Here and Gone(73)

‘Oh, shit,’ Audra said.

Deputy Collins lay across the rear footwells, her ankles bound with cable ties to the metalwork beneath the passenger seat, her wrists tied behind her back, a strip of tape across her mouth. She stared wide-eyed up at Audra.

‘They’re in a cabin to the north,’ Danny said. ‘Up in the forest, on the Colorado Plateau, just like your landlady said. A couple hours’ drive.’

Audra felt heat in her eyes, a thickening in her throat. She took Danny in her arms, pressed her lips hard to his cheek, withdrew when he hissed at the pain it caused.

‘Thank you,’ she said.

‘We haven’t got them yet,’ he said. ‘Let’s move. Whiteside is still out there. We need to be long gone before he makes it back.’

Danny driving, Audra in the passenger seat, they took a dirt track out of town, heading east, then turning north. The sun breached the mountains ahead, heat building, and Danny turned up the car’s AC. He had hauled Collins upright, wedged her into the corner between the seat back and the door, her hands still bound behind her. She had let out a low groan when he stripped the tape from her mouth, leaving a red rectangle around her lips. She directed them to this back road, a route once used to get to the mine that had closed years ago. Furrows had been gouged out of the dusty earth by the wheels of great machines, the ghosts of their tracks still visible in the early light.

After twenty minutes of coarse dirt tracks, they joined a narrow surfaced road that twisted through the hills, followed by long, straight climbs that caused pressure in Audra’s ears. Soon the sun scorched the world around, and she wished for the sunglasses she’d left on the passenger seat of her own car. She lowered the visor, cupped her hand around her eyes.

Then a memory of four days ago entered her mind. A random thought, but it appeared there clear and hard. She acted on it, placed the backs of her fingers against the windshield. A second or two later, she had to withdraw them, the skin red from the heat. She remembered telling Sean to try it. He had done so, said ow, and giggled as he pulled his hand away.

Audra turned her head to gaze out of the passenger window, tried to hide the quiver in her breathing as she held back tears.

‘For what it’s worth,’ Collins said, ‘I’m sorry.’

Audra wiped at her eyes and said, ‘Go to hell.’





42


ANOTHER HOUR PASSED before anyone spoke again.

The road had climbed and climbed, twisting up into the hills like an unspooled ribbon. They passed one other vehicle, a pickup truck, the driver old and grizzled. He lifted his forefinger from the wheel in greeting as he passed. The long stretches were punctuated by strings of switchbacks as they ascended – the Mogollon Rim, Audra recalled – and the temperature dropped until Danny shut off the AC.

They reached a plateau, and the road straightened. All around, pines as far as Audra could see. Sometimes the land fell away to one side or the other, and the forests stretched to the horizon. Beautiful and terrible, she thought, hundreds of miles of nothing but trees.

My children are out here on their own, she thought. But I’m coming for them.

A question appeared in her mind, from nowhere, and she felt desperate for the answer.

‘How much?’ she said.

Danny turned to look at her.

Audra turned in the seat, looked back at Collins.

‘I said, how much?’

Collins kept her gaze to the window. ‘Half a million,’ she said. ‘Ronnie’s share was more. I don’t know how much in total.’

‘Half a million dollars,’ Audra echoed. ‘What would you have done with it?’

‘Got my boy the care he needs.’ Collins’ eyes glistened. ‘He has a heart condition. The drugs cost so much, and my insurance doesn’t cover even half of them. My mother mortgaged her house a second time, and that’s almost gone. Every time he takes a bad turn, he has to go to the hospital, and they take their cut. I got nothing left. Nothing. I just wanted my boy to be well. That’s all.’

Audra studied her, the trails of her tears. ‘And you were willing to sacrifice two other children to make that happen.’

‘That’s right.’ Collins turned her eyes away from the glass, matched Audra’s stare. ‘I mean, they’re not my children.’

The car felt colder than before, and Audra wrapped her arms around herself.

‘Up here, maybe a hundred yards,’ Collins said. ‘There’s an exit onto a dirt road. Take it.’

Danny slowed and made the turn, a cattle grid rattling beneath the wheels. The ground was softer here, more forgiving than the low desert, a bed of pine needles to cushion the worst of it.

‘Follow this trail for like fifteen, twenty minutes,’ Collins said. ‘Then we have to get out and walk.’

They made the rest of the drive in silence until Collins told Danny to stop.

Audra climbed out, stretched her limbs, shivered at the chill in the air. She had to remind herself it was still early morning, the car’s touchscreen saying it was not yet seven-thirty. Danny came around the car and opened the rear door.

‘Get the Glock,’ he said.

Audra reached in through the passenger door, retrieved the pistol from the glove compartment. Cold and heavy in her hand, it sent another wave of chills through her.