Chapter Fifty Six
Fifty yards north of the bridge Norrah and Deborah trekked across the riverbed, stealing glances south hoping to see something but not. They breasted the opposing bank and leveled out, began slanting toward the paved road beyond the bridge. Norrah was winded, struggled to keep Deb’s purposeful pace. Up ahead was a tall fence hedging an industrial yard: the Vintage lease. The road led right up to it. There was a Dodge Ram parked off to the side. Paul’s Ram. There was a sliding gate prohibiting trespassers from gaining access, a numbered keypad on a pole on the side of the road.
“We don’t know the password,” Norrah said once they arrived at the gate. It was composed of iron poles, green plastic sheeting secured to the back of it to keep inquisitive eyes off the site.
She took the phone out of her pocket. The call was still connected. The meter read 6:59 and ticked on to seven minutes and counting. “Jay? You there?” No response. “Honey? Can you hear me?” Me not responding could mean that I needed to remain silent—she hoped that was the case. It could mean something worse but she chose not to think about that. She put it on speaker phone and shoved it in her pocket.
“Would you believe that I do know the password?” Deborah said. “My cousin Eric used to work at Vintage, and I dated his friend who worked with him. I sometimes visited him on his lunch break. The code is the same for all Vintage sites: ten-ten. But it doesn’t matter because there won’t be any electricity here.”
Where the sliding gate butted against a brick post was a slight gap. Norrah approached it. She took a firm grip of a pole and tried sliding it open. It didn’t budge.
“Let’s try pulling it open, better leverage,” Deborah said and grabbed hold of her own pole. “Ready? One… two… pull!”
Together they pulled, expecting it to scarcely move or not move at all, but instead it quickly rolled along the track. So effortlessly that it would have only taken one of them to pull it open. The inches-wide gap was now five feet, and they entered.
The concrete yard was glowing white under the moon. The property might have been a little smaller than a city block. There were enormous circular white tanks with ladders scaling up them, two pairs on this end, a dozen at the other end. There was a skeletal iron structure three-stories tall encasing the dozen tanks on the far end. There were industrial implements strewn throughout the yard, such as metal bins, old crusty trailers, long rectangular iron basins, decrepit machinery that couldn’t have been used in better than a decade, a shabby mobile office, stacks of long rusty pipe, stands of generators and cabinets of electrical equipment, and plenty of signs, such as Must Sign In With Kenlamb Safety Prior To Entering Site, and Hard Hat, Safety Glasses, Steel Toed Boots Required, and Days Without Incident: 53.
When they passed that latter sign, Deborah remarked, “Incidents out here usually mean a loss of limb or even death. It’s dangerous work.”
“I bet. Where are we going?”
“I don’t know. Brooke!”
Norrah shushed Deb, said that they weren’t that far from the riverbed.
“Help me!” cried a girl from the other end of the yard.
Together they ran toward the cry. There was a little metal stud protruding from an iron plate covering a cellar below them; Deb’s foot caught it and she fell flat on her face.
“Are you all right?” Norrah asked, bent down and helped her up.
“I’m fine.” She dusted herself off.
“Who’s there!” the girl shouted.
There was a gunshot in the distance, in the direction of the riverbed, its report echoing for seconds. The two women turned their heads to face it.
“No!” Deborah cried and ran toward the gate.
“Wait!” Norrah exclaimed. “Don’t!”
“Aaron!”
“Deborah!” Norrah shouted as loudly as she could. It worked: Deb stopped and looked back. “We have directions, and going to the riverbed isn’t part of them. We need to get Brooke and distance ourselves from this place. Jay has it under control. We’re going to have to trust him to handle this.”
Norrah removed the cell from her pocket once again: the meter read 8:02 and ticked on. “Jay, please tell me you’re okay,” she said into the phone.
No response.
Deborah’s tears had an effect on Norrah, who also began crying.
“I’m going down there,” Deborah said, now weeping uncontrollably. “What if… what if he’s been shot?”
Norrah wiped her eyes and willed away the emotion. She needed to have a clear mind and weeping clouded it. “Jay said that if we go over there we’d ruin everything, or worse. Could you live with yourself knowing that one of us or even Aaron dies because of our rash decision to go there?”
“But what if we could help them, Norrah? I think we could, I can sense it, can’t you?”
“You’re wanting to sense it. You’re wanting to believe we can make a difference, but we can’t. We’re unarmed, and I’m sure Paul isn’t. What’s best for everyone is for us to do what we’re supposed to.”
“Who’s there!” Brooke shouted from the other end of the yard.
Damnit, Jay, Norrah thought, why aren’t you responding to me? Do you have any idea how nerve-wracking this is?
