Chapter 26
Anika
I’m in shock.
I must be, because I can’t seem to process what is happening.
“Move,” the menacing voice growls behind me when I almost fall, stumbling through the underbrush.
I don’t need to turn around to know who it belongs to, no matter how hard I try to convince myself it must be someone else. I’d rather not have known, the taste of betrayal coating my throat and almost too thick to swallow. That’s why my voice is rough when I try to speak.
“I don’t understand.”
“You wouldn’t,” she sneers. “You’re so far up your own ass you need a flashlight to see.”
She lets go of my hair and gives me a shove between my shoulder blades. I stumble out of the brush and onto a rocky outcropping jutting into the river. Here the rapids are fast and swollen from the winter runoff.
Part of me doesn’t want to turn around, doesn’t want to see confirmation of the level of deception I’ve been subjected to. God knows for how long.
But I also don’t want to be blind to what is coming.
“What have I ever done to you?” I ask, as I swing around.
She’s standing a few feet away, the gun trained on me in steady hands. She scoffs at my question.
“You have everything!” she suddenly yells, startling me. “Born with fucking shamrocks up your ass. Family who dotes on you, spoils you rotten. You’ve never known a hard day in your life. Do you have any idea what it costs me to have to see your fucking face every fucking day and pretend I like you?”
Her face is completely distorted as she surges toward me, grabbing my hair and shoving the gun between my lips as she forces me to my knees.
“I hate you. I hate the fact you sign my paychecks and I have to be grateful for every crumb you throw my way. Flaunting your precious salon, your sports car, your new house in my face.”
There is so much venom spewing from her lips, I’m completely thunderstruck. I barely notice the barrel scraping my teeth or the taste of metal in my mouth.
“But that wasn’t enough, was it? You had to steal him too.”
Wait. Him? Hog?
“I thought my luck had turned when you decided to play hero to that whimpering little bitch, Kim. That idiot husband of hers was an unguided missile, I figured all I had to do was aim him in your direction and he’d take the blame when the time came, unless he killed you himself first.”
She’s out of her mind. How can I not have seen this? I look around me and all I see is raging water and trees, here and across the river. I consider yelling for help, but I’m afraid I’d only speed up the inevitable. Even if someone could hear me, it would already be too late.
“Looked like it was working too. Trashing your car was a stroke of genius, if I say so myself.”
Abruptly she laughs, this weird high-pitched giggle, as she pulls the gun from my mouth and presses it against my ear instead.
“Did my little gift get your attention? And of course, all eyes went to Chris right away. Everything was falling in place until that fucking moron got himself killed. How was I supposed to know what the stupid bastard was mixed up with?”
When she lets go of my hair, I suddenly notice she’s wearing the black gloves we use at the salon. Something clicks.
“It was you who killed Kim, wasn’t it? What did she ever do to you?”
“It’s not like I had a choice. We were closing up the day Hog ended up in the hospital, and I caught her looking over my shoulder just as I was texting her husband. At least it kept the cops busy.
“You see, I have no problem doing the dirty work myself,” she says in a low voice, sneering at me.
She shifts the gun again, the gun pressing into my eye, as she backs me up to the edge of the churning river.
“And killing you will be an absolute treat. It’ll look like it was all too much for your fragile mind, and you decided to blow your brains out.”
“Nobody will believe that. I don’t even own a gun,” I point out.
I get an eerie grin and she scrapes the barrel down my face before shoving it under my chin.
“That’s what you think.”
Monique will never let me go, that much is clear, and there’s only one way out. I’d rather take my chances in the river.
“Hey!” I hear her yell as I throw myself backward into the cold water.
Then I hear nothing more as I’m sucked under, only to be spit up again a moment later. There’s nothing but the roar of the water I am completely helpless against.
My shoulder hits something as I’m tossed around, and I remember someone telling me once you had to point your feet downstream so you don’t hit your head first.
It takes some doing, and there are a few moments I’m afraid it may not be worth the effort, but I finally end up with my feet in front of me. Not only that, I’m closer to the shore where the water appears a little calmer.
Downriver, the water meanders back toward the railroad tracks and therefore civilization. Keeping my eye on the shore as best I can, I notice a large tree limb overhanging the river coming up, its smaller branches just skimming the surface. If I can grab hold…
The current is fast, and I almost overshoot the tree before I have my arm fully outstretched. My fingers brush something, and I close my hand around it, suddenly dead in the water as the river keeps trying to move me along. I’m able to pull myself a little closer and reach with my other arm, my hand finding purchase on a thicker branch.
Holding on for dear life, I start yelling for help as loud as I can.
Hog
Despite Evans keeping the pedal to the floor, the drive across town feels endless.
“Any idea where she’d access the park from?” Evans asks as he veers around some asshole who doesn’t get out of the way.
“I assume from Monique’s place. Anika said something about her place backing onto the park and the river.”
“A few big houses along that stretch, but I don’t think she could afford one of those on a hairdresser’s salary, so I’m guessing one of the River View mobile homes?”
River View is a good-sized, well-maintained mobile home park where Annie—Sumo’s wife—used to live.
“Probably.”
The Hampton Inn is coming up on the left, so Evans gets ready to turn right onto Animas View Drive, which runs parallel to the river. We fly past Mild and Wild Rafting Tours and the next turnoff is one of a few in the mobile home park.
“If her unit backs onto the river, it’s probably one of the ones on the far side,” I suggest, even as my eyes are already scanning for the truck.
