by Lucy Lambert
Dash saw it all right away. Saw that I wouldn’t, couldn’t, run with him. His shoulders sagged. He wilted in front of me.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered to him.
I reached out and took his hand. He squeezed my fingers and then dropped them.
“I’m not going to let this happen to you,” he said.
“You have to. What other choice do you have?”
The gravel crunched beneath the sheriff’s boots as he closed the distance. “Time’s up. Are you both coming in, or just one?”
Dash clenched his jaw and got a hard look in his eye and I knew he meant to put up a fight. I reached out and put a hand on his chest. Even through the layers of Kevlar and leather his heart pumped against my palm. “You still haven’t found what you’re looking for.”
Then I stepped around him and held my wrists out to the sheriff. “I’ll go.” I could see twin reflections of me in the sheriff’s sunglasses.
“No need for cuffs, is there?” Robert said. He started leading me to his cruiser. He opened the back door and put his hand on my shoulder to guide me in. I sat down and he closed the door.
It was quiet there, in that glass and plastic cage. There was no handle on the inside of the back doors.
It smelled of the pine air freshener hanging from the rear view mirror.
Is this real? Is this really happening? I kept thinking.
“Remember, sunset. You’re gone. Got it?” Robert said. He leaned with one hand on the cruiser’s hood. The other hand rested on his revolver.
Except that Dash looked at me instead of the sheriff. We locked eyes for a moment and it instantly telegraphed his anger and frustration.
He wanted me on the bike. He wanted me to run with him. We could have been racing through the corn fields to lose the sheriff right at that moment.
I shook my head, intending it as apology and excuse and desire all at once.
I watched him climb on his bike. He started it with one kick and then peeled off onto the road, the back tire spitting pebbles back into the field.
He hit the blacktop hard enough that the bike swerved and fishtailed for a moment. Then he rocketed off into the distance.
It all felt so wrong somehow. So incomplete.
Will he ever find what he’s looking for?
The sheriff climbed into the driver’s seat and he looked over his shoulder at me, peering over the rims of his glasses. In the shadow of the car, his eyes looked like two dead black marbles.
“I hope you’ve learned your lesson, little girl. I told you I knew what was best for you.”
I looked past him. Dash was just a dot far in the distance.
Chapter 21
DASH
Why?
That question raced in circuits across all other thoughts.
The more throttle I gave the bike, the more the air whipped around me, the more the question encroached on me. I couldn’t outrun it.
The air tore and whipped at my shirt, rushing up my sleeves. She still has my jacket, I thought.
She probably still wore it in the back of the sheriff’s squad car. On the way to his station.
Why?
We could have been half way to Missouri. But instead she was on her way to the holding cell at the station and I was… I was…
I didn’t know anymore. On a road to nowhere, I suppose. Just like I’d been when I arrived in Pleasant nearly a month ago.
The sheriff was running me out of town like it was the Wild West, and I was some outlaw.
Out by sundown. Or else what? A duel at high noon tomorrow?
But if I didn’t run, then it would be it for my little soul-searching road trip. Questions. Press. The FBI. Possible charges. All that and more, I figured.
For all I knew, the sheriff intended to call the FBI in any case, so I needed to leave no matter what.
Leave, and let whatever fate waited for Ellie to befall her. Because I believed the sheriff in his threat, and even if he still called the FBI after I left, he might not follow through on his punishment for her.
Reaching the town, I rode over to the bar. A familiar Trans Am sat in the lot. Bobby and his two buddies leaned against the Mulletmobile’s fenders.
I pulled in beside Brutus’s old Ram pickup. With the wind no longer whipping around me, beads of sweat popped up all over my body, sticking my shirt to my back.
“Where’s the little lady?” Bobby said, sauntering towards me like he owned the whole damn town.
I dismounted the bike and turned to face him, opening my helmet’s visor as I did. He smiled at my expression.
“Saw the two of you head on out from her house. Figured the law needed to know,” Bobby continued.
He stopped just in front of me. He ran his fingers along the leather saddle.
I boiled on the inside. Every vein and artery pumped acid. I balled my hands into fists so hard all my knuckles cracked. The Kevlar patches pressed against my knuckles.
Hearing that, Bobby’s two goons stepped away from the Trans Am. They were also amused, but wary of me. They remembered what happened before.
“Oh don’t worry,” Bobby said, “I’m not here to do anything but make sure you get out of here like you’re supposed to.”
“I’m not the one who should be worried,” I replied.
“My dad showed you, and we both know it. And you know the shitstorm that’ll happen if you so much as lay one finger on me,” Bobby said.
He got right in my face. The toes of our boots touched. I could smell the onion on his breath from whatever his lunch had been.
“Me, on the other hand, I can hit you as much as you please. Maybe you should just consider it Pleasant’s door hitting your ass on the way out. So what’s it gonna be?” He grinned savagely, one side of his mouth quirking up more than the other.
I saw red.
I grabbed the open flaps of Bobby’s leather jacket and hauled him forward. Kissing distance, if my helmet wasn’t in the way. I didn’t intend to kiss him, though.
