The Deepest Dark

by Joan Hall Hovey

  She felt shaky and fragile, her legs like water. Her ribs throbbed with their own fire where he had kicked her and the back of her head hurt like hell. She could feel a lump growing under her fingertips, like bread rising. She shouldn’t have gotten him riled up, but her reaction to his hands on her was purely instinctive. She couldn’t have stopped herself if she’d tried. If she had had a gun she would have shot him without a second thought, but she didn’t. And wouldn’t have known how to use one if she did.

  “Are you okay, Abby?” Donnie asked, his hand gentle on her arm. She nodded gingerly, not trusting herself to speak. Even the slight movement of her head sent a burst of ugly pain through her skull. She felt like she was going to be sick. Donnie looked warily at the hulk lying on the bed. He had challenged him and he knew that at some point he would pay for it. Maybe not now. But it would go on the ledger. The beast would not forget.

  Oh, God. Will I ever get away from them? Abby wondered. Then she remembered the words Corey had spoken to her in the car. (If they were his words, Abby) and felt the smallest ray of hope. She’d taken the bottle of pills from her purse and slipped them into Corey’s jacket pocket. She patted the pocket; they were still there.

  She had to get herself together. Make this work. At least the nausea was passing. She tried not to limp into the room, but it was hard. Both Tattoo and the Roach looked at her. Tattoo from the bed, Ken Roach from the brown leather chair by the window. The Roach looked ticked off at her, as if she were the entire cause of the commotion that might have gotten them kicked out. She doubted that scenario would be any improvement over her present situation.

  Donnie stayed by the washroom door, eyes downcast, picking at something on the knee of his pants as if it might be the most interesting thing in the world. Wheel of Fortune was on. The wheel spun...tat..tat...tat... She took it as a sign.

  “I’m sorry, Tattoo,” she said, the words tasting like bitter bile in her mouth. “I shouldn’t have said what I did. I wondered if maybe — you would like a coffee.”

  It was hard to look into that eye where so much hatred lived.

  “Quiet,” the Roach barked. “Shit, look at this!” He turned up the volume on the TV.

  The news anchor was talking about the murders of Ethel and Hartley Nichols. Scenes of the murder site flashed on the screen. All eyes were riveted to the TV, including Abby’s. The camera locked in on a young woman with swollen eyes and disheveled blond hair standing before a microphone. Her whole posture told her story. Beside her, a stocky, dark-eyed woman of native ancestry, her hair in a long braid had positioned herself to one side of her, a little back. When the distraught blond woman spoke, her voice was thick with unspeakable grief.

  “My parents were the sweetest people in the world,” she said into the camera. “They wouldn’t hurt anyone, and they would help you if you needed help. Please — if you know anything, saw anyone suspicious lurking around the area, call the police. Whoever these people are, they’re still out there. And they’re dangerous. They need to be caught and punished. It could be your parents next. It — it could be you. These animals murdered my mother and father so viciously...” Her voice broke then and the native woman who looked to be law enforcement, gestured for them to get the cameras off her.

  They were back to the news reporter. “Sally Nichols is a brave young woman to come forward on what has to be a dark day for her indeed, and the police need your help in solving this horrific crime.” He reiterated Sally Nichols’ public appeal to his viewing audience. The phone number of the police department scrolled across the bottom of the screen.

  “Whining bitch,” Tattoo growled from the bed.

  Abby let out a breath through her nostrils. She kept her eyes on the television.

  “Police are investigating the very real possibility that the killings of Hartley and Ethel Nichols are tied in to the three men who escaped from Pennington prison last week.” Their mug shots went up on the screen, their names beneath. They remained there as the newsman shifted some papers. He looked into the camera. “We have just been informed that a blue Honda belonging to author Abby Miller, now officially considered missing, has been located in the Erinville mall parking lot. Police now believe Ms. Miller may have been abducted from her cabin where she was apparently working on a new novel.”

  Not only had Karen gotten herself on the radio, she’d managed to be taken seriously by the police. She’d bet money that it was also Karen who had found the cabin. Bless her.

  It seemed impossible that only days ago, she left her apartment in Langston to spend time at the cabin? It felt more like a year that she’d been trapped in this nightmare.

