Last Light

  She thought of the Joneses’ children, wondered if they’d found their parents yet. When they did, grief like an infection would implant itself in their hearts and fever its way through the rest of their lives.

  She never should have insisted on stopping there yesterday. But how could she have known?

  She was such a fool, traipsing across that field with her clunky suitcase in one hand and that wedding dress in the other, bringing death to the Joneses’ doorstep.

  She hated herself and all the trouble she’d brought on others.

  Now, here she was, pedaling for her life, with no food, no water, and no place to get either. She’d left with nothing. Her wedding dress still lay on the floor where she’d dropped it, like a banner proclaiming, “Deni Branning was here.” They would think she’d been part of the killings. And if Vic was caught, he’d make sure they came after her, too.

  As the temperature rose and her mouth grew as dry as cotton, helplessness boiled up inside her, growing so intense that she finally stopped, letting her bike fall to the ground under the shade of a huge oak tree. She stood there beside it, staring down at the bike that the police would think she had stolen.

  God, please don’t let them think I’m a killer.

  If they did, they’d come after her, and she’d be thrown into some dark prison cell.

  She sat down on the grass, leaning back against the tree trunk, and began to weep.

  Oh, Lord, he’s out there and he’s going to kill somebody else. Anyone who gets in his way or has something he needs is dead. I’ve got to stop him, Lord. Please help me.

  She covered her face, wishing with all her heart that her mother and father were here. Or that Craig would come riding up miraculously, her knight in shining armor.

  But the only one coming for her was Vic. He was probably hot on her trail, figuring out ways to catch up to her. He’d probably stolen one of the other bikes in the barn. He could be watching her right now.

  Or maybe not. He couldn’t have left the wagon there. That would defeat his whole purpose in killing the Joneses. He’d want the loot, and the chickens, which would net a nice profit. He wouldn’t want to leave such a red flag flying, pointing police to him. Maybe he was far behind her. Maybe she’d lost him entirely.

  She closed her eyes and tried to pray some more, but she felt like God had turned His face from her. Why wouldn’t He? She’d been rebellious and arrogant. Foolish. Irrational. Shouldn’t He be disgusted with her?

  Her father said God would provide. Didn’t He provide for the birds of the field . . . the lilies of the valley? If she needed a fish, would He give her a stone?

  Maybe. If a stone was what she deserved.

  She tried to pull herself together and get back on the road. But as a breeze whispered behind the trees, she thought she heard the sound of water.

  She got up and listened, wondering if she’d conjured the sound in her mind. She heard it again.

  Her heart pounded with new vigor as she grabbed her bike up. Rolling it beside her, she pushed through the trees and brush.

  And there it was. A babbling brook, twisting through the forest.

  Tears stung her eyes again. It was a miracle. A provision from God Himself.

  She’d heard somewhere that rushing water, like that in a brook, was clean and safe. Living water, they called it. Just what she needed. But even if that myth was wrong, Deni didn’t care. Getting a parasite and dying was better than dying of thirst.

  She dropped the bike again and stumbled to the brook, knelt down and splashed some water onto her face. Cupping it in her hands, she drank it down. As the cool liquid filled her, her heart was overcome with gratitude. But that gratitude was followed by shame. God was watching over her, providing, even after she’d kicked dirt in His face.

  She drank as much as she could, wishing she had some kind of container that she could take with her. But she had nothing. Maybe God would see fit to provide for her again when she needed it later.

  But she couldn’t stay here longer. There was still a lot of daylight left and she needed to move.

  Reluctantly she walked her bike back through the trees, pulled onto the road, and continued her desperate journey.

  sixty-one

  Doug saw the farmhouse across the field from the interstate. Maybe the residents had seen the wagon pass by. He stopped pedaling and tried to decide how to get to the house. Then he saw the road just past their property, hidden behind a grove of trees.

  He turned onto the road . . . and caught his breath.

  There were tire tracks, laid there after the rain . . .

  And horse droppings.

  His heart raced as he saw the turnoff to the farmhouse.

  Please, God, let me find Deni.

  He stopped at the porch steps. The front door was wide open. Abandoning his bike, he trotted up to the steps and knocked on the door casing. No one came, so he called out, “Hello! Anybody home? Hello!”

  Nothing. Taking a step inside the house, he called out louder. “Hello!” He went toward the staircase . . . and froze.

  A bloody footprint smudged the bottom stair.

  Dread overtook him, and his heart began to sprint. He reached for the rifle hanging from its sling, readied it for action.

  Sweat dripped in his eyes as he went from room to room, realizing the house had been robbed. The kitchen cabinets were open, and a few boxes of rice and macaroni lay on the floor as if they’d been dropped.

