Chapter 36
As soon as the black SUV appeared in the mirror mounted on the door, Tony lifted his head and, with one eye trained on the receding object, followed the car in front of him back to the highway. His heart began to return to a normal pace as the truck faded to a black dot and finally disappeared around a corner.
“Hell, that was too close,” he said and exhaled a loud sigh.
Rudy sat up again and looked at the map. “I think we’re coming up on the turn. Yeah look, the road sign.”
Tony signaled right and slowed to make the turn.
As he straightened the wheels on the narrow road, he said, “Now we’ve got to find a place to hide ‘til nightfall. It won’t be long before they discover the Ram and the body. Damn, I should have taken that bastard’s wallet.”
Tony sensed control had begun to slip away. So far, they had escaped capture by following his gut but this small mistake evidenced that the stress of the last three days had taken a toll on him. Without rest, he might lead the cops to his doorstep. With the wallet, the feds will discover the identity of the man and that’ll lead them to the Subaru. Even if he could find a place to sleep soon, the few hours between now and nightfall would be enough to take the edge off his weary mind.
*
Natalie knew none of this was her fault but she couldn’t shake the guilt. Tony showed no remorse for the people he had killed, so she grieved for the victims of his violence and for the families left to pick up the pieces. Four, possibly five people were dead because of her. One she killed in self-defense but the others were the unfortunate victims of her situation. She didn’t know anything about them, except for the last one.
He had a baby who rode in the infant seat next to her on the way to buy groceries or visit McDonald's. He or she would never know their daddy. There had to be another child as well as the child restraint seat was so small it had to be for an infant, yet on the back seat laid a coloring book and other toys too mature for a baby. Suddenly, two children had become fatherless and their mother didn’t know yet she’d have to raise them alone.
Natalie began to cry again, not for herself, but for the pain caused because of her. If she could do it over again, she’d have never left the cornfield, never moved to LA, never have changed her name from Amy Westerhill, and never said to that girl in the mirror, “Whatever it damn well takes.”
Faint, weak, and nauseous from lack of food and water, she searched her memory for the last thing she had consumed. She had taken water from the faucet in the gas station’s restroom over sixteen hours before. It certainly hadn’t been the most sanitary way to get fluids but, she knew if she didn’t find ways to hydrate, if she got the opportunity, she wouldn’t have the strength to escape. She could live without food as she often did to keep her slender figure but, except for the sandwich at the motel, she had been allowed nothing since her abduction more than two and a half days ago.
The bruises, bites, and abrasions on her body were too many to count. Over the last two days, they had become a dull painful reminder of the horror imposed on her and played continuously in the background. Every shift, every twist of her body as she tried to find a comfortable position, a state never achieved, brought with it an unwelcomed aching memory.
In the last few minutes, though, she had a new sensation, worse than the others. With the gag in her mouth, she had survived the day by breathing through her nose. Since Tony hit her in the face a few minutes ago, now she was sure it was broken. Blood clotted inside her nostrils. She couldn’t inhale enough oxygen to fill her lungs. They screamed for relief but were unsatisfied. Her head began to swirl in a black haze.
*
Agent Hawk continued to drive north toward a roadblock that had been erected. Darkness began to invade her like the damned of a thousand souls entwined her bowels. It grew more intense with each mile. The adrenaline rush had faded to a fear that once again, they had slipped past her.
Her suspicions were confirmed when a report came over her radio that the burgundy Dodge Ram never came through the roadblock. Ten minutes from the manned barricade, she called the Washington State Patrol and asked them to stand by until she arrived.
*
“There,” Rudy said as they came over a small rise on the country road. His right arm and index finger pointed to the left.
Tony followed his gesture and saw an old barn set back a couple of hundred yards. From its dilapidated condition, it appeared to be abandoned. At the eaves of the barn, stands of trees and wild berry vines of various genera grew untended. The vines had grown long enough they covered some of the roof. The only side not overgrown completely was the front. The walls leaned to one side and Tony worried a strong wind might topple the building—with luck, not today. Today they had no choice. Today they had to find cover for themselves and the Subaru.
Unlike SR 21, no traffic traveled this road, so without watchful eyes, Tony steered the car across the open ground toward the decayed structure. The rain that had come a few minutes before had obscured any evidence of car or tractor presence near the barn and he hoped the threatening sky would deliver again to wash the proof of their arrival away as well. Tony stopped a few feet back from the door to the barn.
Rudy got out of the Subaru. The barn door was large enough to drive the car through with ease and it stood ajar. Through the windshield Tony watched Rudy try to pull it out of the way. It didn’t budge. With the building teetering to one side, it had forced the bottom edge of the door into the ground.
Tony jumped out to help but, with both of them pulling and pushing, it still didn’t yield. Frantic wasn’t an emotion he often experienced but it began to mount now. At any minute the law might come over the rise and then it’d be over. He didn’t have enough bullets for a standoff and had no intention of suicide by cop. That’d thwart his plan for Ma’s absolution. No, they had to get under cover now.
As the dappled clouds had folded gray upon gray patterns in the afternoon sky, they now began to wring the rain out once more. Tony slipped around the barn door and ducked inside.