Deborah took a deep breath, weeping under control a little, and said, “Okay. If you think it’s best, I trust you, Norrah.”
“Good. Let’s get Brooke and get the heck out of here.”
Deb nodded. “Do you think Aaron and Jay will be okay? Honestly?”
“I can’t answer that,” Norrah said and began walking toward Tinkerbelle with Deb at her side staring blankly at the luminescent concrete before her.
“Can’t answer that or don’t want to answer that? I’m only asking for your best guess.”
“Then I don’t want to answer that.”
“Is that you, Aiden?” Brooke shouted. “Paul?”
“I never said goodbye to him,” Deborah said inwardly. “I did, but not how I’d have liked to. Didn’t tell him I love him before he left. We never even… never made love. He’s a virgin. Did you know that? Well, since Marie. It’s hard to count that, him being fourteen at the time. We’ve done stuff, but not that. And he might die a virgin. If only I’d—”
Norrah stopped and grabbed her friend by the shoulder, gave her a jerk. “Forgive me for saying this, but shut the fuck up. Stop it. Keep your mind focused.”
It sobered Deborah. The girls regained their pace toward the other end of the yard, angled toward the corner just past the last of twelve enormous round tanks. There was a long rectangular shadow, a pit, on the concrete slab running parallel with the perimeter-gate at their right. It was a cellar, where many oil pumps used to fill these tanks with crude. In the old days all pumping units were what they called Nodding Donkeys, because that’s what they looked like. Nowadays pumps could be small, and subterranean, such as these were. Better than a dozen wells could fit in a cellar such as this.
“Help me! Please!” cried the girl.
“It’s okay, honey,” Norrah said, now only twenty feet from the tail end of the cellar. “We’re going to get you out of there.”
“Who’s there!”
“It’s Norrah. Norrah and Deborah.”
“Aaron’s Deborah?”
“Yes,” Deborah said.
“Thank God,” Brooke muttered.
The girls stopped at the precipice of the cellar, which was twelve feet wide and very long, eight feet deep. There were all kinds of devices, pipes, tubes, gauges, and no ladders up. Brooke was directly below them, looking up with wide bright eyes, the whites reflecting the moonlight.
“Are you okay?” Norrah asked her.
She thought Brooke was naked at first. But she was in underwear, peach-colored bra and panties. Her arms were folded under her chest and she was shivering.
“I’m so cold,” Brooke said. Her teeth chattered.
“Where are your clothes?” Deborah asked.
“I don’t know.??
?
“There they are,” Norrah said, pointing farther down the rim of the cellar. She hustled to them, gathered them up (and a pair of walking shoes) and dropped them down to an appreciative Brooke. She got dressed. Deborah removed her light-weight coat and tossed it down to Brooke.
“Did that son of a bitch hurt you?” Norrah said down at her.
“My ankle is sprained from the fall down here. Some cuts, nothing bad.” She donned the coat, then looked up at her rescuers. How are you planning on getting me out of here, her look said.
“He pushed you down there?” Deborah said angrily.
Brooke nodded up at her. “I’m lucky I didn’t break anything. My hands were tied up; I couldn’t use them to brace my fall.”
The two women met eyes. “How are we going to do this?” Norrah asked.
“Which of us is stronger do you think?
“The way you were running earlier, my guess is that you’re in much better shape than me.”
“Ready down there?” Deborah directed at Brooke.
“Yes. Please.”
Deb laid down on her stomach, shoulders and head planked over the cellar. She reached both arms down and said over her shoulder, “Sit on my legs, would you?”
Norrah did.
Brooke reached up to the proffered arms, placed her good foot on a metal pipe and sprang up, brought her bad foot up on the pipe. She now stood on it, her head even with Deb’s. From there it was easy. The two women joined efforts to pull her out of the cellar.
“Thank you guys so much,” Brooke said. Her face was filthy. She looked like one of those kids on the adopt a kid for twenty-five cents a day commercials, only older. Paul must have roughed her up a little prior to banishing her to the cellar. If so, Brooke wasn’t seeking sympathy by talking about it.
“I’m sorry if I was sounding rude or impatient,” Brooke said. “I worried that I’d get hypothermia if nobody came around to help me. Did you guys hear the gunshot a little bit ago?”
“Yes,” Norrah said. She began walking toward the gate, a girl on either side of her. Seeing how badly Brooke was limping, they slowed down. Norrah insisted that Brooke put an arm around her shoulder to take all the pressure off her bad ankle. “Do you know this area at all?” Norrah asked her.
