Count All Her Bones by April Henry
She almost immediately forgot her unease when her fingers touched something metal. Slowly, she tugged it free, traced its shape as it made a faint musical noise. A key ring, but it held only keys, and its metal ring was too thick and rigid to use on her handcuffs. If she could ever get her hands free, she could slip the keys between the fingers of her fist to use like claws. But that was a pretty big if. Still, Cheyenne contorted herself until she could push it into her own righthand pocket.
To get to Octavio’s far pocket, she had to stretch out on his torso.
And when she did, he let out a gurgle.
With a shriek, Cheyenne scrambled away. Octavio couldn’t still be alive.
Could he?
After a long moment, she forced herself to go back.
She held her hand over his mouth and nose for a count of ten. One Mississippi, two Mississippi.… But no breath stirred against her palm. When she gently touched his face again, it felt like cool wax. She must have released some air still trapped in his lungs.
She returned to her search, but Octavio’s left pocket was empty. And his back pockets held only his wallet.
A few minutes later, the van began to slow and she readied herself. She needed to get away before the situation got even worse. Before she ended up like Octavio. As soon as they opened up the back, she would try to run away screaming. But when the van door opened and she tried to scramble out, a fist punched her in the temple.
A flash of white light zigzagged through her head.
And then all the lights went out.
CHAPTER 21
MAKE A KILLING
CHEYENNE
A minute or an hour later, Cheyenne woke up. Or, she realized as she struggled to raise her lolling head, that wasn’t exactly it. She was coming to. She was sitting with her legs straight out in front of her, her back propped against something narrow and rough. A spot on the side of her head throbbed in time with her heart. It felt wet. She started to lift her hand to touch it, but was stopped short. Her hands were still cuffed behind her, only this time they were around a post.
It all came back to her in a rush. Hearing TJ and a man who sounded like Roy, and then the horrible noise Duke made when he was shot. Touching Octavio’s face in the van. Struggling with the men when the van finally stopped. Pain blooming as a fist struck her. And then nothing.
They had brought her here. Wherever here was. Someplace they didn’t think anyone would look for her. Her skin crawled. Were they watching her right now? She didn’t hear anything.
Cheyenne closed her eyes, let her head drop back to her chest, and forced her body to go slack. Maybe she could buy herself some time so she could figure out just how bad things were.
Where was she? Before she had closed her eyes, her left eye, with its little slice of vision, had revealed nothing but blackness.
Had more than time vanished with that blow to the head? Three years ago, being thrown against a pole by a careening car had destroyed most of her sight. Had she just lost what little remained? Her stomach bottomed out. It was all she could do to remain limp.
She hovered on the edge of panic, of screaming and thrashing, even though it would do no good. Again, she forced herself to breathe, to slowly count to four over and over. As she quietly, rhythmically inhaled and exhaled, Cheyenne took inventory. The post she was handcuffed to was made of rough wood. The ground under her felt like hard-packed dirt. The air smelled of cigarette smoke, mildew, hay, and—she inhaled even more deeply—manure. Far overhead, rain pattered against the roof.
Some kind of barn or stable? Maybe abandoned, given the mildew and that the sweet smell of dung was very faint, more a memory than a scent. Cheyenne strained her ears, but didn’t hear any sounds, not even of traffic.
Ronald and her dad must have found the car by now. But would they realize that Cheyenne wasn’t there because she had been taken? Since TJ had retrieved her purse, they might think she had left the car willingly, maybe been picked up by a Good Samaritan. They might not know to call the cops.
Then she remembered Duke. When they found him dead of a gunshot wound, it would be a pretty good clue that something was very wrong.
Her eyes and nose began to fill with tears at thoughts of Duke and Octavio. Of her dad and Danielle. If only she had hugged them hard before she left tonight. As she mourned what she hadn’t done and what she would never be, she felt the faintest of tickles on her neck. Then it moved a millimeter higher.
Something was crawling on her.
