Kill Tide

by Timothy Fagan

  Then Angel had done the one, two, three, four with his drumsticks, and they broke into Guns N’ Roses, and Brad and the Pitts were back in the safe comfort of cover songs.

  Man, what a rush it’d been.

  “Too bad we’re just a cover band,” Delaney said quietly. “Your song’s legit good. You got any more?”

  “You bet,” he fibbed.

  The sheriff’s deputy finished talking to a pickup truck and waved it through. Pepper inched the van forward, nervous as he got closer to the front.

  He’d had two beers during the show, despite being underage. He hoped this wasn’t a drunk driving checkpoint. Would they be able to smell the beer on him? Would they look at his driver’s license and say out loud in front of Delaney that he was only twenty? Jesus.

  “What did you think of Brad’s biker buddy?” Delaney asked.

  She meant Dennis Cole, a white guy in his early thirties who’d been at the Beachcomber for their gig. He was Brad’s roommate in a small place in New Albion. He was a hard-looking guy in biker clothes with a brown ponytail and pockmarked skin.

  Cole came over to congratulate the band as they were packing up. Cole was also buddies with the people who managed the Beachcomber and had helped Brad land this gig.

  Cole went on and on about the song Pepper and Delaney performed to open the second set. Telling them how their duet was pretty kick-ass. The real deal. Pepper saw Brad make a sour face at Cole’s compliment.

  "You Pitts are all right for a cover band," he said to Pepper and Delaney. "But if you two want to do this music thing more seriously, call me. I can help you record your own music, put together a tour, the whole nine yards. I know people in Nashville, Austin, you name it." Cole's voice was soft and warm, a real contrast to his biker look. And his words were flattering. Although he mostly faced Delaney…

  Now riding home from the gig, Cole’s offer seemed too good to be true.

  “It's exactly what I dreamed about,” said Delaney. “Performing in some nowhere bar, being discovered, the whole crazy fantasy. Do you think he can help us?”

  Before Pepper could answer, the deputy waved them forward to where she stood. Pepper stopped beside an antique red pump in a barrel on the side of the road.

  The deputy was a slim white woman in her late twenties, and Pepper thought he might have seen her somewhere before, which wouldn’t be surprising. As a deputy in the sheriff’s department, her turf covered all of Barnstable County, including the town of New Albion just fifteen minutes farther up the road, where Pepper’s dad was chief of police. And where Pepper was serving with no great distinction as a police cadet that summer.

  The deputy had one hand on her firearm as she shined her flashlight on each of them. Pepper heard Delaney’s skirt squeak as she inched away on the ripped vinyl seat.

  Pepper cracked stupid jokes when he was nervous, and he almost made a drive-through order joke to the deputy: three burgers, fries and three Cokes, please.

  But the deputy’s tired, serious face stopped him just in time.

  She asked for Pepper’s license and registration. Delaney popped the glove compartment and rummaged around for Brad’s registration. Brad was awake now and tried to help her, which slowed the process.

  Pepper explained to the deputy they were a band and had played tonight at the Beachcomber up in Wellfleet. What was going on?

  “Ryan?” she asked, looking at his license. “You one of those New Albion Ryans?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said, then hoping “ma’am” wasn’t offensive to a woman of her age.

  “I’ve worked with your dad. Great cop. And I know your brother Jake,” she said, and hinted a smile.

  Hmm…thought Pepper. “So, what’s with the roadblock?”

  “Amber alert. A seventeen-year-old girl from Eastham went missing earlier tonight.”

  Pepper remembered he’d seen a network amber alert text when he checked his phone during their break, but he’d been too focused on the whereabouts of their drunk bass player to give the text much thought.

  Maybe she’s just out past curfew with a boyfriend, thought Pepper. He’d been that boyfriend more than once, back in high school…“An amber alert already?” he asked.

  “We had a witness. The victim’s little brother. He saw her get abducted right in front of their house. The perp dragged her into a light-colored van. Probably white, like yours. The boy’s seven, so we don’t know much, except this one’s for real.”

