Blackwater Lights (29 page)

He dug through the pants pocket and found a key ring. He couldn’t waste any time. He put the pistol on safety, stuck it in the deep pocket of the robe, and picked up the shotgun.

He knew it was William right away when he peered in the tiny window. The boy lay curled against the wall, seemingly asleep. When Ray finally found the right key and turned the lock, William jumped to his feet and ran to the back of the room.

“It’s me,” Ray whispered.

“Stay away from me.”

Ray pulled off the hood.

William froze. Then he ran and wrapped his arms around Ray, squeezing tightly. “Where’s my mom?”

“She’s okay. But we have to hurry.”

William held on to the folds of the robe. Ray closed the door behind them. White Sneakers was still unconscious, his head surrounded by a puddle of blood.

“What about the other people?” William asked.

“No time,” Ray whispered.

The boy stared up at him.

“Are there kids?” Ray asked.

William shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“Okay. I’ll open the rest of the doors. But they’re on their own.” He took out the key ring. The same key opened the other five doors. He unlocked them all quietly. “They’ll have a chance now. Let’s go get your mother. Follow me—up the stairs. Hang on to the back of my robe.”

When they walked past White Sneakers, William kicked him.

Ray stopped near the top of the steps. He held his finger to his lips, then motioned for William to stay put.

William nodded.

Ray carefully peeked around the corner.

The cop stood inside, in front of the door. Agitated.

Ray peered around the corner, hoping the shadows were enough to conceal him, and aimed the shotgun. Shifted his face so he could see through his good eye, aiming the best he could. The shot went wide, blowing a chunk out of the wall. The cop dropped to the floor.

Shit
. Ray stared at the gun in his hands. What now? Did he have to reload? Was it one of those pump-action guns he’d seen in the movies? He pulled back on the fore end of the gun and a shell rattled on the steps and clinked down the stairs. Good. Maybe another had loaded.

Ray turned. William was hunkered down three steps below him. “Go!” he hissed.

William shook his head. Then his eyes looked past Ray and widened.

Ray twisted back around. The cop had his handgun drawn and was pointing it directly at his face.

Ray squeezed the trigger.

The recoil knocked him backward, and at first he wasn’t sure if he had been shot. He fell on William and they both tumbled. When they stopped, tangled in each other’s limbs, something rolled after them. Ray pulled William’s face into his chest. The cop slid past them, his arms
flopping as he somersaulted to the floor below. A pool of blood spread immediately around him.

“Stay close. We’ll get your mother and get away from here.”

William nodded. “I was hoping you’d find us.”

“Are you okay? Did they hurt you?”

“They took my glasses. I can’t really see. What happened to your eye?”

“You be my eyes, and I’ll be yours.”

“Okay, Ray.”

He pumped the shotgun again and the shell bounced down the steps and came to rest next to the cop’s head. How many shots did the thing hold?

“Let’s go.”

They ran toward the trees, Ray slowing so that William could keep up with him. It seemed like an eternity before they reached the tree line. He pulled the boy close and squeezed him. The kid was shaking. He’d be lucky if he didn’t have nightmares the rest of his life.

Ray moved through the brush. Hadn’t Ellen been here? He wished he had a flashlight, or even a match.

“Where is she?” William asked.

Ray hushed him. What if she had woken up and found herself alone? Or if she’d been found? He pushed forward through the branches and leaves. Thorns punctured his hand. He stumbled, catching himself against a tree. She
had
been here. Or very close by.

William ran and fell to his knees. “Mom.”

Oh, thank God
.

William groaned. He sounded on the verge of panic.

Ray grabbed the boy’s shoulders. “Shhh. It’s okay. It’s not her blood. She’s okay. She’s just not conscious. I think they drugged her.”

William wiped tears from his eyes, then grabbed Ellen and held himself against her and started to sob.

Gunshots. Several of them. From the other side of the house.

Where to now? He had no idea. He pulled Ellen away from William and balanced her across his shoulders. She wasn’t that heavy, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to carry her much farther. Hopefully it would be far enough.

The door to the house opened. Two men stepped out. Both had handguns.

“Come on,” he whispered to William. “Carry this for me.” He handed the boy the shotgun. “Keep it pointed away or at the ground.”

He took one last look back and wished he hadn’t. Lily was standing with the two men, still in her robe, scanning the property. He felt her eyes, burning with anger, and then she seemed to sense them. She pointed her finger, and the two men began to move in their direction.

The three of them made little progress. The ground grew steeper and rockier. One wrong step and he could fall and crack Ellen’s head open on a boulder. Or his own.

William clung to him, making it even harder to walk. But he didn’t have the heart to ask him to let go. What the boy had endured already he couldn’t even imagine.

“Where are we going?” William asked.

“As far as we can go,” he said.

That seemed to satisfy William.

When he finally could carry Ellen no more, he laid her against a tree and collapsed beside her. His body ached, with every muscle pushed beyond its means, and it felt as though a stake had been driven into his chest. His breath came in wheezy gasps. They’d been moving for what seemed like an hour, stopping only twice so he could put Ellen down to rest. But this time he feared he might not be able to stand up again. The ground was sodden and cold, but he didn’t care. William sat next to him and curled up against his chest. “Let’s just rest a minute,” he whispered.