*
Angela Hawk arrived at the roadblock set up south of West Fork just as the Mulden’s RAV4 pulled back onto the highway. She left the engine running and stepped from her government issue SUV. A patrolman with a yellow rain slicker over his back and shoulders approached. “I’m Special Agent Angela Hawk, FBI,” she said.
“Patrolman Samuel Jenkins,” he replied and extended his hand. The Washington State Patrolman had first spotted the Dodge Ram and he had just finished an interview with the Muldens. “We may have gotten a break.”
Angela took his hand and said. “Let’s have it.”
“The men and the truck were spotted about fifteen minutes south of here on Magillian Road,” he said and released her hand. “It appears they were trying to commandeer a new vehicle.
“We have a cooperative agreement,” he continued, “with the US Border Patrol and they have a bird on its way but it won’t arrive for a few more minutes.”
“We don’t have time to wait. Direct it to the last known site, please. I’m heading that way now.”
“If it’s just the same to you, I’d like to lend a hand.”
“Happy for the assist,” she said. “Bring some of the troopers with you, too, but let’s keep enough here to continue with the roadblock. We don’t want the fox to slip through a hole in the back fence. Why don’t you gather them around?”
Samuel spoke with two Ferry County sheriff’s deputies who manned the roadblock. When he finished with them, he gave a loud whistle and swung his hand over his head in a circle a couple of times. The officers caught the sign and gathered on the southbound side of the highway.
“Good afternoon. My name is Special Agent Angela Hawk. Yes, I’m FBI. Obviously, we’re doing more than looking for a stolen pickup truck. I want to give you a quick briefing as we’re on a severe tick-tock and we’ll be running out of daylight in the next few hours.
“We’re looking for two men and a teenage woman. We’ve reason to believe the girl was abducted and raped in Los Angeles three days ago. We also know as of last night, she was still alive. Our goal is to keep her that way. Originally, there were three abductors but one of them was found today shot and killed. In addition, they’re wanted for questioning in two states on counts of murder and armed robbery. These are some real bad boys, here. Reports are they’re headed for Canada and we need to stop them before they get across the border.
“We now know the location of the men as of twenty minutes ago, a mile or two east of the highway on Magillian Road, and we’re on our way to pick up their trail. If you can mount up, you are welcome to join us. Just remember, they are armed and very dangerous, so if you find them, don’t approach without back up.”
No sooner had she finished than the men and women officers of the State Patrol and county sheriff, were back in the cruisers. Some made U-turns and others headed straight, each unit, though, traveled south in a loud cacophony of sirens and whirring strobe lights.
She watched for a moment as travelers swerved off the road onto the soft shoulders in both north and southbound lanes to let the procession pass. Then, she mounted her black beauty and joined the chase.
*
Tony found a coil of half-inch jute rope inside the barn and a steel dirt rake with a handle broken to a nub. He hoped the rope would be heavy enough and gave it a quick inspection looking for its weakest point where it might be rotted through. Not finding any, he tied the rope to the rake’s frame and with Rudy’s help, secured it to the front bumper of the old Subaru. After he got back into the driver’s seat, Tony shifted the transmission into reverse and eased his foot on the accelerator. Rudy meanwhile held the tines of the rake against the inside of the door frame. After the slack in the rope tightened, the door inched open.
As the door moved, however, Tony saw the barn began to list even further. The door had been supporting the structure’s weight. Tony watched with a wary eye. He didn’t want to be trapped under the debris of the fallen building but, as he continued to ease backward, he saw that, once the door came free from the ground, the barn stopped collapsing. Relief swept over him like a hot shower. The opening now wide enough to let the car pass through, he applied the brakes.
Rudy hurried to untie the rope from the front bumper and then held the door open wide enough for Tony to drive through. Then, Rudy tied the rope to the rear bumper and guided Tony as the car pulled the door shut.
The inside of the barn was illumined by shafts of daylight that streamed through plentiful holes in the roof but Tony left the headlights burning while he looked around. The barn had been abandoned for several years. The lights caught some movement on the back wall and he recognized this was home to field varmints. They didn’t bother him. This’d make do until after sunset. On the right side of the barn, a loft that still had some hay rose more than a dozen feet from the floor. It might make a comfortable place to stretch out for a while. At about halfway, a ladder spanned the distance between the dirt and the loft’s wooden frame. He couldn’t tell if the rungs would support the weight of a grown man after years of neglect but he could test it later.
The left side of the barn held the remains of a couple of corrals on the ground floor. One of them had a gate still intact, swung to an open position. The other’s gate lay on the dirt floor. The wooden four-by-four support post long ago gave up the battle with decay and released the screws that had held it and the gate together. Of the two corrals, this one had a large pile of hay stacked against the back wall of the barn. The barn’s dirt floor was strewn with debris and patches of moss grew beneath the holes in the roof. The rest of the barn stood empty except for the stench of dried manure, hay, and mildew in the air. The rhythm of large raindrops drummed a soothing rhythm on the frail roof.
*
Rudy had been worried about Natalie as he hadn’t heard her rustle in the backseat for several minutes. As soon as their hiding place was secure, he dropped the rope and rake head and ran to the back door of the Subaru. He opened it and gasped. Natalie lay motionless. No rise or fall in her chest and the blond hair that fell over her face draped untouched by breath.