Deadliest of Sins (16 page)

“Whoa,” whispered Mary. “This is way too weird. I'm going to call Galloway.”

She dropped the doll back in its car seat. She turned to hurry back across the road to her car when she felt a hot stab of pain in the back of her right thigh. She gasped, wondering if she'd gotten a sudden cramp, but the strange heat spread up and down her leg, crumpling her knee, turning her hip to jelly. She tried to walk, but her leg was useless, unable to support her. As she spread her arms to catch her balance, she felt rough hands grabbing her, forcing her to the ground. Suddenly she was staring up into an obsidian sky, listening to that strange, manufactured baby crying its mechanical plaint to anyone foolish enough to listen.

Twenty-Four

Chase lay on the
floor of his room, his ear pressed against his locked door. He'd lain there for hours, listening to the drama transpiring outside his room. For a long time he'd heard only Gudger, talking on a phone. His first call had been pleading—he'd walked up and down the hall, asking some medical person what to do for his hand. For the second call he'd stationed himself right outside Chase's door, speaking loudly to someone named Smiley about “some boy meat that would make a sweet little piece of ass for the right person.” They'd gone back and forth, then there was a long beat of silence, after which Gudger said that tomorrow would work just fine. “And tell them not to worry,” Gudger added. “The kid's too scrawny to put up much of a fight.” At first Chase couldn't believe what he'd heard, but then Gudger rapped hard on his door. “You hear that, you little sneak? They're coming for you tomorrow, just like they came for your sister. Your poor mama's heart will be broken all over again.”

A numbing frost went through Chase as Gudger's laughter echoed down the hall. Was Gudger serious? Was
he
the boy meat they'd talked about? Had Gudger just set up a deal for him? His mother had warned him to be careful in restrooms, that there were men who liked little boys in the way that most men liked women. Was he now going to be sold to one of them? The cold inside him turned into a hot panic. He needed to get out of here, and get out fast. He leapt to his feet and hurried over to the window beside his bed. Gudger had nailed iron bars to the outside of the thing, but if he could pull the top part of the window down, maybe he could climb out over the iron grid. He pushed aside the plaid curtains his mother had made and raised the shade. His heart sank. Gudger's burglar-stopping grid went all the way to the top of the window frame. He could knock out every pane of glass and still not get through those iron bars.

Suddenly, he heard a new noise. The back door slammed—his mother was home! She would get him free! She would make Gudger let him out of his room, if only to eat supper. Then he could sneak out the back door and run, for as long and as fast as he could. He'd go to Mrs. Carver's house and beg her to let him use his phone. Then he could call the cops and tell them what Gudger was planning to do. He listened as his mother came in the house.

“Gudge?” she called. “Chase?” Her voice always carried a small note of hope, as if Sam might be back, just waiting to pop out and surprise her.

Gudger yelled something from the den, over the blare of the TV news. Chase heard her muffled reply, then the TV went off as Gudger started to yell. A moment later, Chase heard urgent footsteps coming down the hall, stopping just outside his room.

“Chase?” His mother pounded on the door. “Are you in there? Are you all right?”

He raced to the door. This was his chance to get out, to tell her what was really going on. “He locked me in here, Mama! Tomorrow they're coming for me, just like they came for Sam!”

“See?” came Gudger's voice. “I told you he's gone crazy. He came at me with a knife, then he poured drain cleaner all over my hand. Look at my fingers!”

“That's not true, Mama!” Chase cried. “I didn't do anything to him. Two Russian guys came up in a big car and took him away!”

“Listen to that nonsense!” said Gudger. “Russians on Kedron Road! Next he's going to say there are aliens in my tomato patch!”

His mother said something he couldn't understand, then he heard their footsteps going away, both voices growing louder in the den, then faster, urgent footsteps returning to his door.

“Mama?” he cried. “Is that you?”

Someone rattled his doorknob, then he heard the metallic sound of a key shoved into the deadbolt that locked his door. He stepped back, praying that his mother could get the door open before Gudger came back. But heavy, urgent footsteps came down the hall. He heard a bumping sound, then his mother cried out.

“Stop it, Gudger!” she said. “He's my son! You can't lock him up like an animal!”

