The Girl in the Woods

by Chris Culver

This wasn’t the time to panic, but already my heart rate ticked up. I twisted my wrists, testing the knots and the rope again. As before, the braided rope bit into my skin but didn’t loosen. My abductors knew what they were doing.

  “Does anybody know you’re here?” I asked.

  “Just you,” said Sumner. “How about yourself? Did you think to alert your colleagues before being kidnapped?”

  “They think I’m at home,” I said. My mouth felt dry, and an empty pit grew in my stomach. “They won’t check on me until tomorrow morning. You think Stewart’s people will look for him?”

  “Mason Stewart is an asshole who alienates, overworks, and underpays everyone around him. If his people saw somebody kidnapping him, they’d cheer for the new management.”

  I grunted, twisted my arms, and tried to kick my legs again. As before, nothing moved. Sumner cleared his throat.

  “You’re only tightening the knots,” he said. “This is a quarter-inch nylon rope. The minimum breaking strength is well over a thousand pounds.”

  I stopped moving and clenched my jaw. My face and neck felt hot, and my fingers tingled.

  “You seem to know a lot about it,” I said.

  “This isn’t my first rodeo,” he said. “And they got the rope from my trunk.”

  I tried looking over my shoulder at him, but I still couldn’t see him.

  “If you’ve done this before, how do we escape?” I asked.

  “There’s a knife in my shoe, but I can’t reach it.”

  I cocked my head to the side and furrowed my brow. “Why do you have a knife in your shoe?”

  He paused. “We’re tied to chairs in Debra Reid’s library, and that’s your question?”

  I clenched my jaw before drawing in a breath. “Fine. How do you propose I get it?”

  “Scoot your hips forward to give yourself room to extend your legs. Then lean the front of the chair back and slip the ropes off the legs. Your arms will be the problem. They won’t be easy to free.”

  I visualized what he expected me to do. It sounded possible—if painful. I took a deep breath and used the muscles in my lower back to push my hips forward. With my hands secured behind me, my shoulders stretched. That gave me room to move my legs.

  “Tip back, but take it easy,” he said. “If you fall over, you’ll break your arms.”

  I gritted my teeth and pressed up with my legs, lifting the front of the chair. The ropes on my ankles were tight, so it took work to slide them down the chair legs, but I got them off. Unfortunately, that didn’t help free my hands.

  “What now?” I asked.

  “Lean forward so the chair’s on your back and come toward me. I’ll kick my shoe off. The knife is between the lining and sole over the heel. Get that and cut us out.”

  I did as he suggested and sat straight before pitching myself forward so that my feet were on the ground and the chair was strapped to my back. It wasn’t comfortable, but it let me stand and move. As Sumner had said, someone had tied him to a chair behind me. Mason Stewart lay on a couch beside the fireplace on the far side of the room. His chest rose and fell with his breath, but he didn’t otherwise move.

  Sumner kicked off his right shoe. Then he used his feet to prop it in the air. I walked toward him and sat down again.

  “Your best bet is to sit with your back to me and then knock your chair over,” he said. “That’ll let you reach my shoe.”

  “This is delightful,” I said, getting into position.

  “Beats dying.”

  I grunted my affirmative and rocked left and right until gravity took over. My chair, arm, and side hit the ground with a thud that reverberated against the walls. Pain lanced up my shoulder, almost knocking the breath out of me.

  “You’ve got to move,” he said. “They’ll have heard that.”

  I forced a breath into my lungs and felt along the ground for his shoe.

  “To the left.”

  I scrambled until I touched something leather. Once I had his shoe, I peeled the sole back from the heel. There, my fingers touched a curved, flat knife with a sharp edge. The knife was so short I could hide it in my palm, but I had to bend my wrist at an awkward angle for the blade to touch the rope.

  “Cut the rope and scoot away from me. We don’t want them to think we’re working together.”

  I nodded and thrashed on the ground to move the chair a few feet from him. Because the blade was so short, it barely kissed the rope. Still, each flick cut a few fibers.

  “What do you use a knife this short for?” I asked.

