Count All Her Bones

  Cheyenne said in a trembling voice, “Please, Daddy, please.” As TJ’s hand stroked her cheek, her face contorted with disgust and fear. “Please help me. They want three million dollars, and it has to be in Bitcoins. If you don’t give it to them, they’re going to kill me. You have to send it to this account.” She rattled off the number without making a single mistake. “Please send it right away. I love you.”

  “Okay, cut!”

  TJ didn’t move away. Instead he picked up Cheyenne’s limp hand and leaned down to gently kiss the burn.

  Griffin heard Cheyenne gag. TJ made a sound of disgust and scooted back. Turning her head to the other side, Cheyenne spit. When she lifted her head, she said to Dwayne, “I thought you were supposed to be doing this to help your brother. But they’re going to guess he’s behind this. Who else would have a reason for wanting to kidnap me?”

  Dwayne shrugged. “Just wait until they get an anonymous tip about your secret Facebook account. They’ll see all your messages back and forth with Griffin, and they’ll know that you two ran off together. Then the trial will be postponed—forever.” He laughed without mirth. “And to make sure they get the point, I just need you to make one more recording.”

  Cheyenne lifted her chin. “I don’t think I can sound any more scared than I just did.”

  “Don’t worry. That last one was just perfect. This one needs a different tone, but I swear it will be easy-peasy. We just need to get you cleaned up.” He directed his next words to TJ. “Use the tail of your shirt to wipe her face clean.”

  Cheyenne seemed frozen as TJ gingerly swabbed her face. Then he combed his fingers through her hair, shaking his hand free every time he caught a snag.

  “Okay, that looks pretty good,” Dwayne said. “Now put a smile on your face, Cheyenne. And when I say ‘action,’ I need you to say something like, ‘Sorry I had to fool you guys, Daddy, but I’m tired of being treated like a helpless little girl. Griffin and I need money so we can be on our own.’”

  Griffin saw how it would go. Cheyenne’s dad and stepmom would watch the second video when Dwayne sent it after getting the money. They would read her Facebook conversations with what everyone would think was him. And they would be convinced that she was on the lam with Griffin, happily spending Nick’s millions.

  CHAPTER 23

  JUMBLE OF ANGER AND DISAPPOINTMENT

  TJ

  Three hours before TJ and Dwayne had taken Cheyenne, they had stopped to fill up the stolen van’s gas tank. TJ went into the men’s bathroom. Ignoring the stench, he brushed his teeth with his index finger, swished water around his mouth, and spit it out.

  Just knowing he was going to see Cheyenne again made him feel like something was reverberating inside him. Like listening to music so loud you could feel it in your rib cage.

  He had imagined being with her so many times, in so many different ways. Slow dancing together. Picnicking on a bluff overlooking the ocean. Laughing in bed, the white sheet pulled over them like a tent.

  Now Cheyenne sat slumped on the dirt floor, her still-tangled hair hanging over her face. The flashlight propped on a disintegrating hay bale was focused on her. She looked nothing like the girl TJ had thought about for so many months.

  Were the things he had dreamed about only dreams? Back when he was taking the rainbow pills in the hospital, they had made sense. But what if they had really been lies? Or, what if it wasn’t the dreams that were a lie, but … her?

  No, TJ told himself, it was only what Dwayne had done to her. How he had treated her. How he had hurt her. Dwayne had acted like it was no big deal, just a little encouragement to get her to seem scared. But Cheyenne definitely hadn’t been pretending. Plus TJ knew from personal experience how much cigarette burns hurt. And he’d seen the hungry look in Dwayne’s eyes when he burned her. If he hadn’t knocked the cigarette away, would Dwayne have seared her skin with even more?

  “Come look at this.” With his chin, Dwayne motioned TJ over to join him. He was standing in front of the box van’s passenger door, open for the illumination of the dome light. The van was parked just inside the sliding barn door. They had found this place in the daylight, not thinking about how dark it would be at night, with no power.

  “I’ll bet when her dad sees this video, he’ll have the Bitcoins in our account in under an hour.”

