I dropped to the ground.
He may have hit me with the bat again. I don’t know. My eyes rolled back, and I was gone.
Chapter 21
First thing when I woke up: pain.
That was all I could think of: massive, all-consuming pain and how to lessen it. It felt as though my skull had been shattered, that tiny fragments of bone were loose, that their jagged edges were ripping through my most sensitive brain tissue.
I moved my head slightly to the side, but that just made those jagged edges angrier. I stopped, blinked my eyes, blinked them again in an attempt to open them, gave up.
“He’s awake.”
The voice belonged to Cookie. I tried once more to pry my eyes open. I almost used my fingers against my eyelids. I swam past the hurt. It took a few seconds, but I finally got there. It took a few more seconds to focus and start to take in my new surroundings.
I wasn’t outside anymore.
That much was for certain. I looked up at the exposed wooden beams of a roof. I also wasn’t in Cookie’s house. She had a one-level ranch. This looked more like a barn or old farmhouse. There was a wooden floor underneath me, not dirt, so I ruled out the barn.
Cookie was there. So was Denise. Beardy came over and looked down at me with pure, unfiltered hatred. I had no idea why. I saw a second man standing by a door to my left. A third man sat in front of a computer screen. I didn’t recognize either of them.
Beardy waited, glaring down at me. He probably thought that I would say something obvious like, “Where am I?” I didn’t. I used the time to calm myself and try to gather my thoughts.
I had no idea what was going on.
I kept my eyes moving, trying to get a sense of the room. I searched for an escape route. I saw one door and three windows, all closed. The door was guarded too. I remembered that at least one of them was armed with a gun.
I needed to be patient.
“Talk,” Beardy said to me.
I didn’t. He kicked me in the ribs. I let out a groan, but I didn’t move.
“Jed,” Cookie said, “don’t.”
Beardy Jed stared down at me. There was rage behind his eyes. “How did you find Todd?”
That threw me. I don’t know what I’d expected him to ask, but it wasn’t that. “What?”
“You heard me,” Jed said. “How did you find Todd?”
My head was swimming. I didn’t see where a lie here would help me, so I went with the truth. “His obituary.”
Jed looked at Cookie. Now I saw confusion on their faces.
“I saw his obituary,” I continued. “It was on the college website. That’s how I got to his funeral.”
Jed wound up to kick me again, but Cookie stopped him with a shake of her head. “I’m not talking about that,” Jed spat. “I’m talking about before.”
“What before?”
“Don’t play dumb. How did you find Todd?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.
The rage behind his eyes exploded. He pulled out the gun and pointed it at me. “You’re lying.”
I said nothing.
Cookie moved closer to him. “Jed?”
“Back off,” he snapped. “You know what he did? Do you?”
She nodded and did as she was asked. I stayed perfectly still.
“Talk,” he said to me again.
“I don’t know what you want me to say.”
I glanced at the guy sitting by the computer. He looked scared. So did the guy by the door. I thought back to Bob and Otto. They hadn’t looked scared. They looked ready and experienced. These guys didn’t. I wasn’t sure what, if anything, that meant, except that either way, I was in huge trouble.
“One more time,” Jed began through gritted teeth. “How did you find Todd?”
“I already told you.”
“You killed him!” Jed shouted.
“What? No!”
Jed dropped to his knees and put the muzzle of the gun against my temple. I closed my eyes and waited for the blast. He moved his lips close to my ear.
“If you lie again,” he whispered, “I will kill you right here and now.”
Cookie: “Jed?”
“Shut up!”
He pressed the muzzle hard enough against my temple to leave an indentation. “Talk.”
“I didn’t…” His eyes told me that another denial would seal my fate. “Why would I kill him?”
“You tell us,” Jed said. “But first I want to know how you found him.”
Jed’s hand was shaking, the muzzle jangling against my temple. His spittle was getting tangled up in his beard. My pain was gone now, replaced by naked fear. Jed wanted to pull that trigger. He wanted to kill me.
“I told you how,” I said. “Please. Listen to me.”
“You’re lying!”
“I’m not-”
“You tortured him, but he wouldn’t talk. Todd couldn’t help you anyway. He didn’t know. He was just helpless and brave, and you, you bastard…”
I was seconds from death. I could hear the torment in his voice and knew that he wouldn’t listen to reason. I had to do something, had to risk going for the gun, but I was flat on my back. Any move would take too long.
“I never hurt him, I swear.”
“And I guess you’ll also tell us you didn’t visit his widow today.”
“No, I did,” I said quickly, happy to agree with him.
“But she didn’t know anything either, did she?”
“Know about what?”
Again the muzzle dug in a little deeper. “Why did you go down to talk to the widow?”
I met his eye. “You know why,” I said.
“What were you looking for?”
“Not what,” I said. “Who. I was looking for Natalie.”
He nodded now. A chilly smile came to his face. The smile told me that I had given him the right answer-and the wrong one. “Why?” he asked.
“What do you mean, why?”
“Who hired you?”
“No one hired me.”
“Jed!”
It wasn’t Cookie this time. It was the guy at the computer screen.
Jed turned, annoyed by the interruption. “What?”
“You better take a look at this. We have company.”
Jed pulled the gun away from my head. I let out a long breath of relief. The guy by the computer twisted the monitor so Jed could see the screen. It was a surveillance video in black-and-white.
“What are they doing here?” Cookie asked. “If they find him here…”
“They’re our friends,” Jed said. “Let’s not worry until-”
I didn’t wait for more. I saw my chance and I took it. Without warning I jumped to my feet and ran toward the guy blocking the door. It seemed as though I were moving in slow motion, as if it were taking much too long to get to that door. I lowered my shoulder, ready to ram into him.
“Stop!”
I was maybe two steps from the guy guarding the door. He was in a crouch, bracing himself for my attack. My brain kept working, calculating and recalculating. In something quicker than seconds-quicker than nanoseconds-I laid out the whole upcoming scenario. How long would it take me to put the guy down? At best, two or three seconds. Then I had to reach for the knob, turn it, fling the door open, run outside.
How long would that all take?
Conclusion: Too long.
Two other men and maybe two women would be on me by then. Or maybe Jed would just shoot. In fact, if he reacted fast enough, he could probably fire a round before I even reached the guy.
In short, calculating the odds, I realized that I had no chance of getting out through the door. Yet here I was, still running toward my adversary with a full head of steam. He was ready for me. He expected me to go for him. So, I assumed, did Jed and the others.
That wouldn’t do then, would it?
I needed to surprise them. At the last possible moment, I veered my body right and without so much as a backward glance or even the slightest hesitation, I leapt forward and dived straight through the window.
Still airborne, with yet another window shattering around me, I heard Jed shout, “Get him!”
I tucked my arms and head, landing on the roll, hoping to use my momentum to get smoothly back on my feet. That was a fantasy. I did manage to roll up to my feet, but the momentum didn’t suddenly stop. It kept me going, knocking me back to the ground, sending me tumbling. When I finally stopped, I struggled to get back up.