by Willow Rose
“That’s right,” he said. “All I ever wanted was a family. I had one, and you took it away.”
“But don’t you see?” she tried. “Now, you have one again. Us. We’re your family, and we love you, don’t we, Cole?”
The boy’s eyes lit up. “Yes, Dad. We love you so much.”
“Let us be a family together. We’ll go anywhere you want to. We can do anything you want us to. We don’t ever have to go back to our old lives. We can stay down here in Florida. Create new lives. How about that, huh?”
Peter nodded. He was biting his lip pensively while breathing raggedly. Then he floored the accelerator, and Mary was pushed back in her seat. She hugged Cole tight and whimpered as her stomach churned like it usually did when speeding, especially when she feared for her son’s safety.
“We’ll be together,” Peter mumbled as the Subaru flew across the road. He was repeating her words but making them sound like a threat and not a promise.
“A family forever.”
Chapter 78
“We have to find her. He will kill her and the boy,” I said. “Maybe this was his plan all along—to kill them both. We have to find them.”
“But how?” Alison said.
“Where can they have gone from here? What’s nearby?”
We were still parked on the side of the road, as I had no idea where to go from here. Cars rushed by us, shaking the minivan. Allison tapped on her computer, then shook her head.
“There really isn’t much around here. We’re about half an hour south of Orlando. We have the city of St. Cloud not far from here and Lake Tohopekaliga on the other side. That’s mostly wildlife. Could he have taken her to St. Cloud, do you think?”
I exhaled, frustrated. St. Cloud didn’t ring a bell to me. I didn’t think Mary and Peter had any connections to the town.
Unless…
“Wait a minute,” I said. “Brittney and James. Their close friends who were there through the search and left earlier today. They moved here to Florida a few years ago they said and lived nearby. Could you check?”
“I’m on it,” Allison said.
She grabbed the phone and called one of the agents back at the hotel suite. She asked him to check the info we had on James and Brittney Cork, then hung up, nodding.
“Yup. They live in St. Cloud.”
“I knew it.”
“I’m getting the address; Ben is texting it to me in a few seconds.”
I smiled, feeling like luck was finally smiling down on us. St. Cloud was no more than ten minutes’ drive from where we were. They weren’t far ahead of us. We might just be able to make it in time.
I started the car back up and took off onto the road, tires screeching on the asphalt. Allison received the text and plotted it into the GPS in my car, while I found the exit to St. Cloud and left the turnpike, praying we’d make it there in time.
Chapter 79
Peter hadn’t said a word in at least ten minutes, maybe more, and the silence in the roaring car was driving Mary crazy. Peter was driving so fast; she struggled to keep calm and not scream. She was holding the boy’s head close to her chest, clutching him tightly while fearing for their lives.
After a while that felt like an eternity, Peter suddenly took a sharp turn. The tires screeched beneath them till he got it back on track and took an exit and left the turnpike. Then he slowed down as they neared a stoplight. It was red, but he didn’t stop. He drove straight through it, while Mary screamed from the backseat. He turned again, then roared down a small road. The more they drove, the sparser the light seemed to get, and Mary peeked out the window, only to realize they were driving toward wilderness and not toward any city. A few minutes later, there wasn’t even a streetlamp anywhere, and they drove in complete darkness.
“Where are you taking us?” she asked again, worried, even though she knew she’d never receive an answer. Peter had shut her out long ago and kept his mind focused on the road ahead. The trees grew bigger and bushier, and the Florida wilderness soon surrounded them. Mary closed her eyes briefly as the car took another turn and came to a sudden halt.
Mary’s eyes jolted open. Why had they stopped?
She looked out the window and saw mostly darkness, but as her eyes got used to it, she realized there was some light out there from the shining white moon above them. It was glistening on the water in front of them.
The water?
“W-where are we, Peter? What is this place?”
Hearing the terror in his mother’s voice, Cole sat up and looked out as well.
“Dad?” he said, his voice high pitched. “Where are we?”
Peter sat still behind the wheel for several minutes without saying a word. Mary wondered, terrified, what was going on in that crazy head of his. Was he thinking about what they had said? Was he wondering if they really could start over and create a new life for themselves?
No, he knows that ship has sailed. He killed people. He killed Blake.
She wondered for a second if she should tell him about Maggie, tell him how she made it back to her, how she survived, but then she didn’t. If he killed them both now, then maybe she risked him going after Maggie afterward—finishing what he started ten years ago.
She leaned forward and placed her hand on his shoulder again.
“Peter?”
He didn’t respond or react to her gesture. He simply sat there for a few seconds, then got out of the car. He walked to the back to grab something, then came back and opened the door to the back seat on Cole’s side.
“Peter, please,” Mary said, her heart beating so fast she could barely sustain it.
“What are you doing? What are you doing with that rope? Peter?”
He still didn’t speak but began tying the boy up while panic rushed through Mary’s body so fast she trembled.
“Peter, what are you doing? No, please, Peter, don’t do that to him.”
Cole stifled his tears and looked at his mother, his upper lip quivering.
“Dad? What…what are you doing?”
