Devil's Oven (28 page)

It amazed her that he still loved Lila even though he knew about Tripp. It amazed her that anyone could be loved that way, and not feel like the most blessed person on earth.

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

“I don’t think Jolene can even drive,” Charity said. “Shit. Did she even think for a minute about how I’m supposed to get home?”

Nervous energy had Dwight working, and Charity had started helping without being asked. He could tell she was trying not to be pissed off at Jolene. No one liked to be angry with Jolene. Being mad at her was like being mad at a little kid.

Still, there was something about Jolene that bugged Dwight. She seemed
too
sweet, too defenseless.

You always were a crappy judge of character. I tried to tell you, man.
Pat’s voice sounded strained and hollow.
Listen, I feel like six kinds of hell. I don’t know how much longer I can handle this box.

“Yours is not an opinion I need at this moment,” Dwight said. He shoved a chair so hard onto a table that the other two on it bounced to the floor.

“So, I’m supposed to walk?” Charity said. “Are you kidding?”

“Wasn’t talking to you,” Dwight said.

She shook her head and moved on to the next table.

He was tired of being afraid and worried. People like Charity, men like him, they always just got on with the business of living. It was what they knew how to do. People like Bud and Jolene were the feeling kind. The prey of the world, thinking everyone could just get along if people kept smiling.

Why was he such a sucker for people like them?

Because you know most people are sheep
, Pat said. He coughed several times.
Hey, you remember that lady you did when you were broke?

Back in the city, maybe a decade earlier, Pat had gotten an out-of-town job he didn’t want, and passed it on to Dwight. If he hadn’t needed the money so badly, he never would’ve taken it. The only woman he had ever killed.

Ha! That bitch bit you on the ankle
.
Knew she would be a pain in the ass.

“Do me a favor and go make sure the lights are out in the dressing rooms, okay?”

“I guess you’re taking me home, then?” Charity said.

“No. We’ll see if one of the cabs is available. I’ll pay,” he said. There was no reason to keep Charity around. He needed to think, and she didn’t need to be involved in what was going down. She had only brought Jolene to the club out of kindness.

“You sure?” she said. “What’s up?”

“Nothing. Go on and call.”

When she disappeared into the back hallway, Dwight walked over to the stage and squatted down to pull the curtain aside.

“It should never have happened like this, man,” he said, feeling only a little stupid talking to a dead man in a box twenty-five feet away. “I’ll let Marie know there was an accident. She won’t know it’s me, but I’ll make sure she gets the message. You have any cash put away or anything? Anything you want me to tell her?”

You’re not going to get a chance to tell my wife shit
, Pat said. His voice was a fading echo.
This is going to go bad from here on out, my friend.

Dwight snorted.
“
Like it’s been going so well up to now. Peaches and cream.” He waited for Pat’s next smartass remark, but there was only silence from beneath the stage.

CHAPTER FIFTY

Tripp drove into the trailer park, keeping an eye out for potholes and taking the speed bumps as slowly as he could bear. He passed two teenage boys drinking beer in the weak glow of a porch light.

“Not my problem,” Tripp said under his breath. He gave them a cursory wave. They didn’t bother to hide the beer or wave back. One of them lit a cigarette. As long as they kept their business in town and off the mountain, he didn’t care what they did.

Charity’s trailer was dark, its parking space empty. He parked and watched for signs of life inside. He had the police scanner turned down low, but loud enough to catch whatever came over it.

The scanner already told him that Bud had walked out of the jail in the company of a dark-haired woman, and Tripp knew it had to have been Jolene. The good news was that Bud’s guilty behavior meant the state police would stop bothering
him
. That he knew they were wrong about Bud only worked in Tripp’s favor. When he found Lila, he would make things right with her. She would feel some loyalty to Bud because of what they had accused him of, but Tripp would be the one to help her heal.

The most important thing was to get her away from that animal. Letting Jolene out of his sight had been a mistake.

