Page 46 of Mean Streak

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E mory thought she might throw up. She lowered her head and cupped her hand around her mouth.

Was yours a violent crime?

Extremely.

“Name’s Floyd.”

Her head snapped up. “What?”

“There are two of them, actually,” Grange said. “Brothers. Norman and Will Floyd.”

It was an effort not to give away her relief.

“Will, the younger, is particularly ornery,” Knight said. “Dropped out in tenth grade, and nobody in the school system was sad to see him go. Always in trouble. Noted bully. Ne’er-do-well. He has a couple of B and Es to his credit. Vandalism. Shoplifting.

“Last summer, he harassed a young woman at a baseball game, got rough with her in the parking lot, but she got cold feet about pressing charges, so he was released. Here’s his mug shot. Look familiar?”

He withdrew a rap sheet with Will Floyd’s photo. In it he looked like the belligerent, depraved individual he was.

“And this is his big brother, Norman, who has a similar rap sheet.”

Knight passed it to her. “Take a good look at them. But before you say anything, you should know that we already sent a deputy up there to question these boys.”

Her burble of elation was replaced by dread. It seeped through her like a paralyzing poison.

“What we heard back from the deputy? He was informed by their mother that her sons are presently sharing a room in the county hospital. The deputy went to see them there. Will is real bad off. He has a…mandi…mandubur—”

“Mandibular fracture,” she said quietly.

The detective nodded. “That’s it. His jaw’s wired shut with rods sticking out his face. The deputy described the apparatus as looking like something out of a torture chamber.

“Norman’s face looked like ‘a hunk of pork gone bad that had been run through a sausage grinder anyway.’ That’s a quote. Plus he’s got four broken ribs, a dislocated shoulder, and a kidney that has turned his urine red. The deputy took his word for that.”

Grange picked up the thread. “But when he wasn’t wheezing in pain, Norman could talk, and before his brother wrote down on a piece of paper for him to shut the eff up, he alleged it was their neighbor who inflicted the injuries.

“He claimed they’d never had any trouble with him until night before last, when he and a lady doctor, a Dr. Smith, intruded on what should have been a private family matter and made a house call to treat their ailing sister, Lisa.”

After a time, when she still didn’t speak, Knight said. “Emory? This guy who lives down the road a piece from the Floyds, we’re bettin’ he’s the man in the video. Correct?”

Both settled gazes on her, but it was Knight whom she addressed. “Was Lisa there?”

“At the house? No,” Knight replied. “Mrs. Pauline Floyd told the deputy that somebody came early this morning, before daylight, and took her.”

“Took her?”

“Yes, but she wouldn’t say who.”

“Don’t forget about the dog,” Grange said.

“Oh, yeah,” Knight said. “He also drove off with the family pet.”

At the tender memory the dog evoked, she smiled.

Grange said, “That’s funny?”

“No.” Feeling weary, she pushed back a strand of hair. “I assure you that the situation in the Floyd household was no laughing matter.”

Grange pounced on that. “So you were there? You were Dr. Smith?”

Declining to answer that, she asked, “Was Pauline all right?”

Grange held her gaze, as though considering how much to tell her. “Depends on your viewpoint. She was fine. But she frustrated the deputy by claiming not to know the individual who thrashed the living daylights out of her sons, although according to them she witnessed the altercation.

“The deputy described her as uncooperative because she flatly refused to answer his questions about the unnamed someone who carted off her daughter, saying only that he was a ‘right decent sort.’”

He’d won Pauline’s loyalty by treating her with respect and dignity, probably one of the few people in her whole life who had.

Knight was saying, “Those boys told the deputy that relatives in town had been persuaded by Pauline to take Lisa back. Whatever that means. We got the name of Mrs. Floyd’s sister and called.

She confirmed that the girl and dog were dropped off at her place around dawn by a man driving a pickup truck.

He didn’t stick around. Left his passengers at the curb and drove away.

Exactly the way it was with you yesterday. ”

She didn’t address his last statement. She was thinking about Lisa’s welfare. “Has anyone spoken to Lisa?”

“Not yet. We will.”

“Send a female officer to question her. She should be gently dealt with.”

After a short but telling pause, Grange asked, “Was she raped?”

Emory said, “She’s fifteen.”

“Did you terminate her pregnancy?”

“That’s privileged information.”

