Blackteeth Page 8

  Hesper heard a loud click and immediately there were two distinct stings in her shoulder and back. A rapid-fire ticking noise that sounded like speedily moving gears followed. An instant later she felt as though she had stuck her entire arm in an electric socket. Her muscles froze up, and an all-encompassing pain overwhelmed her. She fell to the side, and helplessly, her head banged against the glass. She registered the crack as her forehead made contact with the window, but every bit of her body was awash with agony.

  Hesper felt simultaneously sick, faint, and barely cognizant as he said something that sounded like he was very much satisfied with his actions. Her vision washed away with a flood of blackness.

  “Jesus, Dad, did you have to break her nose?”

  “I didn’t get a chance to offer her the drugged water.”

  “And I didn’t think the Taser would do this much damage.”

  “She freaked out as soon as she realized I wasn’t an Uber driver, which was pretty damn quickly. She attacked me, and I had to use the Taser. We were right next to a warehouse, and there were still trucks there. In fact, there might be surveillance. It wasn’t the place we scoped out before because, like I said, I didn’t have time. We won’t get a second chance.”

  “They’re gonna put two and two together. I’m going to have to stay in Portland for a few weeks to make it look like I’m not involved. Yes, I wanted to know what she knew about Olivia. She came to bitch me out about the ten-dollar bill. I went with her to Abracajava’s because I was concerned about her. I’m pretty sure someone saw me there. She broke in because she left her keys inside. She changed her mind and got a ride with someone. I don’t know who because I left once I thought she was okay. That sounds plausible, and it’ll fit with any witnesses the police might have.”

  “That works. The police will question you. You said the coffee shop owner knows who you are.”

  “And she went with Hesper both to my condo and to the dock.” There was a pause and then the same voice said, “You’re going to have to have Vera take care of all of this. These wounds where the Taser barbs went in look like chunks were ripped out of her shoulder and her back. We need to make certain they don’t get infected.”

  Hesper kept very still and listened. She came back into herself knowing that she was injured. She’d been damaged before, and she’d gotten past it. She’d made herself get past it before, and she’d make herself get past it this time. Her brain was a little slow in comprehending that it was Moss and Abel Symmes speaking. They had kidnapped her. They wanted her to talk to them. They had become desperate. Damn. I’m stupid. I was so busy looking at the wrong threat.

  She realized that Abel was talking, and she’d missed half of it. “…2,500 miles to there. Ifin I was to drive the whole way we’re talking I-84 almost to Salt Lake City, then I-80 to Nebraska. What was it? I-29 to Kansas. Then I-70 to Saint Louis. I-24 brings us to I-64 and that’ll be the end bit all the way to North Alabama. Be thirty-some hours driving, and I ain’t certain about them roads. We already decided I’m not going to be able to do that easily by myself. Plus, I’ll have to stop to make sure that gal is staying knocked out and not causing trouble on account that you won’t be with me.”

  Silence answered Abel. Then Moss said, “What if she doesn’t know?”

  “We been over this. Maybe she don’t know exactly where Olivia is, but she knows something and that something will help us. We’ve planned this for a full year. I got that property next to where Thomas Madrid lived. The new owners don’t care for trespassers, but they don’t go out into the woods, either. I figure we’ve got a shot and then when we find her, we can report it anonymously.”

  “Dad, what if she really doesn’t know? What are we doing?”

  “She knows something,” Abel insisted, and she could hear the heated sincerity in his voice. Utter conviction was his motivation. “Ain’t fair that she keeps it to herself. Them others are still gone and not a trace of them but what they found in Madrid’s basement. She was first. Then Olivia. Then Rafa Smith. Gone the year after Emmalee Green. Then Jonquil Parsons. That was two years later. Six months after that the only boy, Gardner Ashton. You know this. You know this.” The last part was snarled.

  “She was ten when she was taken,” Moss’s voice was close to her, and Hesper had to restrain herself from striking out at him. “We heard her parents on TV. They suffered like we suffered. She could be innocent. How can she be a part of any of that?”

