The Big Ugly (14 page)

I don't know how long I sat there on his back. It couldn't have been more than sixty seconds, but it felt too long. I got to my feet, trembling. I took in a few breaths, stepped over to the wall to get my balance.

His car?

I dug through his coat. First I found his cell phone. I had no pockets, so I stuck it in my bra. Then I found his keys.

With the longest key squeezed between my thumb and forefinger like a weapon, I moved barefoot to the door and eased it open.

Nothing. Quiet hallway. I stepped into it and moved down the hall. I didn't know where I was going, but I hurried in the opposite direction from where we'd come in.

The end of the hall led into an old yellowed break room that stunk of coffee and cigarettes. At the end of the room, another door. It was locked and bolted from inside. I unlocked it and slid the bolt and stepped outside.

Dark night air hit me and I realized my face was wet with sweat and blood.

Down a few steps into a gravel parking lot. One car—black, shiny, and expensive. The keys in my hand had a keyless entry button. I beeped the door and got inside.

I fumbled with the ignition but got the car started. At the end of the parking lot, a gravel road whipped around the entire building. The road took me past the loading dock where Evan stood leaning against the truck and smoking a cigarette and contemplating whatever it is you contemplate as you wait for your boss to torture someone. He stood up straight as I hit my lights and tore up the road. As I crested the hill, he was running back inside the plant.

At the top of the hill, the gravel ended at the edge of a blacktop road running east and west. I went west, down another hill which shortly led to Highway 65. Now I had a good idea of where I was. I headed south, at first speeding like a getaway driver. Then I caught myself and slowed down to 70. I was in no shape to get pulled over.

I wiped sweat out of my eyes and blood off my chin. My hand shook.

I dug in my bra for the phone and pulled it out. I scrolled through his numbers.

I found JUNIUS.

I put the phone down in my lap.

Breathe.

Think.

I tasted blood on my lips. It dripped down my chin.

Pinching my nose with one hand, I tilted my head back and stared down my bloody nose and around my blood-stained hand at the road.

I listened to the car wheels on the pavement.

My heart settled down. My nose stopped bleeding. I wiped my hands off on my blouse. For a moment, I just drove.

Then, I picked up the phone. I didn't have a plan, but I scrolled down again to Junius Kluge's name and pressed it.

One ring and he answered.

"Well, how'd it go?" he asked.

"It went badly."

"What? Who is this?"

"You know who this is, Junius. You know who I am, and if you think about it, you can figure out why I'm calling."

For a moment, I listened to his breathing.

"Where's Vin?"

"He's at the Ozark Poultry chicken plant up in Connor County. Evan is probably about to call you."

"Evan."

"Cut-up-looking redneck. Not much personality. He waited outside while your degenerate asshole friend tried to torture me.
Tried
. Didn't work out so good for him, though, so now you have a mess to clean up."

"
I
have a mess to clean up."

"Yes. Unless you want to explain why two state troopers pulled me over and handcuffed me and let Evan drag me up to the fucking chicken plant so Vinton Colfax—"

"Perhaps, Miss Bennett, we shouldn't be having this conversation on the phone."

"I agree. Let's stop having it at all. You clean up the untidiness at the chicken plant. Then I'll contact you."

"Contact me about what?"

"About my money. Don't think this thing is over, Junius. You don't give me what I want, this mess is gonna get too much for you to handle."

I lowered the window and tossed the phone out.

On my way back to my car, I had to make a decision. I wanted to ditch Vin's car, but my DNA was smeared all over it. I didn't think I had time to clean it. I needed to get away from Vin's car and out of my bloody clothes as quickly as possible.

I decided to take a big gamble. I was willing to bet that Junius would be levelheaded about this situation. It was why I had called him instead of the governor, who might be a little upset that I'd strangled his brother to death. Junius, I hoped, would assess the situation and decide that it was everyone's best interest if Vin died in some accident or something.

They'd left my car on the side of the road. I parked Vin's heap behind it and got out. The pavement scratched at my bare feet and I realized I hadn't noticed my lack of shoes since the chicken plant.

