Out of the Black Page 7

When I pulled off the highway and turned onto my street, I could see my house at the end of the block, dark and still. I parked out front and grabbed Jay’s gun from the glove compartment then ran up came around the corner, AK. It wasto the front door.

  It was locked.

  I stepped back and flipped through my keys. My hands were shaking, and it took a minute to find the right one. Once I did, I unlocked the door and went inside.

  “Anna?”

  The house was dark except for the shadows thrown by the streetlights outside. I hit the switch on the wall, but nothing happened.

  The power was out.

  Cut?

  “Carrie?”

  Something moved in the next room. I lifted the gun and followed the sound through the living room to the kitchen.

  Carrie was lying on the floor. There was duct tape covering her mouth, and her hands were crossed and bound against her chest. Her eyes were red and swollen, and there was a dark line of dried blood under her nose, running over the tape.

  She stared at me, eyes wide, not seeing.

  I knelt next to her and pulled the tape from her mouth. She took in several desperate breaths, each one broken by sobs. I grabbed her shoulders and tried to steady her, then I reached up and took her face in my hands.

  “Where’s Anna?”

  Carrie’s lips were trembling. She shook her head, said, “I’m so sorry, Matt. I’m so sorry.”

  “Where is she?” I asked her again, trying my best to keep my voice calm.

  Carrie looked up at me, and I saw something change in her eyes. Then the tears came, harder now, running down her cheeks, falling silently into her lap.

  I pushed myself up, but my legs felt weak.

  I backed out of the kitchen and started toward Anna’s room. I could see the shadowed outline of her doorway at the end of the hallway, and I ran down, moving on instinct.

  Her door was wide open, and there was a soft, wintry-gray glow leaking in from the windows and casting a half light over the room. I stopped in the doorway and let my eyes adjust to the light, but I already knew.

  She was gone.

  I stood there, scanning the room from one side to the other, not willing to believe. I could feel the tears pressing behind my eyes, but I held them back.

  I didn’t want to cry.

  I wanted to scream.

  The air in the hall felt thin, and the floor started to shift under me. I reached out and put a hand against the doorjamb to steady myself, then I stepped into the room.

  The carpet sank wet under my feet.

  I looked down.

  There was a thick, dark stain spreading out from the doorway into the center of Anna’s room. I bent down, slow, and touched it. My fingers came back wet and sticky.

  “Oh, God.”

  This time, the panic screamed up out of the black, and I had no chance of stopping it. I tore through the room, searching closets, checking under the bed, finding nothing.

  The room spun.

  I sank to my knees at the edge of her bed, staring at the dark stain on the carpet, trying to think. I told myself to focus, but my mind was reeling under a jumble of thoughts, all of them bad, and I couldn’t slow them down no matter how hard I tried.

  I heard Carrie crying in the kitchen, and I pushed myself up off the floor, never taking my eyes off the wet stain on the carpet.

  I moved toward the doorway and stopped.

  The door was open into the room, and I could see Anna’s handwritten signs taped on the outside. But there was something different about them.

  I stepped closer and noticed a dark spot on one of the signs. It was small, wet, and about half the size of a dime. I reached out and pulled the door closed. It was heavier than normal, and I saw why.

  Something was pinned to the other side.

  At first, I couldn’t tell what it was, just a dark shadow hung at eye level. Then I saw the two white spots.

  The same but different.

  Like snowflakes.

  I felt my breath catch, and I stepped back.

  The knife was heavy, serrated, and buried to the hilt between Dash’s ribs. His head hung loose, his eyes were wide, and his teeth were bared and bloody. There was a long, dark trail under him that ran the length of the door and pooled on the carpet below.

  I didn’t it out easy.

  17

  The old man answered on the third ring.

  I started yelling. “If you hurt her, I’ll—”

  He cut me off. “In one hour, you will deliver my wife to me in Pella Valley.”

  “Where the fuck is my daughter?”

  “You will drive her to the west side of town, past the railroad tracks, where you will find a two-bay car wash next to a white grain silo. You will park the lightin">okke on the south side and wait there until I arrive.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Once my wife has been returned, and I am satisfied she has not been harmed, I will release your daughter.”

  “No,” I said. “We do it at the same time. Your wife for my daughter.”

  “This is not a negotiation, Mr. Caine. My wife will be returned unharmed, and only then will I release your daughter.” He paused. “Failure to follow my instructions to the letter will lead to unthinkable consequences. Do you believe me?”

  I didn’t say anything right away, but something in his voice sent a flood of terror rolling through every part of me, making it hard to breathe.

  “I believe you,” I said.

  “Then you have one hour.”

  The line clicked, went dead.

  I hung up and slid the phone back into my pocket. Then I reached down and picked up the photo of Anna. There was blood on the front, and I wiped it away with my thumb.

  Once again, I felt the tears press behind my eyes.

  This time, I let them come.

  Carrie watched me as I cut the tape away from her hands. When I finished, she eased herself up and leaned forward, bracing herself against the counter.

  I touched her shoulder. “Are you hurt?”