  “Maybe she wasn’t. At first.”

  Moss sighed. “Yeah. Well, when this is finished, we’re going to jail. You know that.”

  “I can take jail. I can’t take not knowing about Olivia. Your mama keeps her room just the same. She keeps the same phone number, so Olivia can call it. She refused to move out of our house even when the garage burned down, and the city condemned it. I can’t take any of that anymore. It’s been ten crappy years.”

  There was a brief silence. Then they began to talk about places that Abel would stop with Hesper. They’d rented three houses along the route. The houses were purposely isolated from others. Abel could keep Hesper sedated until they reached the property just above the Tennessee River, not far from where Olivia had vanished on her Girl Scout trip and evidently not far from where Thomas Madrid had owned a hundred acres of forest and scrub.

  If Hesper could free herself from monsters, then she could free herself from two misguided men on a mission. Keeping perfectly still, she let her mind consider options.

  Chapter Seven

  There is no hunting but with

  old hounds. – French proverb

  “You’re in a rental truck, Hesper,” Moss said blandly.

  It wasn’t long after Abel and Moss had stopped their discussion. What sounded like a roll up door had rattled loudly and then shut with a deafening bang. Apparently, Moss realized that Hesper was pretending to be unconscious.

  “And we’re parked twenty-five miles out of Portland not far from that ghost town, Bridal Veil,” he went on. “It’s after 10 p.m. and you’re all right. We don’t want to hurt you. We just want information.”

  Everything hurt from the top of Hesper’s head to her toes. Her body shook with the effort to stay alert and focused. Moss might believe that he didn’t want to hurt her, but she’d heard the doubt in Abel’s voice. Even if she gave them information, Abel was thinking about killing her, so she wouldn’t tell anyone what they’d done. He might even do it to protect his son from a jail term. He might even be able to justify it as being merciful or that she deserved death for being a co-conspirator.

  She opened her eyes and found herself lying on the floor of the enclosed bed of a cargo truck. The only light came from Moss’s flashlight app on his cellphone. The brightness revealed the walls were metal and scarred from people’s possessions being dragged in and out. The roll up door was in the down position. The floor was metal and hard, although she was lying on a sleeping bag and had a pillow under her head. Her hands were cuffed together with Plasticuffs and also secured with duct tape. She lifted her head to see that her feet were also taped together. She might be able to wiggle away at a slow crawl if she really worked her butt back and forth.

  At the moment, she didn’t have anything covering her eyes or her mouth. She suspected that would change when Moss left to go be a good boy in Portland and act as if he didn’t have a clue to where Hesper White had vanished. For the second time. If Abel was really clever, they wouldn’t find Hesper for the second time.

  “You’re not going to let me go,” Hesper whispered.

  “Of course, we are,” Moss said as he knelt beside her. “I’ve set your nose, wiped off the blood, and bandaged the places where the Taser’s barbs went in. I also cleaned the scrape from the river.”

  “Oh, you’ve got some problems, Moss,” Hesper said, “but the funny part is that you don’t know where they’re coming from.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did you tell Daddy about the thing at the river? Did
you tell your father that you saw something really weird?”

  “It wasn’t weird,” he said. “Just something from the river. You know they have sturgeon that get up to six, seven feet long. Some people say longer. And there are lots of things that could have grabbed you.” Over the course of a few hours, certainty had struck Moss squarely on the noggin. Didn’t Moss sound like he was trying to convince himself of his foregone conclusion? Why yes, he does. Do sturgeon have long arms with hands that have black pointy nails? Why no, they don’t. We’ll just gloss over that part.

  “Did you clean the claw marks around my ankle?” She deliberately used the words to remind him.

  “Yeah, I did.”

  “Funny pattern there, huh? Kind of like a hand when it grabs around an ankle. Got some bruises, too. Almost like they’re finger shaped.”

  Moss stared at her. “You want some water?”

  “Drugged or straight H²O?”

  “Well, you can drink the drugged stuff, or we can give you an injection.” Moss rubbed his face. “We took into account your weight for the dosage, so it should work well enough for the next eight hours or so. When you wake up tonight you should be in Idaho or thereabouts.”

