The Victim (64 page)

A husky fellow with jowls like an English bulldog manned the desk. Bryan approached. Three inches of bulletproof glass stood between them. The surface was dull, crisscrossed with white nicks and grooves, the byproduct of a thousand disputes over impound fees.

“
Boxster,” Bryan said. “Yellow.”

The husky bulldog punched an adding machine. A receipt sputtered out. He ripped it off and slipped it through the slot.

$5,643.

Bryan slapped down his AmEx, grabbed the keys, and drove off.

He navigated the familiar streets, turning onto his quiet cul-de-sac, deep in the banyan-shaded serenity of Coconut Grove. He punched his code on the keypad and the wrought-iron security gate creaked open.

He drove up the long driveway, pulling beneath the portico of his six thousand-square-foot Mediterranean-style home. The grounds were well manicured, the grass cut, trees trimmed, shrubs tightly cropped.

He unlocked the rustic teak front door and stepped inside, expecting to be hit by the staleness of two months of uninhabited space. The house smelled freshly cleaned. The hardwood floor gleamed in the ambient light filtering in through the drawn curtains. He walked over to the bay window in the kitchen. The pool shimmied with the breeze, throwing off diamond flashes of sun. No coating of fallen leaves. The waterfall dribbled down the faux rocks from the jacuzzi.

All was well, even in his absence. The gardeners kept coming. The housekeeper checked in weekly. Even the pool man. Odd, he thought, how easily life could go on without him.

Two months’ worth of mail covered the kitchen table. He opened the giant stainless steel built-in fridge and saw that nearly all of the expired food had been dutifully thrown away. Nothing left except for a box of baking soda, a half-finished bottle of Riesling in the door compartment, and five cans left in a six-pack of Miller Light. He yanked off a beer and popped the top. That first cold sip was the best thing he had tasted in months.

He fell into the leather sofa and kicked his feet up on the ottoman. He pulled off his shoes, balled up his socks. He stared at his left foot. That nub of pinkish skin where his little and ring toes used to be, smoothed over time like a worn-down edge. The last time he had seen them they were black, withered with gangrene. The result of trekking through six inches of muddy snowmelt, the air temperature just above freezing, the icy muck seeping through his torn boots.

Eight hours into a hike with an eighty-pound pack strapped to his back, he remembered alerting a counselor to his condition, which was immediately followed by a cup-handed slap on the ear, so hard he heard ringing for days.

Shut up, pussy! Your rich daddy ain’t here to get you outta this now is he?

He was nineteen the first time his father had shown him the brochure for Miles of Mountains.

This is exactly what you need, son,
the old man had told him, seated beside him on the couch, hunched over the glossy pages, fanned out across the coffee table. His breath was hot, Maker’s Mark strong. Crazed optimism burned in his eyes.
This is going to be the right thing for you, Bry.
He clapped him twice on the knee, real
attaboy
.
You do it this fall and then you can continue school in the spring. It’s my dollar, son. I’m sick and tired of bailing you out of your messes. I’m not gonna keep paying for college unless you agree to do this.
He nodded, approving his own parental logic.
This is gonna make a man of you.

He wasn’t a child so technically his participation was voluntary. His father didn’t have the legal authority to sign him away. Bryan had to do it himself.

Nearly twelve years had passed since that morning when two massive men in tight shirts and black knit caps stormed into his bedroom at six a.m., stuck a pillowcase over his head, and bound his hands with FlexCuffs. They dragged him down the hallway in nothing but his boxers, his screams unheard or ignored by his parents. They carried him outside into the cold morning, opened the double doors of a Ford E-Series van, and tossed him in the back like a sack of flour.

Horror stories of ransom kidnappings played out in his mind as the van bounced and rattled along the road. Had his father gotten into some shady business dealings with the wrong people? His body trembled with involuntary fervor, hot urine spreading across the front of his boxer shorts, trickling down his thigh, pooling at his hip. He vomited in the pillowcase.

Surely this wasn’t that wilderness camp, the brochure depicting big-smiling, able-bodied young men and women, high-stepping rocks in picturesque valleys, arms outstretched, aided by the empathetic counselors whose mission was summed up in the tagline.

Preparing at-risk youth for the miles of mountains of life…

It wasn’t until hours later, when the plane landed in Flagstaff, that he put it all together.

Bryan leaned his head back into the cushion, sucking down a sip of beer. He remembered the first time he saw her. The nights she snuck into his tent so he could hold her shivering body. The shame he felt that he couldn’t have done more to protect her from those sadistic monsters still festered within him, even a dozen years later.

He remembered the night they left. Lola, Kelsie, Evan. And about six others whose names he couldn’t recall. Bryan was the oldest, thereby the de facto leader. They hiked through the Coconino National Forest, the frostbite having risen to fourth-degree tissue damage. His two dead toes shriveled, ashen, like burnt pieces of charcoal. He carried her, fireman style, across his shoulders, trudging through the thick mud, needles of sunlight poking occasional holes in the jagged canopy of bristlecone pines.

The latest beating had her nearly motionless, her jaw limply unhinged, swollen, no doubt broken. Anger stabbed at him like a knife to the ribs. He imagined himself snapping the necks of the men who had done it. But what was he to do? He was a skinny nineteen-year-old kid. A lot of the counselors were ex-military, survival experts. Former Marines and Special Forces.

