by Ben Follows
Marcus sat in silence, his mouth opening as though he was about to speak a few times. Jeff waited in silence as Vic turned to the right and down a long dirt road which had turned to mud in the rain.
“Where are we going?” said Marcus.
“Victoria's place," said Jeff. "We can lay low while we decide what to do next.”
Marcus swallowed. “What do you mean?”
“We need to decide if we’re going to help you.”
Marcus leaned towards him. “Jeff, my daughter's life is on the line. Who knows what Ricky is going to do to her?”
Jeff looked at him. “Tell me the truth, and I’ll consider it.”
Marcus stared at him, then looked over at the mercenaries. “What about you two?"
Sam shrugged. “Jeff is paying us. We're with him, whatever he decides."
Victoria grunted in agreement.
Marcus fell back against the seat and stared out the window.
“I’m sorry,” he said. "I'll tell you the truth."
Jeff nodded. “Don't leave anything out.”
The rain continued to pound against the truck. Marcus took a deep breath.
He told them everything, starting from the attack eleven years prior and ending with his call to Jeff the previous day. He left nothing out.
When he finished, no one reacted. Victoria turned into a trailer park and parked at a small trailer with an awning over a rusting barbecue.
“Take Marcus to the bedroom," said Jeff. "Let him rest up. I need time to think."
Victoria and Sam nodded and climbed out of the truck. Sam grabbed Marcus and hoisted him out of the car and onto his shoulder. Rain pounded down on them.
Marcus looked back at the van. Jeff sat in the passenger seat, his hand on his chin, staring through the windshield at the rain as though it would give him the answer he was searching for.
Marcus hoped he would find the right one.
41
Angela stumbled down the road, clutching her limp arm. Her shoulder was dislocated. It need to be popped back into place, but she hadn't gathered the courage to do it herself.
She was covered in blood and debris. She shivered as the rain coated her and made her clothing stick to her skin.
She panted heavily, her breath appearing like smoke in front of her face.
She grabbed onto the edge of the bus stop and stumbled inside the glass enclosure, falling onto the bench. It wasn’t any warmer inside the stop, but she was out of the wind and rain.
She looked both ways down the street. It was a mostly empty street with a gas station on the corner, but no living souls anywhere. She turned to her right and saw a piece of paper haphazardly taped onto the inner wall of the stop, declaring that the stop had been out of service for two years.
She cursed and rubbed her dislocated arm.
She took a few deep breaths and leaned against the back of the booth, thinking through her options. She couldn't call Thompson and explain that someone had kidnapped Marcus. That would only invite more questions.
She couldn't call the cops for the same reason.
“Fuck,” she muttered, realizing she only had one real option. She took out her phone and opened her recent calls. Her fingers hovered over the number before taking a deep breath and clicking on it.
It rang a few times.
“Hello? Angela?” said Ricky, answering. The signal was weak, but she was able to make out his words.
“Where are you?” she said.
“I'm trying to track down the Shembly's and take care of them, just like you asked," said Ricky. "I'll have them by this time tomorrow. You don't need to be checking up on me."
“It's not about that." She took a deep breath. "Marcus got away.”
"What happened?"
"He got in contact with Jeff Candor somehow and Jeff t-boned my car and took him."
There was a pause. "Who the hell is Jeff Candor?"
"He's a one-legged military veteran who Marcus has been writing letters back and forth with."
Ricky chuckled. "You got beat by a one-legged man?"
"He had help. There was a man and a woman wearing military clothing with him. Come pick me up so we can solve this."
“Where are you?” said Ricky, still laughing.
Angela told him her location.
Before the call ended, Angela thought she heard a women's voice. She assumed it was one of the mercenaries Ricky worked with.
She leaned back against the glass, shivering, and checked her emails.
Donations to the Cassandra Devereaux Foundation had increased five-fold since General Thompson had gone on regional television and spoken about them. The story had even been picked up by a few state networks. Normally, she'd be excited about this development, but soon someone was going to start looking into their claims, just as Ricky had, and they would discover the scam.
She turned off her phone. A few cars passed by while she waited, but none stopped or slowed. Maybe they couldn't see her through the rain. Maybe they didn't care.
42
A car with its wipers furiously moving across the windshield stopped in front of the bus stop. Ricky opened the window and waved her over.
Angela walked through the rain and climbed into the passenger seat. Ricky had the heat blaring. It was a welcome relief.
Ricky hit the gas and pulled away down the long road.
“Where are we going?” said Angela.
“I have a hotel room in Carney," said Ricky. "It's a twenty-minute drive. What is Marcus doing with this Jeff fellow?"
She leaned against the window. “They’re probably going after Danielle. They're going to try to save her from the Shembly's."
Ricky nodded. “Want me to fix that shoulder for you?”
“When we get there. I almost feel bad for Danielle. Did you find them?"