  Carrie turned and faced me, her eyes sharp. “Where were you?”

  “I—”

  “What did you do?”

  I shook my head and started to answer, but before I could, Carrie slapped me.

  “What did you do?”

  She hit me again, but this time I was ready. I grabbed her wrist and stepped behind her, wrapping my arms around hers, holding her still. I could feel her shoulders shake, then there were tears, welling up from some dark place deep inside.

  I held her tighter and told her it was okay, that I was going to get Anna back, no matter what.

  I told her she had to trust me.

  Eventually, the tears stopped, and I felt her fight against my grip. When I let her go, she pushed away from me and sat at the kitchen table with her hands between her knees, rocking back and forth on the chair.

  I asked her if she was okay.

  “We can’t call the police, can we?”

  I shook my head. “No.”

  Carrie stared at me, then down at her hands. “Who were they, Matt?”

  I thought about it for a moment, but I didn’t have an answer, and I didn’t know what to say. In the end, I told her the truth.

  “I have no idea.”

  Pella Valley was almost thirty miles outside the city. Traffic on the highway was light, but it was still going to be close. If I was going to get there on time, I needed to hurry.

  When I got to the river, I turned up the gravel road and followed my headlights through a shatter of snow Xbp.to the warehouse. I parked out front and ran inside.

  The woman watched me as I came in.

  I ignored her and went straight for Jay. His skin had turned a rough, grayish blue, and both his eyes were now half-open, clouded and empty.

  I tried not to look at him.

  I opened his jacket and searched his pockets for the keys to the handcuffs. I found half a pack of American Spirit cigarettes and his black Zipp
o lighter, but I didn’t find his keys.

  “Goddamn it.”

  I started patting him down. I felt the keys in his front pockets, and I took them out and flipped through them as I walked over to where the woman was sitting.

  “I’m taking you home.”

  The woman didn’t say anything.

  I found the right key and unlocked the cuff from around the pipe. “Do you need anything?”

  She stared at me, her eyes moving between mine. “A cigarette?”

  I started to tell her I didn’t smoke, then I remembered the pack in Jay’s jacket. I walked back and took the cigarettes and the lighter from his pocket. There was a piece of yellow legal paper stuck under the pack’s cellophane wrapper. I took it out and unfolded it.

  The page was covered with notes, all in Jay’s scratched handwriting, mostly street names, times, andp class="inden

  18

  The city lights faded behind us, leaving only trees and long, empty fields covered in white.

  Neither of us spoke.

  All the light over AK. It was I could think about was Anna. I tried to focus on seeing her again, and not on what was happening to her, or where she might be. I couldn’t think about any of that until I had her back with me and I knew she was safe.

  Then I’d think about all of it.

  We were still several miles outside Pella Valley when the silence got to be too much. I could feel my thoughts spinning away from me, and I had to do something to refocus and settle my mind, so I started talking.

  Once I got started, I couldn’t stop.

  At first, I asked her about her husband. I wanted to know all about him, and how he did what he did, but she didn’t answer me, and I didn’t press.

  Instead, I tried to explain why I did what I did. I wanted her to know that this wasn’t who I was, but I didn’t know where to start. So I started at the beginning.

  I told her about Beth.

  I told her how we’d met, where we were married, and how we’d found out she was pregnant two days before I was deployed. I told her how I’d thought about Beth every day and night while I was gone.

  Then I told her about Anna, how she was born while I was in Afghanistan, and how I’d missed the first two years of her life. I told her how my daughter didn’t know me when I came home, but that it was okay because I barely knew myself.

  The woman listened without saying a word, but it didn’t matter. Talking helped keep my mind off Anna and what I’d brought into our lives. I didn’t want a conversation. I wanted a confession.

  Then I told her about the accident.

  This time, she turned and looked at me as I spoke.

  “I went in to identify her body, but there was never any doubt. They warned me about the injuries, but I had to see her.” I hesitated. “When I left, they handed me a small envelope with her wedding ring inside and told me I should focus my energy on my daughter. So that’s what I did.”

  The woman looked away.

  “The frame of the car collapsed, and my daughter was pinned inside. The front part of her skull—” I stopped talking and ran my hand along my forehead, tracing the line of Anna’s scar from memory. “The doctors told me she wouldn’t read or speak again, but she proved them wrong.”

  The woman didn’t say anything, and I stopped talking. We drove the rest of the way to Pella Valley in silence.

  Several times I wanted to apologize for what we did to her, but each time I tried to form the words, they seemed too small, too meaningless.

  It wasn’t enough to be sorry, and by the time we pulled into Pella Valley and I saw the car wash at the far end of the main street, I’d given up on trying to explain why I did what I did.

  There was no point.

  Nothing I could say would make it right.

  The car wash was a one-level brick building with two open bays and a single yellow light mounted in the center. There were two industrial vacuums at the corner, and a white picket fence surrounding a weatherworn silo that rose out of the shadows and towered over it all.

  I pulled in and parked along the side of the building facing the entrance and shut the lightPIasi b off the engine. The night was quiet and dark and no cars passed along the street.

