Deceived (A Hannah Smith Novel) (23 page)

When I felt a series of stings on my left ankle, it was a reminder. I slapped the ants off my shoe, then went staggering toward the doctor, calling, “I’ll help—stop running!” But I was thinking,
You’re a fool, Hannah Smith . . . a fool.

No doubt about it, because, moments later, a van roared into the clearing—a commercial van with only one headlight and pulling machinery.

The driver was Harris Spooner, his ZZ Top beard angelic silver when he leered at me through an open window. Walkin’ Levi Thurloe was beside him, riding shotgun while staring straight ahead.

The machinery they were towing was the tire shredder.

Harris Spooner was in a rage but speaking to someone in authority so tried to sound respectful as he said into a phone, “I know . . . I know, but shit happens. If she hadn’t swung at me, she’d still be alive. And now Dr. Candor is having a reaction ’cause of them damn ant bites. Eyes all swollen—gezzus, a mess. So it’s not like she can give the woman a shot and bring her back to life.”

When he said that, I knew the body I had been placed next to was Birdy Tupplemeyer. Until then, I had only feared the possibility because she had been wrapped in plastic and covered by bags of trash, all thrown there in one heap by Spooner or Walkin’ Levi.

Either man was strong enough to do it, as I’d found out. When I tried to fight my way to my SUV, Spooner had grabbed me by the shoulders, lifted me off the ground, and shook me like a rag doll while screaming, “Cops searched my trailer ’cause of you! Now you’ve pissed off the doctor, so it’s not like I don’t have a
reason
.”

I stopped fighting then. It was smarter to pretend I was woozy, almost unconscious, from the drug Alice Candor had given me. The last time I’d seen the doctor, she was having trouble breathing but still coherent and mad enough to tell the men, “Get rid of that vicious bitch, too, or no more fentanyl! Either one of them could’ve ruined it all.”

Meaning, they should kill me, then put my body through the shredder along with Birdy. When I heard that, I was so shaken it had taken all my willpower not to struggle while Levi used what smelled like anchor line to tie me, then duct-taped my mouth. It was my hope he wouldn’t tie my wrists and ankles as tightly if I was passive.

I was right. Levi did as he was told—tied my hands behind my back, then lashed my legs—but he’d left the knots so loose I was now wondering if it was because I had defended him from bullies when we were younger. If that was true, maybe I had an ally. Levi hadn’t said a word to me—or anyone, for that matter—but had handled me gently while lifting me into the back of the van, which had no seats, and was empty but for a bunch of tools, and what might have been garbage sacks piled on the body of my dead friend.

Another point in my favor, I hoped, was that Harris Spooner was sporting white earbuds and Levi was still missing his. I had managed to knock the iPod from Levi’s shirt during our struggle, and Spooner had called Levi the foulest of names when Levi attempted to retrieve his favorite source of music.

But did any of that matter? Alice Candor had a hold on both men, as I found out when Spooner said into the phone, “I don’t give a shit what you say,
she’s
the one who fills our prescriptions. Levi’s jonesing so bad, he’s shaking—and I’m
right there
. So I hope you told the clinic to send something along when they come get her. No . . . a couple of vials, not just patches!”

There was a long silence. Finally, Spooner said, “Even if you get a judge to sign, she’s gonna be a problem,” which confused me. There was a third woman somehow involved in tonight’s events? It sparked a brief hope in me that it wasn’t Birdy they had killed—but that ended when he got back to Dr. Candor, saying, “She’s sitting in the goddamn BMW with the air-conditioning, what do you expect? Now I’ve got to get rid of that, too—as if I don’t have enough shit to deal with! Car’s gonna have to sit here ’till midnight unless you find Mica and he comes with the wrecker.”

When he said that, I wondered:
Why didn’t he mention my SUV?
Did the person he was speaking with know I was in the van? Spooner didn’t offer any clues when he told the person, “Damn it, at least four vials! After what we’re doing for that quack tonight?”

