Dead End Girl (Violet Darger Book 1) Read online

  He frowned and appeared thoughtful, stroking his chin theatrically.

  “Don’t you gotta be smart to be in the FBI?”

  “Sure. Why?”

  “Because you’re either deaf or dumb, bitch. I already told you three times that she ain’t here.”

  Violet bit back her anger. The bass continued to pulse from within the house, and Darger felt her heartbeat thudding along with it.

  Again the sound of the toilet flushing came from the window.

  “Listen, you little shit. I don’t care about whatever your friend is flushing in there.”

  She jabbed a finger at the nearby bathroom window.

  “But if you don’t get Sierra out here, I will care. I’ll care a whole lot. I’ll get a warrant and tear this shithole apart. I’ll snake the goddamn drains if I have to. I’ve seen your rap sheet. We’d only need to turn up a single pill for you to be back in county lockup. Or you could just let me talk to Sierra.”

  It was a bluff, of course. Nothing he was doing fell under federal jurisdiction, and she wasn’t sure the Sheriff would play along if she wanted to push it, especially as far as any drain snaking. Not that Jimmy knew any of that.

  His grip tightened on the door, knuckles going white.

  “How about this? How about you get the fuck off my property until you got a warrant, or I’ll call the fucking cops myself and report you for harassment?”

  Darger clenched her teeth, pissed at herself that she’d lost her temper. She should have known it wouldn’t get her anywhere with a guy like Jimmy Congdon. Then again, maybe nothing would have.

  As she turned and started to walk away, he called out.

  “You think she didn’t warn me you were comin’? She come up here snivelin’ and cryin’ ‘bout how she didn’t tell you nothin’ — not that there’s anything to tell, mind you. She’s all please, Jimmy, don’t be mad at me.”

  He did the last bit in a mocking falsetto that she supposed was his attempt at impersonating Sierra.

  Violet whirled back around and narrowed her eyes.

  “So she is here.”

  “Was. Past tense and shit. And that’s all I’m tellin’ you. She was here, and she left. And now you can do the same. Later, lady cop.”

  He shot her a wink before the door thumped shut, and the metallic click of the deadbolt followed.

  Darger stomped back down to where Loshak’s car was parked. She got in and summoned all of her angst leftover from adolescence in order to slam the door as loudly as possible. The engine thrummed on, and she drove away from the house, taking a left onto Vine Street.

  At the next cross street, she hung another left and did a loop back, coasting onto one of the side streets that gave her a view of Jimmy’s house. She turned the key, killing the engine.

  Twenty minutes. Maybe less. That was how long Darger guessed it would be before she watched Sierra Peters slink out of Jimmy’s front door and down to the borrowed car parked out front.

  Twenty minutes passed, and then forty, and then an hour. Darger settled in. Probably getting high with whatever they hadn’t flushed. Or already high. Could be a while, in that case. If she snorted enough Oxy, Sierra could be in there for hours. Zoned out and staring at the wall.

  Violet tried to remember exactly how much cash she’d had in her wallet. More than enough to get high and stay that way for a while.

  She flipped around on the car radio now and then, a wide array of terrible music and worse talk shows at her fingertips. She couldn’t stand any of it for more than ten minutes at a time.

  As the afternoon waned into evening, doubt finally began to creep in.

  What if Jimmy had been telling the truth? What if Sierra was there that morning, but had ducked out before Violet showed up?

  But no. That didn’t make sense. The car was still here.

  Unless… unless the killer had come back for her.

  Oh, Christ Jesus.

  Chapter 15

  Jeff Grady shook himself awake at the sound of the engine outside, the low growl idling at the end of the block. He blinked a few times in the dark, a sandy grit assaulting his eyes, and then he glanced at the alarm clock on the nightstand. Red numbers glowed there, revealing the time to be 5:36 AM. Christ. The sun wouldn’t be up for another 90 minutes or so, and this was his day off. He wanted nothing more than to go back to sleep, but he had to know.

  It could be the dumpers out there.

