Try Not to Breathe, page 30
“We offer employment in a depressed part of the state,” Combs said. “We give jobs to people who might not ordinarily find them.”
Avery decided it was time to back off. “Look, I’m not a labor lawyer. Okay? I came to talk to you because—”
“Anna says you were a police officer for a few years,” Combs said, “and you still work in security down in Breckville.”
“That’s right. But I’m not here in any official capacity. I’m here because of my—because of Anna.” She thought of Hank toiling in the fields under the watchful eye of Collins. She had no idea how long he’d been there, how close he was to making a move with KSP. “I was looking for you because I’m ready to leave. Anna doesn’t seem to want to have anything to do with me, so I’m giving her space. When I showed up here, you all took my keys and phone and all that. I need to get back to Breckville. My job and school.”
“Anna indicated the two of you aren’t really that close,” Combs said.
Avery looked at the house again. “You got a lot of information out of Anna in one evening.”
“My wife is good at making people feel comfortable.”
“Anna and I haven’t always been close, that’s true. I’m trying to do right by her now and get out of her way. She wants me to leave, so . . . I’m leaving. I don’t have any luggage. I just need my keys and things.”
Avery addressed her comments to Combs, figuring it was his land, his house, his rules. But it was Hogan who answered, acting like he was the mouthpiece for Combs.
“We were hoping you would stay a little longer,” he said. “You just got here, and we don’t want you running off so soon.”
He spoke the words calmly and without any real inflection, which made them only seem more menacing.
“Maybe you didn’t understand me. I’m ready to leave now. I just need to know where Yates parked the truck, and then somebody has to give me the keys. And the phone and the gun. And then I’ll be out of here.”
“You said you went down by the crops and you saw Collins down there. Right?”
“I did see him. And we chatted. He’s an . . . interesting guy.”
“You didn’t like what you saw?”
“Was I supposed to?”
Hogan drew on his cigarette and then studied the tip, like there might be something interesting there. Combs stood by, listening but not saying or doing anything.
“We have people like Collins working here,” Hogan said, “just to keep everything as secure as possible. And we’re going to let everyone know you’ll be staying with us a little longer.”
The two men stood between her and the gate. With no keys and no phone, even if she did get past them—which seemed unlikely—what would she do out there? Flag down a passing car, when it seemed like no cars passed? Walk back to Rydell and find the chief of police, who seemed to be a master of turning a blind eye?
Or wait—and . . . hope something else came to mind to get her out of there?
Her recent conversation with Yates ran through her head. The bitter taste rose inside her throat. She nearly gagged.
She remembered sinking below the water that day on the side of the interstate. She felt like she was sinking now. Options being closed off, doors closing.
The murky dark even in the bright sun.
“Why don’t you go back to your cabin?” Hogan said.
“Are you serious?”
Hogan made one small gesture. He placed his hand on his waist, and the movement caused his suit coat to pull back, revealing the shoulder holster and the gun attached to the side of his chest.
He might as well have whipped his dick out and waved it in the air.
“Are you threatening me? You can’t just—”
Hogan’s hand came out, gripped Avery’s forearm like a giant clamp. It seemed like little effort on his part, but he pushed at her, and she stumbled in the direction of the cabins. She almost went down but caught herself.
Anger flooded her chest. She started back toward them, felt her hand rising in a fist.
But the two men stood still, unflinching. Unyielding.
She looked at the house one more time, wondered if there was any chance Anna had seen what was happening.
Would she even care?
Avery’s heart thumped. The walls were closing in.
She felt powerless. She hated feeling powerless.
Hogan took a step toward her. “Go on. Go.”
Avery backed away, retreating to her cabin. She was out of options. For now.
PART IV
74
By the middle of the afternoon, Yates started to worry.
He had been on thin ice before he showed up at the farm. Bringing Anna Rogers right to their door was supposed to erase the sin from his record. Namely, the way he had squeezed the life out of the girl in Breckville. Rather than run, he’d taken his best shot with Hogan and the Combs family, hoping he’d so impressed them that they’d see the value he could bring to the operation.
And for a while it had looked like his plan had worked.
They were all so happy to see the girl they’d been looking for. They welcomed her in like she was the prodigal daughter, which, in a way, maybe she was. Hogan had shaken his hand and told him he’d done well for himself. Even Taylor Combs, who had never spoken one word to Yates, had nodded his way and said one word. “Thanks.”
But today felt different.
Colder.
Yates figured he’d be sleeping in the house, but late last night Hogan had directed him out to the north cluster of cabins, where a few of the migrant workers stayed. Yates slept on a musty cot with a threadbare blanket to keep him warm. He shat in the woods like a homeless person and borrowed toilet paper from one of the others—James? Joseph?—in order to wipe himself.
Then that morning . . . nothing.