“Sit still,” he said, hissing.
When the boy kept moving, he lifted his hand and slapped him across his face, hard. Mary screamed.
“I said, sit still!”
The boy sobbed and looked up at his father, his cheek blushing. “Dad? Dad?” he sniffled, holding back his tears while his dad tied him up so he couldn’t move. “Dad. I love you.”
That made Peter pause for a second. He stared at the boy, and their eyes locked for a second. Mary wondered for just a minute if the boy had spoken to Peter’s soft side, to the father in him.
But Peter wasn’t giving in to it.
He continued. He tied the boy up so he couldn’t move, then went to the other side and grabbed Mary.
“No! No! No!” she screamed, but he held her down and tied her arms and feet. When he was done, he let her sink back into the seat, then slammed the door shut.
“Peter…please…” she cried. “What are you going to do to us. Peter, please?”
He got back in and sat in the driver’s seat.
“P-Peter?”
He turned the ignition, then put the car into drive. The vehicle roared forward toward the water and made a huge splash as it leaped in.
Mary screamed as they hit the water and started to sink into the muddy depths.
“Peter, you bastard. You sick bastard! Get us out of here. Let us out!”
Chapter 80
I was beginning to feel hopeful that we might find them, but the closer I got to the small town, the more I felt uneasy inside. As we were almost at the address, I suddenly hit the brakes, then turned the minivan onto the side of the road.
“What are you doing?” Allison asked. “We’re almost there.”
“They’re not there,” I said.
“What? What do you mean?”
I looked at her. “It was something I just remembered from when I read through Roy Hudson’s files earlier. He was pulled out of a river, Bl
ake and Maggie were pushed into a lake, a body of water, and Blake drowned. Water is what is important to him. It’s where he’ll take them. To a lake or a swamp nearby.”
Allison’s eyes widened.
“We’re awfully close to Lake Tohopekaliga. Could he have taken them there?”
I bit my lip. “It’s a big lake surrounded by marshland and swamps. It needs to be a place you can get to. There needs to be a road leading to the body of water,” I said. “Find the nearest place for airboat rides.”
Allison tapped on her computer while I turned the minivan around. “Looks like Boggy Creek is the closest.”
I took a deep breath, praying I was right, that I wasn’t making a big mistake. No, my gut told me this was it. This was where he was taking them. If life had taught me one thing, it was that I had to trust my gut.
“We’re going there.”
“I’ll get the address in the GPS,” she said, then tapped on the screen in the car, plugging the address into the minivan’s built-in GPS. The annoying GPS-woman’s voice told me it was a sixteen-minute-drive there. I slammed my hand on the wheel in frustration, realizing we had just wasted too much valuable time. It could mean the difference between us getting to Mary and Cole in time.
How had I not thought of this before? I knew he’d seek a body of water. It was so obvious.
Where was my brain these days?
One thing was certain. If I lost Cole and Mary because of this, I’d never forgive myself.
Chapter 81
The water was rising inside the cabin. Peter felt his pants getting wet, and looked out the window to see the water rising outside of them, splashing against the windows. Then, he smiled. Looking at the water reminded him of that day when he sank into the river, back when he was only sixteen years old. He had been terrified then, but he wasn’t now. Now, he knew what was going to happen. He knew the fear that would fill them, the terror of not being able to breathe as the water grew to their faces. They’d try to breathe as long as they could, then the water would surpass them and completely surround them, and they’d panic, they’d feel such deep fear, it would make them want to scream. But they couldn’t scream because of the water. That was the beauty of it.
Roy remembered how it felt when his dad pushed him in, and the car started to sink. He woke up inside the car as the water was already filling the cabin and remembered every second of realizing what was happening. He especially remembered how it felt when he tried to escape, panicking because he was running out of air. He remembered when the water hit his face. He remembered how he had tried to open the doors, but with no luck. The terror of realizing there was no way out had followed him for long after.
How had he gotten out?
That was a good question. The fact was, Roy didn’t know. He remembered panicking, he remembered trying to escape and then giving up. He recalled specifically the moment when he ran out of air and how he passed out in the water.
Next thing he knew, he woke up on the ground…on the shore. There was someone there performing CPR on him, and there was water coming out of him. Then he had been rushed to a hospital, where they told him someone had seen the car plunge in from the other side of the river. A fisherman had been fishing on the other side when he saw it happen and rushed to help.
He had jumped in and gotten Roy out, then given him CPR till the first responders came. That’s all he knew about it. But he didn’t remember any of it.
Except for the moment when his dad came to his bedside in the hospital. That, he remembered very, very well.
How could he forget?
“What were you thinking, you moron?” his dad had yelled at him. “What the heck were you thinking, stealing my car?”
Confused, Roy hadn’t said a word since he remembered it differently. But the more his father spoke, the more Roy thought that maybe his dad was right. Perhaps he had stolen the car.
“Was it to get back at me, huh? Because I remarried? Was it for attention?”
Roy didn’t know. Maybe it was. But he couldn’t stop thinking that he remembered it so very differently, but then again, it could have been a dream while unconscious.