  Over the past six months, someone had been dumping bags of trash in the woods at the end of the street. Being on a dead end made them a target for that kind of crap, he thought. He grit his teeth when he thought about it. Someone dumping leaky bags of diapers and orange juice cartons and those disgusting bloody styrofoam trays that had held chicken breasts or hamburger in them. Black plastic bags so full they’re bulging like ticks stuck in a dog’s neck, ready to pop. Then the coons and possums came along and tore the shit open, the used coffee filters and wads of soggy paper towel and plastic rinds from bologna winding up strewn about the woods. Looking like hell. And of course the city wouldn’t do nothing about it, would they? Not unless someone caught the bastards in the act.

  But then again, maybe it wasn’t the dumpers. The car had been sitting there a long time already it seemed like. Did lingering like that make any sense for someone dumping trash? He thought not.

  He lay back, but he kept his eyes open. There was a chance it was only a neighbor. Sometimes that Jenkins guy from the end of the block seemed to head out in the pre-dawn hours like this. What was his first name, again? Something like Dale or Daryl. He was always out tinkering in his garage at all hours and almost never wearing a shirt. Weird guy. Anyway, Grady would feel pretty stupid if he crawled out of bed this early over nothing.

  The engine’s rumble held steady for a long while, the droning note eventually relaxing him, coaxing his eyelids closed. He drifted a little, his consciousness fading down to just the sound of the car idling outside.

  The metallic slam jolted him awake again — the trunk of a car banging shut — and somehow he knew it wasn’t the Jenkins guy.

  No, no. This was the work of dumpers as sure as he was alive.

  Goddamn dumpers!

  The droning engine note changed pitch as he went into motion.

  He threw the blanket back, untangled his legs from the sheet and rose from the bed. The wood floor transmitted a chill into his feet, and his legs felt a little unsteady beneath him, his muscles still half asleep. His hands patted along the top of the dresser for his hooded sweatshirt, and he pulled it on.

  And then he froze. Listening. The car outside was speeding away, engine shrieking out high notes after so long singing bass. He ran to the window and looked out, a deep breath exiting his nostrils and steaming a cloud onto the glass before him.

  His eyes traced the asphalt to one end of the street and then the other. Shit. It was gone. He could hear the engine trailing away in the distance, but he was too late to get a glimpse.

  Goddamn it. Why had he been messing with the sweatshirt? Like he could run out there and stop it from happening or something? Some kind of anti-dumper superhero or some goddamn thing. Why didn’t he just look out and try to see who it was like a normal person? Maybe he wouldn’t have been able to make out a license plate number in the dark, but he could at least get a make and model. Maybe even get a look at the driver for a police sketch or something.

  Idiot.

  He looked one more time, eyes swiveling to the outlet end of the street and finding nothing at all. No traffic. Not a single light on in any window on the block, at least from his vantage point. He pivoted to look at the dead end side. Nothing there, either.

  But wait.

  There was something there. He could see what looked like black plastic tangled in the brush, flapping a little in the breeze. A garbage bag, maybe. And there was a pale bulk near that, under the dead end sign. Whatever it was, it lay just beyond the perimeter of the last streetlight, swathed in the darkness. That com
bined with the tall grass made it hard to make out.

  He looked at the alarm clock again — 5:41 AM. Only a few minutes had passed. His gaze fell upon the bed. The blanket was peeled back like an open door inviting him to return, and he could imagine that warmth surrounding his body again, pulling him down into a peaceful dream for as long as he wished to stay.

  But no. Of course not. He had to know.

  He pulled on a pair of jeans, the denim so cold against his legs that it almost felt damp. His skin bunched into goose pimples, all tight and weird, his scrotum shriveling something awful. And this was supposed to be his damn day off.

  He dug around in the junk drawer in the kitchen until he found the little flashlight, and then he headed out, sliding the hood up over his head as he crossed the threshold.

  The air felt heavy, and the grass glistened with frost. He made sure to stay on the sidewalk to avoid the wet, stepping into the street and walking the diagonal line toward his destination.

