Between Faith and Fear
Page 21
River blinked back his tears. “I needed time to get Rafferty out,” was his excuse.
“Well, you bought more of it than you bargained for. Burned out before the flame reached the blasting cap.”
“It worked before!”
“He had the back door barred,” Elijah pitched in, “and was probably gonna block the other one as soon as Rafferty was free.”
“And you had no problem blowing up a building full of people?” Melanie asked, closing the distance. “An innocent baby?”
“It was either you or me. Rafferty doesn’t exactly reward failure.”
“Looks like he doesn’t reward loyalty, either,” Danny said behind her.
Melanie looked back, and saw that no one else had joined them. Austin hadn’t returned with Rafferty and Mac was still keeping his distance with DJ. At least Mac knew she’d received a phone call from her granddad giving them the all clear. Maybe he was being cautious.
“Sss-so you guys were just messing with me?” When Melanie and Danny returned their attention to River, the young ghost gave a watery, dimpled smile. “Wicked. Sounds like something I’d do.”
Both girls tsked in disgust. Melanie said, “Don’t even try to draw parallels between us, you ass hat.” When the kid looked suggestively at her clothing, she raised a finger before he could even say it.
Danny checked her phone. “Have you heard from Austin or Mac?” she asked, frustrated by the lack of communication.
“I was wondering about them myself. Granddad? Think you and Elijah can handle Rambo?”
Emery sucked on his teeth. “Kinda looks like he wants a haircut to me. What do you think, Eli?”
Elijah released a cackle and climbed in through the window after Emery. “At least he’ll look presentable for when the Sheriff comes.” And he grabbed a broom, began to sweep up glass while River began to protest loudly.
The girls made their way toward the street as the townsfolk slowly gained the courage to come nearer.
“Let’s find Mac first,” Danny said with a worried frown. “It’s not like him to just disappear like that.”
Melanie couldn’t agree more. The longer the man stayed hidden with her son, the more apprehensive she became. They got as far as the post office and noticed a couple of people kneeling in the parking spaces beside the building. One of them moved and Mac’s large head appeared.
“He’s bleeding!” Danny sprinted the rest of the way with Melanie hot on her heels.
When they reached him, he was propped up against the brick wall with a bloody knife in his hand. Chewie limped toward them on three legs from another direction. The baby was nowhere in sight.
“Mac! What happened? Where’s DJ?”
When Danny inspected his bloody shoulder, the man shook his head as if waking from a stupor. Blood trailed across his face from a nasty gash by his left ear, indicating he’d been horizontal for a while.
“Where’s DJ?” Melanie yelled again, panic setting in.
“I don’t...” Mac mumbled, coming to a little more with each deep breath.
One of the bystanders, a woman Melanie recognized from the diner, pointed to the knife. “That was in his shoulder when we noticed him on the ground. He pulled it out as soon as he realized it was in there.”
“Now it’s bleeding pretty good,” the other woman said. “We called the Sheriff, said he’s on his way, but he’s coming from Mondale. Volunteer fire department won’t show up for a while, either.”
“Did you see a baby?” Melanie asked while Danny tended to Mac’s wounds. “A fifteen-month-old, blond hair, wearing a dark green sleeper?”
The women shook their heads. “Just the man, here. Sorry.”
Mac broke in from the ground. “Mel, it was Rafferty. He took him!”
Chewie whimpered and curled into a ball at her feet.
Danny looked up with fear in her eyes and said, “Chewie didn’t hear him coming this time.”
Before she dropped the last word, Melanie was running back toward the barbershop. But when she got there, it was to find Austin with a knee in Rafferty’s back on the sidewalk. River was screaming at Emery who was in the process of shearing off the last of his curly locks. The shears went silent while Elijah hooted with laughter.
But the laughter died when the elders noticed her panic-stricken face.
“Where is he?” she asked Rafferty, breathless and angry. “Where’s my son!”
Austin turned fierce black eyes on her. “What do you mean? Doesn’t Mac have him?”