  “It’s a last-resort knife,” he said. “I use it to gut fish. My kids and I go fishing once a month. We’re from Miami. It’s our thing.”

  “Are you always this chatty?”

  “Only when I think I’ll die,” he said. “If you make it out of here, tell my wife and kids I love them.”

  I tilted my head to the side and raised my eyebrows. “If you die here, there’s a good chance I’m dead, too.”

  “Just promise me,” he said.

  “Okay,” I said, shaking my head. “Will do.”

  “You got a boyfriend or husband you want me to contact?”

  I shook my head. “No.”

  “Girlfriend?”

  He almost sounded hopeful. I gritted my teeth before speaking. “No.”

  “That’s sad,” he said. “A woman your age should have somebody.”

  I grunted once more. “You kill people for a living, and you’re tied to a chair. You’re hardly qualified to give me life advice.”

  “Touché.”

  Heavy footsteps pounded down the hallway. I couldn’t see the door, but I palmed the knife to hide it anyway. The new arrival sighed as soon as he opened the door.

  “Hey, Mom!” shouted Logan. “She’s up.”

  Logan’s footsteps came nearer. My heart thudded in my chest, and waves of adrenaline pounded through me so hard that my entire body tingled. Cold sweat beaded on my chest and back. The pain in my arm, side, and shoulder diminished as my adrenaline took over.

  Logan stood over me and cocked his head to the side.

  “Have a little accident?” he asked, his voice strong and confident. He stepped behind me and righted the chair. Then Debra Reid entered the library. She wore a red skirt and a white shirt with a gold necklace. If I’d had any saliva in my mouth, I would have spit at her. She ran a finger across my face, so I pulled away.

  “Feisty,” she said, glancing at her son and then back. “I’m sorry my husband dragged you into this, Detective. Normally, I like to keep family business within the family.”

  “I’m sorry, too,” I said. “If you let me go, I promise to pretend I didn’t see anything.”

  She laughed.

  “I wish it were that easy,” she said, turning to walk toward the desk. Logan stepped around me and joined his mother. Since they couldn’t see my hands anymore, I began flicking the knife against the rope again. Debra looked at me with a wistful smile on her lips. “I have to hand it to you, Ms. Court. You found us out.”

  “It was easy,” said Sumner before I could respond. “You guys are shitty criminals.”

  “So says the man who thought my husband ran my company,” she said, sliding a drawer open behind the desk. She pulled out a firearm and aimed it at Sumner. “Goodbye, Mr. Sumner.”

  Every muscle in my body tensed as she pulled the trigger. A spray of blood hit me on the back and side. I sawed furiously on the rope.

  Fuck.

  Debra swung the barrel toward me. Her hand didn’t even shake. My heart pounded against my rib cage.

  “You didn’t have to kill him,” I said.

  “He was a mercenary,” said Debra. “He would have killed you and us without a second thought.”

  I had almost cut my way through the cord, but I needed another moment.

  “Sorry about Laura,” I said, looking to Logan. “You loved her, didn’t you?”

  “Laura was a slut,” said Debra.

 
; “Slut or not, it must be hard knowing the woman your son loves is boning some guy behind his back,” I said.

  Logan vaulted across the room so quickly I didn’t have time to brace myself. He slapped my cheek hard enough to knock my chair over. My face burned, my ears rang, and stars flashed before my eyes as pain radiated through my body and shoulder.

  “Laura’s dead,” said Logan, his voice flat. “Tell her hello for me when you get to Hell.”

  I spit salty blood. One of my front teeth was loose. My hand was wet. At first, the pain in my neck and cheek made it hard to understand what had happened, and then I felt the throbbing from my hand and wrist. I must have cut myself as I fell. Worse, I had dropped the knife.

  “Takes a real man to beat up a woman tied to a chair,” I said. “Must suck knowing your mom has bigger balls than you.”

  “Give me the gun, Mom,” said Logan. “I’ll take care of this one myself.”

  Debra held the butt end of the weapon toward her son. He took it from her outstretched hand.

  I twisted my arms, trying to work them free. My blood was slick and warm, and my hand slipped a fraction of an inch.

