Bad Things (42 page)

B A D T H I N G S 307

up the slope and fi nally had to break out of the trees again and into

the pounding rain for the fi nal stretch.

Nobody shot at me again before I made it to the fence and swung

myself over, grunting at the way this made my side feel.

I landed more or less on my feet on the other side, and fi nally

looked back. One of the men was down by the lake. I couldn’t see the

other and didn’t wait to fi nd out where he was. There was no way I

could make it all the way back to town on foot, and there was only one

alternative I could think of.

I took a couple of big breaths, and started to run up the road.

C H A P T E R 4 1

When I made it to the end of the driveway I saw there was a light on

over the door of the house. Didn’t necessarily mean anyone was in,

but all three cars were still parked by the barn, and I was soaked and

hurt and was determined to try regardless.

I stumbled up to the door and leaned on the bell, peering in

through the cobbled glass panel in the top half. It was murky be-

yond, but after a few minutes I saw an interior light go on and a

fi gure approaching.

The door was opened. When Collins saw who it was he tried to

shut the door again immediately.

“Nope,” I said, and pushed my way in.

“You’ve got no right,” he said, keeping his voice down. “This is

my—”

He stopped, apparently staring at my stomach. I looked down

and saw all the clothing on my right side was soaked red.

I pulled my coat aside and only then saw how lucky I’d been to

get away with a only ragged gash along the side of my ribs. A couple

of degrees the other way and I would now be lying facedown in the

woods.

“What . . . what . . .”

B A D T H I N G S 309

“I’ve been shot,” I said. “The guys who did it are out there look-

ing for me. Maybe they’ll guess I ran this way. The less time I’m here,

the better it is for you.”

“I’m going to call the cops.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Who is it?” called a female voice.

It was Collins’s wife, a few rooms away, probably curled up in

front of whatever television show the man had been happily watching

before a rain-soaked and bleeding stranger pushed his way into his

life.

“Someone needing directions,” I said quietly. “Do it, or I’m going

to fuck you up.”

“Just some guy who got lost,” the man called out, closing the

front door. “You . . . you want a coffee?”

“Sure,” she said, sounding touched. “Thank you, honey.”

I followed him down a corridor and into a large kitchen, safely

away from the entrance hallway. It was the cleanest kitchen I’d ever

seen.

“I need two things from you,” I said. “First is to use your phone.”

I spotted one over on the counter, and went over to it, dripping sec-

ondhand rain all over the pale limestone fl oor. Some of the water had

red in it.

“Who shot you?”

“I actually don’t know. Funny old world, right?”

I dialed directory assistance and asked to be put through to the

Black Ridge Sheriff’s Department. While I waited I went to the win-

dow and watched the top of the driveway. It wouldn’t be long now

before it was full dark, but I could still see if anyone appeared at the

top of it looking for me. If they did, I had no idea what I was going

to do.

I heard ringing down the line and then the phone was picked up.

“Black Ridge Sheriff’s Department.”

“I need to talk to Sheriff Pierce,” I said.

310 Michael Marshall

“Who’s calling?”

“John Henderson.”

The person at the other end put the phone down. The line went

dead, just like that. I stared at the handset.

Collins was looking at me with wide eyes. “You’re John

Henderson?”

“What’s it to you?”

“Nothing. I’ve heard the name, that’s all.”

“I told you. I used to live down the road.”

“I . . . I wasn’t really listening this morning.”

“You’re supposed to be making coffee,” I said.

He jerked, as if waking from a shallow dream, and started to get

coffee stuff together.

“The machine’s not working,” he said. “The light’s not coming

on.”

My head had started to ache badly, from being knocked out, or

the running, or shock from the blood loss. It made it hard to focus.

My side was fi nally beginning to hurt, a lot.

I dialed another number, taking three tries to get it right, and

then listened to it ring and ring. There was a strange crackling on the

line, as if the power was cutting in and out.

Finally I heard a slurred voice say: “Bill Raines.”

“Thank Christ,” I said. “Bill, it’s John.”

“Hey! You back on the beach, carrying plates?”

“No. I’m still here. I need your help.”

He laughed merrily. He sounded like he’d had more than a couple

beers. “You’re a piece of work, my friend. You know that?”

“They’ve got Carol. And Tyler.”

“What?”
Bill sounded suddenly very sober. “Who has?”

“I don’t know. I got away but they’ve still got Carol and Tyler.”

“What’s the hell’s going on?”

“I don’t know that, either, but Carol was saying some strange

B A D T H I N G S 311

things and it’s evidently serious enough for some asshole to have

shot me.”

“You been
shot
?”

“Yes. It’s fi ne, but—”

“What do you need?”

“I’m coming over to your place, soon as I can. I’ll work it out

then. But step one is going to be some guns.”

“You got it,” he said.

I put the phone down and turned to Collins. He was still hunched

over the coffee machine, and it reminded me of events that had hap-

pened the previous morning. Except this guy was still alive, in his

big, beautiful kitchen and his wonderful house, with his wife and kids

and life.

“Other thing I need is keys,” I said. “To the SUV.”

“I’m not giving—”

“Mr. Collins, I’m leaving here with them whether you give them

to me or not.”

“You cannot
do
this to me,” he said, turning suddenly. I realized

he was now holding a large kitchen knife.

“You’re kidding, me, right?”

He took a step forward, waved the knife at me. “This is
my home
.

I have . . . I have friends.”

I knocked the knife out of his hand and stepped in tight to hit him

very hard in the stomach, driving my fi st up under the ribs. We were

close enough that I could see his eyes bulge with the impact, and then

he went down, banging his head on a kitchen cabinet on the way.

