One Mile Under (27 page)

“Robertson?”

She saw the two men turn down the street.

“I can’t talk,” she spat in a whisper. She pressed herself against the truck, afraid to even look up. “They’re here. They’re—”

“Are you able to stay there? Just tell me where you are. I’m on my way.”

“No, I can’t stay,” she said again, her voice cracking. “I’m in town.” The loud churn of the garbage compactor concealed it, her body quaking in fright. “Please don’t hang up, Uncle Ty. I’m scared.”

“I’m here.”

Below her, the two men had come up to the truck. Dani flattened against it, the hot, steel roof. They stopped, not seeing her anywhere, probably assuming she had run to the end and turned onto another street. To be certain, they started opening trash cans, kicking them over, peering inside dumpsters. Looking under the cars.

One of them came up to the garbage worker. “You see a girl run down here?”

“Girl …? Just Becky. From the secondhand store …” He threw the contents of a can he was carrying into the mouth of the churning compactor, just a few feet below Dani. She held her ears from the deafening noise.

“You go on ahead, and I’ll check if she ran into any of these stores,” the one said to his partner. “She can’t have gone far.”

He ran ahead. The truck continued down the street. The other pursuer remained behind, kicking the cans to make sure they were empty. She caught sight of him jumping up and looking in the dumpsters.

The garbage worker held on to the side of the truck and it began to rumble away.

Dani pushed herself forward. “Are you still with me?” she asked Ty on the phone.

“Yes. I’m on my way in.”

“I’m—” To her horror, she saw that the truck’s sloped back and the growing distance between her and her pursuer meant she could be visible now.

The man kicked aside the top of a metal can in frustration and stepped out in the wake of the advancing truck. He looked up.

Their gazes collided.

“Oh, God.”

“
There she is!
” he yelled, pointing at the truck. He ran after it, about thirty yards behind. His partner came back from up ahead, screaming at the driver to stop, then clawing his way up the side.

The truck jerked to a stop.

She was trapped.
In a second or two, they’d nab her.

There was nowhere to go, but …

The one behind her hooked on to the back of the truck and began climbing, his partner slowly making his way up the side. Dani threw her phone in her bag and got to all fours, and as they reached the top, leaped off the truck’s roof, landing with a thud on the hood, and then jumped onto the ground. She hit the cement hard and rolled from the impact, coming to a stop against the wire fence. The men climbed down after her. She scrambled to her feet and started to run. The police station was just a block or two away. They couldn’t just follow her in.

Her two pursuers made it to the ground.

Dani sprinted. She made it as fast as she could to the end of the alley and swung around across the street. The police station was only a hundred yards away now. Remembering what Ty had said, she didn’t know if this was the smartest thing, but what other choice was there? However corrupt they might be, they were still police. They couldn’t just hand her over. Ty would come and they would figure out what to do.

She took a glance behind and saw the two men catching up. Fifty yards. Her heart pounded. She darted in between two cars and ran out into the street. It was just ahead of her now.

Thirty yards.

She looked around one last time and saw the two men slow to a stop.
She’d made it.
Whatever would happen, she was away from them.

Suddenly there was a screech. From out of nowhere, the black SUV pulled out of the food market lot and blocked her way.

Dani virtually crashed right into it.

A second car sped out of an alley, wedging her in, in a V.

“
No! No!
” she cried out, slamming her fist against the side. She spun quickly around to try and break free.

The rear door of the SUV opened and someone took her by shoulder and pulled her in.

He had the same gray T-shirt she had seen just minutes before with a skeleton on it and the letters
SXSW
. A bright red gash over his eye.

“So I owe you that trip.” Robertson winked, slamming the door shut. “Man, if I didn’t know better, I’d think you weren’t so eager to go.”

They bound her hands with a nylon rope that dug deep into her wrists, and almost seemed to enjoy it when she winced, maybe a smirk of payback for the welt above Robertson’s eye.

Someone Dani hadn’t seen before in a white, short-sleeve shirt and tie was at the wheel. She let her head fall back against the headrest—nervous, spent, completely out of breath.

