Zandra lied about being through with Steve. She sends him into the police department to ask for Abby. He parks in the lot next to the station's public entrance. It's not as risky as it seems. Most anyone familiar with Zandra is away looking for her. More misdirection.
Zandra covers herself in blankets crunchy with filth and hunkers down in the musty back seat of Steve's rusted out Civic. Her ankle thanks her for it by coming back to life, full of the pain she'd put on credit when her leg went numb.
She savors the awkward respite all the same. The quiet in the car spreads to her mind. Her shoulders climb down from their stiff perch against her neck. The snake in her gut uncoils and basks in the warm, fall sunlight soaking the car. For a second, she tricks herself into thinking she's back at her apartment, safe in her own bed.
The feeling doesn't last. The front door opens. Steve leans in, knuckles on the driver's seat, and calls to Zandra beneath the blankets.
"Hey, Zandra, there's no Abby inside," Steve says. His voice is hiding something. It releases in a flurry of agitation. "I'm so sorry, Zandra, I just, they came at me with these questions. I didn't know what to do, you know? I had to tell them. You'll understand, right?"
Zandra snaps to attention. The blankets fall to the floor. "What are you talking about?" she says.
But Zandra already knows. Steve cracked when the officers pressed him at the station. Or he straight up ratted her out. One of the two.
The doors flanking Zandra in the back seat pop open. She looks to her left and right to see officers on either side. They each have a hand over the holsters on their belts.
"Let's go, Zandra. No more running around," one of the officers says.
"I'm so sorry, I...I," Steve says, his crusty lips trying to force out something resembling sincerity.
"Quiet, Steve," Zandra says. Fight and flight both seem like bad options. But there's no way in hell she's giving up now, not when she's an Abby away from the truth.
Think. There's always a way out.
"It's. Time. To. Go. Now," the officer says again, this time packing more force into each word.
Zandra's eyes shift to the handguns. The officers yield every advantage in this situation. Or do they?
She's not too familiar with firearms, but she knows enough that the handguns are mostly for show at this point. The officers face each other from either end of the back seat. Neither could shoot without risking a hit on the other. Plus, the parking lot is too busy with bystanders. They'd need to clear the area first before breaking out the guns.
Zandra supposes the officers could use pepper spray instead. But wouldn't the aerosol fill the car, injuring Steve and the officers in the process of detaining Zandra? And forget about Tasers. The college progressives in Stevens Point successfully lobbied for their ban years ago. Part of some class project.
The only real option the officers have is to remove Zandra through brute force. Muscles. Batons. Things like that. Zandra can't compete with those things, but she can eliminate the options all the same.
In the space of a breath, Zandra unsheathes the lawnmower knife from her sleeve, yanks on Steve's hair until his head faces the steering wheel in the front seat and puts the blade to his throat.
"You come in here, he's dead," Zandra says to the officers. "Back off."
Part of her regrets the decision. It doesn't speak well to her innocence with Elle Carey. She figures she's damned either way. In the moment, that's enough of a justification.
Steve shrieks with the unnatural intensity of a distressed rabbit. Everything below his neck squirms. "Zandra, please, I didn't mean it," he says through clenched, spit-soaked teeth.
The officers back away from the car. They're slow to move. One step at a time.
"Be cool about this, Zandra," one of the officers says. "We want this to end well for you, OK?"
Zandra doesn't waste time with small talk. She leans in close to Steve and hisses, "Drive," into his ear.
"Where?" Steve says. He can barely make the word out. Zandra wonders if he's fit to drive. A glance at the officers pouring into the parking lot from the station shows her there aren't other options.
"The Carey estate. The big house in the woods. The one everyone knows," Zandra says.
Steve fires up the beater Civic, nearly taking out a fencepost as he fishtails it out of the parking lot. The car careens onto the street leading through downtown Stevens Point.
Zandra glances back at the police station. She probably has a 20-second head start. With how Steve's driving, that gap's going to close quickly.
"Stop the car," Zandra says.
"What?"
"Pull over."
Steve doesn't bother shouldering the car. He just stops in the middle of the street. A few irritated honks from cars behind them cease when they see Zandra exit the backseat carrying the lawnmower knife. She shuffles to the driver's side door. It doesn't take much coaxing for Steve to scurry out and away.
Zandra's driver's license expired years ago. Guiding the Civic down the street isn't quite like riding a bike, but it's not like she's trying to pass a road test. It feels good to part the crowd gathered on the sidewalk at Sneak Peek with the Civic's bumper. She doesn't hit anyone, but they get the message. That the police aren't stopping them from defacing what's left of her business doesn't go unnoticed.
From downtown, it's only a short distance to make it onto the road leading to the Carey estate. It's a straight shot, thankfully absent of traffic. Zandra pushes the Civic until the pain from her ankle seeps into the engine. The vibration feels good on her swollen joints.
The squad cars and flashing lights behind her dissipate in her mirrors, bogged down in the mess of confused drivers and pedestrians that Zandra left in her wake.
She doesn't bank on her lead. They'll catch up to her eventually. Time for more misdirection. She tears past the medieval gates guarding the Carey driveway. The Civic comes to a stop in the vacant parking lot of Soma Falls Park less than a mile down the road. The one where Elle Carey rode her bike for the last time.
Zandra leaves the engine running and takes off as fast as she can into the park. She grunts her way over logs and boulders, picking an inconvenient path that puts as many obstacles between her and the parking lot. Her smoker's heart lets her know her ankle isn't the only thing in pain. More than once she rests against a tree to hack into her sleeve.
Her frantic pace slows as the reality of rushing with oversized boots sets in. Her whole body hurts. It feels like her spine's trying to twist free from her back. But still she trudges on, dragging a soft mat of pine needles with every clop-clop-drag of her feet.
Zandra finally comes to a clearing in the trees that frame the Carey house off in the distance. She could be there in five minutes if she hurried. The numbness returning to her leg says it's possible. The only trick will be to approach the house undetected. In all that manicured lawn, it'll prove hard to pull off. She could pick her way through the tree line that wraps around the clearing, but that would take time her body might not allow.
She opts for the direct route. If someone spots her, it's all the same. Dying in the woods from exhaustion, from a police officer's gunshot or at the hands of Gene all seem equally terrible. The only thing that matters is getting to Abby. And chances are good Zandra will if she can make it to the house, where the sprawling campus offers plenty of opportunities to talk in private. If the police catch up to her, at least she'll go out knowing exactly what happened in her apartment.
Zandra stumbles in uneven sod a couple times, but to her surprise makes it across the clearing to the house unnoticed. She scrambles inside a small, unlocked shed full of lawn care equipment next to a tacky water feature, still churning away despite the leaves clogging the cherub's penis. The loud bubbling covers the sound of Zandra exhaling in relief as she collapses into the cushioned seat of a riding lawnmower. Grass stains and gasoline never smelled so sweet.
Two well-deserved cigarettes later, Zandra hears the whoop of a squad car come up the driveway. Glancing out the shed's tiny window, she spots two officers stroll up to the front door of the house.
Zandra tries to read the officers' lips as they talk with the person in the doorway greeting them. It's no use. They're too far away. But just as the officers turn back toward the squad car, Zandra catches a glimpse of the face at the door.
Abby.