The Inn(36)

The car came out of nowhere, veering out of the oncoming lane and heading right for him. Squid jerked the handlebars and hit the slope on the side of the road at an odd angle. They seemed to be on him before he had even stopped skidding and rolling on the dirt and pine needles; they grabbed his wrists and shoved his face in the earth.

He thought it was cops until the hood came down over his head.





CHAPTER FORTY-ONE





THE PLAN ROLLED out almost naturally, as though it was our only available course of action. Kidnapping. Violence. I stood in the tiny, abandoned house in the dusty darkness created by the boarded-up windows and looked at the boy in the chair as Effie secured his wrists and ankles with duct tape. Nick, Effie, and I had come together in the forest in the early hours of the morning; it was as though we felt our plan would stain the house if we were to build it within its walls. Later that morning we had tailed Squid as he left Cline’s house for a drug run into Dogtown. He had been a pitiful kidnapping victim, his body nothing but bone and taut sinewy muscle, as easy to pin and bind and pick up as a struggling lamb. From the old student ID I found in his wallet, I learned he was sixteen. He had cried nonstop from the moment we grabbed him to this moment, and now he sat hooded, waiting to know his fate.

Nick ripped the hood off the kid’s head and he took in the sight of us, his surroundings. His face was wet with tears and sweat. I watched a hundred emotions flicker over his face. We’d bagged him too fast for him to know who we were, and now that he knew, he was confused. We weren’t a rival drug crew who would kill him and leave him somewhere with his genitals in his mouth for Cline to find. We weren’t FBI agents who would extract whatever they wanted from him and then dump him in a jail cell for the rest of his life. There was relief, but there was also terror. He knew we were Marni’s people.

“Oh, fuck.” Squid dissolved into sobs again.

“Yeah, fuck.” Nick kicked Squid’s chair, jolting the boy.

“Please.” Squid looked at me, figuring for some reason that I was the friendliest of his three captors. “Please, man! You can’t do this. You can’t. This is kidnapping, man. This is serious shit. Let me go, okay? Please! Let me go. I won’t say nothing.”

“Squid.” I held up the boy’s phone. “Don’t try to give me a lecture on serious shit. I’ve got your message here to Marni inviting her to the party two nights ago. Cline asked you to invite her because she knew you from school and trusted you. She’s dead, and there are a bunch of photos from the party that put the two of you together.”

“You can’t prove nothing.” Squid sniffed.

“Yeah, famous last words,” I said.

“We just went to a party, that’s all.”

“That’s all, huh?” I said. Effie took the backpack we’d taken off Squid’s shoulders and dumped its contents at his feet. Baggies of colored pills spilled out onto the bare boards. There was also, as the boy had promised us, another huge gun. The boy refused to look at the items.

“Did you know that when you die, your stomach becomes a kind of time capsule?” I folded my arms, sat on the edge of an old table a few feet away from Squid. “It immediately stops digesting whatever’s in there. Addison Gilbert Hospital pulled a couple of pills identical to these out of an OD victim last week. I wonder if they’ll find any in Marni’s stomach.”

“That’s bullshit, man,” Squid snapped.

“You better hope so.” Nick was circling Squid like a wolf, every muscle in his body taut and ticking with desire for violence. “Because if it’s not, we’ve got you, a drug fatality, and the lethal drugs that were supplied all together and wrapped up with a nice little bow.”

Squid hung his head and sobbed soundlessly, shuddering with fear. He gave himself a minute and then let the rage take over, kicking in the chair, spitting as he exploded at me.

“You stupid-ass bitch! What did you expect Cline to do? The guy’s a fucking psycho! He killed Newgate just for bringing his kid to a meeting!”

Effie and I looked at each other.

“He killed Mary Ann Druly too, didn’t he?” I asked. “That bitch made a fool of him in public.” Squid wiped a tear on his shoulder. “You don’t get away with that.”

“We need to get Clay down here,” I told Nick. “The kid’s a murder witness.”

“Dude, you dumb or what?” Squid sneered at me. “Listen to what I’m telling you. Cline is gonna come and get you. He got Marni. That chick was dead the moment the fat cop brought her to the house in the squad car. Cline’s gonna get me next, because he’ll know you took me. Doesn’t matter if he thinks I snitched on him or not. People are just things to him.” The boy laughed suddenly, spittle hanging from his lip. “You think you’re gonna put me on a stand? You hand me in and I won’t make it to the jailhouse!”

In my hand, Squid’s phone rang. The caller was identified only with the letter C. I walked to the door of the abandoned house and stood looking out at the pines as I pressed the answer button.

I kept quiet. Cline seemed to expect that.

“Robinson,” he said. “I know it’s you.”





CHAPTER FORTY-TWO