“We could tell something wasn’t right,” David said. “We came to see if we could find anything.”
Laurel turned with wide eyes and looked at David. He was staring straight ahead with a slightly dazed look on his face that was eerily similar to the look Laurel had seen on her mom just an hour earlier. “David!” she hissed.
“And what were you planning to do if you found anything?” Barnes asked in that same strangely compelling voice.
“Get proof. Take it to the cops.”
“David!” Laurel yelled, but he didn’t seem to hear her.
“Why are you so worried?” Barnes asked.
Again David opened his mouth, but there were too many secrets that could come spilling out. Laurel closed her eyes, apologized mentally, and slapped David across the face as hard as she could.
“Shit! Ow! Laurel!” David cupped his cheek in his hand, stretching out his jawbone.
A sigh of relief escaped Laurel’s lips and she squeezed David’s hand. He just looked confused.
“I’ve heard enough,” Barnes said, standing up.
The red-haired man smiled — a sinister caricature of a real smile that made Laurel cringe and shrink back against David’s chest. “Let’s break their legs. I could use the exercise.”
Laurel felt David stiffen, and his breathing turned short and erratic.
Barnes shook his head. “Not here; this address is on my card. I’ve got enough blood to clean up as it is.” He crouched down again and looked back and forth between them for a long minute. “You two like to swim?”
Laurel narrowed her eyes and glared at the man, but David held her back.
“I think you’d find a little dip in the Chetco quite…refreshing tonight.” Barnes stood and grabbed David’s shoulders, yanking him to his feet. “Search him.” The other two men grinned and began emptying out David’s pockets — wallet, keys, and a tin of Altoids. Barnes picked up the keys and tossed them to Scarface and slid the mints and wallet back into David’s pants. “So the cops can ID you when your bodies are found in the spring,” he said with a chuckle.
Without David to hold her back, Laurel launched herself at Barnes, her nails seeking his face, his eyes, anything. Barnes tossed David to his partners and grabbed Laurel’s arms, twisting them behind her till she whimpered in pain. He set his mouth close to her ear and stroked her face. She couldn’t even flinch away. “You just hold still now,” he whispered soothingly. “Because if you don’t,” he continued in the same dulcet tone, “I’ll tear your arms off.”
David was struggling with his captors, yelling and trying to get to Laurel, but he couldn’t fight any better than she could. “Quiet!” Barnes roared in a voice that filled the room and echoed off the walls. David’s mouth clamped shut.
“Take the car,” Barnes said. “Drive up past Azalea and toss them in the river. And don’t forget to weigh them down,” he added cynically. “Make sure there’s no way this one,” he gestured toward Laurel, “shows up before the papers are signed tomorrow.” He laughed. “Spring is ideal, but as long as it’s not tomorrow, I don’t really care when they find them. And leave the car up there. Not in the parking lot — beside some trail. I don’t need some missing kid’s car hanging out in front of my
“You’re not going to get away with this,” Laurel muttered between clenched teeth.
But Barnes only laughed. He released her arm and looked at the red splayed across his hand — David’s blood. “What a waste,” he said, wiping the blood from his hands with a white handkerchief. “Take them away.”
The two men trussed Laurel and David together and tossed them into the backseat of David’s Civic. “You can scream all you want now,” Red said with a grin. “No one’ll hear you.”
As they drove, streetlights flickered over the car, just enough light that Laurel could make out David’s face. His jaw was flexed and he looked as scared as she was, but he didn’t bother to scream either.
“Feels good to be out doing this again, doesn’t it?” Scarface said, speaking aloud for the first time. Unlike his companion, Scarface’s voice was deep and smooth — the kind of voice you’d expect to hear from the hero in an old black-and-white movie, not from this rough, disfigured face.
“Yeah,” said Red with a laugh — a wheezing rheumy laugh that made Laurel’s stomach turn. “I’ve been so sick of sitting around that old dump waiting for something exciting to happen.”
“We’re some of the best in the whole horde. But Barnes treats us like we’re nothing. Sends us off to take care of kids. Kids!”
“Yeah.” A few seconds passed in silence. “We should rip ’em to pieces instead of tossing them in the river. That’d make you feel better.”
A soft chuckle from that perfect, movie-star voice filled every inch of the car despite its low volume. A chill shivered up Laurel’s spine. “I’d like that.” He turned to peer back at Laurel and David with a frighteningly calm smile. Then he sighed and turned his eyes back to the road. “But they can’t be found for a few days. Pieces are hard to hide — even in a river.” He paused. “We better just follow orders.”
“Laurel?”
David’s whisper distracted her for one blessed instant. “Yeah?”
“I’m sorry I didn’t believe you about Barnes.”
“It’s okay.”
“Yeah, but I should have trusted you. I wish…” His voice trailed off for a few seconds. “I wish that we could have—”
“Don’t you dare start saying your good-byes, David Lawson,” Laurel hissed as quietly as she could. “This is
“Oh, yeah?” David asked, frustrated. “What do you suggest?”
“We’ll think of something,” she whispered as the click of the turn signal began to sound and the car slowed. She felt the wheels crunch over a dirt road and leave all lights behind. It was a bumpy ride for several minutes before the men pulled over and opened the doors.
“It’s time,” Scarface said, his face a flat, unreadable slate.
“You don’t have to do this,” David said. “We can keep our mouths shut. No one—”
“Shhh,” Red said, clapping a hand over David’s mouth. “Just listen. Do you hear that?”
Laurel paused. She heard a few birds and crickets, but above everything else, she heard the distant rush of the Chetco River.
“That’s the sound of your future, waiting to carry you away. Come on,” he said, setting David roughly on his feet. “You have an appointment and we wouldn’t want you to be late.”
They prodded their captives forward along the dark path as one of the men sang raucously and badly off- tune, “Oh Shenandoah, I long to see you. Away you rolling river.” Laurel grimaced as she kicked yet another rock with her bare toes and wished for the first time in her life that she’d worn some real shoes instead of flip- flops.
Then the trees cleared and they stood in front of the Chetco River. Laurel sucked in a breath as she stared out at the foamy white rapids rushing by. Scarface pushed her onto the ground. “You just sit here,” he snarled. “We’ll be right back.”
Laurel had no hands to catch herself with and she’d sprawled on her stomach, her cheek resting in dark, wet mud. David soon sprawled beside her, and the hopelessness of their situation finally sank in. It was all her fault and she knew it, but how do you apologize for getting someone killed?
“This isn’t how I thought it would end,” David muttered.
“Me neither,” Laurel said. “Dead at the hands of…what do you think they are? I don’t…I don’t think they’re human. Not any of them. Maybe not even Barnes.”
David sighed. “I’ve never been so reluctant to admit that I think you’re right.”
They were silent for a few moments.
“How long do you think it’ll take?” Laurel asked, her eyes fixed on the frothy rapids.
David shook his head. “I don’t know. How long can you hold your breath?” He laughed morosely. “I guess you’ll last a lot longer than me.” But his laughter broke off quickly and he sighed.
It took two seconds for Laurel’s mind to put it all together. “David!” A tiny spark of hope quivered to life in her head. “Remember my experiment? At your house, in your kitchen?” She heard the mutters of the two men as they made their way back to the riverbank. “David, take a very, very big breath,” she whispered.
