Whirlwind

66

Near Afton, Texas

Stars swam around Mason.

His head lolled as he floated to consciousness.

His skull throbbed, and tears mingled with the blood and snot laced on his swollen face. He tried to reconnect with his thoughts and memory while working to register reality.

He’d been looking for Remy and the baby when everything stopped.

What happened?

He felt air on his body.

He was sitting upright in a kitchen chair, stripped to his underwear. His ankle holster was gone. He strained to move but it was futile. His legs, arms and hands were bound with electrical cords torn from the toaster, the coffeepot, the clock and several lamps that had all been smashed on the kitchen floor. Blood was webbed down his chest.

“You are Mr. Mason Varno?” said an accented voice.

Mason’s eyes flicked to a man leaning against the kitchen counter casually studying something in his hands. He was in his sixties and had a muscular build.

How did he miss this guy coming up on the cabin?

Mason’s gaze went through the window to the distant line of trees and glimpsed a green car parked there. This guy was good, coming up to the cabin unseen. He must’ve been watching us. Mason searched in vain for any sign of Remy and the baby. Did he have them? Who was this guy? He couldn’t be a cop, not with that weird accent. Be cool, he told himself. He could find a way out of this. Mason worked his jaw to speak but something was grinding in his mouth. A tooth. He spat it out.

“Did DOA send you because of Lamont and Arlen?” Mason managed.

The man kept searching through whatever it was he was holding in his hands. Mason couldn’t tell because he was still woozy.

“Tell him I have the money. It’s coming. It’ll be here tomorrow.”

The man tossed what he was holding into Mason’s lap. It was Mason’s wallet. The man positioned a chair before him, his small eyes burning with rage.

“Where’s your girlfriend, Remy Toxton, and the baby, Mr. Varno?”

Mason thought fast. He couldn’t risk losing the baby. Not after all they’d been through, not when he was this close.

“There’s no baby here. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The stranger offered the hint of a smile.

“Yanna!” he called, then let out a stream of Russian and a young woman appeared holding up a soiled diaper. She must’ve been searching the place. The man sighed, stood, looked out at the darkening sky. There was a metallic jingle as he opened the kitchen drawer containing spoons, forks and knives. He selected a bird’s beak paring knife. Good for precise carving. He ran the tip of his finger over the edge.

“Where is the baby?”

“I don’t know.”

The man lowered himself, swiftly seized Mason’s head, inserted the blade’s tip into Mason’s left nostril then sliced up, then did the same with the right nostril. As Mason cried out, blood splattered down his mouth, chin and neck.

“Jesus! I’m telling you the truth. I don’t know.”

A tree branch struck the house, followed by a peppering of dirt and brush as the clouds bubbled in black and purple across the sky.

“Again, Mr. Varno, where is the baby?”

Blood droplets splashed as Mason shook his head.

The man seized Mason’s right ear. Mason screamed as the man sliced half of it off and showed him the bloodied piece.

“The truth, please, Mr. Varno.”

The woman turned her head. “You must tell him,” she pleaded to Mason. “Or he’ll kill you.”

“Remy left with the baby! I don’t know where she is!”

“Tell me about the baby,” the man said.

“She took it from the flea market. We’re the people police are looking for.”

The man and woman turned to each other momentarily, puzzled looks on their faces.

“But she conceived a baby through a clinic in Moscow,” the man said. “Where’s that baby?”

“Moscow?” Breathing hard in pain, Mason realized that his situation had now taken a turn. “That baby died.”

“Died?” the man repeated.

“Stillborn. It’s buried in a cemetery in Shreveport, Louisiana.”

The man blinked at what Mason had said. “How can I know this is true?”

“Remy has a death certificate in her bag and some baby items the hospital let her keep. She went crazy after it happened. She was afraid she’d lose her deal with the agency-that’s why she took the other kid.”

The man said nothing.

“It’s true. I swear it’s true,” Mason said.

The man set the bloodied paring knife on the kitchen table, and as he turned to the window, branches and fence posts pelted the house. The ground shook as though a freight train were bearing down on it then a deafening rumbling sounded, the windows shattered and the house exploded around them.