Yates started up to the house, expecting to get something to eat. Instead, on the trail, he ran into the guard Collins, the guy who looked like a graduate of the Blackwater school of intimidation. Collins carried a basket of food for all the workers, who were already up and preparing to go out to harvest weed all day. For a moment, Yates thought Collins would send him on up to the house, but Collins told him his food was in the basket too. So Yates sat around with the laborers and ate breakfast sandwiches and drank coffee, while Collins stood nearby with his hand resting in the vicinity of the Glock on his hip. Yates started to worry that Collins was going to order him out to the fields with the workers. He didn’t. But he told Yates to stay close to the cabins and to wait until someone told him what to do.
What was he? A child?
He refused to sit like he was in a time-out. So he spent the day wandering around, even though there was little to see. He watched the workers harvest. He stared into the murky depths of the river.
And saw the sister—Avery Rogers—walking by.
She didn’t see him, since he was still on the side path that led down to the cave. He stayed still, like a predator stalking prey in the woods, and watched her heading toward the fields.
He followed quietly behind her on the chance that he could learn something that might help his cause. Or, short of that, he could be distracted for a little bit since he was in the woods with no phone and no one to talk to.
She went down by the fields and watched as Collins came out of his truck and smacked around the punk field hand. The woman cop seemed to give him a little grief—good for her—but not enough to change anything. And before she turned around to come back up to the river, Yates decided to turn around as well, so she didn’t know he’d been watching her.
But before he turned, he saw one of the guys working in the field—the very one who’d loaned him toilet paper that morning—staring intently at the sister while Collins’ back was to him.
Like he thought he knew her. Like this James or Joseph dude wanted to say something to her but couldn’t.
Yates filed that away, didn’t say anything about the other man when she came walking past him again on the bridge. She wanted to know about her truck and her keys, and he told her the truth—all of that was out of his hands. He possessed very little power there. Maybe he pushed too hard, suggesting he might come by her cabin during the night. But she wasn’t bad-looking, not by a long shot, and what else was there to do with them all stuck out in the woods? He couldn’t touch the younger sister—she was way off-limits. But the older one, the one who had shown up and stirred the pot? Did anybody care what happened to her?
Combs and Hogan weren’t just going to let her leave free and clear, were they?
She stormed off toward the house like she was going to give somebody a piece of her mind, like she was going to chew out the manager in a store. Did she really think that would work with Hogan or Combs or anybody else here?
She was jumping up and down on thin ice.
He didn’t see her after that.
He didn’t see anyone until late in the day, when the workers returned to their cabins, with the air of exhaustion you had only when you’d been doing hard work. Real work. The kind of physical labor Yates had done one summer for a landscaping service. That was also the summer he’d decided he didn’t want to do physical labor the rest of his life.
Somebody built a fire as the sun went down. Collins brought more food, and they all sat around eating. No one bothered to ask Yates why he was there. He assumed that meant they were used to people passing through from time to time without anyone really knowing what they were doing. Or that the workers, mostly young people and immigrants, knew that they should keep their heads down, that not asking questions or knowing too much was a solid policy for making it on the Combs farm.
Conversation during the meal was light. He figured the workers were all too tired and hungry, and with Yates—a guy they knew nothing at all about—sitting there in the middle of them, they focused on eating and not talking. Everyone chewed and stared into the flickering and popping fire like it held the secrets of the universe. The night grew colder once the sun was gone, and the only thing that seemed to exist was the circle of light created by the flames.
Yates wanted to believe that was the whole world as well. He wanted to believe things were that simple and focused. But they weren’t. He might be fighting for survival. He needed any advantage he could get.
Then James or Joseph stood up, brushing crumbs off his work pants, and moved out of the firelight and back into the trees, likely to go to the bathroom. Yates gave him a few minutes and let him find a private place to do his business. Then he rose and followed.
75
Yates moved through the dark woods. Insects chirped in the tall grass.
He managed to discern a small path, worn to dirt by who knew how many pairs of feet trudging over it. Maybe it had been there since Native people roamed the land. It gave him a nice sense of epic purpose to walk that way. Like he was doing more than just trying to save his own skin from a bunch of rural criminals. He was fitting into a long line of warriors who fought for survival.
Something rustled in the brush ahead of him. It had to be the guy.
Yates kept going, moving slowly, making sure he didn’t trip over a tree root or a rock. Soon enough the guy came into view ahead of him. A skinny dude with a patchy beard. Dirty clothes and a drawn face. He carried a small flashlight that provided faint illumination in the dark. He tilted it down so it didn’t blind Yates.
“Hey, man,” Yates said. “Hitting the head?”
“Exactly. You too?”
“Yeah.” Yates didn’t have to pee, but it sounded like a good cover for why he was back there, following the dude around in the dark. “They had you all put in a long day, huh?”
“Harvesttime.”
The guy smiled, but he couldn’t cover how exhausted he was. Yates saw it in his drawn cheeks, his red-rimmed eyes. The slump of his shoulders.
Yates gambled with his fifty-fifty chance. “It’s James, right?”
