Fruit of All Evil Page 21

  “Becca, right? Hello.” He extended his hand as he reached me. He was surprised, but cleared his throat and said in a friendly tone, “What can I do for you?”

  Play it cool. Play it cool. “Hi, Shawn. I know it’s short notice, but I had the afternoon off and I was thinking about the dairy and how much I enjoyed touring it as a child. I was wondering if I could request another tour—the grown-up version.” I laughed.

  “Oh?” It wasn’t a good time, I could tell, but I didn’t want to give up.

  “I can show myself around if you’re busy and you don’t mind me peeking at all your dairy farm secrets.” I smiled again, but with less enthusiasm.

  “Uh, no, I guess I don’t mind at all. I, uh, well, I am kind of busy at the moment. Why don’t you start over in the milking barn”—he pointed—“and I’ll catch up to you in the butter barn.” He pointed again. I hoped he didn’t notice that my eyes landed on the buildings easily, as though I knew exactly which ones he was talking about.

  “Thanks,” I said cheerily.

  Shawn nodded, turned, and hurried back to the barn he’d come from. I wanted to follow him and see what was keeping him so busy, but I’d catch up to him soon enough.

  I sauntered to the milking barn, keeping my eyes toward the road. I wanted to intercept Sam if I could. He wouldn’t be happy I was there, and I’d try to ease his anger before he talked to Shawn and Mid.

  Instead of going into the milking barn, I walked around it and stood at the fence. Shawn knew I was there, so I could openly admire the pasture. There weren’t many living creatures I wasn’t fond of in one way or another, and though cows might not be the most amazing species, I found the pasture a beautiful sight. The black-and-white animals looked healthy and well-fed, so if Loder Dairy was having financial problems, at least they’d made sure to take care of their animals. Could people who made sure their animals were taken care of kill a human being? I knew a few people who thought animals were much better company than humans. In fact, my relationship with my dog was far more enjoyable than either of my two marriages. But I chose divorce over murder.

  Moo. My friend, or another calf that looked just like my friend, was approaching the fence. It must have been the same one, because how many calves had it in them to be so engaging? This one must have been unique.

  “Hello. You’re doing whatever you can to get me to quit eating hamburger, aren’t you?” I said as I reached through the fence to pet its nose.

  But this time, the calf wasn’t being friendly. She seemed agitated, as though there was something she really wanted to communicate. She was almost twitchy; her short legs couldn’t stop moving even if she’d wanted them to. I couldn’t get my hand to her nose because she kept pulling it away from my grasp, as though she was trying to tell me to follow her, which couldn’t be possible. Could it?

  “What? I’m afraid I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.”

  The calf mooed and walked a few steps down the fence line, toward the butter and hay barns. She turned around, walked back to me, and mooed again.

  “Do you want me to follow you?” I knew how ridiculous my attempt at human/bovine communication was, but the calf really did seem to want to tell me something. “Are you that smart?”

  It didn’t seem possible, but I didn’t want to discount the moment. Okay, maybe the calf was just being a calf, but I was curious enough to jump over the fence and join her on the pasture side.

  At first, I froze and looked around. I’d just invaded alien territory, and I didn’t know how the native population would react. Fortunately, most of the cows were too concerned with their own activities to pay me any attention, but a few of them did glance in my direction and twitch their ears before ignoring me again. I looked around for anything that looked like a bull; even a female digging her hoof in the ground in attack mode would have scared me back to the other side of the fence. But it seemed I was safe.

  Moo! my friend exclaimed

  “Okay, okay, I’m coming.” I stepped lightly and cautiously. I knew enough about cow pastures to know that the cow pies weren’t scooped away on a regular basis. I was close enough to the fence, though, that the path was pretty clear.

  We passed the butter barn and moved toward the hay barn. The first time I’d been at the dairy, the doors on both sides of the hay barn had been opened wide. Today, they were closed.

