The Big Machine Eats, page 17
“Hi daddy,” the voice said. I nearly slid off the road as I pulled to the side, one set of tires in the ditch. The number showed unlisted.
“Jesus, Jenna?” Joyce’s hands went to her mouth, as if she needed to stop herself from talking. “Jenna baby are you OK?”
“I’m fine, daddy. I love you.” I could hear heavy machinery in the background.
“Where are you?” I said. I could hear her breath in the receiver.
“I’m OK. It’s just—don’t look for me.”
“Why?”
“Just don’t. I can’t tell you.”
“What’s your number honey?
By the time I reached the end of my question the line had gone dead. I leaned back against the seat. “She said—”
“I heard what she said.” Joyce’s hands were crushing each other in her lap as she looked at me. “What do we do?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“That’s not helpful right now, Matt,” Joyce said. “I need to hear something else.”
“I heard loud noise in the background, like roadwork or something. Maybe a construction site.”
“This is good, though. We know she’s alive.” Tears came to Joyce’s eyes, and I had to get back on the road before the same thing happened to me. I turned on my signal and spun the ditched wheels and we got out with little problem.
I took a few minutes and called Gritton with the news. I left it on his special voicemail, so he would be sure to get it himself in case the Pittmans had one of the secretaries or the office manager in their pocket. The mood in the truck had lightened considerably. Joyce’s hand remained in its place for the rest of the ride, rhythmic and true. By the time we got home and let Grump out to pee, I was in a state.
I kept the dog on a leash as he was still a puppy, albeit a 40 pound puppy with boundless energy. He ran back and forth at the length of his leash, so I decided to hook him up on Thump’s old line, so he would have room to run and a coop to get out of the weather. We’d bring him back in around bedtime. Joyce had disappeared into the bedroom. I came in and shed my outer clothes into the closet and kicked off my boots in the general direction of the kitchen. I’d be able to find them more quickly when I got up in the morning to go to the garage where I was very happy to be a mechanic again.
Chapter 3
I stretched once toward the ceiling and popped the air out of my spine. Then Joyce came into the room naked. I stood there a little bit stunned. It was not like her. It was a miracle that in her early 40s, a few years older than me, that she had the body of a teenager, albeit with wider hips. Her small breasts were goosepimpled, and she took me by the hand and led me back to the bedroom where she sat on the bed and took my jeans and shorts off, then pushed me back on the sheets.
“What?” I said. She put her hands on my chest and angled herself up.
“I love you,” she said. “Now shut up,” and lowered herself onto me. I tried to relax into it, but my nerves were not cooperating, though I stayed erect well enough that she could begin her rhythm. I shifted a little, went a little deeper, and her eyes closed. She clutched at my hands and brought them to her breasts. I pinched her nipples and pulled them out toward me hard, the way she liked it. I don’t know how her fingers ended up in my mouth or whether she’d managed to come or not, but as I did I nearly threw her off the bed.
Breathing hard, I reached over between her legs to help her along but she waved my hand away. I sat up just long enough to remove my shirts. I woke up at 4:45 AM with her head on my chest, both of us deep asleep after the good news of Jenna’s call. I shifted her off my chest and pulled on my boxers long enough to get up let the dog in. He was pissed.
Chapter 4
We gassed up in Gillett and drove into Elmira, on our way up to Hamiltown. To hell with it. The garage had gotten along without me so far, they’d do it for another day. Joyce had stocked a cooler with sandwiches and diet pop so we wouldn’t have to stop, but it would be a quick jaunt, really, only four hours. I’d locked my .40 into the toolbox I carried in the trunk and hoped that I wouldn’t get pulled over or searched. The same green grass showed on both sides of the road. If upstate NY had anything to recommend it, I didn’t know it. Maybe the Finger Lakes. The map showed Hamiltown was the closest town to a place called Cooper’s Landing, where Soldier Pittman had been seen. Supposedly the Pittmans used the place to move drugs into Canada from New York . It was a long shot, but the only thing we had going for us were long shots. Jenna’s call hadn’t told us much. Construction going on in the background could have come from anywhere, but I thought she’d stay on the east coast.. I didn’t think they had enough money to go anywhere else. Jenna was alive. I had to think of it that way to keep going.
The fire in my gut for Danny Pittman now would not go away. He was the last link and last danger Jenna would face. I would make sure of it. Joyce sat beside me looking out the window, her hand warm on my thigh. I didn’t know how prepared Joyce was for what might happen here. I wasn’t going to kill him, I kept saying to myself. No death. Too much death already. But then I remembered the three Pittmans walking across my field toward my kin, intending harm. The way Danny raised his rifle my way with no compunctions or even a great deal of forethought maybe. Would he have shot me, considering he’d be killing his girlfriend’s father and uncle? Hard to tell. I would get the answer to that, along with many other questions I had to ask, and he would have to keep quiet about the cool hundred and sixty grand of his family’s money Dean Blackwell had stolen from them. I preferred he didn’t know that Dean had left that money with me.
