They're Gone Read online

  So she waited. And listened.

  And thought about Kim. Where she’d gone. If Cessy had managed to guide her somewhere safe. If she’d see her again.

  And that thought, that last thought, made her question her plan.

  What was the plan exactly? To try to convince Levi to let her and Kim and Cessy go free? To give herself over to him and hope he could convince Temple to let them escape? What was she going to offer? Her love? Her body? Her life?

  A twig snapped.

  Deb whirled around, stared into the darkness. Kept her flashlight off, not sure she wanted to reveal exactly where she was to someone waiting in the woods.

  And wasn’t sure she wanted to see whoever was out there.

  She stayed still for several minutes. Didn’t hear any other sounds save for a soft warm wind rustling the leaves.

  Maybe it had been a deer or a pony.

  Another snap.

  Deb stood statue-still, held her breath.

  No one came into the clearing.

  That pattern continued for much of the night, until the random sounds in darkness stopped scaring her. Deb sat on the ground, her back against a tree, but sleep never came.

  She thought about Grant, thought about him in a way she hadn’t since his death, even before his death. She remembered him simply, as the boy she’d known in college, the times he was nervous or unsure, those sweet moments when he was puzzled or lost and she wanted to touch his face, to absorb that cute, helpless expression.

  She had loved him, and right now, despite the past hellish few weeks, that love felt like an important thing to remember. A comforting thing.

  Like the night she’d spent with her mother in the hospital, after the doctors had confided to Deb that her mother would likely die the next day. And her mother seemed to know, but never addressed it. Instead, for one lucid hour, she and Deb talked about her childhood, marveled over memories, chatted at times like excited girlfriends. Held hands. Lay next to each other. Looked up and laughed.

  In the end, Deb didn’t want to reflect on pain.

  The morning sun began to lighten the world. Deb heard a distant car slow down and stop.

  A door closed. Footsteps approached.

  She stood warily.

  Levi Price stepped into the clearing. He looked as tired as she felt. He wore jeans and a jacket, unzipped over a green T-shirt.

  “Hi, Levi.” Deb tried to keep her tone light.

  “Why’d you do that the other night?”

  “What?” Deb was taken aback.

  She hadn’t expected him to be confrontational.

  “The gun. Why’d you do that? I could have kept the three of you safe. Or at least you and Kim. But you pulled out that gun and messed everything up. What were you thinking?”

  “It couldn’t be just me and Kim,” Deb said.

  “I wanted to save you,” Levi said plaintively.

  “I know you did, Levi. I know it.”

  She said it softly, trying to keep her appeal to him. Trying to make sure she could use him for whatever she needed.

  “I showed you all that stuff, and I thought you’d understand.” Levi grimaced. “Took you back to my house and showed you everything.” He bit his lip. “I thought you’d understand, and then I saw your face and it was like I saw everything from another angle. You know? I didn’t like it.”

  Deb spoke cautiously, not wanting to say the wrong thing. “I didn’t really have time to process everything.”

  Levi turned toward her, a pained expression in his eyes. “I don’t think you would have loved me the way I loved you.”

  “Grant just died.”

  “Yeah,” Levi said plaintively. “He did.”

  “Did you kill him?”

  “No.”

  “I didn’t have much time to think about it,” Deb said, still trying to make sure she didn’t lose Levi. “But what you were doing for me … that meant a lot. You helped me. I did start to care for you.”

  “Really?” She watched Levi’s face, watched hope replace pain.

  “Christ, Levi,” a voice said. “I should have known you’d maximized your potential years ago.”

  Deb and Levi both turned as Temple stepped into the clearing. Like Levi, he held a gun.

  Unlike Levi’s, it was pointed at Deb.

  And now she desperately wished she hadn’t given the .22 to Cessy.

  “You told him where I was?” Deb asked Levi.

  “No!”

  “I followed him,” Temple said. “And I’m irritated and tired, so you don’t have a whole lot of time. Where are the photos?”

  Deb didn’t reply.

