Turning Angel (61 page)

”It’s not her,“ crackles Logan’s voice. ”It’s the other girl. She’s bleeding out, Penn. What do I do?“

”It’s not Mia?“

”No. This girl has a fucking ring in her nose. Mia must still be out there.“

Relief rushes through me. ”Where are the wounds?“

”Neck, mostly.“

”Direct pressure, Don. Keep that blood inside her.“

I get slowly to my feet and look up at the house.
They’re not in there,
says a voice in my head.
They’re gone.

”Have you heard any motors, Don?“

”No.“

Then it hits me:
It’s not a basement. It’s a tunnel!

I turn to my left and walk away from the house, down the hill toward the low ground on the north side of Ardenwood. As the Civil War began to turn against the Confederacy, many plantation owners realized that the Northern armies would eventually sweep southward over their lands. Some planters had only days to prepare, but others—especially those farthest south—had months and even years. A tunnel could be used to store valuables, and then in the last extremity as a means of escape from marauding soldiers or even neighbors, a real danger to the many Natchez planters who sympathized with the Yankee cause. I’ve never toured Ardenwood, but I know as surely as I know my name that it has an escape tunnel.

Marko Bakic knows it, too.

Moving downhill is a lot easier than moving up. In less than a minute, I’m moving into the kudzu that lines the bayou on the north side of Ardenwood. The smell of organic decay blends with the reek of dead fish and fetid mud. It’s a familiar odor. The whole of Natchez is threaded with bayous and creeks, and I came to know them well as a boy. The planter who owned Ardenwood would have known them, too—this bayou, anyway. And when he decided to build his escape tunnel, in which direction would he have told his slaves to dig?

North.

Dig in any other direction, and they’d not only have had to dig horizontally, but vertically again to come up out of the earth—unless they dug dozens of yards farther than necessary. No slave owner would waste labor like that, especially during wartime. He’d have ordered his ”darkies“ to dig the shortest route to safety, and that was north. Thirty yards of tunnel would have carried the diggers to the bayou where I’m standing now.

Two feet of black water simmers between the banks, with tangled tree roots reaching like fingers down into it, and long beards of moss hanging from the limbs above. The kudzu is too thick to move quietly along either bank. And walking through kudzu is the best way to get bitten by a copperhead—especially at night. Pushing through the vines that choke the bank, I step down into the water, then begin walking slowly toward the back of the mansion.

The closer I get to Ardenwood, the higher the banks rise around me. If I’m right about the tunnel, it’s possible that Marko and Mia already came out of it, but all I can do is follow my instinct. I try not to splash as I slide my feet along the muddy bottom. With every step I take, unseen creatures scuttle among the roots on the banks, and shining whips uncurl in the water and glide away.
Water moccasins.
Snakes have always terrified me, but Mia is facing a lot worse than that. Tensing my exhausted leg muscles against the bite of fangs, I push steadily forward.

Ardenwood towers above me now, more like part of the landscape than any man-made thing. If there’s a tunnel leading out of that ruined shell, I should be getting close to its mouth. I stop in the water and listen with the focus of desperation.

Mosquitoes buzz…

Wet leaves rustle…

A turtle splashes—

”If you make a sound, I’ll kill you.“

Unspeakable fear paralyzes me where I stand.

”Did you hear me, bitch?“

”I heard you.“

At the sound of Mia’s small voice, hope flares within me.

”Move your ass, then!“

A splash sounds behind me, much bigger than that made by the turtle. If I move now, Marko will know I’m here. I hear another splash, and then the sound of a siren floats through the trees.

”Fuck!“
curses Marko.
”You lying whore!“

”Run,“ Mia urges him. ”You can get away. I’ll just slow you down.“

”If I leave you here, I leave you dead.“

”Marko, please—“

”Shut up!“

The siren’s getting louder fast.

”This way!“ Marko says harshly.

I hear more splashing, closer to me this time, and getting closer. Marko must be less than ten feet away, yet he’s still walking toward me.

He can’t see me.

It’s so dark at the bottom of the bayou that only the sky is visible. Only night predators can see here. I stand utterly still as the splashes get closer. Marko curses as he works along the left bank, pulling Mia behind him—at least that’s what I picture from the sounds. The water washes against my leg as they pass. They only miss me because they’re walking half in and half out of the narrow stream, while I stand dead in the center.

