Vera Blackwood's Arc

Chapter 3 of 3

Vera backed out of the dead end with her money and her mistake. Marcus Donnelly lay crushed behind her, but one thing kept nagging at her. The body had to be found. A bounty hunter named Bobby was circling her plate number, and if Bobby could identify Marcus, he might finally learn why she hunted. Marcus's face had to be recognizable. So Vera turned the wheel and came back. Her headlights found him in the passage, folded under the heavy bumper's glare. He wasn't gone yet. One arm twitched against the stone. His chest rose, slow and shallow. His wild hair was matted dark. His torn shirt showed fresh tire marks across his ribs. He saw the lights and tried to speak. "Please," Marcus said. The word came out wet. "I told you. I don't know his name. The man who killed your sister. I swear I never knew it." Vera turned the radio on. A bright little tune filled the cab. She tapped the wheel in time. "You should have run faster," she said. She dropped the SUV into gear and rolled forward. The front tires climbed him. The chassis rose, then dropped. Marcus screamed. She reversed. The wheels crossed him again. She hummed with the radio and did not look away. Forward, back, forward. Each pass pressed him deeper into the stone. His screams thinned to a wet rasp, then to nothing. She stopped. The engine idled. The song ended and a new one began. Vera climbed down and crouched by the body. Tire tracks crossed his face and chest and legs. Blood pooled under the undercarriage and ran along the metal. But his features were still there. Bobby would know him. That was the point. Then she saw what she had done. Marcus's lips were still parted, caught mid-word. "I don't know his name." His last breath had carried the truth. Her only lead had died swearing he could not help her. She had wanted him found. Now he would be found as proof that her trail was dead. Vera stood over him and wiped her hands on her black skirt. Her heels pressed the bloody stone. The hunt had just gotten harder, and she had made it so with her own tires. Marcus was ruined past any use except one. Whoever found him would see a woman's work. She got back in and pulled the door shut. The radio played on. She left Marcus in the narrow passage between the two tall stone buildings, lit by the last of her taillights. Somewhere ahead, Bobby was coming. Behind her, she had left him exactly the clue she meant to leave, and lost the one answer she truly needed. Vera drove into the dark with full pockets and no lead. The killer of her sister was still out there, and the only man who might have known him was tire-marked meat on the stones.