TWENTY-TWO
Karen heard the front door slam shut. A moment later, the faint sound of a car starting up outside.
Her mind raced, a million thoughts, a million miles an hour. That look Joshua had given her before he left had broken her heart, shattered her.
No more wasting time. She slid the scalpel from behind her watch. Her fingers pinched around the handle, she started methodically sawing away at the zip tie on her wrist.
It was slow going. It was impossible to put a lot of force behind each cut. She couldn’t move her arms, so flipping her wrist back and forth was the only way to saw through.
She bit her lip and concentrated. Kept slowly moving the blade along the zip tie, sawing back and forth.
And then, a grunting noise.
On the other side of the room, Ross opened his eyes. His gaze was spacey and distant. The blood on his face had dried. One cheek was bruised. His nose was swollen and mangled from Shane’s earlier kick.
“God, my head,” he said.
He blinked a few times, looked around the room.
“What . . .”
He looked at the zip ties fastening his hands to the radiator and pulled at them. It was no use. The zip ties held.
“Shane,” he said to Karen. “Where is he?”
“He’s gone,” Karen said.
“How is she?” he asked her. “Amber.”
“She’s still in the other room,” Karen said. No point in telling him about Amber’s screams earlier.
Ross kicked out and banged one of his feet against the wall, making a loud, echoing sound.
“You doing all right in there, babe?”
There might’ve been a response, might not. Karen couldn’t tell.
“What are you doing?” Ross said to her.
“Cutting myself free. I have a scalpel.”
Ross slammed his foot against the wall again.
“We’re coming, babe! We will be there soon.”
Karen bit her lip and concentrated as she continued cutting. She looked at the zip tie. No progress yet. It wasn’t even slightly frayed.
Still a long way to go.
Joshua sat in the passenger seat of Shane’s pickup. His dad was next to him, both hands on the steering wheel, staring straight ahead, his expression blank. Shane was crammed into the truck’s small backseat, the gun pointed at them.
The truck was dusty and ratty, had a musty smell to it. Some of the upholstering was torn. A crumpled McDonald’s bag rested on the floor mat.
“So, this car dealership—how much further is it?” Shane asked.
“Ten minutes.”
“You’re sure this time? No more games, Pops. You try to stall again, I’m gonna start getting pissed.”
Teddy had gotten off at a wrong exit and driven around for a while until Shane got impatient. He’d looked the dealership address up on his phone, realized they’d taken a detour, and yelled to get back on the highway.
They drove on. It was too dark to see Shane in the backseat, but Joshua could hear him behind them, feel his eyes locked on them, sense the gun pointed at their backs.
There was no money. He had no idea what would happen when they showed up at the dealership and Shane found out. He hoped his mom could get free and alert the police before they arrived. That was their best, probably only, chance at surviving this. Hope that the police could save the day. Or at the very least distract Shane, even if it was for only a second or two. That might be enough of a window of opportunity to get away.
After driving down the highway seemingly forever, they pulled into a roadside parking stall near the car dealership. The lights in the dealership were on. A few people stood near the entrance. Outside the dealership were rows and rows of cars for sale, stretching on forever.
His dad killed the engine.
“We’ll have to wait a few minutes until everyone leaves,” he said. The truck’s dashboard clock read 5:56.
“Then we’ll sit here,” Shane said from the backseat. “Neither of you move.”
The scalpel between her fingers, Karen moved her wrist back and forth, pulling the edge of the blade against the zip tie. Still barely any progress. It was nearly impossible to put any force behind each movement using only her wrist. She’d been sawing for at least ten minutes already and the zip tie was still barely frayed.
“Hurry it up,” Ross said.
“I’m trying,” she said.
“You gotta keep sawing at the same place. Over and over again.”
“That’s what I’m doing.”
She stopped cutting for a second and strained her wrist against the zip tie, pulling as hard as she could, hoping to snap free from the restraints. No luck; the zip tie held.
She resumed cutting. Already, she was thinking about what she would do once she was free. Call the police. That was her first step. Right away. She hadn’t involved the police earlier when she’d had a chance, but there was no alternative any longer. She had to call them. Send them straight to the dealership and hope for the best.
“Try pulling again,” Ross said to her.
“I just did.”
“Try again.”
She gritted her teeth and pulled against the zip tie as hard as she could. She let out a low grunt. Hands balled into fists, she pulled, yanked, strained against the zip ties. She jerked and—
The scalpel fell out of her fingers. She grasped to snag it but she was too late. It fell to the floor.
“Dammit,” she said.
“What?” Ross said.
“I dropped the scalpel.”
She looked at it, a few inches away on the carpet. She extended her foot as far out from her body as she could, pulling against the zip tie. The tip of her shoe could just barely graze the handle of the scalpel.
“Can you reach it?” Ross asked.
“Yeah. I think so.”