  “Oh my God!” whispered Delaney.

  Pepper was stunned too. They’d just passed through Eastham and had seen no police activity. “Why isn’t this roadblock up on Route 6?”

  The deputy sighed. “We’ve got roadblocks up and down 6 and 28. And the Staties have roadblocks at the Bourne and the Sagamore. Every available car’s patrolling the side roads. Big time. Your dad’ll have everyone out too.”

  “What’s her name?” asked Delaney, leaning forward to look at the deputy. “The missing girl?”

  The deputy’s flashlight found Delaney’s face. “Emma Bailey. Why, you know her?”

  Delaney said no, still looking upset.

  When the deputy told Pepper to unlock the back, he warned her their drummer was riding in there with the gear, so she wouldn’t accidentally shoot Angel.

  Less than a minute later, she slammed the rear door and returned, handing Pepper back his ID. “That guy in back, I think he was flirting with me,” she said, shaking her head, then smiled and for a moment the tiredness left her face. “Tell Jake that Karen Tammaro says hey.” Then she waved for them to take off.

  Pepper drove away. His arms were shaking as he pictured what’d happened. A sudden, violent snatching of a teenage girl on quiet Cape Cod, right in front of her house. Unreal…

  Brad seemed to have sobered up a bit. Delaney had untucked her legs and slid away to the middle of the seat.

  Pepper wasn’t thinking anymore about trying to talk her into a date tomorrow night.

  No one was thinking about Brad and the Pitts’ successful gig anymore, either.

  None of them talked. The van’s air conditioning wasn’t on, since it was one of the many features of the old van which didn’t work, but he felt like cold air was blasting on his neck. It seemed ten degrees cooler in the van since the roadblock.

  Pepper decided he would call his dad the minute he got home. Hopefully, his dad would say they’d recovered the girl unharmed and arrested her goddamned snatcher. That the emergency was already over.

  The rest of their ride along Route 28 had fewer streetlights, and Pepper shifted uncomfortably on his seat, looking left and right, searching shadows for the kidnapper and his white van. He saw nothing.

  But he kept his headlights on high beam all the way home.

  Chapter Three

  Four and a half hours earlier

  The man in the white cargo van hadn’t slept for two days. Didn’t need to. Damn, he loved a good rush. Nothing like it. But the man was smart about it now.

  He’d smoked a little meth earlier…just enough to make sure he was wide awake. But not enough to fuck things up.

  No, his mind was razor-blade sharp for what he needed to do. He felt smart. Energized. Ready.

  Trust the plan… Trust the man…

  The man anxiously repeated that instruction, over and over, as he drove through the summer night with a teenage girl bound by duct tape in the back of his van.

  It was all happening. He needed to finish his getaway in the next fifteen minutes. Back to the safe place, back to the Heart. Or the plan (and his life) could go down the toilet with a flash of red and blue lights in his rearview mirror.

  No, he would just follow the same route he’d driven so many times. Right at the speed limit. Slower would look suspicious, someone might remember him. Faster would give the police a stupid excuse to stop him. Then his exciting new life would end before it even got started.

  The grab in front of the teenager’s house had gone fine.

  The gi
rl, a pretty thing named Emma Bailey, been no match for him, even though she’d fought like a little tiger. He’d had to be careful, to make sure he didn’t really hurt her, what with his excitement and her being all scared and freaking out.

  He’d seen the terror and even anger in her face in the ten seconds it took to get her under control, then quickly zapped into submission by thousands of volts from his Vipertek mini stun gun. Pretty good kick from something not much bigger than a deck of cards.

  Then quickly into the rear of the van. She’d gotten shaken up a little, no doubt. But she’d be okay. Like his buddy sometimes said, a little pain never hurt nobody…

  He looked at his Timex digital watch. It was now 9:16. He’d climbed out of the van to grab Emma Bailey at 8:44, which wasn’t his favorite time. He took a little comfort in the 8 = 4 + 4. He could live with it, but didn’t feel great about it.