Forgetting all about pretending to still be knocked out, Cheyenne shrugged her shoulder toward her cheek, frantically trying to wipe off whatever it was
“Morning, honey bunny.” The voice she heard was the man TJ had called Dwayne. Was it really morning? She twisted her hands so she could touch her Braille watch. It was just before three A.M.
No sense in pretending to still be unconscious. “Who are you? You sound like Roy, but you’re not.”
“Aren’t you smart?” It was clear this wasn’t a compliment. “You would have had them eating out of your hand in court.” He made his voice singsong like a carnival barker’s. “She might be blind, folks, but she’s pretty and has supersenses. Hears a voice and knows who it’s related to.” She heard the flick of a lighter, a suck of breath as he lit a cigarette. “I’m Dwayne. Roy’s my half brother.”
“Why did you kill Octavio?”
“He was going to work for us. But then he got cold feet. And then cold everything else.” Dwayne exhaled showily, and she imagined twin streams of smoke coming out of his nose.
Everyone was dying because of her. “Where’s Griffin?” Had he betrayed her, or was he among the dead?
“Do you really think he was going to let his dad go to prison? What was it you told him again? ‘Just tell me where you are and promise you’ll wait for me.’ You should have seen him laughing.”
To her right, something stirred, but Cheyenne paid no attention. Dwayne’s words had stolen all the breath from her lungs.
“This was all Griffin’s idea,” he continued. “He’s mad at you for how you were going to put away his dad. Of course, that’s not going to happen now.”
Griffin must have shared her messages. About how she missed him, thought about him, longed for him. Had Dwayne been sitting next to him, laughing as they composed his replies together? Her sense of betrayal was so great that it was all Cheyenne could do not to throw up. She had been such a fool. She had thrown herself into their arms. And now she was trussed up like an animal ready to be slaughtered.
“You’re probably the first person in history who ever kidnapped herself,” Dwayne said. “And in such a nice car. Too bad we couldn’t keep it. TJ could barely tear himself away.”
“I’ve seen them self-driving cars on TV,” TJ said, “but I never thought I would get to look at one up close.” His voice was filled with longing. The last time Cheyenne had heard TJ sound like that, he had been stroking her cheek.
Cheyenne tried to keep her fear from showing on her face. For the last six months, TJ had occupied a lot of her nightmares. His fingertip tracing the line of her jaw as he whispered in her ear the things he wanted to do to her. She hoped that he had left lots of fingerprints on the car. And that the police would think to look for them.
“Go outside and keep watch,” Dwayne told TJ.
As Dwayne had been talking, Cheyenne had been exploring. She had turned her wrists so that her hands were flat against the floor behind her. Slowly, slowly, she was fanning her fingers across the rough surface. The only thing she found was loose straw. All she needed was a tiny piece of metal, and it seemed more likely that she would find one here than in the van. Didn’t hay come trussed in baling wire?
“You’ll tell me when you’re done?” TJ sounded eager.
Done with what?
“No worries. Later, gator.”
She had been an idiot, she thought as her fingers pressed and probed behind her back. She remembered an old New Yorker cartoon her dad had
Cheyenne would have been a lot better off if she had been messaging a dog. Dogs didn’t pretend one thing and do another. Dogs didn’t betray you.
“Why’d you have to shoot Duke?”
“What—you mean besides him biting me?” She heard the shrug in Dwayne’s voice. “He got exactly what he deserved. He was my brother’s dog and then he took off with you.”
Cheyenne took a deep shuddering breath, trying to suppress her tears. As she did, she felt whatever had been on her neck start to move again, crossing the line of her jaw. Raising her shoulder, she tried to wipe it off her cheek.
“Okay, here’s the deal. We’re going to make a little film for your dad. And you’re going to be the star. Isn’t that every girl’s dream? To be a movie star?”
Cheyenne’s attention was divided, half on Dwayne, half on the delicate legs walking up her cheek. She twisted her lips and blew as hard as she could in the bug’s direction, but the steady sense of movement didn’t falter.