  Now that the sound of the car had faded entirely, it was impossibly still out here. It felt a little wrong to be moving about in these dark morning hours, like he was violating some agreed upon morning sanctity.

  The wind picked up for a moment, and he could hear that plastic flailing again, rattling the branches of a bush. It did look like a garbage bag, and it was wound up in the brush pretty good.

  The mass below it was still shrouded, but whatever it was almost glowed a little. Something creamy white reflecting back a purple radiance in this muted light, he thought.

  He licked his lips. That crawling skin tightened him up all over again, but it wasn’t from the cold this time. Something wasn’t right.

  When he got close, he clicked on the light. The flashlight was about the size of a cigar, but the LED bulb packed the illumination of something much bigger. A shaft of bright white light shot out of the tiny tube, and he swung the circle toward that bulk on the ground. The dead end sign reflected its glare back at him as he swung it past, beaming yellow and black. It stung like smoke getting in his eyes.

  When he saw the foot, he stopped in his tracks. The light shook, the image flickering in a strobe effect for a beat. Jesus. A foot. A human foot. Attached to a leg that disappeared into the weeds about mid-calf.

  It had to be a mannequin, right? The little scuff of dirt wrapping around the ankle gave it a realistic feel, almost like a patina, but it couldn’t be real, could it?

  And then the newspaper stories flashed in his head. Those cut up girls in garbage bags dumped around the county.

  Oh, Jesus.

  He stood there a moment, knowing his next move would in some sense define his life in a way that would always be known only to him. A private memory he would turn over and over in his brain, trying to decipher exactly what it meant about who he was for good or ill. He wanted to run back into the house and call the police. Let them deal with it. But he couldn’t do that now.

  He had to know.

  He licked his lips again, and then he shuffled forward into the darkness, his breath coiling steam out of his mouth and nostrils.

  He pointed the beam a little further, and the light danced over that pale bulk, the foot muted in the gray shadows in the foreground. The other foot came into view a few inches beyond the first. Milk-white. Not dirty like the other.

  His heart pattered like a hummingbird flittering away in his chest. He could hear the blood pounding in his ears. Could feel his breath sticking in his throat. But he didn’t stop walking this time. He had to see it before he could think about anything else.

  The naked girl lay face down in the dirt, leafless twigs poking out of the ground all around her like miniature spikes. Her head seemed to be concealed in that black plastic tangled up in the bushes, but he could still tell her gender by the curve of her hips and waist, the somehow feminine way her legs tapered from thigh to knee to ankle.

  The circle of light paused on the small of her back, and her pale skin shimmered under it, a bloodless tone of tissue that he found upsetting. Disturbing. Like the milky flesh of some segmented worm that squirmed so deep in the Earth that it would never be touched by the sun.

  She sprawled with her arms down at her sides. Prone. Defenseless. The vulnerability accentuated by her pose. Those arms were in no position for her to catch herself when she was dumped here.

  He shuddered, and he swung the light down to his side.

  The body seemed to turn purple again now that the light was ambient instead of direct, but she glowed just the same. A glimmering dead thing all stretched out.

  Yes. She was real, and she was dead. He was sure of both things now. And it turned out that knowing didn’t help him at all. It brought him no satisfaction. No sense of peace. Failed to still the fluttering dread inside of him.

  How could he live in a world where such a profane image could be real, where such a cruelty could be actual? She was dumped in the open with only this last hour and a half of dark to conceal her. By the time the sun came up, the whole neighborhood would be able to see the corpse plainly from their windows. And someone must have wanted it that way. They risked much to ensure it.

  The wind picked up again, cold on his cheeks. It rattled through the foliage, swirling through the scene to move all of the pieces. The black plastic flapped up from the corpse, and he gasped.

  There was no head.

  The neck sheared off into nothing on a jagged slash, stringy red muscle tissue visible at the mouth of the wound.

  His eyes recorded this image. Seared it into his skull for keeps.

  A naked woman flopped flat on the ground with her head cut off. Dumped right out in the open.