The two goons started forward. Bobby held up a hand, stopping them. They glanced at each other in dull confusion.
“Come on. Hit me. I dare you,” Bobby said.
I wanted to. I wanted to almost as badly as I wanted to go break Ellie out of the county slammer and ride away with her on my bike to that land of happily ever after.
But then some rational corner of my mind saw through it all. The bravado, the come-on.
I searched Bobby’s murky eyes and saw the truth.
I let go of his jacket. He dropped back down to the flats of his boots. I hadn’t realized that I’d actually picked him up onto his tiptoes.
I shook with the effort letting him go took.
“You a little baby coward or something? ‘Fraid of a fair fight?”
I kept my eyes on his. “We both know it wouldn’t be fair for you. And I know your game, too. The sheriff told you no fighting unless I started it, didn’t he?”
Again, I saw the truth when Bobby’s eyes shifted for a moment. It was a skill I’d picked up for various negotiations. Reading micro expressions. Little shifts that happened in the blink of an eye, or less. Expressions the other person couldn’t control. Expressions that told you the truth.
It was a skill I hadn’t used for a long time, but Bobby wasn’t exactly a foreign spy trained in counter-interrogation tactics.
“And we both know something else, too,” I said before he could start in again. “We both know that you’ve never been able to lie to your daddy. You need me to hit you first and we both know it.”
Then I got in Bobby’s face. He didn’t like that. His eyes widened in sudden shock before he got them under control. That hot, angry feeling inside me flared again but I fought it back down.
“You’re the real coward here. Always afraid to disobey your old man. Now, unless you’re going to do something, get out of my face.”
I didn’t wait for him. I turned, meaning to walk into the bar, get my stuff, and get out.
“Hey, Dash, I’ll tell Ellie you said hello. She’s bound to look delicious in that orange prison jumpsuit. Good enough to eat, if you know what I mean.”
I snapped inside. I wheeled around, bringing my Kevlar-covered knuckles up. I meant to smash them into Bobby’s jaw.
Brutus caught my wrist in one meaty hand. In all the commotion, I hadn’t heard or seen him come out. Neither had the others, being so focused on me.
I struggled for a moment before my better angels told me how foolish that was.
I relaxed my fist and Brutus let it go. His speckled beard shifted around in the breeze.
How much of that did he catch? How much did he understand? I wondered.
“I distinctly remember telling you boys I didn’t want any trouble,” Brutus said.
Bobby hesitated, intimidated by the much larger man. Then he saw how his boys looked at him and got some steel back in his spine. He stepped up. I could see the way he trembled and tried to control it.
“I distinctly remember not giving a damn, old man,” Bobby said.
“You tell him, Bobby! Robert, I mean,” the taller, skinnier goon said. Neither he nor the other made any move to come up in support of their leader.
In fact, they both took surreptitious steps back towards the Trans Am.
Brutus sighed, meaty shoulders rising and then falling. “Remember, you chose this.” He made a fist.
The color dropped from Bobby’s face like a set of drapes falling from their rod. “You can’t hit me. There’ll be trouble.”
Brutus’s fist rose with inexorable slowness. “No, Dash can’t hit you. I can do whatever I damn well please.”
Bobby squeezed his eyes shut for a second. He opened them again, saw that no, he wasn’t dreaming, then turned around and beat feet back to his car.
Brutus and I watched while the trio clambered into the Trans Am. Bobby started it up, slammed the accelerator, and fishtailed his way out of the lot and down the street.
The acrid stench of burnt rubber wafted over to us. Brutus waved at it.
“Yellow to the core, that one.”
I didn’t have the time to gloat. “I need to get my things.”
“You want to fill me in?” Brutus said, following me to the door.
“Sure,” I said.
I told him as much as I dared, even though I suspected he knew a bigger share of the truth than he admitted to. I did this while grabbing the few things I could stash away in my bike’s saddlebags.
Brutus followed me outside and watched while I pushed everything into the saddlebags and then pulled my helmet back on. I sat on the bike.
He reached out and grabbed the handlebars. Faded tattoos showed up and down his forearms. His hands swallowed the handlebars up. For a moment I wondered just how he’d managed to ride a bike like this one back in the day.
“So this is it, then? You’re gonna run and let the mean ole’ sheriff win?” Brutus said.
“There’s no other way to keep Ellie safe,” I said, irritated.
“Could be. Might also be you’ve been running so long it’s your first instinct. Might be that instinct’s clouding your judgment.”
“You don’t understand,” I said.
“You’re the one lacking the understanding,” Brutus butted in, “There’s always another way. Might not be a way you like, but liking or not liking something doesn’t mean it isn’t right.”
I didn’t need to be able to read micro expressions to see what was in his eyes. He did know. Or know enough. About who I really was. And he also knew that, yes, as a vagabond I couldn’t do much.
But as a wealthy, famous CEO? There was plenty.
My stomach twisted at the thought.
“I don’t think I can…” I said.
He let go of the handlebars and leaned back, crossing his arms over his massive chest. “Then go. You’re not doing either of you any favors like this. Run. It’ll catch up to you. It always does. Thing is, you can choose the time and place, or it can choose you.”