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THEN
She lost track of time, how long she’d been locked underground. Must’ve been several days by now. The pungent stench of urine filled the black, empty spaces like the alleyway behind the bus station. Her stomach gnawed, hunger panged, sliced at her guts, like a feral animal trapped inside her rib cage, mouth too dry to produce the spit to swallow. When she first woke, submerged in total darkness, she clawed at the concrete, beat her fists against the wall of whatever this prison was. She screamed until she couldn’t hear her own voice anymore.
Then she slumped to the floor and waited.
She was going to die here.
But not before something very bad happened to her first.
NOW
CHAPTER ONE
On the overpass leading into Reine, the small Upstate New York town where Alex Salerno had grown up, some smart ass had spray painted “Abandon all hope ye who enter here.” There was only the one road in off the 87, making the concrete billboard the perfect platform for free advertising. Mostly pissed-off punks who had been scaling the trestles since Alex was a little girl. Drunk on blackberry brandy, draped in black, tempting fate on midnight tracks where freight trains rumbled alongside the Hudson River all night long. Anything to mark territory, stake a claim. Make voices of discontent heard. Every spring the town sent in a cleaning crew. The following fall, another tag. As Alex drove closer to the bridge, she made out the hastily scrawled response: “You need hope to lose it, asshole.” Point. Counterpoint. Alex imagined respectable suburban professionals, mothers with small children, housewives driving this same route every day, seeing the graffiti and wondering what was wrong with kids today because they had never been young and didn’t remember what outrage felt like.
It took her a while to find the campus. Even when she lived up here, Alex hadn’t spent much time at Uniondale University, the private college on the hill with its fake ponds and planted sod. Sitting on a bench burnished with names she’d never heard of, Alex took in the sprawling campus, the packs of giggling girls and cocksure boys. Alex had nothing against learning or higher education. She read books. In another life, she might’ve done well in college. But with each passing minute she felt increasingly uncomfortable among the rich kids shuttled in from Connecticut and the Hamptons.
Why had she agreed to this meeting in the first place? Because someone wanted to tell her story again, had offered to shine the spotlight once more.
The October sun lingered in a stubborn autumn sky, creating the illusion that there was time left. Late-afternoon clouds rolled in, the horizon growing darker. Alex pulled up her black hoodie and jammed hands in pockets. The college was a strange choice for an interview. Albany would’ve made more sense. Troy, Schenectady. Even Rensselaer. That’s where the press was, the little big towns of Upstate New York. Which definitely did not include Reine. The longer she sat there, amid the quaint woodsy backdrop and postmodern metal sculptures, the more pathetic she felt. It had been years since she escaped that basement. Who would want to talk to her now? After all this time? Back then, they wrote stories about her. Back then, she was, if not national news, at least part of local lore. The girl who’d risen from the dead, emerged untouched, still pure. The one that got away. No one else would have to die.
Then another girl died, and Alex’s story turned cautionary tale, an unpleasant reminder that promises get broken and nothing gold can stay.
Alex pulled her Parliaments, stashed them, pulled them again. A jogger stomped past and she flinched. She checked her phone. No missed calls, no unanswered texts. Opened her email. No update from Noah Lee, the reporter, saying that he was running late, no messages about crossed wires, a misunderstanding over what time or where they were supposed to meet. She contemplated heading back to her car, digging for his number among the clutter; it was in there somewhere, but she knew once she crossed the quad she wasn’t coming back. She’d hit the 87 back to the city, where she’d do what she always did. Run off, find a party, score something to make her forget she’d ever been this needy.
A college kid with a backpack draped over his shoulder headed toward her, pleasant smile plastered on his smooth, youthful face like he needed to borrow something. Alex hid her cigarettes. Students were always bumming smokes at the bar, despite having way more money than she ever would. But the kid did not want a cigarette.
“I’m Noah,” he said. “You must be Alex.” He slipped the bag off his shoulder, dropping it between his feet and plopping down beside her.
She sucked on her smoke, biting the inside of her cheek, an anxious habit that had created a permanent nub, soft candy she chewed when nerves got the best of her.
Noah pointed at the tall light pole, a big sign with red slashes through all the things you weren’t allowed to do. “Campus is smoke free.”
“I thought this was an interview?” Alex dropped the cigarette, squashing the burning ember beneath the heel of her Chuck Taylors. “For a newspaper?”
“Yup. The Codornices. Uniondale’s student publication.”
The meeting had been set up via email, details arranged digitally. Why hadn’t she taken six seconds to verify the name of the newspaper?
“I mean, I’m hoping they’ll run it,” Noah said. “No guarantee. Not too much competition though. I live in the same dorm as the editor. Mainly I need the interview for my final project.”
“Final project?”
“Beats and Deadlines. It’s a journalism class—”
“How old are you?”
“Nineteen.”
“You got to be shitting me.”
“I’m sorry. Did I say something wrong?”
Of course no mainstream press would want to talk to her now. Not after all this time. It had been years since Alex Salerno mattered. How many kids—girls, boys, teens, toddlers, babies—had been stolen over the past dozen years? Hundreds? Thousands? Hers was no longer even the latest abduction to come out of Reine. Certainly not the most infamous. Not after Kira Shanks went missing. The day Kira Shanks disappeared, Alex’s fifteen minutes were up.