“Not really.” She was looking at her right wrist as she hopped along. “I think Paul knows witchcraft or something. I thought my hands had been tied together by rope or a cord, but they weren’t. Felt like it.”
“How’d you free yourself?” Norrah asked her.
“It just let go of me right before you got to me. Like… like they disappeared or something. Happened just a couple minutes ago. Like just after the gunshot. Weird, huh?”
Norrah and Deborah nodded at her, evaluated her wrist.
“You asked if we were Aiden,” Norrah said. “Who’s that?”
“My boyfriend.”
“Is he here?”
“I doubt it.”
“So what happened?”
Brooke hung her head, shamefaced, hobbled along. “I’m such a jerk. I told Aaron I wasn’t his friend anymore. But he was right to be concerned about me, to not want me to go to that party. I hope he’ll forgive me.”
“He will,” Deborah said. “He loves you.”
“We went to a party at Chris’ house, Aiden and I. We were playing ping pong, doubles. It was beer pong, but I wasn’t drinking. Aiden was, though. Just a little. I was shocked to see Paul there. I hadn’t seen him in over six years, but knew who he was instantly. All grown up, and surprisingly good looking. I asked what he was doing here. He said, ‘Your parents are out front. They’re pissed, and want a word with you.’ I thought he was lying, but before I could say it he said, ‘Sven and Juliann Stanwick, right? They said you were supposed to have finished your book report on Scarlet Letter before going out.’ I believed him. I had lied to my mom and dad about finishing my book report so they’d let me hang out with Aiden. The thing is, I never told my parents I was going to a party, and didn’t stop to think about how they couldn’t have known where I was. I was too busy worrying. I was thinking I’d be grounded for a week or two. Paul said to follow him, my parents’ Volvo was just a little ways down the street. I followed him down the street like the idiot that I am. Paul grabbed a hold of me, dragged me kicking and screaming to a truck, tied my wrists together behind my back (at least I thought he did) and shoved me inside, drove off. I made the mistake of trying to open the door with my mouth at a stop-light. He… he hit me really hard.”
Norrah was looking at her face, and realized some of the dirt on her face wasn’t dirt at all, but a wicked bruise. She pictured Paul punching her as hard as he could right in the cheek, and felt a surge of anger toward Paul.
“He brought me here,” Brooke continued. “He wouldn’t tell my anything, wouldn’t answer my questions. I thought he was going to kill me, I really did.”
“We’re glad you’re okay,” Norrah said.
“I remember when I was a kid, in Sunday school. Paul called me a cocksucker. I said I wasn’t, that he was a cocksucker. When class got out I asked Mr. Mendelssohn in private what a cocksucker was. He asked where I heard that word. I said Paul. He said a cocksucker is candy, a sucker like a Tootsie Pop, only chicken flavored.”
“Cock, as in male chicken,” Deborah said and smiled.
Brooke nodded. “It was a couple years later when I learned what it really means, and remembered the white lie Mr. Mendelssohn told me. He’s such a wonderful human being. So protective of me. You say he loves me, Deborah, but you know what?—he could never love me as much as I love him. A lot of what Paul said back then was lost on me, I didn’t understand it. I remember a lot of back then. More than you’d think. Aaron watched out for me; I could feel his love for me.” She began crying. “And when he said he was leaving the church for me, I knew that he wanted me to tell him to stay, that I needed him in my life. But I said nothing, let him quit the church. It must have hurt his feelings. And now I told him he’s no longer my friend, to not call or text me ever again. I’m such a rotten person.”
The gate was thirty feet ahead of them. There was a pair of big circular tanks on either side of it. From the tank nearest the gate on their right was a metallic-sounding clang. Maybe it was just from pressure dropping in the cold evening, Norrah thought. But there was a second clang, and this time it had moved a little inward, closer to the gate.
The three girls stopped, attentions drawn on the white tank.
Another clang, and another.
Stepping out from behind the tank was Paul. He stood there, hands at his sides, a gun in his right hand.
“Well-well,” he said. “Panty-girl make some friends?”
“Leave us be,” Brooke said waspishly. “You’re an ass, I could have froze to death!”
“Is Aaron okay?” Deborah asked him desperately.
“Yeah he’s fine,” Paul said, grinning smugly. “Unless your definition of fine means alive and well. Yeah he’s fine. Fine-ally dead.” He humored.
“You fucking monster you! You piece of shit mother fucker!” Deborah tore off running at him.
“Don’t!” Norrah cried at her. “Stop!”
Paul raised his gun even at her chest, pulled the hammer back. Deborah stopped at once.
“I hope you get the death penalty!” Deborah shouted. “I hope you get butt-raped in prison!”
