Newt took one of the lunch sacks he’d picked up from the Red Cross tent and pushed it toward Bobby.
“This is yours,” he said, then cursed beneath his breath as a ripple of pain poured through him. “I got it special for you. Dig in. There’s one for me, too, and some bottles of water.”
He pushed a water bottle toward Bobby, then popped a couple of pain pills and downed them with a swig of water.
He watched Bobby slide the sandwich out of the wrapper and begin to eat, then smiled encouragingly.
“Way to go, kid. You’ll feel better in no time.”
Satisfied they were making progress, Newt took out his own sandwich and wolfed it down, before starting on the banana and cookie that had come with it.
He was oblivious to the fact that Bobby Earle was having trouble swallowing past the lump in his throat, but it did occur to him as he sat watching the kid eat that, since he’d just downed some more pain pills, he was going to have trouble staying awake.
So how was this going to work?
He couldn’t leave the kid on his own while he slept. And if he tried to tie him back up to the bed and the kid fought him, he was in no shape to hold him down.
When his gaze fell on the pain pills, he got an idea. If they made him sleepy, they would make the kid sleepy, too.
He took out a pill, broke in half and shoved it across the table.
“Here, kid. I’m sorry about the sores on your wrists and ankles. I doctored them already, but this will help them get well faster, okay?”
Bobby eyed the pill, then the pill bottle. He knew that doctors gave out medicine, and he’d watched Newt take some, so he didn’t think they would hurt him. And his wrists and ankles
did
hurt. A lot.
He took the pill from Newt’s palm and put it in his mouth, but when he tried to swallow it, it wouldn’t go down. He began to gag, then cough, then choke.
Afraid he would spit it back up and waste it before he got the thing down, Newt yelled before he thought.
“You have to take a drink of water with it! Damn it to hell, boy! Can’t you even take a fucking pill?”
Bobby flinched. The man was angry, and he’d cursed. Still gagging, but too frightened to cough, he took a big swig of water and finally swallowed the pill.
“Did it go down?” Newt asked.
Bobby nodded.
Newt smiled. “Good. You’ll feel better in no time. In fact, since we’ll be getting well together, that’ll make us buddies, right?”
Again Bobby was afraid to argue, so he took another bite of his sandwich. But there was no mayonnaise on the bread, and the cheese was getting dry. He managed to eat a few more bites, then abandoned it for the cookie. It wasn’t a homemade cookie like Mama made, but it was sweet, and Bobby liked sweets.
“That taste good?” Newt asked.
Bobby shrugged.
“What’s the matter? Can’t you talk?” Newt asked.
“It’s not as good as Mama makes,” Bobby whispered.
Newt frowned. Now was the time to put that devil to rest. “Yeah…about your mama…”
Bobby’s heart thumped hard against his chest. “Is she coming to get me?”
Newt leaned back in the chair. “No, kid, she’s not. I’m real sorry to have to tell you this, but when I was out helping with the cleanup after the storm, Chief Porter told me that your mama didn’t make it.”
This time the heartbeat in Bobby’s chest was so hard he felt sick.
“What do you mean?” he whispered.
“You remember the tornado, right? The one I saved you from?”
Bobby was watching Newt’s mouth, hearing the words and feeling like he was going to faint all over again.
Newt went in for the kill without a qualm of conscience. “Well, your mama wasn’t as lucky. They told me that she died in the church with a whole bunch of others. Yeah…you were really lucky I found you and brought you back here, or you’d be dead, too.”
Bobby’s breath stopped as the monster’s face blurred before his eyes. Paulie Bronson’s mama was dead. She died in a car wreck when they were in kindergarten, so he knew that kind of thing happened.
“My mama’s dead?”
Newt stifled a grin. This was perfect. They thought the kid had blown away in the storm, and now the kid thought his mama was dead, too. There wouldn’t be any running away now. Not when there was nowhere to go and no one to run to.
“That’s what Chief Porter said, and he’s the police. They don’t tell lies, right?”
Bobby’s body began to shiver. Wave after wave of panic washed through him. “But you’re the monster,” he whispered. “And monsters might tell lies.”