  “Isn’t that special?” she asked but didn’t really ask. Hesper rested her head on the pillow and thought about the situation. “Wait. We’re by the Columbia River? Right next to it?” She should have known. I-84 ran right alongside the great river all the way two thirds across the state until it veered off southeast toward Boise. There’d been a fifty/fifty chance of them taking I-5 south toward Eugene, but, of course, they’d taken I-84.

  Moss continued to look at her but didn’t answer her question.

  “What did you do with the bloody shirt? The one I had wrapped around my arm?”

  “Threw it on the side of the road,” Moss said. “Along with the gauze I used. Don’t worry. I used a buttload of hydrogen peroxide. We’ll keep an eye on everything and make sure nothing gets infected. And if by chance it does, we’ve got a medical person who will give you antibiotics.”

  “Of course, you do.” Hesper sighed. “Is it dark out?”

  “I said it’s after 10 p.m.,” Moss answered instead of yes.

  “They like the darkness and that’s when they come out mostly. Their sense of smell is terrific. Think of them like freaky bloodhounds,” Hesper said. “And since you and your father are stupid enough to have parked next to a river, a large river, they’re probably scouring the area. They’re likely working their way outward of Portland. They’ll find what you left behind. It’s what they do.”

  Moss stared down at her. It was a little hard to see his expression, but it wasn’t hard to grasp what was going through his mind. “Are you out of your mind? Is this why you were in a nuthouse? Some…thing…was responsible for you disappearing and keeping you?”

  “We don’t have a lot of time,” Hesper said, fighting to keep the urgency out of her voice.

  “Dad’s taking a nap in the cab and then he’ll take you to Idaho and so on. You’ll be in Alabama by the end of the week, and I’ll be there in about two or three weeks. It works out pretty well because that’s what we were planning anyway.”

  Hesper tested the Plasticuffs. The plastic links were surprisingly strong. “Jesus, you’re stupid,” she said. “That thing you saw today on the Willamette is real. It’s coming after me. It won’t hesitate. It won’t take a break. It’s got mad skills. It’s pissed at me, and when I bled into the water today, it got its chance to know where I am. It didn’t know where I was until today. And now…it’s too late.”

  Moss stared at her some more. Hesper didn’t need to be a psychic to understand that he was thinking her gate was down, her lights were flashing, but her train wasn’t coming through. “You’re crazy,” he said. Then he looked up at the ceiling of the truck. “God, you’re nuttier than a five-pound fruitcake. What did Madrid do to you?”

  “Moron,” Hesper hissed. “Madrid was a patsy or an accomplice. They’re not stupid. They know what happens if they get caught or someone sees them or someone uses the camera on their cellphone. They hunt in one place for a while, they use people when they can, and then they move on. It isn’t that hard to fathom. I don’t know how urgent it is, but they move fast, and I wasn’t joking when I said they’re like freakin’ bloodhounds. I used to smear my entire body in sewage because they couldn’t track me that way. I don’t know what to say to you except that if I’m in danger, you’re in danger. They’ll slice your throat just because you’re in the way. You, and your father, too.”

  Moss looked down at her. “Do you take medication? I could sneak into your house and get it. Maybe that would help.” He covered his mouth with his hand and studied her as if her psychosis would infect him if he breathed it in.

  “I’m gonna die,” Hesper said to herself. “I got caught by Tweedledum and Tweedledee. After all that time hiding from them and you snag me like you’re a big ass net and I’m the salmon swimming upstream. So here I am, like a ritual sacrifice.” Saying the word upstream made her think of things she didn’t want to think about. “How close are we to the river?”

  Moss sighed. “It’s maybe a hundred yards to the north, but nothing’s coming for you, Hesper. You’re just straight up batshit crazy.”

  “I wish that was true,” Hesper said. “How far away did you throw the shirt away?”

  “It’s just outside.”

  “Crap balls,” she said. “Straight up batshit crazy would be much better for everyone except that I’m not.”