  Almost half an hour had passed…

  When he was experiencing this kind of damn rush, he liked to think about times. He preferred hours and minutes which lined up in a pattern for him. They seemed like a message from on high that all was right with the world. Like the neat order of 11:11, or the wackiness of a time like 3:21…

  But he’d been at Emma Bailey’s mercy, right? He’d been waiting in his van in front of her house for almost an hour…waiting for her to get home from wherever the hell she’d been.

  He’d gotten all warm and happy when a Jetta pulled up across the street, driven by some other girl, and Emma Bailey had climbed out. The other girl had quickly driven away, which showed the time was lucky. One less complication.

  And that’s what he was thinking about—numbers—as he drove slowly and steadily toward the safe place, when he suddenly remembered something: Emma Bailey’s stupid cell phone.

  Panic flooded him. He smacked the steering wheel. Shit!

  He’d forgotten to deal with the girl’s cell phone, even though it had been part of the detailed game plan. Every seventeen-year-old girl had a cell phone somewhere on her. It was medically required for teens these days, his buddy had joked one time.

  But for criminals, cell phones were the goddamn devil. Even if you didn’t make a call, some government button pusher could triangulate three satellites and pin you to a GPS grid like a bug. Watch any TV show.

  The only thing worse was DNA. He knew from TV it was like your molecules had fingerprints. If you left a hair, or spit, or anything from your body, you might as well leave your name and a mug shot. Because the cops would knock down your door quicker than pronto. Another example of how the war was over and the government had won.

  He pulled into the parking lot of a muffler shop. He crawled to the back of the van. Emma Bailey was taped up and quiet. He quickly found her phone in the back right pocket of her jeans.

  Well, okay now. The man considered smashing it but didn’t. He took a crumpled old Taco Bell napkin from the passenger seat and carefully wiped down the phone. Freaking DNA. Then he tossed the phone out the window onto a grassy divider in the parking lot. If he was lucky, someone would take it and the cops would chase their ass instead of his.

  He got back on the road. Problem solved, not to be mentioned again. Plans were great, but sometimes you had to wing it. No blood, no foul.

  Now the man drove toward his finish line. To the Heart. His leg was still bouncing hard from adrenaline and excitement. He wasn’t safe yet. He had to get there, lie low and take care of things. But hopefully the worst was over.

  He’d had one other minor screw-up on the grab, other than the cell phone brain-fart. A little boy had been in the big front window of the Bailey home and had seen the whole goddamn thing. He hadn’t noticed the boy until after he dumped the girl in the back of the van, all hogtied with duct tape. But he knew the boy saw what happened.

  The man had panicked and driven off immediately. Now he was second-guessing himself. Should he have done something about the boy? Bust into the house?

  No, he’d been smart to drive away. Going off plan to deal with the boy would have only made things worse. Who knew which parents were home? The boy had looked like he was screaming—someone might have been calling 911 before the van door closed. It could have turned into a real shit show if he’d tried to deal with the boy.

  And besides, it wasn’t part of the almighty plan.

  Just trust the plan.

  The man turned left and a police car drove past in the opposite direction. The driver was a lady cop, and she was alone. The man kept one eye on his side-view mirror. Would the cop turn around? Should he turn into a driveway? Hide the van somewhere?

  Then the police car reappeared in his side-view mirror, coming up behind him. Shit. It didn’t have the cop lights on, but it had to be following him…

  The man was shaking harder—he could barely keep the steering wheel straight. Shit shit. Cops had been messing with him his whole damn life. He touched the butt of his Walther P22 pistol tucked beside his seat. His crappy little weapon.

  He wished he had something more powerful. The puny Walther was all he’s been able to buy on the down-low, through his buddy. But it was plenty deadly. And he knew he had the balls to use it to defend himself and Emma Bailey, if it got to that.

  The man reached a stop sign at a four-way intersection. He carefully came to a full stop, even paused an extra moment. His plan had been to turn left, but he didn’t want to lead a cop closer to the Heart. So instead, he broke the plan again and drove straight.