“Yeah, James. And you’re Nick, right?”
“Right on.”
The two men stood there for an awkward moment. Two guys with not much to say to each other, which was pretty much any two guys Yates had ever known. An owl hooted in a distant tree, lonely as a train whistle.
“Well,” James said, “I’ll let you get—”
“Hold up, though,” Yates said.
“Yeah?”
“I wanted to ask you something.”
James looked guarded. It was the same look everyone on the farm wore. Yates understood. In his line of work—doing jobs for people like the Combses—he needed to keep his guard up. All the time. There was no way to know when trouble, real trouble, might be coming down. Or who would be bringing it.
Something flapped its wings in the tree overhead, shaking the remaining leaves. Yates asked, “Did you see that chick hanging around the crops this morning? The one who just showed up out of nowhere but doesn’t seem to be working here or anything?”
James scratched at the scraggly little beard he wore. The kind a high school or college kid would grow on summer break. But, up close, Yates could see James was older than that. Much closer to thirty than twenty.
“I didn’t see her,” he said. “Who is she?”
Yates’ spine tingled. The guy was lying. Flat-out lying. He didn’t know Yates had seen him giving the chick the eye, and now for some reason he wanted to pretend that he hadn’t even seen her.
Why?
“I don’t know who she is,” Yates said. A light wind kicked up. “But she’s poking around. I thought maybe she knew you, since she was kind of looking your way.”
“She was? Weird.”
Yates had to hand it to the guy. He was a good liar. He didn’t flinch or stammer or shift his weight from one foot to the other. He maintained eye contact with Yates the whole time. He never wavered.
“I don’t know who she is,” Yates said. “I mean, her sister’s here, and then she showed up as well. They have some ties to the family. You know?”
“No, I don’t. I just keep my head down and work. I don’t want any trouble. I’m trying to finish this harvest and then get out West. I’ve got a buddy in California who can put me up. Harvest some shit out there. In the sunshine.”
“Hmm. Sounds good.”
“Yeah, I’m looking forward to it.” James stretched a little, looking tired. Trying to be casual. “What about you? You working here?”
“I do some work for the family. Just usually not on the farm. I had to deliver a package here.”
“I see. A courier.”
“Right. I’m just chilling for a couple of days and then moving on.”
“Sweet. I guess I’m going to turn in. We’ll be up early again tomorrow. They want to finish the harvest in the next week.”
James started to go, but Yates reached out, placed his hand on the guy’s scrawny arm. When he touched it, he felt the corded muscle there. The guy wasn’t a weakling. Maybe working in the fields had sharpened his muscles. Or maybe the guy had been fit before he showed up here to wield his pruning shears.
“This chick I’m telling you about,” Yates said. “The one who gave you the eye?”
James looked down where Yates’ hand touched—held—his arm. Something passed across the guy’s eyes, a blankness that undercut his chill-hippie vibe. This was a dude who didn’t like—or wasn’t used to—people grabbing hold of his arm. He was a guy used to being in control of interactions.
James looked back up. His voice was flat. “What about her?”
“She used to be a cop, man. Can you believe that? She used to be a cop.”
The blankness remained in his eyes, and he hesitated before answering. “That sounds like a problem,” he said finally. “What’s she doing here?”
“Snooping around. Making trouble.”
Yates let that hang in the air for a moment, and then he slid his hand off the guy’s arm.
“Well,” James said, “she ought to mind her own business.”
“Yeah. Okay, man. I got to take a leak myself.”
“Cool.”
James started to walk away, brushing past Yates up the path and back toward the cabins and the fire.
As he walked away, Yates said, “James?”
The man stopped, looked back. The flashlight pointed at the ground, showed a dark centipede scurrying across the path and into the weeds. “Yeah?”
Yates wanted to ask the man why he had been staring at Avery so hard. Did he know her?
Did he know her because she was a cop?
But Yates decided not to ask. He’d see if he could use what he knew at some other time to help preserve his own hide. Some things were better left unsaid. Some cards better held until later in the game.
“Nothing, man,” Yates said. “I just never really thanked you for the poop paper this morning.”
James smiled, still guarded. “You’re welcome.”
And he walked off into the dark.
76
Avery was sitting outside when the farmhands came back at sundown.
She’d gone ahead and built a fire, making sure it was waiting for them when they returned from work. It seemed like the least she could do, since they were harvesting crops all day under the abusive attention of the man named Collins. She wished she could do more.
She replayed the encounter with Hogan and Combs over and over. The one with Yates too. And whenever she did, she felt anger grow inside her chest, felt her arm burn where Hogan had grabbed her. Felt sick when she thought of Yates threatening her. But she pushed her anger down, reminded herself not to let that become the dominant emotion she felt as she sat around waiting and staring at the wooden walls. She told herself to be smart, to make a plan and figure out the best way to leave. Too many times she jumped without looking, let her emotions rule the day, whether it was dealing with drunken frat boys or belligerent cops in the park.