The windless night didn't stir. The bugs and birds shut up for a second, and I felt like the whole world listened to me creep across the blacktop to my car. The car door groaned open. Keys still in the ignition. Purse still sitting on the passenger seat. I slid in and closed the door and sat for moment in the cool stillness. I took a deep breath and opened my purse, but I already knew what I'd find. My money was gone.

I started the car and drove home.

"What the hell?"

Nate stood in the kitchen in green pajama bottoms and a Razorback T-shirt. He put down the steaming bag of popcorn he'd just removed from the microwave. In the den, the television quietly played some goofy comedy.

He shifted all his weight onto his crutch as I eased the door shut behind me. It didn't do any good to try to be quiet. Bethany padded down the hall in pink pajama bottoms and a Race for the Cure T-shirt. Her sleepy eyes popped open when she saw me. "Ellie!"

"I'm okay."

"What happened?" my brother said. I couldn't tell if he was mad or concerned.

"I had an accident. The car is okay."

Nate stood by the microwave, but Bethany hurried over to me and reached out to touch my face.

I flinched. "I need to shower."

I walked upstairs, but I heard Nate tell Bethany, "You need to go with her."

In the bathroom, I got a good look at myself.

Poor Nate and Bethany. I must have scared the shit out of them. I looked like I'd been run over by a truck. Dried blood of different shades caked my face and black grime creased my mouth. I could practically see my nose swelling and turning purple.

Bethany tapped on the door.

"Ellie, let me help you."

"I'm fine. Let me take a shower."

Her voice settled as she said, "I'm not leaving Ellie. Open up."

I opened the door at about the same instant Felicia peeked out of her bedroom over her mother's shoulder. Her smooth face crinkled. "Aunt Ellie..."

Her mother told her, "Go back to bed, Felicia," but the kid walked out of her room and stood beside her mother. They both stared wide-eyed at me.

Christ Almighty.

"Can I have a little privacy?" I snapped. "Look." I held up both hands and wiggled my fingers. "Everything works." As I said it, though, I saw fabric burns and abrasions on my palms. I put my hands down.

They both kept staring while I started to peel off my blouse. "I'm going to take a shower," I said, "and then we'll talk."

I closed the door on them and locked it.

They whispered as they walked away, and then Felicia's door closed and Bethany walked downstairs.

I turned on the shower and got undressed.

As the water blasted off the blood, the pain started. My face, my hands, my head. I didn't think my nose was broken, but I needed medicine and sleep. I needed to think.

I also, it occurred to me, needed to get the fuck out of Nate's house.

I didn't know how Junius Kluge had found me, but he knew who I was and where I was. Every second I stayed in this house, I put my brother and his family at risk.

I hurriedly cleaned myself and got out of the shower. In my room, I dressed in jeans, sneakers, and a black gimme shirt from some street fair. I threw some clothes in a small suitcase and ran downstairs.

Nate and Bethany had shut off the television and camped out at the kitchen table.

"I have to go," I told them.

Bethany stared down at her hands.

Nate stood up.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?"

"Nate …" Bethany grimaced.

His face flushed and he shook his head at me. "I don't get you. What do we have to do? We take you in and give you a home and a job and a family, and you stay out and come in at odd hours. And now somebody beat you up and you come home and say nothing happened? Are you … What is it? Are you on drugs?"

"No."

"Then what?"

Through tears, Bethany told me, "We just want to help you, Ellie."

"I know, sweetie," I told her. I turned to my brother. "I know you do, Nate. And I love you more than anyone else in the world."

We all heard movement upstairs when Felicia walked down the hall and sat at the top of the stairs. She hugged her knees. Her smooth face told us all that we shouldn't waste our breath telling her to go back to bed.

"I love all of you," I said. "But I screwed something up. It's my fault. I'm sorry. I want you all to know how sorry I am." My goddamn voice wobbled. I coughed to clear it. "I have to go. I'm not leaving town. I'll be in touch. I just need to get away from this house and from the people I love before I bring this mess into your lives."

