No Return

81

“Anna?”

Wes touched her check. Warm. And from her nose he could feel air moving in and out.

She was alive.

“Anna?”

Nothing. Not even a twitch.

“Pick her up,” the man said. He was standing just outside the trailer.

Wes clenched his teeth. “What did you do to her?”

“Pick her up, or I shoot her where she lies.”

Wes might have been willing to gamble with his own life, but not with Anna’s. He worked his hands under her body, then lifted her into the air. She groaned, but it was low, too quiet for anyone but Wes to hear.

“Good,” the man said. “Now bring her outside.”

His back to the door of the trailer, Wes whispered, “Don’t worry. I’ve got you now.”

He thought he felt her stir, but her eyes remained closed.

“Come on,” the man said. “Move it.”

Wes carried Anna to the opening, then paused.

The man had moved back several paces. “I’m not giving you a hand. So try not to drop her.”

Wes turned sideways, then stepped carefully to the ground.

“What did you do to her?” he asked again.

“Let’s go,” Dori said.

She motioned with her gun for Forman to start walking.

“No,” Forman told her. “The only place I’m going is to town. Either you drive me, or you give me the keys to your car.”

The gunshot was quick, and unexpected. Forman fell to his knees, his left hand gripping his right arm, just below the shoulder.

“Let’s go,” Dori repeated, her gun still pointed at the commander.

Forman clenched his teeth and staggered back to his feet.

“You bitch,” he said.

“Watch your mouth, or I guarantee the next time I pull the trigger you don’t get up,” she said. “Now, that way.” She motioned to the path that led up to the crest.

They formed a single-file line-Forman first, then Dori, then Wes cradling Anna, and finally Dori’s partner-and began walking. The path was little changed from the last time Wes had been on it, a well-worn groove about two and a half feet wide with, at first, desert and scrub on either side, then more rocks and boulders the closer they got to the top.

As they approached the final, narrow segment that curved between two large boulders, Dori tapped the barrel of her gun against Forman’s back. “Don’t even think about trying something.”

If he had been, the warning was enough to keep him in check.

The shape of the rocks forced Wes to lean back and turn sideways as he shuffle-stepped to get both Anna and himself through. He made it almost to the end before his hip banged into a pointed obstruction.

Grunting in pain, he nearly lost his grip. He leaned farther back and was able to get Anna balanced without banging her into anything.

“Keep it moving,” the man behind him said.

“Wes?” It was Anna, her voice low and weak.

Wes quickly turned so the man would only see Wes’s back.

“Keep your eyes closed,” he whispered. “Pretend like you’re still out.”

“What?” she said.

“Please,” he said. “Just act like you’re still unconscious.”

Wes wasn’t sure whether she was following his directions or she had actually passed out again, but her eyes remained closed, and she was quiet.

Six more feet and the rocks fell away. Wes almost expected to hear music blaring and see dozens of half-drunk teenagers standing around a bonfire. But there was no music, no fire, and no one but them.

Tonight there was no party at the Drama Rocks.

Dori and Forman stopped twenty feet in front of the concave rock that had served as a backstop for decades’ worth of bonfires. The rock was a little blacker than before, but otherwise unchanged.

“Remember this place?” Dori asked Wes.

Wes could feel Anna tense at the sound of Dori’s voice. Not unconscious, then, he thought. Just doing as he’d asked.

“What are we doing here?” Wes asked.

“Here?” Dori looked around, then shrugged and shook her head. “We’re just passing through. Where we’re going is that way.” She nodded to the east. “Keep walking, Commander.”

Their little parade started up again. Every once in a while, Dori would let Forman know when he was getting off course by shoving him with the barrel of her gun. It took them ten minutes to reach the next ridge, then they followed the crest until they arrived at a rocky clearing about a quarter the size of the one at the Drama Rocks.

From this point the hills curved southward toward more ridges and more rocks. In the east a long slope descended into the waterless dirt bed of Searles Lake. Wes could see the shadowy forms of the Pinnacles off to the left and, across the lake bed straight out, the dark scar Lieutenant Lee Jamieson had created when he crash-landed his F-18.

“This is about right, isn’t it, Wes?” Dori asked.

Wes said nothing. But it was right.

She looked to the southeast and pointed at the next ridge. “And that’s where you took him.” She turned back. “You don’t remember me, do you?”

Wes remained silent.

“Come on. We met several times.”

“This is ridiculous,” Forman said. “Whatever’s going on between the two of you, I’m not part of it.”

“You’re right. You’re not.” Dori pulled the trigger of her gun again.

This time, as promised, the commander did not get back up.

