“Well, we know two things: that Dr. Richards was both right and wrong about William being here. Your boy ended up in this town, but obviously wasn’t abducted by aliens and isn’t soaring around the cosmos in a spaceship.”
“So what, then? He was taken by someone, maybe some sort of group, and the people they abduct end up with memory loss?”
“And it doesn’t explain how Dr. Richards knew he would be here. If I had my phone…”
“They’re not going to give us our phones.”
“Well, my patience has officially run out. We’ve done nothing wrong, they can’t lock us up in here when we haven’t committed any crime—”
The door handle turned and a small man stepped in, quietly closing the door behind him. His thinning hair was parted to cover a sizable bald spot, his skin color an ashen gray. He fumbled in his suit coat to bring out a pack of cigarettes. Every bit of clothing on him, from his head to his shoes, was black.
“We have a pretty bad storm approaching, ladies. It’s best that you get out of here before it hits.”
“I don’t think so,” Roxy said. “I don’t know who you are, but we have come here to find my friend’s grandson, who she just saw at a park in this town. And I’m happy to remind you again who she is married to—”
“We will be pleased to arrange for transportation out of here.” The man fired up a cigarette. “We’ll make sure you get out safely.”
“I will not leave my grandson.”
“We want to return you to your family, Mrs. Roseworth,” the man said, taking a deep drag. “We understand you must be very desperate. In light of what’s on the news websites now, I know it must be hard to admit he’s gone. No one is sure, though, why you thought he would end up here—”
“Because she saw him,” Roxy interjected.
The man ignored her and kept looking at me. “Your family has gone through a great loss. Please don’t make them go through another.”
“I will not leave him—”
“Lynn, I want to go home.” Roxy reached out and touched my arm. “I can’t do this anymore. I need to get home to Ed. My back hurts, I can’t go through a storm like that without my pain meds, and I’m out. Let’s do this. Obviously you were wrong. If it were William, he would have recognized you. You must be delirious or something. We have to admit that now. Let’s take this ride out of town. I’m done.”
She squeezed a bit harder. “I’m too tired to do this anymore.”
I looked at her, and under her weepy eyes, Roxy flared her nostrils.
“Thank you, we’ll take that ride,” I said.
“Good,” the man said, already finishing off the cigarette. “I have a car pulled around. We’ll take you by the inn to get your things.”
“We’ll need our purses,” Roxy said.
“Of course. It’s all waiting for you in the car.”
“Thank you,” she said, wincing as she stepped. As the man walked out, Roxy mouthed words to me: “Act old.”
“What are we doing?” I mouthed back.
We walked out of the building as slowly as possible. The white unmarked car waited outside, with the red light still spinning beneath the windshield. “Is it OK if I sit in the front?” Roxy asked. “I can never get comfortable in the back.”
“Of course,” the man in the black suit said, nodding.
“Welcome, ladies,” said the teeth sucker as we got into the car.
Roxy slid into the front seat. “Lynnie, is my purse back there? I need to see if I have any of my OxyContin left. My hip is killing me.”
“It’s here.”
“I have a bum leg too,” Teeth Sucker said, pulling the gear into drive. “Tough living with the pain.”
I looked out the window, making eye contact briefly with the man in the black suit. He lit a cigarette and watched us drive away.
Roxy dug around in her purse. “Can’t barely move without my meds.”
“If you’re looking for your phone, it’s in there, but damn it all if the batteries aren’t dead. You must have left it on too long without charging it.”
“Oh, that’s fine.” Roxy gave a careless wave. “I just need my medicine. Don’t have anybody to call anyway.”
Teeth Sucker began to hum as we drove. “You must be busy, working the gas station and being a police officer,” Roxy commented.
He grinned. “We’re all called to serve.”
I looked out through the back window, seeing the downtown disappearing behind us. Soon the police building was gone over a hill. I couldn’t see any of Argentum. The panic was rising to my throat.
I could see Teeth Sucker looking at my reflection in the rearview mirror. “Don’t you worry. I have to make a quick stop at the hospital, it’s just around the bend from here. After that, we’ll head right back to the inn.”
“My ass,” Roxy said, pulling out the mace from her purse.
“Fuckin’ fuck!” he cried out as she sprayed his face.
The car veered wildly. Roxy kept spraying as he reached out to block her. “Fucking bitch!” When the chemicals truly sunk in, he started to scream.
“Roxy!” I cried out, watching the car weave across the road and then take a violent turn towards a telephone pole.
The impact threw me back, but not before I saw Roxy crash into the dashboard. As Teeth Sucker frantically wiped his face, I sat stunned for a moment, my head spinning. I could hear a hissing sound from the engine, and I closed my eyes to try and stop the vertigo.
“Roxy! Are you OK—?”
She moaned and then flinched away as Teeth Sucker reached out for her angrily, his sausage fingers grabbing the hood of her coat.
My wallet, stuffed with Target receipts, credit cards I’d closed but forgot to throw away, and volumes of my grandchildren’s photographs, was the first thing I threw at him. Maybe it was that I was so close behind him that my aim was so true. It struck him sharply on the back of his head. The metal clasp on the wallet must have hit him in a soft spot as the impact produced another yelp of pain as he continued to wail and wipe his eyes. I started throwing everything I could grasp in my purse: a compact, a small flashlight, pencils, mints. When an eyeliner pinged off his right temple, he reached back for me blindly.
I fell back into the backseat, smacking his hand with my purse. My eyes were starting to sting from the mace as well. I could hear Roxy fumble with the door handle and she practically fell out the door, her feet momentarily in the air.
Teeth Sucker lunged in the direction of the sound. He wrestled at his waist and pulled out a gun. Gunshots rang out in the car.
“Roxy!” I screamed, once again striking him with my purse. He pivoted the gun back towards me. As I bent down, I heard the gunfire and the back windshield shatter.
The door beside me jerked opened and Roxy outstretched her hand. She yanked me out as he fired again into the backseat. The cushions absorbed the zings of the flying bullets. “You fucking bitches!” he yelled.
“Sweet God,” Roxy whispered, wiping at her own eyes. “That mace works. Even the residual hurts like the devil.”
We hustled down the road, hearing Teeth Sucker curse among screams of pain as he realized he was out of bullets.
“Are you hurt? You’re limping—”
“Here I pretend to be old for a minute, and now I actually feel like it.”
I looked back at the crashed cruiser. Teeth Sucker had fallen out now, rubbing his eyes and screaming for us.
I took her arm as I hurried our pace. “We have to get away from here.”
“Mr. Black back there didn’t want to dirty his hands with actually having to kill a senator’s wife, so he sent numb nuts back there to do it. I guess the first security guard or whatever he is from the park couldn’t stomach it. Well, we aren’t so old, are we, assholes? Good thing I bought that mace at the airport. Never leave home without it. There, go down that back street.”