With the scalpel trapped under her shoe, she slid it back closer to her body. She stared at it on the ground. She’d have to kick off her shoe, pick up the scalpel with her toes, and fling it back up toward her body, from where she could transfer it back to her hand and continue cutting. It’d be nearly impossible. She couldn’t move her foot more than a few inches in any direction because of the zip tie. Flinging the scalpel back up to her body and moving it to her hands would take a miracle to pull off, a one-in-a-million shot.
“Kick it over here,” Ross said.
“What?”
“I’m serious,” he said. “Kick it over to me. I can cut out of my zip ties, easy. Then cut you loose.”
He was right, she knew. Kicking the scalpel to Ross would be much easier than picking it up with her toes and hurling it back toward her body to attempt to somehow get it back into her hand.
She’d have to trust him.
“Okay,” she said. “I’m going to send it over to you.”
She cocked her foot back as far as the zip ties would allow and kicked the scalpel toward Ross. It slid on the ground and came to a stop a few feet from him. He stretched out his leg and moved the scalpel closer with his foot. When it was right next to the radiator, he pulled his hands hard against the zip ties, stretched out his fingers, and grabbed the scalpel.
“Got it!” he said.
He started sawing away, occasionally stopping to pull and yank at the zip ties. It took him only a few minutes to free his hands. Once he was unbound, he stood up from the ground, stumbled a little, and caught himself.
“Cut me loose,” Karen said.
Ross didn’t even look at her. He ran past her, out of the room. She heard his steps thundering as he sprinted down the hallway.
A few minutes after they arrived, the lights inside the dealership all went out. A group of six people exited the building and walked across the parking lot to several cars parked in a small lot off to the side. They each entered a different car and drove away.
“They’re gone,” Shane said. “Let’s get to it. Let’s grab the cash.”
“Just don’t do anything stupid,” Teddy said.
“That’s up to you, whether I do something stupid or not. You try something, I’ll start doing plenty of stupid shit. Now, let’s go. Drive up to the entrance.”
Teddy started the truck and drove across the parking lot, up to the entrance, past endless rows of cars, price stickers in the windows. The three of them were silent as they drove. The silence was unnerving and eerie. Joshua wanted to say something to break it, but what was there to say? Ask Shane how his day was going? Ask him how he’d react if, hypothetically speaking, there was no money?
No need to ask—he’d find out soon enough.
“No one’s still inside, right?” Shane said. “There’s no night security guy or anything?”
“No. It’ll just be us.”
“Better be. No surprises. I don’t want no surprises.”
Joshua tried to think of a way to escape. He glanced at the door handle, right next to his hand. Could he grab it, throw the door open, and escape before Shane had a chance to shoot him? He doubted it. The gun was right on him. Shane would have time to squeeze off at least a few shots. They wouldn’t all miss. And he’d have to somehow communicate to his dad to leave at the same time or else he’d be a sitting duck.
His dad pulled to a stop a few feet from the dealership entrance and killed the engine. They stepped out of the truck and started walking up to the entrance, Joshua and his dad in front, Shane behind them with the gun.
They reached the entrance door. The front of the building was solid glass, looking into a lobby area that was vacant and dark.
“I’m grabbing my keys from my pocket,” his dad said. “I need to unlock this door.”
“Okay,” Shane said from behind them. “The gun’s pointed right at the kid. You try anything, he gets it.”
His dad grabbed the set of keys from his pocket.
“Now open up the door,” Shane said. “Hurry it up.”
Through the wall, Karen heard Ross talking in the other room. Couldn’t understand exactly what he was saying. There was some movement, other indiscernible noises. More talking. After a minute, his footsteps rumbled back down the hallway. He appeared at the door and hurried over to her. Cut through the zip tie around her left wrist, the one around her other wrist, then the zip ties around her feet.
“Go check on her,” he said. “Amber. Tell me what to do.”
He helped Karen stand up from the chair. They hurried down the hallway, into her bedroom. She stepped past the entrance and froze, staring down at Amber in bed. Amber’s gown was pulled to the side, revealing her stomach wound. The bed sheets and her gown were splattered with blood. There were a few smudges of red on the carpet and walls.
Amber’s body was pale, her mouth slightly open. She was alive but in bad shape.
“Go!” Ross said. “Help her.”
“I might have something in the bathroom,” Karen said.
“Go. Get it.”
She ran out of the bedroom. Down the hallway. Past the bathroom—there was nothing in there strong enough to help Amber. A phone was what Karen needed. She’d given Ross her cell after she arrived home from the hospital and hadn’t seen it since, so she sprinted over to the landline phone in the living room. Picked it up. Dialed 911.
A ring. Then a voice.
“Nine-one-one. What is your emergency?”
“Send police to Franklin Auto Dealership.”
“Ma’am, could you—”
“Send the police. Right now. There is a man there with a gun. He has my teenage son.”
