Brett Battles: No Return

Dillman squinted. “Is that your other friend? The guy?”

“Yes.”

“Sorry,” Dillman said.

“What do you mean ‘sorry’?”

“He saw me putting that article on your bike. Couldn’t have him hanging around knowing about that.”

“Where are you keeping him?” Wes asked.

“He’s with Jack,” Dori said.

At first Wes didn’t know what she meant. Then it hit him. “Oh, no. No, no, no!”

Anna’s breath caught in her throat. She’d guessed Tony’s ultimate fate. Wes squeezed her lightly with one of his hands, hoping to convey the need for her to remain calm.

“He shouldn’t have been out that late,” Dori said.

“The articles,” Wes said. “The messages on the mirrors, too? The call to the police?”

Dori shrugged. “Sorry.”

“Were you also the ones who stole my equipment?” he asked.

Dori laughed, then used her gun to point at the still form of Commander Forman. “I think you have him to thank for that.”

“So what are you going to do now? Throw us down the mine shaft, too?”

“Your girlfriend, yes,” Dori said. “But not you. See, first you forced me to drive you and the commander out here with a gun I didn’t know you had. Then once both of you got out, I took off. But you made the commander hike to this place, and killed him.” She smiled sadly. “Unfortunately, in your triumph you neglected to pay attention to where you were going, and walked off the edge of the rocks, pretty much where you got rid of Jack. How does that sound?”

“No one’s going to believe that.”

“Sure they will. I have you on tape interrogating the commander in the car.”

“You also have everything that happened afterward.”

Dori shook her head, then held up a hand and mimicked pushing a button. “Turned it off before my husband got in. Oops.”

Wes looked at Dillman. “Look, I’m sorry about Jack. It was an accident. You should just let us go.”

“Jack’s been gone a long time,” Dillman said. “I don’t actually care what happened back then.”

“You did all this for me, didn’t you, baby?” Dori said.

Michael grunted in confirmation.

“But Mandy was your sister,” Wes said to her. “Jack Rice raped her.”

Dori scoffed. “That’s the same thing she tried telling me, but that’s not what happened.”

“What? I was there. I-”

She laughed dismissively. “You may have thought you knew my sister, but you didn’t. I lived with her. I knew how her petty mind worked. Jack was mine . But she couldn’t stand that. She hated the fact that I was in love. Every time he came to the house, she made sure to say hi to him and give him that ugly smile of hers. At the party she took advantage of the fact I was sick and couldn’t go, so got him alone and spread her little legs for him.”

Wes stared at her. “That’s not how it was at all.”

“He was mine,” she went on, acting like she hadn’t heard him. “He loved me. He was going to marry me.” She locked eyes with Wes. “I was pregnant. Did you know that? It was Jack’s baby. Our baby. We were going to get married in the spring, then move away after graduation. But that never happened. My own sister ripped that from me.”

“What are you taking about? She was raped !”

“Whatever happened out there, she wanted it! She asked for it! Hell, she probably even begged for it!” Dori breathed heavily for several seconds, her chest heaving. Finally she seemed to calm down at bit. “I spent a whole month crying and worrying about Jack. Where had he gone? Why hadn’t anyone found him? I guess with all that, it wasn’t a surprise I lost my baby. Then I had nothing. I confided in Mandy. She hadn’t known I’d been pregnant; I’d been keeping that a secret. I thought she’d be sympathetic. I thought she’d do what sisters are supposed to do. But instead she got angry. She told me her lies about what happened that night at the party. She called Jack a monster. She said that she was glad he was gone and never coming back . I don’t think she even realized her mistake, but I caught it immediately.”

“They weren’t lies,” Wes said.

“Of course that’s what you’d say. I wouldn’t expect anything less. You know how I got her to tell me what happened?”

Wes shook his head.

“I pretended like I believed her. I acted like I also thought Jack was this animal she was claiming him to be. She was eager to tell me everything. And when she was done, I knew she would have to pay.”

Even if Wes wanted to move at that moment, he couldn’t. He was riveted to the stone, shocked beyond anything he’d ever felt before. “So you killed her?”

“It was simple, really. I knew which day it needed to happen, the anniversary of Jack’s death. So I made sure things worked out that she was home alone that afternoon. All I had to do was crush some of Mom’s sleeping pills into a can of soda, then fill up the tub, and make sure Mandy stayed under. The only hard part was carrying her ass from the living room into the bathroom after she passed out.” A pause, then a tilt of the head. “I helped her on her way. Like what you did with Jack.” She extended her arm, aiming the barrel of her gun at Wes’s head. “Now put the girl down. No more wasting time.”

Wes had to force himself to move. He turned and scanned the immediate area, looking for a good spot to set Anna down.

“Right there’s fine,” Dillman said, pointing at the ground directly behind Wes.

Wes pretended like the spot Dillman had indicated was a little farther back, so that Anna would be that much farther from whatever was about to happen.

“I said right there!” the man yelled.

“Okay, okay,” Wes said.

As he knelt down he squeezed her again. Once she was on the ground, he bent over her to give her a kiss on the cheek. He whispered, “Count to one hundred, then get up quietly and get away. I’ll distract them.”

Again she tensed.

He knew she wanted to protest, so he added, “Just do it,” then stood back up.

“Saying your goodbyes?” Dori asked.

“You could have killed me years ago. I would have been easy enough to find.”

“But I wasn’t around. See, Michael joined the Army when I married him. Got stationed on the East Coast. Then we spent some time in Germany and a few other fun places. Didn’t come back here until he got out a couple years ago. By then I was willing to forget all about you. Besides, I didn’t leave you completely unscarred.”

“What do you mean?”

She snorted. “Let’s just say killing you will be a lot easier than killing your dad.”

Wes felt suddenly weak. It was all he could do to keep from falling to the ground. “What?”

“Mandy wasn’t the only one unable to keep a promise. After she told me what happened, I used to go out to the mine to be close to Jack. One day your dad shows up, and I realized you had to have told him, too. He never saw me, though, but I saw him. So I started keeping a close eye on him. He came back several times. It finally dawned on me he was planning on moving Jack. I couldn’t have that. So on the night it looked like he was going to do it, I followed him again, planning on stopping him in the act. He showed up with a truck full of gear, but instead of starting, he seemed to be waiting for someone. When whoever it was didn’t show up, he left.”

Lars , Wes realized. He would have been the only one his father could have trusted to help him. That’s why “Pudge” had been on his schedule. But why move the body?

“I knew he’d try again, and there was no way I could watch him all the time. I couldn’t wait any longer.” She paused, a self-satisfied smile on her face. “So I knocked on your front door after he got home. I said I was your friend, and asked if I could use the phone because my car was giving me trouble. It was easy enough after that. Once he was knocked out, I drove his car out to Nine Mile Canyon, and Michael followed in mine. You know the rest. The next week Michael enlisted, and I went with him.”