  The cop car did too. Damn. It was right behind him, close now.

  And so naturally, the man panicked a bit. He saw a driveway with big stone pillars coming up on the right, and he put on his signal and turned in. Some property he’d never seen before, with high bushes framing a long driveway.

  It would force the lady cop to commit—either follow him down the driveway or go on about her damn business. If this turned into a confrontation, at least they’d be hidden from passing vehicles by the bushes. The man wished he had a silencer for his pistol.

  In his side mirror, the man saw the police car stop out by the street. The man kept slowly driving his white van down the driveway, like he was just some schlub delivering a package to the homeowner or whatever.

  His hands were still fucking shaking. Shit shit.

  The driveway bent enough that the police car disappeared from his side-view mirror. But at least it hadn’t come screaming down the driveway after him.

  The man reached the end of the long driveway and saw a huge cedar-shingled house, probably some bank weasel’s summer cottage. The man pulled his van into a brightly lit turnaround area and thought hard about the damn situation.

  Should he lie low here awhile? Maybe the lady cop was waiting for him up at the road? But if she’d called for backup, a string of police cars would close in any minute. She’d have him trapped.

  He wished he had time for a quick hit on his crank pipe. Just enough for a turbo boost. His whole body ached for it.

  Maybe he should head right back up the driveway and confront the lady cop, take her by surprise. His pistol was only a .22, but up close? It’d be plenty if he had the jump on her. Like in any fight, the aggressor usually wins. And he was totally jacked to step up, with his life and liberty on the line.

  He looked back up the driveway as far as he could, his mind working in overdrive, his chest tight like it was being squeezed by some invisible strap. This was not part of the big plan.

  What to do, what to do?

  The man heard a hard rap on his passenger window and almost shat himself. Jesus. A woman was standing there looking at him. She was probably in her early fifties, kinda skinny and pale with a bald head. But full of attitude, with hands on her hips. She was wearing some kind of barn jacket with the sleeves rolled up. Glasses perched up high, where her hair should be.

  He slipped his hand around the grip of his .22, down in the seat crack, and lowered the passenger window.

  “Can I help you?” she asked. Her voice dripped suspicion. Or
bitchiness. Something the opposite of friendly.

  The man gave a weak smile and almost lifted the handgun. Instead, he started bullshitting. “Good evening, ah, ma’am! We’re fixing roofs in the neighborhood and can replace yours real cheap. Can I give you a free quote?” He fought off the urge to do a quick shoulder check, to make sure the law wasn’t coming down the driveway.

  The bald lady crossed her arms and puckered her mouth into a little circle which looked just like a butthole. “After nine o’clock?” she asked.

  Jesus. “Oh, we work long hours, but I hear ya. I’ll come back tomorrow, not too early.” The man gave her an apologetic wave with his left hand and started closing his window. His right hand stayed on his little pistol, down out of sight.

  He needed to get out of there and didn’t want the lady to remember him. His left hand was still shaking. He had to drive up to the street, and if the lady cop was waiting, he’d have to fight his way to freedom.

  “What company are you from?” the woman asked, peering in and looking around the front seat. “Are you on Angie’s List?”

  Nosy cow! Did he have to shoot her to shut her up? This was getting too damn complicated. He took a deep breath and tried to smile.

  Just trust the fucking game plan.

  “Boston Roofs,” he improvised. “We’re on all the good lists, absolutely.” He shut his window the final few inches. Then he gave her another little wave, all deferential and sucking up. Like rich folk expect.

  He backed out to the spot, finding to his horror he came within a damn inch of driving on the woman’s lawn. He took another deep breath, then drove slowly up the driveway. The bald lady watched him go. Again doing the butthole thing with her mouth, maybe even a little more disapproving than before. It rattled him.

  The man moved his .22 to his lap, ready to go. Do or die. Sink or swim. Shoot or—

  He reached the road, and no freaking cops were in sight. He sighed with relief and slowly drove back to the intersection where he’d gone off the path. Then he and young Emma Bailey were back on the practiced route.