Two Days Gone (Ryan DeMarco Mystery #1)(84)

“Excellent,” Inman said. He stood, held the cigarette in his mouth, leaned down, and seized DeMarco under both arms and yanked him to his feet. They stood face to face. Inman took the cigarette from between his lips, blew out the smoke. With his free hand, he drew a long, heavy-handled knife from the leather sheath strapped to his belt, and he laid the side of the blade against DeMarco’s cheek, the point near the corner of his good eye.

Inman said, “There’s a couple places up along the border where I’m pretty sure we can slip through. We do, I just might let you go. We don’t…” He grinned and took another drag from the cigarette. Then, “We clear on this?”

DeMarco squinted his eyes and said nothing. You’re fucking dead, he thought.

“So everything’s cool,” Inman said. “Hold this for me, will you?” He took a last drag from the cigarette then dropped the butt into DeMarco’s shirt pocket. Then he stepped behind DeMarco, laid the knife blade against the side of DeMarco’s neck. Immediately a pinpoint of heat stabbed DeMarco’s left breast, then the heat blossomed and spread, and he smelled his shirt burning.

Inman chuckled while DeMarco squirmed. Finally Inman stretched an arm over DeMarco’s shoulder and slammed his palm against the burning cigarette, hard enough to jolt the air from DeMarco’s lungs. Inman said, “Don’t say I never did nothing for you.” He shoved him toward the kitchen.

DeMarco moved with small, stuttering steps, taking as much time as he dared, breathing deeply through his nose. Thanks to the adrenaline and the blow to his chest, all grogginess was gone now and his head was clear. He thought about dropping low, leaning back, and driving his skull up into Inman’s chin. He thought about spinning away, hooking his foot against Inman’s, and bringing him down. He thought about diving forward while bringing his right heel up into Inman’s crotch.

But he was also clearheaded enough to know that none of those moves would work. Inman was keeping himself an arm’s length away, only close enough to hold the blade against DeMarco’s jugular. Inman was stronger and younger and quicker.

I’ll have to take my chances in the car, DeMarco told himself. Maybe send us both into a ravine somewhere. If I’m going to die, this shitbag is going with me.

Just inside the kitchen door, Inman grabbed DeMarco by the collar and brought him to a halt. He turned the knife slightly so that the blade bit into the skin. Softly, Inman told him, “Your neighbors are sound asleep. There’s not a single light burning on either side of this house. You can’t run, you can’t call out, there’s not a thing you can do to change that. You understand?”

DeMarco gazed through the screen door into the blackness of his yard. There should be a lamppost out there. A beautiful brick path lined with solar lights. A child’s swing. A place to play catch.

Inman slid the blade off DeMarco’s neck, jabbed the point into his spine. “You understand, pig?” he said.

DeMarco nodded.

“Then move it.”

So many thoughts on the way to the barn. A slow tumbling of emotions. He realized that a part of him had always hoped that everything could be set right somehow, Ryan and Laraine and all the dark, sodden nights, a dozen years lived in error. And he realized too what a foolish hope that had been. There could be no erasure of mistakes engraved in time, no cleansing. One careless night, three wasted lives. Done is done. Dead is dead.

His shoes were wet with dew from the high grass, his ankles were wet, his cuffs were heavy. He smelled the dew, and its scent filled him with sadness. The sadness was heavy and wet and cool on his feet. He smelled winter in the night air, the coming of the end. And he knew suddenly that this was where he wanted to die, not in Canada or anywhere in between but here at the end of a path he would never finish building.

He saw that Inman had already opened the barn door and backed the car most of the way inside, and when they reached the front of the car, he saw that the trunk lid was open. That’s where I’m going. Except that I’m not. He knew that Inman planned to stuff him into the trunk under concealment of the barn, had even removed the bulb from the trunk light. He would keep DeMarco where he could cause no trouble, arrive at the border around dawn. DeMarco was insurance, nothing more. When the insurance was no longer needed, the policy would be canceled. No refunds, no dividends.

The other possibility was that Inman would shove DeMarco into the trunk, slit his throat, close the lid, and leave him there to stink up the garage. The story about driving DeMarco’s car to Canada merely a ruse to get DeMarco to the car. After all, Inman must have a car of his own parked nearby.

But if he planned to kill DeMarco immediately, why not do it in the house? In fact, why come after DeMarco at all? What did that accomplish? None of Inman’s actions made any sense.

What also made no sense was the peculiar feeling of calm that enveloped DeMarco when he stepped inside the barn. So cool inside, so dark. He hadn’t parked his car in here in years, hadn’t opened the door except in daylight, to pull out the lawn mower or get one of his tools. He liked the strangeness he felt now, the slow sense of dreaminess, as if he could die in slow motion here and let all the past slip away from him, all mistakes quietly swallowed by the darkness.

Inman shoved him toward the rear of the Stratus. At the turn, DeMarco told himself. That’s where to do it. He knew exactly where the machete was, thought he could grab it even in the darkness. On a long plank shelf behind the car, he had long ago laid out every tool he owned, always returned each tool to the same place after its use. Nearest to him now were the power tools, the circular saw and the portable jigsaw, the sander and power drill in its plastic case. Then the hammers, the ball-peen and claw and the rubber mallet and the roofing hammer. Then, organized in boxes of various kinds, all of the smaller items, nails and screws and tapes and cords.