  Dwayne pressed the play button on his phone as TJ leaned in closer. On the screen, Cheyenne looked even more pathetic, eyes brimming with tears. His own hand entered the screen. TJ flushed. His knuckles were always black in the creases with engine oil, no matter how much he scrubbed them. Then his gaze shifted to Cheyenne’s recorded face. He had only been trying to comfort her, but now he saw that when he had touched her, she had pulled back, her expression mingling disgust and horror.

  He reminded himself that she couldn’t see anything. She must have thought he was Dwayne.

  The clip ended. “Isn’t that perfect?” Dwayne slid the phone into his pocket. “I’m going into town to send this. Just in case they manage to trace it back, I want it to lead someplace anonymous with an open Wi-Fi connection, like a hotel.”

  TJ didn’t really follow what Dwayne was talking about, but he knew what was expected of him. What was always expected of him. All he needed to do was nod and agree.

  “Okay.”

  “I should be back in about an hour, maybe a little more.”

  From the corner behind them, Cheyenne spoke. “Wait, what? Are you going to leave me alone with TJ? Please, please, don’t do that.”

  In the opposite corner, Griffin gagged. Handcuffed to another post, he was also violently shaking his head, his eyes wide. TJ didn’t pay him any attention, and neither did Dwayne, but they both turned to look at Cheyenne. She cocked her head and turned it in Griffin’s direction.

  “No worries,” Dwayne said. “I’m sure he’ll leave you alone. And if he doesn’t? Well, he knows not to leave any marks—at least not any that will show on camera. Don’t you, TJ?”

  “Are you going to leave me the handcuff key?” TJ asked hopefully.

  Dwayne patted his shirt pocket. “I’m afraid that stays with me, buddy.”

  TJ helped him get the barn door open and then slid it back in place after he drove away. Then he walked slowly over to Cheyenne.

  Her red T-shirt set off her dark hair. It was the exact same color as Superman’s cape. When TJ was eight, his favorite cartoon show in the whole world had been Super Friends. The commercial breaks urged you to buy all the action figures: Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman.… But TJ only had eyes for Superman. Superman could fly! He wouldn’t stop pestering his mom until finally she broke down and got it for him for Christmas.

  He remembered ripping the green wrapping paper off the box, seeing Superman in his red cape with the large S on his chest.

  But the thing was, Superman didn’t actually fly. TJ tried helpfully flinging him into the air, but every single time, he came down like a rock, his cape not even fluttering a little bit.

  “What did you think was going to happen, dummy?” his mom said, and then sucked hard on her cigarette.

  He didn’t bother answering, but the next time she left him alone while she went out, he took one of the kitchen knives to Superman. When she came home, she found Superman’s torso lying on its back on the coffee table. His severed head sat on top of the S, and his arms and legs were stacked neatly to one side.

  That was when his mom started locking TJ in his room. Even when she was home.

  As he walked over to Cheyenne, her eyes followed him, but it had to be her ears that told her where he was. He dropped to his knees, and she flinched.

  “Why don’t you like me?” TJ said. It broke his heart a little that he had to ask her that.

  Instead of answering, she said, “Dwayne’s going to kill me. As soon as he has the money, he will kill me.” Sweat was beaded along her hairline.

  “No he won’t. That’s just pretend, to make your dad pay.”

  “Th
ink about it. Why did you guys take me?”

  “So I could be with you.” When TJ saw Cheyenne’s shoulders hunch in a shiver, he added, “Do you want my puffer coat?” Summer hadn’t really come in yet. Maybe when it did, he would finally get warm. In his mind’s eye, he saw the two of them lying on a beach, the yellow sun beating down.

  She shook her head. “No, I don’t want your coat. I want you to think. Why else did you guys take me?”

  “To get the money from your dad. And so you won’t testify against Roy.”

  “Right. And once he gets the money, Dwayne will want to make absolutely sure that I’m never able to testify. And the only way he can do that is to kill me.” She blinked and fresh tears ran down her cheeks.

  He wiped them away with his index finger. Her skin, which he had thought would be like velvet, was slick with tears and even some snot. A girl like Cheyenne shouldn’t even make snot.

