“Does that make us girls?” he asks.
“That makes us smart,” I snap. “Do you have anything in your car we can use to make a trail with?”
“You mean like crumbs? Like Hansel and Gretel?” he asks.
“No, you idiot. I mean like a rope. Something that will be easy to track in the dark.”
He shakes his head. “All I have is some tools to change a tire, fast-food trash, and a shitload of change.”
“Grab the change. Every coin you have. We can make a trail with that.”
“You’re an asshole when you’re not high.” He runs back toward the entrance of the mine.
I shake my head. I’ve known Kenny since kindergarten. All through elementary school, we were invited to other kids’ birthday parties because their parents didn’t want anybody excluded, but we were ignored throughout the whole celebration. In middle school, we were losers. We discovered marijuana in eighth grade and since then, we couldn’t care less what people thought of us. When you have drugs, everything matters less because all you care about is when and where you’re going to get your next hit.
Oh, and the cops. You care about the cops because they can become a problem.
Kenny lumbers back with two Styrofoam cups filled with coins.
“Just drop one coin every three feet or so,” I say.
“How long is three feet?” he asks.
I shake my head. “Just drop it every five steps or something. Just make it so they’re close enough that we can find them easily.”
As we progress into the mine, Sarah gets heavier on my shoulder. I hope she doesn’t have permanent brain damage, but even if she does, we’ll be long gone by the time they find her. We’ll pay Mason and vanish. I’m sick of living under Mason’s thumb and the only way out from under it is to disappear.
“You think we could live in here?” I ask Kenny.
“In the mine?” he asks. “I don’t think so. It seems like someone would go crazy living underground for too long.”
“I think I’m going crazy living above ground, so I don’t think that part would matter.”
“Well, then, where would you take women when you wanted to show them a good time?” he asks. “Are you going to screw them in the dirt?”
“I’d have sex anywhere.”
“They wouldn’t, though. See, you don’t know any girls.”
We walk in silence again, alternating between taking the left route and the right route every time I come upon two different options. My mind tries to think of all the places I could go after this is all finished. I could go farther north where there aren’t any cities or even towns. I would just live off the land and smoke meth. Or I could go south until I reach the lower forty-eight states. I bet those California girls look amazing with their tans and bikinis. But, New York girls also have that take-no-bullshit attitude and those fancy clothes from Times Square.
“I’m almost out of coins, man,” Kenny says.
I kneel onto the ground and let Sarah roll off my shoulder.
“We’re far enough.” I massage my shoulder. “Let’s get out of here, demand the ransom, get our money, pay Mason, and get the hell out of Alaska.”
“I was thinking the same thing.” He picks up the last coin he dropped. “Find a penny, pick it up, and all day long I’ll have good luck.”
I smirk. Luck may indeed be on our side. Everything is falling into place.
I brush Sarah’s hair away from her face, lean forward until our lips touch, then I pull away, and lick my lips. It tastes like cherry lip balm. “I’m sorry to leave you down here like this.” My fingers stroke down her throat. “But this is survival of the fittest and you were easy prey.” I stand up.
Kenny leads the way out, collecting his coins back into his cups.
With every step closer to the exit of this mine, I feel lighter. Maybe I could stay in Alaska. I feel like I could take on Mason. I feel like I could take on the world.
When we reach the entrance of the mine, I take a deep breath. Tonight is the beginning of a new and improved version of me. Nothing can stop me.
* * *
The pay phone has something that resembles barbecue sauce on it, but it smells like a mixture of gasoline and cat piss. I pick it up anyway while Kenny takes a blunt out of his jacket pocket. “You carry around rolled up blunts?”
“You don’t?” He puts the rolling paper up to his lips and holds his lighter in front of it.
I knock the lighter out of his hands. “The last thing we need is for the police to smell that and come snooping around. What are we going to tell an officer if he asks us who we’re calling? Oh, we’re just trying to earn some money through extortion and kidnapping.”
“Do you see any police?” He picks his lighter back up. His thumb brushes against the spark wheel and he holds the flame under the blunt. His chest expands as he inhales deeply. Almost seven seconds pass before he exhales. “They’re probably all trying to find Sarah right now and they aren’t going to be looking out at a gas station.”
