Pop put a hand on my arm. "So far, it’s the best lead we’ve got, Tyler," he said, softly.
I sighed. "I know. It’s just . . . I don’t want to give up any others that might be out there just to go after this one alone. The longer we go without finding them . . . ."
Tom stepped up to us. "How about this? You and Pop go down the most likely trail. There are about a million unpaved fire and logging roads as you head east, and it’ll take awhile to search them if it looks like the car might have turned down one of them. I’ll continue on south and John can go west for about twenty miles. If neither of us sees anything likely, we’ll turn around and come out to meet you and help search along this road. If we do come across anything, we’ll give a shout. Sound good?"
I smiled at him gratefully, surprised I had it within me to smile at all. "Yeah. That sounds great. Thanks."
Grinning, he clapped me briefly on the shoulder. "Let’s go then."
PART 8
THE SUN HAD been up for several hours as we came at last back onto the smooth blacktop of the eastbound road we’d been exploring all night. My head pounded abysmally from the abuse it had suffered while we bounced down one rutted, unpaved logging road after another, hunting for clues that just weren’t there no matter how hard I tried to will them into existence.
As night faded into day, my hopes faded right along with the setting of the moon. Every blind alley, every negated lead pushed me further and further into a well of despair I began to think I had no hope of ever leaving.
My mind insisted on showing me images of Ice’s lifeless body laying still and alone, lost forever in the endless blind maze of forest which surrounded us.
Still worse were the pictures of Ice, bleeding but conscious, dying by slow inches and unable to move as the beasts of the night made their way closer to her, attracted by the scent of her spilling blood like sharks to an injured whale.
I savagely told my mind to shut up, to shut off, but the more tired I became, the more hours we spent in fruitless searching, the more it insisted on playing these images in a continuous loop, each more graphic and heartrending than the last until it was all I could do not to scream and pound the dash until my fists were bloody.
The Drews had joined us halfway through the search, having come up empty in their own explorations. Having two more sets of eyes made the search go more quickly, but in the end, it made absolutely no difference at all.
Coming back to the present, I rubbed my gritty eyes as I mentally prepared myself for yet another trip down yet another road with yet another series of holes large enough to hide entire houses within. It was then that I noticed that we were heading to the west, away from the rising sun and the next road down the line. My heart sped up. "Where are we going?"
Pop didn’t look at me. His unblinking eyes stayed fixed on the road. He was beyond pale, beyond tired, beyond old. "Back home for a bit, Tyler. We need a break."
"No!" I yelled, grabbing the steering wheel and almost turning us into the drainage ditch which ran parallel to the road on both sides. "No! We can’t give up!!"
He gently pulled my hand off the wheel and straightened the truck back out again. "We ain’t givin’ up, Tyler. Johnny an’ Tommy’ll keep searchin’ till they can’t go no more. I need ta get to a phone and call in some more help. There’s just too much land out here fer only three groups ta search. And you need some sleep. I ain’t gotta look at ya ta see you’re about one step from goin’ down deep and never comin’ out."
"You don’t understand!"
Coming to a halt by the side of the street, he finally took his eyes off the road to look directly at me. His expression was one of infinite sadness. "I understand better’n you think, Tyler. Lost my own daughter out here when she was seven. Her and a friend took off when they was supposed ta be fishin, and got lost. We found em two days later. The friend survived. My daughter didn’t." He looked back toward the road again, his eyes shiny and dark, hands gripped tight to the wheel. "Musta tripped in the dark, near as anyone can figure. The friend couldn’t say. We found them both at the bottom of one of the ravines. My daughter’s neck was broken."
"Oh god." I closed my eyes for a very long moment. "I’m so sorry."
He looked back at me again. "I thank ya fer your sympathies, Tyler. Happened a long time ago, but sometimes it still hits pretty hard. ‘Specially when yer not lookin for it." Reaching out almost hesitantly, he gently touched my cheek with his weathered, work-r
oughened hand. "I ain’t much for platitudes. Find em pretty useless as a rule. But I been around enough to know one thing. And that’s that givin’ up hope is the worst thing a body can do. I been around lots, but I ain’t met many people like your Morgan, Tyler. If anyone can make it outta this almighty mess, I’d lay my money on her, if I was a bettin’ man."
"And if you’re not?" I asked through my tears.
His smile was sweet and kind and filled with compassion. "I’d lay it down anyway. She’s a special one. So are you. I heard her call you ‘Angel’ once, and I reckon you’re as close to one as these eyes are ever gonna see. So you just keep her alive in your heart, and alive she’s gonna stay. Ok?"
After a moment, I gave a short nod against his hand, smiling a little. "Ok."
"Alright, then. Let’s haul ass home and get some more help on this search. And when we find her, remind me I got a bone ta pick with ‘er fer makin me lose s’much sleep on her account, eh?"
I almost laughed at that. "You’re on, Pop. I’ll even hold her down while you pick that bone. Just leave one for me, ok?"
With a nod, we were off again, my soul seeming infinitesimally lighter for our conversation.
It’s amazing what a powerful drug hope really is.
* * *
I sat on the bed, facing the headboard and staring sightlessly out the window. Though I’d been more than thirty-six hours without it, sleep was an elusive, useless thing. Though my mind and body craved it with a deep, abiding ache, my soul shied away from its implied comfort, knowing it for the sham it really was. Sleep wasn’t the oblivion I needed; it would only bring about nightmares-- or worse, happy dreams from which I would awaken only to die all over again when the realization of my living hell came down to visit once again, hitting me like a sucker punch hard to the gut.
No, better to stay awake and wrestle demons I could control, than to fall asleep and give up that control to the vultures who waited just beyond my conscious sight.
The sounds of Pop’s gentle snoring floated up to me from the living-room below, where he lay sprawled out on one of the couches. I smiled a little, thanking God for putting that man in my life. He’d managed to call in a great many markers from friends near and far. Friends who were as close-lipped and hard-headed as he was and could therefore be entrusted with the delicate, and dangerous, task set before them.
