Liberty or Death (38 page)

"Stuff's a bitch," he said. "Going to hurt. So I guess this means they got you, too, huh?" and then, the fingers fumbling at the tape paused, and he said, "I thought you might come."

Pause.

"I didn't want you to and I hoped you would."

Pause.

"It's not professional, what I've been thinking. That I didn't want to die without seeing you again."

Pause.

"You're a crazy idiot and I love you."

That much talking exhausted him. His hands dropped away from my face. "Sorry. Not much. Good. For anything."

"Did they hurt you? What's wrong?" My mind formed the words but nothing happened. There was still tape over my mouth. I couldn't speak. It was just a jumble of sounds.

"They aren't gentle," he sighed, as if he'd read my mind. "But it's what they haven't done. Fed me. Let me... rest a little... then we'll work on that tape a bit more." He lay back down and I curved my body around his again. He sighed. "Sorry."

Don't worry about it,
I thought.
Don't worry about anything. I'm not expecting performance right now. I'm marveling at existence.
We were a fine pair—the halt and the lame. But whether the cavalry made it in time or not, we'd been reunited. We lay on the lumpy sleeping bag on the hard, hard planks and breathed together. It was as intimate as anything we'd ever done. I thought he'd fallen asleep again until he startled me by whispering, "Will you marry me?" What was he asking? Whether, under the circumstances, I might want to change my mind? Fat chance, I'd agreed to sign on for better or for worse. Worst, in this case. "Humph" wasn't much of an answer but at least it was heartfelt.

We drifted back into a kind of sleep. I didn't know whether it was day or night or how long I'd been here. It didn't matter. I couldn't do anything about anything anyway. If all I could do was just be, I might as well use the time to rest, just in case later on I was called on to do something more. What woke me were voices. Not Andre's. Kendall Barker and Roy Belcher.

"Sweet, isn't it, the way these lovebirds found each other," Belcher said.

Shut up,
I thought.
Take your filthy mind and your filthy tongue and your ugly words and go away.
I kept my eyes determinedly closed.

"Pity to wake them," he said, grabbing my shoulder and shaking me. "Rise and shine, sweetheart." I pressed myself against Andre, not wanting to leave. This might be the last time. He gave me another shake. I rolled toward him, swung my feet over the edge, and sat up, stalling for time. Wherever he wanted me to go, nothing good waited. I planted my elbows on my knees and dropped my head into my hands.

Barker grabbed my wrists and jerked me to my feet, nearly dislocating both shoulders in the process. "On your feet, honey."

They had brought a lantern with them, one of those propane camping things that reeked of sharp blue light and hissed like a snake. The too-bright light accentuated Andre's pallor. He opened his eyes and stared at me dully. "Come on," Barker ordered. "Your boyfriend's not going to miss you. He's a little under the weather today."

I looked down at my feet and then back at them. Were they really such morons that they didn't realize I couldn't walk? I decided maybe they needed a visual aid, so I gave a little, awkward hop toward the door and stopped. Barker grunted. "Oh. Yeah." He pulled a wicked-looking knife off his belt, bent down, and slashed carelessly at the tape on my ankles. It was a miracle that I didn't end up with one less foot but I emerged intact. He pointed the knife toward me and used it to gesture toward the door. I had a run-in with a knife once and that was more than enough. Just looking at it, I could feel my blood gushing out.

I glanced quickly back at Andre. It was cruel of them to make me leave him now but then, these guys were walking, talking models of cruelty. I wondered, desperately and crazily, whether, in the style of
African Queen,
they might be persuaded to marry us before they killed us. Hannon was a minister, after all. But with tape over my mouth, I couldn't even ask. And, hopeful to the end, I was still dreaming that we'd be rescued. I swallowed hard and began walking toward the door.

 

 

 

Chapter 27

 

It was still dark, which amazed me. This had been the longest night in the history of the world, and it had been filled with life and death, peril and terror, love and reconciliation. With one of them in front of me and the other behind, they marched me like a prisoner under guard across an open field, up a slight rise, and up the front steps of a house. As we stepped into the front hall, Barker grabbed me by the shoulders, turned me toward a doorway, and said, "Kid's in there. See if you can figure out what he wants." He slipped his knife beneath the tape at the edge of my mouth, slashed, and jerked it free, spinning me halfway around and tearing out a handful of hair. Then he slashed the tape around my wrists and gave me a shove that propelled me into the room. Heeding Jim Ferret's words, I kept all my expletives to myself.

Except for the assortment of guns leaning against the wall, the unshaded bulb that hung from the ceiling showed a room that looked more like a college dorm than a militia stronghold. Pizza boxes, beer cans, empty chip and pretzel bags, and Styrofoam cups littered the floor and the few available surfaces. Lyle Harding was sitting on a tattered brown-plaid sofa that was spouting eruptions of crumbling foam through its many holes, his hands folded meekly across his lap. He looked small and lost, like a fairy child accidentally left in the wrong place. My precipitous entrance scared him and he drew back with a small cry, then gave me a tentative smile as he recognized me. "Dora. Have you come to take me home?"

Go ahead,
I thought,
break my heart again. It's not hard to do right now. The poor thing's only held together with a few bent staples and some tattered hopes.
I swept a pizza box and some newspapers off the seat beside him and sat down, putting my arm around his shoulders and pulling him close. He trembled against me, his skin damp and chilly. The night had finally cooled and he was wearing only a pair of jersey shorts. I glared at Barker, watching in the doorway. "Did you think to bring him some clothes?"

His answer, not atypical of this group, was to launch a colorful backpack at my head. I snagged it out of the air and opened it, searching for a T-shirt. I didn't care if it would have been more womanly to let it hit me. I used to be a pretty good ball player. I found a shirt and slipped it over Lyle's head. "There," I said, trying to sound reassuring, "that should help warm you up. Want another layer?" He didn't answer, just nodded, his little head bobbing against my side. I dug around again, this time coming up with a hooded sweatshirt. Together we threaded his arms into the sleeves and I zipped it up.