“Let’s talk about these ‘friends,’ ” I said.

He looked like he was going to throw up.

“Or why don’t we talk about Jassie Cornell instead. What hap-

pened to her?” I grabbed him by the collar and pulled him up to a

sitting position, putting my face in close to his. “What
the hell hap-

pened to her
?”

312 Michael Marshall

His face was full of panic now.

“First time I saw that girl she was full of the joys of organic liv-

ing,” I said. “Three days later, she kills herself in front of thirty people.

Explain that transition to me or I’m going to hit you again.”

Tears started to roll down his face, as if they’d been trapped inside

his head for days and now couldn’t be held there any longer.

“I
liked
her. I did, but, Christ, I’ve got a
family
.”

“Yeah, and?”

“She was pregnant,” he said. “She
told
me she was on contracep-

tion. She
did
. And then, I mean,
Christ,
you know? What else am I going to do? I told her to get rid of it. She wouldn’t
do
it. She
wouldn’t
get rid of it
. I didn’t want anything to happen to
her
. I really didn’t. I lo . . . I
liked
her.”

I dropped him. “What did you do?”

He buried his face in his hands. I kicked him in the side. He mut-

tered something that I couldn’t hear.

“
What
did you just say?”

He said it again, the words little more than coughed breaths, but

this time enough of it escaped through his fi ngers for me to make out

a word.

Sadness
.

He was slumped against the cabinet, rubbing his face with his

hands feverishly, smearing tears and snot all over his cheeks. His eyes

were open, staring straight ahead. Maybe he was seeing a pool of

blood spreading over the sidewalk on Kelly Street. Maybe the soft,

plump stomach of a young girl who had lain on motel beds beside

him, but was now dead. I ought to have felt some compassion for him

but all I wanted to do was kick him and then kick him again.

“Keys.”

I followed the movement of his eyes and found a wicker basket

with three sets of keys. I took all of them.

When I turned to the door I saw the man’s wife. She was leaning

against the door frame, her arms folded, face composed.

B A D T H I N G S 313

“My husband was quite correct,” she said. “You had no right to

do this.”

“How much did you hear?”

Her husband was staring at her, with the fl at, blank gaze of some-

one who knew their world was never going to be the same.

She glanced coldly at him, then back at me.

“Nothing that was any of your business,” she said, and slapped me

hard across the face.

It was still pouring down. The SUV opened with the second set of keys

I tried. I dropped the other two to the ground and climbed in the

car. Reaching around for the seat belt sent a spasm up the whole of

my right side, but when I turned on the reading light and checked, it

didn’t seem to be bleeding too much anymore.

It took six tries to get the engine started. I drove down to the road

with the headlights off, and stopped. It was dark in both directions.

I didn’t have any choice. If I wanted to go anywhere but deeper into

the woods, I had to go left.

I drove to our old house and pulled over. I had to check. I got out

of the car and ran up the drive and around to the front of the house,

covering the last of the distance close up to the house.

The truck was gone.

The front door was hanging open.

I went inside, but there was no one there. I ran back up to the road,

got in the car, and started to drive fast back toward Black Ridge.

C H A P T E R 4 2

Bill was waiting on his porch when I pulled up, and trotted straight

down the steps to the car.

“Christ,” he said, when I got out. “You look like shit. Is it seri-

ous?”

“No. Though I wouldn’t want it happening twice.”

Indoors it was warm and there was music playing and he led

me straight into the kitchen, poured a big cup of coffee from the

waiting pot, and handed it to me. He noticed that my hands were

shaking and asked if I wanted something in my drink.

I shook my head. “Where are you on that?”

“Few beers. Don’t worry. Not like it used to be.”

I knew what he was talking about, how in the army it’d be a

strange old day when most of us weren’t at least a joint and a few

beers to the wind when something kicked off, and Bill had always

taken it further than most.

“Long time ago,” I said. “Younger heads.”

“I’m fi ne, Dad.”

I looked him in the eyes and saw that was true, so I quickly told

him what I knew. That someone had murdered Ellen and was trying

to pin it on me—an attempt that might yet be successful, given her

B A D T H I N G S 315

body was presumably still in my motel room. That someone—maybe

the same person or people, maybe not—had abducted my ex-wife and

child and held them in my old house until they could round me up to

go with them. That they’d been taken somewhere after I got away.

And that Carol had known about Jenny and me.

“Huh,” he muttered. “She could have told
me
.”

“Carol said some very weird things while I was with her,” I said.

“Okay, she’d been locked in a dark house for a while and seemed kind

of odd in general but . . . she claimed . . .”

I didn’t really know how to put it.

“What?”

“She said she’d done something to Jenny.”

“Done what?”

“I’m just—look, this is what she told me, and I don’t know if it

means anything. She said she’d had something called a “sadness” put

on her. Half an hour later the guy I took that SUV from used the

exact same word, and far as I know the two have never met. Carol

said . . . she said that it was this thing gone wrong that led to Scott’s

death.”

Bill was looking down at the fl oor, chewing his lip. “So, what—

like a “spell” or something?”

“I know how it sounds.”

“Who was the person Carol said did this thing for her?”

“Brooke Robertson. Bill, if you know anything about this, now’s

the time to tell me.”

“I don’t,” he said quietly. “Not specifi cally. Thing is, I’m from

here, but also not. My parents aren’t local. They moved here in the

1960s and when I was a kid we lived down in Yakima. I was at school

with the Robertsons for a few years, like I told you, but then I trans-

ferred, and at eighteen I was hell and gone out of here and into the