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  The makeshift lot is empty now except for Ron’s car. Paulie tiptoes across the gravel in his bare feet and opens the shotgun door, only to see the seat occupied by Carrie Morales. She says, “I’ll get in back.”

  “Stay where you are,” Paulie says. “You guys got a blanket in here?”

  “On the floor on the right side,” Carrie says, pointing to the backseat. “But it’s covered with dirt and needles.”

  “I don’t care if it’s covered in dog shit,” Paulie says. He begins shaking uncontrollably, can barely work his fingers enough to get the blanket around him. Teeth chattering, he says, “Tell me what Arney said.”

  “Just that it was real important to find you,” Firth says. “He’s been looking all over.”

  “Who was with him?”

  “I don’t know. There were two cars, a passenger in his and I don’t know how many in the other. None of them got out.”

  “You’re lucky,” Paulie chatters.

  “I thought it was a bunch of your buddies. Anyway, he said he needed to hurry back to town, but to give him a call if you showed.” Firth hesitates. “Why in the world would he think you’d show? I’ve been trying to get you to YFC for four years.”

  “Arney speaks with a forked tongue,” Paulie says. “He’s into some sinister shit. Listen, Ron, I’m asking you to do a very un-Christian thing.”

  “Which is?”

  “Lie your ass off.”

  “I remember how to do that. Who do I lie to?”

  “If we run into Stack on the road, you haven’t seen me and I’m not on the floor of your car under this blanket, okay? No matter what story he gives you. And man, we gotta hurry ’cause Logs is in serious trouble. Hand me your cell; the minute we’re in range, I gotta get 911.”

  “It kicks in at the far end of the lake,” Ron says, and, feeling Paulie’s urgency, floorboards the accelerator.

  Hannah turns toward home. She’s been driving aimlessly, trying Paulie’s cell and Logs’s home phone again and again. She doesn’t know what else to do. She just wants to see Paulie and wishes she had never spent a minute with Arney Stack. It was stupid revenge; the kind that would never work with Paulie anyway. God, she really wants to talk to him.

  Running it over and over in her head, she doesn’t notice the black Audi parked across the street from her house as she punches the remote that raises the garage door.

  .17

  Logs is disoriented. He sees the lights by Paulie’s car in the distance, but can’t remember where the ski float is in relation to them. He knew where he was on the way over. He kept the YFC kids’ fire square in front of him. They weren’t looking for the float; Paulie simply ran into it. Now he doesn’t know if it’s ahead or behind. He stops, treading, struggling to visualize it from shore. He’s skied off it a thousand times; knows it’s north of the landing. He looks back—the YFC fire is gone. He thinks of Gehrig, curled on the couch. He hasn’t fed him tonight. If he doesn’t get back, who will . . .

  Can’t think that. You’re the only adult with even a hint of what’s going on. He stops treading and slides into drown-proofing. Front float, face in the water, push down gently while raising the head, take a breath, front float again. Over and over. He could do this forever if it weren’t so goddamn cold. Where in hell is that float?

  Suddenly he lays back in the water and roars; a loud, long, guttural purge. None of those assholes can swim, and if they had a boat they’d be all over the lake with it. The searchlight sweeps and Logs follows it, looking for that black rectangular absence of light. It looms huge, barely six yards from where he hangs suspended in the water.

  “This is 911. What is your emergency?”

  “My name is Paul Baum,” Paulie says into Ron Firth’s phone. “I’m a student at Heller High School. I was swimming with one of my teachers at Diamond Lake tonight and he started getting hypothermia. We made it to that little ski dock anchored in the middle and I left him there to go for help. He’s out there now, and he could be freezing to death.”

  “Is this a joke?”

  “Ma’am, believe me, it’s no joke.”

  “It’s nearly eleven, young man. You’re asking me to believe your teacher went swimming with you in the pitch-dark and he’s still out there?”

  “Some people were chasing us.”

  “What people?”

  “Bad guys,” Paulie says. He flinches at how this must sound. “And a cop.”

  “I can trace this number, you know. It’s not funny to tie up this line. Hang up and I’ll forget this little prank.”

