In Seconds

17

The digging seemed to go on forever since Ink couldn’t do much of it. L.J. was young and strong, but it took one man with a shovel several hours to dig four graves, even in the soft, loamy earth of the forest. Ink would’ve skipped burying the bodies; he was anxious to return to town now that they had a car. But he couldn’t leave his victims in the house. The stench would soon be unbearable, even if they shoved them into a closet or a back bedroom. And they couldn’t just dump them in the forest in case someone stumbled across them. Provided no one realized these men were missing, quite some time could pass before anyone came looking for them. Certainly long enough for him and L.J. to finish their business here in Pineview.

That meant they had to bury the dead.

Ink was glad they’d made that decision, out of sight, out of mind. While L.J. toiled in the forest, Ink had been swabbing up the blood in the living room—as much as he could reach. He’d been so determined to shoot every man before that man could react he’d slaughtered them all before they knew what hit them. And it’d created quite a mess.

Relieved to be done with the cleaning, he stood and watched L.J. work.

“This is bullshit.” L.J. rested against his shovel and wiped the sweat from his forehead. “It’s hotter ’n hell this afternoon, and here I am doing manual labor.”

“So? At least you won’t have to sleep on the ground tonight.” Ink tossed the camera belonging to one of his victims into the grave that would soon hold another of the bodies. “No more going without a shower, either.” He took the beer he’d carried out under his arm and popped the top. “There’s another one of these waiting for you in the fridge.”

“You gotta be joking! You think I care about having a beer right now?” L.J. motioned to the blanket that covered the only man he hadn’t yet pushed into the ground. “This guy’s blood’s all over me.” He held out his arms to show Ink the pink rivulets where the dead man’s blood had blended with sweat.

Ink merely shrugged. He’d seen and done a lot worse than shoot a few guys who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. After he’d killed his sister for getting him in trouble with the cops because he’d robbed a liquor store, he’d stood by her casket and cried along with his mother, all the while smiling inside that he didn’t have to deal with the bitch anymore.

“So? Someone had to carry him out,” he told L.J. “It didn’t hurt you.” He took a long drink of his beer, found it as refreshing as he’d hoped. “Just be glad you’re not him, huh?” He pointed at the dead guy and laughed but L.J. didn’t join in.

“You scare me, dude.” This wasn’t a casual statement. Ink had been the kid’s idol in prison but L.J. no longer seemed impressed, and Ink wasn’t all that surprised. No one liked him once they really got to know him, and that bothered him more than he wanted to admit. Pretty soon, every person who encountered him looked as horrified as L.J. did now. His own sister used to stare at him as if she’d never seen a bigger monster. That was another reason he’d killed her. She was his first murder, not that anyone had been able to pin her death on him. Not yet, anyway. The police were still working on that one. Had been for fifteen years and probably always would be. He’d done it as a drive-by while riding along with some of his more violent friends and she was walking home from school. Everyone assumed a rival gang had made the hit.

“That’s good.” He told himself the change in L.J.’s feelings about him didn’t matter. L.J. wasn’t going anywhere until Ink was done with him. “You should be scared. Because if you ever cross me—” he grinned “—you know what’ll happen.”

L.J. gaped at him as if he’d never seen him before.

“Why so glum, huh? Now that we’ve got a cabin and a car, the fun’s just starting.” Ink lifted his can in a salute and hobbled back to the house. He’d taken eight hundred bucks off the men he’d killed, four cell phones that didn’t work, thanks to the remote location, the keys to their vehicle and several credit cards. He didn’t understand why L.J. was so shaken. They were set.

Now all they had to do was head into town and find Laurel.

Myles put out a Be on the Lookout, or BOLO, on the two men he’d found with the Toyota truck. Then he spent the afternoon and evening driving around Libby and Pineview, asking everyone he met if they’d seen anyone fitting either description. “Ron Howard” and his younger companion seemed to have disappeared into thin air, but they had to have gone somewhere. When Harvey left them on the side of the road, they’d been on foot, which gave them only three options. They’d walked. (Which meant they couldn’t have gone far.) They’d stolen another car. (There’d been no reports of that—at least, not yet.) Or they’d hitchhiked. Surely, anyone who’d picked them up would remember.

