Michael Koryta - So Cold the River

The idea thrilled him, drew him to the window. He looked off to the east as if he might actually be able to see the place.

I ought to be the one to take it down, he thought. No damn storm-me.

“You don’t think I could do it, do you?” he said. “Well, I got a truck full of dynamite parked out back would do the job. Bet your ass it’d do the job.”

Anne didn’t answer, and he blinked and shook his head and tried to get his mind back to the task before him. He had to force his mind back to that fact time and time again, like a man trying to cross the deck of a ship that was forever tilting him in one direction and then another. Never mind this pissing contest with some old bitch, he had to get moving. That required a decision on what to do with her, though. He stared at her and pondered as the window glass rattled in its frame beside him. Best tie her up. Problem with that was she was in front of the big window, visible to anyone who stopped by. There was a basement in the house. With no phone to use, she could holler her lungs out down there and never be heard. Tie her up and stick her ass down there.

He crossed the living room and pulled open one door, found it went to a bathroom, then tried a second and saw the steep wooden steps leading down into the dark, smelled the moisture. Yes, that would do fine. He’d get her to walk down there before he bound her, make things easier to handle.

He was just about to tell her to stand up when he heard a car door slam.

He crossed to the window fast, stared out into the rain, and saw the car that had pulled in. Not police, but a Toyota sedan, unfamiliar to him. The driver’s door opened and a tall, dark-haired woman stepped out, holding her arms up to shield herself from the rain. She ran out of sight, headed for the porch. For the front door.

“Who’s here?” Anne McKinney said.

“Not a word, bitch,” Josiah said. “Not a word. You speak, our visitor gets shot. It’ll be your choice.” Then he lifted the shotgun and walked out of the living room and down to the front door. He hadn’t even made it there before the doorbell rang. He pulled the door open, keeping the gun in his left hand and using the door to screen it from sight.

The woman didn’t give any real start or indication that she was expecting someone other than Josiah. She just said, “I hope I have the right address. I’m looking for Anne McKinney?”

She was even better-looking up close, the sort of woman Josiah wouldn’t be able to hit on until he was at least ten beers into the night because the odds were so great she’d shoot him down, and Josiah didn’t take rejection well. Raven-colored hair with some shine to it, damn near flawless face, body that would catch plenty of looks despite being a little on the skinny side. While Josiah studied her, she turned and looked over her shoulder at the howling storm and said, “Is that a tornado siren?”

“Yes,” Josiah said. “And you best come inside quick.”

“You don’t think I can make it back to the hotel if I hurry? I just stopped by to pick up a few bottles of water from Anne.”

A few bottles of water. He hadn’t been certain of her relevance until now, but this brought a smile to his face that was no longer forced, as authentic and genuine a grin as he’d had in some time, and he said, “Oh, you’re picking them up for Mr. Shaw?”

“That’s right.”

“I’ll get them for you, but come inside and visit with Mrs. McKinney until the siren stops. It’s the only safe thing to do. I insist.”

She took one last, hesitant look back at her car, and right then a good-size branch pulled down from one of the trees in the yard and broke into pieces on the ground. She turned away, said, “I guess I’d better,” and then stepped inside.

He had the door closed before she noticed the gun.

ANNE COULDN’T SEE THE front door from where she sat, and the wind and siren kept her from making out the words, but the sound of the unknown woman’s voice, gentle and kind, put a sickness through her so powerful she moved her hands to her stomach. It was a feeling she’d had only a time or two in her life, the last coming when they swung the ambulance doors shut with Harold inside and assured her that it wasn’t over yet, even though everybody knew that it was.

A minute later the stranger was standing there in the living room, a beautiful dark-haired woman with panicked eyes. Anne tried to meet those eyes and convey some sort of apology, but Josiah was shoving her over to the chair by the window and telling her there were two barrels to his gun, plenty to go around.

He had her sit in the old straight-backed sewing chair that Anne had upholstered herself some years back, then grabbed the duct tape he’d carried in originally and cut off a strip. She started to resist but he lifted the shotgun and pointed it at Anne and said, “You fight, that old bitch gets shot. Go on and test me. Go on.”

The woman gave Anne a long look, one that lifted tears to Anne’s eyes, and then she let Josiah tape her wrists together. Anne just stared back helplessly. The panic she’d done such a fine job of fighting when she’d been alone with Josiah was coming on strong, and she could feel it in her heart and stomach and nerves, everything going fast and jangly now, the way the wind chimes blew in a strong storm.

“Old Lucas will be answering phone calls now,” Josiah was saying as he cut off more tape and wrapped it in circles around her forearms, pinning them together. “Yes, he’ll take caution in his tone this time around.”

Lucas? Who on earth was Lucas? “I don’t know Lucas,” the new woman said.

“Bullshit! You’re his whore of a wife, sent people down here to spy on my home and ask questions of my family-”

“That’s not who I am.”

He struck her. It was an open-handed slap that raised a white imprint on her check but no blood, and the sound of flesh on flesh took Anne’s breath from her lungs and sent the tears spilling free. Not in my home, she thought. Oh, no, not in my home…

“There won’t be any more lies!” Josiah bellowed. Anne was mentally begging the other woman for silence-Josiah had been peaceable enough when he was agreed with-but instead she ignored the slap and objected again.

“I’m not who you think I-”

There was a second slap, and Anne gave a little shout, but the new woman was not moved to silence.

“I’m Eric’s wife-Eric Shaw’s. That’s who I am! I don’t know anything about Lucas Bradford. Neither does he. We’re both just trying to-”

This time he passed on the slap, choosing instead to take the woman’s hair in his fist and jerk it sideways. She gave a cry of pain and then the chair had overbalanced and she was on her side on the floor, still talking.

“We’re just trying to get away from here while the police figure out what’s going on. I don’t know Lucas Bradford! Do you understand that? I don’t know him and he doesn’t know me. He doesn’t care about me. I’m nothing to him.”

Josiah dipped sideways and came up with Anne’s kitchen knife in his hand, snatched it from her end table and held it at waist level with the blade pointed out.

“Josiah, no!” Anne shouted. “Not in my home, don’t you harm anyone in my home.”

He froze. She was taken aback, hadn’t expected any reaction, but he stopped his assault completely and swiveled his head to face her.

“I’ll ask you not to use that name any longer,” he said. “If you’d like my attention, you can call for Campbell. Understand?”

Anne didn’t know what to say. She just stared at him with her mouth agape, and he turned from her, dropped to one knee, and took a handful of the woman’s hair again and used it to lift her head, moved the blade toward her throat, and Anne could look no more, squeezed her eyes shut as warm tears beaded over the lids and chased wrinkles down her cheeks.