Feral (21 page)

Time passed.
 
Dave turned his head so he could watch the calm waters of the Snake River.
 
More time passed, not much, but it seemed long because he couldn't move.
 
He became drowsy and let his eyes slip shut.
 
He knew he probably had a concussion; if he fell asleep he might not awake, but he didn't care.

If the river is the last thing I see I'll die blessed
, he thought.

Then someone kneeled down next to him, leaned over him.
 
There was a jingle of keys and a metallic
snick
as the lock turned and the cuffs released his hands.
 
He let his arms fall to the pavement, waited with gritted teeth for the sudden cramping in his shoulders to relax.

“Thanks,” he said, but got no reply.
 
He turned his head, though it hurt like hell to do so, and watched the boy disappear down the slope.
 
A pair of police issue gun belts hung low on his hips.

Dave saw the officer's blood-streaked badge laying on the blacktop inches from his face.
 
His hand moved slowly toward it, closed over it.

The blood was still warm.

After a few minutes no one had come—not many people came by this blighted place anymore.
 
He worked up the will to stand, and rushed off into the woods to lick his wounds.

He felt a pang of pity for the two officers but it was fleeting.
 
Mostly he was grateful that he hadn't shared their fate.
 
He had watched those kids for a long time and he knew that their sizes and ages didn't mean a thing.
 
They had gone feral, like a pack of abandoned dogs.
 
They may have been human once, but now they were animals.

They were merciless.

“I
s that all then, Mrs. Pitcher?
 
Nothing else?”

“Nothing else,” Shannon said with a sigh.
 
“Look, I'm tired, and we've been through this already.
 
If there isn't anything else I would like to get some rest.”

She endured the lingering, come-hither-scumbag look that Sergeant Winter gave her until she could stand it no longer.
 
Then she endured it some more.
 
She wasn't under arrest—he had made that fact clear early into their interview.
 
He had also made it clear he didn't believe she was telling him everything, and that her tentative freedom could easily disappear.
 
They were in his office, not the interrogation room; Sharon figured she rated that much at least, being the sister of an ex-cop.
 
She knew he didn't like her, mostly because she was her brother's sister and Winter had hated Jared.

The office was small and had no windows except for the single large pane that faced the Bullpen.
 
Its shades were drawn.
 
The hard fluorescent lighting and white walls made the room uncomfortably bright; every speck of dust seemed magnified as they moved about on subtle currents.

“Are you positive there isn't anything you would like to add, Mrs. Pitcher?” he asked again, his tone unabashedly sarcastic.
 
“You know, expound upon?”
 
He drummed his fingers against the surface of his cluttered desk.
 
A cup of cold coffee sat forgotten at one corner.
 
A dead fly drifted across the surface of the dark liquid.

He kept his eyes on her, never looking away, never seeming to blink.
 
He was waiting for her to screw up and change the story.
 
He had offered to let her bring in a lawyer before the questioning, but she declined.
 
She didn't want to prolong the informal interrogation, and a lawyer would have cost her time.
 
She knew she hadn't screwed up; the story she and Gordon agreed upon in the park as the police arrived was simple and fell in line with what he had told them earlier.
 
She knew what he was trying to do.
 
Jared had explained the technique to her; wear them down with hours of repeated questioning, exhausting the interviewee until they couldn't remember their own middle name.

“Nothing,” she said.
 
“My story isn't going to change, Sergeant Winter.
 
It's the truth.”
 
She pointed to the cup at the edge of the table, an exhausted grin touching her lips.
 
“You're not drinking that, are you?”

Sergeant Winter looked into the cup, grimaced, and looked back at her.
 
“Nothing else,” he said with a wave of the hand.
 
“Get out of here.”

Shannon was happy to oblige.

“Don't leave town,” he said as she opened the door.

She nodded and closed it behind her with an immeasurable sense of relief.

Gordon waited on a bench in the lobby, slouched, hands cupped behind his head, eyes closed.
 
He had talked to Sergeant Winter before Shannon, but his interview was shorter.
 
Outside the office the lights were dim, easier on the eyes.
 
The walls were also white, but cleaner, the desks tidier, the faces friendlier.

She weaved through the bullpen traffic, office personnel and a few street cops.
 
The dispatch, Lillian, Jared's nearly fatal fling, gave Shannon a wary look as she rushed toward Sergeant Winter's office.

“Bitch,” Shannon muttered.
 
She heard a few scattered snickers as she crossed the lobby.
 
They all knew Lillian was fucking her brother.
 
Shannon wondered who she was fucking now.

“Wake up,” she said, giving Gordon's shoulder a squeeze.

Gordon's eyes popped open, foggy white orbs shot with red.
 
The heavy rise and fall of his chest belied his comfortable position.
 
His face went pale until he looked up at her and remembered where he was.
 
He had been having a nightmare.

He sighed, a soul-deep sound, and stretched.
 
“We finished?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she said.
 
“Let's get out of here.”

Jared's car, Shannon's car now, sat in the parking lot in a row next to parked police cruisers.
 
She supposed she was lucky they hadn't impounded it.
 
Though they couldn't pin a specific crime on her, they could have impounded her car for illegal parking the night before.
 