“What’s the matter?” Dwayne came closer. Her left eye picked up a sliver of bobbing white light. Her relief at not having lost her tiny slice of vision was cut short when his bitter breath washed over her face. A hand cupped her chin. She tried to jerk away, but he squeezed the sides of her jaw to hold her still, then forcefully tilted her head. “Awesome, possum. Looks like you’ve already made a little friend.” His hand smelled of cigarettes. She pressed her lips together and tried to breathe shallowly.
When his other hand touched her face, she expected him to brush off the bug. Instead, he squished it with his thumb.
Bile flooded her mouth as he pressed so hard against her cheek that Cheyenne was sure there would be a bruise there tomorrow. If there was a tomorrow.
He finally let her go. She tried to rub the crushed bug off on her shoulder, but couldn’t reach the spot.
“Leave it. You’ll look more pathetic. And if your daddy paid a million last time, just think how much more he’ll be willing to give now, when he’ll be able to see you. He’ll take one look at you, handcuffed, with blood on your temple and a smashed spider on your cheek, and he’ll be more than willing to pay three million. We’re going to make a killing. Except we’ll do it a little smarter than my brother did. Small unmarked bills take time to get your hands on, and they take up a lot of space. So last decade. Your dad’s going to put money in an untraceable Bitcoin account. Once we get it, we’re gonna let you go. Okeydokey, artichokey?”
Dwayne seemed to be waiting for an answer, so Cheyenne nodded. That hadn’t been true when Roy asked for ransom. And she was sure it wasn’t true now. Once they got the money, she would have served her purpose.
Alive, she could testify. Dead, she would be silent forever.
CHAPTER 22
LET’S SEE JUST HOW LOUD YOU CAN SCREAM
GRIFFIN
With duct tape over his mouth, Griffin had been forced to listen in silence as Dwayne told Cheyenne lies about his supposed betrayal. As he spoke, Dwayne’s eyes darted back and forth between them, a smile playing around his lips.
Tears of frustration sprang into Griffin’s eyes. He blinked them away. If his nose started to run, he would smother.
Even though she must feel so alone and frightened, it didn’t show in Cheyenne’s face, which was half obscured by her mass of dark curls. The only light came from a large flashlight lying on top of a hay bale and pointing directly at her. She was more petite than Griffin remembered. Next to Dwayne, she looked like a child.
This was all his fault. If Griffin hadn’t reached out to her six months ago, she wouldn’t have believed Dwayne when he had pretended to be Griffin on Facebook. Now he would do anything to save her. But he couldn’t even save himself. The panic about what would happen to both of them squirmed inside him.
“First, I need you to memorize the account number,” Dwayne told Cheyenne. He rattled off a string of about a dozen letters and numbers, then started again with the first four. “Say those back to me.”
After she did, he made her repeat them over and over. Then he added two more. They went back and forth. Each time she got a sequence of numbers right, he added a couple more. When Cheyenne messed up, he took it back a step or two.
Griffin wondered if she was stalling for time. Would it help if she did? She kept fidgeting, moving her legs and shrugging her shoulders. Griffin knew firsthand just how uncomfortable their positions were, but as he watched her, he wondered if something else was going on. From this angle, it seemed like she was running her fingers over the ground behind her. What was she looking for? There was nothing in this abandoned barn but musty hay.
Finally she was able to recite the whole string of numbers and letters from memory.
Dwayne took out his phone. “Okay, I’m going to film you now. Make this look good. You’re scared, and the only one who can save you is your daddy—and his money. Ready, Freddy? Three, two, one … Action!”
She sucked in a breath, her eyes not quite pointed in Dwayne’s direction. “Daddy, I’m okay. I love you and Danielle so much. And I’m sorry about everything. Tell Ronald I’m sorry I took—”
His lip curling, Dwayne stabbed his finger at his phone to turn off the camera. His voice overrode hers. “Stop, stop. You don’t sound scared at all. Your dad’s going to watch this and think you’re just fine, that you’re just kicking back.”
Cheyenne cringed. “I’ll try to do better.”