  The calf stopped at the doors of the hay barn and looked at me as if to say our journey was done. I looked around, wondering who had trained this animal and how hard they were laughing at my willing participation. The other cows couldn’t have cared less what I was up to, and there were still no people anywhere. No one. I hadn’t checked the butter barn, but it seemed empty, too.

  And Sam still wasn’t there.

  The sense that something wasn’t right hit my gut with a thud. Not only was something not right, something was really wrong. I just didn’t know what it was. I had a strong urge go back the way I’d come, and leave the dairy and go home before Sam knew I’d been there. Just as I turned around, the calf mooed again, but more quietly this time, as though she didn’t want to be heard.

  “Impossible! You can’t be communicating with me,” I said just as quietly. She looked at me plaintively. “Do you want me to look in there?”

  The good news was that the calf didn’t nod or say anything more. She just stood and looked at me, her big eyes blinking and her baby legs wavering slightly.

  “Damn.” I wiped my sweaty palms on my thighs and then stepped to the side of one of the huge doors. I tugged gently on the handle. It didn’t yield easily, but I managed to open it a small crack.

  I had to shove the side of my head against the door to be able to peer into the barn. At first all I saw was hay—more of the bales I’d seen and hidden behind earlier. But when I twisted my neck and pushed my head in deeper, I thought I saw something silver—no, it wasn’t silver, it was chrome. I thought I was seeing the back of a car.

  That might not be too odd. I knew lots of people who sometimes kept their cars in a barn. But there was something off about a car in this particular barn. When I’d been in it earlier, the barn had looked like it was specifically and only for hay. In fact, so much so that it seemed it would be off limits to a car, perhaps a pollutant of animal feed.

  I pulled my head back and thought a second. Should I open the door further and look? Should I run back to my truck? If I was caught, I could just say I’d finished looking in the other buildings. Finally it came down to this: I knew I wasn’t going to leave the dairy without knowing more about the car in the hay barn.

  I didn’t want to get caught, though, so I reached for the handle again and opened the door just a little more. I crouched down to my knees, so if someone looked at eye level, they wouldn’t see me. I froze in that position for a second before leaning my head against the door again.

  It was most definitely a car. In fact, it was a police car. And if I needed evidence as to just whose police car it was, I only had to look next to it. Officer Sam Brion had in fact made it to the dairy before me. And now, he was a bloody mess tied to a chair with his hands cuffed behind his back, and his head hanging down.

  I had to put my hand over my mouth so I wouldn’t scream. It looked as if Sam wasn’t breathing. He wasn’t moving at all. Was he dead? I had to stifle another scream.

  With a zip of adrenaline-induced fear, I stood and turned to run to find help. But my escape was thwarted by something hard and metallic; something flat and steely pounded on my face.

  I was aware enough for a brief second that I knew my body swung around like a stunt person in a movie fight. I fell and hit the ground, and sank into a dark world.

  I’m sure the calf tried to tell me she was sorry.

  Twenty-six

  It wasn’t easy, but I finally opened my eyes. I was inside the hay barn, and someone had tied me to a chair and then tied my wrists behind my back. The position stretched my shoulders to the point of burning pain, but they
didn’t hurt as much as my head did. I couldn’t see straight and I couldn’t think straight, but the pain told me I was still alive, though for how much longer I wasn’t sure.

  I thought I was going to throw up. I wanted to lean forward so I wouldn’t throw up all over myself, but my neck wobbled and I couldn’t move in any direction without some sort of support.

  “Becca,” a voice next to me said.

  A wave of nausea spun the room as I tried to make my blurry eyes see who was talking to me.

  “Becca,” the voice said again.

  I blinked hard. Why was I seeing only light and fuzzy shapes? Oh, yeah, I’d been hit in the face.

  “Who’s there?” I slurred.

  “It’s Shawn.”

  “What’s going on, Shawn?” I asked.

  “Why did you have to come out here today?” he responded in a childlike tone.

  “I wanted a tour,” I lied after a long second of attempting to put some thoughts together coherently.

  “Bad timing.”

