I managed to turn and look at him. His eyes were the eyes of a wolf—hungry, desperate, wild. “I’ve already told the cops about you. My brother’s a cop. He knows what I’ve been up to. You kill me, they’ll catch you this time.”
Dentman grasped my right wrist. His face was nearly on top of my own, his breath reeking. There was a complete absence of expression on his face—no smile, no bared teeth. Just a set face, set mouth, clenched jaw.
In a futile attempt to wrench my wrist free, I lost my balance and cracked the side of my head smartly against Elijah’s gravestone. Instantly, capering swirls exploded in front of my eyes, and I felt the world tilt to one side. I thought of fireworks and a filmstrip slipping in the grooves of a projector. Blindly, I began clawing at the front of Dentman’s shirt.
With seemingly little effort, Dentman pinned my right hand to the ground while stepping on my wrist with his booted foot. “You stupid bastard. If I wanted to kill you, I would have done it already.”
He brought down his fist on my face. Eye-watering pain blossomed from my nose and spread out across my face, rattling like a rusty shopping cart with crippled casters through my head. I hardly cared about struggling free at that moment. I just prayed my death would be swift and painless. All I could do was cringe in anticipation of the next punch.
But it did not come. Instead, Dentman grabbed my hands and dragged my body about two feet to the left of the gravestone and allowed me to roll over on my side.
I inhaled a deep swallow of air. It hurt my lungs, my chest. I still couldn’t open my eyes, still couldn’t bring myself to do it until I caught my breath. I was aware of Dentman’s hulking shape above me, and I imagined him withdrawing that same imaginary handgun I’d dreamt up from before and plugging me once, assassin style, in the head.
Finally, I opened my eyes and rolled over on my back. Coughing. Sputtering. My vision was still blurred, but I managed to turn my head and seek out my attacker.
His face stoic and unreadable, Dentman moved away from me like an out-of-breath hunter admiring his catch.
“What the hell are you going to do to me?” We say such pitiful things in our final moments of desperation.
Dentman sneered. “Jesus fuck, boy. You’re pathetic. Look at you.”
“You can’t kill me.”
“Piece of shit.” Kneeling down beside me, he gripped my wrists again.
Peripherally, I caught a glint of moonlight on metal, then heard a sound like pocket change being jangled. When I looked up, I saw he’d handcuffed me to the fucking iron fence. “You can’t leave me out here. I’ll freeze to death.”
David’s enormous shoulders heaved with every breath. I could see vapor trails rising like steam from each nostril like a bull. He spat on me, turned, and sauntered away.
I listened to his heavy boots crunch through the snow. With my head still spinning, I sat up and watched him leave. Once he passed through the trees and into the darkness, disappearing from sight, I nearly forgot what he looked like.
I think I’m going to pass out, I thought. I think I’m going to pass out. I think I’m going to—
Darkness.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
A slight and indistinct form crept beside me without making a sound. Weightless, it climbed onto my chest. Hot breath fell across my forehead. I felt its tongue lap up the tears that were searing hot ruts down the sides of my face.
—Kyle, I said.
No answer.
When I finally came to, the sun was just beginning to crest through the cemetery trees. It hit my eyes in that perfect way only the sun knows how to do, and I winced and turned my head, suddenly unsure of my surroundings. Sunlight caused the trees to bleed and the snow-covered hills to radiate like a thousand Octobers. I could make out a distant church, its spire like the twist of a conch shell against the pale sky.
Struggling to sit up, a nauseating wave of dizziness filtered into my brain. I tried to bring my right arm up but couldn’t—I was still handcuffed to the fence. Tenderly, I touched the side of my head with my free hand. Winced again. The bump there felt like a softball pushing its way through the side of my skull.
The events of last night rushed back to me in a suffocating whirlwind. I glanced at my left hand and found it was sticky with blood. A sizeable gash bisected my palm. Somehow, in the jumble of events, I’d sliced it open pretty nicely. The fingertips were blue.
Then I realized how badly I was shaking. I couldn’t calm myself, couldn’t get warm, and figured I must have been out here lying in the snow for at least five or six hours.
My head was woozy, and I probably had a slight concussion. The blood from my injured hand had dried in the night, running in bright red parade streamers from my wrist down the length of my arm to the crease of my elbow and into the snow. I looked like I’d just gutted a pig.
“Fuck . . .”
The sound of my own voice sent shards of broken glass into the soft gray matter of my brain.
Voices: I heard voices then, coming from afar. I caught movement through the trees and watched three people advancing toward me. As they drew nearer, I realized two of them were police officers in uniform. The third person I assumed to be the cemetery groundskeeper.
The three men paused a few feet in front of me. I spied my notebook in the snow next to one of their shiny black shoes.
“Hey,” said the taller officer. “What the hell happened to you?”
“I’m fucking freezing,” I chattered.
The groundskeeper pointed in my direction. He was a fat little shrew with atrocious teeth, a character in a Dickens novel. “See that? See his hand? I said he was chained up, didn’t I?”
“My n-n-name’s T-T-Trav—”
“I know who you are.” The taller cop, it turned out, was Douglas Cordova, my brother’s partner whom I’d met at the Christmas party. In his unblemished uniform and with his square jaw and jade-green eyes, he could have marched straight out of a recruiting poster. To the other officer, Cordova said, “Unhook him.”
The second officer dropped to one knee in the snow while fumbling around on his belt for his handcuff key. Less intimidating than Cordova, this guy had a slack, sleepy-dog face, and his chin was minimal and abbreviated, giving his profile an overall unfinished look. His nameplate said Freers.
“You need an ambulance or anything?” Freers said too close to my face. His breath smelled of onions.
“No.”
“You’re bleeding, you know.”
I glanced at my lacerated palm.
“I meant your face,” said Freers, standing.
On shaky knees, I climbed to my feet and steadied myself against the large oak tree. My jeans cracked audibly, frozen stiff to my legs. Had I not been wearing my coat, I surely wouldn’t have made it through the night.
“Who did this to you?” Cordova said. He had one hand on the groundskeeper’s shoulder, and they looked like mismatched football players about to form a huddle to discuss the next play.
“David D-D-Dentman,” I said.
Cordova did not alter his expression. “Okay,” he said, turning to his partner, “let’s get him in the car before he turns into a Popsicle.”
Freers took me by the forearm and led me around the tombstones.