Bob, down at the Gas-n-Go, told Myles they’d been in to get gas yesterday. Based on his estimate of the time, Myles figured it was right before he’d found them on the road. He hoped their images had been captured on the security tape; he planned to create a flyer. A picture would be a far better search aid than mere descriptions.

But the tape was so old and overused he couldn’t differentiate one customer from the next, let alone capture images clear enough to print. He told Bob to buy a new tape, just in case they came in again, and left disappointed. He wanted to find out who these men were, what their backgrounds were and why they’d driven a truck stolen on the outskirts of a farming community in central California all the way to Montana. What business did they have here? Unless they had family in the area, the backwoods of Lincoln County was a bit out of the way for a random visit.

He checked the frozen lasagna he’d put in the oven when he got home. Not done. Those things took forever. Judging by the frozen lump in the center he wouldn’t be eating until midnight. But it didn’t matter. It wasn’t as if Marley was waiting for supper. He’d let her go to Elizabeth’s more than six hours ago. He didn’t like that she was outside his protection, but he believed she was safer there, with adults, than staying alone while he worked, especially after dark.

Thinking it might help him find “Ron” and “Peter” if he put a notice about them in the paper, he called Chester. Chester was already in bed, but his wife woke him and he immediately agreed to do a write-up. Myles hung up just as the timer went off on the lasagna.

“Now that I’m too tired to eat,” he grumbled. He’d been going on very little sleep for the better part of a week and had pushed himself extra hard today. He was determined to solve Pat’s murder. Keeping his mind occupied also stopped him from obsessing over Vivian. The jealousy that’d reared up this morning hadn’t gone anywhere. It simmered in the background, making him glance out his kitchen window every so often to see if Rex’s motorcycle was still parked where he’d seen it earlier.

As of two seconds ago, it was. Two minutes before that it’d been there, too. The same held true for ten minutes earlier and so on. Myles was pretty sure, at this point, that Rex was staying the night.

Did that mean he’d be sleeping on the sofa?

Myles was staring into space as he contemplated this question when the doorbell rang. Turning off the timer, he retrieved the slow-cooking lasagna and sat it on top of the stove so he could answer the door. It was late, too late for regular guests. So he hoped Vivian had come to talk about last night, or at least explain her relationship with her unexpected visitor.

But it wasn’t his neighbor. It was his neighbor’s guest.

A fresh spurt of dislike caused Myles to stiffen. Despite Rex’s shabby appearance, most women would find him attractive, Myles had to admit. He had a reckless, rock-star air about him that, unfortunately, extended to his not-so-well-hidden drug habit. Myles didn’t want to notice the sheen of sweat that made Rex’s T-shirt cling to him, the clammy pallor of his skin or the slight trembling of his hands. Myles had enough going on without worrying about some out-of-towner’s addiction. In fact, he wished he could forget Rex and Vivian, but that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon. Not after making love to her at the cabin.

“What can I do for you?” he asked.

A toothpick dangled from Rex’s mouth. He chewed on it, apparently in no hurry to respond.

“Well?” Myles prompted.

Rex moved the toothpick to one side with his tongue. “Can I come in?”

Myles gave him a somewhat hesitant nod—his agreement stemmed more from curiosity than anything else—and held the door. “If you want.”

After a quick glance at the light glowing in Vivian’s kitchen, Rex frowned and stepped inside. Then he looked around and gave a grudging nod. “Nice.”

Oddly enough, Myles got the impression that compliment was sincere. But a bitter note also rang through what Rex had said, and that stopped Myles from offering any kind of thanks. “I assume you didn’t come over to check out my place.”