William nodded. The boy was shivering.

Ray’s arms and shoulders trembled with exhaustion. He pulled himself closer to Ellen, wrapping her in the robe’s fabric. “Just a few minutes,” he said. “Then we’ll get moving again.”

He felt William’s breath against his neck, and then heard the boy softly crying. And then he started weeping. He wept quietly, but his body shook along with the child’s.

With each sob, William squeezed him tighter.

“What’s that?” William asked.

He’d drifted off—for minutes? Or longer?

A dog barked. It sounded close.

His legs had gone numb. He tried to stand but slid to his knees in the mud. “We have to get going. Now.”

William’s eyes widened. “Are they coming?”

He lifted Ellen onto his back. She muttered something. Was she finally emerging from shock? He’d have to keep her quiet. They needed to move, silently, and she couldn’t start talking now. “Just move. Go.”

More barking. Closer. Probably Sheriff Morton’s K9 units, following their bloody scent as if they’d been dragging a hunk of fresh meat.

He stumbled, and Ellen started to slide off his shoulders. He crouched, hefted her, and tried to run. After three steps, his ankle twisted beneath him, and he fell. Ellen’s weight crushed his face into the mud.

He pulled his head out from beneath her. Wiped mud from his good eye.

A dog bounded toward him, a bouncing shape in the darkness.

“Go,” he said to William. “Run. Run
now
.”

The boy stood immobile.

“Go!” he said. He reached and grabbed the boy’s shirt. Tried to throw him forward.

William started crying, the shotgun pointing upward. He stepped away and shook his head. He wasn’t going to leave them.

The dog stopped a few feet away. It tilted its head. Shook its droopy, long face. Wagged its tail. Then barked again. A bloodhound, of all things.

And then he saw them. Ten or more. Indistinct human shapes emerging over the hill. “Give me the gun, William. Now.” He cursed himself for nodding off. To come this far, so far, only to die at their hands.

William handed him the shotgun. He’d take a few of them down with him. “I’ll fucking shoot you,” he screamed. “I’ll kill you, all of you. Don’t you come near me.”

The dog hopped up on William. It licked his face.

“Ray?”

A familiar voice from the darkness.

“Ray? Ray, don’t shoot. It’s all right. It’s us, Ray.”

Mantu.

He tried to speak, to call out Mantu’s name, but couldn’t. He sobbed so hard, so explosively, that it felt like it would never stop.

William fell on him and squeezed him. Other hands touched him, holding the two of them and Ellen. All around them, safe, warm human hands.

They fled south, crossing the Mexican border inside an eighteen-wheeler packed with LCD televisions, then through Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras in a steamy vegetable truck. Always on the move, never stopping for more than a day or two. Mantu coordinated everything, but left them when they reached a friendly cattle farm in Nicaragua, just outside Camoapa. He’d gotten them passports and credit cards with fake identities. “I have a place for you. Where you’ll be safe. At least for a while.”

When they arrived in Costa Rica, Mantu’s courier gave them the keys to a safe house on the coast of the Osa Peninsula. He’d also tucked a photo into the package—a yellowed image of Micah, his eyes alive and vibrant, standing in front of the church that was now a pile of charred timbers and ash. Ray kept it in his wallet.

Ray would sometimes pick up a newspaper or sit at a computer in a café and read English-language websites until his nerves got the best of him. Mantu had warned him against searching for his name or anything to do with what happened in Blackwater, as it could trigger an alarm at any number of law enforcement agencies. But it wasn’t hard to put together the story: several wealthy industrialists and a few government officials from different corners of the world had died in unusual circumstances in one curious week in August. A collection of bloggers and armchair researchers tried to connect the string of suicides, accidents, and murders in a grand web of conspiracy involving pornography, human trafficking, and organized crime. Few people paid them any attention.

He eventually stopped reading about himself. He was wanted for the murder of nineteen-year-old Crystal Conner in West Virginia. “Conclusive DNA evidence of rape,” the district attorney had said. After that, he’d supposedly blown off the head of his childhood friend, a shady porn kingpin, and dumped the body deep in the woods, where it was found so badly decomposed it was unrecognizable. His DNA showed up there, too, and his fingerprints were all over Kevin’s house. An open-and-shut case, and he had even made it onto the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list.

A waitress he had been seen flirting with had disappeared, along with her young son. Both were presumed dead, and her ex-husband, an Iraq veteran, had sworn he’d find Ray and bring him to justice or die trying. Denny, thank God, had left a one-sentence message on his blog before disappearing:
I’m done with this blog and with Blackwater and I’m moving to Pittsburgh
. Ray still felt sick knowing he’d never get to tell Denny the truth. He wanted to send him an anonymous email, but Mantu warned him any communication could be traced. And any communication could get Denny killed.

The worst was reading quotes from students, friends, and family. Lisa, now the famous former lover of a serial killer, had been hounded for weeks by tabloid TV reporters camped outside her apartment, but she’d never said a word to the press. For that he was grateful.

He might as well have been dead. And, he supposed, he
was
dead—at least, the person he had once been was no longer alive.