  Chapter 16

  The wind rips against the windshield. It slaps at the car. Sounds solid.

  He feels the cold radiating off of the glass. It chills his knuckles where they grip the steering wheel.

  The land here is vacant. Barren. Empty. Snapped cornstalks bend to kiss the dirt. The fields of them are endless. The rows of broken plants sprawling toward the gray sky in the distance.

  In the car he is alone. Always alone. His thoughts twist up. Mangle themselves. Spiral into nothing.

  The engine throbs. Hums endlessly.

  Lights jam the dashboard. Needles twitch along with the car’s movements. He pays them no mind.

  Stares down the road. Long and dark.

  Never is the distance between him and the world more clear than in this car. The void. The gulf that grows between him and everything. Between him and everyone.

  He tries to fight it. He searches inside and out for anything else. For any glimmer of hope. But he finds only the void. The abyss. The big nothing that exists just beneath the surface of all that we see.

  Black. Empty. Cavernous.

  His vision flicks to the duffel bag in the passenger seat. He watches it a second out of the corner of his eye. Licks his lips. Looks away.

  He brings a hand to his pants. Smears his palm on the denim. Sweat slicks his skin despite the cold.

  He tries to think of what to say to her, but he can’t. Not yet. It’s not right. Maybe it never will be.

  He grits his teeth. Grinds his foot into the accelerator.

  The car lurches. The needles on the dash shudder. He feels his lower back lift a little out of his seat for a moment before it resettles.

  His eyelids flutter. His lips pop open. Breath explodes out of him in a hiss.

  There is no other movement for miles.

  Nothing.

  No one.

  It is always empty out here. Always gray.

  And when he’s alone his wound opens up. A kind of hurt he doesn’t understand. Can barely comprehend. It’s always there, he knows. But it only comes clear when he makes this drive. This high speed burn to and from the city.

  The isolation lays bare the damage. The cold and lonesome drive sharpens his focus on this injury.

  But not now. He can’t now.

  He concentrates to slow his breathing. Feels the blood gl
ug along in his neck. The pulse decelerating. He can’t let the rage all the way in. Not now.

  He has to go to work. Soon.

  His eyes stay fastened to the horizon, and he sees the city take shape there. The specks at the edge of the world grow. The buildings pointing their tips at the heavens. Part of him is disappointed to see this. Disappointed to know that the real world exists on the other end of this empty road.

  And yet a calm comes back to him as he watches the buildings expand. The numb of daily life returns. The wound is tucked away and forgotten. Like the tools in the glove compartment.

  Like what he has in the duffel bag.

  Chapter 17

  The first sensation Darger noticed was that she was freezing. The air seemed especially frigid as she inhaled. And a little moist. Had she left the air conditioner on? And that odor… why did it smell like fake lemons and sour milk?

  She straightened her neck and aching pain shot from her shoulder up to her ear. Her eyes snapped open, and she blinked half a dozen times against the bright sunlight streaming in through the windshield before she remembered where she was and what she was doing. The clock on the dash read 6:08 AM. She must have fallen asleep sometime last night. The last thing she remembered, it had been around 2 AM. Drowsiness had started to take hold, and she’d told herself: just another half hour. Apparently, somewhere in that thirty minutes, she’d dozed off.

  Rubbing her eyes and then waiting for the blurriness to clear, she noted that her rental car was still parked in front of Jimmy the drug dealer’s house. Maybe Sierra was still inside, but Darger was starting to feel more and more certain that she wasn’t. After a brief moment of panic the previous afternoon, she’d ruled out the possibility of Sierra being taken again. It was too risky — returning to the same location, grabbing her in broad daylight? No. He wasn’t that impulsive.

  And yet the longer the car sat in front of Jimmy’s the more Darger began to admit that Sierra was long gone. It made more sense than her keeping the car, really. She wouldn’t have any reason to think Darger wouldn’t call the cops, and Sierra was a smart enough girl to know that being caught with the car would be much worse for her. Better to ditch it and move on.