Charles' car had been impounded.
 
It was in a fenced lot behind the station.
 
She could see it as she unlocked her car door, sitting between an old white station wagon and green spray-painted jeep.
 
The front quarter panel was bashed in where she had hit it the night before.
 
The Chevelle was in better shape, the bumper dented and grill twisted out of shape, but it still ran like a champ.
 
She unlocked the passenger door and started it while Gordon climbed in.

“Where to?” she said.

“The Riverside.
 
You know where that is?”

“Yeah.”

She drove silently.
 
It was a short trip through town, the morning traffic was light.
 
She looked over at him a few times, stealing quick glances.
 
His gaze alternated between his lap and the sidewalk.
 
He opened his mouth a few times as though to speak, but closed it again and continued his study of the downtown foot traffic.

She turned into The Riverside's parking lot.

“Back there,” Gordon said pointing to the gravel back alley lot.
 
She whipped right into the alley and parked next to a lone car, an old, gray Mazda.

“Yours?” she said.

“Yeah.
 
It's ugly but reliable,” he said.

“How long will you stay?” she said.

“The room's paid for the rest of the week, I think.”
 
He moved to open the door, stopped, played with a piece of lint on his pant leg.
 
“It's Charles' room, but,” he broke off into silence.

“How long?” she repeated more forcefully.
 
She watched him.
 
An old scar, a jagged white line that ran from temple to jawbone, contrasted sharply with his tanned face.
 
His eyes met hers and she saw through the exhaustion, to the heart of the strength that lay beneath.
 
The look in those eyes told her she should have known better.

“Until I get my Charity back,” he said.

She nodded and averted her eyes, studied the moldy bricks on the motel's back wall, waiting for him to ask his question.

“Will you stay with me?” he asked, not a proposition, but a plea.

“Yes,” she said.
 
”I will.”
 
The question was a formality, but it had to be asked.
 
They were in it together; with Jared and Charles dead, they were all the other had.
 
They were all Charity had.

“I'm going to find her,” Gordon said, and when Shannon regarded him, she saw that his eyes were focused on the dirty brick wall in front of them, or perhaps on nothing at all.
 
He was talking to himself, trying to reassure himself. Or maybe it was an oath.

“We will,” she said, and killed the engine.

S
hannon took a shower, long, hot, and relaxing.
 
She felt better when it was over, as if some psychic dirt from the past few days had been washed away.
 
The clothes seemed to have retained the residue of fear and pain along with the marks of sweat and dirt.
 
Dressing in them seemed a step backward; she would have liked a fresh change, but couldn't bring herself to go back to the house.
 
That would be even worse.

She stretched out on the room's single bed while Gordon showered, and was asleep ten minutes later when he stepped out of the bathroom in fresh clothes, still toweling the water from his hair.

Despite the exhaustion her sleep was light. She retained a dreamy awareness of everything that happened when Gordon lay down next to her.
 
He didn't touch her, but scooted close, taking comfort in her presence.
 
When he was still, his breath a slow and barely audible rhythm next to her, she rolled toward him and put an arm around his waist, holding tight, feeling his heat, his essence.
 
It calmed her into a deeper sleep.

When he took her hand, his fingers curling through hers, she responded with a squeeze.
 
The warmth and strength of his hand was the last thing she felt before sinking into a sound and blessedly dreamless sleep.

G
ordon had awakened when she curled into him, at first startled and confused, but not uncomfortable.
 
It had been years since he'd been this close to a woman, and Shannon was a beautiful woman.
 
Beneath the tangled hair, dust caked and sweat-slick skin, and even in the darkness where he had first seen her, she had been beautiful.
 
He hadn't known how beautiful she was until she had come from the bathroom clean, except for the old clothes she wore.
 
He knew that under her clothes she was clean too.

When he had reached for her hand he expected her to pull away and deny him the small comfort of her touch, but she did not.
 
Whether conscious or not, she had returned the gesture.

This was the woman who had saved his Charity from the Bogey Man, and for that he already loved her.
 
He knew it was foolish, dangerously distracting, but he hoped.
 
If he had believed that there was a God above who listened to the thoughts and hopes of a man like him, he would have prayed that maybe he could hold her like this after, if, he found Charity.
 
He knew it was a fool's dream, but as he fell into the darkness again, he dreamed it anyway.

“T
ell me about yourself,” Shannon said pouring them coffee from the room's small pot.
 
Her heart jumped a little, her breath caught in her throat as Gordon stepped behind her, brushing her, and accepted his cup.

God, has it been that long
?

“Not much to tell,” he said with a shrug, brushing off the question.

Shannon turned, sipped coffee and watched him as he walked to the shaded window and peeked outside.
 
Gray sky, overcast and bloated with barely held moisture, peeked back in at them.
 
Inside was cool, outside would be hot and muggy, the air like a thick, wet blanket.

She watched as he stared into the fading daylight, perhaps seeing Charity's face in the contours of the clouds, perhaps hearing her voice in the whisper of the wind.
 
He sipped absently at the coffee in his right hand, traced blindly along the jagged scar running up his jaw with the index finger of the left.