Here and Gone(15)

‘That is not my recollection,’ Whiteside said. ‘What I remember is I pulled you over, you were alone. I radioed Deputy Collins to come assist me in searching you, and I asked her to get hold of Emmet to come tow your car. We waited, he came, I brought you here and booked you in. No children.’

‘Why are you saying this? You know it’s not true. They were there. You saw them. You talked to them. For Christ’s sake, please, just tell—’

Whiteside pushed away from the bars, put his hands on his hips. ‘Thing is, what you’re saying presents me with a problem.’

‘Please, just—’

‘Quiet, now.’ He held a hand up. ‘I’m talking here. You’re telling me you had children in that car when you left New York. Now you’re here in Silver Water, and no children. Assuming you did set off with those kids, I have to ask you: Where are they?’

‘Your deputy, she—’

‘Mrs Kinney, what did you do with your children?’

Audra heard a distant noise like a stampede or a hurricane or a thousand screaming animals. Cold to the very center of her soul, like she’d fallen into an icy lake. She stared back at him, the sound of her own heartbeat building inside her, drowning out everything, even the distant wild clamor.

Whiteside said something. She didn’t know what. She couldn’t hear him.

Then the distance between them disappeared in a blur and she was on him, her fists smashing into his face, and he was falling, and she was on his chest, her nails scraping at his skin, and then her hands were fists again, and she brought them down and down again as his head turned first one way then the other, her blows glancing off his cheeks.

She didn’t know how long she straddled him, striking him again and again, but she didn’t stop until she felt his meaty hand at the center of her chest, between her breasts, and she knew she could do this man no harm, not really, he was too strong. Then he pushed, and she flew backward, weightless for a moment before crashing to the floor, jarring her elbows, the back of her head cracking on the concrete.

Through the black dots in her vision, Audra saw Whiteside rise over her, then drop down, his big fists, a telescopic baton in one. She brought her hands and knees up by instinct, and he whipped the baton across her shins. The pain cut through everything, bright and fierce, and she would have screamed if she’d had the voice for it. Then those big hands gripped her shoulders, flipped her over like she was nothing, and he planted his knee in the small of her back.

Audra tried to draw a breath so she could plead, beg for mercy, but she could barely gasp. Whiteside grabbed her left wrist, pulled it back, twisting her shoulder in its socket. He forced the wrist up her back, and she felt certain he would tear her arm clean off, before she felt the metal circle the wrist. Holding her left hand in place, he took her right wrist and did the same, the pain so great her consciousness wavered.

When both wrists were bound, he held them there, and leaned down so she felt his breath against her ear.

‘Your children are gone,’ he whispered. ‘If you can accept that, you might survive this. If you can’t? Well …’

And then his weight lifted from her, the cell door opening and closing, the jangle of keys.

Alone on the floor, Audra wept.





8


DANNY LEE TOOK the stairs two at a time, three flights up. He paused at the top, let his heartrate settle. Then he walked along the corridor, counting off the doors in the dim light, until he reached 406. The number the boy’s parents had given him.

A good boy, Mrs Woo had said. But he’d changed lately. Stopped talking, become sullen and quiet. His respect for them gone.

Danny knew the story. He’d heard it plenty of times before.

The door rattled along with the bass notes from inside, hip-hop music rumbling within. Must drive the neighbors crazy, he thought. Not that the neighbors would complain.

He made a fist, hammered the door, and waited. No answer. He hammered the door again. Still no answer. Once more with his fist, and a couple of kicks to get the point across.

Now the door opened a few inches, revealing the face of a young man Danny vaguely recognized. One of Harry Chin’s boys.

‘What the fuck?’ the young man said. ‘You want to lose your hand, just knock one more time, motherf—’

The sole of Danny’s shoe hit the door hard, sending the Chin boy staggering back. He barely kept himself from falling, cursing as his hand grabbed at the wall.

Danny stepped inside, surveyed the room. Half a dozen young men, counting the Chin boy, all staring back at him. Five of them sat on a couch and a pair of armchairs surrounding a coffee table laden with loose marijuana and rolled joints, a bag of coke, a few lines on the table’s glass top. Another bag of crystal meth, though it didn’t appear that any of them had partaken yet.

The Chin boy had the wide-eyed look, the flaring nostrils and the sheen of sweat on his forehead that said he’d had at least a line or two of coke. But Danny didn’t care about him. His only concern was Johnny Woo, the youngest of the boys, who sat in the middle of the couch. A faint wisp of hair on his upper lip, pimples across his nose and forehead. A child, really.

‘Johnny, come with me,’ Danny said.

Johnny said nothing.

Danny heard a snick-click at his left ear. He turned his head, saw the Chin boy and the .38 in his hand, cocked and ready.