For several minutes, I had been lying in darkness, the van’s engine running, while the men waited for someone from the clinic to arrive with transportation and a shot of Benadryl, which Dr. Candor had ordered. Now another drug, fentanyl, had been added to the list.

Fentanyl.
Was that what Candor had injected into my neck? It was addictive, obviously, and not long-acting because my sense of euphoria was long gone. No wonder Spooner and Levi were so desperate. No matter how many times I’d stood up to the bullies, I realized, Levi would do as he was told.

But what about the person Harris Spooner was talking to? It was someone Spooner had to at least pretend to respect, so maybe the person would help me. Only two possibilities came into my mind: Joel or Mr. Harney Chatham. Alice Candor had known I ignored the false texts from Birdy’s phone—probably last-minute information, so she’d had no choice but to be here waiting for me. I already suspected that Joel or Mr. Chatham had hidden a GPS on my vehicle, so only they could have warned her. But would either man allow me to be murdered, then put into a tire shredder?

No . . . Joel had a temper, but he liked me. Mr. Chatham’s tears for my mother had been real. It wasn’t
possible
.

I had been working at freeing myself from Levi’s knots but now concentrated on the duct tape, using a loose floor rivet as a cutting edge. Scrape the tape from my mouth and I could shout out Joel’s name, yell a reminder that Loretta’s daughter was about to be killed.

Too late—and pointless, it turned out.

“I’m not doin’ shit until you get here,” Spooner told Joel or Mr. Chatham. “If I go down for this, you’re going down, so get moving.” Then he said in a rush, “Guy from the clinic’s here,” and hung up the phone.

I was lying on my side. Car lights sailed across the roof of the van; a window opened to allow a muffled conversation. A minute later, I heard air bubbles being tapped from syringes, then the
Awwwww
sound of a man who felt relief.

“Let’s get ’er done!” Harris Spooner said, sounding optimistic for a change.

Walkin’ Levi replied,
“Good.”

•   •   •

JOEL OR MR. CHATHAM
would be there to witness my murder?

I still couldn’t believe it, but that’s what was going through my mind as I felt the van jolt onto pavement, turn right, and gain speed. Spooner had given one of them an ultimatum. I had heard him clearly enough.
If I’m going down, you’re going down . . .

It was sickening to know I could have been so easily fooled.
Me
—the fourth Hannah Smith, in five generations of women, to die because of poor judgment when it came to men. I wanted to scream, throw myself against the walls and beg God for another chance. I had told Mr. Chatham the truth about church attendance. I went weekly because I believe in God’s mercy and in the power of prayer. After such devotion, why was He allowing this to happen? And why had He destined the women in our family to repeat the same fatal error? It wasn’t fair!

Life isn’t meant to be fair—so grow up and get on with it.

My Uncle Jake, who was not a churchgoer and who had killed three men in the line of duty, had often said that. Something else he often said was
God helps those who help themselves.
Both embraced a
No excuses, keep fighting
philosophy that had guided his life, so had guided mine, too, especially during my rough stretches. It was something to cling to now and calmed the panic that was overwhelming me.

You’re not going to let them do this to you,
I decided.
Get to work!

I did. It was hard enough to breathe after a needle in the throat, so I had finished nicking away at the duct tape. The tape hung from my face but no longer covered my mouth. Now I focused on freeing myself from the rope.

When Levi had tied me, he’d used what I was convinced was an anchor line. Good braided nylon that had the smell of copper bottom paint and saltwater. He hadn’t cut it—people who know boats seldom cut good anchor line—so the rope lay scattered beneath me like spaghetti. That made it difficult to judge which sections to deal with. My hands were behind my back so I had to make decisions based on touch. Levi had allowed my wrists enough room to move, but not enough to yank my hands free. He’d used what, so far, were good knots, except for an attempted bowline that had cinched down on itself and might require pliers to untie. Then he’d finished by connecting my hands and ankles with half hitches so I was trussed like a steer at a rodeo.

