More of them.
He needs to get out of there.
Then, in the weak light behind the cylindrical column, a figure appears. A teenage girl. Her cheeks are streaked in dirt-laced tears. Her eyes dart to Chris, then to the kid with the bandage, back and forth.
And then she mouths two silent but unmistakable words to Chris: Help me.
Chris’s heart bangs hard, his mouth sandpaper.
He knows he should give the kid what he wants, then turn and run.
But he’s tired of being afraid. And he’s not leaving her.
When he looks back at the kid, Chris notices he’s moved a few steps closer. “Okay,” he says, “here’s the wallet.” He reaches in his back pocket, then throws his wallet toward the kid. When the kid bends down for the prize, Chris will charge.
But the kid has street smarts and doesn’t take the bait.
Chris’s eyes flick to the girl. Trauma and shock radiate from her.
The kid is advancing and the knife has come up.
“Give me the watch.” He’s only a few feet away now. “And I’ll take the shirt while you’re at it.”
Chris can’t argue with the boy’s clothing needs. He’s almost lathered in street grime. His face is dirty, his arms are dirty. His jeans could probably stand on their own. There’s nothing clean about him except the bandage covering his nose.
Chris reaches slowly to his watch band and unclasps it. When the kid’s gaze locks on the watch, Chris makes his move: he bats the knife arm aside and rams his forehead squarely into the center of his attacker’s face. The bandage is his bull’s-eye. He feels cartilage crunch, the kid howls.
The boy staggers backward. One hand covering his face, the other waving the knife wildly. The girl has come out of the shadows.
“Run!” Chris yells to her.
With bare feet she races past him and into the darkness. Chris suffers a wave of nausea as he realizes she’s not wearing pants.
The boy continues to push toward Chris, the knife slashing the air, blood pouring from his nose.
Chris jumps back, avoiding the arc of the blade, then connects a punch on the bloody red bandage, which elicits another wail of pain. The kid’s unsteady on his feet. Chris charges him, grabbing his wrist to keep the knife at bay, using his weight to knock the kid to the ground. Still holding his wrist, Chris slams the kid’s hand against the earth over and over until the knife skitters away. The kid’s whimpering now. Chris rolls off him and springs to his feet.
Chris stands over him. He yanks out his phone, dials 911, tells the operator his coordinates on the phone’s GPS.
The kid will live. In the distance, Chris sees the silhouette of the girl still running. He feels a flood of melancholy watching her.
Then he feels something else. A new emotion washes over him: pride. And he has an epiphany. This is how he wants to feel in his life.
His glance turns back to the groaning kid who’s still on the ground. The boy’s eyes raise to meet Chris’s. They widen, like he’s looking at something behind Chris.
Chris turns to look, when he feels a crushing blow to the head. Instantly, he’s on the ground. He sees starbursts, debilitating pain, then feels a boot in his stomach, ripping the wind out of him. His watch is torn from his wrist. He tries to speak, but can’t form the words.
The figure, carrying a large branch the size of a baseball bat, walks over to the kid with the bandage. He kicks him in the ribs. Then searches his pockets. The figure drifts into the gloom. And Chris drifts away as well.
DAY 3
CHAPTER 51
KELLER
“You got a positive ID on the body yet?” Hal asks, taking a sip from his coffee mug, wincing at the awful brew. The blinds in his office are open, giving the room a gray hue from the gloomy morning outside.
“It’ll take a day or two for the DNA results, but her purse was in the barrel,” Keller says. “And Atticus is tracking down dental records, so we’ll get confirmation soon. But it’s her.”
Mary Whitaker.
Wife of Rusty. Mother of Vince and Chris. The woman who reportedly ran off nearly twenty years ago, but was actually rotting inside a steel drum at a storage unit near the sewage plant.
“What’s the husband say?”
“Four words: ‘I want a lawyer.’”
“I guess he’s not such a dumb son-of-a-bitch after all. Unless you count the years he had to get rid of the body.” Hal’s phone rings and he gets an annoyed look on his face as he waits for his secretary to answer the line. “The media’s gonna go nuts once they learn the victim is Vince Whitaker’s mother. Let me know when you get a positive ID. We’ll need to release a statement.”