“No.” He shoved his hands in his pockets, probably to hide the shaking. “I came over to ask you a favor.”

Myles had to catch his jaw to keep it from dropping. “You want something from me?”

The facade created by Rex’s I-don’t-give-a-shit attitude and that tough-guy toothpick routine cracked when he had to reach for a wall to steady himself. Myles almost felt sorry for him. Vivian’s friend, or whatever he was to her, was too proud to be in this position. “You need a doctor,” he said. “You know that, right?”

“Don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself.”

“Doesn’t look like you’re doing a very good job.”

A self-deprecating smile twisted his lips. “Yeah, well, not all of us can be like you.”

“If you hate me so much, or what this uniform stands for, why are you in my living room?”

“To tell you this.” He grimaced, whether from pain or a general reluctance to continue, Myles couldn’t tell. Humility didn’t come easy for this guy. The only reason Myles could imagine he’d come over was that he had no other choice.

“I’m waiting.”

“Vivian needs you. I can’t…I can’t protect her right now.” His eyes grew watery, another sign of weakness he no doubt despised, but it was this subtle evidence of caring that evoked enough respect to temper, somewhat, Myles’s previous opinion of him. At least Rex was sincere. At least he was worried about someone other than himself.

“What is she to you?” Myles wished this question wasn’t so transparent, but…there it was.

Rex studied him before responding. “I’m a friend. We used to be more, but…” He shook his head. “We’re no good as a couple. I’m no good for her,” he clarified, being more honest. “She needs someone like you, someone who could be the father her children deserve, someone with a decent job and a house.” He waved at the trappings around them. “You care about her, don’t you?”

There was no arguing that she meant something to him, but Myles wasn’t willing to examine what, not in front of Rex. Nor did he appreciate the idea that he might be some sort of consolation prize. “I don’t want to see her hurt, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Then you’re going to have to do your part.”

Myles rested his hands on his hips. He’d taken off his utility belt. That thing weighed about twenty pounds and he didn’t like lugging it around the house, but he hadn’t changed out of his uniform yet. “What is my part, exactly? Is this where you tell me about her abusive ex-husband?”

Rex wiped the sweat beading his upper lip. “No, this is where I tell you that someone’s trying to kill her.”

He was serious. Dead serious. Suddenly Vivian’s bringing that gun home from the bank made a whole lot more sense. So did her fear after hearing about Pat’s murder. “And it’s not her ex?”

“No.”

“How do you know?”

“The threat isn’t new. We’ve been in WitSec for four years. Well, we were in for two, until we left D.C. When The Crew found us there and came after us again, we figured there had to be a leak. So we abandoned the program and split up, hoping we could finally shake them.”

“Who are The Crew?”

“They’re members of a relatively new prison gang in California. Her brother and I used to belong.”

“That doesn’t tell me much. Why do they want her dead?”

“Payback. It’s a long story, but basically they’re determined to avenge a couple of deaths they blame us for, as well as a few convictions that wouldn’t have been possible without information we provided.”

“And how did she get involved in that?”

“They were trying to get to us through her and the kids, and some shit happened.”

If he thought he could get away with such a short summary, he was mistaken. “Maybe you could explain what shit.”

Besides being ill, Rex was clearly anxious, agitated and eager to get back to Vivian. “Shots were fired. People died. Others were hurt permanently and will never forget.”

Myles couldn’t imagine Vivian associated with any of that. But he’d never expected her to be associated with someone like Rex, either. “And how did you and her brother come in contact with this prison gang?”

Rex’s chuckle held no mirth. “How do you think?”

It was as he suspected, then. “You’re an ex-con.”

He didn’t confirm or deny it, but he didn’t have to. His silence spoke for him. “She’ll have to tell you herself. I can’t stay. She won’t be happy that I came over here. I just…couldn’t leave town without knowing I’d done all I could for her.”

“You’re leaving Pineview?” Myles couldn’t believe how glad he was to hear this. Evidently he felt more threatened by Rex and Vivian’s history than he wanted to admit, even to himself.

