Last Call (22 page)

Jim said. “Okay, don’t worry, kiddo. I’m coming down to get you.”

But the space was too small, and he had to brace himself against the beam again and give the plate another shove, the effort gaining him only a few more inches, the far edge of the plate coming up hard against the barn wall.

But it was enough.

Jim backed into the crescent-shaped space until his foot found a rung. Then he was in the pit up to the hips, reaching for the next rung, seconds away from holding his daughter. There was a bad moment when it felt as if his trunk had gotten stuck between the plate and the rim of the hole, but he forced out his breath and squeezed through, bumping his head on the plate without feeling it, taking the rungs in precarious lunges—

Then he was lifting his child out of the muck, kissing the top of her head, holding onto her for dear life.

* * *

Yawning, Bobcat stacked the last of his belongings by the front door and thought,
To hell with it, I’ll load up in the morning.

But they were calling for rain through the night and he changed his mind, deciding to get it over with now. He grabbed his Maglite off the workbench and glanced out the window, the moon illuminating the world out there like a muted spot, and he thought that one last walk in the cool country dark might be pleasant. Besides, the Maglite always stirred up the dogs, and if he set them off now he wouldn’t get a wink of sleep.

He left the flashlight on the bench and went outside to get the camper.

* * *

Jim said, “Okay, Trish, it’s time to go.” It stunk down here, feces floating in the foul water, and Jim couldn’t imagine how she’d managed to survive in these conditions. A healthy person could go a few weeks without food, but without water...

He pictured his daughter forced to drink the slop they were standing in and wanted to drown that bastard in it.

Trish was shivering, falling asleep standing up, and Jim took off his shirt and put it on her, buttoning it up to her neck, its curved tail long enough to cover her bottom. It wasn’t much but it would have to do.

He bent to lift her into his arms—and heard footfalls scuffing into the barn.

Jim pressed his hand over Trish’s mouth and froze.

The killer was directly above them now, moving along that narrow corridor on the driver’s side of the camper—the metal plate rocking under his weight, grit sifting down into their upturned faces—and when Trish uttered a fearful moan Jim pressed his lips to her ear and whispered, “Please be quiet, baby, please be quiet...”

Then the guy opened the van door and climbed inside, pulling the door shut with a slam that startled Jim so badly he almost cried out.

Now the engine turned over and the headlights came on, smoky cones of light angling down through the air holes on the reek of exhaust, and Jim played out the next few seconds in his mind, seeing the killer turn his head to back the van out of the barn—or using the side mirrors to get it done—praying he wouldn’t glance back into the barn; because if he did, he’d see that the plate had been moved and he’d get out of the camper and kill them both, shoot them like rats in a rain barrel.

Jim held his breath and stared at the metal plate. He heard the clunk of the shifter as it dropped into gear, then the clangor of the front tires coming onto the plate—in his mind’s eye he saw the right front wheel plunging into the gap he’d created up there—but the plate held and the camper cleared the mouth of the pit.

Jim breathed, whispering to Trish, “Almost over now, honey. Almost over...”

The grumble of the engine receded, the glare of the headlights intensifying briefly, then fading to darkness as the vehicle pulled away from the barn.

Jim picked Trish up, slung her arms around his neck and told her to hang on tight. Then he stepped onto the ladder and climbed to the top, using one arm to support her legs and the other to clutch the rail, appalled at how little she weighed.

At the top he had to brace himself to push Trish out through the opening, and now she lay out there at the edge of the pit, too exhausted to move. Jim said, “Trish, I need you to move so I can get out,” and after a moment she did, rolling away from the hole.

Then Jim was out too, bearing her up, heading for the barn door, the woods, the car and freedom.

Limp in his arms, Trish said, “Where’s Dean?” and Jim paused at the tree line, knowing he’d have to tell her but not wanting to do it now. What he wanted right now was to get her as far away from here as he could. Get her to safety. That was all that mattered.

But he said, “Sweetheart, Dean is dead. He got shot.”

Trish stiffened in his arms, lifting her head off his shoulder now to lock eyes with him in the moonlight. She said, “Where is he, Dad? We can’t let that monster have him. Are you sure he’s dead?”

An old voice in his head:
Say yes
.

