The Dead Run Page 4

  What a fucking day. Dead girls buried in the desert, live girls missing from the town pool. And it wasn’t even two yet. Thoughts of a late lunch in an air-conditioned diner filled Nichols’s mind. The good one, he didn’t go to anymore; it had been his and Kat’s spot ever since junior year. But the mediocre one had a few standout plates. Hard to fuck up a cheeseburger.

  “Maybe we could talk inside, ma’am?” he said, throwing a couple of meaningful sideways glances at the neighbors.

  The Richards woman didn’t seem to catch his drift, but she acquiesced, turning away without another word, a ropy ponytail swinging behind her as she stalked off like an angry rag doll. Nichols followed her through a hallway covered in threadbare gray carpet, into a mustard-colored kitchen straight out of the seventies. The only decoration was a wood-framed needlepoint, hung over the table.

  As for me and my house, we shall serve the Lord. Joshua something-or-other.

  Nichols wasn’t much for scripture. He’d done his best to be vague about that the first time he’d run for sheriff, steered away from any talk of religion whenever possible and mouthed a few platitudes about the strength of his faith when he was cornered. It wasn’t hard; he’d had plenty of practice pretending he didn’t think religion was horseshit. And besides, this was Texas; nobody had it in them to believe their cherished football star and war hero wasn’t a foot soldier in Christ’s army or a cashier in Christ’s Laundromat or whatever the fuck.

  Nichols pulled out a chair, beckoned the woman toward it. Melinda Richards shoved her hands into her back pockets and shook her head. Nichols shrugged and parked himself in the other one. Must have been just the two of them, he thought. Mother and daughter. No dinner guests.

  “She should have been home hours ago. She’s never late. She knows I don’t abide lateness.”

  Nichols readied his most soothing voice and said, “All due respect, Ms. Richards, your daughter is how old? Fifteen?”

  “Sixteen last week.”

  “At sixteen, they tend to get a whole lot less punctual. What with the . . . hormones and what-all.”

  Bad move. She went ramrod straight, stared switchblades at him. “Officer Nichols, this is a Christian home.”

  All the more reason for your daughter to be out getting loaded, lady.

  So much for calming her down with stats. Somehow, he couldn’t see Melinda Richards finding much comfort in the fact that 85 percent of “missing” teenagers turned up the next day, hanging their heads and nursing their hangovers.

  Of the other 15, most were runaways. That was beginning to look more and more plausible. Nichols had only been here five minutes, and this place was already giving him the heebie-jeebies.

  “Of course,” he said. “I’m sorry. Let’s start from the beginning. You’ve tried your daughter’s cell?”

  “She doesn’t have one.”

  Nichols swallowed his incredulity. What sixteen-year-old girl wasn’t glued to her phone? Maybe God disapproved of wireless technology.

  Easier to keep track of your kid if you give her a way to communicate, lady.

  “I’m going to need a picture of your daughter, ma’am. The more recent the better.”

  Unless, of course, God frowns upon cameras, from his holy cave in the sky.

  She turned and rummaged through a drawer crammed with junk. Nichols glimpsed the top of a tattoo at the small of her back.

  The Rolling Stones logo.

  Like most of the zealots Nichols had met, it appeared that Melinda Richards was not without some past sympathy for the devil.

  “This is last year’s school photo.”

  He studied it. Brown hair, pretty brown eyes. A grubby white sweatshirt, like she hadn’t known it was picture day. She looked jumpy, tight-wound. Living with this woman would do that to a kid.

  “Do you know what she was wearing when she left the house today?”

  “I went out before she did. She was planning to go swimming. At the town pool. Her swimsuit is missing.”

  “I’d like to take a look at her room. See what else she might have taken with her.”

  Melinda’s eyes blazed. “My daughter did not—”

  “To the pool, I mean,” Nichols added hastily.

  “This way.” Melinda stalked past him, down the wood-paneled hall. She banked right and opened a flimsy particleboard door onto the girl’s room.