Newt stifled his surprise. “Why did you call me the monster? Is it because of how I look with the burns and all?”
“No…no…you’re the monster from the window. I saw you in the dark. I saw you, and I told my mama and daddy. My daddy went looking for you, and he’ll look for you again.”
A sudden chill ran up Newt’s spine. The words sounded too much like a prophecy. He didn’t know the kid had recognized him and put two and two together like this. And even worse, the family had taken the boy’s story seriously enough to investigate. This drastically changed their situation. He needed to put out a few fires before this got out of hand.
“Now look, kid…you must be mistaken. I’m just Uncle Newt, right? I saved you from the storm, and there’s no one left to take care of you but me.”
“There’s my daddy. My daddy will take care of me. You have to tell the police to find my daddy,” Bobby whispered, then shuddered, the last of his bravado gone.
“There, there, kid…don’t cry. Uncle Newt will take care of you. He won’t let anything happen to you.”
The pain in Bobby’s belly moved up to his chest, expanding to such an extent that it hurt to draw breath, and still no sound came out of his mouth.
“You gonna eat the rest of your sandwich?” Newt asked.
Bobby leaned onto the table, hid his face in the crook of his arm and began to sob—deep, gut-wrenching cries that should have pierced the hardest heart.
Newt’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. He hesitated briefly, then reached toward the boy. But instead of patting him on the shoulder in a gesture of comfort, he grabbed the cheese sandwich and began eating it as casually as if they were at a picnic, instead of the wake it had become.
The way he figured it, by the time the kid had cried himself out, the pain pill should have kicked in. It would be an easy trip to walk him back to the bedroom and tie him up again.
Hell. Maybe by the time they woke up the power would be back on. Despite his damned burns, things were already looking up.
Six
Wednesday evening
T
he hurricane had long since passed. The drilling crew that had been evacuated was back. Unfortunately, the new crew chief had yet to arrive, which meant J.R. still wasn’t going home.
He had just come off a long shift and for the umpteenth time tried to call home, only to get a busy signal. He knew any calls to his home phone would have been forwarded to his cell. The inland storms must have been worse than expected. Usually lines that went down were fixed before this. He couldn’t imagine what the hell was happening, but he knew he didn’t like it. Frustrated, he crawled into his bunk, but he had been there less than an hour when he was awakened by a thunderous noise. For a moment he thought he was hearing waves pounding against the rig; then he realized someone was pounding on his door and shouting frantically.
What now? he thought, as he swung his legs off the bed and ran to the door.
It was Charlie Watts, the day crew chief, and he was bleeding from a cut on his forehead and holding an even bloodier towel to his nose.
J.R.’s pulse kicked. A dozen different scenarios were going through his mind as he grabbed Charlie and pulled him into his room.
“Charlie! What the hell?”
Charlie mopped at the cut on his forehead, then poked the towel back up under his nose.
“There’s a damn riot in the mess hall. I tried to stop it and got this for my trouble. There are so many fighting now, it’s out of control. I need help.”
“You need to get down to the med station,” J.R. said, as he grabbed his jeans and put them on, then began pulling on his boots.
“No, no, I’m all right,” Charlie said.
J.R. reached for a T-shirt. “Who started it?”
“Blalock, of course. He has his backers. You know that. Someone said something about Blalock being canned. Someone else laughed. One thing led to another and—”
J.R. pulled the T-shirt over his head.
“Let’s go,” he said, and ran out the door, with Charlie right behind him.
Long before he reached the stairs leading to the lower level, he could hear the racket. His belly knotted as he took the stairs two at a time, then skipped the last four in a running leap. As they rounded the corner leading to the mess hall, a chair came flying out the door, followed by the man who’d been sitting in it. No sooner did the man hit the floor than he was on his feet and running back inside.
“Shit,” J.R. muttered, then dashed into the room. Inside, chaos reigned. With only seconds to assess the situation, he got an idea.
“Charlie, do you have your cigarette lighter?”
Charlie slapped it in J.R.’s palm, then ducked as a plate came sailing past his ear.
“Whatever you’re gonna do, do it fast or we’ll be eating off the floor,” Charlie yelled.