“Did the mystery guy get the girl pregnant and—”

“No.”

“How do you know?”

“Again. Privileged.”

“The Floyd boys don’t share their mother’s opinion of this man. Before pulling the dumb act, Norman referred to him as a brute.”

She snuffled with disgust. “Norman would know.”

After a short pause, Knight tried again. “Emory, did you witness the beating he gave those boys?”

“I want my lawyer.”

Knight leaned toward her again. “You scared?”

“Of arrest?”

“Of him ?” he asked with annoyance.

“No.”

Knight angrily popped his rubber band. “What gets me, is all y’all refusing to talk about this guy.

The deputy told us that no sooner had Norman mentioned him than Will went bonkers right there in his hospital bed.

He was mm-hmming and shaking his head, best he could with those rods sticking out his jawbone.

“Then he motioned for paper and pen and scribbled that note for Norman not to say any more, and Norman heeded the warning. Went mute from there. It was like they were scared, and these two have never been timid a day in their lives, and they don’t frighten or back down easily.”

She just looked at him.

He exhaled heavily. “I’ll repeat one of the questions I asked you yesterday, Emory. While this man held you captive, did he threaten you, harm you?”

“I wasn’t held captive.”

“He never restrained you?”

Let go of my hands.

No, Doc.

Please.

No.

But I want to touch you, too. Let go.

Un-huh. This is the only way I can control—

What?

Myself. If you touch me, I’ll come inside you.

Huskily, she said, “I wasn’t restrained.”

Knight looked over at Grange, and Grange shrugged. Knight came back to her looking thoroughly exasperated. “Okay. We learned from the Floyds where he lives.” He scraped his chair back and stood up. “We thought we’d take you up there.”

“What?” she exclaimed in alarm.

“Yep. I’m betting that when you get there, things you can’t remember will start coming back.”

***

He couldn’t believe it.

He fucking couldn’t believe it .

No wonder Emory’s body hadn’t been found. She wasn’t fucking dead !

Cell phone to his ear, Jeff paced the lobby of the SO. That smelly, grimy, unsightly hallway in which he’d spent countless hours already had become a metaphor for his life. Everything about it sucked.

Emory lived.

“Mr. Surrey, are you still holding?”

“Yes,” he shouted into his cell phone. “Did you tell him who was calling?”

“I did.” The law firm’s receptionist apologized again for the delay. “He’s with another client. If you’d rather hang up and let him call you back when—”

“I’ll hold. Put a note under his nose. Tell him it’s urgent.”

“Is it regarding Dr. Charbonneau?”

“Yes.”

“We heard she was returned safely yesterday.”

Yes, about twenty-four hours ago. When Jeff heard her voice coming through his phone, what whizzed through his mind was the irrational thought that she was speaking to him from the other side.

But no, she wasn’t channeling from the land of the undead. At the moment Knight and Grange had barged into his motel room, prepared to arrest him for her murder, she proved herself to be very much alive.

And what a life she had been living!

When he’d placed his hands on her shoulders in a seeming gesture of concern, he’d wanted instead to wrap them around her neck. Who would have blamed him? How much could a man be expected to take before he snapped?

His fury barely under control, he said into his phone, “Get him on the line.”

He was put on hold again. As if the indignity of having to arrange for a defense lawyer for Emory wasn’t bad enough, he was having to wait for the privilege.

When her body wasn’t discovered after the first twelve hours of the search, he’d started rehearsing how to play the aggrieved widower. He’d ranted. He’d stamped and stewed and made a nuisance of himself, pressuring them to find her, when, actually, the longer she remained lost, the better.

Just as he was growing accustomed to her being dead, she had turned up alive.

The receptionist came back on. “He’ll speak with you now, Mr. Surrey.”

The attorney addressed him brusquely. “What’s so urgent, Jeff?”

He couldn’t bring himself to explain Emory’s escapade in any detail. “Emory didn’t come away from her harrowing experience unscathed. She needs a good defense lawyer, she needs one immediately, and money is no object.”

After agreeing to a retainer’s fee, he got their business lawyer’s promise to hop right on it. He was just concluding the call when Grange surprised him by entering the lobby through the front door, not from the squad room. Beyond him, Jeff could see the SUV parked out front.

Grange said, “We’re going up there.”

“Up where?”

“Are you coming or not?”