Chapter 40
With Washington State Patrolman Samuel Jenkins stationed at the recent widow’s house until Yolanda’s mother could arrive, Angela had returned to her black SUV and phoned in the APB for the Subaru.
Now, hours later, no new leads had surfaced. Like a poltergeist, the evidence that something had happened was obvious, but the doer of the carnage vanished as steam dissipates into warm air. The pull of their presence surrounded her but she was unable to pinpoint the actual direction it tugged. She had driven every country road between ground zero, the scene of Jose` Osorio’s murder four and half hours ago, and the junction where the roadblock, just south of West Fork, was still being enforced. She had turned up no clues. Finally, fatigued and frustrated, she had drifted back to Magillian Road again. The investigation at the sight was winding up as daylight faded, so she closed her eyes.
*
Natalie’s eyes moved and Tony read her thoughts. She lunged for the gun. He stepped back and her fingertip brushed across the grip.
“So you still want to play games? I’ve got one for you.”
Tony pulled the gun from his belt and aimed it at Rudy. He walked over in front of him. “Get over here,” he shouted at Natalie.
“What are you doing?” Rudy screamed. The tension made his voice crack as if he had just entered puberty.
As Tony had ordered, Rudy had sat next to the post that had been his companion for the last several hours. While the argument between Tony and Natalie escalated, he just wanted her to stop. He didn’t know why she intentionally provoked Tony. His family history was nothing more than a prod to antagonize Tony. Was she working some kind of angle? Was she trying to draw him in close enough so she could attack? Was there anything he should be doing to help her? Was she going to give him a signal?
Now, as he looked into the dark abyss at the end of the silver barrel pointed at his forehead, he recognized this had been Natalie’s prediction. His short life had come to this dreadful vision. Their escape in Canada was a fantasy never to be fulfilled. His last breath would be pleading for his life.
*
“Get over here, Whore.” Tony pulled the hammer back and the cylinder rotated into position.
Natalie watched. She didn’t have feelings for Rudy but didn’t want another death on her account. She also didn’t want to be alone with the monster with the gun. She stepped around the fire.
The white nylon rope that had been used to hogtie Natalie lay beside Rudy. Tony kicked it toward her. “Tie him up, tight.”
If she obeyed, it might buy a few more minutes. Her plan to drive away had failed. She needed time for another opportunity to present itself. Since she missed the gun, Tony now used it to heighten his authority.
She stepped toward the two men and picked up the rope.
“Tie him to the post.”
*
Rudy looked past the muzzle of the revolver and hoped he had escaped execution for the moment. He watched as Natalie circled behind him. The rope felt snug as she looped it around his arms and chest several times. Disappointment settled over him. If she had a plan, she had been unable to execute it.
*
“Around his neck too,” Tony demanded.
Natalie thought that to be cruel and looked up at the demonic figure shadowed in the firelight. Tony pointed the gun at her. She could do nothing but comply or die. She looped the rope around his neck.
“Again!”
She looped it again and looked toward Tony for approval.
“Now, tie it tight.”
“That’ll choke him.”
“Only if he moves.”
She cinched the rope tight and tied two overhand knots behind the post.
“Move back inside the corral, bitch.”
Natalie stepped around the two men and stood in the five-foot gap between Rudy and the fire. Oblivious to the warmth it produced, her sole concentration focused on the terrorist with the gun.
“Are you ready for the game?” Tony asked. “How ‘bout Russian Roulette.”
“No!” she shouted.
“What the hell?” Rudy screamed.
“Oh yes and we’ll all get a turn . . . well, except for lover boy, here. I’ll have to take your turn for you since you’re tied up.” His sardonic laughter filled the barn and hopelessness permeated the stagnant air. “Here is how it works. Rather than point the gun at our own head, we’ll point it at each other’s. The way I figure it, there’s only one slug left, so I’ll spin the wheel of fortune and then we’ll see who wins and who loses.”
Tony pointed the pistol into the air and released the hammer. He lowered it again and pointed it at Rudy. With the fingers of his left hand, he spun the cylinder.
Natalie’s tears dammed behind her eyes and choked her throat. “No . . . please don’t, Tony.”
“You’re the one who wanted to play games,” he said then looked toward Rudy. “Well loverboy, this could be the end of your relationship with the whore.”
“Tony, please don’t shoot me,” Rudy shouted with a pathetic whine. He turned his head away from the revolver.
Natalie stared, though, as Tony’s index finger massaged the trigger.
“Don’t,” Natalie demanded. “You don’t have to kill anyone else.”