You could tell she wanted to continue charging at him. She’d probably kill him in the mad rage she was in.
Norrah and Brooke apprehensively moved forward, stopped at Deborah’s side in a line, an unspoken gesture of solidarity between the three.
Paul lowered the gun, crossed his hands together at the small of his back and walked forward, stopping fifteen feet before the trio. “It was pointless for you two to get panty-girl out of there,” Paul said. “Hear me, Tinkerbelle? Your number’s up. You’re fucked.”
“Why?” Norrah said, face screwed up in confusion, grasping for understandi
ng. She looked over at Brooke. “Why would you want to end someone’s life? Look at her. Really look at her.” Brooke looked over at Norrah with wide fearful eyes. They took to heart Paul’s death threat. “She’s a sweet girl, a beautiful girl, her whole life ahead of her, and you want to destroy it for no reason? Paul, I don’t think you want to do this.”
“I made a deal with Aaron and he broke it. Had he killed himself like we agreed, I’d have held my end of the bargain. But that piece of shit boyfriend of yours, Jay, shot him dead instead. Preemptively.”
Deborah’s watery eyes looked slowly over at Norrah. “Your… your boyfriend killed Aaron?”
“He sure did,” Paul said, stirring the shit a little, taking satisfaction in it. “Norrah’s man murdered your boyfriend. He was smiling as he did it, too.”
“Bullshit,” Norrah said thickly. “If he did it, there was a reason.”
“Yeah, the reason is he didn’t like Aaron as much as you think. He called him a pious self-aggrandizing pedophile. He also said”—Paul stopped talking. He was looking at Brooke’s unfettered wrists.
“Shut up!” Deborah shouted. “Shut up you fffffucker!”
Paul was looking unsettled now, and wholly perplexed. “How did you free your hands?” he asked Brooke.
Brooke looked down at her hands. “I don’t know.”
Deborah devolved into hysteria, covered her face and bawled. “Pp-lease tell me it isn’t true!” A sob. “Please!”
“Tell me how you got your hands out of it!” Paul demanded.
Brooke flinched, took a cautious step back, hobbled to a stop.
“Put your hands together,” he said now calmly, his eyes anything but calm.
She put her hands together dutifully, wrists touching.
Paul looked at Deborah who was lost to despair, said to Norrah, “Tell that bitch to stop crying. I’m not in the mood.”
“Jay, if you can hear me, some help would be appreciated,” Norrah said.
“Jay’s dead,” Paul said. “Fuckin’ gone, and I had nothing to do with it. Taken, body and everything. Gone.”
“You’re lying,” Norrah said, but her heart rate might have doubled.
“That’s what you want to believe. I saw it happen. He’ll never be found. Like the missing twenty-three, only Jay won’t be returning.”
“You’re lying!”
“Believe what you want,” Paul said. “I don’t care. What I said is the truth.”
Mindlessly Brooke returned her hands to her side, her gaze flashing between Norrah, Paul, and the inconsolable woman. Paul observed her free hands and was agape. He looked around the yard saying, “Who’s here with you? Who’s doing that for you?”
Brooke had the idea that she shouldn’t have returned her hands to her side, that it was the cause of Paul’s consternation, so she touched them together at her lap before reconsidering that they’d please Paul better at the small of her back and put them there. It might have been comical under another circumstance, Tinkerbelle pretending to be bound at the wrists by some invisible force.
“Don’t fuckin’ patronize me!” Paul shouted. “You little bitch! I don’t think you have enough strength to take a single step toward me, that’s what I think!”
The three girls exchanged glances at one another. Is this guy insane?
“Well…?” Paul said to Tinkerbelle. “Come here.”
“I don’t want to,” she replied softly. “I’m afraid of you.”
“Good! But I’m not asking you, I’m telling you: come here if you can!”
Brooke looked to Norrah for permission, who nodded her approval. Brooke began walking toward Paul unrestrictedly, albeit with a limp. Paul’s jaw dropped. He gestured her to stop. She came to a halt eight feet before him.
“Why isn’t it working?” Paul closed his eyes and muttered, “Show yourself to me.”
Brooke looked quickly back at Norrah, eyes bright with an idea.
Norrah sensed what she was going to do, shook her head no with gaping eyes. Brooke bit her lip, poised to take off, and did.
“Don’t!” Norrah cried, but Brooke didn’t listen: she rushed Paul with a total disregard of her sprained ankle, eyes raptly on the gun in his hand. Paul blinked his eyes open, raised his gun at her.
Norrah couldn’t bear to watch, closed her eyes and winced. Paul shot two quick rounds at her chest at near point-blank range.