Hours upon hours of trekking aimlessly through dense forest, they stumbled out onto the highway, where one group stayed behind to flag down the first available police car; he carried her to that urgent care center, Kelsie and Evan coming along. The two of them had hit it off, their childhoods spent in foster homes and juvenile facilities forging a bond that Bryan couldn’t understand. His childhood had been precisely the opposite. Ironic, he thought, that they ended up in the same place.

Lola’s broken jaw probably should have been wired shut. After some meds for the swelling and the recommendation of a liquid diet, the urgent care center discharged her.

“
When it heals your face’ll never look the same,” he had told her.

She smiled. “Good.”

Bryan never saw the six they had left behind on the side of the highway. He had only heard that the police had sent search teams into the mountains to locate the rest of them. When the story hit the news, his father booked him a flight home. By this point the four of them had been wandering around the Flagstaff area for two, three weeks, having run into two dudes Bryan wasn’t sure about. Meth heads, both of them. One an ex-SEAL with whom Lola seemed to feel some strange level of comfort. A Stockholm syndrome of sorts, drawing parallels between the older man and his younger counterparts, those who had spent the last three months beating and torturing her.

On the morning he had to fly back to Miami, he begged her to come. She had nowhere to go. He didn’t want her traveling around the state, not with these guys. Wasn’t one of them a sex offender?

“
Trust me,” she told him, planting a soft kiss on his lips. “This is all part of the plan.”

He trusted her with the blind faith of a born-again zealot.

She knew.

She always knew.

When Kelsie and Evan died he knew that her plans would be derailed, but then again, were they? When she contacted him years later, he had to convince himself this was really happening. He knew she was still alive, but figured she’d be living somewhere off the grid. But when she walked back into his life, she had another plan.

“
Trust me,” she told him for the second time. “This time it’s for them.”

How beautifully she had crafted everything. Without questioning one word, he followed her instructions to a tee.

And it worked.

Bryan reached into his pocket and placed the digital recorder on the ottoman. It was a slim Sony model, about five inches long, no thicker than a magazine. It had only cost him $10,000, deposited into a bank account in the Lesser Antilles, set up for the benefit of a corrections officer who was interested in supplemental sources of income. The CO had even let Bryan make the call to the accountant on a private employees-only line, not subject to the recording requirements of inmate calls. For a nominal fee, the accountant asked no questions, opened the account, and handled the wire transfer.

Three days later, the CO brought Bryan the recorder, out of its Radio Shack box, tucked into his freshly laundered bedroll. Bryan slipped the narrow device inside his underwear and acted casual during the routine pat-downs he received on his way in and out of the courtroom. Under the cover of the defense table he was able to wiggle his fingers down his pants, hide the recorder in his hand, fingers curled around it with his free hand resting on top. Enough space between his ringed thumb and forefinger so not to obstruct the microphone.

He pressed
play
and turned up the volume.

“
Before we begin, I believe that I have a duty to read Mr. Mackey his Miranda rights, given the fact that he has indicated that his testimony is going to incriminate him…”

Bryan smiled, finished the last of his beer.

He got up and walked over to the laptop on the kitchen counter. He turned it on and opened Google. He entered the search parameters and the website came up. He grabbed a letter-sized envelope from the junk drawer, scribbled down the address of the Gila County Sheriff’s Office, and liberally applied some stamps. He dropped the recorder in the envelope and licked the seal.

He figured they might be interested in it.

The house phone rang. He picked it up, checking the time on the microwave. Prompt, as always.

“
Hey baby,” he said, already knowing who it would be. His cheeks spread in a wide smile. “I know, I know. I’ve missed you, too. How’s our girl?” He checked the time again. “The ticket’s been emailed? Yeah, that’s fine; I can just download the boarding pass on my phone. Passport’s in my desk drawer. Uh huh. Got it. Okay. Well, let’s keep it low-pro for now. You know where to meet me. Okay. You too, baby girl. I love you. Bye.”

He slapped the cordless phone into its cradle and collected his passport from the desk drawer in his downstairs office.

He thought of the white sand beaches of a nation with whom the US had no extradition treaty.

He packed no bags. He needed nothing. Why bring anything resembling his old life? They were starting a new one together, long overdue. Bryan. Lola. And their new baby, Charlotte.

He grabbed his keys and cell phone and walked out the door, dropping the letter into the mailbox before getting into his car.

CHAPTER 76

She watched the Boxster pull out of the driveway, staying back a good three car lengths as he turned right onto the street. He stepped on it, the engine humming like a buzz saw. Her Camry couldn’t match its acceleration but she was able to keep him in her sights.

It had been all over the news. Speculation that the attorney had testified. Confirmation that his charges were then dismissed.

God bless the Internet
, she thought. Instant information, not to mention a Zillow listing providing his address.

Of course he would come home. He hadn’t been there in months.

He stopped at the light at US 1. She noted his eyes in the rearview.
Nervous fucker, isn’t he? What does he have to hide?

The light changed and he tore left, driving with the unabashed impunity that seems to accompany men who drive sports cars.