Where the hell was Jolene, and where would she take Bud? She had no friends he knew of except Charity and that loser boyfriend of hers. Hell, she wasn’t even human—if he could believe that.

I do believe. I don’t want to, but I do.

As he saw it, there were two things he could do: look for Jolene, starting at Ivy Luttrell’s (Bud would be with her, but Tripp would have to deal with him sooner or later, anyway); or head back up to the mountain and keep searching for Lila on his own. Something that was not only impractical this time of night, but borderline insane.

What’s all this if not insane?

The radio crackled, and the dispatcher came on. He heard clearly the only words he needed to hear: “caller says the woman identifies herself as Lila Tucker,” and “Git ’n’ Go.”

His heart soared. Lila was less than two minutes away.

•  •  •

Lila sat huddled in a blanket on the curb of the Git ’n’ Go’s front walk. The store was closed, its interior lights off, but the security lights gave Tripp a good look at Lila’s battered face. Cautious of the man standing protectively over her—the concerned citizen who had called in to report he had found the missing Lila Tucker—Tripp choked back the rush of emotion that seeing her brought on. Lila stared up at him, recognizing him, but didn’t react. It hurt him that she didn’t run to him. She was obviously too damaged to be thinking clearly.

“Where’d you find Mrs. Tucker?” he said to the man.

“Who are you?” the man said. He was keyed up, his eyes wide behind his heavy-framed eyeglasses. A middle-age paunch lopped over his blue jeans, straining his leather bomber jacket. Crewcut, ex-military maybe, or just an enthusiast.

Tripp flashed his badge and looked the man straight in the eye. This had to happen quickly, and he wanted the man to know who was in charge.

The man’s obvious anxiety dropped a notch, but he was still wary.

“They’re sending an ambulance,” he said. “You can see she’s hurt.”

Tripp dropped down on one knee in front of Lila. “I need to ask you if this man had anything to do with what happened to you, Mrs. Tucker.”

“You know he didn’t,” she said, her voice quiet and strained. “I want to go home.” 

“Good,” he said. “Everything’s going to be all right.”

He stood up. “Did you give your name to 911? Do they know how to reach you? I’m sure Mr. Tucker will want to show his appreciation for everything you’ve done. I don’t know any details, but I would think there’s a reward involved.”

As he spoke, he helped Lila to her feet. She moved cautiously, like an old woman. It would take a long time to get her back to her old self. They might even have to go away—far away—for her to recover properly.

“Wait a minute.” The man followed them to the idling truck. “Where are you taking her? Where are the other cops? You need to wait for the ambulance.”

Tripp opened the door to the truck’s extended cab.

“We’ll find Bud?” she said. “Please?”

The monster had stolen the life from her eyes. Tripp would help her get it back.

He nodded and put an arm around her shoulders to help her into the backseat of the truck where the prisoners usually rode. “Go on, lie down,” he said. “Everything’s going to be just fine, Mrs. Tucker.”

She gathered the blanket closer and lay down on the seat. He shut the door, feeling relieved.

“This is out of your hands, sir,” Tripp said. “The ambulance service is twenty minutes away from here. She could have internal injuries.” He reached for the driver’s door handle. The man stepped closer.

“I don’t think you should take her,” he said. He was strident, but his voice wavered with the knowledge that Tripp was the one with a gun strapped to his side.

“You’re interfering with official business,” Tripp said. This overstuffed rodent of a man wasn’t going to ruin his chance to be with Lila. “Please step away from the vehicle.” He rested his hand on his sidearm, flicked open the release on the holster.

The man took a step back, but they both looked toward the road when they heard the siren. It was faint, but definitely heading in their direction.

“I say we wait,” the man said.

“You don’t want to get involved in this, sir,” Tripp said. “You’ve done what you needed to do. I don’t want to have to take you into custody.” Now he was starting to get pissed off.

The man gave a short, nervous laugh that puffed out his fleshy cheeks. “Yeah? I don’t think so,” he said. “What if I told you I think you’re full of shit?”