  Paulie hears a click.

  “Shit!

  Carrie stares at him over the seat.

  “Sorry. Fuck! Logs is going to die out there!” He bangs his head against the back of the seat, still shaking uncontrollably.

  “Chenier’s got his ski boat,” Ron says. “It’s always hitched to their pickup. We can get Logs ourselves.”

  “Go!” Paulie says. He calls his father, hears it ring until it goes to voice messaging. “Dad! Paulie. I know you don’t recognize this number but call it back. Big trouble. Big.”

  “What can your dad do?”

  “He can get that 911 lady to wake the fuck up,” Paulie says.

  “Shouldn’t we just go to the police station?”

  “I’m scared to do that. If Rankin is part of whatever this is, who else? We get the wrong guy and . . . these guys were serious, Ron. We took Mary’s text to Rankin and the next thing we knew he was running us off the road.”

  “What do you think Stack has to do with it?”

  “Shit you and I can’t even imagine.” Paulie is sitting on the seat now, pulling the blanket tighter to stop his teeth from chattering.

  Ron’s phone vibrates in Paulie’s hand.

  “Dad?”

  “What’s up? What kind of trouble?”

  “Mr. Logs is out on the ski float in the middle of Diamond Lake. He’s probably got hypothermia. I called 911 and they thought it was a prank.”

  “I’ll call. What in the hell was he doing in the lake at this time of night?”

  “We were being chased.”

  “What do you mean ‘chased’?”

  “Bad guys, Dad. Really bad. Way too crazy to explain, just believe me. They’re up at the boat landing now. And one of them is a cop.”

  “He a city cop?”

  “Yeah. Last name is Rankin. He’s why they were after us.”

  “It’s county jurisdiction at the landing anyway,” his father says. “I’ll alert them and the state troopers. You better know what you’re talking about, Paulie. If this turns out to be nothing, there’ll be hell to pay.”

  “It won’t be nothing. The more people you can get up there, the better chance we’ll have of getting Justin’s boat in the water.”

  “Justin’s boat?”

  “It’s the fastest way to get to Logs. He can’t have much time. Just get as many people up there as you can.”

  “On it.” The line goes dead.

  “This is totally out of control,” Rankin says into his cell. “We can’t get to the teacher and the kid. They got into the lake somehow and I’ll be goddamned if we could find them. Hopefully they froze to death, but we can’t count on it. Stack says they both swim like fish.” He listens. “They’re the only ones who saw the Wells kid’s text, along with Hannah what’s-her-name. All bets are off. We gotta move.”

  He listens for several seconds.

  “I’m outta here tonight. Woody’s got the Wells kid, but that won’t last. If he had the sack to kill her he would have already, so you can bet she’ll surface. A whole bunch of prominent names in this town are going to get mentioned, and when she breaks, others will, too. I’m sure very few of these assholes—I mean customers—used their names, but some of ’em are real recognizable. They’ll be offered all kinds of deals to get to us. You better disappear too; when this gets out they’ll be after us with torches and clubs.”

  Beat.

  “We kn
ew this was the risk. I had my getaway planned a week after we got into this shit.”

  Another beat.

  “Stack is on his own. The stuff with the Wells kid and the Clinton kid and those two classy girls from over at Highland were his brainchild. He knew what he was getting into. Hell, he gave us the classy bitches. Knew they wouldn’t talk ’cause of the kinds of daddies they got; and he knew the best threats. That boy is one sick fuck.”

  Beat.

  “I know. He didn’t just want a piece of the action. He had a whole list of kids at school he wanted to take down. Gets off on screwin’ his friends at the same time they’re thankin’ him. Smart boy.”

  Beat.

  “Naw, he’s no more loyal to us than them. They catch him, he’ll squeal like a pig. He might be smart, but he’s a goddamn kid. We gotta shed him. I’ll call him to meet and pay him off. He’s taking care of that Hannah girl. No point to it now but he left before we knew there was no chance to get to the teach.” Rankin laughs. “Pleasure doin’ business with you, too.” He flips off the cell.