  Nichols lingered in the kitchen. In her haste, Melinda had left the junk drawer open. The sheriff peered into it, junk drawers the windows of the soul.

  Coins, Allen wrenches, unlabeled cassettes, crumpled takeout menus. He was about to slide it shut when he noticed a business card, protruding from a jumble of coupons.

  Ruth Cantwell, Clinical Psychologist, New Life Clinic. Nichols gave it his interrogator’s frown, as if the card might speak. New Life Clinic rang a distant bell. Was it that upscale rehab place out in the suburbs, high fences hiding plush bungalows full of corporate cokeheads and rich sex addicts?

  Melinda Richards was several tax brackets shy of that.

  Nichols slipped the card into his pocket and followed her down the hall.

  The kid’s room was more like a monk’s cell than a teenage girl’s sanctum. Bed, made. Desk, orderly. Cross on a silver chain hanging from the mirror on the dresser. Nothing on the walls but the Scotch-taped corners of posters.

  Whatever Sherry had put up, her mother had torn down.

  Nichols pocketed his hand, flicked his thumbnail against the business card. Come to think of it, didn’t New Life Clinic do cult recovery, too?

  He turned to Melinda. “It doesn’t appear to me that your daughter was taken from home, Ms. Richards—if she was taken at all, which, again, I want to reassure you, is highly unlikely. But there’s no sign here of a forced entry, no evidence of a struggle. Nothing appears to be missing.” He took a stab at a comforting smile. “And you’re right, no one runs away in a bathing suit. I’m sure it’s all going to turn out fine. Probably just a misunderstanding.”

  He tried out an apologetic smile.

  “Can you think of any reason Sherry might be upset, Ms. Richards? A fight with a friend, maybe? Any tension between the two of you?”

  “No.” She barely parted her lips to say it.

  “Any other relatives she might be with? Uncles, aunts, cousins, her father . . . ?”

  “It’s just us.”

  “Does Sherry have a boyfriend?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “You’re sure? Kids today, you know, they don’t always tell their parents what—”

  “Sherry tells me everything, Sheriff.” Rage and hysteria jockeyed for control of her eyes. “What’s the point of all this? Somebody out there’s got my daughter, and you’re standing here asking me these, these . . .” Melinda broke off, raised her palms to her face, and smothered a sob.

  “I’m sorry, Ms. Richards. There are standard questions we’re required to ask everyone.” He paused, took a breath, plunged back in.

  “Again . . . what makes you so sure somebody’s ‘got’ your daughter?”

  “Because they—” She broke off, cupped her hands over her nose and mouth.

  “They who? Ms. Richards, is there something you want to tell me?”

  She back-and-forthed her head, like a little kid standing by some dumb lie, her hands still covering her face.

  “I’ve got to go pray,” she whispered. “Officer Nichols, please. Find her. Before it’s too late.”

  Melinda Richards shuffled from the room.

  Nichols showed himself out, clambered back into his squad car. Blasted the air, pulled out the card, and dialed.

  Two rings. “Ruth Cantwell.”

  A honeysuckle voice. Clad in a business suit.

  “Dr. Cantwell, this is Sheriff Bob Nichols. I’m calling about a patient of yours, Melinda Ric
hards?”

  “What’s happened?” The voice coiling like a spring.

  “Well, she believes her daughter’s been abducted. The girl’s only been unaccounted for a few hours, but Melinda’s terrified, and I get the sense she knows more than she’s saying. Of course, I respect your doctor-patient confidentiality, Dr. Cantwell, but if there’s anything you might—”

  “You’re at her house?”

  “Yes.”

  “Give me fifteen minutes.”

  SHE MADE IT there in ten, red Audi two-door screeching to a stop across the street from Nichols’s squad car. He’d given up on the air-conditioning by then, decided he might as well kill the wait time doing something that resembled police work. When Cantwell arrived, he was just coming around the side of the house, a search of the Richardses’ postage-stamp yard having turned up plenty of jackshit.

