The police station looked exactly how I had imagined: quiet, relaxed, two cops behind a desk watching the Royals game and staying cool behind a fan. I guess that’s what you get for living in a small town in Kansas with one stoplight. Still, I wished the place actually looked legitimate.
Officer Alton, a stout man stuck in an attentive stance with his chest out and his hands in his pockets, took me down the hallway to a cracked window that looked into a small room with five men. “The suspects are in there,” he said, as though I couldn’t tell. “The game is easy, Miss Perry. You point out your man, we’ll have him in the Logan County Courthouse by tomorrow afternoon. And it’s a one-way mirror, so you don’t have to worry about them seeing you.” He pressed an intercom button and said, “Line up, boys. You know your position.” Then he turned to me and grinned. “You just take it all in, Miss Perry.” He barked out orders into the intercom, telling them to turn left, turn right, stand up straight. When they faced the front, they gave the occasional, startling illusion of eye contact.
“It’s hard to tell which one did it,” I said.
“Yeah, that’s all normal,” Alton said, “it’s easy to get nervous when you’re pointing out the whack job who almost took your life.” He looked at me, arms still in his pockets. “Just out of curiosity, Miss Perry, did he make out with what he wanted?”
I shrugged, kept my eyes on the scowling brutes. “I don’t know what he wanted. But he didn’t take any money, if that’s what you’re asking.”
Alton frowned and looked back at the suspects. I had it down to two of them: one shorter man with a red beard, one taller with darker, thicker facial hair. Both had short hair, blue eyes, and a pointed nose. They could have been brothers.
“Have it narrowed down, at least?” Alton asked.
“Yeah,” I said, sighing and crossing my arms, “I think it’s number three or number five.”
“Okay, the bearded fellas,” he said, nodding, “there’s a pretty big difference in height between the two.”
“I guess.”
“You remember how tall he was?”
Of course not, you twit, otherwise I’d have picked the guy out already. But instead of that I said, “He seemed like a big guy.”
“Great,” he clasped his hands happily like a car salesman who’d just sold the thirty grand special. “We’ll go with number five, then?”
I didn’t answer right away. “Tell you what, “ Alton said, noticing my hesitance, “we’ll take number five to court tomorrow. We’ll keep number three in custody just to be safe, tell him he’s not off just yet. Then if five really makes his case, we’ll come back and grab three. Sound good?”
I nodded my head, not having a choice. “Okay,” I said.
That night I couldn’t sleep. I kept replaying the scene in my head, trying to verify my decision at the police station: I only got one glance at his face through the closet door as he paraded around my house with a pistol telling me to come out of hiding. But then the cops came and he fled. No clear look at his face; he would remain a dangerous mystery.
My bed sheets were hot and damp with sweat. I tossed and turned for hours, listening to my breath and the crinkling of the sheets. I got up to get a glass of water. In the kitchen, I sat at the table watching the front door, waiting.
The bedroom had cooled off when I returned, thanks to the crisp, cool air that came in from the bedside window. A passing thought quickly ended my comfort:
Did I open that window?
I stuck my head out and looked around. Dark silence covered the Kansas desert, but I had to be sure I was alone. I left through the front door and walked around the house, my feet crunching against the dead grass.
In the backyard, the bulkhead door was propped open.
I ran back into the house to find my cell phone. It wasn’t on the nightstand. I tried not to panic. I began to run down the road toward my neighbor’s house, a mile south.
I ran for half a mile without stopping. The adrenaline had awakened a ghost inside of me, one with quick legs and limitless stamina. I caught my breath for a moment, looked back down the lonely, desert road. My breaths were heavy, like the roar of a motor. My breaths got louder. I looked back again and realized that the sound wasn’t my breath at all ”“ it was a truck was driving toward me. I stood there in the road, all alone, frozen, the windswept sand whipping at my nightgown.
The truck stopped just shy of my limp body. The adrenaline was gone now. I felt like I was underwater, gasping for breath miles under a black ocean. The truck kicked up dust into my face. A man got out, his dark silhouette pressed against the even darker night.
Two shots, two gunshots and I was down on the ground. He stood over me and smiled beneath his red beard. “Should have picked number three,” he said, resting his foot on my stomach. Everything started to go blurry. I gasped for air to stay conscious.
“Why?” I said, my head lulled back in surrender.
“Because my client has a problem with you, Sarah. And he hired me to finish you.” He walked back toward the car, pleased with his work, no fingerprints, no blood on his jacket. Nothing left behind.
“Laura,” I said. The bearded man peered over his open car door, curious now. “It’s Laura,” I said. “Sarah is my neighbor.” I watched his face twist into horrified shock. Without a word, he started the truck and sped away, leaving me to listen to my breath once again.