And scared. She knew what they had done to Trey and those people in the balloon. Robertson sat next to her in the back. It gave her the creeps just to feel their legs come together when the car turned. They drove through town without seeing as much as a police car on the road and got onto Route 34 toward Greeley.

“Where are you taking me?” she asked.

“Don’t you worry your little head about that,” Robertson said. “You’ll find out soon enough. Just enjoy the ride.”

“I said, where are you taking me?” she asked again, with defiance.

He rubbed the mark above his eye. “You were asking about the water supply, so we thought we’d give you a look, firsthand. Up close and personal, as they say.” He ripped her bag away and pawed through it quickly, and tossed it to the floor underneath his legs. “Don’t think you’ll be needing any of this now.”

Trepidation and uncertainty pulsed through her, where seconds ago adrenaline had held her together. She watched the familiar landmarks go by. On the edge of town, Robertson took out a walkie-talkie and spoke into the receiver. “Cargo’s on board. We’re on our way out to the Falls. Everything set up there?”

A scratchy voice came back. “All ready. Whenever you arrive.”

“
The Falls?
Where is that?” Dani asked warily. She knew she was in extreme danger now. “What do you mean, are you ‘set up’? People know I’m here. They saw me.”

“Don’t ask so many questions,” Robertson said, stowing the walkie-talkie. “Trust me, you’ll need every breath.”

Inside, her stomach tightened into a knot. She inspected her bound, useless hands, the binds digging into her. Up ahead of them, she spotted a black-and-white state police car on the side of the road. State, not town.
Beat on the windows
, she told herself.
Scream.
There had to be some way to contact it as they passed.

“Up ahead …” the driver glanced behind and said to Robertson, alerting him to it.

“I see it.”

As they got close, to her dismay, Robertson reached over and forced her down against the seat, well below the windows, which were darkened anyway, so that no one could possibly see in.

Or hear.

“
Help! Help me! Goddammit, help me!
” Dani screamed in vain, her pleas muffled into the leather.

“Scream all you want,” Robertson said, releasing her when they’d passed. She sat up and looked behind. The police vehicle had made a U-turn and receded into the distance the other way. “Go ahead, exercise those lungs of yours … Trust me, you’ll need every breath.”

A feeling of deep helplessness set in.
What were they going to do with her …?
Her only hope now was Ty, and there was no way to contact him. She eyed her bag on the floor next to Robertson. Suddenly it dawned on her she had never turned off the phone from when she had called him on the truck. It was a long shot, but what if he had kept his on as well? Maybe there was a chance he was hearing everything that was happening to her. And tracking where they were taking her. It was the only shot she had now. “Where the hell are the Falls?” she asked, trying to direct him to where they were heading. “Greeley?”

“Don’t ask so many questions.” Robertson just looked straight ahead.

“Please …”

Finally he snorted brusquely. “The two of you are fools. You’re lucky they don’t let me do what I’d like to do to you. For
this.
” He tapped the red mark over his eye. “You come up here and think this is all some kind of game. You think you’re playing with kids, huh? You more than anyone should have known. You saw what happens …”

What happens …
She realized what he meant. “You’re talking Aspen?” she said, praying that the cell phone was somehow live. “Trey.”

C’mon admit it
, she said inside.
Say it.

“You should’ve just done what you came up here for and left. The two of you.” He looked back ahead. “That’s all I’m saying.”

“I know you killed him. I know you were on the river. I saw the tape.”

“Tape …?”
Robertson turned to her with renewed interest in his eyes.

“The ranger station keeps a running record of who goes in and out. Your car is on it. You do anything to me, and people will know. Everyone knows I was looking for you up here. They’ll put it together.”

He shook his head. It was clear he didn’t know. “Useless piece of shit …” he muttered disgustedly under his breath.

Useless piece of shit …
Dani realized that he had to be talking about Wade. That’s why Wade had dragged his feet the way he did. Why he went and hid the tapes.