My fingers, though, had already solved the problem of the half hitches. I loosened a final hitch and kicked my legs free of my hands. My wrists and ankles were still bound, but I has halfway there. Next step was to pull my knees into a fetal position, then maneuver my feet through my hands—sort of like skipping rope. Once my hands were in front of me, I could free my ankles, no problem.

That’s what I was doing when I felt the van brake and heard Harris Spooner say, “Shit! I just thought of something. If the cops stop us, we’re meat. We’ve gotta stay closer to home.”

Just as suddenly, he yanked the van to the side of the road. Because I was balled up like a contortionist when he did it, I tumbled sideways while tools went clattering across the floor. When we were stopped, I realized I had been spared hitting the wall by a mound of trash and the body of Birdy Tupplemeyer.

Poor dead girl,
I thought, pressing my cheek against the plastic.
You’re still warm.

Through the screened bulkhead, I heard Spooner once again say, “Shit!” Then he sought counsel from Levi. “It’ll take forever to turn this sonuvabitch around. Think I should use the Hess station again?”

In a flat tone, Levi replied, “Good.”

Spooner said, “
Good?
Guess that’s what I deserve for asking a damn retard. We got a headlight out, dickweed. You ever hear of something called the po-lice? I’m gonna swing this wagon train around, then tell the man there’s a change in plans.”

The shredding machine, I realized, made turning difficult. I was also remembering the first time I had seen the van. It had disappeared north onto an unnoticed farm lane that might lead to tomatoes and citrus groves but also had to pass close to the cypress pond. Because of the bad headlight, Spooner was being smart and had chosen an alternative spot to get rid of our bodies.

The pond I’d seen last night, a black mirror of lily pads and glowing red eyes.

Alligators eat them all,
I had joked to Birdy after she had asked about snakes on Cushing Key.

I pressed my check to the plastic again and whispered, “I will
try . . .
”

I will try to stop them from shredding your body . . .

That’s what I meant, which was the best I could do. A promise to a dead friend is still a promise and I was soon glad I had hedged because the unseen road wasn’t a road. It was a fire trail, possibly, rough, with lots of potholes. Spooner drove fast anyway, so I took a beating while I tried to untie myself. I bounced high off the floor several times; could hear the thunk
of my friend’s head hammer against metal—an indignity worse than a strip mall cemetery.

But I kept at it.

If the pond had been farther from the main road, I might have had time, but the van crunched to a stop after only a couple hundred yards. I had freed my ankles and was using my teeth to loosen knots at my wrists when I heard Spooner tell Levi, “Get your ass out there and stand so I can see you in the mirror.”

A door opened and slammed shut. I felt the transmission clunk into reverse. Then the van began backing toward what I knew was the pond because Harris provided a running commentary. “Not there, goddamn it, the driver’s side! Find you a patch’a dry ground—yeah!—now closer to the water. Don’t let me sink them tires, Levi. Okay . . . okay . . . but, goddamn it, where I can
see
, dickweed! This bitch weighs a ton-plus!”

While the van continued backing, I worked faster, using my teeth to pull a series of half hitches free. The anchor line was short by most standards, used for shallow commercial fishing, I guessed, but maddeningly long for what I had to do. Each knot required that I extract several yards of rope through a loop before I could move on to the next knot, so my head fanned back and forth—bite the rope and pull . . . bite the rope and pull. Two or three more loops and I’d be able to part my hands. Once my hands were separated, and if I didn’t run into another bad knot, I would soon be free.

Then what?

I didn’t stop what I was doing, but my eyes shifted to the tools that had been sliding around in the back. It was too dark to identify much, but the shape of a spade-headed shovel is distinctive.

There was my answer—use the shovel to brain the first man who opened the sliding door, then run. Spooner was too old and fat to catch me. We weren’t far from the cemetery where my SUV was parked. If someone had taken my keys, there was also Birdy’s BMW.

