Chuck Logan - Homefront

“When? When are you coming?” Kit pleaded to the blue-green wafer of light.

“We’re coming…”

Kit gripped the screwdriver, clamped her eyes shut. She was gonna die and go to hell and burn forever because she never went to church.

“Shit, hell, damn.”

Sheryl hunched rigid over the wheel, staring in pure terror at the white freezing world that had materialized again out of thin air and battered the windshield. It was totally out of control. Any second it felt like the windshield would implode and this white wave would engulf her. Fuckin’ Nissan handled like a boat, heaving though the greasy snow. Ice clogged the wipers, making this disconcerting clack, like two bones scraping on the glass. Barely make out the shoulders to either side. Could see maybe twenty yards, max.

Gator said, Take the kid to the farm, get her in the house, calm her down, give her some milk or something and find out what she knows.

Yeah, right. That kid? Good luck.

Finally, Sheryl saw a tiny smear of light in the blow, ahead on the right. Closer, she saw a red blur dancing in the white blast. The display tractor in front of Gator’s shop. For the first time since she’d wrestled the kid into the trunk, she relaxed her grip on the wheel.

Slowly, she guided the Nissan off the road, past the tractor, orienting now on the yard light fixed to the barn. She jumped out and was momentarily stunned by the force of the wind. Leaning forward, she slogged to the barn, gripped the sliding garage door, and tried to yank it open on the creaky rollers. The heavy wooden door moved an inch and stopped. She didn’t have the strength to break the bottom free from the snow jam. Frantic, she turned to the second door, on the left, where Gator kept the Bobcat. Room in there to park. Sobbing with exertion, aided by a surge of panic, she managed to move the door a foot and a half. It wasn’t going to happen. She stepped back, panting, furious when she saw the seam split on the shoulder of her good leather coat, all this gunky paint rubbed off, abrading the sleeve. Let Gator open the fucking door.

She turned and faced the Nissan.

Gotta do it. He’ll be pissed if I don’t get her inside.

She opened the driver’s-side door and hit the trunk latch, braced herself, and hurried around to the rear of the car. Lifted the loose lid.

“Hey. C’mon. Let’s get you inside,” Sheryl yelled, seeing the kid in the vibrating glow of the yard light, curled in a tight ball, eyes wide, angry; the cut across her cheeks streaked on her face like war paint. The kid didn’t move. “I’m trying to help you, goddammit,” Sheryl shouted.

The kid heaved up on her arms, looked around once, wild-eyed, then slumped back down. “Leave me alone!” she screamed.

“It didn’t have to be this way,” Sheryl screamed back, and she meant everything plus the storm that was driving her crazy. She lurched forward, plunging her hands to grab…

What? The kid rose to meet her, swinging something that gleamed. Ow, damn! Sheryl staggered back, clutching her left wrist, where it stung. Blood appeared in the white peeled-back skin between her glove and the cuff of her coat.

“Leave me alone!” the kid yelled again, reaching up, pawing at the top of the lid. Found a handhold and slamming it shut on herself.

“Suits me just fine, you little bitch,” Sheryl mumbled, turning, running toward the house. To hell with this. Let Gator get her out.

“We stopped, we stopped,” Kit, hyperventilating, unable to control her runaway breath, yelled into the phone, which she’d hidden beneath her when the lid opened. “I see a red tractor in a light. A red tractor in a light.” Shouted it over and over.

Police tape clamored yellow in the fifty-mile wind. An ambulance sat halfway up the drive. Glacier County’s two police cars were parked at the foot of the drive. The state patrol cruiser was positioned at an angle across the road, to stop anyone driving by.

Nygard, Broker, and Nina were observing a local moratorium on bringing up Griffin’s name. A BCA Crime Lab van was en route from Bemidji to work the scene. It was all about Kit’s voice, patched through the radio.

They were hunched forward, holding hands, Nina in the passenger side, Broker in the backseat, listening to Kit’s voice cut in and out. Nygard stood outside, talking to a fire and rescue guy; his deputy was in the house with another fireman; State Patrol Sergeant Ruth Barlow sat in her car talking on her radio. Two more volunteer fireman in heavy parkas were tramping across the broad lot toward the woods with flashlights, poking the snow, marking the faint blood trail with Broker and Kit’s skis and poles from the garage. Going to locate the body.

Nina keyed the radio mike, spoke in a slow deliberate voice, “Stay calm. We’re coming.”

Just static.

The door opened, and Nygard jumped in behind the wheel. Removed his hat. Dusted snow from his neck and shoulders. Methodically, he removed his frosted glasses, took out a small plastic bottle, and squirted antifogging solution on them. As he cleaned them with a handkerchief, he asked, “Anything new?”

Nina shook her head. “Keeps cutting in and out. She’s still talking.”

“What’s that?” Nygard grimaced at the speaker box.

“She’s swearing,” Nina said, gnawing her lip.

Nygard glanced back at Broker.

“Better than crying,” Broker said, his voice awful.

Sergeant Barlow tapped on the window. Nygard zipped it down. She eyed Broker and Nina with restrained amazement. “I put out the APB with the description you gave me: Kit Broker, eight-year-old white female, red hair, four foot three, seventy-three pounds, cross bite on front teeth. Gave your names, said you were in contact with Kit by cell phone. Few minutes later the FBI in St. Paul called me back on my radio. Asked me if I’d met the parents and did the father have eyebrows. Was the mother in the Army. When I said, Yeah, about the eyebrows, the FBI guy says, in the clear: ‘Prairie Island Broker and Nina Pryce, no shit.’”

Sergeant Barlow bit her lower lip. “I don’t know who you people are, but the FBI outa Duluth is putting an Air Force Reserve Blackhawk up in this. Packed with electronics. BCA’s coming from Bemidji and St. Paul. Something’s going on in St. Paul, because half the troopers in northwest and central are shutting down the road-”

Nina cut her off, her open hand shooting up in a blur, signaling silence.

“…stopped…red…I see…” The faint voice crackled in the speaker box.

Nina and Broker leaned forward, desperate.

“Shit,” Nina said. “Can’t-”

Then the dispatcher’s stronger signal stepped on the static. Yelling with excitement. “Keith, got good copy on her last. She said, ‘We stopped. I see a red tractor in a light.’ You copy?”

“Copy. Ruth, saddle up!” Nygard shouted, slamming the Vic in gear, wrenching the wheel, and fishtailing the cruiser in a wheely, sending Sergeant Barlow jumping back out of the way. Nygard righted the vehicle and pointed it north up 12. Stepped on the gas.

“What?” Broker and Nina shouted in unison, lurching in their seats.

“Only one place in cell range I know of got a red tractor under a light. Gator’s shop. He’s Cassie Bodine’s brother. Excon…” Then under his breath, “Maybe you ain’t as rehabilitated as you look, you sonofabitch.” He snatched up the mike, his eyes darting to the rearview. “Ruth, you with me?”

“Right on your ass.”

“No flashers, no siren. We’re going about twelve miles up this road to a farmhouse on the edge of the big woods. Place is just barely in range of the last cell tower. Gotta be. Okay. When I kill my lights, you do the same. We’re going in blacked out.”