The Sound of Broken Ribs(62)

Belinda started laughing. She couldn’t help herself. What started as a low chuckle soon grew into hitching laughter. Her breath fogged the passenger-side window.

The author ground the barrel into Belinda’s temple. “What the fuck’s so funny.”

“Did you—did you send—did ya send the private eye bitch after us? The black lady?” Belinda asked between laughing and gasping for breath. “Did you? Huh?”

The author didn’t respond.

“This clusterfuck of a mess just keeps getting better and better—doesn’t it? And it won’t be over once you kill me, either. Kill me all you want, bitch. I’ll fucking haunt you. I’ll fucking haunt your ass and—”

Something flat and solid and much bigger than the author’s gun smashed into the side of Belinda’s head. The world outside her window canted and blurred. The blow didn’t knock her out, but it rattled her dice. Shut her up.

“Not now,” the author said in a hushed voice. “Not yet. Let’s make it to the cabin.”

The prosthetic arm remained in the author’s lap. Belinda was sure it hadn’t moved this entire time. The realization that the gun was still digging into her temple sent ice water flooding into Belinda’s veins.

Who hit her?

“Who else’s in here?”

“You’ll find out soon enough.” The author peeled the gun from Belinda’s temple and got rolling again. They’d been sitting in the middle of the road the whole time and no one had come along, in either direction. It was the middle of the day and no one was on the road.

Where the fuck is she taking me?

Belinda’s ears popped, but she didn’t start to worry until she saw snow. End of summer and snow on the ground. Wherever they were going, it was high. Thousands of miles above sea level. Which was funny when you thought about it. You’d figure that the closer you got to the sun the hotter it would be. But that wasn’t the case. Belinda never had understood science.

*

Lei drove in uncomfortable silence for another fifteen minutes before she could muster the courage to ask, “What did you do to Jack?”

“Is that your private eye? The black bitch?”

Lei swallowed her anger. If at no other point in her life, now was the time to be calm. “Yes.”

“She choked on a pair of fucking socks.” What came out of Belinda next sounded like half-laugh and half-cry.

She’s lost her mind.

“How did she do that?” Her own voice reminded her of a voice in a video game Harry loved to play. In this game, there was a machine that was nothing more than an electronic eye on a craning neck. It called itself Gladis, or something like that. The voice actor was British and unaffected. Even when she said the creepiest of things, the artificial intelligence sounded completely together, totally rational. The machine had scared Lei. And now she sounded just like it. Cold and emotionless.

“We tried—Jesus Christ—we tried to—” Belinda kept devolving into sobbing laughter.

She’s breaking.

And then it all came out in a rush, as if someone had destroyed a barrier the size of Hoover Dam, releasing enough water to drown a small town: “We tried to fucking gag her and she swallowed the goddamn sock, and then she flailed around the room bouncing off shit and we just watched her until she didn’t move anymore. Then she was fucking dead, and she’s still dead and—goddamn it—if there is a Hell, I’m going; aren’t I?”

“Who’s ‘we’?”

“Carl. The guy that hid me… After... after Tony died.”

Lei somehow managed to keep her calm. “Where is he now?”

“Back at the room, I guess.”

“What room number?”

“You’re not going to go back and—”

“What—room—number?”

Belinda told her. Lei asked no more questions. When they came to a turnabout, Lei navigated the rental into it. The view to the right was nothing but the snow-dusted tops of trees—California oak as far as the eye could see. With gun still in hand, she shoved the shifter into park and twisted in her seat. She aimed the Glock at Belinda and said, “Pick up the phone.”

“Why?”

“Do it.”

Tentatively, Belinda Walsh picked up the smart phone from where it had landed below the radio.

“You’re going to call 911. If you tell them anything other than what I tell you to tell them, I will shoot you in the face. I don’t care, Belinda. You deserve worse, but I’ll just have to live with what I can get. I’ll dump you over that guard rail. I will make sure that you’re never found. Even if I am caught and shoved in prison for the rest of my life, I will never reveal where I left you. Do you understand me?”

“No one would miss me, anyway.”

“Am I supposed to feel sorry for you?”

“No. What do you want me to tell 911?”

“Everything you just told me—what happened to Jack Kennedy, her room number, Carl’s room number, and then I want you to hang up.”

“This isn’t Carl’s fault.”

“I don’t care.”

“He didn’t—”

Lei brought the butt of the gun down on Belinda’s nose.