  “If you kill me, the police will hunt you for the rest of your life,” I said. “Is that what you want? You want to spend the rest of your life on the run?”

  His lips curled into a smile. “I’m not taking the fall for this. Mr. Sumner and my stepfather are the bad guys here. We’ll tell the police Mom and I walked into a massacre.”

  “I’m pretty sure Mason will dispute those events.”

  Without taking his eyes from me, Logan swung the pistol toward his stepfather. He fired three times. The rounds hit Stewart in the side and chest.

  My ears rang, and I yanked on my restraints. I almost gasped as my right hand popped out. That loosened the ring enough to free my left.

  “Just kill her, Logan,” said Debra. “We’ve wasted enough time here.”

  Logan turned toward his mom. It gave me the opening I needed. My shoulders throbbed, but I had a chair that weighed fifteen or twenty pounds. That meant I had a fifteen- to twenty-pound club.

  Now that my hands were free, I whipped the chair around, hoping to bring it crashing down on his back.

  “Logan!” Debra screamed.

  Logan turned at the last second and pointed his firearm toward me. My chair caught him in the arm and shoulder instead of his back and head. He fired, but the shot went wide and thudded into a bookcase.

  I shoved the base of the chair straight at him, catching him in the nose with a rail. Logan threw his head back as blood dripped from his nostrils.

  That was the only opening I needed.

  I kicked him in the balls and thrust the chair at his face again, screaming as I did. The chair slammed into him once more, this time just below the eye and across the bridge of his nose. He groaned and blinked. I threw the chair and lunged for the pistol he was holding.

  In my mad scramble, I had lost track of Debra. I put a hand on the base of the gun and another on the barrel and twisted hard. Logan wasn’t a big man, but even in his disoriented state, he had forty pounds on me.

  He also had his mother.

  As I fought for control of the weapon, Debra grabbed the lamp from the desk and swung it at my back. The blow threw off my balance just enough for Logan to toss me to the side. I tripped over the legs of my chair and fell hard onto the ground, knocking the breath out of me.

  I sucked in air, but my lungs wouldn’t inflate. It didn’t matter. I had to move. I had to get to cover. As I pushed up, my hands touched something cold and metallic. It was Sumner’s knife. I palmed it, but strong fingers grabbed me by the hair before I could stand. Pain exploded along my scalp line. Logan wrenched me to my knees and shoved a pistol against my forehead.

  “You broke my nose.”

  I tried to pull away from him, but his fingers tightened in my hair, and he slammed the gun hard against my cheek, inches from my eye. Pain coursed through my body. My eyes began to close as my consciousness ebbed away. Then Logan twisted my hair.

  “Look at me!” he screamed, his voice a wicked snarl. I looked at his black, hate-filled eyes. Blood ran down his face and to his chin in a steady stream. His nose would never be straight again. He cocked the hammer back on the pistol as if it were an old revolver. My face throbbed. “You have any last words?”

  Time seemed to slow down. Logan was just a foot from me. He had one hand in my hair and the other wrapped around a pistol.

  His belly was unprotected.

  My hand shot out faster than I had ever moved. Sumner’s knife dug into his soft flesh with little resistance. Then, its curved tip tore through his bowels as I ripped it to the left. He gasped as his eyes popped open. I swept my arm up and to the right, slashing at his wrists. For a split second, the fingers intertwined in my hair tightened. Then they relaxed as Logan’s life slipped away.

  I pulled the gun from his hands as he fell to his knees. Debra ran around the desk for her son. Blood covered my face and arms, but I didn’t care. I took a step back and raised the weapon as Debra sobbed and wailed. Her mascara ran down her cheeks, and her son’s blood stained her white shirt. I swallowed hard, trying to get my racing heart and breath under control.

  “Debra Reid,” I said, my voice shaky. “You’re under arrest, but tell your son goodbye before he dies.”

  She sobbed and looked at her son, cupping his face in her hands. She whispered that she loved him and then held him as he died. I checked Sumner’s pulse, but he was already dead. So was Mason Stewart.