Wes edged a step backward. He had to get Anna away. If he could get behind some of the rocks, he might have a chance.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Dori’s partner asked. He moved to the right, cutting off the gap in the boulders Wes had been angling toward.

Dori strode over, stopping just a few feet away.

“Who am I?” she asked.

Wes pressed his lips together.

“Who am I?”

“You’re Dori.… You’re … I’m sorry,” Wes said. “I don’t remember.”

“You don’t remember?” Dori raised her gun and pushed the barrel against Anna’s head. “Do you remember now?”

“Please,” Wes said. “I don’t. That was a long time ago.”

“But you remember my sister,” Dori said. “Michael says you visited her grave.”

Her partner nodded. “Yesterday afternoon.”

Mandy? Her … sister?

Wes tried to remember back. Mandy did have a sister. Older than her by a few years, and hardly ever around when Wes was over. Her name had been-

“Doreen?” he said.

Dori smiled, then moved the gun away from Anna’s head. “See, I knew you’d remember.”

“But your last name is Dillman,” Wes said, as if that would change everything.

“It’s what happens when you get married, Wes,” she told him as if he were a child. “You take the last name of your husband.”

Michael snickered.

Michael … Michael Dillman.

Wes remembered him more than he remembered her. This Michael Dillman, while still tall, had shed some of the pounds he’d used to go after quarterbacks during football season.

“Of course, I had planned on having an entirely different last name. Doreen Rice. Wife of Jack Rice. You remember him, don’t you?”

Jack Rice. Jesus.

“But what about Danny? You’ve been sleeping with him for days.”

The corner of her mouth rose in a smirk. “You think I’d really be interested in a moron like him? He was just a way to get closer to you.”

“Him and I are gonna have a talk as soon as we’re done here,” Dillman said. “Remind him it’s not nice to go after a married woman.”

Wes felt his anger rise, but he knew he couldn’t let it get the best of him. He was the only thing standing between these two psychos and Anna. “Let my friend go,” Wes pleaded. “And you can do whatever you want to me.”

Dillman smirked. “Don’t think she’s in any condition to go anywhere.”

“Besides, you’ll do what we want, anyway,” Dori added.

“Anna doesn’t have anything to do with this,” Wes said. “Just let her-” He stopped himself. He’d been so focused on Anna since he’d found her in the trailer, he’d totally forgotten-“Tony? Where is he?”

Dillman squinted. “Is that your other friend? The guy?”

“Yes.”

“Sorry,” Dillman said.

“What do you mean ‘sorry’?”

“He saw me putting that article on your bike. Couldn’t have him hanging around knowing about that.”

“Where are you keeping him?” Wes asked.

“He’s with Jack,” Dori said.

At first Wes didn’t know what she meant. Then it hit him. “Oh, no. No, no, no!”

Anna’s breath caught in her throat. She’d guessed Tony’s ultimate fate. Wes squeezed her lightly with one of his hands, hoping to convey the need for her to remain calm.

“He shouldn’t have been out that late,” Dori said.

“The articles,” Wes said. “The messages on the mirrors, too? The call to the police?”

Dori shrugged. “Sorry.”

“Were you also the ones who stole my equipment?” he asked.

Dori laughed, then used her gun to point at the still form of Commander Forman. “I think you have him to thank for that.”

“So what are you going to do now? Throw us down the mine shaft, too?”

“Your girlfriend, yes,” Dori said. “But not you. See, first you forced me to drive you and the commander out here with a gun I didn’t know you had. Then once both of you got out, I took off. But you made the commander hike to this place, and killed him.” She smiled sadly. “Unfortunately, in your triumph you neglected to pay attention to where you were going, and walked off the edge of the rocks, pretty much where you got rid of Jack. How does that sound?”

“No one’s going to believe that.”

“Sure they will. I have you on tape interrogating the commander in the car.”

“You also have everything that happened afterward.”

Dori shook her head, then held up a hand and mimicked pushing a button. “Turned it off before my husband got in. Oops.”

Wes looked at Dillman. “Look, I’m sorry about Jack. It was an accident. You should just let us go.”

“Jack’s been gone a long time,” Dillman said. “I don’t actually care what happened back then.”

“You did all this for me, didn’t you, baby?” Dori said.

Michael grunted in confirmation.

“But Mandy was your sister,” Wes said to her. “Jack Rice raped her.”

Dori scoffed. “That’s the same thing she tried telling me, but that’s not what happened.”

“What? I was there. I-”

She laughed dismissively. “You may have thought you knew my sister, but you didn’t. I lived with her. I knew how her petty mind worked. Jack was mine. But she couldn’t stand that. She hated the fact that I was in love. Every time he came to the house, she made sure to say hi to him and give him that ugly smile of hers. At the party she took advantage of the fact I was sick and couldn’t go, so got him alone and spread her little legs for him.”

