Mean Streak

But as they approached his cabin and she saw that yellow crime scene tape had been strung around the entire property, she gave a cry of dismay. “What happened?”

“Like we thought, he’s a fugitive. He gave you a phone number, right?”

“How’d you know?”

“Didn’t,” Norman said, flashing her his cagey grin. “But figured. Did he tell you to call him if—”

“If you tried to rape me.”

“Yeah, we know that’s what you’ve been blabbin’. Also know you had the backing of your lady doctor friend. But fuck her. She’s her old man’s problem to deal with.”

“She’s married?”

“Looks like, but not our business. It’s your tall, dark, and handsome we want.”

“What are you going to do?”

He steered into the drive of their house and brought the truck to a jarring stop. The chain was still wrapped around the tree. “Damn him, stole our dog, too,” Norman muttered as he cut the engine and pulled his cell phone from the pocket of his dirty jeans—the bloodstained ones in which he’d been admitted to the hospital.

“Here’s what’s gonna happen, little sister,” he said. “You’re gonna call your knight in shiny armor and tell him that we’ve brought you home and that you’re scared on account of we found out about the lies you’ve been spreading.”

“He knows they’re not lies.”

“No he don’t,” he retorted. “He’s just taking your word for it. But you tell him that we’re good and mad, and that we’ve threatened to make good your lies, and that you’d sooner kill yourself as have us…do that.”

Will grunted his approval of the script.

“And then what?” she asked.

“Then he’ll come running to your rescue. When he gets here, he’ll wish he’d never been born.” Norman grinned and brandished the phone. “What’s the number?”

She sneered. “When hell freezes over.”

Will grabbed her by the jaw, digging his thumb into one cheek and his fingers into the other. Although it cost him a grimace of pain from his broken ribs, Norman secured her hands. She bucked and twisted, but the harder she struggled, the tighter they held on. The pain to her jaw was so intense, tears came to her eyes.

“Hurts, don’t it?” Norman said.

He’d broken a sweat, and one of the raw patches on his face had begun to leak fresh blood. “You can imagine the suffering Will here’s gone through because of your friend. But he’s still got the strength to bend a skinny little whip like you. Eventually you’ll tell us what we want to know, so you’d just as well save yourself the discomfort.”

She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head.

After a moment, Norman said, “All right, then, we’ll try something else.”

The sinister quality of his smooth tone caused her to open her eyes. Her mother had come out onto the porch, a dishtowel slung over one shoulder, her holey cardigan crookedly buttoned, and Lisa’s spirit crumbled, because she knew she would do whatever they demanded.

“You make that call, little sister,” Norman whispered, “and it’d better be convincing. Or on this occasion we tie Ma to a chair and she watches.”

* * *

Hayes waited until the other three men had left, then he said, “You didn’t know it was Alice.”

Rather than feeling teary, Emory’s eyes felt exceptionally dry, as though she hadn’t even blinked since learning of her friend’s betrayal. “No.”

“You never suspected?”

“No.”

“You’re furious.”