  Still, he hurried to reassure her. “That’s not going to happen. You and me, we’ll just go someplace really far away. An island or something. And each one of us will have one-third of the money. A million dollars! Do you know what we could do with so much money?” TJ was a little hazy on the details himself, but the way Dwayne talked about the money, his voice soft with longing, he knew it was good.

  Cheyenne swore. “Do you really believe that? He’ll probably kill both of us. Make it look like a murder-suicide. And then he’ll have all the money to himself.”

  “That’s not going to happen!” TJ wished she would just be quiet. The more she talked, the harder it was to remember why he had wanted her. Leaning closer, he sniffed, but she didn’t smell the sweet way he remembered. The way she smelled reminded him of the mental hospital. Of vomit and of rank, anxious sweat.

  “You just need to relax, Cheyenne. I’ll take care of everything. I’ll take care of you.” Bracing one hand on the pole next to her head, he closed his eyes, conjuring up the Cheyenne of his memory, and then leaned in to kiss her. At the last second, she turned her head away. His lips landed on her jaw.

  He had thought that because Cheyenne couldn’t see him, she would be different from other girls. The ones who always looked more than a little disgusted by him.

  She turned her head even farther, and before he knew what was happening, her teeth had closed on his wrist.

  He yelped and tried to shake her off. Finally he had to slap her head to get her to loosen her teeth. He stared at his wrist in disbelief. Her teeth had left holes. In him! Blood shone on her lips. His blood.

  It was all going wrong. All those nights, he had imagined finally being with Cheyenne again. But in his dreams, she hadn’t been like this girl, dirty, scratched, snotty, foulmouthed. Violent.

  “You bit me!” He was mesmerized by the red welling up. He didn’t like blood, but when it was his own, that made him crazy. He raised his hands, ready to slip them around her throat. Ready to squeeze and squeeze.

  From the far corner came a noise. It sounded like Griffin was choking. TJ looked over. Griffin’s back was arched, and his heels drummed against the floor. Was he choking to death?

  Griffin had always treated him okay. TJ finally got up, walked away from Cheyenne, and pulled the tape from Griffin’s mouth.

  But instead of thanking TJ, Griffin said between heaving breaths, “If you hurt her, Dwayne will kill you. You’ve got to keep her alive until you get the money. What if they won’t send the money until they have a video of her saying what day it is or something?”

  “But she bit me!”

  “Yeah, and if you hurt her,” Griffin insisted, “Dwayne will kill you.”

  “Shut up!” TJ’s thoughts were a jumble of anger and disappointment. “Just shut up! Let me think!”

  He slid the barn door open and stepped outside.

  CHAPTER 24

  YOU HAVE TO GET YOUR HANDS DIRTY

  GRIFFIN

  Griffin watched the barn door slide back into place. He had bought Cheyenne some time, but in the long run—or even the short run—it wouldn’t matter.

  “Griffin? Griffin, is that you?” Cheyenne’s voice was raw. “Please, you have to let me go.”

  “I can’t.” He started to explain, but her words crowded out his.

  “You must really hate me, then.” Her face contorted. “You lure me out here, and now you’re just going to let them kill me?”

  “Would you listen for a second? I’m handcuffed to a post, just like you. And until about five seconds ago, I had duct tape over my mouth.”

  “Wait—what?”

  “All these months, I’ve left you alone, just like you wanted. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t think about you every day. Especially once I got to Portland and knew you were only a few miles away. I could have done what Dwayne did, figured out some way to contact you. But I didn’t, because I was trying to keep my word, no matter how much I wanted to break it. I was doing what you said you wanted me to.” Griffin’s voice cracked, but he didn’t care.

  “But Dwayne said—”

  “And you’ll listen to him and not me? He was just messing with both of us, making you think I betrayed you, and driving me crazy since I was gagged and couldn’t talk. I don’t know what Dwayne told you in those messages, but it was him that wrote them, not me.”

  After a long pause, Cheyenne said, “He said you—or he or whatever—were going to kill yourself rather than testify against your dad.” Her throat moved up and down as she swallowed. “And I couldn’t let you do that.”