“And how are you so sure about that?”
“Because when the police were badgering my ma and me about where my pops was when I was little, I remember they talked about searching the immediate area and then looking in nearby towns. I don’t think it crosses their minds to look at places in between one town and another.”
I glare at him, but honestly, it feels like my bones are trying to push out of my skin. I feel the need to reach inside my skull and scratch my brain. Some weed is exactly what I need.
I slam the receiver back into the hook and snatch the blunt from him. I place it between my lips and inhale. I let the smoke burn inside my lungs until I can’t handle it anymore…then exhale.
“What exactly should I say to Judge Latham?” I ask Kenny.
He shrugs. “We have your daughter. Pay up or she dies.”
“I thought we were going to tell them where she was, too.”
“Yeah, say that, too.”
“And we have to tell him how much money we want.”
“Tell him that, too.”
“You’re not being helpful,” I say.
He takes another hit from the blunt and passes it to me. I inhale the smoke and let the blaze travel down to the bottom of my lungs.
“I’m not here to be helpful,” he says. “I’m here to smoke weed and get Mason’s money.”
“All right, I know what I’ll tell him.” I take my phone out of my pocket and search for Mason’s number. “What if Mason picks up?”
“Ask to talk to his old man.”
“But he’ll know it’s us.”
“Talk in a deep voice or some other shit, you idiot,” he says. “You don’t want anyone to be able to recognize your voice.”
I’m tempted to hit him, but the weed must be taking effect already because I don’t think it would be worth the energy to do it. I turn back toward the phone.
"How are we going to call the judge without Sarah's cell phone?" Kenny asks.
"Mason gave me his home number in case of an emergency. You know, in case we didn't have his supply ready or something went wrong while we were making it."
"When did he give you that?"
"When we ran out of the pseudoephedrine and he had to go buy some in a rush before the tweakers found out and attacked us."
"Oh." Kenny shakes his head. "I guess he thought you were more trustworthy than me which is bullshit. You would sell your own mother for a profit."
I shrug. “She isn't worth much.”
I pick up the pay phone again, read Mason’s number out of my phone, and dial the Lathams’ number.
It rings.
And rings.
And rings.
If they don’t pick up, that’s even longer Sarah would be in the mine. How long can someone survive in a mine? I know a person can survive more than three weeks without food. I think survival without water is about a week, though that’s not taking into consideration Sarah’s environment or the fact t
hat she’s shaped like a toothpick.
A toothpick with a fantastic ass.
“Hello?” a man’s voice answers. His voice sounds hoarse and heavy, but it doesn’t have the sharpness or sardonic undertone of Mason’s voice.
“Judge Latham?” I ask in the deepest tone I can muster.
Kenny snorts, rolling his eyes.
I grab his blunt and throw it onto the ground.
“Fucker,” Kenny mutters.
“Yes?” Judge Latham asks, suspicion in his voice now.
“Make it quick.” Kenny hisses. “For all you know, they’re tracing the call.”
“I have your daughter.” I rumble. “I want twelve hundred dollars by tomorrow night. Meet me in the woods near Silver Creek where there’s a waterfall. Do you know where I’m talking about?”
“Um, yes, yes, I think so. It’s about a mile and a half into the woods. Is Sarah okay? Can I talk to her?”
Judge Latham almost sounds pitiful. I can’t even imagine how he looks right now—when has the judge ever seemed anything less than all-powerful.
“No,” I say, forgetting to keep my voice deep. I switch back to my fake voice. “Meet me there tomorrow night at nine p.m. Once I have the money, I will tell you where your daughter is. If anything happens to me—if there are any cops, if I’m arrested or hurt…you’ll never see your daughter again. Understood?”
“Yes, yes, I’ll do everything you say. Can I just talk to Sarah? Please, just let me hear her voice.” He pleads.
Kenny steps up closer to me and presses on the hook. The dial tone beeps in my ear.
“What the fuck did you do that for?” I ask.
“You were already on too long,” he says, using his hand to wipe fingerprints off the phone. “If they were tracing the call, they probably already know where we are. We need to go.”
“When did you become such an expert?” I walk back toward his car.
