33

We went back to Ronnie’s to grab something to eat and trade trucks. Anton had drawn us a pretty detailed map, and Ronnie spread it out over his cooler in the kitchen while we ate ham sandwiches on moldy bread and chased them down with light beers.

“What exactly are you hoping to find here, Earl?”

“Not sure. But there’s got to be a reason Lane wanted to have security there.”

“You think maybe that’s where Mary is?”

It had definitely crossed my mind, though I’d purposefully chosen not to dwell on the idea. I didn’t need to set myself up for any more disappointment.

“Maybe,” I said. “But even if she’s not, there’s bound to be something there that can help us find her.” At least that was what I had been telling myself.

“Well,” Ronnie said, plucking off a piece of mold from his bread. “Either way, I’m your man. I ain’t going to let you down, Earl.”

I nodded, hoping it was a promise he would be able to stick to.

*   *   *

We waited as long as I could tolerate sitting still before heading out. It was a little after nine when we loaded up. Ideally, we would have gone even later, but all there was to do at Ronnie’s was drink, and after four beers, I decided that one more might be a bad idea.

Twenty minutes later, I came to the turn that would lead us up Summer Mountain and slowed the truck under dark boughs heavy with unfallen leaves. When the wind swept down off the mountain, they’d all rattle and fall. Any minute now, I thought, autumn would arrive, and the dregs of summer would float away in a haze. Now was the in-between time, the season of change, and I hoped (or maybe it was just a wish) that among the changes would be finding Mary, and returning to the tentative peace that had been mine just a few days ago.

A sign was positioned next to the turn. It read “Sommerville Chase—North Georgia’s Most Exclusive Community.” Below that was another smaller sign that said:

“Sommerville Chase Town Square—2 miles

Community Gates—3 miles

Jumper’s View—5 miles

Top o’ the World—6 miles”

“Why do they spell it different?” Ronnie said.

“What’s that?” I said. I was focused on the words Community Gates and thinking about how, within those gates, I’d find both Jeb Walsh and Tag Monroe.

“Sommerville Chase. Why use the o? It’s just confusing?”

“I don’t know. Rich fuckers like these guys like to make things complicated. It makes it easier for them to feel superior.”

Ronnie nodded. In the dim light of the truck’s cab, his face looked drawn and contemplative. “Me and a buddy have been meaning to get up here and see about taking some shit from some of these rich pricks.”

“That ain’t something I really feel comfortable hearing about,” I said as I made the turn and started up the steep curve.

“Well, why not? Damn, you ain’t exactly a saint yourself, Earl.”

He had a point there. “Look,” I said. “I’m not trying to judge you. I just would feel better if I didn’t know.”

Ronnie leaned back in his seat and blew out a long sigh. “Shit, I probably wasn’t going to do it anyway. I can’t deal with prison again. I think I’d kill myself before I did hard time again.”

“How old were you?” I asked.

“Went to the federal penitentiary as a twenty-one-year-old. This was when I was living in Kentucky. Bet you didn’t know I lived in Kentucky, did you?”

I shook my head.

“Yep. Got me for breaking and entering, illegal possession of a firearm, and terroristic threats.” He shook his head. “The last one was utter bullshit.”

“Who’d you threaten?”

“The woman who lived in the house.”

“Jesus, Ronnie.”

“Threaten is a strong word,” he said. “Terroristic is just plain wrong. I suggested she let me go without calling the police.”

“And she didn’t like that suggestion?”

“Yeah. And when she didn’t like it, I told her I was going to make her regret calling. Hell, she must not have taken me seriously because she called right after that.”

“Why didn’t you run?”

He chuckled. “Bitch managed to lock me in her cellar. I couldn’t go anywhere or hurt anybody even if I’d wanted to.”

“Can you look at the map?” I asked.

He unfolded the paper and turned the overhead light on. “Be looking for a little road on our right,” he said. “He wrote on here that it’s pretty hidden, and you’ll probably miss it. If you come to the gas station, you went too far.”

He was right. I went right past the road and would have continued too, if Ronnie hadn’t whistled and pointed at the gas station.

I turned around at the gas station and headed back in the other direction more slowly. “There,” Ronnie said.

“I don’t see it.”

“Right there. Just between those trees.”

“Oh hell, that can’t be it.”

“Turn. You’ll see.”

I turned, easing the truck between two trees and their low hanging branches. The branches scraped my windshield and the sides of my truck.