  “I’m not looking forward to testifying, but I would never kill myself over it.” Maybe Griffin had flirted with the idea in his darker moments, but now he realized how much he wanted to live. He wanted to live so much. Too bad he was figuring that out when he was just about to die. “And what you said to TJ is right. I’m sure once he has the money, Dwayne’s going to kill all of us. Even TJ. It’s the one way he’ll know for sure that we’ll never testify.”

  “He won’t kill you,” Cheyenne said, but her voice wasn’t as certain as her words. “You’re Roy’s only child.”

  “Yeah, but remember, my dad burned me and put me in the hospital for weeks when I was a kid. He killed my mom. Being related to Roy is not exactly a guarantee you’ll be okay.”

  “But those were accidents.”

  Griffin couldn’t believe Cheyenne was defending Roy. “Maybe my dad wouldn’t kill me, but my uncle’s not my dad. And he thinks I’m a traitor.”

  She lowered her voice. “Then we have to get out of here.”

  “I know that. But it’s impossible.”

  “All I need is a thin piece of metal.” Cheyenne walked her legs partway around the pole so that she was sitting at a different angle, and now he could see more clearly that her fingers were sweeping over the ground. “Like a piece of wire or a bobby pin, something like that.”

  “How will that help?”

  “Because the lady who’s been my bodyguard taught me how to get out of handcuffs. Wait”—her face lit up—“what do you have in your pockets?”

  A flash of hope shot through him and then died. “Not much. Gum. My wallet. Maybe five bucks and some change.” After a pause, he added a little reluctantly, “And a lighter. But no wire.”

  “Then look on the ground for something.” She was still keeping her voice low. “It doesn’t have to be very long. Even an inch might be enough.”

  “But it’s dark. The flashlight’s pointing at you. I can’t see anything.”

  She made a raspberry sound. “That’s what your hands are for. Make them be your eyes. That’s how I can tell if I’ve wiped a counter off or swept the floor clean. I touch it. You have to get your hands dirty. Just make sure you overlap, so you don’t miss anything.”

  Griffin remembered now how Cheyenne had been able to know things he didn’t. It wasn’t that she had superhuman senses, but that having her eyes turned off allowed her to pay attention to what everyone else felt, touched, tasted, and smelled—and ignored.

  As Griffin began to
run his fingertips over the hard-beaten earth, Cheyenne said, “How did you end up here?”

  “Dwayne threatened me after my mom’s funeral. He said he’d have TJ hurt Aunt Debby if I didn’t get in the van. So I got in. A little bit later, they handcuffed me and threw me in the back.”

  “Was Octavio’s body back there then?” Cheyenne’s voice broke when she said the man’s name.

  Griffin sighed. “Yeah. Only I didn’t know who it was until later, when Dwayne told me. I just knew things were bad and going to get worse.” Under his left ring finger, something rolled. It was thin, stiff, and a cylinder. His heart thrilled. But when he plucked it up and twisted his head, he saw it was yellow. Just a stiff piece of straw.

  There had to be another way. Was there something on him that wasn’t in his pockets but still made of metal? No metal on the tips of the laces of his dress shoes. He still had a hole in one ear, but he hadn’t worn an earring for a couple of years.

  His belt!

  “Cheyenne, my belt has a metal buckle,” he whispered hoarsely. “Could you use that?”

  Her voice changed. “Maybe? How thick is that part you put through the holes? As thick around as a bobby pin?”

  He had to contort himself, the cuffs cutting into his wrists, until he could rest a finger on it. “No. It’s pretty thick. Like three or four times that.”

  “That’s too big.” She took a breath. “Keep looking.”

  If he didn’t have something on his clothes, maybe she did? “Don’t some bras have, like, underwires in them?”

  “They do, but I’m not wearing that kind.”

  It was hopeless. But what else could they do? Reaching back as far as he could, he trailed his fingers along the ground, slowly scooting around the post.

  Just when Griffin was beginning to despair, he touched something right at the edge of where he could reach. He stopped breathing, concentrating on slowly scooting it in by curling his finger.

  Finally he had it. “I’ve got something, Cheyenne. A piece of wire, about four inches long. And I think it’s the right thickness.”