Tripp took out the .44. Before the man, whose face was now stiff with alarm, could duck away, Tripp smashed the gun into his right temple.

The man fell to the asphalt, an arm across his face in belated defense. Tripp kicked him in the ribs once, twice, three times, and the man curled in on himself. His weakness made Tripp even angrier, and he kicked the man in the head.

Time to go. They’re coming.

Tripp holstered his service piece, got in the truck, and slammed it into gear. Lila was silent in the back. He hoped she’d gone to sleep. Driving to the lip of the parking lot, he didn’t bother to look back at the man who was lying still on the ground.

The safest way for them to get to the cabin would be to drive west, away from the sirens. But it would take half an hour and he would have to unlock two fire road gates. He needed more ammunition before he could take Lila to a truly safe place. Food, as well. The fastest way to his place was through the state forest’s main entrance. The Good Samaritan was sure to be out for a while, so he would have some time before the state boys started looking for him and his work truck. Tripp turned left and drove in the direction of the oncoming police cars.

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

Running. Following the scent of the woman. The woman who was not soft. The woman who tore at him and screamed. The woman who woke something inside of him.

He stayed far from the edge of the road, avoiding the few cars speeding past. The bottoms of his feet were hard now, better than the shoes. The hole in his throat where the stick had pierced him let in a ragged stream of air, but he felt no pain. There was no pain anymore, no anger. Only desire, a hunger in his gut that had nothing to do with food.

Lights rose ahead of him. Lights that brought the image of Claude Who Was Not Food to his mind.

Through the trees, he saw two men standing in front of the store where he had found Claude. The woman was nearby, but he couldn’t see her. He watched as one of the men hit the other, and a few seconds later he smelled the blood. After the man who had done the hitting drove away, the scent of the woman was not so strong.

He ran after the truck, not bothering to investigate the man lying bleeding on the ground. He ran across the parking lot and up onto the sloping hillside, breaking through the bare, whiplike bracken without feeling it, trying to keep the truck in sight. For a long moment, he was able to keep up with the truck, but then the air filled with a piercing sound and he stumbled. The sound came toward him, bringing with it white, red, and blue lights that bounced off the tree trunks. Instinct drove him onto the leafy ground. He covered his ears with his hands.

The cars whined to a stop somewhere behind him, and the night reasserted itself. He took his hands from his ears and stood. The truck was gone and, with it, the scent. It was immediately replaced by the compulsion to finish what he had started when he first came to this place.

He ran.

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

There had been a time when Ivy thought of leaving Alta. It was after high school, and Thora was gone every day to her job at the Department of Motor Vehicles, leaving Ivy alone in the trailer. Thora had tried to talk her into applying for cashier work at the feed and supply store on the other side of town, but the idea of it terrified her only slightly less than moving to the city to look for a job. Sewing was what she loved to do, nothing else. Sewing was something she could do alone, without anyone watching. She hardly had to speak to anyone when she was sewing. Even when she had helped Mrs. Young, the Home Ec teacher, do the costuming for the high school’s production of the musical
Angel Time
during her senior year, she had been allowed to do most of the work at home, on her own machine. On quiet days, walking up on the mountain with Suki, the retriever mix that had adopted them for a year and then disappeared, she had thought about what it might be like to work in a real theater, making all sorts of costumes for plays.

When there were costume dramas on television, she would record them, hiding the discs from Thora. It wasn’t that Thora wouldn’t have liked them or would’ve made fun of her for watching them. Ivy just wanted to keep them for herself. She liked the Elizabethan films best, with their sumptuous velvets and jeweled brocades. Seeing her own plain face in the mirror, she knew she would never be suited to wear such things, no matter what century it was. But she could make them, nourishing each garment with just a little bit of herself. She would live through them.

Then Thora had started getting sick all the time. Her government job meant she couldn’t be fired easily, but Ivy felt obligated to take care of her. In her heart she knew it was a grudging obligation. In those days, she sometimes thought she didn’t love Thora at all. But whatever she felt for Thora, she knew she couldn’t abandon her.