Robert Browne - Kill Her Again

Confusion crowded Anna’s brain. Her thoughts seemed to be intermingled with those of her host and she had trouble discerning whose thoughts were whose.

Looking out her window through the little girl’s eyes, she saw that they were driving through a dark forest, thick green trees growing black in the waning twilight.

Turning slightly, she strained to see the car’s driver, but all she saw was the red baseball cap sitting atop a closely cropped head of dark hair. Just above his collar line was a tattoo-another goddamned neck tattoo-but instead of a dragon, this one looked like a wheel, a wagon wheel, with at least a dozen spokes, a couple of them missing:

It was a symbol of some kind, but of what?

Shifting her gaze, Anna caught a glimpse of the driver’s face in his rearview mirror: a single dark, brooding eye, obscured by a cloud of cigarette smoke.

An ornate locket dangled from a chain on the rearview mirror, clacking against the windshield as they bumped along.

And all at once, Anna knew she was about to die.

Brakes squeaked as the car came to a sudden halt. The driver pushed his door open and got out, moving stiffly, as if some sort of physical handicap was slowing him down. A moment later, the trunk was unlatched, the car bouncing slightly as the man pulled something out of it.

Then Anna’s own door flew open, and for the first time she got a full view of his face.

The sight made her shudder.

It was a study in God’s plan gone wrong. The entire left side looked as if it had been squeezed by forceps at the moment of birth-a misshapen, lopsided mess.

Anna flinched, the little girl in her instinctively squeezing her eyes shut as revulsion welled up. She couldn’t bear to look at him.

Then hands grabbed her, those same coarse working man’s hands, pulling her out of the backseat, dropping her roughly to the ground. She let out a yelp of pain, her breath hot against the tape, as the man took her by the collar and dragged her through fallen leaves, her bound wrists and ankles making it impossible for her to resist.

He dragged her into the middle of a forest clearing, struggling to carry a small, battered suitcase in his free hand. Dumping her to one side, he crouched down, laid the suitcase on the ground, and opened it, taking a moment to make his choice. Then he brought out a narrow-bladed knife. Suitable for boning.

It was covered with dried blood.

The wind was high, bending the trees above them, leaves swirling around Anna as she began to cry uncontrollably, desperately wriggling her wrists, trying to loosen the tape. But it was no use. She wouldn’t be going anywhere until the man in the red baseball cap sent her there.

Grabbing her left hand, he closed it into a fist, then pried the index finger loose and extended it, staring down at her out of his one good eye, a crooked yellow smile forming on that hideous face.

“I’ve come for what is mine, Chavi. I’ve come to make it right.”

Chavi. The same name he’d called her back on the carnival grounds. Back in the real world.

The girl who stole my soul.

Is that what he was here for now?

Was he the Devil incarnate? Some kind of demon who cuts the life force out of his victims only to leave them to wither away and die?

“Don’t cry, my darling. The pain you feel will be mine for eternity.”

Then, wiping the blade on his sweater-a ratty blue pullover-he brought the knife down to her finger and — a voice shouted out from the distance “Hold it! Stop right there!”

Suddenly, the wind and leaves and the bending trees disappeared and Anna opened her eyes to discover that she was back on the carnival grounds, only feet from the entrance to the house of mirrors, the man in the baseball cap still clutching her collar as — Deputies Worthington and Chavez ran the length of the football field toward them, moving past the carousel, Worthington bringing his weapon up to fire “Stop! Let her go!”

— and Anna grabbed hold of his arm, twisting away from him, anticipating another shock — but he didn’t resist this time, didn’t bring the stunner down, because his attention was on the deputies. Instead, he turned, diving sideways toward the black doorway of the house of mirrors as — Anna grabbed for his ankle, managing only to get hold of his shoe. It came off in her hands as he disappeared into the darkness.

Tossing it aside, she scrambled to her feet, but the repeated shocks to her system had rendered her too weak to stand and her body betrayed her, legs buckling. She went down hard on her knees, pain shooting through them — but before she hit the ground, Worthington and Chavez were there, grabbing her, carefully sitting her down.

“Are you okay?” Worthington asked.

Anna pointed toward the black doorway. “In there. He’s in there.”

“I know, I saw him.”

“There must be a back way out.”

Worthington rose and turned to Chavez. “You cover the front.”

But Chavez wasn’t listening to him, his attention now drawn to something off to the side of the house of mirrors:

A small, lifeless form in the dirt.

It looked to Anna like an oversized rag doll.

A bloody rag doll.

Chavez quickly stepped over to it, his face churning in anguish as he approached.

“Sweet Jesus,” he said, then crossed himself.

“What? What is it?” Worthington was still trying to keep his attention centered on that black doorway, as if he expected the man in the baseball cap to come bursting out of it at any moment.

Chavez said nothing, turning instead and moving away. He paused, then leaned forward and vomited into the dirt.

That was all the answer they needed.

And as Worthington finally turned, looking at the figure on the ground, Anna knew from the horror spreading across his face — that they had just found Kimberly Fairweather.

“ Consider yourself toast, McBride.”

Royer stood at the rear doorway of the ambulance, a smug, self-satisfied smile on his face. Anna sat on a gurney inside, a paramedic applying ointment to the half-dozen burn marks on her neck.

They hurt like hell.

On the carnival grounds, sheriff’s deputies and citizen volunteers were in the midst of an expanded search. This time for the man in the red baseball cap.

“I just got off the phone with the brass,” Royer said. “They’re recommending beach time, and possible termination.”

“What the hell for?”

“What the hell do you think? You haven’t changed, McBride. Once a fuckup, always a fuckup.”

“You’re blaming this on me?”

“You had the perpetrator in your hands and you let him get away.”

Anna gestured to the burn marks. “In case you didn’t notice, I wasn’t exactly in control of the situation.”

“Maybe if you’d followed proper procedure you would’ve been. Face it, McBride, even your daddy won’t get you out of this one.”

Anna stared at him. She was weak and tired and depressed and just wanted to cry. But she refused to show it. “Does that make you feel good, telling me that?”

“You’d better believe it.”

“Then enjoy yourself while you can. Because when IA comes calling, I’m sure they’ll want to know why you were beating the crap out of an innocent man while your partner was up to her elbows in shit.”

Royer’s smile faltered.

“Not to mention that there was a little girl being butchered less than two hundred yards away.”

Then it disappeared altogether.

“That’s right, Teddy. There are a lot of different ways to spin this thing and the way I see it, I’m not the only one on the hook here.” Now Anna smiled. “Better pack your thermals. I hear the winters in South Dakota are brutal.”