Julia Spencer-Fleming - To Darkness And To Death

“I’m taking your picture.” She looked at him over the top of the camera. “I’m not sure if you got this when I was talking about my work earlier, but I work for the ACC. If you’re thinking about sneaking back here and making off with some of this equipment-which is a pretty damn stupid idea all around, since you can’t even move half this stuff without a flatbed-I think you ought to know you won’t just be ripping off my dad, you’ll be ripping off my employer.”

She snapped off another picture.

“Cut it out!” He lunged toward her.

She danced back out of his way. “You really are that stupid, aren’t you?” she said. “Jesus! You’re actually thinking about making off with a skidder!”

“Gimme that! You can’t take my picture!” He swiped one long hand toward the camera. She held it back and over her head, out of reach. “Give it to me!” he repeated.

He charged at her. At the last moment, she dropped her notebook and purse and grabbed one of the aluminum poles holding the canopy over the tractor. She swung herself around it, flying free. Her boxed and bound rage tipped over and shook loose, burning out of her skin, rendering her weightless, invincible. She touched ground, light as a feather, her eyes fierce and her chest full of a triumphant crow. To hell with Eugene van der Hoeven. To hell with Millie. To hell with her father. She could outmaneuver this idiot forever. She bared her teeth at him.

“Bitch!” He lunged for her again. This time she leaped onto the tractor itself, one foot on the tread, the other on the seat, and then over the side.

He surprised her then. She thought he would follow her route, a filing to the magnet, but instead he circled the tractor so fast she had to scramble back across the seat to the other side. She barely avoided his reach, and she nearly fell off the tread getting back to the ground. A cold bucket of reality upended over her. She was alone in the forest with a guy built like a jackhammer. He came around the back of the crawler, his body much faster than his brain, and this time she neither crowed nor grinned, just tucked her chin down and ran, flat out, toward the road. Toward her car. Toward escape.

She pounded through the clearing, eyes fixed on the ground, leaping over a wind-scattered branch, dodging a rut gouged by a massive truck tire. She was deafened by her thudding feet, her sawing breath, the blood pistoning through her, so she was caught off guard when the blow came out of nowhere, snapping her head sideways, reeling her around, filling her skull with a terrible pain that was a sound, impossible to separate from the sound he was making, rage and pain twisted together.

She staggered, tripped, caught herself, and ran again, tears blurring her vision. She got three steps away before he tackled her, sending her head snapping against the ground and all the breath jarring out of her so she couldn’t make a sound when he slapped her, hard, and clawed at the camera still clutched in her hand.

“Gimme… the fuckin’… camera!” As he reached, he stretched, and from some well of self-preservation she saw her opportunity and took it, punching him in the throat.

He gargled horribly, like a drowning victim, and she shoved him off her and staggered to her feet. He was clutching his neck. It sounded as if he couldn’t breathe. She stood, tiptoe, suspended between flight and responsibility. Oh, God! What if I’ve killed him? She, who had never hit or been hit before this.

Then he sucked in a rattling, tubercular breath and lurched toward her. She ran again, for the first time knowing the wild, muscle-bunching, adrenaline-spiked velocity that means run for your life, commonplace words she had said herself, never imagining the terror behind them. The road her father had plowed through the forest flew beneath her, tree and rock and green and gray flashing by, her heart beating Daddy, Daddy, Daddy -another blow, tumbling her, rolling her in the dirt- save me, and he was on her, punching, kicking, crying, and the pain took away every memory, every thought, took away who she was, so that there was nothing left of her but arms folding over her head and legs curling up over her belly, and the pain…

… and there was a terrific crunch to her head, and then nothing.

Randy rolled away from the woman and lay in the dirt, his hands clenched, his breath sobbing in and out. He thought he was going to retch. He was trembling uncontrollably. His chest felt tight and hot, his heart trip-hammering as it never had before. He was having a heart attack. That must be it. He lay in the dirt and waited to die.

After a while, his heart slowed. He looked at the blue November sky, running like a river between the trees that enclosed his line of sight. His breathing came easier. His trembling slowed to twitches. He still felt feverish and sick, as if his skin were too small for his body, but he had to accept that he wasn’t going to drop dead on the spot. Which meant he had to face the crumpled, unmoving heap beside him. The woman. He turned his head, his throat aching. She was still, too still, and there was blood all over her white face. He rolled his head back. Looked at the river-sky. Oh, God. He was going to die. Not right now, not here in the dirt in the middle of the woods, no. He was going to die strapped to a gurney in a clean room with bright lights in Clinton. Because he had finally, irrevocably lost his temper.

He started crying again, tears spilling hot over his cheeks and running into his ears. His nose clogged and mucus clotted his throat, until he couldn’t breathe and he had to heave himself into a sitting position and hack.

He looked at her again. Should he go to the cops and turn himself in? Did he need to get a lawyer first? How was he going to afford a lawyer? Oh, God, what about Lisa? This would kill her. He had just wanted to stay with her, and now he was a murderer and he was going to be locked up for the rest of his life and die. He rocked back and forth, clamped in place by misery.

What should he do? What should he do? His whole life ruined because he hadn’t been able to keep a lid on it when that teasing bitch taunted him and took his picture. He looked at the disposable camera, abandoned in the dirt. That was it. That was what he was going to the death house for.

Unless he wasn’t.

The thought seemed to settle over him from the cold blue sky, to creep up on him through the gray and groaning trees. What if-he didn’t turn himself in? What if he wasn’t caught? What if he walked-no, ran down the hill and took her car and drove away? Was there any way to connect him to-he didn’t want to name her, but he gave her a wary glance. To her?

He thought about his day, about the trail he had left behind him. As far as Lisa and his brother-in-law were concerned, he was still at home. Lewis Johnson had seen him at the mill this morning, and Geraldine Bain at the post office at maybe ten o’clock. He hadn’t said anything about his plans to Ed Castle. So he was good there.

It broke down with his bike, though. Triple A would have a record. They had picked up his bike on her card, and he hadn’t even been there. Any cop asked, it’d be pretty damn obvious he had gone with her.

He had figured, when she offered him a ride, to have her drop him off at Mike Yablonski’s. He could pick up his truck there and take Lisa home.

Mike Yablonski’s. What if he had asked her to take him there first? That would have made good sense. If anybody asked, Yabbo’d say Randy had been with him the whole time, no sweat.

He didn’t waste any more time thinking. He snatched up the camera and rolled to his knees. Avoiding looking at her, he rose unsteadily to his feet. After a few tentative steps, he walked, then jogged, then ran the last of the way to her car. His throat ached with every breath. He flung open the door and bounced into the driver’s seat.