“Not a lot of visitor parking here,” Evans notes. “Maybe we should check the public parking lot by the play area first. We can always backtrack.”
It’s not hard to spot the Suburban, she was smart enough to park it under one of two lights illuminating the parking lot on either side. One other vehicle is on the lot, closer to the houses on the far side.
As soon as Evans brings the cruiser to a stop beside my truck, I jump out and try to peer in the windows. Other than a couple of containers of strawberries and what looks like some other fruit on the passenger seat, I don’t see anything out of order.
“Here,” Evan says, handing me a flashlight.
He’s holding a second one himself. Smart, because it’s getting dark and the light from the parking lot doesn’t quite reach beyond the railroad tracks. But when he starts walking back to the mobile homes, I stop him.
“She mentioned they were going to watch the sun go down over the river.”
“Unless they never made it out there,” Evans brings up.
For a moment we stand there, undecided. Then he pulls out his cell phone and starts walking toward the railroad tracks. I rush behind him.
“Ramirez, how far out are you?”
Evans had put a call in for backup from the cruiser. Tony Ramirez is another of Durango’s finest who took the call.
“Okay, we found the Suburban in the play area parking, and we’re heading along the river, you focus on the mobile homes at River View. You’re looking for the house of one Monique Winters. It’s supposed to back onto the river, we think on the north side, closest to the play area.”
We cross the tracks and take the trail toward the river’s edge. In an effort to see better in the fading light of dusk, I flick on the flashlight as we approach the fast waters of the Animas. The river is loud here, a constant rush that blankets any other sounds.
The path narrows and Evans takes the lead, as the trail steers us away from the river and into the cover of the trees. Only a hundred feet in or so, he comes to an abrupt halt, and aims his flashlight at the ground in front of him.
“What is it?”
When he steps aside, I see a paper bag on the ground with fruit spilling out. Cold settles into my veins.
Evans steps over the bag, but I stand here for a moment longer, trying to lock in on something I thought I heard up ahead. The detective stops and turns around, but I hold up a hand to stop him from talking.
There it is again, it’s faint and almost washed out by the water, but it sure sounds like someone calling for help. It’s coming from somewhere to my right. Forfeiting the trail, I duck into the undergrowth and follow the direction I think the sound is coming from. I make so much noise I have to stop again to listen, noting Evans is following me.
“Please…help…”
Urgency has me barreling through the brush, when suddenly two sharp cracks sound.
Gunshots.
We’re so close to the churning water, I can see the white caps through the thick growth when I’m abruptly yanked back by the collar.
“Stay put,” Evans growls, as he edges in front, his flashlight replaced by a gun in his hand.
Stay put, my ass. He’s veering off to the left where the gunshots seemed to come from, but I’m positive I heard the call for help from straight ahead.
Another shot rings out, just as I push out of the trees. The river is right in front of me, but I turn to the left where the shots came from. I catch sight of Monique—her blond hair standing out—who looks to be aiming a gun at something in the water downriver.
The next moment I hear Evans yell as he steps out of the tree line, several feet from where Monique is standing. She briefly turns her head to Evans, before focusing back on the river, renewing her aim.
But Evans doesn’t give her a chance and throws himself at her, taking her down to the ground.
Leaving him to take her out of commission, I scan the river with my flashlight for any sight of Anika. To my right I notice an old tree, one of its branches cracked and hanging low over the river. My eyes lock on a flash of red, right where the tip of the branch appears to touch the water.
“Help me…”
A mental image of her wearing her red hoodie as she’s putting on lip gloss pops in my head.
“I’m here! Hang on, Anika!” I yell out, even as I make my way over to the tree.
The water is not as wild this close in to shore, but there is still a strong current. I hope like hell that branch will hold if I hang on to it going into the river. Tucking my flashlight in my pocket, I grab on to the tree.
My entire focus is zoomed in on that splash of red as I walk into the cold water. I barely even notice when another beam of light suddenly hits my target in the water. I’m close enough to see her hanging on to the branch with both hands when, to my horror, I watch one of them let go.
“Do not let go. I’m right here!”
I’m supposed to be experienced with water rescues, but all my training went out the window when I stepped into the water without rescue gear. Not even a rope, but none of it matters, only Anika, and she’s in trouble.
I’m already reaching for her, and close enough to see her hand slipping. I surge forward, losing the ground under my feet as my fingers close in a vise grip on her wrist, the exact moment she lets go.
The only thing keeping both of us from being washed down the rapids is my one hand desperately trying to hold on to the branch. The combined weight of us pulling on my arm is magnified by the heavy drag of the rushing river.
“Anika!” I yell against the roar as I watch her head dip under water before popping back up. “Grab on to me!”
Groaning with the effort, I manage to pull her into my body.
“Arms around my neck.”
I can feel her body shaking against me and hear her teeth chatter. I can feel the shakes coming on myself.
She manages to loop her free arm around my neck.
“Hang on to me like a monkey, baby,” I tell her, and immediately feel her legs wrap around my hips.
Praying she has a good hold, I let go of her wrist and reach for the branch. Once I have a good grip with both hands, I pull us closer to shore where I’m able to find purchase with my feet again.
No sooner do I feel solid ground when the branch I’m hanging on to starts to give with a loud crack.
“Gimme your hand!”
I look over her head to find Tony Ramirez standing to his knees in the river. He’s hanging on to the trunk of the tree with one arm while reaching for me with the other.
I don’t hesitate and use my legs to launch myself at his outstretched hand while wrapping an arm tightly around Anika.