When they’re ten feet past me, I turn and begin to follow them.

Marko is moving fast now, away from the direction of the road. If I don’t pick up the pace, he’ll lose me. If I do, he may hear me. Twenty feet ahead, two shadows walk through a column of moonlight let in by a space in the trees. Mia’s shorter frame is easily distinguishable from Marko’s. I move faster, fighting a stitch in my side. How long before my legs cramp? How long before I fall again, and Marko runs back and shoots me while I try to rise from the water? As I ask myself these questions, a quick series of splashes sounds behind me. I don’t know what they mean, but it sounds like a horse galloping up the stream.

As I stand frozen, Marko passes through the column of light again, moving swiftly and soundlessly back toward me. In seconds, he will either pass me or crash into me. If he passes me, whatever is behind me will be a sitting duck for him. If he hits me—

”Watch out!“ Mia screams. ”He’s got a gun!“

Three feet ahead of me, a black form spins out of the dark and fires a gun. The flame spits away from me, though, back toward Mia. Consumed by fury, I crouch in the water and hold out my father’s Browning. Marko fires again, this time in my direction, bracketing the bayou with bullets. I can’t fire for fear of hitting Mia.

”Motherfucker!“
Marko screams, firing like a maniac.
”Izuzetni!“

Then his gun clicks empty.

With all the energy left in my body, I drive my legs upward and swing the Browning in a roundhouse arc. Metal crashes into bone, and Marko goes down in the water. I raise the Browning again and drive it down hard where I heard the splash. This time I hit something softer. An explosion of air hits my face, but then powerful arms whip around my neck and drag me down into the water.

Marko is suddenly above me, trying to shove my head under the water. I’ve got my gun jammed into his gut, but if I pull the trigger—if I kill him—Drew will never be freed.

”Don’t make me kill you!“
I shout.

Marko screams in a guttural language, and the hatred in his voice sends a bolt of terror through my soul. He means to kill me, even if it costs him his life. His jerks one hand from my neck and grabs for my gun. I’m pulling the trigger when a thin red beam arcs across my eyes. A single shot splits the night, and then Marko’s hands fly away as though they never clutched me in a death grip.

Mia screams.

A powerful white light sweeps across me, onto Mia, then goes out.

”It’s Kelly!“
shouts a voice.
”Both of you get down!“

I drop into the water, but I hear Mia splashing toward me.

”Stop, Mia!“ Kelly shouts.

”He threw his phone!“ she yells back. ”There’s something about his phone!“

Kelly charges past me and bellows something in the same guttural language Marko used. Marko screams back at him.

”Shine your light over here!“ Mia says.

Kelly steps on something in the water—Marko, I presume—then obeys Mia’s order. She drops to her knees, scrabbles through the kudzu, then jumps up with a silver cell phone in her hand.

I press my hands down into the mud and slowly get up.

Kelly drags Marko to his feet and binds his wrists with thin plastic restraints. ”You okay, Penn?“

”I think so.“

He lifts his radio and tells Logan how to find us.

Marko groans and doubles over.

”Did you shoot Marko?“ I ask.

”He’ll live,“ says Kelly. ”I had time to pick my shot.“

Fear is draining out of me like bad water. ”I’m glad you thought so. Shit.“

Kelly shines his flashlight on his own face. The sight of his grin beneath the blond hair makes me almost giddy with relief.

”Oh, my God,“ Mia cries. ”Oh no.“

When I turn, I see her face illuminated by the faint glow of a cell phone screen.

”Look at this, Penn,“ she whispers. ”Dear Lord.“

I splash over to her and look down.

Kate Townsend is looking up at me from the screen, but her eyes are no more alive than those of a dead fish. Her face is gray, and the orbits of her eyes are dotted with burst blood vessels.

”Is she dead?“ Mia asks.

”Yes,“ says Kelly, leaning over my shoulder.

Mia fiddles with the phone’s buttons, and another photo appears. This one shows Kate from the knees up. She’s lying naked on the sand, spread-eagled to show her vagina. As I stare, my stomach almost comes up. Kate’s head is turned to the side in the photo, and both her nose and mouth lie beneath the surface of the brown water. Her long blond hair trails downstream.