J.R. grabbed an overturned chair, shoved it beneath a sprinkler head and then leaped up onto the seat. Dodging flying crockery and airborne furniture, he flipped on the lighter and held the flame close to the sprinkler.
The ensuing fire alarm blasted in a earsplitting shriek as the sprinkler heads in the ceiling began to spew. Between the piercing alarm and the cascades of water now pouring down on the men, the fight ended as abruptly as it had begun.
There were a few moments of confusion as the men began looking around.
“Charlie! Get on the horn and tell maintenance to shut down the alarm and the sprinklers!” J.R. shouted.
Charlie nodded and quickly disappeared.
Still amped from the brawl, someone cursed. Another chose to kick a chair, sending it scooting through the water toward an adversary.
“Listen up!” J.R. shouted. “The next son of a bitch who moves or talks is fired. Do I make myself clear?”
The men froze, their focus suddenly locked on the man standing beneath the sprinkler. They’d all seen him around—the troubleshooter who’d come to get Blalock. They knew he was tall, but standing on that chair, he loomed. And with the wet T-shirt plastered to his body, it was impossible not to notice the muscles beneath. At that point, no one wanted to challenge his authority and lose their job.
Suddenly the sprinklers went off, followed by the alarm. The silence that came afterward was startling. The only sound in the room was dripping water.
Seconds later Charlie reappeared, still carrying the bloody towel. That was when J.R. lit into them.
“Which one of you is responsible for Charlie’s injuries?” he asked.
Silence.
“You may as well own up to it, because I’m going to find out.”
Someone muttered deep in the crowd.
“You have something to say…speak up or shut up!” J.R. said.
Stanton Blalock stepped forward with a swagger in his step. Before he could open his mouth, J.R. snapped.
“Your input isn’t needed. Your ass is already fired. Get the hell out of here, and don’t leave your room until I come to get you, or I swear to God, you’ll forfeit whatever salary you have coming to pay for this mess.”
Stanton’s face flushed a dark, angry red, but he knew better than to argue with J. R. Earle. The man was bigger than he was, and had the balls and the authority to do what he’d just said.
Without comment, he stomped out of the room.
J.R.’s attention shifted back to the men.
“Charlie, who hit you?”
Before Charlie could answer, a thirtysomething man with a bald head and a thin black mustache shoved through the crowd.
“I did. So what?”
J.R.’s muscles tensed. A challenge. Fine. The way he felt, he was more than up to the task.
“
So what?
This man is your boss, and you don’t hit the boss.”
“Then he shouldn’t have gotten in my way,” the man drawled.
“What’s your name?”
“Quentin James.”
“Now that we’ve been introduced, your ass is fired, too. Go pack your gear. You’ll be leaving the rig with your buddy.”
Shock spread across James’s face. “You can’t do that!”
“Actually, I not only can, I just did.”
James’s hands curled into fists. “Easy for you to say, standing up there like you owned the fuckin’ place.”
J.R. jumped off the chair. Water splattered waist-high. The effect was startling.
Before James could react, J.R. was in his face.
“Is this close enough?”
James’s face flushed angrily as he doubled up a fist and swung.
J.R. blocked the blow with his left hand, then took the other man out with his right. James dropped like a rock, flat on his back into the water, his arms outspread, his eyes rolling back in his head as he lost consciousness.
J.R. paused, then looked up. “Who else in here has the hots for Blalock?”
There was a brief moment of silence, and then the crowd parted, revealing two men standing apart from the crowd at the back of the room.
Both men appeared nervous. One had an eye that had already swollen shut, the other a gaping cut on his cheek.
“Paulson and Henton, right?”
They nodded.
“Since you guys are such good buddies, I’m thinking you won’t want Blalock and James to leave you behind when they go. Go pack your shit. You’re fired, too.”
Neither one of them wanted to repeat Quentin James’s mistake. They hunched their shoulders, shoved their hands in their pockets and had started to walk out when J.R. stopped them.
“Hey!” he yelled.
They stopped.
“Don’t forget your girlfriend,” he said, pointing to James, who was regaining consciousness.
The trio left, much quieter than they’d been only minutes earlier.
“Is that it?” J.R. asked.