“Rafferty attacked him and took DJ!”
The man on the cement was shaking, his posterior barely hidden by the flimsy gown he still wore. Austin grabbed a fistful of salt and pepper hair and yanked upward. “Is that true?”
Drool strung from Rafferty’s open mouth to the sidewalk. It was the only response he seemed capable of.
Austin growled loudly and released his hold. “Shit. I may have hit him too hard.”
“He didn’t have DJ when you found him?”
“No! He was scrambling to his feet behind that school! I thought he’d petered out and took a rest!”
“Which means he could have hidden him somewhere!” It was too much. Melanie felt the dread take over and it took all her strength to remain on her feet. In sheer desperation, she knelt before Rafferty, peered into his half-lidded eye. “Please,” she begged in a small voice. “Tell me what you did with my son.”
No response. The man was out of it. Melanie’s mind shut down for a moment, but when it awoke, she remembered something vitally important. “The tracking device,” she muttered.
“What?”
She looked at Austin with a glimmer of hope. “I felt it in his thigh before the lights went out.” Her attention whipped around to the kid in the barber chair. “And you knew where to find him way before we got here.”
River’s mouth fell open a bit. “I... I don’t--”
“Don’t look at Rafferty, he won’t help you! You already know that! He left you here, remember?”
After a moment of serious thought, River’s eyes grew dark with the weight of his decision. “My pack is in the woods in back. Find it and you’ll find the tablet I use to track the signals.”
“Wait!” Austin shouted after her. “Don’t go alone!”
Sirens began to sound in the distance. Melanie flew down the sidewalk and around the strip of buildings. As she searched the narrow line of woods separating the neighborhood from the businesses, she used the meager light from her cellphone. It wasn’t much, but neither were the woods. The pack came out of the darkness like a sunken treasure. When she dove for it, the back door to her granddad’s business flew open. Austin signaled to her and she sprinted toward him, pack in hand. Rafferty was trussed up good and tight on the wooden floor with River right beside him.
“Your granddad is dealing with the Sheriff,” Austin explained as they emptied the contents. “Until we blow IGP open, Rafferty doesn’t look good for us right now.”
“He stabbed Mac in the shoulder,” Melanie said. “Hurt Chewie, too. Danny’s with them.”
That’s when the back door re-opened and Mac and Danny piled inside with Chewie gimping at their heels.
Melanie’s mouth fell open. “What the hell are you doing?”
Danny threw up her hands. “He wouldn’t listen to me!”
Mac scowled darkly as he stumbled toward them. “I’m not getting dragged away in some ambulance when DJ’s missing.”
Of course he wouldn’t. DJ was like a nephew to him.
“Here it is.” Austin handed Melanie the small tablet and looked Mac up and down. “You sure about this?”
Mac nodded once, clutched a towel against his shoulder. “It was a little knife.”
“I’m more worried about your head.”
“Been known to be pretty hard.”
“That’s the damned truth,” Danny mumbled, then jumped out of her skin when the back door opened behind her. Elijah skittered inside.
“I’m working on it.” The tablet woke up in her hands, but Melanie knew nothing of what she was looking at.
Danny hovered over her shoulder. “What’s that?”
“Tracking monitor.” And she shoved it under River’s nose. “Tell me what to do.”
“It’s the black icon with the world inside it.” When she touched the icon, the screen went into a satellite mode. “Your kid is the blinking blue dot.”
Her eyes narrowed on the pulsing dot. “He’s moving!”
River arched his back to get a better angle. “Looks like he’s in a vehicle.”
Austin gave River a tap with his boot. “Was anyone else with you? Another ghost?”
“No. I work alone.”
Rafferty rumbled, opened his eye. The patch was coming loose from all the action. The man looked as if he were knocking on death’s door. “Don’t... say anything more, River.”
“Hey, man, fuck you! You left me to die!”
“You’re still... bound by the laws--”
“Screw your laws, I quit.”