  When I had picked up this case, I suspected that it would be hard. I didn’t expect this. I didn’t know who had squeezed the trigger to kill Laura Rojas and Aldon McKenzie, but it didn’t matter. The dead would take their secrets to the grave.

  “Where’s my cell phone?”

  Debra didn’t look up, so I searched the desk. My phone, keys, and badge were in the center drawer. Jason Zuckerburg at my station answered before the phone finished ringing once.

  “Hey, Joe,” he said, his voice cheerful. “What can I do for you?”

  “I’m at the home of Logan and Debra Reid,” I said, swallowing. “Send every officer we’ve got on duty to my location. And tell Detective Delgado that I’ve closed the Laura Rojas investigation.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Do you need an ambulance?”

  “No. Everybody’s dead.”

  40

  In the days that followed Debra Reid’s arrest, dozens of DEA and FBI agents came to St. Augustine to sort through Reid Chemical’s finances. They interviewed everyone who worked at the company and subpoenaed every financial record the company held going back at least ten years. If anyone at the company had committed financial impropriety, they’d find it.

  Already, the federal government had begun procedures to seize Reid Chemical’s assets. There’d be lawsuits, but in the meantime, they’d auction off the company’s assets and put hundreds of people in my community out of work. Nobody won.

  To avoid the death penalty for killing Nick Sumner, Debra Reid filled in details for us, giving us a pretty clear picture of what happened.

  This whole mess started with Mason Stewart. He slept around on his wife and destroyed her business. Reid Chemical, under his stewardship, lost five to ten million dollars a year. Debra could put up with a cheating spouse, but not one who destroyed her family’s firm. Mason learned she planned to divorce him and leave him penniless, so he hatched a plan.

  To fund his retirement, Mason persuaded chemists at the plant to make and sell fentanyl. He took half the proceeds of the drug sales and gave the other half to the chemists. Together, they made millions at Reid Chemical’s expense. The arrangement worked well until Aldon McKenzie found the discrepancies in the accounting books. Aldon told his superiors, but more than that, he hired Laura Rojas to protect his interests.

  Having recently learned of her pregnancy, Laura was desperate and broke. She learned everything she could about Reid Chemical and its
problems and contacted Mason Stewart. He made her a deal: If she stopped investigating his company, he’d give her a cushy job in the legal department.

  Laura agreed, but she didn’t trust Mason completely. She kept investigating and even persuaded Aldon to steal additional information from the company mainframe. When the IT department found Aldon’s data breach, they came to Debra Reid, which led her to open her own investigation into the company’s accounting books.

  Her accountants uncovered the problem within hours. Debra might have been able to handle things in-house, but by then, the company’s silent partners had learned of Reid Chemical’s problems. They brought in Nick Sumner to assess the situation and eliminate any threats. Sumner, not knowing how deep the problems ran, kicked a hornet’s nest and opened the case wide.

  Everybody lost in the end, St. Augustine included.

  Already, organizations and businesses around town felt the pinch. Fewer people came into Rise and Grind for coffee, fewer customers patronized the county’s bars and restaurants, and Reid Chemical’s former employees began using the area food banks they had once helped fund. Worst of all, the number of domestic violence cases had already started rising. St. Augustine would pull through, but it would take work and time. We’d have to change, but we’d come out stronger in the end. We always did.

  Delgado put me on desk duty pending a psychological evaluation. I didn’t put a lot of stock into therapy, but I had just disemboweled a man who had held a weapon to my forehead. Therapy seemed like a good idea.

  Two days after the incident at Reid Chemical, I called Allison Sumner in Miami with her husband’s last message. Before learning of Nick Sumner’s death, she hadn’t known what her husband truly did for a living. She was glad he had died.

  Closer to home, June Wellman’s attorneys negotiated a plea with Shaun Deveraux at the county prosecutor’s office. June pled guilty to voluntary manslaughter and would spend eight years in prison. In exchange, the county dropped all other charges against her. Deveraux could have pushed for a stiffer sentence, but nobody wanted to take a rape victim to trial.

  Chad Hamilton’s family had already filed civil wrongful-death proceedings against her, the college, and my department. That case would drag on for years. They’d subpoena me to testify eventually, but I’d worry about that another day.