“He's crazy as a shit house rat!” Gudger yelled back. “He thinks I sold Sam and now I'm going to sell him. If you let him out, he'll probably kill us both in our sleep!”

“That's not true!” Chase pounded on the door with his fists, tearing a big hole his poster of Peyton Manning as a Denver Bronco. “Mama, he's lying!”

“See what I mean?” said Gudger. “He's about to break down the door, calling me a liar! You've got one sick little ticket on your hands, Amy.”

“I don't care,” said his mother. “I'm going to let him out!”

He heard more fumbling with the key, then a thud, as if one of them had pushed the other against the wall. After that, slaps—hard
ones—one, two, three. Then his mother began to cry. He leapt
forward, screaming through the door. “Leave her alone, Gudger! I'll kill you if you hit her again!”

But their battle did not stop. It gathered heat like a hurricane and whirled past his room, moving down the hall and into the kitchen. He heard a pots-and-pan clattering that sounded like the refrigerator toppling over, then a scream. For a long moment he heard nothing, then the baseball game came on, turned up so loud he thought the windows would break.

“Mama?” he called. “Mama? Are you out there?'

This time, no one answered. Sinking down against the door, he started to cry. What had Gudger done to his mother? Was she lying in the kitchen, unconscious, while Gudger watched a stupid baseball game? Hot tears stung his eyes as his throat grew thick. If Gudger had touched a hair of his mother's head, he would kill him. Even if he got sold to those men tomorrow, he would come back someday and throw Gudger in a whole pit of acid, all by himself.

He took several deep breaths. As scared as he was, now was not the time to act like a baby. Now was the time to get out of here and get them both away from Gudger. He looked around the room—the window was hopeless—the only other way out was the door.

Getting to his feet, he took down his torn poster of Peyton Manning and studied the door. It was nothing special, just an ordinary door with three barrel hinges, to which Gudger had, of course, added a deadbolt lock. He realized that made it more of a jail cell than a bedroom, but he'd once watched a YouTube video where someone picked a deadbolt lock with two hairpins, so he knew it could be done. If he could just figure out how to do it himself, he could escape while Gudger watched the ball game. Then, he could at least find out what had happened to his mother.

Hurrying over to his dresser, he retrieved the Swiss Army knife that had been his father's. He turned his overhead light on and pulled the bedspread from his bed, stuffing it under the door in case Gudger walked by. After that, he started to work. He tried to thread the smallest of the knife blades into the lock, but he couldn't catch the mechanism that turned it. Frustrated, he tried a different blade. He had no luck with that either, so he pulled out the little plastic toothpick that came with the knife. That seemed to catch the mechanism better, but every time he almost got the thing to turn, the toothpick would slide out of the notch. He worked doggedly, his neck muscles burning with fatigue as tears of frustration rimmed his eyes. Finally, when he heard a screech owl's quivery call outside his window, he sat back on his heels. He knew then that he could work this toothpick until the sun came up—it was never going to open this lock.

He slumped to the floor, his stomach growling, eyes grainy with exhaustion. It had been dark for hours and he hadn't eaten since early morning. Maybe if he slept a few minutes, he might wake up less hungry, with a new idea about how to open the door. He reached up to turn off the overhead light and wrapped himself up in the bedspread. Cool wisps of air-conditioning came under the door, and he heard the refrigerator shudder as it came on. He realized then that he hadn't noticed when Gudger turned off the baseball game, had been unaware of the silence that had fallen on the house.
Wonder where Mama is
, Chase thought, his eyelids drooping.
Gone to bed with Gudger? Or stretched out on the kitchen floor, dead?

He pushed the image out of his mind, replacing it with a happier one, back when he and Sam would both run and jump in their parents' bed on Christmas morning. His mother would get up to make coffee, but his father would scoop them both up at the same time and carry them into the living room, plunking them down beneath the Christmas tree. “Can you believe all these presents Santa Claus left?” he would say. “You two must have been awfully good this year!”

He nestled down into the warmth of the dream, remembering how strong his father's arms were, how his mother smiled at his father in a way she never smiled at Gudger. He was remembering that smile when, suddenly, he heard his mother's voice, just outside the door.

“Chase, I know you're probably asleep …” she whispered.

He bolted upright. “Mama?” he cried, pressing his mouth close to the door, praying he wasn't still dreaming. “Are you okay?”

