Dead Heat (12 page)

A sense of dread descended upon her, but she made her tone as firm and strong as possible. “I don’t know. It’s the truth.
It was there yesterday, I swear.”

Leather Jacket picked up the metal object off the desk. The two men peeled themselves off the wall and came and stood on either
side of her.

She swallowed reflexively. Her mouth and throat felt balled with blotting paper.

Another click of the fingers.

The two men gripped her upper arms and hauled her bodily across the room. She struggled instinctively, bucking and kicking
like a captured rabbit, as they carried her to the table and forced her face down so her cheek was pressed hard against the
wood. Her right hand was forced high behind her back until she screamed, “Don’t, please don’t!”

Infinitesimal pause.

The pressure eased a fraction.

Then her left arm was stretched out flat on the table. Her bandage removed. Her hand was spread wide, pulling the stitches
and making her bite her lip against the pain.

Leather Jacket leaned over to peer into her face. So close she could count the acne scars on his cheekbones. “You had Mingshu’s
bag,” he said. “You hid the disk. You were taking it to Mingshu’s brother, weren’t you? We want to know where Mingjun is.
We want the truth.”

“I wasn’t taking it anywhere,” she moaned. “Suzie gave it to me.”

“Stop lying!”

She felt his spittle on her face and smelled cigarettes on his breath.

“I’m not lying, I swear I don’t know anything.”

“If you know nothing, tell me why you hid the disk!”

“Because of the intruder.”

“Liar!”

“I’m not—”

“See this?”

Leather Jacket brought the metal object into view. She felt her bowels soften. It was a pair of pruning shears. They had a
white plastic handle and a small black button on the side. Slowly, he pressed the small button so the blades sprang free.

A child was screaming, an endless shriek of terror. She realized distantly it was her.

Leather Jacket gripped the third finger of her left hand. Her wedding ring finger. He said, “I ask you for the last time .
. .”

She was yelling and fighting, trying to break free, but there were lead weights on her back, her shoulders and arms. She was
pinned to the table like a live rat to a dissecting table.

He positioned the blades around the second knuckle. She felt the keen steel brush against her finger.

“Where is Lee Denham?”

She could smell her own rank smell of fear. Bitter sweat and vomit and urine. She wanted to cry and scream and plead with
him, but knew it would make no difference. Voice trembling, she said, “If I knew, I would tell you. But I don’t.”

The shears brushed her skin. In that moment, with sudden clarity, Georgia knew this was it. She was going to die. An endless,
painful death. A death of blood and screaming and no dignity, her corpse chopped into pieces and flung into a darkened alley.
There was nothing she could do about it. Nothing.

She’d seen her mother breathing, and knew she was alive. Would they kill her too?

She saw Leather Jacket’s hand squeeze the shears, felt the pressure of the blades. Blood blossomed on her finger.

This is it,
she thought.
This really is it. And I’ve no idea why.

T
he shears cut straight through the flesh of Georgia’s wedding ring finger and through the knuckle and bone with a small crunching
sound.

For a split second the shock was so big, she thought it didn’t hurt.

Then the pain hit.

Screaming black howling shrieking red, it raced from her finger into her hand and up her arm and into her heart, white-hot
as a poker, and she was screaming so hard her voice cracked.

“Where is Mingjun?”

Scalding pain licked at her, scorching her skin, her blood and veins, and she was shuddering and shaking against the weights
pressed on top of her, and as the pain thundered and roared and pulsed, her screams faded into choking gasps.

“If you do not tell us, we will continue until you have no fingers and no toes.”

“Please,” she managed, “help me . . .”

“Where is Lee Denham?” Leather Jacket demanded.

Her voice came out as a whimper. “I don’t know.”

Leather Jacket positioned the shears around her thumb knuckle and she was begging him, pleading with him, but he didn’t seem
to hear.

“One more time,” Leather Jacket said. “Where is he?”

She opened her mouth and yelled and yelled, waiting for more pain, more agony, worse pain . . .

Please God, she prayed, let me faint. Let me die.
Please.

