“Could have.”
“If they’re afraid of a backlash from Cashdollar’s congregation, they certainly wouldn’t do something to them here, would they?”
“Something?”
“I don’t know. Beat them up or — ”
“Or kill them?” As soon as I said it I felt her shudder.
“They wouldn’t. Not here.”
I thought about it. They had call girls visit the poker group. They played high-stakes games of chance, although I questioned whether there was much chance in those games, and Cashdollar preached against intolerance by being intolerant. But murdering someone on his own campus? Would they kill James or Styles?
“Forget I said it.” She tugged my arm, hurrying to get back to the truck.
“You know the story about my first revival meeting?”
“You’ve told me.”
“And the day after?”
“Something about the seventeen-year-old girl?”
“The something was they found her dead body in plain sight. Probably in this same area, so I don’t think they have a problem killing people right here on the grounds.”
We walked in silence. The tent loomed in front of us, a huge mountain of a structure. I could see the truck, sitting on its four brand-new tires. Maybe James would be there. Maybe Daron would step out and everything would be back to normal. Well, nothing was going to be normal again.
“I’ve got to use the toilet.” Em nodded in the direction of the portable johns.
“Go behind the truck.”
“I’m not going to go behind the truck. I’ll just be gone a minute.”
“Em. It’s not safe. For either of us. Just go up by the tent. I won’t watch.”
“You couldn’t see anything anyway. I’m going to the Porta-Johns. I’ll be able to find my way.”
“Em — ”
“I’m going.” She started walking.
“I’m right behind you.” I took two steps in her direction.
“Go back and see if James is in the truck. I’ll be all right.”
I turned and walked to the truck. The moon was in and out of the clouds and when it was hidden the night was black. It took that moment to hide, and I wished with everything in me that I’d followed her. I shouted out in a coarse whisper. “James.”
There was nothing. No response.
I looked across the way, and Em was gone from sight. No James. No Em. Five feet from the truck I decided to walk back to the portable restrooms and stand guard for Em. I turned, took a step, felt my foot hit something solid, and pitched forward. It was the last thing I could remember until I started to drown.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
T here’s a form of water torture that soldiers use on the enemy when they want to break them and get important information. I think it’s called waterboarding. It has something to do with blindfolding the enemy, and then pouring water on his face. I’m not sure I have it all down, but I’d always heard that when you can’t see anything and water is in your face, you can’t shake the sensation that you’re drowning. While it’s not supposed to be dangerous, it is supposed to be very scary.
I can now tell you first hand, that when you can’t see, when everything is pitch black, and when someone is pouring water in your face, you feel like you’re drowning. I can tell you first hand that it is very, very scary.
I came up sputtering, gurgling, coughing, and swearing.
“My God, man. Are you all right?”
I was not all right. I wiped at my face and my hand came away, dripping. Water and something thick and slippery. I brushed at my forehead and winced from the pain. It was a gash, not too deep, but it hurt. Man did it hurt.
The light hit me in the eyes, and someone was wiping my face with a cloth.
“Don’t move. Let me clean the cut out.”
I was sitting, the cut stinging as someone dabbed.
“Man, I thought you were out for good.” Daron Styles pressed hard on the wound. “Can you put your hand up there and hold the cloth in place?”
I reached up and held the cloth against the bleeding laceration. “What the hell happened?”
The light played around my face, then dropped to the ground.
“You tripped.”
“On what?” My head ached, and I had that dizzy, sick-to-your-stomach feeling that you get when you’ve had too many beers.
“The suitcase. When you wouldn’t respond I got a pitcher of water from the truck and threw it on your face.”
“What the hell?”
“Hey, it worked. I didn’t know if you were alive or dead.”
The throbbing inside my skull was killing me. “The suitcase? One you took from the airport?”
“Yeah. I went through one of them in the car and found this flashlight. I brought the other one over here to the truck and was going to look through it using the flashlight. I only set the suitcase down for a minute to go take a leak. You picked that time to stumble over it.”
I kept the cloth tight against my head. “What the hell are you doing walking around? We saw you being dragged away from the office trailer.”
“No, you didn’t.”
Closing my eyes, I tried to concentrate. Styles had been there, then he wasn’t. Two people seemed to be dragging someone from the trailer. And Em and I had both seen -
“Where is Em?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “You’re the only one I’ve seen.”
“We’ve got to look for her. And James.”
“Slow down, Skipper. You need to take it easy for a minute.”
I tried to stand, putting weight on my one hand while I pressed on my slashed forehead with the other. It didn’t work. I was too dizzy. I’d been in that shape before, but for an entirely different reason.
“I thought you were with her.”
What was I going to say? Here was a guy who’d given us all kinds of information, and I didn’t know if any of it was true. He’d said Em was being followed by the FBI. He’d said that we were in some notes kept by the hierarchy of Cashdollar’s empire. I saw him being dragged away after the break-in and here he was as if nothing had happened.
And Em thought he might be an FBI informer. I, on the other hand, thought he might be the killer. He’d already admitted to taking money from a dead man, Michael Bland, after the man had overdosed. And who knew if that was even true? He might have given Bland the drugs. I seriously didn’t think it was out of the question. It was hard to think things through with my head aching.
“Look, I’m sure she’s all right.”
I wasn’t so sure. “How long was I out?”
“I was gone only three or four minutes.”
His light played on the ground and reflected off the suitcase. It was open and clothes lay scattered on the ground.
“How you feeling?”
“How do you think I feel. You leave this crap here in the dark — ”
“Man, I am so sorry.”
I wondered. One of James’s favorite movie quotes came to mind. It’s from a movie called The Ten Things I Hate About You. The quote is short and simple: “You can’t always trust the people you want to.” Right now, Daron was the only person in the world I wanted to trust. And I couldn’t. He might be the enemy, and I wasn’t ready to take that chance.
“Look, tell me where you last saw Em, and I’ll go look. Okay? I mean, this — ” he swept his free hand as if to include my position on the ground and his spilled suitcase full of somebody else’s underwear and who knows what else, “this is my fault. Let me go find Em.” He swung the light up, blinding me again.
“Get the light out of my eyes.”
“Sorry.”
“Where do you think she went?”
I didn’t want him within ten feet of her.
“Skipper — ”
I wasn’t going to tell him anything.
“Just tell me.”
“She’s right here.” The voice was over his left shoulder, and as he swung around, the light bounced off her golden hair. “And what the hell happened in the five minutes I’ve been gone?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
“A pparently I can’t leave you alone for five minutes.” She shook her finger at me. “Skip, how do you get into so much trouble?”