  The light in Hannah’s bedroom goes out and the door on the passenger’s side of the Audi opens silently. A dark figure, familiar with the surroundings, walks silently across the street and around the house, looking for an entry point.

  Logs lies curled in the fetal position on the rough wooden float, shaking, sliding in and out of consciousness, trying to solve the unsolvable. The water temperature is warmer than the air; it has to be. But water is dense and therefore exudes greater influence on body temperature. Any mammal’s inner heater has a better chance against air than water. Or is it the other way around? Air. Water. Density. Gehrig. How warm that little fuzz ball would be to lie against right now. All those women. The ones he should apologize to. He always meant to. It was selfishness; the reason he’s dying alone. He needs to tell the kids. The Period 8 kids need to know what to avoid. Paulie and Hannah; especially Hannah. Zero tolerance of anything is, well, zero. He needs to warn the Wellses. Kylie. In danger. Ah, Mary. Where are you, Mary?

  He sees himself as a young man, always believing he had one more chance, and then pretty soon, all his chances were spent. Concentrate on the good things. You did some good things. Consciousness comes and goes in soft waves. It’s so goddamn cold, and then it’s not.

  Justin Chenier’s stepfather, Landry Faulk, approaches Diamond Lake at twenty-five miles above the speed limit, Justin turned around in the seat beside him watching the ski boat bouncing like a toy as they shoot down the two-lane. Paulie pulls on a set of Justin’s sweats.

  “Don’t know who we’re gonna run into at that dock,” Landry says, “but I’ll swing around and back this baby in before anybody can say shit to me. If there’s trouble—hell, if there’s trouble or not—y’all jump in the boat. Paulie, you undo the safety chain and unhook the hitch; Justin, you crank ’er up and go.”

  “What if—”

  “No what-ifs. If Mr. Logs is on that piece of wood, he’s in a bad way. Blanket’s in the boat; you get it on ’im. That man been nothing but good to us—to you—and he gets payback.” He pats the U.S. Army forty-five in his lap. “Didn’t think I’d ever have reason to use this again an’ I hope I don’t, but nobody’s gonna fuck with y’all an’ nobody’s gonna fuck with Mr. Logs.”

  As they crest the hill directly above the loading dock, heads turn and men scramble, some moving toward their cars, others bracing themselves. Landry Faulk doesn’t know what he’s coming into but he’s coming fast. He wheels the pickup toward the dock, swings the full one-hundred-eighty degrees to point the back of the boat directly at the water, hits reverse, and backs in. Men yell. Three jog toward him. With one eye on the side window and the other on his rearview mirror he backs the trailer into the water.

  “Go!” he hollers, and Justin and Paulie pile out, Paulie running for the hitch and Justin for the wheel. In seconds the boat is floating and the engine roars to life.

  Paulie is still pulling himself in when Justin hits the gas and turns in a tight circle for the ski float. Justin flips on the running lights, but with no headlight, there is nothing to show the way.

  “Your stepdad gonna be okay?” Paulie hollers over the engine and wind.

  “Hell yeah,” Justin hollers back. “He’ll tell ’em war stories. If they don’t like those, he’ll give them some to tell.”

  Paulie peers into the watery darkness. “A little to the right, I think. Slow down, we don’t want to crash into it.”

  “Hard to see,” Justin says, squinting, then, “There!” He guns the engine a little, then cuts it, coasting toward the small wooden platform.

  On it lies a still form.

  Hannah turns restlessly in her bed. She keeps her phone in her hand, speed-dialing Paulie’s number every five or ten minutes, calls that go straight to voicemail. A tapping below her second-floor window causes her to get up, peer into the darkness. Nothing. Paulie used to come by late every once in a while and throw pebbles at her window. She would sneak out and they would park down the block. She’d give anything . . .

  Kylie’s in danger. How in the world would Mary Wells know that? Who in the hell is Mary Wells?

  She hears a rustling outside again, pads back to the window, and looks out wistfully. She knows it’s nothing, either the wind or a cat. But she wishes. . . .

  “What’re y’all doing up here so late?” Landry Faulk stands facing seven men, none eager to test his willingness to use the forty-five dangling loosely in his hand, and none knowing how much he knows.