  “Okay,” Temple said, and he aimed his gun at Deb.

  Deb’s stomach dropped, and she took a step back.

  “Wait, wait!” Levi shouted.

  “The pictures are with a reporter at the Post,” Deb said. “That’s where they are now.”

  Temple looked at her carefully.

  “You’re bluffing,” he announced. “What’s your plan? Try and blackmail me? Tell me you won’t say a word if I let the three of you go?”

  That was exactly the plan.

  Deb didn’t know what to say.

  “Hey,” Levi said, his voice soft. “Did you really send them to someone at the Post?”

  Deb nodded and her head felt loose.

  “Here’s the thing,” Temple said. “I could shoot you right here, leave your body in the woods. But maybe the photos are with some reporter. And maybe Kim and Cessy come back here looking for you. And then there’s an investigation. There’s no way we can possibly clean up the scene and remove all of our evidence. Too many loose threads.”

  Something in Temple’s face softened. He smiled, and the smile seemed genuine.

  “That was smart. I have to admit, that’s smart.

  “But here’s the thing you don’t know,” he went on. “I am one careful man. I’ve had this side gig for a few years now, and there’s nothing that can link it back to me. I know how to follow a paper trail. I know how to tie together disparate leads. I know how to catch the bad guys. So there’s no way I came here without an alibi. And unlike you, I’m not bluffing.”

  Deb realized her hands were balled. It was hard to swallow, hard to breathe, hard to get words out. She tried to fight off the panic, tried to remember that if she was killed, Kim would be next.

  She tried to speak. No words would come.

  “All right,” Temple said. “Bye.”

  “Wait!” Levi cried, and stepped in between Temple’s gun and Deb. “You don’t have to do this!”

  “Levi. Not this again.”

  “She won’t say a word about this, right? None of this.” Levi looked at Deb. “You and Kim and Cessy will just go your own way, right? You promise?”

  Deb nodded.

  “Oh, well,” Temple said, “if she said she promises, then I have to believe her.”

  “But she does,” Levi said helplessly. “She does.”

  “Levi, the best thing about Deb being dead is that maybe you’ll come back to being a little normal. Because this teenage lovesick is just about reaching the end for me.”

  Levi whirled around, faced Temple, his gun suddenly out.

  Deb saw Temple’s face over Levi’s shoulder, saw the surprise and then, anger. Anger until she heard the gun shot, and then his face crumpled, turned pained. Temple disappeared from her view, fell to the ground.

  Levi turned toward her, and then Deb heard another gunshot. Levi winced, his knees buckling. He grimaced, sat down roughly.

  Deb wanted to run, but she was rooted. The gun shots echoed in her ears like they’d never stop ringing.

  Temple held the gun up, but it was pointed away from her, into the trees. His arm dropped, and he lay back. Took a deep breath. Didn’t take another.

  Levi lay at his feet, looking up at Deb. Blood was spreading on the bottom corner of his shirt. His face was white, scared.

  “Help me,” he said.

&nb
sp; CHAPTER

  64

  “I DON’T WANT ANYTHING,” Kim told her.

  “You need to eat,” Cessy replied. The words came naturally, made her feel very much like a mother, even though she was only a few years older than Kim.

  “I can’t right now,” Kim insisted. She put the International House of Pancakes menu back on the table, slid it to Cessy, past her untouched cup of coffee. “I keep thinking about Mom.”

  “She’ll be okay,” Cessy said with a confidence she didn’t feel. “They need her help.”

  “Yeah,” Kim said gloomily.

  Cessy watched her, wondered if she should say more, decided against it. They’d driven for a couple of hours in silence, Kim occasionally crying quietly in the passenger seat. Cessy had stopped at an IHOP somewhere in Maryland, more for rest than food. Sleep had pulled her powerfully, particularly as her adrenaline passed.

  She took another sip of coffee.

  The restaurant, now around five AM, wasn’t crowded. Mostly empty tables and dark sections. A young couple, Cessy guessed close to Kim’s age, sat side by side in a booth. A middle-aged man in a pink polo and tan slacks sat by himself, staring into his phone.

