No Coming Back (18 page)

Still, I don’t blink.

The grip of a throwing knife juts out of Luckman’s right eye. An identical one is wedged in the nape of Hendry’s neck. All three of my attackers are down and ejecting blood at high velocity.

And my heart is banging in my chest.

At the doorway, the black giant produces another knife. This one’s a mean-looking combat dagger with a jagged edge. Six inches of carbon steel alloy. Lethal.

Purposefully, he strides toward me.

Chapter Twenty-Two

F
rom his vantage point high in the red elm the hunter had an unprecedented view of the frozen lake nestled within moonlit woods. He could even see an impression of Harper in the far distance, glowing softly in the dark, like campfire embers, but none of the actual buildings themselves.

He’d constructed several of these observation platforms over the years, scattered them throughout the wooded hillsides, each designed to give him eagle-eyed views of the most frequented wildlife trails. Each platform was an arrangement of seasoned planking attached to the tree in the basic form of a chair with a fold-down table, the latter part installed to provide a stable point on which to rest his elbows while sighting out prey. He’d lost track of how many hours he’d sat here or there, perched up one tree or another, patiently waiting like a cop on a stakeout for his quarry to take the bait, only for nothing to happen except for cramp or hunger to set in. But it never stopped him from repeating the performance night after night. Unarguably, there was a certain thrill to be had from hunting, but the real buzz came from being out here, alone, using his own skills to survive, to beat not just the local opposition but also the odds. Essentially, one man pitted against the elements, as though he were the last man on Earth.

He had no time for interlopers.

Although he never left home without his trusted Sako Finnlight mountain rifle, his preference for nighttime hunting was the crossbow, especially in winter. Compared to the springtime, the wintry woods were almost silent, and that silence called for a more stealthy approach. Noisy rifles had their place—there was no better means of taking down a deer at distance than the Sako—but there was nothing quite like the quiet flight of an aluminum bolt as it sailed through the air to catch its prey completely unawares. Couple that with a night vision scope and he was king of all he surveyed.

He had no time for intruders.

He was guzzling hot coffee from a thermos when he noticed the twin balls of light floating along the far shoreline. Typically, during the snowbound winter, nobody came out here after dark. The lack of street lighting, cleared roadways, and the unreliable cell phone reception were enough of a deterrent to keep lovesick kids away from the pitch-black picnic areas. Occasionally, other hunters from Harper and its neighboring towns came out here during the day, left their trucks parked along the lake road, and waded into the woods, looking for game and supper. But most of them were gone by sundown.

He corked the flask and brought up the crossbow. Through the enhanced scope the twin balls of light resolved into car headlights. A truck, bouncing along the far shoreline, headed in the direction of Krauss Outfitters. Out of curiosity, he scanned the sights along the trail until the cabin store filled the lens. In the night vision, the edges of the windows were brighter than the surrounding green-and-black, indicating the lights were on inside.

A mixture of surprise and anger heated up his chest.

He had no time for burglars.

He slung the crossbow over his shoulder and started to climb down the elm, feeling out the foot pegs as he went.

Chapter Twenty-Three

C
omposure is a weapon. I’m not a blithering wreck; prison fights have hardened me up, taught me the importance of the face-off.

In the early days of my incarceration, I was viewed as new meat for the grinder. As such, I was ground up and left for dead on countless occasions. What else could I expect? I was a pathetic kid
convicted
of murdering his girlfriend. One rung up the sewer ladder from a child killer. But I didn’t let the beatings beat me, never had. I had no intention of dying inside, even though I was. Prison was my present but it wasn’t my future. I wanted to survive, had to, for Jenna’s sake. So I learned technique—the trick all scrawny fighters use to conquer their mightier foes—and once I pulled my weight and started winning every bout, I never had to prove myself again.

The giant striding toward me is built like a Russian tank: chunky angles and rustproofing. I’ve seen him before, but not recently—when I was young. Before Jenna.

Light glints off the blade in his hand.

On my knees, with wrists bound in front of me, I am defenseless. Those paddle-sized hands of his can snap my neck between thumb and forefinger before I know what’s happening.

He steps over Luckman’s twitching body and drops to one knee—still looming—and brings up the knife.

I head-butt him in the face before he can slice me open. It’s an upper-cut and a move I’ve used before, in Stillwater. The top of my brow striking the underside of his chin. It’s not a life-threatening blow by any means, but it’s enough to daze him momentarily and give me a chance. I hear his teeth clack together as his head snaps back. I grab at the knife and peel it out of his loosened grasp. Then I launch myself again, with another head-butt, same place, and he slams backward onto the wooden boards with a resounding crash. Then I’m on top, straddling his broad chest, with the jagged blade pressed against his throat.

“You’re the guy they call Tolstoy.”

He blinks up at me. “That’s right. The name’s Warren Peets, but most folks know me by that nick.”

