No Return (30 page)

“Yeah?” Jack cocked his head. “Well, to hell with you.” His hand snapped out and grabbed Wes’s arm. He jerked Wes toward him, his intent clear. He wanted to send Wes over the drop.

Wes jammed his legs down, trying to stop, but his feet slipped across the boulder.

“Wes!” Mandy yelled.

Wes twisted wildly, trying to dislodge Jack’s grip on his wrist with his other hand, but Jack held tight.

I’m going to die
, Wes thought.

Then he felt someone grab his other hand and start to pull him in the other direction. “Let him go!” Lars yelled as he tried to yank Wes back.

Jack started to give Wes’s arm another jerk, but just as he did, Wes shoved his arm downward. The unexpected movement broke Jack’s grip, and the momentum that had been pulling Wes toward the edge transferred back to Jack.

Jack’s eyes went wide as his arms began pinwheeling. In a desperate lunge, he reached out and caught hold of Wes’s wrist, his fingers digging into Wes’s skin. “Help me!”

Wes could feel Jack’s palm grow slick with sweat, but he didn’t move.

“I’m slipping,” Jack said, panicked.

Another memory: Jack sticking his foot out in the lunchroom and tripping Kenny Morgan, one of the special-needs kids. Kenny’s food splattering on the floor, his glass landing underneath him, breaking in two. “Dumbass,” Jack had said.

And one final one: Jack kneeling between Mandy’s legs, laughing at what he’d just done.

Some people didn’t deserve the air they consumed.

“Help me!” Jack screamed.

His fingers were beginning to lose their grip. Wes stared at him for a second, then twisted his wrist ninety degrees.

One second Jack Rice was standing in front of him.

Then the next he wasn’t.

WES, LARS, AND MANDY—NOW WEARING LARS’S
hoodie—climbed down the slope to Jack Rice’s body at the base of the rock.

“I think he’s dead,” Lars said.

Wes knelt down and checked Jack’s pulse just to make sure. Lars was right. The son of a bitch wouldn’t cause anyone grief anymore.

“We’ll have to call the police,” Wes said finally.

Mandy tensed. “Are you sure? I mean, do we really have to?”

“He’s dead, Mandy. We don’t have a choice.”

They stood silently beside one another, looking down at the body. In the distance they could hear music from the party, faint, almost indistinguishable from the breeze.

“I don’t know, Wes,” Lars said. “Maybe Mandy has a point.”

“What are you talking about?”

Lars looked at Mandy. “Did anyone see you with him?”

She shook her head. “He was out here when I came looking for a place to go to the bathroom. Said he’d be my lookout if anyone else came. I didn’t think he’d … I didn’t think … thought he was my friend.”

Wes put an arm around her shoulder. She started to pull away, but then stopped.

“It’s okay,” he said. “Don’t think about it.”

“So no one saw us with him,” Lars said. “And there’s no way anyone at the party could have heard anything. So … maybe we just don’t tell anyone.”

“Are you crazy?” Wes said, hardly believing what his friend had just suggested.

“It’s not worth ruining our lives for that son of a bitch,” Lars told him. “Think about it. You just killed someone. You want to ruin your life over that asshole?”

Wes’s mom had often joked that teenagers treated every crisis like it was the end of the world. Only this time, Wes and his friends knew it would be. Once the police got involved, their lives would never be the same.

But to not tell anyone?

“Okay,” Lars continued. “If you don’t want to think about yourself, think about Mandy. What’s her life going to be like once everything comes out? She’s going to have to tell the police what Jack did to her. And she’s not going to have to just tell it once. She’ll have to do it over and over. And then she’ll have to tell it again at your trial, in front of the public and reporters. Do you really want her to go through that?”

Wes glanced at Mandy. He could see the effect Lars’s words had on her, the fear that what he was saying might come true. “So you’re suggesting we just leave him here?” he asked, then, in a voice less confident than before, added, “We can’t do that.”

Lars looked out toward Searles Lake, then shook his head. “No. You’re right. That’s not a good idea. He’s got your blood on him. If someone finds the body, the police will question everyone who was at the party. When they see that you’re bruised up from a fight, it won’t be hard for them to put two and two together. We can’t let them find the body, not while you look like that. We have to put him someplace where no one will find him.”

“Lars,” Wes said, “even when he’s reported missing, the police will still question everyone who was at the party.”

“Sure,” Lars said. “But they’re not going to be looking for someone who’s been beat up. In fact, we can tell them that you and I got into a fight if we have to. Hell, you should punch me right now.”

“I’m not going to punch you.”

“Fine, but you see my point, right?”

Wes stared past his friend, then put his head in his hands as the full weight of what had happened finally hit him. “Oh, God. I should have grabbed him.”

“Are you kidding? He would have taken you both over. You wouldn’t have been able to stop.”

“We don’t know that,” Wes said.

