Famous (25 page)

Rachael looked into the back of the Cherokee
at the spare. She had no way of contacting AAA and passing cars
would be few and far between on this remote highway at this hour of
the night. I’ll just wait and try Will again when the storm has
passed.

Squeezing the steering wheel, she stared
through the windshield into the stormy darkness, somewhere north of
the border in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. Middle of
nowhere.

There was a brilliant streak of lightning. In
the split second illumination she saw a black Escalade parked a
hundred yards up the shoulder.

Thunder rattled the windows. Five seconds
elapsed. When the sky exploded again, Rachael felt a strange,
unnerving pull to look through the driver side window.

A man swung a crowbar through the glass.

3

Will startled back into consciousness,
disoriented and thirsty. It was so quiet—just the discreet drone of
a computer fan and the second hand of the clock ticking in the
adjacent bedroom. He found himself slouched in the leather chair at
the desk in his small home office, the CPU still purring, the
monitor switched into sleep mode.

As he yawned, everything rushed back in a
torrent of anxiety. He’d been hammering out notes for his closing
argument and hit a wall at ten o’clock. The evidence was damning.
He was going to lose. He’d only closed his eyes for a moment to
clear his head.

He reached for the mug of coffee and took a
sip. Winced. It was cold and bitter. He jostled the mouse. When the
screen restored, he looked at the clock and realized he wouldn’t be
sleeping anymore tonight. It was 4:09 a.m. He was due in court in
less than five hours.

First things first—he needed an immediate and
potent infusion of caffeine.

His office adjoined the master bedroom at the
west end of the house, and passing through on his way to the
kitchen, he noticed a peculiar thing. He’d expected to see his wife
buried under the myriad quilts and blankets on their bed, but she
wasn’t there. The comforter was smooth and taut, undisturbed since
they’d made it up yesterday morning.

He walked through the living room into the
den and down the hallway toward the east end of the house. Rachael
had probably come home, seen him asleep at his desk, and gone in to
kiss Devlin. She’d have been exhausted from working all day at the
clinic. She’d probably fallen asleep in there. He could picture the
nightlight glow on their faces as he reached his daughter’s
door.

It was cracked, exactly as he’d left it seven
hours ago when he’d put Devlin to bed.

He eased the door open. Rachael wasn’t with
her.

Will wide awake now, closing Devlin’s door,
heading back into the den.

“Rachael? You here, hon?”

He went to the front door, turned the
deadbolt, stepped outside.

Dark houses. Porchlights. Streets still wet
from the thunderstorms that blew through several hours ago. No
wind, the sky clearing, bright with stars.

When he saw them in the driveway, his knees
gave out and he sat down on the steps and tried to remember how to
breathe. One Beamer, no Jeep Cherokee, and a pair of patrol cars,
two uniformed officers coming toward him, their hats shelved under
their arms.

The patrolmen sat in the living room on the
couch, Will facing them in a chair. The smell of new paint was
still strong. He and Rachael had redone the walls and the vaulted
ceiling in terracotta last weekend. Most of the black and white
desert photographs that adorned the room still leaned against the
antique chest of drawers, waiting to be re-hung.

The lawmen were businesslike in their
delivery, taking turns with the details, as if they’d rehearsed who
would say what, their voices so terribly measured and calm.

There wasn’t much information yet. Rachael’s
Cherokee had been found on the shoulder of Arizona 85 in Organ Pipe
Cactus National Monument. Right front tire flat, punctured with a
nail to cause a slow and steady loss of air pressure. Driver side
window busted out.

No Rachael. No blood.

They asked Will a few questions. They tried
to sympathize. They said how sorry they were, Will just shaking his
head and staring at the floor, a tightness in his chest,
constricting his windpipe in a slow strangulation.

He happened to look up at some point, saw
Devlin standing in the hall in a plain pink tee-shirt that fell all
the way to the carpet, the tattered blanket she’d slept with every
night since her birth draped over her left arm. And he could see in
her eyes that she’d heard every word the patrolmen had said about
her mother, because they were filling up with tears.