Bethany started to say something, but Nate put his hand on her shoulder.

I didn't know what else to say. The less they knew, the better off they'd be. Aunt Ellie was a fuck up. That was enough information.

I walked to the door, opened it, and left without saying anything else.

"What makes you think I want you here?"

Jack peered out at me from her chained door.

"Because we're in this together."

"They gonna come here looking for you?"

"I don't know," I told her. "I honestly don't know."

She closed the door. I turned to walk back down her steps, but then the chain slid off and the door opened.

I walked inside her apartment, dark except for the spillover of light from her open bedroom door, and I sat on the sofa. Only when she walked into the room did I notice the gun in her hand.

"Shit," I said.

"I ain't answering my door in the middle of the night without protection," she said.

I nodded and leaned back in her cushions. Softness seemed to swallow me. I could have fallen asleep right then and there.

She sat down across from me and placed the gun on the table.

I sat up.

Nodding at the smallish black thing in front of her, I asked, "Glock?"

"19."

"Like it?"

"This ain't a gun shop. Tell me what happened."

"Couple of cops pulled me over on the side of a road a few miles from my brother's house. Put me in the back of their car, took me down the road, passed me off to Alexis's ex, Evan, in a moving truck. He threw me in the back of the truck and drove up to Connor County. The Ozark Poultry chicken plant. Took me in the room where they slice open chicken throats, and then Vin Colfax came in."

I paused to let it all sink in. Jack's face didn't flinch. She didn't need time to take anything in.

"We fought. He slammed my face in the floor and said he was going to fuck me up. We fought, and I killed him."

"How?"

"I choked him to death. I don't know what he expected out of me. Probably expected me to be scrappy, being a prison guard and all. But I don't think he knew what he was getting 'til he got it."

"You sure he's dead?"

"Yeah."

"Then what happened?"

"Then I snuck out. Stole his car. Went back to my car. Went home, showered."

"Anyone see you?"

"My family."

"You got a family?"

"Brother, his wife, their daughter and baby son."

Her face showed nothing for moment, then her mouth twisted to the side and she said, "Anything else?"

"I called Junius."

"What the fuck you do that for?"

"Because he knew what was going down. I wanted to get him to clean it up."

"What makes you think he'll do that?"

"Because it serves his interests to do that. He doesn't want the circumstances of Vin's death coming out. How's he going to explain me choking Vin to death in a chicken plant in the middle of nowhere?"

"What if you're wrong and he don't cover it up?"

"Then I'm fucked. But not nearly as bad as them. I don't see any reason for Junius and the governor to do anything but say that Vin hung himself, or died in a car wreck. Or whatever."

"When was all this?"

"It's been two or three hours now."

"So they already got his body. You left his car where they left your car?"

"Yes."

"So they'll look there first to get his car. If they do."

I nodded.

She shook her head. "Ellie Bennett."

"Yeah."

"Choked his ass to death, huh?"

"Motherfucker was trying to torture me."

"Now what?"

"Now I need to sleep."

"Not here."

"Jack …"

She shook her head. "Uh-uh, Bennett."

"I got nowhere else to go."

"Ain't my problem. You got a car?"

"Yes."

"Sleep in your car. Can't stay with me."

"I thought we were friends. You're going to put me out on the street."

She slid to the edge of the sofa and stabbed the coffee table with her forefinger. "No, we ain't friends. I go to the movies with my friends. I go clubbing with my friends. I have birthday parties with my friends. Me and you," she toggled her finger between us, "we business associates. We in some serious shit together. Alright. But you ain't showing up at my house at two in the morning and hiding out in my den while my baby sleeping."

"You have a kid?"

She stood up. "See what I mean? We ain't friends."

I stood up and said, "Fine. But can I have the Glock?"

She raised both eyebrows.

"I'm busted up," I said, "and I look like I just got gang raped. I killed the brother of the most powerful man in the state. And I'm about to go spend the night in my car."