Ricky shook his head. "They covered their tracks well. Do you have Jeff's phone number?”
“Why?”
Ricky took one hand off the wheel and handed her his phone. “Can you add him as a contact in my phone? I’ll get in touch with him and we’ll talk it out. I know a million guys like him. I can get through to him.”
Angela added the contact and handed the phone back to him without checking anything else.
“I assume you'll be getting out of the country once this blows over," said Ricky, dropping the phone into the cup holder. "How are you getting the money?"
She leaned against the window. “I’ll get in contact with my accountant and he’ll get me the money."
“That’s got to be quite a sum of money. Are you the only one who can access it?”
She shook her head. “Marcus can access it.”
Ricky frowned. “Why would you do that?”
She shrugged. “I always figured that if something happened to me he should be able to access it. It seemed like the least I could do for all the deceit. The accountant has instructions to donate the money to actual charities that find missing children if both of us were to die."
“You didn’t have to do that."
Angela sighed. “I know. Sometimes I wonder whether I could have done this a different way. I've spent so much time being seen as a good person that I've begun to see what the appeal is.”
Ricky tapped on the steering wheel and looked down the long empty road. “Does Marcus know how to access it?”
“He knows the accountants name, but not the phone number. He never cared to check. He always trusted me implicitly. He could Google the number and call to set up a meeting. Once he proved who he was, there would be no issue. He could waste it on donations to charities, if he wanted to.”
Ricky nodded. “What's the accountant’s name?”
Angela turned to him. “Why do you care?”
He shrugged. “I'm curious if I know him.”
“I’ll keep his name to myself if you don’t mind.”
Ricky nodded. “What about the general?”
“What about him?”
Ri
cky passed a sign which indicated that a right turn would take them to Carney.
Angela turned her head to look at the sign. "Weren't you supposed to turn there?"
"This is a shortcut," said Ricky. "Will the general be an issue?
Angela shrugged. “It depends when he finds out we didn’t arrive at our next appearance.”
Ricky signaled and pulled onto the shoulder of the road.
Angela looked out the window. Beside the car was a ditch filling with muddy water. Holes appeared in the water as rain continued to pound down from the dark noon sky.
“Do you mind rolling down your window?” said Ricky.
Angela rolled down her window. “Why are we pulled over?”
She turned back to Ricky and came face to face with a gun, pointing directly at her.
She froze, starring at the gun.
Ricky smiled. “I don’t want to get any blood on the inside of the car. Ideally, your brain will go right out the window. There won’t be any trace that anything happened.”
Angela swallowed and reached for the window control, as though that would help anything.
“Don’t touch that," said Ricky.
Angela froze, her hand above the button.
Ricky grinned. “I've always thought that happiness was the people you were with and the experiences you had. Recently I've added family to that list."
Angela leaned back against the door, trying to get as far away from the gun as possible. The rain hit the back of her head. Her heart pounded in her chest.
"You hate kids," she said, her voice quivering.
"I hate taking care of them," said Ricky. "But with enough money I can hire people to take care of them. I can just get the fun parts of being a dad."
Despite herself, Angela laughed. “That's absurd.”
Ricky shook his head. “I can achieve any future I want if I work hard enough at it. Once, I thought you were a part of that future.”
“I'll come with you. I don't understand why you're doing this.“
“No,” Ricky shook his head, “you wouldn’t. Do you know what your problem is, Angela? No matter what you tell yourself, you care about Marcus. You have helped far more missing kids than you anticipated. How many kids have you helped? I mean, actually helped. How many kids wouldn't have been saved without your intervention?”
Angela swallowed. “Five or so.”
Ricky laughed. “Why save any of them? Don't tell me, I know why. You came to care about Marcus. You cared about continuing the charade for his sake. You must have known that the lies would come out eventually. Come on, Angie, tell me I’m wrong.”
Angela swallowed. “What do you want?”
“I want the money. Give me the accountants name. I’ll let you go, and you'll never see me again.”
Angela looked through the open window through the rain.
After a moment, Angela turned back to him, a massive grin on her face. “You know what you’re forgetting, idiot?”
Ricky frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“I know you as well as you know me, Ricky. I know you aren’t going to let me go. It doesn't matter what I say right now. I could tell you about the accountant and how to get every cent. I could tell you every dirty little secret I have, and you would still put a bullet in my head.”
Ricky shrugged. “You're absolutely right, Angie.”
He pulled the trigger. The bullet hit Angela in the middle of the forehead. Her head snapped backwards.
Blood sprayed over the inside of the door and over the seat. Angela slumped against the door. She gasped as a cold she could never have imagined began to consume her.
“Shit,” said Ricky, "your blood is all over my car."
Angela's head hung out the window as her strength vacated her body.
She looked up at the dark noon sky.
Ricky leaned over and grabbed the door handle under her armpit. The door opened and he shoved her out.