  The doctor unfolded herself from the driver’s seat, smoothing down a skirt that ended just above her shapely calves. Wine-colored lips, her blouse and jacket the same shade, the whole ensemble conservative enough for business but sexy enough to distract from it.

  Hell, thought Nichols, if losing control of your life meant sitting across from that every day, he ought to start bringing his flask to the office. Maybe pick up a gambling habit, too.

  She crossed the street in three paces and extended her hand. “Hello, Sheriff. Ruth Cantwell.”

  Nichols shook, and waited for more.

  “Can we walk?” she asked, glancing behind him at the house, the drawn curtains.

  “Sure. I want to trace the route between here and the town pool, anyway. Just in case.”

  The moment they’d passed out of the house’s sight line, Cantwell turned to him and dropped her hands onto her hips.

  “Melinda Richards is a recovering cult member.”

  “Recovering, huh? Seemed pretty devout to me.”

  “She’s a believer, sure. But you should have seen her eighteen months ago. Sherry was barely allowed out of the house. Melinda was about to move them into a compound when we intervened.”

  “No offense, doc, but the New Life Clinic seems a tad rich for Melinda Richards’s blood.”

  “I waived my fee.”

  “How altruistic.” Nichols crossed his arms over his chest. “You tear ass all the way across town to tell me that?”

  Cantwell crossed her arms right back—the gesture less defiant than she probably thought, given the way it Wonderbra-ed her cleavage.

  “What makes you think she’s hiding something?”

  Nichols shrugged. “Well, didn’t mention anything about a cult, for starters. But even without that—most people don’t call in the law when their teenager’s late coming home. At two P.M.” He jerked a thumb in the direction of the house. “Maybe you oughta talk to her, doctor.”

  “Please, call me Ruth.”

  “Maybe you oughta talk to her, Dr. Ruth.”

  Nichols tried to hide his smirk. Cantwell ignored it.

  “I’m sorry to say she’s no longer under my care.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Because I insisted she go public with what she saw at that compound, and she refused. Said they’d kill her. And that the cops were in Seth’s pocket. She moved here to start over. But maybe it wasn’t far enough.”

  “Who the hell is Seth? What did she see?”

  “Are you familiar with the legend of the Virgin Army, Sheriff?”

  Nichols stifled a laugh. “Yeah, sure. Undead virgins buried in the desert, right? They rise and feed on human flesh when there’s—what is it again? A full moon? An eclipse? Nothing good on TV?”

  Cantwell’s eyes flashed. “You know what Melinda saw? Sixteen-year-old girls nobody ever heard from again, that’s what. Good Christians who sang in the church choir and didn’t have boyfriends. Sound familiar?”

  Nichols pulled the notepad from his back pocket, flipped a page, and felt the blood drain from his face. “Sherry Richards turned sixteen one week ago.”

  “Then we don’t have a minute to spare. Come on. It’s ninety minutes north of here.”

  She walked straight to Nichols’s car, jacked open the passenger door, and eye-daggered him impatiently.

  “Ninety minutes north is forty-five past my jurisdiction,” he told her. “Give me an address. I’ll call it in.”

  “Did you not hear me, Nichols? The cops up there cannot be trusted. That’s not paranoia. That’s a fact.”

  She bent, sized up the sorry state of his roller, and fished her own keys from her purse. “We’d better take my car.” She pressed a button, and the Audi’s headlights double-blinked.

  Nichols gaped for a moment, unpleasantly aware that he was two steps behind and dealing with a dynamo. Then he jogged to the Audi.

  Ruth was already inside. He crossed in front of the hood, reached for the door handle. She buzzed the window down.

  “You keep a shotgun in the trunk?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Grab it.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Galvan’s brain was a computer rebooting after a crash, blinking to life one system at a time.

  First to come online was his sense of smell. Dank, musty air filled Galvan’s blood-caked nostrils.

  Unclean bodies.

  Piss and shit, both old and new.

  Fear.

  Death.