  The Roach snapped off the TV. He cursed, turned angry eyes on Abby as if his thwarted plans were all her fault. Then he nodded as if in resignation. “Just speeds things up,” he said. “The cops are involved now. No way can we let you leave this room. You’d be recognized. Dog, we need an electronic notebook or laptop.”

  He hesitated answering to the name. Then, “Why?”

  “I want to upgrade my status on Facebook,” he snapped. “What’s the difference?” He ran a hand through his hair, unable to hide his frustration. “Just do what I’m asking you to do. Okay? Do—Donnie. Jeez, I need to think.”

  He turned to Abby. “Coffee. Yeah, coffee’s a good idea. That’ll help me do that. Clear my head. Make us all some coffee.”

  “Where will I get a laptop?” Donnie asked, his tone wavering between bewilderment and a whine. He was still standing by the washroom door, hands hanging limply. “Anyway, there’s a computer just off the lobby for guests to use.”

  “Didn’t you just hear me say she can’t leave this room?”

  Donnie was thinking about that druggist who probably recognized him. It was dangerous to go back out on the street and maybe end up being the only one snatched up and thrown back behind bars. But he didn’t dare voice those thoughts to Roach because then he’d have to tell him he took his glasses off for the guy just because he told him to. It made his face hot just thinking about it. Everyone was right; he was a retard.

  He glanced at Tattoo who was glaring at him from the bed, arms crossed over his broad chest. Donnie looked away, knowing he was in big trouble there too. But he couldn’t just let him strangle Abby to death and not open his mouth, could he? He’d made Tattoo furious, that was sure. (It didn’t help that he’d forgot to get his cigarettes.) But he’d also surprised him. And maybe himself, too. Whatever went down, he felt good about standing up to him for once.

  “You’ll get it some place they sell computers,” the Roach said with studied control. “Okay? You slip in, take the laptop, slip out. Come back here with it. It’s your claim to fame, Donnie. No one’s better at the grab than you. But if you don’t put a move on, the stores will be closed.”

  “Rather have a shot of something stronger,” Tattoo cut in, paying no attention to the talk of computers which meant nothing to him. All that registered was that Donnie was going shopping. In a voice that was beginning to slur from the pills, he said, “Tell Dog to pick up a bottle of Jack Daniels while he’s out there. And don’t forget my damn cigarettes this time.”

  An old-time country song twanged through the paper-thin walls and Abby wondered if whoever was in the next room could make out their conversation. The guy had some talent. He was so into his music he wouldn’t be interested in what went on next door anyway. Unless it interfered with his music. She wondered if he was the one who knocked at the door.

  “You can’t drink booze with that pain medication you’re taking,” the Roach was saying. “You want that eye to clear up, don’t you, Tat?” he said, as if cajoling a five-year-old.

  “Yeah. You think it will, Roach?”

  “Sure. Sure it will.”

  He’s lying. Or maybe he even believes what he’s saying. “He’s right,” Abby said softly, resisting a need to swallow, knowing how much it would hurt. “It would be dangerous to mix drugs and alcohol. And it will keep the medication fr
om working.”

  After Donnie left, she went into the bathroom to make the coffee, passing the wall mirror as she did. Her face was pale in the glass, the bruise on her jaw a purplish yellow now. Only a dark mark where her lip had been split. She also had a pounding headache. She could have a concussion for all she knew. She considered taking a couple of her pills to ease the pain but decided on only one. She needed to stay alert. There was a brief moment when the tears leaked from her eyes, despite her determination not to cry. She plucked a tissue from the pack on the sink countertop and angrily wiped them away.

  Because the room was so tiny, the coffee maker had been set up in here. Leaving the door ajar so as not to arouse suspicion, she ran the water into the sink. Not good to mix booze and alcohol, her mind repeated as she took the bottle of sleeping pills, (which were actually clomethiazole capsules) from her pocket and removed the lid. She looked closer at her face in the bathroom mirror. Under the fluorescent light the bruise was a more vivid shade of greenish purple, an ugly blossom. But at least her eyes were not the same dead eyes she’d been peering into for months now. True, they held fear, and despite being exhausted, they were alive as they had not been in a long time. She rubbed her side where the beast had kicked her and the stabbing pain made her wince. It also made her angry. She let the anger overtake the fear. The anger made her feel better, less like a victim.

