Thief River Falls

20

Curtis cupped the back of his head. His fingers came away with a cold, sticky mess of blood. His entire skull throbbed, pulsing with each heartbeat like a hammer rapping against bone.

He supported himself against a tree as he tried to stay standing, and he watched the taillights of the Camaro as Lisa drove away. The woman, Shyla, locked the garage door. He could see her in the glow of the porch light. She stared right back at him, although he wasn’t sure if she could actually see him where he stood in the darkness. Shyla had an AR-15 in her arms, level and ready to fire, and Curtis had no interest in waiting around to see what she did with it. He backed up into the yard and then staggered toward the cross street. When he got there, he sank to his knees and threw up. Then he limped away down the icy street, leaving Shyla Dunn and her guns behind him.

He was alone on the road and still a long hike from Pennington Avenue. The houses on either side were dark. No one was awake.

Curtis retrieved his phone from his pocket and dialed.

“It’s me,” he said. “Change of plans.”

“What do you mean, change of plans? I just talked to you. What the hell is going on?”

County Attorney Denis Farrell had the raspy, impatient voice of someone who hadn’t slept all night and wasn’t in the mood for unpleasant surprises. Curtis had known Farrell for years. He didn’t like him much, but Farrell also wasn’t the kind of man he wanted to cross.

“Lisa’s gone,” Curtis told him.

“Gone? You were supposed to watch her! You were supposed to keep her under control!”

“I know, but she heard me talking to you. She heard what we were planning at the airport. She hit me and took off. You need to get someone out here to pick me up. My head hurts like hell.”

“All right, all right, quit whining. I’ll have someone out there in a few minutes. How did Lisa get away? On foot?”

“No. The woman gave her a car. It’s a blue Camaro with black racing stripes. I don’t remember the license plate, but the thing shouldn’t be too hard to spot.”

“Where do you think she’ll go?”

“She wanted to leave town to protect the boy, so I assume that’s still what she’ll try to do. She’ll probably head to the Cities.”

“All right, I’ll talk to the sheriff and get patrols out to watch the roads,” Farrell replied. “We’ll find her before she’s out of the county.”

“You better hang on, Denis. This thing is a lot more complicated now. Your men need to take it easy.”

“Why?”

“I’m pretty sure Lisa is armed. I told you, this Shyla woman is a walking billboard for the NRA. I think she loaded Lisa up with weapons before she left. Your people need to be prepared.”

“What kind of weapons are we talking about?” Farrell asked.

“Shyla had everything. Pistols. Shotguns. Assault rifles. Heavy-duty stuff.”

Farrell was silent for a long time. “I cannot believe this.”

“Well, believe it,” Curtis told him. “You can’t just pull her off the road and expect this to go well. I listened to how Lisa talks about that boy. As far as she’s concerned, she’ll die to keep him safe and away from us. She isn’t giving up without a fight.”

Denis Farrell put down the phone. He missed corded phones, which you could slam into their cradle.

He pushed back the chair from behind his desk and labored to stand up. His walking stick leaned against the bookshelves, and he grabbed it for support. Over his head, beams groaned in the old house as his wife, Gillian, paced back and forth in their bedroom. Neither one of them had slept. Gillian probably had a drink in her hand, the way she’d had for the last twenty-four hours.

For a man whose whole life was about control, the current situation for Denis was intolerable. He needed someone to blame, someone to be the target of his wrath and rage. Now he had it. Everything that had gone wrong in the past day was the fault of Lisa Power.

“That was your husband,” Farrell told Laurel March. “He screwed up.”

Laurel sat in a wooden chair on the other side of the desk, with the yellow glow of a brass lamp lighting her up. Otherwise, the office was gloomy, filled with long shadows. Her face bloomed with concern, and she leaned forward in the chair.

“What do you mean by that?” she asked.

“Lisa hit him and ran.”

“She hit him?” Laurel asked sharply. “Is Curtis okay?”