“We do know that,” Lars said. “He was going over with or without you. Look, the longer we wait, the more chance someone will wander out here and see us.”

Everything was swimming through Wes’s mind. The fight. The fall. What Jack had done to Mandy. Her screams. The police. His parents.

He couldn’t focus.

Lars shook Wes’s shoulder. “Hey! Did you hear me?”

Wes slowly nodded. “What are you suggesting we do?”

Lars looked around, then pointed to the east. “Didn’t we find an old mine over that next ridge?”

Wes couldn’t remember what he said after that, but he did remember him and Lars struggling to carry Jack across the side of the hill. And he did remember finding the mine with a hole ten yards in that went straight down for God knew how far. Lars didn’t even give Wes a chance to second-guess their actions. He just rolled the body over the edge.

WES HAD ACTUALLY BROKEN THE PROMISE HE’D
made to Lars and Mandy not to tell anyone about that night. But he had never mentioned their names, only his own involvement. Of course, his father wasn’t dumb, and though he didn’t say anything to Wes, he would have known who else was involved.

They had sat in silence after Wes had finished telling him what had happened. Wes was sure his dad was going to force him to go to the cops and confess.

“This girl, you’re positive he raped her?”

“One hundred percent.”

Wes’s dad drew in a deep breath, then exhaled loudly through his nose. “There are times we’re faced with near-impossible situations. Ones where no matter which choice we make, neither direction feels like a good one. But most times, even in these circumstances, while there might not be a good choice, there’s always a right one. And I’d say you made the right one.”

His father didn’t make him go to the police. He saw things in much the same way Lars had seen them. “I’ll take care of this.”

Two weeks later his parents sat him down in the living room and told him they were splitting up. Wes was to move to San Diego with his mother, while his dad would be staying in Ridgecrest. Wes had known things were bad between them, but it was still a shock. Several hours later his father found him in his room.

“Two things you need to know,” his father said. “First, you had absolutely nothing to do with the problems your mother and I are having. It is what it is, and what we talked about tonight has been a long time coming. The second thing, and I want you to listen to me very carefully, once you get to San Diego you are never, ever to come back here again.”

“Never? But when will—”

“No,” Wes’s dad said. “There’s no questioning this.” He paused. “I went out last week to the mine near … what did you call it? The Rocks?”

Wes stared at his dad, too surprised to confirm.

“I found some timbers farther back in the shaft and tossed them in the hole. The chance that somebody will find what’s down there is almost zero. But if they do, I want you away from here. There’s nothing there that’s going to tie you to the body.”

“My blood is on him.”

“I took care of it. Your job is to just stay away.”

In that instant Wes realized what his father had really done. He had gone to the mine, left footprints there, touched items that were now down the shaft with Jack’s body. If the body was found, his father was going to take the blame.

“I can’t ask you to—”

“No, you can’t,” his dad said. “I don’t want to hear any more about it. This subject is closed.”

WES PICKED UP THE PHONE ON THE FIRST RING
.

“Casey?”

No voice, just a faint double beep.

“Casey, can you hear me?”

Nothing for several moments, then a click, and the line went dead.

Confused, Wes started to hang the phone up. Suddenly he heard the sound of tires screeching on asphalt. He looked back toward the street.

Two dark sedans, the same military issue Lars had been driving, had just made the turn off Inyokern Road onto Downs, and were making a beeline for the convenience store parking lot.

“No,” Wes whispered to himself.

He dropped the phone and jumped on the Triumph.

There was no time to do anything with Lars’s papers, so he squeezed them between his hand and the grip as he kick-started the bike to life.

The lead car adjusted its course to intercept him, so Wes turned hard as he hit the gas, and raced past the near side of the sedan, then turned again and headed for the exit. But before he could get there, the second car skidded to a halt across the ramp, blocking the way.

Wes angled to his left, shot across the sidewalk, and flew off the curb. The tires shimmied as they hit the road, but sheer willpower kept the Triumph upright.

As Wes glanced over he got a quick glimpse of the second car’s driver. It was Lieutenant Jenks.

Cursing under his breath, he took off down the street. Someone must have found out what Casey was doing, and discovered the call to the pay phone at the 7-Eleven. It was the only explanation.

Back at the store, the sedans sped out of the lot and took up the chase. They were faster than he’d expected. With every block, they got a little closer. If he was going to lose them, it wasn’t speed that was going to do it for him.

He took a quick right, his turn going wide and taking him into the path of an approaching panel van. He swerved toward the sidewalk, barely missing the vehicle.

“Sorry,” he shouted reflexively.

He checked behind him again. The sedans were there, but the turn had slowed them down.

Two blocks ahead the housing tracks fell away. Beyond was an area of large lots and open desert. Now he was the one with the advantage.

The driver of the lead sedan started coming on fast, but it was already too late. Wes spotted what he’d hoped for just ahead on the left. He took one more glance at the sedans following him, then veered across the road and onto the dirt motorcycle path that cut through an open field.