  “Can I get y’all anything?” a waitress asked. “Besides coffee?”

  “Steak and eggs for me,” Cessy said. “Medium and over easy. Strawberry pancakes for her.”

  “I’m not hungry,” Kim said.

  The waitress looked at Cessy.

  “Steak and eggs for me, pancakes for her,” Cessy repeated.

  The waitress left silverware on the table and walked off. Kim didn’t say anything. Cessy glanced at the entrance. It was hard for her not to check the door, even if they were in the middle of nowhere with no chance Temple or his men could find them. But Cessy couldn’t help it, couldn’t fight the fear inside her.

  “How’s she going to contact us?” Kim asked. “How’s she even going to get out of there? How will we know this worked? Or didn’t work? Or if she’s okay?”

  “These are all good questions.”

  Kim looked at her expectantly.

  “And I don’t have any answers. But those were good questions. Your mom seemed like she had a plan. I just don’t know what it was.”

  The burned man walked into the restaurant.

  Toward their table.

  Cessy’s blood felt like it had frozen in place. And she remembered the .22 Deb had given her, sitting in the glove compartment.

  “I just—” Kim started to say, and stopped when she saw Cessy’s expression. “What?”

  The burned man seemed like he was walking in slow motion, like time itself was subject to his control. He wore jeans and an unzipped black sweatshirt. Cessy could see a gun in his side holster.

  “You’re here?” she heard Kim ask, faint and frightened.

  The voice stirred something in Cessy, helped her emerge.

  The steak knife on the table.

  She imagined grabbing it and pushing it deep into the burned man’s stomach and pulling it sideways, imagined the pain in his scarred face.

  He sat across from her.

  “You’re the one who killed my brother,” Cessy said, her voice low. Shaking.

  “Where’s my mom?” Kim asked.

  “You’ll be with her soon,” the burned man said.

  The connotation of death. Cessy wondered if Kim noticed.

  Cessy glanced around the restaurant again. The young couple and middle-aged man were in the same places they had been. A waitress poured coffee from a pot with an orange lid. Another woman, the hostess maybe, listlessly waited at the cash register up front.

  “How’d you find us?” Cessy asked.

  He paused, as if considering whether or not to answer.

  “Price’s phone. Passed you as you were leaving Chincoteague. Decided to turn around, see where you went.”

  “Yeah, I’m new to all this murder stuff,” Cessy said. “But I’m getting used to it.”

  The burned man took Kim’s coffee cup, glanced inside, drank. Set the cup down.

  Stared at Cessy.

  She stared back.

  “What are you guys doing?” Kim asked, her voice still small.

  “He’s thinking about killing me,” Cessy said.

  The burned man didn’t say anything. Just watched her.

  “What?” Kim’s voice, somewhere distant from Cessy.

  “And I’m thinking about killing him.”

  He nodded. “I feel it.”

  “Me too,” Cessy said. The feeling was like embers inside her, glowing red embers pricking up under a gasoline wind. She looked at him and all she remembered was Chris. Chris lying down on that motel bed, face frozen in a contorted mix of fear and pain.

  “Where are we going to do it?” the burned man asked. “Drive off and find a place? Somewhere out in a field? Out back behind the restaurant?”

  “I don’t care where,” Cessy said, her words hot.

  He slid his chair closer to Cessy. She did the same, so close their legs almost touched. She knew it was her imagination, but she thought she could smell traces of burnt flesh. Burnt hair and flesh.

  “She did a number on you,” Cessy said.

  “What?”

  She noticed how Seth’s expression tightened.

  “It was a woman, right? A woman did this to you? Set you on fire? Someone you were hurting?”

  Cessy didn’t know how she knew, but she did. A woman had done this to him. Some woman had fought him and won.

  “I’m going to kill you,” the burned man said, and now his voice was lower, menacing. “I know what Hector did to you. How he hit you. Kicked you. How you took it like a dog.”

