Chapter 15
Dane Amleth Dane shivered in the night's cold. He hadn't snagged a jacket--he was only going to the Barn, after all--but he couldn't go inside, not with Clawson in there. Peeking in through the broad French doors that led into the dining room and kitchen area, Dane could see his mother and uncle standing, rigid with worry (in the former case) and fury (in the latter case) and listened to the ranting come through the double-paned glass. "Where is he?" demanded Clawson, tossing his keys on the counter and running anxious fingers through his salt-and-pepper hair. "Clawson, I don't know." Hearing his mother was harder than hearing Clawson, mostly because she was naturally more soft-spoken than his uncle. "I keep telling you--" "I'm not asking you, Jennifer, I'm just…pissed off, that's all." "I know." That was more lip-reading than audible. "I know, but I…" She turned and followed after Clawson, who had started down the main hallway toward the family room--where Dane had fired the ASP. Doubling back, Dane rounded the house until he arrived at the garage itself, the door wide and the light still blazing. He glanced from his mother's car (a Chevy Volt) to Papa Dane's, now driven by his uncle (the BMW M3) and thought for a moment. He needed to talk to his mother--she needed to see this video, and the sooner the better--but how could he do so without bumping into Clawson first? He shuddered to think what that conversation would be like: "Hey, funcle, you see this new video? It's hilarious! Check it out. It'll slay ya!" He shook his head. No, that wouldn't work at all. He had to get them isolated somehow, talk to just his mother… The door from the house started to open, making Dane, in desperation, duck behind the BMW. Over her shoulder, his mother shouted into the house, "I just need to grab my things! Then we can talk." She stomped down the three wooden steps that led from the house to the garage, muttering, "How am I supposed to know what the hell my kid's thinking? He's an adult now, I can't be expected to…" "Mom," whispered Dane as he rose halfway up from behind the M3. She gasped, a loud enough inhalation that Dane could have sworn that he felt the atmosphere about him drop in pressure. "Dane! What are you--" He put a finger to his lips, casting a nervous glance at the closed door. "Shh! Stop. We have to talk." In a lower voice, his mother said, "What are you doing out here? Why did you steal Clawson's gun? Are you nuts?" He shook his head. "No, I'm not crazy. But I definitely need to talk to you. I will explain it all, but…please, Mom. Not here." "Then where?" He gestured at her car. "Grab the keys. Let's go for a drive." She shook her head and closed her eyes, pinching the bridge of her nose as if trying to dam a headache. "Dane, please. I've had a long day. I just need to rest." "Tell him you forgot that you needed to pick something up at the store. It'll be thirty minutes, then you'll be back. I'll explain myself on the way." He put on his best imploring expression. She regarded him hesitantly. He could see that she was tipping in his favor. Though he didn't want to, he played the last card he had: "Please? I need to speak with my mother. As her son." That did it. He saw her wilt, her will bending to his. She nodded. "My car is almost dead. It'll take a bit to recharge." "Take Dad's." "But Clawson…" "It isn't his," said Dane with more heat than he'd expected to say. It was one thing--a very small thing, admittedly, but emblematic of the larger problem--that really frustrated him. "It's yours. Or mine. Not my uncle's." She sighed, then gave him another nod. "Give me a couple of minutes." Dane did so, waiting impatiently around the corner of the house until he heard his mother come back. Clawson's voice came drifting behind her, laced with rage and warning: "Not a scratch on it, you hear? Not a scratch!" "It's like he think he owns me already," said Mom in an undertone. Dane could see that she was unhappy, though he thought he knew why. "Here," she said, tossing him the keys. "I don't like driving manual." "Fine," he said. "Let's go." They climbed in--noting, as he always did, the sleek feeling of sitting behind the steering wheel of a BMW--he kicked over the engine, and then he backed out of the driveway, taking care not to peel out, despite the raw energy that coursed through him. It was time, it was finally time to talk to her about what he'd been wrestling with. Spinning the wheel to the right, he rolled onto the street, then dropping the car into first gear, started heading toward the mountains. "I get to go first," said his mother, her voice harsh and edged with displeasure. "You cannot go breaking into your father's office--" "Uncle's," he corrected her, but she ignored the interruption. "--and taking out his guns? And what was with that vase? Did you do that?" "Yes." "Dane." She said his name in the way he most despised--the one with an undercurrent of I am trying my absolute best to remain patient, but you have pushed me too far. Using the same tone, he said, "Mom." "You're being unreasonable!" "I'm being unreasonable?" He could hardly believe his own ears. "Which one of us accepted her brother-in-law's proposal the day she buried her husband?" "Oh, Dane," said his mother, flicking her hands in disgust. "Please don't act like this is a surprise to you." "What?" He didn't know precisely how she would act in response to this point, but he hadn't expected that. "What do you mean, act like it's a surprise? What were you thinking?" "I was thinking," she said, "of you! Of