Peter Clement - Mortal Remains

Her world narrowed down to the circle of light in which she worked, the tiny sound of her trowel biting into the dirt, and the patter of soil bits falling onto the newspaper as she filtered them through her fingers. She kept her back to the building, preferring to face the forest and the dark opening where the road led off toward the highway. That’d be where anyone following her tracks would appear. She raised her head and sent the beam of her headlamp sweeping through the gloom along the forest’s edge, breathing through her mouth to achieve total silence. Nothing caught her eye in the quiet swirl of the storm, and not a sound reached her ears.

Every fifteen minutes she got up, stamped her feet, and swung her arms in an effort to warm up. The tea helped as well. The first hour passed, and she covered a third of the area she had set out for herself. Not bad, she thought, having no illusions about how long and tedious this kind of work could be.

Then the cold and damp seeped into her marrow, and she took more frequent breaks. By four-thirty she’d covered only half the exposed area. Finishing the last of the tea, she imagined Mark back in bed, cozy and warm. “Bugger,” she muttered, smiling to herself, half-hoping he’d wake up, realize where she’d gone, and come join her. He seemed to be a light sleeper, like herself – the legacy of taking night calls.

She went back down on her knees, but her hands shivered so much she couldn’t grip the trowel properly. As much as she wanted to keep going, she’d have to return to her station wagon and warm up.

She rose to her feet and started to walk briskly away from the building.

After no more than a dozen steps, she heard boots crunching on snow behind her. She spun around and saw four men in gaily colored ski outfits charging toward her. They must have come out of the building. “Hold it right there, asshole!” yelled the one closest to her.

Lucy turned and ran, figuring she had a twenty-yard start. More than enough.

“I said stop!”

She accelerated, high-stepping along the trail she’d made coming in.

A stuttering, dry, coughing noise ripped through the air from behind her, and spurts of snow flew into the air farther up the trail.

Oh, shit!

She pulled up, turned, and raised her arms.

“One shout out of you, and I’ll blow your head off,” said the man in the lead, striding up to her and pointing a gun with the stubby cylinder of a silencer right at her forehead. “You’ve been ambushed, sister!”

The others closed in around her, and she could feel their breath on the back of her neck. She recognized one of them from Braden’s party, where he’d served drinks. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she demanded, as if a show of outrage would stop the attack.

A punch from behind hit her right in the kidney. She bellowed and arched backward, only to have someone grab her by the hair. She managed to stay on her feet, watching for an opening to karate kick the one with the gun.

“We told you to keep quiet,” repeated a voice in her ear.

“Search her; find her keys,” said the armed man, stepping back out of reach but keeping the muzzle pointed for a shot between her eyes.

The one holding her hair threw her forward to the ground, shoving her face into the snow. He then knelt on her legs and held her arms as the other two roughly groped in her pockets.

“You’ve been played like a violin, sister,” he said. “All so you and Roper would show up here, looking for baby bones that don’t exist. People will just think you two were off on a wild-goose chase and had a horrible accident!”

What the hell! thought Lucy, looking up to see the muzzle still directed at her head.

“I found her keys,” one of the searchers called out, standing up and dangling them in front of the others. “Remember, when you haul her up to remove the chains, cut off every trace of the tape before you dump her back in, and don’t leave any pieces on the ground.”

He sounded as nonchalant as if he were organizing the cleanup after a picnic. What the hell did he mean?

“Where are you going?” the man with the gun asked. “I thought we were still waiting for Roper.”

“You and I might as well take her car and go get him. He must be asleep back at his house. No way he’d have knowingly let her come here on her own.” They started to walk off together, and he gestured at the other two. “Don’t forget to break the board so it looks as if they went through by accident.”

Oh, God, what did they plan to do?

One of the men holding her produced a gun from inside his coat and grinned as he pointed it at her. “You’re going to get cold, real cold now.” With his free hand he pulled a roll of duct tape out of his pocket and handed it to his partner, who still had her pinned from behind with his knees. She heard him rip off a piece, and he slapped it over her mouth. Night before last he’d handed her a glass of champagne.

The pair of them pulled her to her feet and twisted her arms behind her back as the one with the tape wrapped a strip of it around her wrists. They then frog-marched her back where she’d been working, the man holding the gun prodding her every few steps with the barrel. Once there, the former waiter who’d taped her up threw her to the ground and sat on her legs as he cinched them together at the calves and ankles. The muzzle held at her head by his friend made her hold off any attempt to kick him where it would hurt. Then he got up and continued on to the building, disappearing around the corner. Seconds later he reappeared, carrying something about four feet long, and Lucy heard the clank of a chain.

Oh, my God!

The shape of an anchor became clearer as he brought it closer.

“No!” Lucy screamed into her gag, and started to buck and kick against her restraints.

For her trouble the armed man shoved the barrel of his gun into her ribs. “Behave!”

Still she writhed and tried to scream.

The man with the anchor dropped it at her feet and wrapped the chains tightly around her ankles over top of the tape. Reaching into his jacket he took out a padlock, secured it through the links, and snapped it closed. He walked back to the building and returned with a coil of rope, which he tied to the anchor. “She’s ready,” he said.

They left her lying there and tramped off a few yards, shuffling their boots through the snow as if trying to find something.

Lucy increased her struggle to at least free her arms and tried harder than ever to scream,

“Found it,” said one, leaning over and lifting a plywood sheet out of the snow. The black mouth of a well yawned beneath it.

Her terror rocketed.

Jesus Christ, stop!

She started to hyperventilate. The tape made it hard to breathe. Her fine-toned muscles quivered the length of her body as she strained to break free.

They returned, picked her up, anchor and all, and carried her with monstrous deliberateness toward the opening.

No! Oh, God in heaven, please, no!

Without so much as a second’s pause for a last thought, word, or prayer, they threw her in, feetfirst.

Mark woke and felt for Lucy in the darkness. His hand patted nothing but a wrinkled sheet.

He sat up. “Lucy?”

The house was silent.

What the hell?

He threw on his robe and ran downstairs. “Lucy-” Through the front door window he saw that her car was gone. So was the warm clothing she’d laid out earlier on the coatrack, and where he’d hung two caving headlamps there remained only one.

His insides turned to ice. In less than a minute he dressed and headed out the door. The headlamp, he remembered, and grabbed it. He also took his bat, just in case. His watch read 4:36.