Rafferty struggled weakly against the ropes. “Ghosts don’t just quit... you ignorant piece of shit. They die. Just like Bennett.”
Melanie recognized the caged animal look for what it was. Rafferty was in withdrawal and his anxiety level was climbing. She shared a look with Danny who mirrored her own rage at the mention of Derek’s demise. “IGP is falling down around you, Rafferty,” Melanie reminded him with some small satisfaction. “You may as well tell us who you gave DJ to. Where they’re going.”
“I’m not so sure he handed him off,” Austin contributed with a frown. “He has a contusion on the back of his head that I didn’t put there.”
Elijah snapped his fingers as if a light came on. “And those sparklers looked like they’d been stomped out.”
“So...” Danny rose to a stand, looked between Elijah and her husband, “you think DJ was taken from Rafferty by someone who might be on our side?”
“I don’t know about that.” Austin rubbed his hands up and down the length of her arms. “But there’s definitely another player involved. Rena, maybe?”
Melanie shook her head. “She lost it when... when Derek was shot. Ty tried to push through the door and stop her, but it’s like someone was holding it shut while she stabbed two people to death.”
“Do we know where she is?” Danny asked, unsuccessfully hiding her horror.
But Melanie was reliving the memory of Derek lying in a growing pool of blood. Closing her eyes, she regrouped, fought the crippling emotion that would slow her down if she didn’t keep it at bay. “Ty tried to follow her, but I called him back to help Derek.”
“It wasn’t Rena,” Rafferty grinned as best he could. “Your kid was taken by a ghost. He’s probably dead by now.”
“He’s lying,” Danny snarled. “That’s what he does.”
But River was watching the monitor in front of him. “Maybe not. It looks like he’s headed right back to IGP.”
Melanie nearly went limp with dread. The room began to spin until Danny’s steadying hands clasped each side of her face. “I can’t do this much longer, Danny,” she whispered fearfully. “I’m about to lose it.”
She looked at the spiral rug where DJ’s diaper bag and toys lay in abandonment. Chewie had dragged the pink blanket to a secluded spot by the back door and now lay upon it. When he sensed the attention, he raised his head, gave a soft whimper and lowered it again to bury his nose in the scented folds.
It was settled. Baby Sasha would never, ever get her blanket back. “We have to go back to IGP and find him,” Melanie said bravely. “Just like Derek did for me.”
They all gathered ‘round, drew strength from each other as they formed a sort of silent pact. Mac pursed his lips, smoothed a hand over her hair. “And then we’ll bring them down for good. Somehow.”
The whites of Elijah’s eyes popped against his dark skin as he sucked on his teeth. “Some ignorant young punk wid’ a slick haircut just handed us a few pounds of C4. I’d call that a good start.”
Chapter 26
There was no way Derek would allow himself to go under again. With a groan, he sat up to keep consciousness within his grasp. It hurt. Felt like he was being impaled with a hot poker, but the pain helped awaken his senses rather than dull them.
As he glanced at the man sprawled at the table, Derek wondered if Ty was asleep.
But a blond eyebrow rose despite the closed eyes. “Not happening, dude.”
Shit. Didn’t anyone besides him sleep anymore?
“I keep wondering...” Derek said, pushing back to prop himself against the wall. He checked out the bandage that now replaced Ty’s temporary IV. “Why you continue to put yourself out there for me. You were only supposed to find us a hideout, get us supplies... steal my car. But you’ve gone way beyond that.”
Ty’s fist came out from under his jaw and he ground his palms into his eye sockets. “I keep thinking how long you’ve been gone.” Then he blinked at Derek under the light of the yellow bulb overhead. “The things you’ve missed out on. The things you miss.”
“Pfft. What don’t I miss?” With great effort, Derek drew his knees up and stretched the stiffness from a different set of muscles. “I’d give my nuts to walk free again.” He searched his mind. “Day trips to Lincoln Lake. I really miss those. Gotta be toward the top of my list.”