Wes stared at her. “That’s not how it was at all.”

“He was mine,” she went on, acting like she hadn’t heard him. “He loved me. He was going to marry me.” She locked eyes with Wes. “I was pregnant. Did you know that? It was Jack’s baby. Our baby. We were going to get married in the spring, then move away after graduation. But that never happened. My own sister ripped that from me.”

“What are you taking about? She was raped!”

“Whatever happened out there, she wanted it! She asked for it! Hell, she probably even begged for it!” Dori breathed heavily for several seconds, her chest heaving. Finally she seemed to calm down at bit. “I spent a whole month crying and worrying about Jack. Where had he gone? Why hadn’t anyone found him? I guess with all that, it wasn’t a surprise I lost my baby. Then I had nothing. I confided in Mandy. She hadn’t known I’d been pregnant; I’d been keeping that a secret. I thought she’d be sympathetic. I thought she’d do what sisters are supposed to do. But instead she got angry. She told me her lies about what happened that night at the party. She called Jack a monster. She said that she was glad he was gone and never coming back. I don’t think she even realized her mistake, but I caught it immediately.”

“They weren’t lies,” Wes said.

“Of course that’s what you’d say. I wouldn’t expect anything less. You know how I got her to tell me what happened?”

Wes shook his head.

“I pretended like I believed her. I acted like I also thought Jack was this animal she was claiming him to be. She was eager to tell me everything. And when she was done, I knew she would have to pay.”

Even if Wes wanted to move at that moment, he couldn’t. He was riveted to the stone, shocked beyond anything he’d ever felt before. “So you killed her?”

“It was simple, really. I knew which day it needed to happen, the anniversary of Jack’s death. So I made sure things worked out that she was home alone that afternoon. All I had to do was crush some of Mom’s sleeping pills into a can of soda, then fill up the tub, and make sure Mandy stayed under. The only hard part was carrying her ass from the living room into the bathroom after she passed out.” A pause, then a tilt of the head. “I helped her on her way. Like what you did with Jack.” She extended her arm, aiming the barrel of her gun at Wes’s head. “Now put the girl down. No more wasting time.”

Wes had to force himself to move. He turned and scanned the immediate area, looking for a good spot to set Anna down.

“Right there’s fine,” Dillman said, pointing at the ground directly behind Wes.

Wes pretended like the spot Dillman had indicated was a little farther back, so that Anna would be that much farther from whatever was about to happen.

“I said right there!” the man yelled.

“Okay, okay,” Wes said.

As he knelt down he squeezed her again. Once she was on the ground, he bent over her to give her a kiss on the cheek. He whispered, “Count to one hundred, then get up quietly and get away. I’ll distract them.”

Again she tensed.

He knew she wanted to protest, so he added, “Just do it,” then stood back up.

“Saying your goodbyes?” Dori asked.

“You could have killed me years ago. I would have been easy enough to find.”

“But I wasn’t around. See, Michael joined the Army when I married him. Got stationed on the East Coast. Then we spent some time in Germany and a few other fun places. Didn’t come back here until he got out a couple years ago. By then I was willing to forget all about you. Besides, I didn’t leave you completely unscarred.”

“What do you mean?”

She snorted. “Let’s just say killing you will be a lot easier than killing your dad.”

Wes felt suddenly weak. It was all he could do to keep from falling to the ground. “What?”

“Mandy wasn’t the only one unable to keep a promise. After she told me what happened, I used to go out to the mine to be close to Jack. One day your dad shows up, and I realized you had to have told him, too. He never saw me, though, but I saw him. So I started keeping a close eye on him. He came back several times. It finally dawned on me he was planning on moving Jack. I couldn’t have that. So on the night it looked like he was going to do it, I followed him again, planning on stopping him in the act. He showed up with a truck full of gear, but instead of starting, he seemed to be waiting for someone. When whoever it was didn’t show up, he left.”

Lars, Wes realized. He would have been the only one his father could have trusted to help him. That’s why “Pudge” had been on his schedule. But why move the body?

“I knew he’d try again, and there was no way I could watch him all the time. I couldn’t wait any longer.” She paused, a self-satisfied smile on her face. “So I knocked on your front door after he got home. I said I was your friend, and asked if I could use the phone because my car was giving me trouble. It was easy enough after that. Once he was knocked out, I drove his car out to Nine Mile Canyon, and Michael followed in mine. You know the rest. The next week Michael enlisted, and I went with him.”

“You bitch,” Wes said.

“I wasn’t the one who started the killings. You were.” She raised her gun. “Now move it. You know where I want you.”

Yes. He did.