“I’m almost certain. The bastard shot him, honey, right through the chest. Dean went running into the yard with a gun in his hand and the guy shot him. I could see where he fell but I couldn’t get to him. I watched for a long time but he didn’t move. Trish, we should—”

She said, “Dad, put me down. Put me down and show me where he is.”

“Trish—”

“I’m not leaving without him.”

Jim thought,
Shit
, but he knew she was right. He wanted to tell her they could call for help from the road—and if push came to shove, he could easily carry her out of here against her will and pray she didn’t hold it against him later on—but he knew she’d never forgive him. And in thinking it, knew that he’d never forgive himself. If there was even an outside chance that Dean was still alive, he owed it to the kid to find out. Even if it cost him his life.

He set Trish on her feet. “Alright, listen. I’m going to run back there and get him. Dead or alive, I won’t leave him here, I promise.”

“Okay.”

He gave her the keys to the Beemer and pointed into the woods. “The road is straight back that way. Dean’s car is out there. If I’m not back in twenty minutes—” He dug the phone out of his pocket and handed it to her, flipping it open so she could see the time. “—I want you to
promise
me you’ll go find the car and get the hell out of here, dial nine-one-one as soon as you get a signal. But whatever you do, just drive, get as far away from here as you can, okay?”

Trish was looking down at the phone, nodding her head.

Jim lifted her chin, finding her eyes. “Trish, I need you to promise me.”

She said, “I promise.”

Jim looked toward the house, then back at Trish. “Alright. In the meantime I want you to stay out of sight. And no matter what you might hear or what you might see, you do
not
go anywhere near that place. Understood?”

Trish nodded again.

“Okay. I’ll be right back.”

“Dad?”

“Yes, honey?”

She hugged him with feeble strength, then pressed something into his hand. A jackknife. He hadn’t even realized she was holding it.

She said, “It’s his. I stole it from him.”

Jim thanked her and slipped the knife into his pocket, already planning to arm himself with something a good deal heftier than a jackknife.

He kissed Trish on the forehead, then led her into the bush and eased her down onto a drift of leaves. He said, “Rest here awhile, okay? And keep an eye on the time.”

As he started away, Trish said, “Be careful, Dad. He’s an animal.”

Jim said, “I will,” and went back to the barn for the splitting maul.

* * *

He doubled back through the woods with the axe in his hand, the going slow even with the moon hanging straight overhead now, and it occurred to him as he picked his way through the underbrush that twenty minutes might have been an optimistic limit to impose on himself. But above everything else, he wanted Trish out of here, and he knew that if Dean were still alive he’d want the same thing.

When he got back to Dean’s take off point, Jim hunkered down and spent another few minutes watching the farmhouse for any signs of movement; but everything looked quiet down there now, most of the interior lights extinguished. Even the Rottweilers were peaceful, sleeping under the moon.

It was now or never.

Moving in a crouch, Jim followed Dean’s trail through the tall grass. A rodent of some kind, a field mouse or a vole, skittered across his path, and Jim’s skin crawled in cold handfuls, his nerve’s drawn wire tight.

And just when it seemed he’d never find Dean, there he was, face down in the moonlight and deathly still; and when Jim touched his skin it was cold, so cold that it startled him and he recoiled into the weeds, scraping his elbow on the blade of the maul.

Resuming his crouch, Jim tried to compose himself, Trish’s voice in his head now, telling him to check for a pulse, and he did, pressing two fingers into the hollow of the kid’s neck, feeling only that cadaverous cold—

Then something twitched against his fingertips, faint and faraway, and Jim wondered if he’d imagined it. But there it was again.

A pulse.

Jim was no doctor, but he guessed it couldn’t have been much more than thirty beats a minute, dreadfully weak in a blood vessel that should have been bounding with life. He’d read about hypothermia somewhere, people surviving exposure by lapsing into a state akin to hibernation, the temperature drop protecting the brain.

Excitement flared in Jim’s gut, eclipsing a wave of shame, and he rolled Dean onto his back, the kid limp and covered in blood, the stuff clotted now, glimmering like obsidian in the moonlight. Facing the farmhouse, he hoisted Dean into a fireman’s carry and bent to retrieve the maul—

A brilliant ball of light detonated like a supernova, bathing the yard in a seething glare, and now a harsh voice said, “Drop the kid. The axe, too. Hands where I can see ’em.”