Ty uncapped a bottled water, got up and brought it to him. “I’ll bet. You had the car, the skill on the crag, the take-it-or-leave-it attitude that got you all the pussy you wanted.”
Derek reached for the bottle and shot him a look. “As I recall, you were no slouch in that department.”
The cot creaked as Ty sat down beside him and took up the same position. “I’d have lost my life at Lincoln Lake if it hadn’t been for you.”
Jeez, again with that. Derek took a drink and exhaled loudly, gave the same response as he always did. “Bullshit.”
Ty laughed, shook his head. “Somehow you knew there’d be trouble on that last route. And you were right. It was steep for a 5.7 but I always thought they rated those routes a bit high. A little bouldering, some good trad lines, good holds all the way up... nothing I shouldn’t have been able to handle without gear.”
Derek remembered. “You wanted no gear, no pads, no spot. What worried me most was that Danny wanted to follow your lead.”
“If memory serves,” Ty rolled his head toward him, “she was following yours. You’d just done it without all that stuff. Even threw in some really good dynos that shamed us all. Everyone thought you had suction cups on your hands and feet.”
Derek shrugged. “Since I went up first, I saw the new cracks on the horn from winter. And you were half done before you started.”
“Yeah. It was cold. Rough on the fingers. I was already sketchy when I reached the top but I’d never admit it. Pride, I guess. When the sandstone crumbled under my grip, I was sure thankful you’d insisted on setting a top rope or I’d have cratered.” Ty was silent for a moment, then he looked at him. “You want to know why I’m doing all this for you? That’s why. No matter how pissed I got, you wouldn’t back off until I’d taken the proper precautions. You were thinking for me when I needed you to and you really saved my bacon that day. I never forgot that.”
But Derek would never see it that way. “Like I said, it was because of Danny. She wanted to free solo that route her first try. Show us up. She finally agreed to use the top rope...” Derek broke into a half-smile, “but she still stuck the jams.”
Ty smiled back. “Something I didn’t do. You were proud of her, not that you’d admit it.”
“She only did it to impress you. I nearly drove my elbow into your face when I saw you staring up at her ass.”
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“I was taking up the slack, man, in case she fell!”
“So. She was sixteen. Enough said.”
Ty’s laughter reverberated against the metal walls. “That’s it. That attitude I remember so well when anyone thought of looking her way. Nobody would get near her because of you.”
And it had been a good thing. Derek wasn’t sure he could take them all. “Didn’t want her knocked up by some dirtbag trad master.”
“You mean someone just like you?”
“Precisely.”
They sat in companionable silence until Ty opened his mouth again. “She always did have a nice ass, though.” When Derek glared at him, he added, “I can say it now because you can’t kick the shit out of me.”
“Don’t count on it.” But it was all talk and they both knew it. Derek realized how much he’d missed this kind of thing. Playful banter among friends, swapping old stories and sharing laughs. “We had some fun.”
“Yeah. We did.” Ty got up and checked his watch.
“When you began your internship to become an EMT, we sort of lost touch.”
He picked up his phone and checked the screen. “It was time consuming.”
Derek watched him carefully. “You were an ambitious son of a gun. But you were always honest with me. I appreciated that about you.” As the man’s expression hardened with tension, Derek realized the feeling in his gut was spot on. “So, why are you lying to me now?”
Ty’s head jerked up and he questioned him with guilty eyes. “Lying to you?”
Derek gingerly straightened his legs and shifted toward the edge of the cot. “You haven’t been in touch with the others. Have you?” No answer. “I can’t hole up here not knowing if they’re okay. I need to at least talk to Mel.”
“We don’t get service in this building, you know that.” Ty dismissed him by heading toward the rolling door. “And you aren’t stepping outside, so you’ll just have to trust me.”
“You see...” Derek stopped him from leaving, gave him a sideways look, “you never asked me to trust you before. You didn’t have to, but now you’re getting desperate. Something’s up, something you’re not telling me. And if you don’t start talking... we’ll have a big problem on our hands.”