Thief River Falls

12

Lisa leaned over the bridge railing above the torrent surging through the Lake Bronson Dam. The current erupted into white foam as it squeezed into the narrow channel of the river. The noise was as loud as thunder. She held Purdue’s hand and watched his face, which looked awestruck at the tumbling water. That was the strange balance of being a child. One minute you could be remembering something terrible, and the next you could be staring at a river without a care in the world.

They wandered to the south end of the bridge. The reservoir on the other side of the dam was calm and gray. The cold rain from the clouds had begun hardening into sleet. Her pickup was parked not far away in one of the campgrounds of the state park.

“What do we do now?” Purdue asked as they crossed the road.

“We’ll hang out here until Will calls me back,” Lisa replied. “Depending on what he says, we can decide what to do next.”

“Are you scared?”

“Scared? No, why should I be scared when I’ve got a big strong man like you to protect me?”

Purdue giggled.

She led him past an empty fishing dock that jutted into the quiet water, and then they followed a path into the trees, which were a palette of reds and yellows. The rain was lighter in the woods, but the shadows around them made the afternoon in the park feel like night.

As they walked, she tried to wrest more details out of Purdue’s memory.

“So you saw someone’s fingers being cut off,” she said.

“Yes.”

“And now you remember someone being killed near the water. Was it the same person?”

“I think so.”

“Man or woman?”

“Man.”

“Do you know who he was?”

Purdue shook his head.

“Did you see his face? Do you know what he looked like?”

“Well, it was dark. He was pretty big, like a football player.”

“So this happened at night?”

“Yes.”

“Was it last night? The night you came to me?”

“I think so.”

“And did you actually see this man being killed?”

“Yes.”

“That must have been terrible. Can you tell me what happened?”

Purdue nodded. His face was serious, as it usually was. He related the events in a detached, emotionless voice, which made what he said even more horrifying.

“They stuffed something in the man’s mouth so he couldn’t scream,” he told her. “Then I watched them cut off his fingers one at a time. All of them. The man with the red hair did that. Liam. He had a big pair of clippers, and one of them would put each finger between the blades and hold it there. The man tied to the tree kept trying to get free, but he couldn’t. There was all this blood.”

Lisa tried to hold back the nausea she felt. “The man was tied to a tree?”

Purdue nodded. “Uh-huh.”

“Where?”

“By the water.”

“A lake? A river?”

“I don’t know. I’m sorry, I just see bits and pieces. I was hiding by the water.”

“That’s okay. What happened next?”

“They killed him.”

“How did they do that?”

“The white alligator shot him in the head.”

“The alligator? Like in your dream?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t understand, Purdue.”

“It was a man who did it, but when I see him in my head, I don’t see a person. All I see is the alligator. A white alligator.”

“Okay,” Lisa said, although she didn’t know exactly what the boy meant. “Tell me more. What happened after that?”

“The old man came down to the water. He saw me there. He called for the others, and they dragged me back to the tree. They sat me down on the ground, and that was where I found the bullet. I just held on to it.”

“But you don’t know where you were?”

Purdue shook his head. “No.”

“How did you get there? How did you find these men?”

“I don’t know that, either. I was just there. I don’t know where I came from.”

“And then what happened?”

“Kill the boy.”

“Who said that? The red-haired man? Liam?”

“No. The old man.”

Lisa briefly closed her eyes. “Did they hurt you?”

“I think they hit me with something. That’s when I stopped remembering things. It’s like I fell asleep and didn’t wake up. Not until I was in the back of the truck.” He gave her another serious stare. “I don’t want to go back there, Lisa.”

“You won’t.”

They reached the end of the wooded trail. Her pickup was waiting for them in the middle of a grassy camping area studded with fire pits and picnic benches. Glimpses of the lake came and went behind the trees. No one else was around, just birds flitting through the branches and a few squirrels playing a game of chase. She and Purdue had already eaten lunch, and there was nothing to do now but wait. Wait for Will to call. Wait for someone who could lead them out of this nightmare.

A torture scene in the woods. A murder.

And a boy who could only remember fragments of what he’d seen.

She opened the door of the pickup, and Purdue climbed inside. Before she closed the door, she told him, “Stay here. I have to use the bathroom. I’ll be right back.”

“Okay, Lisa.”

She shut the door with the boy inside. She checked the area again to make sure they were alone, and then she headed across the campground to a primitive toilet fifty yards away. It was just a portable plastic unit that gave off a foul smell when she opened the door. She wasn’t inside long. Not even a couple of minutes. She heard nothing while she was there, just the tap of rain on the roof of the toilet drowning out all the other sounds around her. When she came out, her gaze automatically went straight to her pickup, and her heart skipped a beat.

The passenger door hung open. The seat was empty.

“Purdue!”

Lisa sprinted for the truck. She skidded to a stop on the wet grass and dove inside to see if the boy was hiding in the pickup. She checked the rear seat and then the flatbed, but he wasn’t there. Frantic, she got out and surveyed the campground. She eyed a bare patch of dirt near the truck that was mostly mud. There, she saw two sets of footprints, both running away toward the path that led to the lake. One set was small. A boy’s tracks. The other was larger and obviously belonged to a man.

Purdue was being chased.

