Deadly Blessings (40 page)

Ro took his eyes off of us long enough to
take in the surrounding area. “This is the right road,” he
said.

Lisa shot him a sidelong glance, then rolled
her eyes. “That’s why I pulled off here.”

Ro missed the sarcasm. “Couple miles down
that way, now,” he offered, gesturing with the barrel of the
gun.

“
Yeah,” she said. “I
know.”

I turned to watch my car’s headlights behind
us. Emil drove, but he remained invisible to me over the bright
glare.

An accident, Bruno had said.

In my faithful little car.

A sudden anger welled up in me, so fast and
so furious that I wanted to kick the gun from Ro’s hand. Instead I
took a deep breath through clenched teeth, and told myself to wait.
My body tingled with anticipation, knowing that whenever the moment
came, whatever it was, I’d fight before I’d go down easy.

We crossed over unmarked railroad tracks,
then passed under a canopy of trees, their branches still holding
onto enough leaves to block my view of the night sky. The car
bounced repeatedly in the rough terrain. Lisa kept her headlights
on till we reached a clearing. When she cut the motor and cut the
lights, Sophie sat up, blinking, looking every direction at once.
My body began to shake, reacting to the situation with a terror of
the unknown. And yet, I kept a peculiar detached calm. As though I
watched all this happening to someone else.

Ro opened one of the back doors and ordered
us out. I heard Sophie’s shallow breaths, and knew without looking
that her abrupt awakening only served to disorient her further.

“
Grab your stuff. You’re
taking it with you,” he said.

I reached in for my purse, trying to think
if there was anything in it I could use. Yeah, I thought, maybe I
could tie them up with my dental floss.

Outside, Sophie clutched me again, wrapping
her hands around my left arm, like a terrified two-year-old
clinging to mom. “It’s okay,” I said, knowing it was anything but.
“We’ll be okay.”

She didn’t answer except to whimper.

We stood at the edge of a meadow, lit
brightly by the shining moon. The wind brought the smell of burning
leaves to waft by, its familiar, comforting scent hitting me with a
punch of melancholy. A forested area, dense and expansive, sprawled
to our immediate right. In the distance, about three football
fields away, a pattern of pinkish sodium vapor lights lined a
collection of industrial buildings. And right before us, a wide
vastness of black, a gaping hole in the ground. So wide that its
edges faded into the darkness and I couldn’t see to its far
side.

And then I knew exactly where we were.

The quarry.

I’d passed it hundreds of times, from the
safe vantage point of the expressway above, watching the diggers
and loaders and dump trucks as they worked the inside of the
limestone pit, so far below they looked like toys. No one in the
sporadic traffic above would be paying attention to the dark ground
below, and even if they did casually glance out their window, no
one would be able to see us. We were too small, too
insignificant.

“
Get in,” Ro said, pointing
to my car.

Emil left it running. Now he sidled up to
us. “I’m sorry, Sophie. But I can’t … I can’t …” He reached out to
stroke her hair, close enough that I smelled the booze on his
body.

Were they going to kill us gangland style?
Shoot us in the head in my car?

“
Ro,” I said, facing the
big man, knowing I was grasping at straws. “You’re not going to get
away with this. Look. You left your tire tracks and …” I heard my
voice shake, to match the tremors of my body, “… footprints. With
all the technology nowadays, they’ll find you.”

Ro shook his head. “You think we picked this
place out of a hat?” He tilted his head toward the forest. “This is
burn-out heaven. Kids come here to smoke dope and drink. Around
midnight, there’s plenty of cars, plenty of footprints. And when
the drunken idiots see the fire in the pit, they’ll trample all
over the place. We’re covered.”

“
Listen,” I said, trying
again. “Let us go. I’ll nail Bruno, so he can’t touch any of you,
but I’ll leave you out of it. I’ll keep you safe. I
promise.”

Lisa turned away. “Just get it over with,
Ro.”

He directed Emil to shift
my car into neut
ral. Then had him open
th
e rear hatch of Lisa’s car, where two
plastic jugs of gasoline waited. “Did she have a full tank in that
little shit car?” He asked.