Mia hands me the phone, then falls to her knees and vomits into the bayou. I reach down and hold her hair so that she doesn’t soil it. While she retches and heaves, I hear a sound like a hammer hitting raw meat. I turn in time to see Marko crumple to the ground.

As I help Mia to her feet, Marko curses Kelly in his own language. Marko’s lying flat on his back, as though pinned there by the beam of Kelly’s flashlight. Kelly stands over him with the MP5, covering him with lazy grace, as oblivious to the words as to the barking of a dog. As I watch them, the echo of excited voices comes down the hill, and three flashlights appear in the distance.

”Can I go home?“ Mia asks. ”I don’t want to be part of this anymore.“

I squeeze her arm and look toward Kelly’s flashlight. ”You mind if I take her out of here?“

”Go on,“ he says out of the darkness. ”Get her home. Take Logan’s car. Then swallow one more of those magic pills and do what you set out to do in the beginning.“

”What?“

”Get your buddy out of jail.“

”Thanks, Kelly. For everything.“

”Glad to do it.“

As I lead Mia through the kudzu, Kelly’s voice floats after me.

”Hey, Penn?“

”Yeah?“

”Before those cops get here?“

”Yeah?“

”This guy could make it, or he could be a statistic.“

I stop in my tracks. The flashlights are getting closer.

”You got an opinion?“ Kelly calls.

Mia squeezes my wrist. ”You saw what he did to Kate,“ she says. ”Will he even go to jail?“

”He will. Thanks to you finding that cell phone.“

”Penn?“ Kelly asks again.

I turn back toward the bayou. ”I guess he makes it.“

At first I hear nothing. Then Kelly says, ”No problem. Just wanted to give you the option.“

”I appreciate it. I’ll see you later.“

”Yeah.“

With that I take Mia’s hand and climb carefully out of the darkness.

Chapter
41

Eight hours after Marko was admitted to the hospital, I received the most surprising call of my life. Police Chief Don Logan informed me that Marko Bakic wanted to hire me as his defense attorney. I told Logan that since I had witnessed some of Marko’s illegal acts, I couldn’t act as his legal counsel. Logan said he’d told Marko this, but that the boy wanted to talk to me anyway.

All I had to do was take the elevator up from the first floor, where the ICU was, to the fourth, where patients recovered from surgery. Two cops guarded the door of Marko’s private room. The boy lay in his bed with steel cuffs on his wrists and shackles on his legs. Another chain connected the leg irons to the hospital bed.

Marko laughed when I shuffled into the room.

”Hello, Mr. Cage. You all right?“

I nodded.

”I didn’t know that was you in the stream. I just found out this morning.“

”Why am I here, Marko?“

”I want you to be my lawyer.“

”I can’t do that.“

”That’s what they told me.“

”So why am I here?“

He smiled enthusiastically. ”I think maybe after you hear my story, you decide to be my lawyer after all.“

”It’s not a matter of want. I can’t legally do it. But even if I could represent you, I wouldn’t.“

A look of mock sadness. ”You don’t like me?“

”No.“

”You could have shot me in the stream. But you didn’t.“

”I wanted to make sure you’d be convicted for Kate’s murder.“

”I understand that. But you shouldn’t hate me, man. You never walked in my shoes. You don’t know how I got here.“

”I know you had a tough childhood. So did a lot of other people. They didn’t do the things you’ve done.“

This amused him greatly. ”Not many people had childhood like mine.“

That’s why I’m here,
I realized.
He wants me to understand him. He wants me to hear his story and tell him he’s not such a bad guy after all.
I’ve known a lot of criminals like that. Marko is one of those guys who, no matter what he might do, will never believe it was his fault. It would serve no purpose to hear him out, other than to gratify my curiosity about Kate’s last minutes. But that was reason enough.

”Say what you want to say,“ I told him.

”I need a cigarette.“

”I need a Ferrari.“

Marko burst out laughing. ”That’s good! I like that.“

I looked at my watch. ”You’ve got five minutes.“

”What do you think they’re going to do to me?“

”Not what you deserve, probably.“

”What do I deserve?“