  A flurry of sensations followed in rapid, disorienting succession. A cold draft across his groin that told him he was naked. A pounding in his head that reminded him of how he’d gotten here, wherever here was. Galvan’s eyes blinked rapidly in the near-blackness, trying frantically to adjust.

  Then he noticed a hard coldness around his wrists and ankles, and Galvan’s heart kicked into high gear.

  He jerked his limbs, trying to stand, and was rewarded only with the piercing clank of metal, the sharp wrenching of his bones in their sockets.

  The chains that bound him didn’t have that much give.

  Take a breath, he told himself. Be smart. Don’t panic. If they wanted you dead, you’d be dead.

  They.

  The place was coming into focus. It was an underground chamber, illuminated only by a slanted shaft of light that seemed exhausted from its journey. The walls were stone, smooth and worn. So was the floor on which he lay, shackled by four rusted metal cuffs.

  Galvan heard the shallow breath of the other men before he could make out their forms. There were six or seven—all chained, all still unconscious. Payaso was one. The enforcer, Gutierrez, was another. The rest, he knew only by face.

  Suddenly, a great grinding sound filled the air, and Galvan felt the chains go slack. He scrambled to his feet, a dozen cuts and bruises making themselves known, and realized that the chains binding his wrists were anchored to the ceiling, the ones around his ankles to the floor.

  He was a marionette.

  Footsteps echoed through the chamber, growing louder and closer. Galvan cocked his head, trying to determine the vector of the approach. Before he saw anything, a blast of scalding water knocked him off his feet, onto the other prisoners.

  They came to life, screaming and clawing. Chains flailed like tentacles.

  Galvan tried to shield his eyes, his balls—from the water, the flying fists and feet. Before him stood a backlit guard, stance wide, fire hose gripped firmly in his hands, length trailing off behind. He sprayed and sprayed, the water pressure strong enough to purple flesh. Then, just as abruptly, he stopped.

  “Look alive!”

  That awful grinding sound again. The chains around Galvan’s wrists yanked him off his feet, hoisted him into the air.

  Three feet, five feet, eight. Then his ankle chains went taut, arresting Galvan’s movement with an agonizing jerk. He was spread-eagled, a fly caught in a web.

  The other prisoners, too. All of t
hem, lined up like a row of paper dolls.

  All at once, the smell of the place reasserted itself. The air was thicker up here, as if burdened by some ancient evil, some malignancy that penetrated even the stone.

  The guard with the hose turned on his heel, marched out of sight. For a moment it was quiet, except for the water falling from their bodies, fat droplets exploding when they hit the ground.

  Then a new smell wafted toward Galvan, one that had no place here. It was fruity, cloying, familiar. Hanging naked from rusty chains in the filthy underbelly of a Mexican prison, Galvan found himself flashing on high school make-out sessions in the corners of basements lit with red bulbs, the party winding down, New Edition in the tape deck.

  Strawberry incense.

  Around an invisible bend came a boy dressed in a long white tunic, barefoot, ten years too young to be a con. He swung a metal incense burner, the kind they’d used in church when Galvan was a kid. He passed within a foot of the prisoners, looking straight ahead the whole time, the men invisible to him.

  And he was gone.

  For a moment, the air was sweet and still. Then a voice cut through it—a low, rough whisper, but it filled the chamber, seemed to be everywhere at once.

  Including, and especially, inside Galvan’s head.

  “Only one of you will survive. Fight for your lives. Your very souls.”

  The chains went suddenly slack, and Galvan plummeted to the ground, crash-landed in a pile of flesh and metal. A second later, another prisoner dropped.

  Gutierrez.

  Fuck.

  The big brawler was up in a flash, roaring as he charged, chains streaming behind his arms like kite strings.

  Galvan jumped, grabbed hold of his left-arm chain, and pulled himself up, hand over hand. By the time Gutierrez reached him, Galvan was ten feet overhead. The enforcer looked up just in time to see him drop, Galvan’s knee slamming into Gutierrez’s face with a sickening crunch.