Good Day In Hell (29 page)

Oscar awoke to Angela’s hand on his shoulder. He blinked up at her for a moment, then started to get up from the chair where he had been dozing. She pushed him back down and gave him a kiss on top of the head.

“How’s she doing?” she asked softly.

Oscar looked at the draped figure in the hospital bed. Marie’s face was almost as pale as the pillow on which she lay. Her eyes were closed. A small oxygen mask covered her nose. Other tubes and cables disappeared under the sheet.

“The doctors say it is too early to tell,” Oscar said. “She lost a great deal of blood.”

“How’s her dad?”

Oscar grimaced. “Not well,” he said. “He is trying to reach Marie’s husband.”

“Ex-husband,” Angela corrected automatically.

“Yes,” Oscar said. “He is angry. Her father, I mean. Angry that the husband is not here. He is also very angry at Jack.”

Angela nodded. “I’ll bet.”

“Where is Jack?” Oscar said. “Is he out of the jail?”

Angela closed her eyes. “Yeah,” she said. “But he left.”

“Did Dr. Berry …?”

Angela shook her head. “He wouldn’t talk to Lucas. He wouldn’t talk to anybody. He just … left.” She smiled weakly at Oscar. “It was a good idea you had to call Lucas, though.”

Frank Jones came in, his face set. “You people,” he said, “need to get out of here.”

Angela stood up. “Mr. Jones,” she said. “I’m sorry …”

Jones’s face seemed to collapse. “Sorry,” he said, his voice hollow. “My baby girl’s lying there half-dead and you’re sorry.” He turned to them. “Now get the hell out.”

They looked at each other helplessly, then picked up their coats. “Mister Jones,” Angela said, “if Jack Keller comes by …”

“He’s gone,” he said. “And he won’t be coming back.”

“Why?” Angela said. “What did you say to him?”

“I told him she was dead,” Jones said.

“Madre de Dios,” Oscar breathed.

“Why?” Angela whispered. “Why would you do that?”

He turned to them, his face bleak. “I wanted him gone,” he said simply. “For good.”

“You stupid bastard,” Angela said. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

“Get out,” was all he said. They rode the elevator down and walked to the parking lot in silence. “He is in pain,” was all Oscar said as they approached her truck. She didn’t answer, just shook her head. She noticed the paper folded under her wiper. She took it out and unfolded it. Her normally pale face became ashen as he read it. “Oh, my God,” she whispered.

“What?” Oscar said.

Angela handed the paper to him. “It’s from Jack,” she said. “It’s his resignation. He’s quit his job with H & H Bail Bonds.”

Oscar’s brow furrowed. “I do not understand.”

“It means,” she said grimly, “that no one can say that anything he does now is done as my employee. So I can’t be held responsible.”

“He is going after the girl,” Oscar said. “And when he finds her … I do not think he will be trying to bring her back alive. And if he kills her … if he crosses that line …”

“I know,” Angela said.

The streets of Fayetteville were mostly deserted this time of the morning. Even the most dedicated bar-crawlers had finished the last-call drinks, satisfied their late-night munchies in the few all-night diners and the Krispy Kreme doughnut shops, and shambled off to bed. Only a few cars cruised slowly on Bragg Boulevard, their headlights adding little to the white-orange glow of the halogen street lamps, the hard white of lights in front of the empty businesses, and the brief splashes of neon color.

Keller took an exit off Bragg Boulevard, then a turn, then another turn, driving mechanically, as if on autopilot. He knew exactly where he was going. Laurel only had one place left to go, and therefore, so did he.

His cell phone buzzed. He looked at the caller ID. It was Angela. He hit the “Ignore” button.

The lights became fewer and farther between, until he was rolling through a darkened countryside. Since he had been cut loose from the police station, he had felt a sound at the edge of hearing, oscillating between the drumbeat of his blood and the remembered pounding of chopper blades. From time to time, he looked out the windows and saw the desert, the dirt and gravel wasteland blasted and crushed by the pitiless eternal hammer of the sun. He knew it was a hallucination, that beyond the darkness was the lush green landscape he knew so well. He knew it was a hallucination and he didn’t care. He knew he should care, that not caring was a sign of something seriously wrong with him, but that was just another layer of things he didn’t care about.