  And then I remembered Sam. I sucked in a gasp and thought about standing, but nothing moved. I blinked even harder and told my eyes to clear up, dammit!

  “Sam? Sam!” Where was he? I could see a shape next to me. “Sam?”

  “Won’t do you any good,” Shawn said. “He’s dead.”

  “You killed him? You killed a police officer? You killed Sam?” Somehow, panic caused my vision to clear slightly and make the pain less noticeable. Sam was dead?!

  Shawn crouched down in front of me. “I’m sorry. We had no choice.”

  “What do you mean, you had no choice?” Horror bubbled in my chest and up my throat. Tears started to flow down my cheeks and I wanted to scream, but didn’t think I would be able to.

  “He must have figured out what we’d done.”

  “What did you do?” I screamed, though I knew perfectly well.

  “Her truck’s in the garage,” Mid said as he slipped into the barn through a small opening in the front doors. “Damn, she’s awake.”

  “Yes,” Shawn said. “Now what?”

  “Why didn’t you hit her harder?” Mid asked, as though he wanted to know why Shawn hadn’t put out the cat.

  Shawn shrugged. “I, uh, I thought I did, I guess.”

  Even with the panic and horror I felt, I was suddenly aware that Shawn wasn’t happy with what was going on. In fact, as my now teary eyes turned to him, I thought he looked green around the gills. His face was drawn; Mid’s face was rosy and his eyes were bright behind their professor-type glasses, as though he was relishing the adventure. I have no idea why I noticed these things, except that somewhere deep inside I must have been trying to figure out how to get out of my current predicament alive, and I was looking for the person I might best be able to reason with—and then perhaps kill. They’d killed Sam, and I knew if there was any way I could get free of the ropes, I’d would take out these two men. And wasn’t it only a few moments ago I was wondering how someone could possibly kill another human being? I didn’t take the time to acknowledge that the universe had sent me the answer in a speedy fashion.

  “We’ve got to kill her,” Mid said.

  I looked at Sam’s slumped and bloody body, and the tears started to fall harder. They probably thought I was crying in fear of my own death, but killing me seemed much less important than the fact that they’d already killed Sam. How could he be gone?

  “Hang on, Mid. Let’s talk about this,” Shawn said.

  “Talk about what? She can’t live. She knows too much.”

  “She knows about the police officer, but she doesn’t know everything; she doesn’t know all the details of that, anyway. Maybe we could just get out of here. Leave her tied up, and by the time someone finds her, we’ll be long gone. Everything else can remain a secret.”

  “Alan said she saw the letter,” Mid said.

  “Alan said he thought she saw the letter. He wasn’t sure,” Shawn corrected him.

  They both looked at me as if I’d tell them what I knew and what I didn’t know. I didn’t say anything because I was choking on sobs. I wasn’t scared, I wasn’t even sad; I was angry, and I wanted my anger to burn through the ropes that held me in the chair. I wanted to hurt these two brothers. Badly.

  “Here, use this,” Mid said as he reached to the back of his waistband. He pulled out a gun and held it out to Shawn. “It’s his.” He nodded at Sam’s body.

  Shawn took the gun but pointed it toward the ground. “Mid, I just don’t know.”

  The sound of a vehicle quieted the brothers. Was it another police officer?

  “It’s Alan,” Mid said as he peered though the space between the doors. “I’ll go talk to him. You stay here.”

  Shawn looked at me. “No, she’s not going anywhere. I’ll come with you.”

  Once they were gone, the barn filled up with Sam’s death, and I started to cry even harder.

  “Sam, Sam, Sam,” I wailed loudly. I didn’t think Alan would be on my side, but perhaps someone in the vicinity would hear me and offer help.

  “Hush, Becca. Come on,” a voice said from Sam’s direction.

  I gurgled and gasped and stopped mid-sob. I looked at him. His eyes were open, and he was peering over at me.

  “Oh, my God, you’re alive?!”

