Brett Battles - No Return

“If you say so,” Dori said, still smiling.

Forman looked out at the sky, his eyes searching for something that didn’t appear to be there.

The door beside Wes opened.

“Now, both of you, out,” Dori said.

Wes climbed out first. The commander, feet clad only in socks, followed.

The half-moon dimly illuminated the desert in a gray-blue light.

“Stay right there,” Dori’s partner said, his gun trained on them.

Once Dori was out, she pointed her gun at the commander, then said, “Wes, you’re going to help my friend here, then we’re all going to go for a walk.”

The man waved the end of his barrel toward the horse trailer. “Come on,” he said. “Around to the doors.”

Not seeing much of an option, Wes did as he was ordered.

“Open it,” the man said once they’d reached the back.

Wes grabbed the handle, yanked it up and to the right, releasing the latch. Because of the angle, gravity held the doors in place. He pulled outward on the one covering the right half, then gave it a little push so it swung all the way out, then over, where it slammed against the outside of the trailer with a loud bang.

The interior was bathed in darkness.

“The other one,” the man said.

Wes repeated the action, this time with the left side.

Now that both halves were out of the way, dull moonlight was able to penetrate a few feet into the trailer. With the exception of some debris jutting out of the edge of the darkness, the rest of what Wes could see was barren floor.

“Go on,” the man said. “Inside.”

“You’re going to lock me in?” Wes asked. “Why? What have I done to you?”

“Inside,” the man repeated.

Wes’s eyes narrowed. This was ridiculous. Whatever game they were playing, he was done.

“No,” he said.

The man raised his gun. “ In side.”

“No,” Wes repeated.

“Fine.”

Wes held his ground as the man sighted down his barrel at his chest.

“I would think you’d want to go inside,” Dori said.

Wes jerked at the sound of her voice. She and the commander had moved around the trailer and were standing a few feet away.

“I don’t care what you think.”

“Fine,” Dori said. She looked at her partner. “Come on. We’ll just leave her in there.”

Wes looked back at the trailer. “Leave who in there?”

Dori had already started to walk away. “What does it matter? You’ve made your choice.”

Wes took a step toward the trailer opening. It took a couple of seconds, but he soon saw the debris he’d noticed earlier wasn’t debris at all. It was a knee.

No longer even conscious of the guns behind him, he clambered into the back. The knee gave way to a leg, then a hip, and a torso.

Wes crouched down and gently turned the body toward him.

“Anna?”

Lars’s first instinct was to drive over to the house he knew Dori had lived in years before, but he only went a couple of blocks before he pulled over to the side of the road and retrieved his phone. She could still live there, but if she’d moved, he would be wasting time he couldn’t afford to waste.

“What city, please?” a recorded voice said.

“Ridgecrest, California.”

“What listing, please?”

“Dori Dillman.”

There was a pause. “I have no listing for that name. If you would like to look up another listing, please say yes.”

“Yes,” Lars said.

“What city, please?”

“Ridgecrest, California.”

“What listing, please?”

Lars paused.

“What listing, please?”

He hesitated a moment longer, then it came to him. “Doreen Dillman.”

“One moment, please.”

If Lars heard one more “please,” he was going to-

The recording came back on and provided a phone number. When he asked for an address, it supplied that, too.

“Son of a bitch,” he said under his breath as he started the motorcycle back up. Good thing he’d checked. Her current address put her about a mile west of the Desert Rose Motel, nowhere near the place he’d been headed to.

The first thing he noticed when he arrived was that there were no cars parked in the driveway or along the curb out front. There were also no lights on in any of the windows. He pounded on the front door, waited, then pounded again.

No response.

He tried the doorknob. Locked.

“Wes!” he yelled. “Wes!”

He tested the door again, not to see if it was still locked, but to get a sense of its sturdiness. As was the case with many older homes, what had once been a solid barrier had become simply adequate. He took a step back, raised his right foot, then kicked. The sole of his shoe landed flat against the door next to the knob, creating a satisfying crack .

He raised his foot again and gave it a second shot. This time the noise was even louder.

It was the fourth one that sent the door flying open. He was through and into the living room before it had stopped moving.

“Wes!” he yelled.

Kitchen. Dining room. Family room.

All empty.

He raced over to the hallway that led to the back of the house. Halfway to the end was a bathroom. He stuck his head in. Nothing.

He counted three bedrooms. The first looked like it was serving as a home office-a desk against one wall, bookcases and filing cabinets along the others. Littered across the floor were stacks of papers and magazines and folders and boxes.

He moved down to the next bedroom. Empty. Completely. No furniture. No boxes. Everything empty, that is, except the closet. It was half full of clothes. Men’s clothes. On the floor was an old green duffel bag, Army issue.

The last bedroom was the master. This had a bed, a dresser, and a stand with a TV on it. The closet here was a walk-in. It was stuffed with women’s clothing. But the room, like everywhere else in the house, was unoccupied.

Dammit! He felt the urge to punch a wall, so he took a deep breath and tried to relax. Okay. Okay. They’re not here. But there’s got to be something that might tell me where they are .

He quickly opened all the drawers of the dresser, but only found more clothes. He moved down to the office and started searching. Barely a minute passed before he realized that if there was something there, it would take him too long to find it.

Desperate, he walked back into the main part of the house. The living room, nothing. The kitchen, nothing. The dining room-

He stopped.

Taped to the wall of the dining room were dozens of newspaper clippings. But one had been placed prominently in the center of all of them, with arrows scribbled across the page. It was also the most recent article, from just the previous week. It was the feature on the crash, of course.

All the inked arrows pointed at the same thing. A name circled in the text.

Wes Stewart.

Lars let out a breath. This is how she must have known Wes was in town.

Lars turned his attention to the other articles, examining them one by one. They were all much older, from back in Lars’s and Wes’s high school days. He was on the tenth one when he paused.

Of course , he thought.

He ran out of the house, not bothering to shut the door.

God, I hope I’m wrong .

But he knew he wasn’t.

“Anna?”

Wes touched her check. Warm. And from her nose he could feel air moving in and out.

She was alive.

“Anna?”

Nothing. Not even a twitch.

“Pick her up,” the man said. He was standing just outside the trailer.

Wes clenched his teeth. “What did you do to her?”

“Pick her up, or I shoot her where she lies.”