Emily Locke 01 - Final Approach

listened to the footsteps following me, grinding the dirt a few paces back. Sometimes the steps sounded so close together I thought maybe only one person was there with me. But the beams weren’t moving in sync. I heard whispering, but no words.
    “What will you do with them?” I said.
    The only response was silence.
    I stopped and turned. The flashlights stopped moving; they were about three yards away, very close together.
    “What happens to the kids?” I was crying. “What happens to Annette?”
    I could make out the faint outlines of figures holding the lights and gauged from her stature that one of them was Trish.
    “What happens to Annette?” She mocked me. She even added a fake sniffle. “What happens to Annette?” Then her voice hardened. “Who the fuck cares? Turn around and walk.”
    I fell to my knees. My sobs echoed in the stillness, reverberated in my ears, completely understating my terror and loss.
    “There’s no time for this shit,” Scud said. He wasn’t talking to me. “Was that necessary? Look at her. She ain’t moving any faster, is she?”
    “Why should I move?” I yelled, staring toward them.
    Trish lowered her beam and for a moment I could see more clearly. She raised an arm in front of her, and my chest tightened. She was going to shoot me, there in the driveway.
    Scud reached across and put his hand on her extended arm. He leaned close to her and whispered. She lowered it.
    “Relax, sweetheart,” Scud said to me. “You’re right. We want money. We get it many ways. Kids…” he paused “Well, frankly, kids don’t fetch a good price dead. I won’t sugar coat this, ’cause I’m sure you see things for what they are. You won’t walk away from this. But Annette will, as long as you tell us where the locker is. Otherwise, she’ll die in front of you. You decide.”
    When he finished, I expected something snide from Trish. Instead, there was only the faint rustle of swaying leaves. I inhaled sharply, and heard the sound of my breathing too. Tears dropped down my cheeks as resignation washed over me. I was helpless against Trish and Scud, but if I revealed the locker location, at least Annette wouldn’t be used as a bargaining token anymore. At least she would live.
    “Still thinking?” Scud said. “Get up and walk toward the road.”
    I don’t remember how far we walked before Trish spoke up behind me. “Where is it?”
    I was ready to answer, but Scud answered first. “A few yards ahead still.”
    “Yeah, but where?” Trish’s voice.
    He cast the beam of his flashlight off the left side of the driveway and swung it back and forth until it found an old, abandoned tire.
    “There.”
    “Here’s your turn-off.” Trish shoved me in the back.
    I stumbled, and walked into the woods where they showed me. I wondered how long Jeannie would stay in Texas before going home. At some point she’d have to accept I’d never be found. Trish had done me one favor, even though she hadn’t meant to. She’d spared Jeannie’s life by separating us.
    I shuffled through the woods wherever they told me to go, stepping over fallen branches and ducking under low ones, until I was suddenly told to stop walking. My eyes stung and my cheeks were wet, but I wasn’t afraid to die. I was crying because there was so much I’d never explain to my little girl.
    Trish and Scud walked ahead of me a few paces and then diverged to either side. I watched them swing their flashlight beams along the ground as if looking for something.
    “Right here,” Scud said. Trish turned and joined him.
    They directed their lights at the ground, into a giant oblong hole with a thick mound of dirt around its edges. My grave.
    “Get in,” Scud said. “Make it easy on me, I’ll make it easy on you.”

Chapter Thirty-nine
    Trish and Scud pointed their flashlights at the perimeter of the hole.
    “Go on,” Scud said.
    I knelt on the mound of damp earth surrounding the pit, as if to pray, and made the sign of the cross.
    “Forget that,” Trish said from the blackness behind me. “You can chat in the afterlife.”
    I scooped blocks of mud into my fists.
    Behind me, twigs snapped and her flashlight beam jostled. I kept my head bowed and steadied myself.
    Her foot pressed into my back. I slid sideways and hurled a loosely packed ball of mud toward her face. She looked away and shielded her eyes. I knocked the flashlight from her hand. It landed silently in the crude grave.
    Before I could stand, she