Shading his eyes, Jim saw the killer step off the porch like a dark angel, the rifle aimed at the ground. He let go of the maul, lay Dean in the wild grass and put his hands on his head, the source of that light resolving into focus as his eyes adjusted, a cluster of Klieg carbon arc lamps perched high atop a power pole behind the kennel, the same kind of floods they used in the yard at Kingston pen. Facing death, Jim wondered absently why he hadn’t noticed them before now.

The dogs were up and howling now and the killer was waving Jim closer, beckoning him into the bald patch of dooryard. Resigned, Jim did as he was told, moving deeper into that stark dome of light, a glaring oasis in the trench of the night.

Now the guy said, “That’s far enough,” and Jim stopped six feet away from him, close enough to spit in that smug face. The man was a full head taller than him, with long bandy limbs and huge hands. He lowered the rifle and said, “Who was the bitch to you?”

“My daughter.”

He gave a little nod. “How’d you find me?”

“The carvings. The cops found one in her car.”

“Oh,
that
little bitchcat.” Grinning, showing perfect white teeth. “Wasn’t she the feisty one?”

“Sick fuck.”

The guy said, “Call me Bobcat,” and rubbed his jaw, as if considering the problem at hand. Then he raised the rifle to a firing position and peered into the scope, the single dark eye of the bore only three feet from Jim’s face now, aimed at the space between his eyes.

Bobcat said, “Well, I guess I’d like to stand out here all night and chinwag with you, Dad, but see, you’re trespassing, and I shoot trespassers.”

He cocked the rifle and Jim closed his eyes, waiting for the bullet, his last thought reserved for his daughter and the gratitude he felt in knowing she’d survive.

Then he heard the man scuffing through the dirt, and opened his eyes to see him lean the rifle against the kennel fence. One of the dogs threw itself at the chain-link, snarling at him, and Bobcat cursed the animal and kicked dust in its face, backing it off. Then he returned his attention to Jim.

Jim dropped his hands to his sides, curling them into fists.

Bobcat said, “But in your case, seeing as you’re family, I’m going to fuck you up the old fashioned way.” He moved to the center of the yard, spreading his arms as if in supplication. “Gonna beat you to death. Bare knuckle. How’d that be?”

Jim said, “Works for me,” and waded in.

Lightning quick, Bobcat went for the sucker punch and Jim blocked it and got inside, jabbing the man’s eye and driving his elbow up as he stepped away, cracking Bobcat on the nose and drawing blood. Bobcat staggered back, cuffing blood off his lips in mild surprise. He opened his mouth to say something and Jim kicked him in the chest with the flat of his foot, knocking him on his ass in the dirt.

Jim glanced at the rifle against the fence and Bobcat was on his feet, standing between Jim and the gun now, grinning through bright red blood. He said, “You’re pretty good,” and spat at Jim’s feet.

Jim thought,
That’s it, asshole. Get mad
. The fucker was hard as nails and had a good six inches of reach on him; but he was cocky, and every man Jim had ever beaten in a street fight had been cocky.

Bobcat feinted with a lunge and threw a kick at Jim’s groin. Jim caught his foot and continued its skyward momentum, felling him onto his back again, harder this time, knocking the wind out of him.

Squinting up at Jim, jets of night-vapor on his breath as he fought for air, Bobcat said, “I’m gonna hurt you for that. I’m really gonna hurt you for that.”

“Better get off your ass, then.”

Bobcat got up and shot a bloody snot rocket through his nostril, that antic light gone from his eyes now, replaced by flint and deadly intent. In the kennel the dogs were losing their minds, snarling and trying to gnaw through the chain-link.

He came straight at Jim with his fists up now and Jim missed his bobbing head with a couple of jabs. Bobcat tagged him with a stinging kick to the inner thigh, then clamped that big left hand around his throat and drove him backward into the chain-link, closing off his air. Jim grabbed his wrist, but it was like grabbing an iron bar and Bobcat slapped him on the ear with an open hand, setting off a high-pitched whine in his skull. Jim tried to kick him and Bobcat pulled Jim’s face into a rising knee, then flung him rag-like to the ground.