Gradually, she became aware that nothing had happened. Gulping convulsively, she saw Leather Jacket had put the shears down.
He had put them down.

The seconds ticked past. Leather Jacket was saying something to the Suit. The Suit sounded angry. Leather Jacket sounded insistent,
and nobody moved or spoke except Georgia, who couldn’t stop the involuntary whimpering sounds jerking from her throat.

Finally, the Suit spoke. Quietly, almost a murmur.

Leather Jacket picked up her bandage and clicked his fingers at the heavies. They held up her hand. She was saying, no, no,
no as she saw the top third of her finger lying on the table, the bloody mess of her stump showing a splinter of white bone
through the pulp of red, the slightly yellow sheen of cartilage in what used to be her finger pumping,
pouring
blood . . .

“If you tell anyone of this,” Leather Jacket said, “we will find you and we will kill you.”

Leather Jacket reached for her bleeding hand.

“And no police.”

He made to bind her finger with the bandage.

“We have friends in the police. We will hear.”

As the gauze touched her gaping, pulsing stump, the pain rocketed into her head, her brain, and she was shouting again, longing
to faint, praying for oblivion, but it never lessened, and then one of the heavies produced a length of black cloth and blindfolded
her and, gripping her upper arms, they carted her out of the room and down some stairs. She smelled garlic. Then they were
outside, and rain was on her mouth and chin. In a car. She lost track of time as she sat there, unable to see, pain crashing
in her finger, her hand. Eventually the car halted, engine still running. There came the sound of someone getting out of the
car, her door opening.

She was shaking convulsively, unable to believe they were going to let her go. She couldn’t make sense of it. The same thought
went around and around her head:
Please don’t kill me, please don’t kill me.

Someone gripped her arm from outside and pulled her, scrambling and bewildered, into the rain. She stood cupping her left
hand, protecting her damaged finger, which throbbed in a single, sickening black ache. As soon as the men left her, she lurched
violently and fell to her knees. The engine was still running.

She flinched when Leather Jacket spoke close to her right ear.

“I only bound your hand to stop you bleeding all over my car.”

His shoes scrunched as he shifted closer. She felt him push something into her rear jeans pocket.

“So you know how to find us.”

She knelt there, trembling.

“Meantime, we will keep your mother. But only for a week. You have seven days to find Lee Denham and Mingjun before we chop
off all your mother’s fingers and toes and leave her to bleed to death. Then we will come and kill you. Slowly. One knuckle
at a time. Do you understand?”

She gave a jerky nod.

“We will find you wherever you are. You cannot hide from us.”

Another nod, then she heard footsteps crunching lightly on asphalt and two doors slam shut. The automatic transmission kicked
in. With a wet swoosh of tires, the car drove away.

Georgia didn’t dare move. Was it a trap? Was one of the men still there?

The engine hummed into the distance and gradually disappeared. Cradling her throbbing, pounding hand against her chest, she
tilted her head to one side, checking for any sound, but otherwise didn’t move. She didn’t want them to think she might have
seen which way they went and come back to kill her. She tried to ignore the pain pulsing through her and listened some more.
Nothing. Just the patter of rain on leaves. Cautiously, she raised her right hand and pushed the blindfold up and over her
head.

She blinked a few times to clear her vision. Glistening asphalt and rainforest. The air was thick and warm and wet, and she
breathed in deeply. A great choking sob of relief caught her lungs and her head dropped almost to her knees. She wanted to
pray, to thank God for her life, but her mind wasn’t functioning properly. She sprawled there numbly in the rain, shuddering
convulsively.

She wasn’t sure how long it took before any sort of rational thought began, but it had to have been well over ten minutes,
because she realized she was soaked to the skin.

Checking the bandage on her finger, she saw it was already seeping blood and that it needed rebinding. Leather Jacket had
done a sloppy job, but she thought she might either pass out or throw up if she unwound the sodden gauze and saw her stump
right now.

She knew the pain throbbing in her finger was tolerable, but only if she didn’t think about what had happened. It wasn’t the
pain as much as what it
meant.