“You were at my house when I was a kid.”

Suddenly, I am seven again, impressionable, vulnerable, standing at my bedroom window with my face pressed against the cool glass, hot breath fogging it, occasionally wiping a palm across the pane to clear it. The memory feels completely real, present:

Raised voices are rising up through the floorboards of my
bedroom
to claw at my ears. The dominant voice belongs to a stranger, to a big black Goliath I have seen lumbering around town. The general belief among my classmates is that he is the last
remaining
descendant of a race of giants. Eight foot tall in his
stocking
feet, which are the size of skateboards. The rumor goes that he lives out in the woods and eats children, and so we maintain a respectful distance, scurrying to cross the street whenever he
’s around.

My seven-year-old cheekbone grinds against the glass.

I hear my father yelling, always yelling; furniture being pushed around; things being thrown against walls, smashed; vile curses and bitter oaths of retribution. My whole life to this point, and worse beyond. It’s been this way for as long as I can remember. Lately, the arguments have gotten increasingly worse, with the violence bestowed upon my mother keeping the frightening pace.

Through all the din and destruction I am unable to make out exactly what is being said downstairs. I know it isn’t good. It’s never good. I press my face harder against the glass, holding my breath, squeezing every last drop of information from the smallest
vibration
.

Then the giant reappears, his shaven head gleaming in the sunlight like a block of varnished mahogany. Instinctively, I pull back from the pane, still not breathing, not daring to, afraid he might see me and if he does, come for me. He moves down the front walk on redwood legs, three strides and it’s done. In one hand is a suitcase, seemingly as small as a book, in the other is my mother’s hand, with my mother trailing behind like a ragdoll as he rushes her toward a waiting limousine. She’s crying, trying to hold it together, coattails flapping. I hear my father ranting and raving from the doorstep, no doubt shaking a fist and condemning her to hell. But she has been living there for years. This is her escape. My pulse is quickened by excitement and fear. Maybe hope. There is someone inside the car, I notice. His legs are visible through the open door. Definitely a man’s legs: black dress pants and polished brogues. I have no idea who they belong to. My mother drops onto the backseat and tucks in her feet. The giant closes the door and then shoehorns himself behind the steering wheel. The car’s suspension drops noticeably by several inches. Then it’s pulling away, speeding down the road from the house on Prescott. And the last glimpse I have of my mother leaving is through the rear window, her face torn between loyalties, run through with tears and streaked mascara.

“You took my mother,” I growl, thirty years later, as I press the knife against the giant’s throat.

“That’s right.”

“You killed her.”

His eyes bulge. “Not so. I rescued her. See, I got your momma out of there before your daddy beat her to a pulp. I told him never to lay another finger on her, otherwise I’d snap every one of his in half and feed them down his throat, thumbs included.”

A trickle of blood runs round his neck. We both know if he tries to throw me off or knock my hand aside the razor-sharp edge will inflict a lethal cut.

“So how did she end up dead?”

“That’s just it. I didn’t know she was until I heard it on the police scanner.” His voice is deep and calm; if he’s in the least bit concerned about my threat to do him harm, he doesn’t show it. “And that’s the God’s honest truth. Same way I heard you were up here and in need of urgent help. Your momma was alive when I left them at Mr. G’s place.”

“Mr. G?”

“Mr. Grossinger.”

With a start, I realize that Lars was the other person in the car that day. My mother ran away with Lars Grossinger. And, according to the ME, she was dead shortly after.

Steam rises in my belly. I lean on the blade. More blood runs. “Did Lars murder my mother?”

Thunder rumbles in his throat, gushing out of his mouth in the form of a laugh. “You got it all wrong, boy! See, Mr. G ain’t the killing kind. Heck, he can’t even bring himself to swat a fly! Why do you think he needs somebody like me?”

“You work for Lars?”

“Sure thing. And I believe the same goes for you, too. It’s the reason I’m here. Mr. G sent me to protect you, boy. Look after his interests, so to speak. Now are you gonna let me loose or do we need to go get ourselves a marriage license?”

I stay put, thoughts tumbling over themselves. “Last question: why was Lars so interested in helping out my mother?”

“You mean aside from her working for the
Horn
, taking all those wonderful pictures of hers? I guess they never told you, did they?”

“Told me what?”

“It ain’t none of my business to say, boy.”

I press with the knife. “Make it.”

“Easy.” He wraps a big paw around my forearm and I realize he could snap my bones before I could do anything to stop it. “Mr.
G
never approved of the way your daddy treated your momma. For years he tried persuading her to leave, but she was married and
committed
. A headstrong woman, that one. Probably one of the reasons your daddy couldn’t cope with her in the first place. Then one day something snapped and she’d had all she could take. She wanted out and Mr. G stepped in.”

“But why him, out of everybody?”

“You really don’t know, do you?”