  “Yes, but come on, I need you to focus here. I’m hurt—I think they broke my ankle, and at least one of my shoulders is dislocated, so I can’t get to you. You’ve got to get yourself over to me, get the knife that’s in my side pocket, and we’ll cut you free. And then we’ll get out of here.”

  I was frozen. He was only three feet away, but I looked at him hard. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating or having some weird hopeful vision. Not only had they hurt him in the ways he’d mentioned, but he had a huge gash on his head that had bled heavily, covering his head and face in a gory mask. If he really was alive, he might be close to being dead.

  “Becca, come on, kiddo, you can do it. We don’t have much time.” Sam smiled, his teeth bright against the background of the blood. It was the best smile I’d ever seen.

  “I’m so glad you’re alive,” I said.

  “Me, too, but let’s both get out of this alive. Get moving.”

  At first, I couldn’t make anything move, but I gritted my teeth and placed my feet flat on the ground. Somehow, I’ll never understand how, I hopped the chair toward Sam. Pain burned in my head, but it was almost as if it was a separate part of me. I had often noted that there was a separate compartment in my stomach just for dessert. The pain was kind of like that—there, but not a part of my main self.

  “Good,” Sam said. “Now, you need to try to turn about ninety degrees and get your fingers to my belt. My knife is in the pocket right there.”

  “They took your gun but let you keep the knife?” I hopped the chair to my left.

  “Shawn did. I don’t think he wants to be as much a part of this as Mid wants him to be. He was supposed to kill me, but he didn’t hit me hard enough. I wasn’t out for long, and was conscious when he told Mid I was dead. Now you need to back up just a little . . . without knocking us both over.”

  I dug my foot into the ground and tried to move only a little bit.

  “One more time,” Sam said.

  I did as he said.

  “You’re there. Your fingers are only about an inch away from my pocket. Reach. Come on, Becca, really reach.”

  My fingers cramped from the awkward position, but a long moment later, I felt the solid metal of the knife.

  “Good. Yes, that’s it. Can you pull the handle of the knife up and out of the pocket?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, my teeth still clenched. I took a deep breath and put two fingers around the handle. I pulled, and the knife dropped back into the pocket. “Damn, my fingers don’t want to move that way.”

  “Try again.”

  I pulled on the ropes around my wrists, trying to loosen them a little. Then I reached my right hand and put m
y fingers more firmly around the knife handle and pulled. Suddenly I had it, though my grasp was precarious.

  “Okay, don’t drop it. Hang on. Listen to me. You need to pull out the blade. It’s folded into the handle. And then you need to move around me now so you can either cut my ropes or you can give me the knife and I can cut your ropes.”

  Since I had to get my fingertips to pull out blade, I had to get the knife into my hand better. Surprisingly, that was the easy part. I had a grip on the knife and pulled the blade out quickly.

  “Okay, which one of us is going to cut?” I asked.

  “Just move first, and we’ll see which one works better. Don’t drop the knife, okay?”

  I dug my feet into the ground again and moved. It wasn’t as easy as it should have been. My ankles weren’t tied together and neither of them was hurt, so I didn’t understand why moving the chair was so tricky. I wasn’t looking at Sam and was moving around him as I held the knife—barely held it. I could easily either drop the knife or stab him in a kidney.

  “Just about a half inch more. No, stop. Back a little. There you go. I think you’re at my hands. Do you want to try to cut the ropes or give me the knife?”

  “How tight is the rope around your wrists?”

  “Tight, but loose enough that I can move them.”

  “I’m going to give you the knife, then. I’ve loosened my ropes as much as I can. Here. Got it?”

  “Almost. Yes. Good. We’re running out of time, but I’m going to try to place the blade on your ropes. Tell me quickly if I’m on your skin.”

  “’K.”

  I held still as I Sam struggled to do whatever it was he was doing. I felt pressure on my wrists, but no blade.

  “Go, Sam. Cut quickly. Do whatever you have to do.”

  With surprising strength, Sam sliced through the ropes. My hands flew apart.