“Thanks, Socrates,” I said. I didn't need this lecture. I needed to get out before the sun went down. I slammed my foot down on the starter and the bike growled beneath me.
“Go on then, make your choice,” Brutus said.
He watched me go while I left Pleasant behind in the dust of the road as I’d already done so many other towns and cities in America.
I made my choice.
It just took me a while.
Chapter 22
ELLIE
A part of me couldn’t believe any of it.
Sitting in the back of the cruiser, which smelled of old smoke and less pleasant things, watching Pleasant slide past on either side while we approached the sheriff’s office.
Dash was gone.
I couldn’t, or didn’t want to, believe any of it.
Sheriff Robert kept talking at me from the front. In the shade of the car he’d pulled his sunglasses off. His eyes, so much like his son’s, kept flicking to the rear view mirror.
I wanted to wake up in my bed, my head cradled against Dash’s shoulder, tell him about this horrible nightmare. Have him brush the hair off my cheeks and tell me it was all right.
But it’s all real.
I should have gotten on the bike.
Still, there was a strange sort of comfort in coming back to Pleasant, rather than embarking to parts unknown with Dash.
I thought it was maybe the same sort of comfort an alcoholic felt when they pulled the tab on their first can of beer for the day.
The cruiser bumped over the curb. The sheriff pulled into his spot in front of the station. He put his sunglasses back on and shoved them up his nose.
He looked over his shoulder at me. “You make any trouble in there for me with my deputies and the deal’s off. Understand me, little girl?”
Little girl. Why was it men always wanted to turn women into children? I hated it. I hated his stupid sunglasses, too.
He stared at me, his gaze as implacable as a statue’s.
“I understand,” I said. I balled my hands into fists against my thighs. My palms hurt where my nails bit into them.
He waited a little longer, probably for me to add a “sir” to the end of my sentence. I didn’t.
“This is for the best, you know,” he said, climbing out.
He opened my door and offered his hand to help me out. I didn’t take it. When I stood, he clamped a hand on my wrist. He applied just enough pressure that I winced.
“The best for you, maybe,” I said.
He led me up the concrete stairs towards the double doors of the office. He opened one and crisp, dry, tax-payer-sponsored conditioned air wafted out over me. My skin prickled at the sudden temperature change.
He led me into the office proper, back behind the reception where a deputy sat. The deputy glanced at us.
I thought of breaking free, telling the man that the sheriff was blackmailing me. But I knew at once it wouldn’t work.
Why would he believe me over the man he worked for?
Robert led me past a few rows of desks, none occupied at the moment. He carried on as though he hadn’t heard me earlier.
“That boy was trouble with a capital T. I know his type. It’s all in the eyes. He woulda been the end of you, Ellie-sweetie. You can mark me on that one. Seen his kind before; can’t settle anywhere. Or on anyone. He woulda had you for a bit then you woulda found him at that bar with another woman when he felt that itch. Man like that has a lot of itches, if you get me.”
We continued past the offices to a large steel door, its glass reinforced with wire. He opened it one-handed, the other still gripping my wrist. My hand started going numb and pale from the pressure.
I didn’t complain. Wouldn’t. It would satisfy him too much.
There was a row of holding cells along the right hand side. Bare iron bars, no walls for privacy. On the left was a single, currently unoccupied desk for the deputy on duty.
Sheriff Robert locked m
e in the cell directly across from the desk. The door clanged shut and the bolt made a sharp clack when he shot it into place.
He turned to go.
“I’ll never be with Bobby again. Never,” I said.
He turned back towards me, looking out over the rims of his glasses. “Maybe not today. Tomorrow. Next month, or year. Maybe not. But eventually. You can mark me on that, too.”
The only mark I wanted to give him was a black eye or two. I stared defiance at him.
For once, he smiled.
It creeped me out. There was something wrong about it.
“I know because you’re never going to leave Pleasant. I know what you and the boy were on about out there, him wanting you to escape with him. Bike like that, he probably could’ve gotten away, too. But you didn’t. You stayed. Like you’re always going to stay. No, if you really wanted out of here you woulda been gone years ago. You’ll see the truth of everything I’m saying eventually. Now, just take a rest on the cot there. Things go smooth, you’ll be out of there in a day or two.”
Then he left. When the door to the holding cells closed it boomed and then left the room in silence.
I sat on the end of the cot. There was a thin excuse for a mattress that did nothing to keep the metal frame from biting into me, but I didn’t care.
Is he right?
I lay back and closed my eyes. The fluorescent light above me, behind its protective grill, glared red through my lids. It buzzed, too.
I thought about Dash. I hoped the sheriff didn’t get him.
Chapter 23
DASH
I stopped that night a bit before the city limits of St. Louis. I pulled off down a quiet side road, the city casting a glow in the night sky off to my right.
It was a routine that was both old and new. Familiar and strange.
I found some brush to hide the Sportster behind. I found a small clearing in the trees off the side of the road where I threw down my bedroll. I rolled up my jacket as a (lumpy, hard) pillow.
Then I watched the stars wink down at me.
Crickets chirruped and somewhere nearby an owl asked his incessant question.
