Maybe I should have kept my mouth shut. He came to an abrupt stop a foot away from my nose. I had a close-up view of his boots, scuffed up cowboy boots with sharply-pointed toes.
"In that case, you're gonna pay. You're gonna wish you'd never been born."
He leaned over, and I felt his breath on my hair. "As a matter of fact, by mornin', you're gonna be in so much pain, you'll be beggin' me to put you down."
Robby laughed.
I closed my eyes and swallowed.
Harrison grabbed my arm, clenched his fingers in my hair, and yanked me to my feet. I could see the knife then. The blade was easily four inches long, a hunting knife.
"If you kill me, it'll be harder for you," I said and hated the tremor I heard in my voice.
"Awh… now he's worried about me. Better worry about yourself, you little shit. Where," he waved his arm, "where are they, huh? I don't see no cops round here."
He turned toward his brother. "They don't have squat."
"They know you're Drake's cousin," I said, "and Timbrook's brother-in-law and that T amp;T Industries has been wanting to buy Foxdale and-"
Harrison snatched the front of my shirt and shoved me against the wall. "It's all your fault."
I didn't say anything, and after a moment, he said, "Beg, damn it. Beg for your miserable life."
The faucet dripped into the lengthening silence.
Harrison looked over his shoulder. "You have something to soften him up, don't you, Robby?"
Robby had been watching us with about as much emotion as I would have expected if we'd been discussing a hay shipment.
Harrison yanked me off the wall and shoved me down the aisle toward the back of the room. He turned me to face the last stall.
"Kneel."
Oh, God. It can't be- I thought back to the guard's phone call. Why had I assumed it was him.
I stiffened.
"Kneel down," Harrison screamed. His words echoed in the tiny room.
He kicked the back of my knee and pushed down on my shoulders, forcing me onto my knees. In my peripheral vision, I saw the knife in his right hand, his fingers curled loosely around the handle.
"Robby, open the door."
A slow smile spread across Robby's face. His eyes were curiously blank as he watched my face. He pushed back the stall door.
The security guard was slumped in the narrow space between the wall and toilet.
I swallowed and clenched my teeth.
His throat had been cut, and his head hung at an angle that could only be achieved in death. His eyes were open, staring without sight at the top ledge of the door frame. The stall walls above him and to his left were streaked with a spray of blood.
Bastards.
Movement caught my eye. Every muscle in my body tensed. Something crawled across the glistening white cartilage where his trachea had been severed. A blowfly. Another crawled along his uniform's sharply-creased collar. Others buzzed above our heads and bumped against the ceiling. Saliva flooded my mouth.
Fucking bastards! A scream in my mind.
Harrison grabbed my hair and pulled my head back so that I had to look. I closed my eyes, but it didn't make any difference. I could see him clearly in my mind, every detail.
That was it. What I'd missed. The guard wasn't a horseman. He wouldn't have known that the riding area in barn B was called an arena. It had been Harrison or Robby on the phone, not the guard.
I wondered how he'd felt when they'd marched him in here and thought I already knew. My stomach heaved. I swallowed hard and tasted bile at the back of my throat.
"Johnny," Robby said, "his eyes are closed. Think he's asleep?"
"Let's wake him up." Harrison leaned into me and placed the knife under my ear. "This is how Robby did it." He drew the blade across my throat. "Just like that. Shit, Cline, you're shaking so much, you made me cut you." He chuckled. "Next time it's gonna go all the way in, got it?"
"I think he's got it," Robby said.
Harrison pulled me to my feet and shoved me against the wall. He stuck the point of the knife under my chin and squinted at my face.
I forced myself to hold his gaze.
"Say something, damn it."
"Fuck you."
He pushed the knife in deeper, and I had nowhere to go. I think he would have killed me then and there. It was certainly in his eyes. But Robby yelled, "Don't kill him, Johnny. Not yet. We run into the cops, we can use him."
Harrison eased up on the knife.
More blood trickled down my neck.
After a moment, Robby said, "Come on, Johnny. We gotta get outta here."
Harrison wiped his knife off on my shirt and slid it into a sheath on his belt. He reached into his waistband, pulled out the gun, and casually aimed it at my chest. "Don't try anything, Cline."
Robby grabbed hold of my arm and steered me toward the door.
"Robby," Harrison said, "move over. You're blocking my aim. You-"
I swung round in front of Robby, kneed him in the balls, and wrenched free of his grasp. I bolted for the door.
Rich was outside, but I didn't give a shit. I was getting out of there.
As I twisted around to get hold of the door handle, Harrison slammed into me. I hit the wall so hard, my teeth rattled.
"Nice try, Cline." He gripped my chin and turned my face toward his. "But you're not gettin' outta this. Not until I put you in the ground." He shoved my face sideways. "And it ain't gonna be no easy trip, is it Robby?"
Robby grinned, though he was no longer standing upright. "Not for him, it ain't."
"You know," Harrison said, "he's gonna be fun the way he don't wanna give in."
My skin prickled.
He held the gun to my head and waved me outside. Rich spun around at the sound of the door opening.
It had stopped raining. As I stepped onto the sidewalk, it seemed as if time had become suspended, and I was overcome with a feeling of disbelief.
As we turned toward the barns, Robby screeched, "Rich, you stupid sonofabitch! All the time we were in there, and you couldn't think to turn off the lights?"
"But John told me to be a lookout," Rich whined.
"What?" Harrison said. "You couldn't watch the road and turn off the lights?" He shoved me toward the barn. "Jesus Christ. Put out a neon sign, why don't ya? Send out engraved invitations. Before you know it, everybody and his brother'll be down here."
Harrison yanked on my arm, and I stumbled. Rich followed alongside, glancing nervously from Harrison to Robby. He wasn't afraid for me, though. He couldn't care less. His only concern was for his own hide. We walked into the barn aisle and stopped in front of the feed room.
"Go turn off the lights," Robby said.
Rich ran down the lane. The lights went out in aisle two, and he was back in less than half a minute. "Come on, John," his voice was high-pitched, "we gotta get outta here. We've been here way too long and-"
"Shut up," Harrison said. "I'm sick of your sniveling and whining. You should take a lesson from Cline, here. He's gonna be dead soon, and he ain't whining like you." He turned to face me. "Ain't that right, boy?"
I stared at him with what I hoped was an expression devoid of emotion. The longer we were on the farm, the greater the chance someone would realize that something was wrong.
Harrison pulled me into him, then slammed me against the feed room wall. "I want to hear you beg, damn it."
"No."
He leaned into me. His facial muscles were stretched tight, and a fine sheen of sweat coated his skin.
"You will, you know." A thought moved in his eyes, and he smiled. "After you're dead and buried, I'll go visit that cute, little honey of yours. Make her feel better."
Robby laughed.
I felt the blood drain from my face. I pushed against him. "You bastard!"
He swung the gun up hard and fast and broadsided me. I sagged against the wall and closed my eyes. Pain coursed through my head and settled in my eye. I heard a clicking sound-metal against metal-and instinctively knew what it was. I held my breath and opened my eyes. He was holding the gun in front of my nose, and the hammer was cocked.