For the years since the war, his life had been like the desert, a desiccated wasteland devoid of human life. Angela had showed him that maybe, just maybe, there was a way out. Marie had been that way. For the short time he had known her, Keller had been fully human again. And now she was gone. He had been cast back into the outer darkness. This hunt, and his quarry, had taken everything from him, but the hunt was all he had left. After that, there’d be nothing.

Grace Tranh was brushing her teeth when her cell phone rang. She was inwardly raging about missing the story about the shoot-out at the farm. Someone
else had gotten the call on that one. I’m going to cut Howard Reed’s balls off for this, she fumed, and have a goddamn necklace made out of them.

The sound of the running water almost made her miss the ring. She shut the tap off in time to hear it. She fairly flew to the bedside table and scooped up the phone. She saw the number on the caller ID and her heart began pounding. She flipped the phone open.

“Hello?” she said.

“The story’s almost over,” a female voice said. “You wanna be there for the end?”

“What are you going to do?” Grace said.

“I’m going to make sure everybody knows the truth,” the voice said. “About a lot of things. You care about the truth?”

“I’m a reporter,” Grace said.

There was a mirthless chuckle on the other end. “That ain’t no answer,” the voice said. “Get a pencil. You got some people you need to talk to.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

Keller slowed as he approached the gate. It was wide open. The guardhouse looked deserted. He looked it over warily. It was a moment before he saw the smear of blood on the lower sill of the window. Keller stopped the car and got out, pulling the shotgun from the rack by the driver’s seat. He left the engine running.

The guard was lying on the floor of the guardhouse. One side of his head was oddly misshapen and his face was covered in gore. Keller bent down and felt for the pulse in the neck. There was none.

Keller stood up. He felt the throbbing of blood in his temples again, like the distant thrumming of helicopter rotors. He climbed back into the car and drove on.

As Keller pulled into the driveway of the Marks home, he saw a car parked there. The last time he had seen that car was in the driveway of Shelby’s house. She was here. Keller stopped the car and got out. He stood for a moment and looked the place over. It was silent. There was no movement inside. He walked up to the front door and tried the knob. He was surprised to find it unlocked. Silently, he opened the door. It swung wide open, revealing the darkened, silent hallway beyond. Keller moved inside.

“Who’s there?” The sound of Ellen Marks’s voice startled Keller and his finger tightened on the trigger. He moved down the hallway, not answering.

“Please,” Ellen said. Her voice was ragged, as if she’d been weeping. “Don’t come any closer. She’ll kill him.”

“I’ll do it, too,” Laurel called out. “ ‘Less you tell me who the fuck you are.”

Keller cursed to himself. “It’s Jack Keller,” he called out.

There was a brief murmur of conversation, then Laurel said, “Well come on in.” Her voice sounded incongruously cheerful, almost playful. There wasn’t a trace of fear.

As Keller walked slowly into the living room, he saw why. The curtains were drawn across the picture window, shutting out the morning light. In the gloom, Keller could barely make out the figure of Curt Marks kneeling on the floor in front of the couch. All Keller could see of his face were his terrified eyes and his mouth.
The rest of his head was swathed in a cocoon of dull silver duct tape. The tape went from the back of his head to wrap around the double barrels of a 12-gauge shotgun, effectively fixing the weapon to the back of his head. Another clumsily applied lump of tape affixed Laurel’s hand and wrist to the other end of the gun. Her finger was on the trigger.

“I ain’t goin’ nowhere,” Laurel said. “So you better put that thing down or I’ll splatter his head all over the fuckin’ room.”

Keller didn’t move. He held his own shotgun trained on Laurel. “I didn’t come to take you back, Laurel,” he said.

They looked into each other’s eyes for a moment as realization slowly dawned on her. Then Laurel smiled, a ghastly rictus without humor or joy. “Well,” she said. “Guess Roy killed your sweetie back there. Looks like neither of us gives a shit anymore.”