Couldn’t it?
He wanted it to be that way. He loved his dad and didn’t want to think badly of him. That’s why he believed it was the truth for a few hours until he heard his dad that same day, talking to the doctor out in the hallway outside of his room. They thought he was sleeping, but he could hear them clearly, and he snuck closer to the open door. He peeked out.
“We agree then?” his dad said. He handed the doctor an envelope that very clearly was packed with money. The doctor took a couple of bills out and looked at them, then stuck them back in. Then, he nodded.
“Yes, we agree.”
Seeing this, Roy stepped out in the hallway.
“Dad? Dad? What are you doing? Why are you giving him that money?”
His dad turned to look at him, raising his nose to the sky like he always did when scolding him, making Roy feel even smaller.
“Now there, son, take it easy. You’re not well.”
“Not well? What do you mean not well? I’m perfectly fine,” he yelled.
“No, you’re not. Ask Dr. Schiller here, aren’t I right?’
“Yes, sir. We need to get you the proper help, Roy. It’s for your own good. You have suffered a severe brain injury from the lack of oxygen while underwater and will be medicated from now on and placed in a long-term care facility where they know how to help you. It’s all for your own good.”
Then, he signaled someone, and soon two guards came toward him and grabbed him by the arms. Roy screamed loudly as they dragged him down the hallway.
“I’m not sick. Dad, look at me; I’m fine, see?”
To which his dad responded: “Remember, son, it’s for your own good. It’s all for your own good.”
The last thing he saw was the Little Maggot as she ran up to Roy’s dad and took his hand in hers. Roy still remembered the way his father looked down at her, then smiled lovingly in a manner he never had with Roy. The love in his eyes was something Roy had never seen, not even when it was just the two of them. She stared toward Roy, giggling and pointing her finger at him like it was the funniest thing in the world to see Roy being dragged away.
Yes, all those things Roy remembered very well. He laid in that bed at the home for years and planned how he would get back at them all for what they had done. They kept him medicated for the most part, but he quickly learned to hide the pill under his tongue and spit it out once the nurses were gone. He learned to play their game, to behave and make them think they could trust him, that he wouldn’t try to run away. And then, he did. One day, he hid among the dirty towels and was rolled right out of there. He found his dad and his stepmom in their old house and gave them what they deserved. He still remembered his dad’s strained face as he made him watch while Roy drowned his crippled wife. The memory of the terror in his father’s eyes while screaming behind the gag as he knew what was about to happen kept Roy going for years as he played his little charade for Mary. He pretended to love her while secretly planning her demise as well.
All of them had gotten what was coming to them.
And now, he was happy.
While the Maggot and her offspring screamed in the back seat, Roy didn’t move a muscle. Not till the car was half-filled with water. Then he lifted the hand holding the gun, placed it on his forehead, and pulled the trigger.
Chapter 82
I was driving in complete darkness. I could only see what was in my headlights. There were no more streetlamps, and the road had turned narrow, while the trees and wildlife surrounding us had grown tall and sinister. I followed the signs on the side of the road leading to the airboat rides, and my headlights fell on one that told me there was an old Native American campground nearby and another sign showing the way to Boggy Bottom BBQ, where you could eat your pulled pork by the water.
I followed the trail until we reached the parking
lot by the creek, then got out. It was so quiet out there; the only noise came from the cicadas and the clucking of the water splashing against the sides of the empty airboats that were docked by the main building.
“Are you sure he’s brought them here?” Allison asked as she followed me out of the minivan. Deputies Hanson and Johnson came up behind her. “I don’t see anyone. Not even a car.”
I looked at her and shone my flashlight at her face.
“Car?”
I stared at the water in front of us, then let the flashlight hit the mangroves and then back at her, my pulse quickening. I walked toward the ramp where you could put your boat in the water, then shone my flashlight into the grass and gravel in front of it. There was a puddle of water on the gravel, and I leaned down to feel it. Then I shone my flashlight at a spot next to it.
Allison came up behind me. “What are you seeing?”
“Tire tracks in the gravel here and in the grass.”
“Could be from earlier,” she said.
“Yes, but look here. A puddle of water.”
She shrugged. “And?”
“It’s condensation water, from the air-conditioning of a car. A car was parked here for some time, enough to create a puddle. But it wasn’t long ago, or the water would have seeped into the ground.”
“What are you saying?” she asked.
I shone my flashlight on the water in front of me. Then, my heart dropped.
“Look at the surface. It’s moving, and there isn’t any wind moving in the trees next to us. I noticed it because of the water that was splashing against the airboats over there, but the water around here is very still. It’s a swamp. The water wouldn’t be moving unless something was creating ripples.”
“And what do you think is creating it?” Allison asked.
I walked to my minivan, reached inside my glove compartment, and found my car rescue tool that my mother had bought for me after watching some add on Facebook. She insisted I keep it in my car ever since I almost drowned inside my own minivan during a flash flood in a hurricane last year. She wouldn’t give up about it when I got my new mini-van, so finally, I complied. It contained a hammer and a seatbelt cutter in one tool.