Denis dismissed her concerns with a wave of his walking stick. “Oh, please. He’s a farmer. Farmers are indestructible. The man could stick his face in a thresher and not even need a bandage. He’ll be fine.”

“I need to go to him.”

“Don’t bother. We’re busy here, and you and I have work to do. I’ll text Garrett to pick up Curtis and bring him back here.” Denis ran a hand along the many hardcovers on his bookshelves, which rose all the way to the ceiling. He’d collected them for most of his life, and there wasn’t a speck of dust on any of them. His interests were wide ranging. Novels. Histories. Biographies. Political theory. Among the shelves were Lisa Power’s four books, including the one that had made her a legend in town. Thief River Falls.

The book in which she’d humiliated him.

“According to Curtis, Lisa is armed now,” Denis went on. “Apparently this taxi driver passed along some of her guns to her.”

Laurel closed her eyes. “Oh, no.”

“Dr. March, do you have any idea how dangerous this situation has become? Do you understand the risks if this goes bad?”

“I do,” Laurel said. “Of course I do.”

“This is a disaster. Why do you think I told you to come down here? You said you could prevent this from happening. You told me the best thing to do was play along and pretend to be on her side. You told me you could get the boy back and make this whole thing with Lisa go away. Instead, now I have her out there somewhere in town with an assault rifle!”

“I’m sorry. You’re absolutely right; this was my mistake. Curtis didn’t want to be part of the plan. I forced him, and I shouldn’t have done that. I just thought it would be easier to get Lisa to do what we wanted if she was dealing with a familiar face.”

“You were wrong. Instead, the two of you managed to make it worse.”

“We had no way of anticipating what would happen with Shyla Dunn,” Laurel protested.

“That’s no excuse. In my business, you have to learn to expect the unexpected. Anyway, how big a threat are we talking about here? Does Lisa even know how to use these weapons?”

“Sure, she does. She grew up with guns.”

Denis shook his head. “Well, that’s just great.”

Laurel got out of the chair and made her way across the office. Her face was expressionless. For someone who had driven down here in the middle of the night, she looked clean and put together, which was annoying to Denis. She had this unshakable evenness of temper about her that always got on his nerves. He didn’t trust people who weren’t emotionally invested in the outcome of a problem.

“Look, I know how difficult this situation is,” Laurel said, “but don’t do anything simply because you’re angry, Denis. You need to listen to me. I know you. We go back a long way. We’ve worked together for years.”

“I realize that,” Denis replied, “and I’m sure you know I’m grateful for your help. By the way, does Lisa know about our relationship? Did you tell her?”

“Of course not.”

“All right. So what’s your point?”

“My point is, you and Lisa have history, but that has nothing to do with what’s happening right now. You have to put that aside.”

“This is not about me having a grudge against Lisa Power,” Denis snapped.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure. This woman is putting everyone at risk. I know she’s a friend of yours, and I know the whole town loves her, but right now, I can’t afford to think about any of that. She’s a threat, and with every hour that passes, she’s becoming more of a threat. She is armed and dangerous. I’m going to do what needs to be done to take care of this situation before it gets worse.”

“What does that mean?” Laurel asked.

“Exactly what I said.”

“What are you going to do? Shoot her? Do you think that’s the answer?”

“I hope it doesn’t come to that, but that’s up to her.”

“Lisa won’t turn to violence,” Laurel insisted. “Trust me. That’s not who she is.”

“Your word doesn’t count for much right now,” Denis replied. “And I believe your husband would tell you that she’s already violent. She attacked him, remember?”

Laurel said nothing.

“Meanwhile, what do we do about the boy?” Denis asked. “That’s where this all started, and we’re still no closer to getting him back.”

Laurel grimaced and stared through the office windows at the first glimmers of morning over the river. “I promise you, Denis, we will find Harlan. I told you that from the beginning. Sooner or later, we’ll convince Lisa to give him to us. But right now, that may be the least of our worries.”