Would that work?

No . . . I hadn’t thought it through. What if it was Levi I had to outrun? He was twice my size, all muscle, and the legs of a man named Walkin’ Levi would be in good shape.

There was something else wrong with the plan. Even if I managed to escape and bring back help, it wouldn’t be in time to spare Birdy Tupplemeyer’s body the obscenity of being spewed into a pond where alligators were waiting to feed. The thought was horrifying yet didn’t alter a more compelling fact: if I had no choice but to run, I would run. I wasn’t going to die to save a dead friend. But was there a better option?

Yes . . . a new scenario popped into my mind:

Hit the first man with the shovel, jump behind the wheel, and drive off!

I liked that. Just me and Birdy, towing a one-ton tire shredder in a vehicle that had a bad headlight so was just begging to be stopped by police. If a squad car didn’t appear, there was always the Hess station three miles down the road.

The van stopped. Spooner got out but left the engine running—maybe to supply power to the shredder.

Good. Easier for me to steal the thing!

A second later, though, my confidence was shaken when Spooner said to Levi, “Put this on—the hood and gloves, too, dumbass, unless you want blood ’n’ shit all over your clothes. You’ll have to use an axe or that auger will jam.”

Terrifying words to hear, but then I comforted myself with a detail that might buy me enough time: Spooner had told Joel, or Mr. Chatham,
I’m not doing shit until you get here
. Spooner had changed their meeting place, too, which would mean more delay, hopefully. Thus far, no headlights had pierced the van’s windows.

Don’t quit,
I told myself.
You’re almost there.

It was true. I had cleared the last half hitch, so could now separate my hands enough to work at the knots on my wrists. After that, all I had to do was deal with the jumbled bowline loop that Levi had used as a starter and I would be ready.

It almost happened. I had wormed my left hand almost free and was on my feet when the van’s back doors flew open. Instantly, I collapsed into a ball and tried to pretend I was still tied and unconscious. Thank god no dome light, but had Spooner or Levi seen me? I didn’t know which man had opened the doors and it didn’t matter. I lay there curled next to Birdy’s breathless body and tried not to breathe. My ears remained alert, however, and noted the clank of tools being moved as if the man was making a selection—looking for an axe, perhaps. Soon, I hoped, the doors would slam closed.

They didn’t. It was Harris Spooner, multitasking, talking on a phone, while he searched for the tool he needed. Attempting deference again, too, so it was Joel, or Mr. Chatham, on the other end who listened to him explain, “Done told you! The woman had enough drugs in her to drop a horse but tried to scratch my eyes out anyway—then kicked me in the nuts!” After a pause, Spooner sounded proud of himself when he added, “My knife, of course. The crazies would’a heard a gun.”

In my mind, I scooted closer to Birdy, but, in fact, I lacked the courage to move. What came next, though, was so infuriating, it was hard not to react. Spooner saying, “The doctor says she’ll sign a paper to prove the woman was crazy. You get a judge to postdate it, then folks’ll believe she run off and left all her shit where she lives.”

I had to run, too, I realized, and stop worrying about my friend’s body. And I would the first chance I got because Spooner was suddenly giving directions, saying, “Yeah, you’re at the right place. That fire grade’s rough, but ain’t too bad—only couple a hundred yards. You in the truck or your good car?”

Had Joel mentioned owning a truck?
That’s what I was wondering but didn’t much care when Spooner yelled to Levi, “Fire up the shredder, dickweed! I can see his lights!”

Through my eyelids, I saw nothing but darkness. And I remained hidden in that darkness for another full minute before the approaching vehicle illuminated the van and Harris Spooner saw that something wasn’t quite right.

I felt his weight sink the floor beneath me as if taking a closer look. He was, and a moment later he hollered, “You messed up again, Levi! Mr. Chatham’s gonna have your—”

That’s all I heard before the tire shredder woofed,
then shrieked into readiness. I was already lunging for the van’s side door.