Lisa unzipped the pocket of her white vest. She took out her Ruger and then loaded it with the clip. She kept the gun in her hand as she ran toward the lake, following the footprints. They led her to a dense patch of forest where the trees grew thick and dark and overgrown brush encroached on the trail. The mud turned to brown grass, and the tracks that were guiding her disappeared. As the wind blew, colored leaves floated in the air. She slowed, shifting her gaze to peer into the woods on both sides. Her breathing came fast, but she tried to hold it in to listen. She walked slowly now, step by step. The sweat on her hand made the butt of the gun slippery.

The trail broke from the woods near a sheltered section of the lake, a little inlet where a field of cattails grew out of the water. She saw a dead tree along the shore, its bare branches haunted by a dozen crows squawking an alarm. It was as if they were beckoning her, telling her to go that way. The grassy trail followed the waterline, and she hugged the lake for at least a hundred yards, cold rain landing on her face. The water was on her right, and a wall of elderberry bushes was on her left. She murmured Purdue’s name under her breath every few steps, hoping he was hiding nearby, hoping he could hear her.

But she was alone.

Ahead of her, the trail forked. One direction stayed with the water; one turned away from the lake and disappeared into the shadows of the forest, as if it were the mouth of a cave. She headed into the woods. She had no idea if she was going the right way. She wished she could hear something, some clue, that would tell her where he was. Anything.

Then her wish came true in the worst way.

The crack of a gunshot rocked the park, echoing in the trees. The crows flew airborne with startled cries. Lisa’s heart sank with despair, and at the same time, murderous rage bloomed in her chest. If anyone had harmed her boy, if she’d lost him forever, if she’d failed him—

Suddenly, footsteps stampeded from the forest ahead of her. She could hear branches breaking, weeds trampling, the panic of someone getting closer and closer. She froze with indecision, the gun poised in her right hand. She wiped rain from her eyes to help her see better. Something moved, a flash of color. And then the boy was right in front of her. Where the trail curved, Purdue sprinted toward her, his hair flying, his face screwed up with terror.

He ran right into her open arms. She scooped him up and held him, but there was no time for desperate relief. More footsteps were coming fast. Heavy footsteps. She pushed through the wall of elderberries beside her, with her arms still wrapped around the boy. The branches scratched her face and made a deep, painful cut across her collarbone. She buried herself in the foliage and sank to her knees, hoping the camouflage of the brush made them invisible. She clapped a hand over Purdue’s mouth and put a finger to her lips to silence him. She could feel his hot breath on her palm and feel his chest going in and out as she held him tightly. The blood pulsed on her shoulder.

She put her mouth to his ear and murmured, “Shhhh...”

The footsteps slowed as they got closer. Purdue shook with fear, and she was afraid he would rattle the branches and give them away. Through the dense elderberries, she could see a sliver of the man’s face and body. It was the ginger man, the man from the market, the torturer who had cut off someone’s fingers. Liam. His hand held a fierce black pistol, and she could smell smoke leaching from the barrel. He stopped directly in front of them on the trail, almost close enough to touch if she reached through the branches. She was conscious of the stark whiteness of her vest, but the leaves were packed thickly together, hiding them. He was in the light, and they were in the darkness.

Purdue had his eyes closed. His face was pressed against her chest.

Lisa watched and waited. The man could feel their presence, because he didn’t move. His gun was level at his hip, ready to fire. The slightest sound would betray them, and she didn’t know how long the boy could stay still.

Then, from deep in the woods, something rescued them. A bird. A rabbit. A deer. An animal of some kind rustled the brush, and the man heard it and ran back the way he’d come. When he was gone, Lisa bolted from cover. There was no hiding the sound as she broke free of the elderberries, but she hoped the man was too busy running to hear them. She picked up Purdue, and he clung to her neck and wrapped his bony legs around her waist, and she ran. The boy wasn’t heavy, but she couldn’t go fast, and she couldn’t even look behind her to see if the man was laying chase. She stumbled along the trail, past the dead tree and the crows, past the lakeshore and the cattails, through the mud and into the clearing where her pickup was parked.

The passenger door was still open. She piled Purdue inside and dashed to the opposite door to get in. She cast one last look behind her, and there was the red-haired man breaking from the muddy trail. She turned on the engine and jammed down the accelerator, making the tires scream and the chassis swerve as they shot away from him. He ran after them, then stopped to raise his gun and aim it at the back of the truck. She cried out and grabbed Purdue’s shoulder and pulled the boy down, but the gunshot went wild.

She sped through a curve on the access road, leaving the man behind her. Not even half a mile later, she swerved out of the park at high speed. The man’s white Malibu was parked on the opposite shoulder of the road near the dam. She hit the brakes hard and screeched to a stop right next to the car. She rolled down her window. Trying to keep her arm steady, she pulled back the slide on her Ruger and pointed the gun out the window, aiming at the left front tire of the Malibu.

She squeezed off a shot.

And missed.

And then another shot. This time, the tire exploded, and the car jolted downward, its rim clanging against the asphalt. She eyed the mirror one last time. The man was behind her again, running. He sprinted for them down the middle of the park road, but he was too far away to fire, and he wasn’t going anywhere in his sedan now.

Lisa rolled up the window. The interior of the pickup smelled burnt from the gunfire. She floored the accelerator, and they took off down the highway into the freezing rain.