  “I want to take that knife,” Cessy said, “and I want to push it inside you.”

  “Please …” Kim was saying. “Please no.”

  “Then do it,” he said. “Kill me.”

  “Don’t,” Kim said.

  Cessy reached for the steak knife but her hand slapped down empty on the table. She looked down. The knife was gone.

  The burned man was reaching toward her, and then leaned back in his chair, as if he wanted to regard her. Cessy stood, chair pushed back, touched her side. Felt her shirt and something else, something hard, the knife’s wooden handle, like it was stuck to her shirt. Looked down, saw the blade buried inside her.

  Pain knocked Cessy to her knees.

  Someone screaming. A lot of people screaming. Cessy looked down at the floor, the drops of her blood. Thought about Chris lying on the bed, like he was on the floor beneath her, serenely smiling up.

  Felt her elbows give.

  Saw Kim backing up, the burned man walking toward her. Kim screaming, other people screaming, shouting.

  Chris whispering in her ear.

  Cessy pushed herself back to her knees. Everything around her growing faint. Climbed to her feet. Dragged herself to the burned man, leaning against the table for help. Kim against a wall, hands up. The burned man pulling the gun out.

  Cessy’s knees shook. Her hand on the table slipped. She grabbed the steak knife, pulled it out with a cry. Stumbled toward the burned man, felt herself fall. Fell and pushed the knife into the burned man’s back.

  Bodies everywhere. People running like moths to a light, ants toward a corpse. Chris’s voice again. The burned man on the floor, shouting, bodies under him. The bodies on Cessy too, pushing the knife deeper, as if Chris’s hands were over hers.

  CHAPTER

  65

  “HELP ME,” LEVI Price asked Deb.

  She’d never seen someone shot before, someone killed, the moments someone had been alive, and then gone. How sudden it was. The abruptness.

  Levi was trying to push himself to his car, his back on the ground, feet kicking the dirt.

  “I can’t sit up,” he said, frightened. “I can’t sit up.”

  Deb walked over to him, cautiously, avoiding Temple. She knew Temple was dead; he hadn’t taken a breath or moved a muscle in minutes, and
his eyes were open and still. But she kept her distance from his corpse, as if he might lunge at her.

  “Deb,” Levi said. “Please.”

  Something heartbreakingly young in his voice, the fear. Young in the way that scared children beg for their parents.

  “I don’t know what to do,” Deb said.

  “Can you get me …” Levi paused, hands lifted over his stomach, as if the wound had grown too painful to touch. “Can you get me to a doctor?”

  Deb reached down, grabbed Levi’s hands, pulled. He tried to use his legs to help, but they barely got any traction. Pulling him was like pulling dead weight.

  “I can’t,” she said.

  “Can you call someone?”

  Deb searched for her phone, saw it on the ground.

  “I’m sorry,” Levi was saying. “I’m so sorry about taking Kim and lying to you. I just fell in love with you.”

  Deb listened to him, listened to Levi as his words slurred, like someone speaking just before they’re overcome by sleep.

  “I’m sorry about what I did. Maria told him about us, told Grant. He wanted to help her. Scott made me do it.”

  His words growing faint.

  “He did?”

  Levi nodded. “He made me do it. Grant was going to talk. He made me do it.”

  Levi stopped speaking, licked his lips. Looked up, his eyes peering out of his stark white face.

  “Is that your phone?”

  “No,” Deb said.

  A moment of comprehension crossed Levi’s expression, and then that expression changed, contorted into rage and hate.

  Levi’s gun was warm in Deb’s hand.

  The Baltimore Sun

  District Attorney’s Death Remains a Mystery

  Baltimore, MD

  AUTHORITIES ARE STILL trying to unravel the circumstances that led to the death of District Attorney Scott Temple.

  Temple’s body was found in a forested area of the quiet vacation town of Chincoteague, Maryland. He had been shot in the chest at close range, suggesting an assassination.

  The body of a second man, identified as Levi Price, was also found at the scene, shot in the back and the forehead.