“Yeah. Tomorrow morning. I’m taking Jake and Mia with me. They’ll be staying with their uncle for a while. They’re not safe here.”

“If The Crew’s trying to kill Vivian, she’s not safe, either,” Myles pointed out.

“She won’t leave. That’s why I’m depending on you.”

“Why won’t she go?”

“This place matters to her.” Rex’s gaze flicked over him again. “She’s not willing to give it up.”

Was Rex intimating that he thought Myles played some part in Pineview’s appeal? And, if so, was it true? “So…let me get this straight. She’s planning to defend herself?”

“She’ll have to if she stays. And she’s aware of that. She knows what these people are capable of. She’s seen it before. I gotta go.”

Myles followed him to the door, stopped him at the last minute. “But you still love her, right?” In the midst of everything else, Myles wasn’t sure why he wanted to know this, but he did.

“I wouldn’t be standing here if I didn’t.”

At least he was honest. Myles had guessed correctly, but that only confirmed everything he’d been telling himself. He’d been stupid to get mixed up in Vivian’s love life. For his own good, and Marley’s, he needed to stay out of it in the future. But now that The Crew had come to his community, there was a lot more at stake than protecting his heart. “Where does her brother live? How will I be able to reach you?”

“You won’t.”

“You’re asking me to look out for her, but you don’t trust me enough to tell me where to find you?”

“The less you know, the better. Just in case.”

Myles shook his head. “You don’t have much confidence in me.”

“I could say the same.”

There was no answer to that. They regarded each other with equal distrust.

“You’re a small-town cop who’s probably never come up against people like this,” Rex added. “The odds aren’t in your favor.”

Myles stopped him once again. “Before you walk away, tell me what you know about the men who’re coming after her.”

“I’m guessing there’re two. They busted out of a California prison ten days ago.”

“What makes you think they’re coming here?”

“That Realtor dude who was killed, for one.”

“What connection does The Crew have with Pat?”

“None. Except for how senseless the killing was. Whoever did it was probably looking for a place to stay or money or something else and negotiations didn’t go as planned.”

“You said, ‘for one.’ What else makes you think they’re coming here?”

“Besides the fact that they’ve sworn to see us all dead?”

“Yeah.”

“They’ve already started to make good on that promise. They stabbed Vivian’s mother to death sometime in the past week.”

Myles felt his eyebrows jerk up. “They killed her mother?”

“Neighbor found her.”

Shit… This was serious, all right. “And Vivian knows?”

“About her mother? As of this morning, she does.”

How was he supposed to react to that? Vivian was caught up in something bigger than he could ever have imagined. “And the names of the men who broke out of prison are…”

“I only know one of them. He’s called Ink. Spent a lot of time with him back in the day but don’t remember his real name because I never used it. All I know is that he’s a crazy son of a bitch.”

“What does he look like?”

“He’s got tattoos—”

With a scowl, Myles pulled his shirt out of his pants in preparation for removing his uniform once Rex left. “Let me guess. Those tattoos are all over, including his face. Lightning bolts for eyebrows?”

Rex stopped trying to make his escape and actually advanced toward him. “You’ve seen him.”

He recalled the uneasiness he’d felt in the presence of “Ron Howard” and his younger buddy. “Yesterday. With a kid maybe nineteen, driving a stolen truck. Only I didn’t know it was stolen at the time, or I would’ve arrested them.”

This news seemed to infuse Rex with enough adrenaline to overcome the physical symptoms of his addiction. He quit shaking, became extremely focused. “Were you alone?”

“Yes.”

“Then it’s a good thing you didn’t try. Where are they now?”

That was the million-dollar question. “I wish I knew.” Especially because he was pretty sure that Rex was right. These escapees had killed Pat. Two men fresh out of prison would need to buy some regular shoes. They might even buy the same shoes. And those shoes would likely be cheap, common and brand-spanking-new.