“Keep on,” Ronnie said.

I kept on, and eventually the branches snapped back into place, and I had room—just barely—to drive.

The road was dirty gravel and hardly there at all. Thick undergrowth wove a rug across much of it. In the glare of my headlights, fine lengths of spiderwebs hung across the road. I took that for a good sign, that it had been a long time since anybody had been this way.

*   *   *

“That’s probably where the guards stood,” Ronnie said, pointing at a little shed near the entrance of the dirt lot. The warehouse loomed behind the shed and lot, dwarfing them both in size and presence. Windowless and low-slung, the brick structure seemed to be almost crouching in the darkness, waiting on our arrival.

I pulled past the small shed and into the empty lot, looking for a way in. “Probably on the other side,” Ronnie said. “And I’ll be shocked if it isn’t locked.”

I pointed to my back window and the truck bed behind it. “That’s why I keep a sledgehammer and some bolt cutters in my truck at all times.”

“Well, look at you being all criminal and shit.” Ronnie rubbed his hands together excitedly. “Let’s do this.”

Ronnie carried the bolt cutters, leaving me to drag the heavy sledgehammer around the side of the building. We stood before an aluminum door. “Try it,” I said.

Ronnie wiggled the handle, but the door didn’t open.

“Bolted,” he said.

I hoisted the sledgehammer high and brought it down into the center of the door. There was a loud clang, and the sledgehammer put a dent in the aluminum but didn’t break through.

Ronnie shook his head and held out his hands for the sledgehammer. “Let me show you.”

I handed it to him. He lifted it with surprising ease and stepped back. He swung smoothly, knocking the door handle right off the door. Then, using the other side of the sledgehammer like a pool stick, he pushed it into the hole where the handle had been. Twice he did this, and then a third time, with great force. Something popped and fell to the concrete floor on the other side of the door.

I watched, impressed, as he stuck three of his fingers into the hole and grimaced, repositioning his body so that he could stretch his fingers as far as they would stretch. Next came the satisfying sound of the bolt turning. He grinned and withdrew his fingers, holding them up for my inspection.

“Long fingers,” he said. “You fucking know what they say about men with big hands, don’t you?”

I ignored him and pushed the door open. The darkness inside was absolute.

A click and a hiss. Ronnie’s lighter coming on. He waved it toward the wall until I saw a light switch. I flicked it up and the lights above us hummed and gradually came to life.

The space was mostly bare, but on one side there was what appeared to be some film equipment. Not only was there an old boom mic stand, I also saw a pile of dusty cables and a stand of lights looming over it all.

Ronnie and I moved closer as the lights made it up to full strength. There was also some rough-looking furniture haphazardly tossed around the back corner. It wasn’t too difficult to imagine this being an actual film set at some point.

Ronnie asked the question I was thinking. “Do you think they were filming pornos?”

I stepped through some of the furniture and picked up a clipboard with a sheet of paper on it.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“Maybe the thing that will tell us what they were filming.”

The paper contained some lines from a script.

Man: Because you don’t know what’s across that river.

Girl: I know more than you think.

Man: You don’t know nothing about the world.

Girl: He’s going to protect me.

Man: I’m going to protect you from him.

Girl looks at the window. Rain is coming down. She shivers quietly.

Girl: I’m not afraid.

Man: You aren’t yet, but you will be.

It ended there. The page with the rest of the lines had been torn off. I handed it to Ronnie and waited while he read it.

He looked up. “So they were filming a damned movie in here all that time?”

I shrugged. “Looks like somebody was.”

“But why keep it so secret and shit? This don’t sound like nothing from any porno I’ve ever seen.”

“Me either,” I said. “But there’s something ominous about it. Something I don’t like.”

Ronnie handed the clipboard back and I looked at it again, trying to put my finger on what didn’t sit right. My eyes fell on the parts—man and girl. Did these characters not have names?

Then it hit me. Man and girl. That sounded like some of the bullshit from my father’s church. Men were men, but all the women—at least the pretty ones—would always be girls. I was so used to this kind of casual misogyny I’d almost completely missed it on the first read, but now, as I read it again, I noted the details that made me uneasy.

“He’s going to protect me.”

“I’m going to protect you from him.”

“You don’t know nothing about the world.”

Where had I heard that last line before?

Susan. She’d relayed the encounter she’d had with Jeb Walsh, and it sounded eerily similar to this script.