Emil shook his head. “Only about half.”

Without shifting his aim, Ro muttered
instructions for how to add the accelerant to the car in such a way
that it would look like a spontaneous blaze. While he spoke I
whispered to Sophie in Polish, “If I move, follow me.”

“
No!” she whispered back.
“They’ll kill us if we try to get away.”

“
For the love of God,
Sophie, they’re going to kill us anyway. If I go, you better be
behind me. Understand?”

She nodded.

“
Good,” I said, gently
removing her hands from my arm. “Keep your eye on me.”

“
Shut up, you two,” Ro
said, then he raised his voice slightly to Emil, “How much you got
left in the jugs?”

“
About half,
each.”

“
Put one of ‘em in her
trunk. With the lid loose. Make it look like she kept spare gas in
her trunk. For emergencies.” He grinned at us.

“
Which one?” Emil asked,
holding the two jugs aloft.

“
Get in,” Ro said to us
again. We stood on the passenger side of my car, about ten feet
away from where Emil had poured the gasoline. “You two are gonna
take a trip down to the bottom of the quarry.”

“
But there’s gas all over
the ground,” I said. “Somebody’s bound to notice that.”

“
You know what? You talk
too much.”

He started to push us forward, but Emil had
come around the back of the car, holding out both red plastic jugs
for Ro’s inspection. “Which one?” he asked again.

“
That one,” I shouted.
Dropping my purse, I grabbed the right one from his hand. I spun,
splashing the open jug at the general vicinity of Ro’s face,
turning to run without waiting for his reaction. Praying Sophie was
behind me.

I heard Lisa shout, Ro swear, and when I
turned to be sure that Sophie followed, I thought I saw Emil step
in front of a stumbling Ro, knocking them both off balance. It gave
us precious seconds for a head start, and even as I headed for the
trees with Sophie panting behind me, I had to wonder if he’d done
that deliberately.

Chapter Twenty-Six

The traitorous moon illuminated the meadow
like a bright spotlight, making me feel vulnerable, obvious. I felt
the skin prickle on my back, knowing Ro might be aiming to shoot,
even as I concentrated on the slosh-pounding of my feet on the
ground through the damp grass. Keeping my eyes on the line of trees
just about a hundred yards away, I listened for sounds of Sophie,
but my heartbeat slamming in my ears, and my own open-mouthed
panting, drowned out noises behind me.

Fearful of losing my balance, or twisting an
ankle, I didn’t want to turn, again. I knew it could slow me down,
but I had to be sure.

Quick, I looked.

She was right behind me, her hair streaking
backward, intensity on her face, and in that split-second glance,
behind her, I saw Ro moving our direction, at a rapid clip. Lisa
following. The man had long legs and power on his side. Even if we
could make it to the tree line before he caught up, we’d still have
problems getting away. We’d never be able to outrun him.

He shouted something, but I couldn’t make
out what it was.

Nearer now, the trees were mere steps away,
but I felt every stride in slow motion. Wind rushed at my face,
howling through the trees, smarting my cheeks. My lungs burned, my
eyes watered; I blinked to clear my vision, moving forward.

A loud noise, sharp, like a firecracker. But
I couldn’t tell if it came from behind or before us.

I ducked between two enormous trees, Sophie
three steps behind.

“
What now?” she asked,
panicked and breathless.

I grabbed her arm and ran. I had no thought
in my mind other than to keep moving.

We did, at as fast a pace as we could,
through the labyrinth of trees. My eyes hadn’t had a chance to
adjust to the scant light. Despite the fact that the trees were
nearly all bare, their dense overhead branches intertwined to allow
only tiny snatches of moonlight filter through. I led the way,
avoiding those bright spots, wanting to keep from becoming an easy
target.

I heard another noise, faint, but steady.
Ahead of us.

A combination of adrenaline, and elation
that others might be in the forest, propelled me forward. We slowed
down, and I tried to zigzag through the growth, quiet enough that
Ro wouldn’t be able to hear our movements. I tried to keep wide,
shielding trees behind us, as much as possible.

Crashing sounds from where we’d just
been.