  “Can you just tell me about Olivia?”

  Hesper didn’t like to say it but she did. “I don’t know where she is.”

  “How did you get her shirt? How did you get Emmalee’s sweats?”

  “They don’t have a need for their clothing,” Hesper said, and even in her desperation to be freed, she understood that it sounded harsh. “These things take children. Only children. Boys, girls, babies, toddlers, teenagers. They like them younger. They can’t get their hands on the really young ones anymore because people keep a closer eye on the babies and toddlers, so they go for elementary-aged and middle school-aged kids whose parents are dumb enough to let them go out and about. And stupid ones who walk their dogs along the river are ripe for the picking.” She took a deep breath trying to not think about the huge pile of clothing that had grown over the years. She’d snagged whatever was on top, but there were so many garments lying there rotting into the ground. She’d taken the t-shirt because she knew the school and she thought… Well, it doesn’t matter what I thought.

  “Olivia was a Girl Scout,” Moss whispered. “That’s where she was at, doing a campout next to the river. That’s where you were at, next to the river. And all the others. Rafa Smith was on the Greenway next to Aldridge Creek. Emmalee Green was at Ditto Landing, a marina on the Tennessee River. I don’t remember about the other two.”

  “They were almost certainly within ten yards of running water or something water runs though, like a dammed pond.” Hesper tested the bonds at her feet. If she could get her feet free, she could run, and she didn’t need her hands freed to do that. If they were on I-84, then there would be lots of traffic, and people would stop to help her. Lots of people. Lots of witnesses that would make them hesitate. “That’s how they work. I probably would have been fine if I hadn’t bled into the water.”

  Moss continued to stare at her. “They call people like you delusional. A schizophrenic. You’re one of those who hears voices in your head.”

  “You know what the great thing about being a schizophrenic is?” Hesper asked and then didn’t wait for an answer before answering the question herself, “We’re never alone.”

  “Oh Christ,” Moss swore vehemently. “This was all for nothing.” He threw his hands in the air. The cellphone dropped to the floor of the truck and spun in circles. The flashlight app made dancing shadows on the ceiling of the cargo truck, showing a large skylight window on the top. Plainly, it had been meant
to let light in while people were loading the van and was now yellowed and crackled with age and sunlight. Hesper couldn’t even see the stars through it. “I can’t do this,” he growled, “but if I let you go now, you’ll just run to the police.”

  “What am I going to tell the police?” Hesper asked. “Someone kidnapped me and me and me, too?”

  “I reckon they won’t believe you,” Moss said wishfully.

  Hesper was slightly hopeful. The crazier she acted the more likely Moss was going to let her go. “Um,” she said. “My voices say that if you let me go, we won’t press charges. We’ll just say we got lost. You know. Our head was all messed up from the seal attacking us at the river.”

  “Sea lion,” Moss corrected.

  “Do sea lions come up the river?” Hesper bit her lip because she was poking holes in his theory. “Doesn’t matter. It was a freshwater giant bass who mistook me for an appetizer. No harm, no foul. Right?” She held up her wrists expectantly. “Easy as falling off a log.” She could see that Moss was on the edge of capitulating. She was going to have to push him over the brink, but she wasn’t certain how to do that.

  Moss abruptly grasped her shoulder and helped her sit up. Hesper’s head swam a little with the change in her position. Black dots appeared at the corners of her vision, and the interior of the truck started to spin. She didn’t have time to be dizzy. Specifically, she hoped she had time. They had time, but they had flaws. They were swift and sneaky, but they weren’t omnipotent, and they didn’t use the same logic as humans.

  Moss brought out a Buck knife and unfolded the blade. He efficiently sliced through the tape around Hesper’s ankles, and she breathed in a great sigh. Halfway home. If he would just finish with her wrists, she would be out of the truck and down the road before anyone could say boo to a barn owl. She didn’t have a reason to turn the father/son team in; they were doing what they thought they had to do. Of course, if Hesper got a chance to break Abel’s nose before she went, then she would feel that things were a lot more equalized.