“Anyway, nobody knows,” the Alpha man sniffed. “So don’t worry yourself. And even if they did … it doesn’t lead anywhere.” He looked at her and shrugged with a philosophical smirk. “Least it won’t anymore.”

They were going to kill her. That much was clear. Just like Trey. Fear pounded up inside her. She felt tears in the backs of her eyes, tears of helplessness and fear and the total futility of her situation. She didn’t want to show them to him. This bastard who had killed Trey and Ron and those others. She blinked them back as best she could. She begged herself not to give him the victory of seeing her cry.

“They’ll know,” she said back defiantly. “They’ll all know.”

“Hard to prove much,” the Alpha man said with a shrug, “when there’s not a trace in the world of anything left behind. And where you’re going …”

“Where I’m going,
what
? What are you going to do with me?” she demanded again.

“Like I said”—Robertson looked away again, “just enjoy the ride.”

The next few miles went by mostly in silence, heading east toward Greeley. Dani’s thoughts drifted. To her mom. How painfully she had deteriorated at the end—and Dani wasn’t even there. How sad she would be, wherever she was, to know Dani wouldn’t get to live out her life. Then she flashed to Wade.
The worm.
To betray her like this. To betray everything. So that’s why he impounded the tapes. They weren’t evidence; they were insurance. Insurance against getting caught. She gritted her teeth in disgust and looked out at the tops of wells as they passed by.

Bastard.
They owned him, too.

The thought of him just looking the other way filled her with a deflating sense of sadness. Once, he was like a father to her. Until he just watched her mother die and took the house, her jewelry, whatever money they had. How helpless he had sounded the other night when he called. He knew what they were going to do to them, if they stayed. And he just hung up that phone.

He probably didn’t even raise a voice to stop it.

Suddenly they slowed. The turn signal went on. Dani’s heart jumped. She saw they were turning at the very spot where what they thought were oil tankers had pulled out onto the road, where she and Ty had thought there had been a well by the river. Ty had said there was some kind of water facility down there.

They called it the Falls
…

Dani said, “I saw the trucks coming out of here,” hoping against hope that somehow Ty might still be listening. “From down by the river.”

Robertson ignored her. He just instructed the driver to loop down to the “plant.” He seemed to suggest that someone would be waiting for them there.

“What’s down here?” Dani pressed.

“Don’t you worry about it?” Robertson said. He spoke into the walkie-talkie. “You’ll find out soon enough. We’re on the road now,” he said into the receiver. “Are we all clear?”

“Roger that.” A scratchy voice came back. “We’re ready for you.”

Ready for what?
Dani’s heart picked up with mounting dread.

The road was dirt, hard packed, and wide enough for the large trucks she and Ty saw to get through. It swung around to the left and then made a steady grade downhill to where Dani caught a glimpse of the Poudre River. The sign read,
MID-RIVER HYDRO TREATMENT CENTER
. She saw a building ahead. Actually, more of a large cylindrical tank made of beige-painted concrete, maybe four stories tall. A couple of attached huts were built out of it, and four of those large steel tankers were pulled up nearby.
They’re not for oil, but for water,
Ty had told her.
Water.

They looped around in front of the building. There was only one other car around, a blue Audi; otherwise it seemed deserted. If people generally manned this facility, they surely weren’t around now. Maybe that was what they meant by,
are we clear?
The driver made a sweeping turn with the SUV and pulled up next to the Audi.

The car locks went up.

A man in a plaid shirt stepped out of the Audi. He had a high forehead, bald on top, and sunglasses.

“What happens now?” Dani asked Robertson.

“
Now …?
” He opened his door. “You’re a water girl, right? So, hey, now you ought to feel right at home.”

Dani saw a rounded concrete conduit maybe four feet in height stretching from the base of the cylindrical tank; then it went into a berm, presumably down to the river.

Robertson stepped out, and the man in the plaid shirt came up to him. Dani couldn’t hear what they were saying, then Robertson came back to her vehicle and opened her door.

What were they going to do to her?

“What is this, some kind of water treatment station?” Dani asked warily.