this ranch, of everything your father worked for!" "How--" "Because," said his mother, her voice almost pleading. "Because there's a lot of stuff that you don't understand, stuff you don't know about, that's going on in the background." "Try me." She shook her head. "Dane, that doesn't matter. The point is, the only way that we would be able to keep Elsinore Ranch is if we kept the business in the family." "The 'only way'? You expect me to believe that?" Dane scarcely noticed that, as his anger increased, their speed did, too. It wasn't a surprise, really--going fast was what the car was designed to do. Easy to do, in fact. "Of course I do! You're a smart kid, Dane. Do you really think that I would go into a relationship with Clawson if there weren't reasons?" "I would think, Mother, that you wouldn't worry about those reasons because it's wrong to marry your brother-in-law! Who cares about Elsinore Ranch? It could burn for all I care…" "Don't say that. Your father worked hard to provide it." "My father?" Dane snorted. "Which one?" That gouged her; he could see it from the corner of his eye. Easing off the gas for a moment, he fished about in his pocket until he coaxed loose his phone. (One thing that was always a trick to do in the deep bucket seats of the M3 was getting into his pocket.) Thumbing it on, he held the phone out. "What is this?" "I don't know. Maybe daddy dearest doesn't know how to destroy all of the evidence." "All of the evidence." Dane jerked his chin toward the phone. "That's what I said. Play it." Mom took the device and pressed the play button on the video. Because Dane had used this car before, his phone was already paired to it, so the audio came through the speakers, filling the space with ghostly sounds of a dead man. Dane kept one eye on the road and the other on the footage, watching as he saw his father in his final minutes of life, fiddling with the GoPro. "Stupid thing. Okay. I think it's…" Dane Sr. paused, moving slowly. "I think I heard something," he said, the camera trained forward. Dane recognized the place--it was exactly where he and Harmony had found the GoPro strap. A hand swept in front of it--Dane Sr. signaling to his murderer to stop. Carefully, oh so carefully, he stalked forward. "I think I see--" Clawson started to shout a warning, making Papa Dane spin about, the camera blurring with the motion. Clawson stood a few paces away, his GoPro deliberately held up and to an angle with his left hand, while the other pointed the same pistol that Dane had found in the office at Dane Sr. Clawson shouted a couple of incoherent things, his gaze fixed on his brother. "Claw, what--?" said Dane Sr. softly, only to be interrupted by two shots, both clearly from the ASP, that sent Dane Sr. to the ground. "He…he killed…me…" The rasping rattle of a breath slipping out of a body, never to return, filled the small car, the excellent speakers making it sound as if they were in the clearing with him. The GoPro pointed upward into the twilight sky as Dane Sr. struggled for breath. "Dane! Dane!" The screen filled with the image of Clawson, his voice sounding terror struck, but his face painted with a broad smile of savage glee. "Don't talk, Dane," said Clawson around his grin, though the voice sounded shrill with panic. "Oh, God. Oh, no. Dane! Dane! Don't die on me!" He reached out, and, with a knife, sawed the GoPro off of his dead brother's chest. Dane Jr. and Jenny Amleth got one last glimpse of their father and husband as the camera swung around, the gruesome wound gaping like a mouth, a flap of the camo jacket looking like a lolling tongue. "Come here, you little son of--" The video came to an end. Dane looked up from the phone to his mother, who stared at the Watch Again prompt with disbelieving eyes. "Mom--" "Look out!" Her cry brought his head up just in time for Dane to see the man standing off to the side of the road, waving his arms. The car was going too fast for him to even get his foot on the brake, and with his attention distracted by what was happening on the screen, Dane hadn't even noticed that he'd started to drift. The body hit the right fender with a wet crunch. Tossed over the hood, the bones in the body snapping as it rolled, Dane saw the man's head spiderweb the windshield with a bright spray of red. With a detached sense of unreality, Dane felt like the sound was similar to when he and Ryan and George had, the day after Halloween, gone out to toss pumpkins into the road. In a delay of understanding that made it seem like time had come to a standstill, Dane could almost see the body soar through the air, easily ten feet high, arcing toward the unyielding asphalt below. Then time accelerated far too fast and Dane could only try to react, his mind panicking and his heart galloping in terror. The collision pulled the wheels to the right, which caused the car to pitch over the soft shoulder and down into the gulley. It smashed into the ground, sending out a constellation of shattered glass that sparkled in the somehow-still functioning left headlight. The car bounced once painfully, making the airbags deploy and rocking his head back painfully. Still, it kept him from kissing the steering wheel. Plastic exploded and metal crumpled as the vehicle gouged a lengthy trench in the dark undergrowth. For what felt like a long time, Dane struggled to keep his mind awake, to not allow the thick blackness of unconsciousness--or even something more permanent--to take him. In the end, however, his will lost, and a darkness swirled in front of his eyes. |