Rex cursed, paced and cursed some more. “You have to find them before they find Laurel. You realize that.”

“Who’s Laurel?” This was getting more complicated by the minute.

He waved impatiently. “Vivian. Of course I’m talking about Vivian.”

“Her real name’s Laurel?”

“Used to be. Laurel Hodges. At least, that was her married name.”

TH. Those were the initials of her husband. His name was Tom Hodges. Myles finally knew, but that was little consolation. The woman he’d slept with at the cabin wasn’t even the person he thought she was. No wonder she’d been so secretive, so hard to know. Understanding brought a touch of comfort because it explained so much. And yet…he’d already lost Amber Rose. Only a fool would get emotionally involved in this.

Myles thought of a dozen additional questions he needed to ask. But Rex wouldn’t wait any longer. “She’ll have to tell you the rest,” he said. “She’s got enough going on over there packing up her kids’ stuff. I don’t want her to realize you know until after I’m gone. It’ll only upset her that I told you.” He paused. “There’s just one more thing you need to understand.”

“What’s that?”

“You can’t trust anyone. Especially anyone from California or the Federal Bureau of Prisons.”

Myles frowned. “Don’t tell me you’ve concocted some conspiracy theory. You were just gaining a little credibility.”

Rex didn’t like that response. He came over and got right in Myles’s face. “Listen to me. This gang is more powerful than you think. They bribe, threaten, coerce, do whatever they need to do in order to gain information. If you put Laurel’s location out there, they’ll access it, and they’ll show up long before the cavalry. Or they’ll wait until she’s supposedly safe, and then they’ll make their move.”

Myles refused to back away. “I can’t let anyone know she’s here. Is that what you’re saying?”

“If you do, she’ll wind up dead.”

And with that he walked out, letting the screen door slam behind him.

Myles blew out a sigh as he tried to take in everything he’d just learned—the fact that it was Vivian who’d brought Pat’s killer to Pineview, that she must’ve suspected and hadn’t told him, that she was probably too scared to trust anyone but should’ve trusted him…?.

Sometime later, he sat on the couch and leaned his head back as he continued to think. He must’ve fallen into an uneasy sleep because that sleep was disturbed the following morning when he heard car doors opening and shutting outside.

Leaning up to peer out the window, he saw Jake and Mia standing in Vivian’s driveway while Vivian—or Laurel—and Rex loaded her car.

“How long will we be gone, Mommy?” he could hear Mia ask.

“For a few weeks. It’ll be a great vacation. You’ll get to play with your cousin, see the new baby after she’s born, be with your aunt and uncle.” Vivian’s voice sounded unnaturally high, too high to be as excited as she was pretending.

“I can’t wait!” Jake seemed genuinely enthusiastic. “It’s been so long since we’ve seen Uncle Virgil. I’m going to tell him about the fish I caught.”

Vivian said something Myles couldn’t quite hear; he guessed it was about how proud his uncle would be. Then Mia spoke up again. “Will we get to see Daddy when we’re there?”

The slight delay in Vivian’s response suggested this wasn’t an easy question to answer. “No, sweetheart. I’m sorry. Not this time. Maybe later. Daddy doesn’t live anywhere near Uncle Virgil.”

“Will we get to see Dad for Christmas, then?” Jake asked.

“Maybe,” she replied. “I’m working on it.”

By trying to stop the men who were trying to kill her so she could come out of hiding? Was that what she meant?

“I’m going to ask Santa to bring Daddy to our house for Christmas,” Mia said, which obviously meant it had to happen because Santa would never disappoint her the way mere mortals would.

Neither adult argued with her. Rex kept loading the luggage; Vivian got Mia and Jake buckled into their seats.

“You have everything?” Myles heard Rex ask.

“I think so,” she said.

Rex grabbed her arm before she could climb behind the wheel. “Are you sure you won’t change your mind and go with us? Please?”

She slipped out of his grasp. “I can’t,” she said, and Myles could tell she was weeping.