"Dora, did you come to bring me home?" he asked again.

What was I supposed to say? I looked over at Barker but other than a frown, his face told me nothing. "Oh, Lyle, I can't take you home right now. They had to take your grandma to the hospital..."

He nodded solemnly. "Sometimes she gets sick. I used to go and stay with Mrs. Peters but she died, and Mr. Peters and my dad were always too busy. They had stuff they had to do together. That was after my mom left. So am I going to stay with you?"

I shrugged. "I guess you are."

He looked around sadly. After his grandmother's place, it didn't look inviting. "And is this your place?"

I might not be the world's best housekeeper but things had never descended to this level of squalor. I shook my head, then jerked my chin toward the man in the doorway. "It's his, I guess. Hey... Lyle... that man over there said that you were upset but he couldn't figure out why. Is there something I can do for you? Something I can help you with?" I didn't mention that he'd been crying. He was a proud little boy, after all.

"I need..." He sniffed, then cuffed at his nose with the back of his hand. "...the bathroom. And I didn't want to ask him..." The word "him" shimmered in the air, full of fear and distaste. "He scares me."

"He scares me, too. Do you mind if I help you?"

"Of course not. You're my friend."

I looked at Barker. "The bathroom?" I had no illusions about what I'd probably find, but it should be okay for a little boy and if not, I could do a little hoeing out.

He jerked his head toward another part of the house. "This way."

I scooped Lyle up, balancing him gently on my hip and trying not to bounce him too much. I didn't know how long he'd been waiting and much as I liked him, I didn't want him peeing on me. We passed through a darkened room and waited while Barker opened the door and turned on a light. He stepped back and I held my breath as I went around him and peered in. It would never win any Betty Crocker Future Homemaker awards but it could be entered without earthmoving equipment and I didn't have to use one hand to hold my nose.

Lyle, on the other hand, looked around and said, "Phew! It stinks in here." But then, he was used to his grandmother's impeccable housekeeping and too young to understand that the same men who can shoulder rifles and march off to change the world balk at the sight of toilet brushes and cleaning products. I perched him on the edge of the tub, buffed things up a little, and, following his directions, perched him on the toilet and left him to fend for himself, with instructions that he would call when he needed me.

Standing outside the door, leaning wearily against the wall, I realized that I needed the facilities myself, and wondered if my purse had made the journey with me. It was sort of a double-edged sword, though. I could have used the supplies that were in it, but if my new friends had found the gun tucked neatly in the secret compartment—useful, according to the tag, for hiding keys or money—then they were likely to be even rougher than before. Spies got shot. Spies who tried to smuggle in guns probably got tortured and then shot. I decided not to think about it but at that moment, as if he'd read my mind, Roy Belcher came in with my purse and handed it to me.

"Thought you might need this."

He puzzled me, he truly did. I knew he was a vicious man but sometimes he acted so much like a bashful, dumbly sweet swain from the fifties that I wondered if he had a split personality. Or if it was all an act. Then again, this whole business made no sense. If you're trying to keep the cops from finding out your dirty little secrets, then stealing a cop and holding him hostage isn't all that smart. Unless what Jed Harding knew was even more damaging? Was there even more to this than brutal killings? Was murder only the tip of the iceberg? Then, if he was a weak link as well as one of the insiders "in the know," their eagerness to retrieve him made sense. And they never intended the cop to be found.

But what about the rest? What about kidnapping more people, including a woman and a child? Taking Lyle made sense if it ensured Harding's silence, but they couldn't be planning to keep the child forever. Maybe they weren't too bright. Maybe fanaticism had dimmed their brains. Or maybe I was just being dumb, thinking any of this had to make sense. Maybe they never stopped to analyze the consequences of their actions, or they didn't care, since according to the rules they played by, whatever they wanted to do was okay. Maybe they counted on everyone who had witnessed my abduction to have short memories about what they'd seen and long memories about what had happened to Paulette Harding. But didn't children count?

I managed a weak smile for Belcher. "Thanks."

"Boy seems to like you," he said.

"It's just that he knows me... a little, anyhow. He's a nice kid."

"Yeah, well. Paulette had some of that same sweetness. Not a brain in her head, though. She never did figure out that having an affair with another guy right under her husband's nose wasn't very smart."

"And then she ran away?" He nodded. "With the other guy?"

He shrugged. Appeared to ponder my question, then said, "Let's just say they both learned their lesson and won't be fooling around anymore." Maybe he really thought I didn't know.

My mind flashed back to that kitchen. Had there been signs of two bodies? I didn't think so. Whatever happened to Paulette's lover hadn't taken place in that kitchen. Funny how no one ever mentioned him but only her. Consistent, though, with the kind of double standard that allows men to have affairs but doesn't accord the same rights to women. Good married men can have affairs with bad married women and the taint doesn't seem to rub off. It was all Eve's fault. If she hadn't made poor Adam eat that fruit, none of this would ever have happened. But hadn't the serpent been a "he"? I didn't share any of that with Roy Belcher.

"Dora! Dora, I'm done." I tucked the purse under my arm and went to tend to Lyle. As I was carrying him back to the couch, he announced that he was hungry and I promised to fix him something to eat just as soon as I was done in the bathroom myself. I hoped there was some food in the house. They'd been starving Andre but I assumed that was political. I knew they were evil but couldn't imagine them not feeding a child. Part of my own magical thinking, I suppose. Why couldn't I imagine it, when I knew how bad they were? Because it helped me stay upright. Because, rational or not, assigning them some basic humanity made it easier for me to breathe.