  I looked at my watch.

  I’d made it with five minutes to spare.

  I turned to the woman and said, “We’re early. He should be here any minute.”

  Silence.

  I could feel the adrenaline buzzing through me, making it impossible to sit still. I tried my best, but it was no use. Eventually, I opened my door and got out.

  The woman turned and watched me, silent.

  I walked around to the back of the van and stood by the white picket fence and looked out over the long field stretching into darkness. I could hear a train somewhere in the distance. The sound, a soft and steady pulse, helped calm my nerves, and almost made it possible for me to think clearly.

  Almost.

  Something about being out here, so far removed from the city, bothered me. I went over all the reasons I could think of why he’d want to meet way out here, but none of them seemed to fit.

  All I could do was wait and see.

  At exactly ten o’clock, a wave of headlights passed over me. I turned and saw a black Town Car and a black SUV pull into the parking lot and stop side by side. Their headlights shone bright, making it impossible to see.

  The wait was over.

  I walked around and stood in front of the van. For a moment, no one moved, then all the doors opened at once, and I could see glimpses of shadows moving behind the headlights.

  One of the shadows stepped forward, silhouetted by the headlights. He was alone, and he walked with a cane.

  He stopped halfway.

  I stood there, waiting for him to say something. When he didn’t, I went around to the passenger side and opened the door and helped the woman out of the van.

  She ran her hands over the wrinkles in her clothes, then straightened herself and started walking toward the man.

  She’d gone a few feet when I said, “I’m sorry.”

  The woman stopped.

  At first, I thought she’d keep walking, but instead, she turned and came back, stopping in front of me, her eyes never leaving mine.

  I told her, “I wish I could take it all back.”

  The woman reached up, slow, and ran her fingertips over my cheek, soft and gentle. Then she pulled her hand away and slapped me, hard.

  The sudden sting brought tears to my eyes. It didn’t hurt as much as it shocked me. All I could do was stand there, staring, unable to speak.

  The woman turned and walked away, fading into the lights. When she reached the old man, he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close.

  I stood there, watching for Anna and waiting.

  The old man said something I didn’t catch, then all at once there was movement behind the SUV’s headlights. People were shouting, lights flashed red and blue, and two cop cars turned off the road into the parking lot.

  “No.”

  I looked back, but there was nowhere to go.

  Several men ran in from either the light’to the out of side and up from the field behind me. They were screaming at me, telling me to get on the ground.

  “No!”

  I felt the first set of hands on my shoulder, and I reached up out of instinct and twisted the man’s wrist at the joint. He cried out in pain, and I spun him away, running toward the old man.

  “Where is my daughter?”

  The old mannd Jay’s

  19

  “Matt, wake up.”

  Beth’s head is resting on my shoulder. She looks up at me and runs her hand down my bare chest then pokes my ribs. “Come on, you have to get up.”

  I reach for her hand and kiss it, feeling the soft warmth of her fingers against my lips. Then I roll over and face her, pulling the sheet up, covering us both.

  I kiss her, breathe her in. “Not yet,” I say.

  “You
have to.”

  I run my hand down her body, feeling her next to me, her skin alive against mine. “I want to stay with you.”

  “You can’t.”

  I kiss her neck, work my way down.

  Beth arches against me.

  For a moment, I’m lost in her. Then I feel her hands on the sides of my head, lifting my face up to hers. She’s staring at me, and her eyes are clear and warm came around the corner. AK. It was and perfect, the color of autumn.

  “Wake up, Matt.”

  “But—”

  Beth puts a finger to my lips, stopping me. Then she bends forward, kissing me long and soft. When she pulls away, there are tears in her eyes.

  “She’s waiting for you.”

  I stare at her, not understanding.

  Beth leans toward my ear, whispers, “Forever and always. Do you remember?”

  I nod, feeling the tears press behind my eyes.

  Beth smiles, kisses me once more.

  “Then wake up.”

  I opened my eyes and inhaled sharp.

  My clothes were soaked through, and cold water ran off my skin onto the floor. I tried to sit up, and the room spun around me.

  There was a deputy standing in front of me holding a dripping plastic mop bucket. He watched me, birdlike, his shaved head tilted to the side.

  “He lives.”

  There were two fluorescent bulbs in the ceiling buzzing a cold green light over the room. They were bright, and it took my eyes a minute to adjust. Once they did, I saw that I was in a large cement cell. There was a thick metal door open at one end, and two cement beds attached to the walls on either side. In the middle of the room was a metal toilet and sink. The floor was smooth and it slanted toward a drainage trench cut along the back wall.

  The deputy with the bucket stepped back, and for the first time, I saw that we weren’t alone.

  There was another sheriff’s deputy standing just inside the door. This one was younger, wide-eyed. He leaned against the wall, out of the way, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

  Standing next to him was a man in a charcoal-gray suit. He was tall, dark hair cut short, and he carried a black leather briefcase in his hand.

  At first, I thought he might be my lawyer, but then he leaned forward to sit on the cement bed across from me, and I noticed the gun in the shoulder holster under his coat.