“Are you—”
“Just send them,” she said and slammed the phone down. She patted down her pockets. Couldn’t find her keys. Glanced around the kitchen, tried to remember where she’d put them. She looked out the window and saw her car. She ran outside and there they were, in the ignition. She’d left the keys there after she broke Amber out of the hospital and, unbelievably, they were still there.
She jumped into her car and fired up the engine.
She reversed out of the driveway and headed toward the car dealership.
Amber’s head felt as if it were coated in cotton. She was shivering and sweating. Felt cold and hot. Weak—she felt so weak.
“You’re gonna be fine, baby.”
She turned her head. Ross stood at her side. His nose was crooked and bloody. One eye was bloodshot.
“The lady, she’s getting something for you. Medicine or something.”
Amber nodded. “What happened?” she said, her voice little more than a whisper.
“Happened? Shane. He was back here for the money. Went crazy when he found out there was none. But that’s all right. We don’t need him. This lady, she’s going to help you. Get you good enough to travel and we’ll get out of here. We’ll drive far away and—”
A noise came from outside: a car starting.
“What the . . .” Ross glanced out the window. “Shit, she’s leaving!”
Joshua watched as his dad selected a key from the key chain and tried to fit it into the entrance door keyhole. The key wouldn’t fit. His dad tried another. There were at least twenty keys on the key chain. He’d tried four already. None had fit.
“Goddammit, I said no more games,” Shane said. “Hurry it up.”
“Too dark to see which key I need.”
It was barely six, but darkness surrounded them. The dead of winter, when night arrived early. Occasionally, a car would pass by on the road in front of the dealership, but none stopped; they were too far away for anyone to see what was happening.
His dad tried another key. It didn’t fit. Joshua glanced over his shoulder, hoped to see a police cruiser on the road or pulling into the dealership. But there was nothing.
His dad selected another key. Dropped the key chain before he could try it.
“Christ,” Shane said. “This door isn’t open in the next minute, things are gonna get ugly.”
Karen focused on the road as she sped down the highway, headlights cutting through the night, passing cars like they weren’t even moving. The speedometer needle was past ninety. She pressed her foot down on the accelerator and the needle climbed a few notches higher.
She didn’t even know what she’d do once she arrived at the dealership. Didn’t know what scene would greet her, didn’t even know if Joshua and Teddy would be there. A million questions raced in her mind. Had the police arrived? Had they even taken her call seriously? Had something already happened to Joshua and Teddy?
She continued on, down the interstate, fingers white-knuckling the steering wheel. The car’s interior had a coppery smell from Amber’s blood still smudged in the backseat. Karen almost rear-ended a car and swerved to avoid it.
In the distance, the dealership’s large roadside sign was just visible.
Just past the sign, she could see something else, too: pulsing red and blue police lights, flashing into the sky.
Joshua watched as his dad grabbed another key. Before he had a chance to fit it into the keyhole, Joshua heard a noise to the left of them.
Police sirens.
They all snapped their heads over and looked in the direction of the sirens. A police cruiser was a couple of hundred feet away, racing past the rows of cars toward them, lights flashing.
The cop car screeched to a stop a few feet away from them. The driver’s-side door flew open and a uniformed officer jumped out, gun in hand. A moment later, the passenger door opened and a second officer jumped outside. They both began yelling but got only a few words out before the gunshots began.
Shane started shooting. The gunshots were right behind Joshua, like cannon blasts. He fell to the ground, hands over his head, ears ringing, every muscle in his body clenched.
The officers yelled some more. There was a barrage of gunshots from Shane. Joshua curled into a ball on the ground and closed his eyes as gunshots continued to ring out.
“Joshua . . .”
He opened his eyes. His dad was only a few feet away, on his knees. Right in front of the dealership entrance door . . . which was open, keys dangling from the keyhole.
He reached out and grabbed Joshua’s arm. They stood up and sprinted past the open door, into the dealership.
Behind them, more gunshots. Then a yell: “Shit!” It didn’t sound like Shane, but it was impossible to tell. Too much was happening.
Joshua kept running, right beside his dad, into the lobby. It was so dark Joshua could barely see a few feet in front of him.
Another yell from behind them: “Dammit!” That one vaguely sounded like Shane.
They reached the middle of the lobby, one hallway leading off to the left, one off to the right. He followed his dad down the one to the left. They ran down the darkened hallway, closed doors on either side of them.
From behind them, Joshua heard loud panting, heavy breathing. He glanced over his shoulder and saw a thick, bulky silhouette lumbering down the hallway, heading straight toward them.
Shane.
Then came the flash of a muzzle and the crack of a gunshot, the noise echoing in the empty hallway.
A gunshot. Then another one.
Beside Joshua, his dad yelled out and collapsed to the ground, grabbing his thigh. Even in the near total darkness of the hallway, Joshua could see the blood on the leg of his dad’s pants.
“Are you shot?” Joshua asked.
His dad nodded. He tried to stand up but his leg buckled under him and he fell back down to the ground.
Behind them, Shane’s shadowy figure made its way down the hallway, closer and closer.