Did that mean Jeb Walsh had written the script? That seemed highly improbable. Did it mean he or his followers had been involved with this film? That seemed more likely.

It wasn’t much of a leap to say Lane Jefferson and Taggart Monroe were involved. And if that was the case, it meant Jeb Walsh probably was too.

But I still didn’t get the secrecy, the stickers, hiring a guard, the whole—

Then it hit me—it hit me hard. Too hard. I moved toward the back wall to brace myself.

“What?” Ronnie said.

“What if they were doing a snuff film?”

“Come again?

“You know, filming somebody dying.”

“Like them Faces of Death movies?”

“No, those weren’t real. I’m thinking maybe they were doing the real thing here.”

“You mean killing somebody?” Ronnie looked around, as if seeing the place in a new light. “I don’t know, I don’t see any blood or nothing.”

“They could have contained the blood.”

He shook his head. “Maybe.”

“It’s just a theory,” I said, “but it would explain the secrecy.”

“So would porn.”

“Right, but this doesn’t seem like a porn script.”

“Well, it don’t really seem like the kind of script that would be in a snuff film neither.”

He had a point. I’d never actually seen a snuff film, nor would I want to, but, like Ronnie, I wouldn’t have imagined any of them having much of a script.

“You hear that?” Ronnie said.

“Wha—” I stopped. I did hear it. It sounded like a vehicle approaching.

“Shit,” Ronnie said. “What do we do?”

I pulled the 9mm out of my waistband. “Look for a place to hide.”

“Should I cut the lights?” Ronnie said.

“No, they already know we broke in. Shit.” I looked around frantically for some route of escape or at least a place to hide. The only thing I saw was the couch. There was room for both me and Ronnie to hide behind it.

I grabbed his arm and pulled him over to it. We crouched behind it, waiting. A long, tense silence followed, long enough for me to wonder if the sound had just been a passing car.

But then there were voices outside. We heard them speaking in hushed tones.

Ronnie stood up. “What are you doing?” I hissed.

“Got an idea. Trust me.”

I wasn’t really sure that I trusted him, but I didn’t have many options, so I stayed down, peering just over the back of the old sofa.

I watched as Ronnie lit a cigarette. He turned back to me and said, “You’ll find me, right?”

“Yeah,” I said, because what else do you say when some asks you that?

He nodded and sauntered over to the door we’d busted. He stood there, smoking, waiting.

I had no idea what he was planning.

He inched closer to the open door, standing right at the threshold. Voices came closer, and I could make out something about “running plates,” and that was all I needed to hear to know that they were sheriff’s deputies and whatever Ronnie was planning wasn’t going to work.

Two things happened almost instantaneously then: two deputies rounded the corner of the warehouse, guns drawn. At the same time, Ronnie barreled through the open door, splitting the deputies. In their panic, both fired. One shot hit the wall behind me. I wasn’t sure what happened to the other shot. I came up, 9mm in hand, ready to fire, but both deputies were gone, giving chase to Ronnie.

Sprinting to the door, I leaned out, saw the dark downward slope of the mountain, and heard the deputies cursing as they tried to pull out their flashlights and catch up with Ronnie.

“Goddamn,” I said, not believing what had just happened. It was foolish, probably more than foolish, but it was also a damn selfless thing to do. I realized I didn’t have much time before the frustrated cops came back up the hill to look for me. After all, my truck was parked outside the warehouse, and there was a strong chance they’d already run my plates.

Which left me in a quandary. If I left, taking the truck, the deputies would pick me up tomorrow. Basically, if they came back and my truck was gone, it would prove I’d been in the warehouse with Ronnie. But what if they came back and found my truck was still there? They’d assume Ronnie had stolen it and broken into the warehouse on his own.

Which meant he’d probably do hard time.

There had to be some other solution.

I could only think of one, and it was filled with its own kinds of pitfalls, but at least it gave me an opportunity to keep looking for Mary, and it wouldn’t mean hanging Ronnie out to dry.

I sprinted back into the warehouse and found the clipboard with the scene on it. I looked around once more for something that might make this whole debacle worth it, but I didn’t see anything.

As I was walking toward the door, I flipped the clipboard over and saw a yellow sticker on the back. I stopped, looking closer. Two axes. A skull in the middle.

I stuck the clipboard under my arm and jogged to my truck. I fired it up and crushed the gas as I made my way back to the main road.