Tony looked at her with a leer and then turned back to Rudy. He flexed his finger and the hammer clicked on an empty chamber.
Rudy turned his head back toward Tony and blew out a forceful sigh.
Natalie wasn’t sure if this was good news or not. If the gun had gone off and only one bullet did remain, this brought her to a more equal footing in Tony’s game. When no explosion erupted, however, it had to continue.
“Damn, nothing there. Must be your lucky day. Now it’s your turn lover boy.”
Tony pointed the gun at Natalie.
“But I’d aim the gun at you,” Rudy said.
“Of course you would, cocksucker. But as I said, I’m taking your turn and I choose the whore.”
Natalie’s heart crawled up her throat. At the very least, if the gun fired it signaled the end of his abuse; no more threats of rape, no more brutality. She wanted it to be over but she didn’t want to die. She recognized the look in Tony’s eyes. She had seen it in the motel room. His soul had vanished and his hazel eyes had turned fridged with the vacant look of a murderer—a psychopath.
“On your knees. Plead for your life.”
“Damn it, Tony, leave her alone,” Rudy screamed.
Tony turned the gun back toward Rudy and squeezed the trigger once again. Click. The hammer fell on another empty chamber.
Rudy gasped.
“Shut the hell up or I’ll do it for you.”
He aimed the gun at Natalie again. “On your knees.”
“I’m not giving you the satisfaction. If I die, I’ll die standing not begging.”
“Have it your way. Let’s see, I’ve pulled the trigger twice and haven’t found the slug. That means you have a three out of four chance of living through this. Not bad odds but, you know what they say, the house always wins.”
He stepped toward Natalie and put the muzzle of the gun between her blond eyebrows.
The steel chilled her flesh and she remembered how it had felt when he thrust it inside her in the warehouse. Against her will, her eyes closed.
“Can’t watch this, huh? So, you’re just another damn sniveling coward.”
She forced her eyes open again and looked straight into his. The fear that had arisen, she fed to rage. “That better?” she screamed.
“You have no idea what it’s like to watch the light go out in someone’s eyes. There’s no feeling like it.”
“I’ve seen the light go out in yours more than once but somehow you keep drawing breath.”
She looked at his forefinger as it slipped over the trigger and then turned her eyes back to his. “I hate you,” she continued, yet her tone remained as matter-of-fact as if she was reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.
“I know. That’s what makes this so much damn fun.”
She sensed the contraction of his finger but continued to look into his eyes. To run away wouldn’t improve her chances as he’d still have the gun with the one bullet left he had promised for her brain. She decided to stand her ground. If she survived the next few seconds, her turn was next.
The hammer moved and the cylinders rotated as she saw Tony squeeze the trigger. When she heard the metallic click, her heart slid into her stomach and she exhaled the bitter taste of tension.
“Damn, your still here.”
“Stop this shit,” Rudy yelled.
“Why? Now it’s the whore’s turn and there’s a one in three chance she’ll take me out.
*
Tony stared at Natalie. Her face still revealed no fear and yet the hatred he had seen before had been eclipsed by something unexpected—something disappointing. He had driven her over the last three days to the brink of Hell’s shore and tormented her far beyond anyone he had faced before. Now her time to settle the debt, to give recompense for his brutality, was at hand. Yet the look on her countenance showed hesitation.
“You can’t do this can you?” he asked. “You can’t pull the trigger on this jackal after all I’ve done to you. You wanted the gun before, now I’m ready to hand it to you, yet you don’t think you can do it.”
*
Natalie wasn’t sure she could. It had been easier with Hank. It had been self-defense. He came at her with assault and rape in his eye. This was different, though. To take the life of an unarmed man, no matter how repulsive or threatening, felt like murder. At that moment he’d pose no threat. Yet, this was the way out . . . maybe the only way out. If she killed him, it’d be over. Rudy would go to prison, yes, for a while, but they’d survive.
“Why don’t you give me the gun and let’s find out,” she said.
“Damn Rudy, she just grew a set of titanium balls.” He turned the gun, grabbed the nickel-plated barrel, and held the handle out to her. “Like I said, we all get a turn.”
Natalie took the Python. It was heavy. She remembered when she first grabbed the pistol, before she shot Hank, it filled her hands. After it had exploded, the force of the blast had knocked her backward into the bumper of the old sedan and she had lost control of the revolver.
Not this time. She rested the muzzle on his tweed jacket right over Tony’s stone heart.
She looked into the gargoyle face in front of her and without hesitation pulled the trigger.