“But I'm going on in to work,” she said. “I'm going to give Dr. Knox my notice and come home early. When I do, we're leaving. Gudger got real mad last night. He did something to my ear …” Her voice dissolved in sobs.

A wave of sweet relief washed over him—Mama wasn't dead—Gudger hadn't killed her. “Oh, Mama, please don't leave,” he begged. “Stay here and call the police! Gudger's gonna sell me to the same
people he sold Samantha to!”

“Anyway, I'll see you soon, sweetheart.”

“Mama! Wait!” he pleaded. “Don't you hear me?”

Apparently she didn't, because all he heard next was her footsteps padding softly to the back door. He held his breath, listening, wondering if Gudger was going to wake up and storm after her. For a long moment the world seemed suspended in silence. He heard the engine of her old Dodge catch, then diminish as she drove down the driveway.

He sat on his haunches, wondering if his mother had really said those things and then left for work, or if he'd just dreamed she had. It seemed odd that she hadn't heard him, but she said Gudger had hurt her ear. He would, he decided, accept it as real—that she was alive and coming home from work early to leave. He only hoped he would still be here when she came.

He got to his feet, feeling a sudden need to urinate. Hopping on one foot, he went to the window and raised it as far as it would go. Then he unzipped his pants and let fly a stream of urine that arced out into Gudger's yard, splatting against the big oak tree outside his window. Somehow the act of pissing cleared his head, gave him fresh energy. When he turned away from the window, he looked at his bedroom with new eyes. He remembered that his mother had hung their winter coats in his closet—maybe he could make some kind of lock-picking tool from one of her coat hangers!

He hurried to open the closet door. He turned on the single light bulb that dangled from the ceiling. The pale light illuminated their cold weather wear—jackets and sweaters, Sam's blue parka, a frayed black coat his mother brought from West Virginia. He pushed the clothes along the rack, looking for the thinnest coat hanger. He found it at the end of the closet—a slender white wire that held the near-weightless lining to a raincoat. He shoved the other clothes down the rod, then his gaze fell on a tattered cardboard box lying in the far back corner of the closet. He blinked, wondering if he were hallucinating. That box looked exactly like the one that held Cousin Petey's gun!

“Oh my gosh!” he whispered. Forgetting about the coat hanger, he pulled it out of the closet. It was heavy, the twine wrapped diagonally in the same odd way his mother tied up their Christmas presents.

“But Mama was supposed to get rid of the gun!” he whispered, still unwilling to believe his good luck. “Gudger made her promise!”

Clutching the box to his chest as if it were some rare and precious jewel, he took it to the middle of his bed. He cut the twine with his father's little knife and opened the lid. Inside, nestled in some old quilt batting and smelling sharply of oil, lay the Army Colt Cousin Petey's father carried in Cuba, during the Spanish-American War. The barrel was dark blue while the handle was satiny brown wood that felt as smooth as silk. Gudger had taken it away from him, back when they were living in the duplex and Gudger still wore a uniform.

You don't need to be playing with guns, son,
he'd warned, holding out his hand for the gun.
Your mama needs to get rid of that thing before you blow your own foot off.

Though he'd begged her not to do it, his mother had said Gudger was right—he probably would blow his own foot off.
Dr. Knox, at work, collects old guns,
she'd told him.
Maybe he would like to buy it. Anyway, Chase, we can use the extra money.

That had been the last he'd seen of the gun. He assumed she'd sold it to Dr. Knox—he'd never mentioned it again, and she'd never brought it up. But apparently she had, for once, not done what Gudger told her to do. Here was the gun, ready to do the bidding of anyone who could load it with bullets and pull the trigger. At that moment, it felt like a gift from God.

Chase picked up the revolver—it was cool to his touch, but so heavy that he had to hold it with both hands. There was a graceful lethality about the old gun that made him tremble; he couldn't imagine the terror of having such a thing pointed at your heart. Cousin Petey had thoughtfully included a dozen bullets inside an empty cold cream jar. He smiled, remembering the day she gave it to him.

This is my varmint gun
, she'd croaked, in her old-woman voice.
I've run many a fox out of my hen house with this. Since you're the man of your family now, you might someday need to do the same.