She rolled down the side of the ditch and settled at the bottom, facing up.
The muddy water came up to her ears. Her blood mixed with the water and turned a disgusting shade of brown.
Ricky looked down at her and closed the door. She could hear him cursing.
A few moments later, he threw a few bloody paper towels out the window. They landed in the mud around Angela.
Ricky drove back onto the rain slicked road, spraying dirt into the ditch where Angela was lying.
She stared upwards, gasping for breath that would never come.
The last thing she saw was millions of rain drops coming down at her from a dark noon sky.
43
O'Reilly and Cockerton walked up to the perimeter of police cars, holding their umbrellas against the rain.
The cars surrounded a narrow white cottage. It had a white picket fence and a screened in porch, located four blocks from the water of Carney.
O'Reilly had spent the trip wondering why the Shembly's hadn't left the state yet. She still didn't have a firm answer.
Detective Brett Peters, a cop who they'd worked with before and who O'Reilly thought was a good, if often distracted, detective greeted them with fresh cups of coffee. He was the only full-time detective in the small municipality of Carney, and therefore didn't have a partner.
O’Reilly scrunched up her face as she sipped the disgusting coffee Peters gave them. Cockerton crushed the cup in his hand and threw it onto the ground. He crossed his arms.
Peters glanced at the spilled coffee. "Understood," he said. "Next time I won't get you any coffee, asshole."
“Are the Shembly's in there?” said O’Reilly, trying to diffuse the tension between the two men. She shot a look at Cockerton and pulled her jacket tight around herself.
“We believe so,” said Peters. “There's at least four people inside, two adults and two children. We found the owner of the cottage. The Shembly's showed up this morning and paid in cash for a week. He'd never met them before."
O'Reilly nodded. "Does he seem trustworthy?"
"The owner of the cottage?"
"Yes."
"He has no reason to lie. No criminal record at all."
O'Reilly turned to Cockerton. "Something must have gone wrong. Otherwise they'd be a thousand miles away by now. There must be a reason they've stayed."
Cockerton nodded.
O'Reilly turned back “Can I have the megaphone?”
Peters handed it to her.
O’Reilly took it. “Have you said anything yet?”
Peters shook his head. “We were waiting for you.”
O’Reilly held the megaphone to her mouth, turned it on, and said, “Charles and Danielle Shembly, we have you surrounded. Come out with your hands in the air.
O’Reilly lowered the megaphone. A shadow approached the drawn blinds inside the house.
"Think of the children," she spoke into the megaphone. "Addison and Arthur deserve a better life than fleeing from the authorities. Come out and we’ll talk about this.”
“What is he doing?” said Peters.
O’Reilly shrugged and spoke into the megaphone. “Come out with your hands up. We can get justice for Tatiana, but you need to come out.”
The front door opened. All the gathered cops looked toward the open door, on high alert in case anything except a person with their hands raised exited the house.
Charles Shembly stepped out of the house with his hands raised. He was a scrawny man with bad posture and thick glasses. His greying hair had been brushed over his bald spot. His shirt was wrinkled and there were immense bags under his eyes.
Peters looked around. “Where’s the other one?”
A shout came from behind the house. A woman ran across the yard. She vaulted over the fence and sprinted through the neighbor’s yard, past the gathered police cars.
She took off at a run down the sidewalk, away from the beach and the police barricade.
“That’s Danielle!” shouted Peters into his radio. “Chase her down!”
Cops chased the woman down the road, losing ground as she disappeared in the rain.
Splashes of water came from the puddles they ran through.
People watched from the windows of cottages lining the street.
Cockerton tapped O’Reilly on the shoulder. She turned back to him. He leaned down close to her ear so he wouldn't have to exert himself to speak.
“Not Danielle,” said Cockerton. "Too tall. Too blonde.”
O’Reilly looked back at the figure running away from them and frowned.
Cockerton was right.
In front of the cottage, Charles knelt and intertwined his hands behind his head on the front step.
Into the megaphone, O'Reilly said, “Where’s Danielle?”
Charles sat back on his ankles, his face an unreadable mask.
“They've got her," said Peters.
O’Reilly looked where he was pointing.
In the intersection, the woman sprinted toward a police car which had come from the right and blocked off her path.
She tried to sidestep the car.
The cop jumped from the passenger door of the car and tackled her to the ground, a huge splash coming up around them.
The woman fought, swinging wildly at the officer on top of her. He didn't lose his grip, even as the hits connected with his face and neck.
Two other officers caught up, drew their guns and aimed them at the woman.
She stopped squirming and was quickly cuffed.
Cockerton tapped O’Reilly on the shoulder and pointed toward the house. She followed where he was pointing.
Behind the kneeling Charles, standing in the doorway to the house, were two children.
The twins, Arthur and Addison, looked out from the front doorway, holding one another close, as though it could shield them from the hell their parents had dragged them into.