Resolutely, she turned her mind away from her finger and concentrated on getting to her feet. It took her two tries, but then
she was upright, swaying slightly, and looking up and down the dark, rain-puddled road. In her pain she didn’t recognize it.
Were they near Nulgarra?

Instinct told her the thugs would have driven toward a town, wherever they were, so she started walking in the direction they’d
driven. She felt so weak and drained that it was more of a shamble than a walk, but at least she was moving.

It was still raining when she heard an engine in the distance. Turning, she saw a pair of headlights cutting through the darkness
behind. Her legs were desperately tired and it wasn’t because she’d been walking for that long, maybe half an hour or so,
but her body was reacting to the shock and stress and simply wanted to rest.

She stood in the middle of the road and waved. Immediately the car slowed as the revs were cut, then it lurched to a rocking
stop and a man leaped out and ran for her, his face a pale white shape in the headlights. He wore a long white robe and sandals.
For a second she thought she was hallucinating. He looked like Lawrence of Arabia.

“Are you all right? What happened? What are you doing all the way out here?”

“I’m just a bit wet, that’s all. Thanks for stopping.” Her voice was surprisingly calm through her chattering teeth.

The man made to touch her arm and Georgia flinched.

“You’re hurt,” he said, expression mortified. “You’ve blood everywhere. Do you want me to call the police?”

“No!” Georgia could feel her features stiffen in horror. “No police!”

The man paused, then said cautiously, “How about a doctor?”

Georgia shook her head and headed for his car. She heard his footsteps behind her. Following her.

“You need a hospital, there’s so much blood. Your jeans . . .”

He sounded tense and anxious. Georgia ignored him and clambered inside the car, pulling the door shut and buckling up. She
covered her bandaged finger with her right hand. She was shivering and aching all over. Her head was thundering. She felt
like she might be sick.

A click, then the sounds of the man climbing inside the car, slamming shut his door. The sound of a seat belt being buckled.

Small silence.

“My name’s Yumuru.”

“Georgia.”

“Georgia, let me take you to a hospital. Please.”

She gritted her teeth against his gentle tone.

He started the engine. “Okay. How about the Lotus Healing Center? It has a wonderful clinic. Mind you, I would say that, since
I run the place. And I won’t report anything to the police if you don’t want.”

She couldn’t think where else to go, so she gave a small nod.

“I’ll check you over when we get there. Then you can rest up for as long as you like.”

T
hey weren’t far from Nulgarra after all, and when Yumuru slowed down before a driveway on the edge of town, Georgia could
hardly believe it. The headlights lit a familiar bend in the road and an ancient fig tree she recognized, but instead of a
small notice hammered into the tree saying “Free Spirits Welcome,” there was a large new wooden sign—“Lotus Healing Center.”

“This is it?” she asked incredulously, as he turned the car down the drive.

“Yup.”

It was where the commune used to be. She’d lived here for nine years with her mother and sister and, it seemed, dozens of
other free spirits. When the land had been sold and they’d been forced to leave, none of them returned. They couldn’t bear
to see what the developer had done to their home.

“The road’s been graded,” she said. “It must have cost a fortune.”

“Two hundred grand. It’s worth it, though. I get patients from all over the country, some from overseas too. Not all of them
appreciate being shaken, rattled, and rolled down the drive.”

She saw that the rickety phone pylons had gone and assumed the lines were now underground. Not that the commune had had phones
in every cabin, just the one in the cookhouse, left by the previous owner, who had abandoned his run-down property. Her mother’s
boyfriend at the time hadn’t wanted it reconnected when they moved in, but Linette had insisted, for emergencies.

Yumuru looked across at her, then back at the headlights cutting across the forest-lined road. She couldn’t make out much
of him in the gloom of the car, except that he had a well-defined profile and curly black hair flowing in luxuriant waves
from a high forehead and caught in a ponytail at his nape.

“You’ve been here before?”

“I used to live here.” Georgia’s tone was faint.

“Not the commune?”