She stared at her old Civic across the quad, rusting in the metered section of the parking lot. A jangle of clipped wires barfed out a hole in the dash from where the stereo had been stolen. The prospect of driving two hours without music, back to a tiny rented room, sounded as appealing as playing freshman comp Q&A. She hated that sick part inside her that longed for the attention.
“Just ask your questions,” she said.
“Sean Riley? The detective who rescued you?”
“What about him?” Alex leaned back on the bench. Just hearing Riley’s name cracked the fragile parts inside her, unleashed the emotional shrapnel she’d learned to keep hidden. Talking about being snatched, imprisoned against her will? No problem. If she pretended hard enough, she could imagine somebody else’s life. Dissociation, that’s what her therapist called it, a strategy trauma victims employed to stay safe. Thinking about Riley made her feel things. Tender things. Vulnerable things.
Alex braced for what came next. Because just as she was inextricably linked to Riley, Alex was forever tied to that other girl. The bigger deal. The sexier story. The Mary Sue to her outcast. And if Noah Lee said her name right now, Alex swore she’d scream.
But of course he did.
“And, y’know, Kira Shanks.”
There had been no reason for Alex to believe this interview would lead to anything beneficial. There was no money in it. No prospective job offers. It was a long drive up from NYC, costing gas money she didn’t have, shifts off from the bar she couldn’t afford, time spent in a town full of painful memories. But at least the focus would be on her. Her struggle, her victory. The one good thing she’d done with her life: she’d survived.
Alex glanced around uneasy, trying to figure a way to bolt without looking smaller than she already felt. How do you explain you’re sick of competing with a dead girl without sounding petty? What happened to Kira Shanks was terrible. Of course she felt bad for her. But by living, Alex thought she’d won. Turned out by not dying, she’d lost.
“Does it feel weird to be back up here?” Noah asked, pen in hand.
“No. Why would it?”
“Because it’s not far from here where it happened.”
“Where what happened?” Alex knew what he meant.
“Um,” Noah stammered. “Do you feel, like, an affinity?”
“To what?”
“Kira Shanks. Because of her disappearance. Like you’re both part of the same curse on this town. The other girls, too. But I can’t talk to them. They’re all, y’know, dead. You’re the only one who’s not.”
Noah had been, what, seven, when Alex was taken? Twelve by the time Kira went missing? He knew the whole story or they wouldn’t be sitting here. Alex Salerno had been the last of several young girls kidnapped by a man named Kenneth Parsons, who was currently serving several, concurrent life sentences far away without chance of parole. He’d die in prison. Kira Shanks had been murdered by a different man altogether. Five long years separated the crimes. Nothing tied the two cases together. Alex fought against her quickening pulse.
“When you wrote,” she said, “it was to interview me. Why are you asking about Kira Shanks? Like I had anything to do with it?”
“I didn’t mean you were involved.”
“Wasn’t even the same guy who took her. Everyone knows that. Parsons took me and killed those other girls. They arrested Benny-what’s-his-name for Kira.”
“Brudzienski. Benny Brudzienski.”
“There’s no connection between what happened to her and me.”
“Some people think Parsons had help—”
“A rumor, something the media drummed up for ratings. Parsons and Benny never even met. That’s been proven.” Alex was repeating what the police and Riley had promised her. Even now she couldn’t keep those wolves away.
“Parsons could’ve had a partner,” Noah said. “They found other DNA.”
“I know what they found. I was there, remember? Parsons confessed, copped to everything, pled out. Gave up every kill, every body. Hand-delivered detectives to each gravesite. Why would Parsons cover for anyone? His plea bargain with the DA is the only reason I am here.” It had taken Alex a long time to squelch fears that another monster lurked in the dark, waiting to drag her back to hell. It was a never-ending losing fight. “Parsons is in prison because of me.”
“Not exactly because of you.”
“Excuse me?”
“He got time for the others. Technically. He didn’t do anything to you.”
“Didn’t do anything to me? You know what that was like? Being locked underground, not knowing if I’d live or die, get raped, or something worse? I’m supposed to what? Feel lucky? Grateful? Because Parsons got picked up before he had a chance to do me like he did the others? Because Riley found me in that bunker, half-starved and nearly dead of dehydration? I was seventeen years old. Couple years younger than you are now. You have any idea how terrified I was?”
“I didn’t mean—”
“You keep saying that, Noah. You didn’t mean this. You’re sorry for that. Why did you want to interview me? If what I went through wasn’t tragic enough for you?”
“I need to write this paper. It’s very important to my grade.”
“What’s that got to do with me?”
“I messed up, okay? I jumped the gun and made enemies of your friend, Sean Riley. Detective Riley. This paper I’m writing accounts for seventy-five percent of my grade. I had this big idea for a real investigative piece because of how he doesn’t think he did it and my prof loves frontline reporting—he worked with my dad—muckraker shit, undercover journalism. The sixties.” He rolled his eyes. “I had the whole story mapped out. The cop who cracked the case changes his mind. Grants last-minute reprieve. Like the Life of David Gale.”
