And There He Kept Her (Ben Packard #1)(78)

Emmett saw him reach for the gun in his coat pocket. “No, Carl. Leave it.” He slashed the back of Carl’s bloody hand with the knife. “It’s too late for that. You were right. We’re not in this together. It’s every man for himself.”

The inside of the cab was steamy with the mineral heat of Carl’s spilled blood. He let go of the hole in his neck and made a bloody print on the driver’s side window as he fumbled for the door latch. Blood dribbled from between his lips and sprayed the dashboard when he let out a wet cough. He turned toward Emmett and gave him one last look that flashed a thousand emotions—regret, confusion, fear. He reached for the front of Emmett’s shirt before collapsing in his lap.

The wrecker was still inching backward. Emmett felt it collide with the Grand Am behind them, then stop. He looked down at the back of Carl’s head and saw maybe the only thing in the truck not covered in blood. He got his hands under Carl’s shoulders and pushed him off of his lap. Emmett could feel Carl’s blood soaking through his clothes and getting next to his skin.

Emmett threw the knife to the floorboard and pushed the wrecker’s shifter back into park. He opened his door and rolled out like wet laundry from a basket. He wiped his hands on his shirt and adjusted his yellow stocking cap as he walked back to see how close the car was to the edge. Maybe five feet but there was a slight incline. Too much work to try to put his back into it and push the car himself.

He went around again to Carl’s side and opened the door. Carl’s bloody handprint on the window was already darkening and drying. Emmett reached across the body, looking for the gun in Carl’s pocket, found it, and put it in his own. He reached between Carl’s lap and the steering column for the shifter lever and pulled it down into reverse. The truck lightly backed into the front of the Grand Am again and then stopped.

Emmett stopped for a minute to catch his breath. With the dome light on, the inside of the truck looked like a slaughterhouse. Carl’s eyes were open. His face was a blood mask with a beard.

The truck needed a little gas if it was going to push the car hard enough to overcome the slight incline at the quarry’s edge. Bending so he could get his head under the steering wheel, Emmett found the cuff of Carl’s right pant leg and lifted his size fourteen boot to place it on the accelerator. Immediately the engine revved and the truck started to move back. The driver’s side door pushed against Emmett and knocked him to his knees. The bottom of the door hit him in the ass and scraped up his back, pushing his shirt up around his shoulders before he finally flattened himself and let it pass over him. Another inch and the front tire would have gone over his left hand.

Emmett lifted his head just in time to see the boy’s car curve to the left instead of going straight back. It went over the quarry’s edge sideways and looked like it was going to land on its roof. A few seconds later the wrecker followed it. The front end pitched straight up and the headlights swept toward the sky. There was a crash and a splash. Emmett got to his feet and went to the ledge. Water frothed and moved in overlapping waves. The boy’s car was upside down, the weight of its engine compartment pulling it toward the bottom. Carl’s wrecker was going straight down, ass end first. The air rushed from the cab in a hiss of bubbles and the headlights went under the surface, two owl eyes staring back at him as it sank deeper into the churning, cola-colored water. One light went out and then the other, and then there was just the sound of the agitated water and his own heavy breathing.

Emmett looked around this place where he suddenly found himself all alone. Light from the moon made the trees cast shadows in the dark. He could feel Carl’s blood drying and tightening against his skin.

He took out his cigarettes, relieved to see they had stayed dry. At least the sonofabitch had the decency not to bleed all over his smokes. He had three left.

After a minute he headed for the gap in the trees, back the way they had come in the truck. The realization that he’d just taken care of all his troubles buoyed him. The boy, the car, Carl—all gone. The girl was going to be fine. He’d take care of her wounds and bring her the insulin she needed. He didn’t think about how far he had to walk or how cold he was. He didn’t think about how much he hurt or was going to hurt by the time he got home.

Emmett lit a cigarette and kept walking.





Chapter Twenty-Five


Packard couldn’t sleep. Every time he got close to letting go of his racing thoughts, the dip in consciousness would goose him awake again and start the loop playing from the beginning.

They’d almost closed the gap between what Sam knew and where Jesse went with Jenny five nights ago. Shannon had given Sam the name of someone picking up a prescription for eighty-milligram oxys, Sam’s pill of choice. Sam sent Jesse to steal them. It was the only solution that made sense.

Packard sat up and reached for his phone. He pulled up the photo of the prescription bottles they’d found in the safe at Sam’s house. Two were for Percocets. One was for thirty milligram Roxicodone. One for ten milligram generic Valium. No eighty-mil oxys.

They were so close. Packard felt like a racing wolf straining for those last few inches that would finally give him the mouthful of hide that would take this beast down. He put the phone down and stared at the ceiling.

He was still awake at 2:00 a.m. when he got a call from Sean White Cloud.

“I thought you might want to know we just brought Susan to the hospital in the ambulance. She’s been in an accident.”