4

Rachael Innis was strapped upright with
two-inch webbing to the leather seat behind the driver. She stared
at the console lights. The digital clock read 4:32 a.m. She
remembered the crowbar through the window and nothing after.

Bach’s Four Lute Suites blared from the Bose
stereo system, John Williams playing the classical guitar. Beyond
the windshield, the headlights cut a feeble swath of light through
the darkness, and even though she was riding in a luxury SUV, the
shocks did little to ease the violent jarring from whatever
primitive road they traveled.

Her wrists and ankles were comfortably but
securely bound with nylon restraints. Her mouth wasn’t gagged. From
her vantage point, she could only see the back of the driver’s head
and occasionally the side of his face by the cherry glow of his
cigarette. He was smooth-shaven, his hair was dark, and he smelled
of a subtle, spicy cologne.

It occurred to her that he didn’t know she
was awake, but the thought wasn’t two seconds old when she caught
his eyes in the rearview mirror. They registered her consciousness,
turned back to the road.

They drove on. An endless stream of rodents
darted across the road ahead and a thought kept needling her—at
some point, he was going to stop the car and do whatever he was
driving her out in the desert to do.

“Have you urinated on my seat?” She thought
she detected the faintest accent.

“No.”

“You tell me if you have to urinate. I’ll
stop the car.”

“Okay. Where are you—”

“No talking. Unless you have to urinate.”

“I just—”

“You want your mouth taped? You have a cold.
That would make breathing difficult.”

Devlin was the only thing she’d ever prayed
for and that was years ago, but as she watched the passing
sagebrush and cactus through the deeply tinted windows, she pleaded
with God again.

Now the Escalade was slowing. It came to a
stop. He turned off the engine and stepped outside and shut the
door. Her door opened. He stood watching her. He was very handsome,
with flawless, brown skin (save for an indentation in the bridge of
his nose), liquid blue eyes, and black hair greased back from his
face. His pretty teeth seemed to gleam in the night. Rachael’s
chest heaved against the strap of webbing.

He said, “Calm down, Rachael.” Her name
sounded like a foreign word on his lips. He took out a syringe from
his black leather jacket and uncapped the needle.

“What is that?” she asked.

“You have nice veins.” He ducked into the
Escalade and turned her arm over. When the needle entered, she
gasped.

“Please listen. If this is some kind of
ransom thing—”

“No, no. You’ve already been purchased. In
fact, right now, there isn’t a safer place in the world for you to
be than in my possession.”

A gang of coyotes erupted in demonic howls
somewhere out in that empty dark and Rachael thought they sounded
like a woman burning alive, and she began to scream until the drug
took her.

BLAKE CROUCH
is the author of DESERT
PLACES, LOCKED DOORS, and ABANDON, which was an IndieBound Notable
Selection last summer, all published by St. Martin's
Press. His newest thriller, SNOWBOUND, also from St. Martin's,
was released in June 2010. His short fiction has appeared in
Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine
,
Alfred Hitchcock's
Mystery Magazine
,
Thriller 2
, and other anthologies,
including the new Shivers anthology from Cemetery Dance. In 2009,
he co-wrote "Serial" with J.A. Konrath, which has been downloaded
over 250,000 times and topped the Kindle bestseller list for 4
weeks. That story and DESERT PLACES have also been optioned for
film. Blake lives in Durango, Colorado. His website is
www.blakecrouch.com
.

Blake Crouch’s Works

Andrew Z. Thomas thrillers

Desert Places

Locked Doors

Other works

Draculas with J.A. Konrath, Jeff Strand and
F. Paul Wilson

Abandon

Snowbound

Famous

Perfect Little Town (horror novella)

Serial Uncut with J.A. Konrath and Jack
Kilborn

Serial with Jack Kilborn

Bad Girl (short story)

Four Live Rounds (collected stories)

Shining Rock (short story)

*69 (short story)

On the Good, Red Road (short story)

Remaking (short story)

Visit Blake at www.BlakeCrouch.com