  He ran up the stairs, keeping his rifle ready, and stopped cold at the first bedroom when he saw Deni’s suitcase lying on the bed. Joy burst through him . . . followed by stark terror.

  “Hello? Deni!” His hands were shaking, and his throat was dry. His head had begun to throb. He took a few steps up the hall, and saw more bloody prints. They led out of the bedroom at the end of the hall. The door was partially open, but it looked like it had been kicked in. With his foot, he pushed the splintered door all the way open.

  And there they were.

  A man and a woman, lying on the floor . . . just like the Abernathys . . . and the Whitsons.

  He stumbled back out, but as he did he saw the white dress bag lying on the floor. Forcing himself forward, he picked it up.

  Deni’s wedding dress! Had she fled and left it behind? There were small footprints in the blood, leading to the window. She must have climbed out.

  He looked back at the broken door. Someone had clearly kicked it in. He imagined his daughter’s terror as she fled, stepping over dead bodies, tracking through blood, jumping out a second-story window.

  He turned back and ran down the stairs, his stomach bucking inside of him. Stumbling back outside, he vomited in the grass.

  Dead people . . . murdered . . . Deni’s dress . . . Where was she?

  Wiping his mouth, he tried to think. His chest was tight, and he couldn’t breathe.

  Think, Branning! Think!

  He needed to tell the police. But first he had to find Deni.

  Forcing himself to move, Doug ran out into the back pasture. There was no way to tell which way Deni had gone when she climbed out the window.

  He scanned the landscape. The only places to hide were a barn and the woods behind it. He ran toward the barn, hope teasing him with feeble logic. He expected to find her there, hunched behind a tractor, alive but shivering in fear.

  But his rapid search came up empty.

  Two bikes leaned against the wall, and tire tracks on the dirt led out the back door. Had Deni taken one of the bikes?

  Maybe she’d gotten away.

  But if she had, Vic certainly would have gone after her. Where was his wagon?

  Doug ran back to get his own bike, then followed the tracks to the woods. They led him to a small walking track threaded through the trees.

  Yes, she had gotten away! But had Vic caught up to her?

  He glanced back at the farmhouse. He should find someone at a nearby house and tell them about the dead couple. But there wasn’t time.
/>
  So he followed Deni’s trail, praying that he would find her alive.

  sixty-two

  The sun wasn’t falling right. Deni realized with a sinking heart that she’d gotten west and east mixed up. The arc of the sun should go directly in front of her if she was going west, but instead, it was arcing off to her right. What did that mean? Was Highway 27 taking her south?

  Dread fell over her as she rode, but she couldn’t decide whether to turn around and backtrack. She decided to keep going until she came to a town, and then ask someone where this road led.

  She rode for several miles without seeing anyone. Then finally, she saw a trio of bikers half a mile away, riding toward her. She slowed as they approached her. “Excuse me,” she called up to them. “Could you help me?”

  One of them slowed to a stop. Balancing his bike with a foot, he said, “Sure, what you need?”

  “I’m trying to get to the Birmingham area. Am I going the right direction?”

  The man laughed, and his buddies who had ridden ahead began to laugh, too. “What made you think 27 would take you west?”

  Romeo and Juliet, she wanted to cry. Shakespeare said the sun rose in the east . . .

  She knew how ridiculous it would sound. “It looked like west when I started out, but the stupid road must have turned.”

  They laughed again.

  She didn’t even care that they found her so amusing. “Please . . . is there some place where I can get some water?”

  The man’s humor faded. “You set out on a trip with no water?”

  She didn’t want to go into it. “It’s a long story.”

  The man slung off his backpack and pulled a jug of water out. “Here, take this. I’m close to home, and you have a long trip.”

  Cautiously, she took the jug, and pulled the top off. Half expecting it to be something foul that would send them all into hysterical laughter, she took a sip. It was water, clear and clean. Gratitude seeped through her, and her eyes filled with tears. “Thank you. You’re an answer to prayer.”

  The man smiled at that, then gave her directions back to I-20. “Get back there, and you’ll get home faster.”

  The group rode on, and she sat there a moment, drinking more of the water, feeling life creep back into her bones.

  The sun was about to set—in the wrong place—and it would be dark soon. There wasn’t enough daylight to get back to I-20 before dark, and she didn’t have enough courage to ride at night. No, she’d have to find a place to sleep. A place that was safe, where Vic couldn’t find her.

  When darkness finally came, she pulled her bike into another stalled van, and tried her best to sleep.

  sixty-three

  Doug’s legs trembled as night fell, and he found himself straining to pedal. Every fiber of his being told him to pull over and sleep for an hour or two, but his best chance of catching up to Deni was if he rode through the night. It was a lonely ride, with no other cyclists on the freeway and no streetlights or headlights. The night was darker than he’d ever imagined. Loneliness fell over him like a thick fog he couldn’t evade.