Another shot.

It had to be Ro.

The faint noise ahead grew louder, more
rhythmic. I still couldn’t decide what it was but I headed toward
it, my mind on nothing but escape.

Then I made it out. Chanting.

Coming from our far right, I changed
direction and headed that way. Far, through the pattern of tall
barren trees, the smell of burnt leaves got stronger and I thought
I caught the flickering glow of a campfire.

I held my breath and stopped long enough to
clamp my hand over Sophie’s mouth to quiet her breathing, so I
could listen.

I heard him behind us. Too close.

Dropping my hand from Sophie’s face, I
pulled her forward again.

We moved stealthily, but quickly, toward the
fire, toward the sounds.

There.

Silhouetted before an enormous blaze
stretching nearly ten feet in the air, were more than a dozen
figures. Male, female, I couldn’t discern at this distance, but a
couple of them seemed to sway, though not with the rhythm of the
chanting.

Louder now, I could make out the combination
of voices, repeating rote sayings, like prayers.

They sounded like devil-worshippers. Out in
the forest offering animal sacrifices. If so, our presence here
wouldn’t be welcome, of that I was sure. But I remembered where my
recent experiences with the church had gotten me and I decided to
take my chances.

“
Please, God,” I whispered
to the heavens, “keep us safe.”

Tents sat at the far end of their camp.
They’d chosen a small clearing, and as we broke into their midst, I
saw at once they were all college-age students, mostly male, but
with a couple of females sitting near the fire. Nearly everyone
held a beer.

I tripped over something in the grass,
falling face first, my hands hitting metal as I broke my fall.
Sophie helped me up and we moved forward again. Train tracks.
Stretching from the ones we’d crossed earlier, no doubt. I stepped
gingerly over a second set. These were much easier to see. No weeds
obscured them. Both sets flush with the ground. No wonder I’d
missed them.

Our emergence startled a few of the
partiers, and it took a second for me to realize that the ones who
didn’t react were too drunk to realize there were strangers
present. Not devil-worshippers, thank God. The smell of burning
marijuana permeated the immediate area and I shouted that we needed
help.

The chanting didn’t stop.

In fact, it got louder.

A guy with red hair, wearing a knitted ski
cap and hooded jacket, bent in half as he screamed, “I can’t hear
you!” to a group of about four blindfolded young men, who raised
their voices at his cry.

I could make out only a few of the words as
we sidled past them. Bird, clang, cow, chalk. Didn’t make sense.
Another group of blindfolded boys sang a song to a familiar tune,
but with very different words than I remembered. I searched to find
someone sober. Someone who might have a car nearby. I headed for
the girls by the fire. One of them, wearing a short brown and
orange jacket, was gesturing as she spoke. She looked lucid enough.
I could only hope.

There was background music drifting from a
boom box. A skinny guy with long curly blond hair intercepted us
with slurred words and unfocused eyes. “Hey, we got this place
staked out tonight ladies, but you’re welcome to have a beer.”

Drawing closer, I made an instant
reassessment. There had to be twenty young people gathered, in
small groups. Sitting, standing, swaying, singing. Noise and
movement everywhere.

“
A man with a gun,” I said,
loud enough to be heard over the cacophony, “Do you—”

“
A cop?” the blond guy
asked, his face taking on that vacuous look that people get when
they’re drunk, but are still trying to comprehend. His brow
furrowed. “Cops never come by here. You a cop?”

“
No,” I said, wanting to
push past him to head toward the girls by the fire. Two of other
guys who’d been working near the tents came to join the blond
one.

“
What’s goin’ on, Framp?”
one of them asked. The three of them barricaded us from moving
forward. “Who are you?” he asked us. Shorter than the blond guy, he
carried a little more weight, and a cocky look on his face. He took
us in with shrewd eyes from behind wire-rimmed glasses. When he saw
the cut on my face, he glanced behind us.

In that second I knew this guy wasn’t as
drunk as the rest. I spoke as fast as I could.

“
Do you have a cell phone?
Please, call for help. Call 9-1-1.” I said, my words breathless. “A
man … trying to kill us.”