“Enlighten me.”

With ease, the giant known as Tolstoy lifts my hand away from his throat. “Because your momma and Mr. G were lovers, see, and had been for a long while, even before you were born.”

The words sound like notes played off-key, tunelessly clanking one after the other. The thought of my mother having an affair with Lars even more so.

One of my last memories of her reemerges from out of my darkness, overwhelming the here and now:

Her breath is hot, sweet as candy as she leans over me. “Honey, I won’t be gone for long,” she assures me as I snuggle in my bed the night before she leaves for the last time. She strokes my hair, soft fingertips transmitting love. She often sits at my bedside, watching over me this way, protecting me from the monsters that lurk in the shadows.

“Is it my fault?” I ask tentatively.

“No, honey, it’s not your fault at all. And please don’t think for one moment that it is. Ever. I mean it, Jake. It’s mine. And I’m going to make it up to you, I promise. Mommy and Daddy
misbehaving
the way we do isn’t good and I’m sorry it upsets you. But I will fix things. I promise. I’ll make everything better, for you and me. Soon we’ll be starting a whole new life together and you won’t ever feel this way again.”

I wrap little fingers around her arm. “I’m scared; I don’t want you to go.”

She caresses my forehead. “Shush, cutie pie. It’s okay. Don’t worry. It’ll only be for one day. I’ll be back before you know it.”

“Can’t I come with you?”

Her smile slips but she soon hitches it back up. “Mommy just needs to sort a few things out first. Grown-up stuff, you know? You be a big boy while I’m gone, make sure you remember to take your medication?”

I nod my head against the pillow, against the damp patch from the tears rolling down my cheek.

She leans in and kisses me on the cheek. Her warmth is womb-like, the smell of her skin as uplifting as springtime blossom. I feel secure in her arms, always have, safe from all the world’s cruelties, including my father’s. “Jake, I promise I’ll come back for you. I promise. For Aaron, too. Just hold tight. Can you do that for me? Can you hold tight?”

Another nod.

“I love you, Jake.”

“Love you, too, mommy. Please come back.”

“I will.”

But she never does.

Lifeless, I stand at my bedroom window, day after day, watching for the same black limo to come rolling down the street,
bringing
her home.

But it never arrives.

I cry myself to sleep at night, smothering my sobs so that my abusive father cannot hear. My tears attract his fists. I keep out of his way, dodging bullets. In my mother’s absence he has become a raving lunatic, cursing God and drinking himself into a stupor. Whenever our paths cross he clouts me with the back of his hand and screams obscenities at me.

“Bastard child! I wish you were never born! Get out of my sight!”

I do. But I don’t understand any of it. I have already stopped taking my medication in the hope it brings clarity. My father has always been crabby with me, withdrawn, only ever looking at me down the length of his nose, treating me with contempt. This, however, is a whole other level of abuse. For my own well-being, I
maintain
a low profile, through the painful weeks and the lonely months following my mother’s departure. Never a great length of time without one or the other eye blackened. Never far from a vicious beating or a spiteful tirade. Sometimes surrendering to the darkness, my only salvation. Unlike me, Aaron escapes our father’s wrath. Aaron is the firstborn and can do no wrong. He is the sun and as such he is untouchable. His warmth protects me, nourishes me, but there are three years between us and we move in
different orbits.

“We’ll get through this,” he promises me, time and again. “It won’t always be this way.”

But it is. It’s unending.

As time passes, I accede to the fact that my mother is never coming back, that she has run away with the man in the limo, that her abandoning me to my maltreating father proves her promises are vaporous, that she has never loved me, that she is a liar. It is a bitter pill to swallow for one so young. But I get over it, eventually. I have to. I have no choice. I learn to adapt. I learn to avoid. I learn to soak up all the darkness and bury the hurt, keep it stowed inside, deep down where it can do the least harm. I learn to close my eyes when my father’s fist strikes. I learn the suppleness of submission and the merit in retreat.

Increasingly, I learn to seek refuge in my darkness.

I learn to live without parental love.

I never see my mother again, in the flesh. I dream about her, for years after, about our final moments together, that night in my bedroom, but the dreams warp with time, like unseasoned wood, becoming misshapen and rough at the edges, until they resemble something monstrous, nightmarish. As I grow older the dreams weather and fade until they become figments of my past, a past buried under a mountain of denial. Adulthood further distances her memory, and imprisonment banishes it altogether. Then I learn that the skeletal remains wedged within the roots of an upturned tree are hers, left there almost three decades earlier by the hands of her killer. If that isn’t shocking enough, now I learn that my mother loved another man and was probably cheating on my father even before I came along.

All at once I am struck by the unsettling notion that my father isn’t my biological father after all, and that Lars is my bloodline. The shock is enough to crack open the chasm within me and let a lifetime of suppressed black smoke start the long rise to the
surface
.