  When the coffee finished dripping, she poured some into a plastic glass for herself. Then, forcing her hands steady, she opened a dozen capsules, one after the other, and dumped their contents into the coffee pot, stirred them with a stir stick. Her back to the slightly open door, she flushed the husks down the toilet. Once, sure that a shadow had darkened the small space, she darted a look toward the hallway, but there was no one there. Her nerves taut as guywires, she poured the coffee into two cups. The headache was subsiding to a lower level of pain.

  “I don’t know how old this coffee whitener is,” she said off-handedly, carrying the tray of coffees into the room. “There are a few grains floating on top, but the coffee’s hot.” She had made sure to sprinkle a few grains of whitener on top of her own coffee to avoid suspicion. Noticing the Roach glancing at her plastic glass before taking his own cup from the tray, she was glad she’d thought of it. He wasn’t a stupid man; it would not have gotten past him.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  He’d abandoned the chair by the window and took his coffee to the desk, next to the TV. He was thumbing through a car magazine someone had left, and that the maid hadn’t tossed into the waste basket. His head bent to the magazine, she saw a familiarity in its shape, in the way his hair grew at the nape of his neck. She stared briefly before dismissing it as being of no importance. She took the chair he had vacated, by the window.

  Just Ken Roach and the beast now. With luck, she’d be out of here before Donnie got back.

  Their room was on the second level and looked out onto an even older section of the motel. Beyond it was the road where cars streamed past, going in either direction. She thought about the people in the cars, and how remote they were from her. No one knows I’m here, she thought. No one in the world. And no one would be coming to her rescue. She must save herself. Please let this work.

  Abby waited, sipped the coffee from her plastic glass, looked out the window and stared at nothing. Her blood thundered in her ears like Niagara Falls as she willed herself not to turn around. She discreetly looked at her watch and tried to relax. Ten minutes had passed. She jumped inside her skin when she heard the Roach’s magazine fall to the floor. She could see it from the corner of her eye. She stopped breathing. After a few more seconds, she dared a glance in his direction. His head was lolling on his chest.

  Minutes later, she heard a loud snore behind her. Tattoo. She dared to hope. She sat very still, making no move to rise from the chair or even turn her head. Wait, she commanded herself. Wait.

  Could it possibly be that easy? That she could just get up from this chair and walk out of here? She was lucky she wasn’t duct-taped to it. He was trusting her fear of the consequences to keep her in line.

  She was about to rise from the chair when a reflection appeared in the glass beside her own. A face so dear to her, one she so desperately missed, she almost cried out. Corey? Oh, my God. Abby felt no fear, only an outpouring of his love, like a warm sun passing through her. But the expression on his face was anxious. As if he were trying to tell her something. And then as quickly as it had appeared, the apparition vanished, and it was only her own face she saw in the glass. Coldness existed now where only seconds ago, she had felt the warmth of love. It was as if electricity had surged through her; she still tingled with it.

  Was it her imagination, her own yearning that made her see him? That manifested his likeness in the glass? Had Corey’s image really been there? Abby’s hands were shaking. Setting her plastic glass with the few dregs of coffee left at the bottom, on the window sill, she placed her hands in her lap and closed her eyes. You’re here with me. I know you are. Was Ellie with him? Yes, yes, of course she was. Hadn’t her daughter spoken to her as she stood on the shore of the lake? They had left her, it was true, but only in a physical sense. One day they would all be together again. With every fibre of her being, Abby now believed that.

  But she wasn’t ready to leave her body just yet. There were things she still wanted to accomplish on this earth. She’d been drowning in self-pity. She’d known it intellectually, but emotionally it was like being stuck in quicksand and any movement just sucked you down deeper into the mire. She had been mourning for herself. Losing Corey and Ellie had left her drained of hope, of good spirits. She would work at regaining those back. If she was given a chance.