  Vic probably wasn’t the only killer around. What if someone came out of nowhere and murdered him for his bicycle? What if he died here alone on this dark road and his family never knew what became of him?

  He forced his legs to pedal once more, twice more, three times more, and then he realized he couldn’t go another foot. He wobbled to the side of the road and stumbled off of the bike. His legs were so weak they could hardly hold him up. He collapsed onto the dirt, laying the bike down beside him.

  Please, Lord, I can’t sleep. There’s no time. He had to keep going. He’d tried to put himself in Deni’s shoes. She would have taken the back roads to avoid Vic, if he hadn’t caught her already. She’d head east, intent on reaching Washington. But there had been no sign of her . . . nothing to indicate he was even on her trail.

  His mind had taken him terrible places as he’d forced himself on. What if Vic had caught up to her? He would have to kill her to keep her from talking. He pictured Deni dead, in a heap in the back of that wagon, murdered and abused. Hatred rose up inside of him, curling its talons around his heart. The thought of revenge oozed like sweat from his pores.

  Then he would think that maybe she was alive, that maybe Vic had her under his controlling spell, that maybe she cooperated with him to keep from being killed.

  Yes, Deni, he thought, cooperate with him. Don’t fight! Just stay alive.

  Then his mind would stray again, and he would picture Vic digging a hole deep in the woods to drop her body in. They’d never find her, never know for sure whether she was dead or alive.

  He pictured the hell his life would become after that and what it would do to Kay and the kids. None of them would ever be the same. Peace would elude them for the rest of their lives.

  Now he sat on the dirt in the black of night, holding that bike in a paranoid grip. Rest would keep his mind from following destructive paths, but he couldn’t let himself sleep. He had to keep going. He stretched out on the grass and sent up a plea to heaven.

  Oh, God, please let her be alive. Take care of her. Send angels to protect her. Help her, Lord. I don’t know what to do.

  He wept out the agony of his fatherhood before the throne of God, but he was too weary to listen for an answer. Soon his tears drew the last bit of strength out of him, and he fell asleep there on the grass, one leg thrown over his bike.

  Doug awoke sometime later. It was still dark and he sat up, realizing he had wasted time again. How long had he slept? He looked down at his windup Timex, but the moonlight wasn’t bright enough for him to see the time.

  He pushed to his feet, his aching muscles protesting. But he had a little more strength than before. The rest had done him good.

  He got back on the bike. His bruised pelvis settled back into the seat, and his blistered hands gripped the handlebars.

  He pulled the bike back onto the road and pedaled another mile, two miles, three miles, and then he smelled it . . .

  Something burning up ahead. Someone had built a fire. Hope flew up inside him, invigorating him with new strength. He pedaled faster until the scent grew stronger.

  There was a rest stop up ahead, and when he reached the exit for it, he saw the light of a fire flickering inside. He turned toward it, riding more cautiously now, straining to see who the fire warmed.

  There, silhouetted against it, he saw the infamous wagon.

  He caught his breath, and a trembling started through his body.

  He stopped, got off the bike, and hid it behind a tree. He didn’t want the clicking of the wheels to alert anyone. Staying in the shadows, he moved closer to the wagon. The horses had been detached from it and were tied to a bicycle rack. One of them lay on the ground, its feet beneath it as it slept. The others looked at him as if they’d expected him.

  Doug scanned the ground in front of the fire, but didn’t see either Deni or Vic. He couldn’t see into the wagon. Could Deni be in there? He didn’t want to look for fear he would make a noise that would wake Vic up. Instead, he eased around the wagon and searched the ground around the fire.

  And there he saw him, his enemy, sleeping soundly in a sleeping bag close to the fire.

  Deni was nowhere around.

  Doug’s heart hammered as he turned on his flashlight and went to the wagon, and looked inside for his daughter. As he moved one of the boxes, a squawking erupted.

  He shone his light on the cages of chickens.

  He looked to see if Vic had stirred. The killer slept like a man with a clear conscience.

  But where was Deni?

  Had he already done away with her?

  Something snapped inside him. With cool deliberation, he chambered a round, then went around the wagon and pressed the barrel to Vic’s forehead.

  The man jolted awake. “What the—?”

  “Hands up. Over your head.”

  Vic lifted his hands, squinting to see his assail
ant.

  “Where is she?” Doug asked through his teeth. “Where’s Deni?”

  Vic froze.

  That rage that had been building for days erupted like hot lava, and Doug kicked him in the ribs. “Where’s my daughter?”

  Vic grunted and doubled over. “She’s not with me.”

  Doug wanted to kill him right there.

  “Where is she? Tell me now!”