“I don’t need you to try,” Dwayne said. “I need you to DO. I need you to sound scared out of your mind.” When she nodded, he started again. “Three, two, one … Action!”
When Cheyenne spoke, her voice was pitched higher. To Griffin, it sounded like she was holding back tears. “Daddy, I’m really scared. Please give them the money. Please! As soon as you do, they’ll let me go.”
“No! No!” Dwayne’s voice cut through hers. “That’s nowhere near good enough. It doesn’t sound real at all. We want your dad falling all over himself to transfer the money to us.”
She shifted again, moving an inch or two around the pole. From where he sat, Griffin could see her hands, but Dwayne couldn’t. Her fingers kept creeping over the hard-packed earth. What was she looking for?
Cheyenne raised her chin. “I’m doing the best I can.”
Dwayne shook his head. “Oh, I think you could do a lot better than that. You might not care about a spider, but I’m sure you do know how much a burn hurts. Let’s see just how loud you can scream. And trust me, no one but us will be able to hear you.”
Dwayne took his lighter from his pocket. Griffin tried to shout, but nothing came out but a faint, strangled sound. For a moment, Cheyenne’s face swiveled in Griffin’s direction, but when Dwayne flicked on his lighter, she quickly turned back.
“No, please, don’t!”
Dwayne looked from the wavering yellow flame to her. “You should have thought of that before you sicced Duke on me or slammed my hand in the door.”
With his other hand, he took out a fresh cigarette and lit it. Then he flipped his lighter closed and slipped it back in his pocket.
Griffin was starting to relax, to tell himself Dwayne’s threat had just been meant to scare her, when Dwayne pinched the cigarette between his fingers, leaned down, and held it only an inch or two from Cheyenne’s face. She must have felt the round dot of heat, because she froze. He held it over her cheek, then her forehead, as if he was trying to decide the best spot. He brought it closer. She twisted her head, but the post stopped her from going very far. The cigarette edged closer and closer to her temple, until Griffin was sure her skin must be starting to crisp.
“No, no!” Cheyenne said. “Don’t! I’ll do better, I promise!”
Dwayne paused. “A few marks here and there will only make your dad more of an eager beaver. Years ago, there was this rich kid. A Ge
Cheyenne screamed, and so did Griffin, the sound stoppered behind the duct tape. This was all his fault. Dwayne must have chosen this method to torture her knowing that watching her be burned would be almost as hard on Griffin.
TJ yanked open the barn door and ran inside yelling. “Stop it! Stop it!” He leaned down and knocked the cigarette out of Dwayne’s hand.
Dwayne straightened up. He was a head and a half taller than TJ, but TJ wasn’t backing down. The smell of burning flesh—it stank like burning hair—hung in the air. It made bile rise in Griffin’s throat as a million terrible memories came flooding back.
Cheyenne had stopped screaming. She panted openmouthed, her face red and wet with tears.
“You said you wouldn’t hurt her!” TJ protested.
“Keep your pants on. She’s not really hurt. It was all just for dramatic effect.” Dwayne shrugged. “I needed to get her crying so her daddy will send the money faster.”
“He burned my hand!” Cheyenne’s voice was filled with pain and panic.
TJ knelt next to her, his face creased with concern. Griffin froze. Both TJ and Dwayne scared him, but in different ways. Dwayne at least made a rough kind of sense, but TJ had always lived in his own world. To Griffin, it seemed equally likely that right now TJ would kiss Cheyenne or kill her. Maybe both.
“Are you all right?” TJ pushed a strand of hair from Cheyenne’s face. She shuddered at his touch.
“Hey, that’s perfect!” Dwayne was grinning. “She’s shaking like a leaf, obviously scared and crying. And then we show a man’s hand reaching out and caressing her face all lovey-dovey. They’ll be buying those Bitcoins before they’re even done watching the video. Let’s try that again. TJ, move back a little, so that when you reach in to touch her, they won’t see your face. Ready, Cheyenne?” He didn’t wait for her to answer. “Three, two, one, and action!”