  No more time for that now, she thought, hearing Tattoo’s snore drop to a deeper note. The sound made her think of a big animal deep in its lair. Maybe a crazed Yeti. Time to get the hell out of here while she still could.

  She stood slowly. Barely breathing.

  Chapter 23

  Now and again, a family member would go on television to make an appeal to the public to help bring a killer to justice, and Sally Nichols was one of them. Al was proud of her. She had fought to keep her composure, but he knew Hartley’s and Ethel’s little girl was still in shock at the savage murders of her mom and dad. But she had done well, and he hoped it would bring tangible results. He hoped too that it would help her to move on from this awful tragedy. There was no chance she would get over it, of course. You didn’t get over something like this. It became a part of who you were. You lived with it. She had his cell number; he’d written it on his card and given it to her, telling her to call night or day even if she needed to talk. He doubted that she would.

  “They’re out there,” she had said to the viewing audience. And Al knew who they were. It was just a matter of rounding up the sons-a-bitches and herding their collective asses back behind bars for the rest of their natural lives. And do it before they hurt anyone else. There was no longer any question of who had committed the murders. They had lifted Ken Roach’s fingerprints off a dresser drawer in the Nichol’s bedroom upstairs, where Sally told him her dad kept a roll of bills that amounted to a few hundred dollars. “I told him it was dangerous,” she told Al tearfully. But Hartley had his own mind, and it wouldn’t have made a difference anyway. They also found blood tracings on a kitchen knife that he learned only moments ago, belonged to Jim Ellison, alias Tattoo. And Leaman’s prints were on the truck’s steering wheel, and it was a good guess the shoe prints on the ground would be his too. Not to mention the feast of fingerprints on the beer bottles found in the back seat of Abby’s Honda. He’d bent a lot of ears to get this stuff fast-tracked. It usually took weeks to get results back.

  Now all they needed were the criminals themselves.

  *~*

  Al stood by his cruiser watching Betty lead Sally away from the platform, a comforting arm around her shoulders as she tried to maneuver around the throng of reporters. One aggressive sor
t tried to block her way, shoving a mic into Sally’s face, and the softness he’d seen in his dispatcher’s eyes just moments ago turned dark as polished onyx. Twin flashing daggers out of those dark eyes was enough to drive him back, and Al grinned. And then he relaxed as the two women got into Betty’s Rambler and Betty drove away, gravel spitting from beneath her tires.

  Good job, Betty Clair. Betty had been through a lot in her life growing up through a booze-soaked childhood, then married to that bully ex of hers. Nothing like this of course, but she was no stranger to pain. Tough times had taught her to take care of herself, and that nurturing soul had spilled over to include those in her orbit. There was also an earthiness about her, a sexiness, that stirred feelings in Al he hadn’t experienced in a long time. He liked Betty. He liked her a lot. Maybe more than liked. With the admission came a feeling of guilt, a sense of betrayal to his dead wife. Emily had been the love of his life. A woman he swore he would never be able to live without. But life goes on, even when you don’t particularly want it to. Emily was gone and he was lonely. He knew he’d only been living half a life for four years now. He couldn’t help thinking how good it would be to hold a woman in his arms again. To hold Betty Clair in his arms maybe? He had the distinct feeling, from the way she’d been looking at him for months now, that Betty might not turn him out of her bed. The thought that he could take advantage of her own loneliness made him ashamed of himself. He watched the Rambler’s taillights fade in the distance and thought: Betty deserves more than the little I have left in me to give her. To give any woman.

  He shook off his bitter musings and focused instead on his job. There was nothing more to learn from the bodies, so they were released to the funeral home, to make things easier for Sally. In their Will her parents had requested cremation in the event of their deaths, so it would be a mercifully quick ceremony. He expected half the town to show up. Maybe their killers, too? It wasn’t uncommon for a killer to make an appearance at his victim’s funeral; they apparently got a rush out of seeing the pain they caused. Made them feel god-like. He didn’t think that would happen in this case though. No, they were long gone and there was good reason to believe they took Abby Miller with them. Karen Rawling had sensed her sister was in danger from the beginning, and she’d been right. Rumors of it being some kind of a publicity stunt had all but faded away. He almost wished it had been true.