  “We had an investment group meeting tonight,” Rick Praeger says. “We were meeting at the LDS church and we decided to have a drink.” He smiles. “Obviously we couldn’t have it there, and The Lantern was closed. So we just came up here.”

  “Be more than happy to have a drink with you,” Landry says. “Who’s pourin’?”

  The men steal uneasy glances at one another.

  “Lordy,” Landry says, “somebody forgot to bring the booze?” He pushes his baseball cap back with the forty-five. “Which one of you is Rankin?”

  The men once again glance uneasily at one another. Praeger says, “Who’s Rankin?”

  “The guy who brought you up here,” Landry says. “One of you him?”

  “He got called away.”

  Landry nods. “Those two boys are coming back in a minute with a man who might be pretty sick. That won’t mess up your party, will it? Any a’ y’all have a problem with me takin’ ’em all out of here right quick?”

  “I don’t know what you think is going on,” another man says, “but nothing illegal’s taking place here.”

  “What I think doesn’t matter,” Landry says back. “I know three or four of ya, and I’d recognize all y’all in a lineup, which we all know would never happen ’cause nothin’ illegal’s goin’ on.”

  “He’s breathing!” Paulie yells. “Help me get him in the boat.” He grabs Logs under the arms and drags him to the edge of the float. Justin stands in the boat with the open blanket while Paulie tips Logs in, then jumps in beside him, wraps him up tight, rubbing briskly. “Come on, Logs. Come on! ” He yells to Justin, “Go!”

  And Justin hits the throttle.

  Landry hears the roar of the boat engine speeding toward him, looks to the top of the hill to see flashing red and blue lights, followed by sirens.

  “Be damned,” he says. “Look who’s here. Any you guys feelin’ like a ‘person of interest’?”

  Several men break for the trees and Landry laughs, turning to see the boat emerging out of the darkness.

  “Dad! He’s breathing, but he’s out!”

  “Paramedics comin’ right atcha,” Landry yells. “Stay in the boat with him!”

  The EMTs back their vehicle toward the loading dock at Landry’s direction, and in seconds two of them wheel a gurney toward the boat.

  The men who didn’t run stand wide-eyed in bright lights as state and county police take names and demand IDs. Three cops dash into the woods af
ter the runners.

  Paulie steps behind one of the EMT trucks, then slips away to the Beetle, reaches under the seat for his keys, starts the engine, and follows the wailing siren.

  Nearly two hours later Paulie leaves the hospital hugely relieved. Logs will make it: he’s unconscious, but his vitals are good. Paulie reaches for his iPhone, remembers he doesn’t have it. Oh God! Hannah would have called his number and Rankin would have answered. Fuck! I should have called her from Ron’s phone. He slams his fist into his palm. Nobody even knows she’s involved in this. He races toward his car. She’s gotta be in trouble— on Rankin’s radar if he answered my cell. The screen display would have said simply “Murph.” Rankin wouldn’t know who that is . . . unless he’s talking with Arney. . . .

  I can’t fucking think! Cops will be looking for Rankin but they won’t know to cover Hannah. He starts the Beetle, speeds toward Hannah’s house. I’m gonna make sure she’s okay and then I’m gonna find Stack. He’s gotta be going to jail for whatever the fuck he’s into, but before he does, I’m gonna kick his ass.

  .18

  Habit forces him to park a block away from Hannah’s house even though her parents are probably asleep. He can get to her by throwing rocks at the window.

  He closes the car door gently, leaves the Beetle unlocked to avoid the short horn beep, and walks down the block. The living room light glows dimly through the pulled curtain and he tries to guess whether it’s Hannah or her parents who are up this late.

  Then he spots Arney’s car parked directly across the street. He crouches, rushes into the bushes of a neighbor’s yard, waits. Seeing no movement inside the car he steals up on the driver’s side from behind. Empty. Arney is either lurking outside, or he’s gotten in. The light in the living room this late makes the latter more likely. Please, God! If you’re there . . . Please!

  He slips back across the street and moves into the flower bed below the living room window, raises his head, hoping for a slight part in the curtains.