Box said, “Oh, God, oh my God...”
“Easy, honey,” Rosie said.
After a minute, Annie said, “That’s not where Poole said the truck was—it could still be out there. Think we can find it? I’m kinda lost here.”
“Glad you asked,” Rosie said. She went back to one of the storage closets, got out her laptop and the Verizon hotspot, plugged in the hotspot, and brought up the laptop. With a few keystrokes she was on Google Maps, and then the satellite view.
“Here’s where we are,” she said, tapping the screen. “From what Poole told us, the truck has got to be right... here.”
She touched the screen. “If we go over here to Waco Street, and then west, all the way, and then down to here, and back east on Katherine Street, we ought to be able to look right at the trucks. If there are three white pickups and nobody around them...”
“Gonna have to hurry, the cops will be looking for it,” Annie said.
“Then let’s go,” Rosie said.
They followed the line that Rosie had laid out on the map and Kort kept her mouth shut for once. Coming back on Katherine, they could look right into the parking area where the three trucks were... The trucks were still there, all three of them, and so was a big light generator and a dozen cops around the middle truck.
The back of the truck was open, and Kort, peeking out through a side window, said, “Shit. It’s that guy. The Davenport guy, the cop we were tracking. They got the truck.”
“So we’re done with it. Now we get out of here,” Rosie said. “You guys get back, we’re coming up to a cop... back in the floor.”
Box and Kort scuttled back to the hidden hold and dropped inside, lying side by side again. Up above, a cop was waving Annie around the corner and away from the cops in the parking area. Annie took it slow and they left the lights behind. Rosie opened the lid on the hold. “We’re going. You’re both still alive?”
Box and Kort climbed out of the hold, and Kort turned on Box and said, “Now it’s you and me.”
Rosie tried to intervene, but Kort, who was strong, shoved her in the chest, nearly knocking her on her butt, and a second later Kortswung at Box, hitting her in the eye. Box fell back on the couch and Kort put one knee up on the seat cushion, getting ready for a couple more punches, but Box was groping under the cushion, came up with the Phillips screwdriver, and as Kort’s eyes widened for a fraction of a second, Box drove the screwdriver right through Kort’s frontal bone, two inches above her eye line.
Kort staggered backward and then fell on her ass, propped up against the pots and pans drawer.
Rosie was back and she stared down at Kort. The red-striped plastic handle of a Craftsman screwdriver was snug against the skin of Kort’s forehead, the shaft of the screwdriver deep in her brain. Rosie said, “Oh. My. God.”
Annie picked up the tone and glancing back over her shoulder, asked, “What?”
“Dora stuck a screwdriver in Charlene’s brain.”
“What?”
Rosie bent lower and said, “She’s not dead.”
“Let me stir it around a little bit and she’ll be dead,” Box said. “I had enough of her shit.”
“No kiddin’,” Rosie said. “Remind me not to piss you off.”
“Now what?” Annie called.
“You ought to find a place to pull over and come and look at this,” Rosie said.
Annie pulled into a dark side street, pushed herself out of the driver’s seat, and came to look. A thin stream of blood, but not really much, trickled out of the screwdriver hole and down the center of Kort’s nose.
“She was a monster,” Box said. She was standing back a bit, herarms crossed defensively, as if anticipating criticism. “She deserved what she got.”
“Still not dead,” Rosie said.
“Hasn’t even closed her eyes,” Annie said. She tapped Kort on the shoulder, then gave her a little push. Nothing on Kort’s face changed and she made no noise at all. She didn’t blink.
“Stillnot dead,” Rosie said. “She’s breathing. She’s got a screwdriver in her brain, a steel rod, how come she’s not dead?”
“Don’t know,” Annie said. Kort blinked.