“Looks like it,” Keller replied. He started to raise the shotgun. Ellen Marks’s voice cut through the darkened room. “Please,” she sobbed. “Don’t do it. Please. Please, don’t.” Keller cut his eyes slightly to the side, keeping Laurel in his field of vision. He saw Ellen Marks in a chair to one side. Her wrists were bound to the arms of the chair with more duct tape. “Please,” she said again, her voice a croak. “Don’t.”

“Ain’t that sweet?” Laurel sneered. “She doesn’t want anything bad to happen to her precious boy.” She gave the gun barrel a little shove. Curt moaned in fear. “Too bad she didn’t care so much about me.”

“That’s not true, Laurel,” her mother said. “I don’t—”

“Save it, Mama,” Laurel snapped. “I didn’t see you sayin’ ‘please don’t’ when Daddy was comin’ in my room every night.” Her voice broke. “Only one sayin’ that was me. And no one was listenin’.”

“I didn’t know,” Ellen whispered. “I didn’t know …”

“BULLSHIT!” Laurel screamed. “You didn’t WANT to fucking know! You drank yourself stupid every night so you wouldn’t have to know! Because you didn’t want to ever get your fucking HANDS DIRTY again!” She had risen to her feet, pushing Curt forward. He cried out, putting his hands out in front of him to keep from hitting his face on the carpet. He knelt there, sobbing, as Laurel stood over him.

“And you,” she spat down. “My big brother. You knew. You knew what he was doin’ to me. But you made me lie. You told me to take it all back.” She looked up at Keller. Her face was wet with tears. “You know why, Jack? You know why he made me lie? You know why he wanted to come back? Tell him, Curtis.” Curtis’s only response was a sob. Tears dripped onto the carpet.

“What’s a matter, big brother?” Laurel said. “Cat got your tongue? Well, I’ll tell it then.” She looked up at Keller. “Social Services took us out of the house. Out of this nice house. They put us in foster care. We were with some nice folks. They were … they were just nice. But Curt didn’t like them, did you? Did you?” She gave the gun another shove. “ANSWER ME!” she yelled.

“No,” Curt blubbered. “It was horrible.”

“It was just a trailer, Curtis,” she whispered, “a little single-wide. But you liked the nice stuff too much. Just like Mama.” She looked up at Keller again. “Plus, his friends made fun of him. Teased him about livin’ in a trailer. He really hated that.” She addressed the weeping boy again. “I would have done anything for you, Curtis,” she said. “Anything. An’ I did. I came back here. For you. So you could have the nice stuff.” She looked up and wiped her eyes with the back of her free hand. “An’ I was stupid,” she said. “I figured Daddy would stop once he knew I’d tell. But he came back to me the first night we were back. He … he was laughing. He said he could do anything he wanted now because no one would ever believe a word I said again. And he was right. So take the shot, Jack. Kill me, I kill him. Everybody’s happy.”

“No,” Ellen said. “Don’t do it, Jack. Please. Put the gun down.”

Keller looked at them both for a long moment. The only sound in the darkened room was Curt’s sobbing. Then he slowly lowered the shotgun. Laurel’s smile was like an open bloodless wound. “Put it on the floor. Kick it over here with your foot.” Keller obeyed, his eyes fixed on Laurel. “You and I aren’t done yet,” he said.

“We’ll see,” she said. The phone on the side table rang.

“You better get that,” Laurel told Keller. “I’m expectin’ a call.”

Keller picked up the receiver. “Hello?” he said.

“This is Special Agent Sanderson of the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” a voice said. “We have the house surrounded. Who am I talking to?”

“Keller?” Sanderson said into the cell phone. He glanced up at the uniformed Wilmington PD officers taking up positions around the house. “Jack Keller? What the hell are you doing in there?”

“I came after Laurel Marks,” Keller replied.

Sanderson tried to keep his voice from shaking. This was the first time he had been in a situation like this and he felt out of his depth. “Mister Keller,” he said, “we got a phone call about a hostage situation in that house.”

“I’d say your info was pretty accurate,” Keller replied.

“Keller, if you’re holding someone in there …”

“Not me,” Keller said. “But Laurel Marks is holding a shotgun to her brother’s head. Her mother’s secured to a chair.”