“I watched a lot of police procedural shows.” He picks up his blunt from the ground. “Why did you keep saying I instead of we when talking about us? Aren’t we both going to be there to pick up the ransom? If you think that I’m just going to do it alone, then you’re out of your damn mind.”
“No, we’ll both be there, but we want Latham to be as unprepared as possible.”
He claps me on the back. “Good plan. You may be smart after all.” He opens his car door. “I’m hungry. Do you want stop at The Charcoal Grill?”
“Are you talking about the spot that our kidnap victim works at? Don’t you think that’s stupid?”
“We have this in the bag, Pete.” Kenny grins. “What could go wrong at this point?”
“Don’t say that,” I say. “You’ll jinx us.”
But I feel like I just snorted five lines of cocaine. I’m on top of the world and there’s not a single thing that can knock me down.
"Is The Grill even open?" Kenny mutters as he fumbles with his car keys.
"You're an idiot," I tell him, getting into the passenger side. "When we meet Latham for the ransom, I better do the talking."
Kenny gets in the car, and when we begin to drive away, I look out the rear window. The gas station gets smaller and smaller the farther away we drive. I close my eyes and try to remember the feeling of Sarah's lips.
10
Mason, 2015 (Early Saturday morning)
“MASON!”
I open one eye and peek at the clock. It’s five twenty-four. What could my father want this early in the morning? There aren’t any stores open and the trash doesn’t need to go to the curb until Tuesday.
I turn on my back, pulling the blankets tightly around me. It’s always fucking cold in this basement.
“Mason! Get up here!”
Jesus H. Christ and his twelve disciples, what could he possibly want? I stumble out of bed, grab a pair of black sweatpants, and then slip on a black hoodie.
“Mason, get your lazy ass up here before I beat you into next week!”
I sigh, taking my time walking up the steps. It’s not that I don’t believe his threat—I absolutely do—but I’m too tired to care. I wish I did meth because maybe it would help jump-start something in my veins. Ever since the incident with the Bradwell boys—when I let them burn alive—I’ve been itching to let the beast in me out to play, but too many deaths in a small town could draw suspicion toward me and I’d hate to be confined in a prison. I need space. I need my independence.
But, I also need a high that drugs can’t satisfy.
“Yeah?” I ask, finding my father and Vanessa, his slut, sitting side by side at the dining room table. They both have shadows under their eyes. A candle is burning in the middle of the table—Friday is their “date night”—and it has melted onto a table that costs more than some kids’ college tuitions. Neither of them seems to notice and their expressions betray feelings of sorrow and concern. An expression I’ve only seen on my father once before. It was after my sister, Debbie, was in the hospital following the Green Fire accident. She was in a coma and bleeding in her brain. She never woke up. My father never got the chance to say good-bye to her and he began to pray after that.
I don’t quite know how I feel about Debbie’s death. I’ve become so good at faking emotions that I can’t quite decipher if my grief for her is real or not.
Her death did end the already fraying marriage between my parents. My mother accused him of wallowing in guilt and neglecting me, and he accused her of buying my love instead of earning it by being involved in my life. When my father married Vanessa, my mother nearly had an aneurism. She accused him of being a pedophile and other such incriminations, which could have actually been true, but my mother ended up marrying one of his oldest friends, so I guess that evened the score between two wretched people.
I suppose it makes sense that they gave birth to me twenty-five years ago.
“Mason,” my father says, staring at the vase behind me as if the lilies were his son instead of me. “Something has happened.”
I wait for him to continue, though a thousand sarcastic replies are itching to jump off my tongue.
“Your sister…”
Debbie?
“…Sarah…”
Oh. Her.
“…She was…taken. Kidnapped.”
I feel laughter ready to burst from my mouth. My father must see what’s about to happen, because a vein near his temple pulsates. It reminds me of his punishment the day I learned about Aaron Grant’s tragedy. I have no desire to repeat that episode, though it’s tempting to push him and see if I could get away with murder through a self-defense plea. Probably not. Policemen like my father and they would ensure I’d be in prison for life. They would probably shank me themselves.
“There’s something that I want you to do.”
Of course there is. He loses a daughter and now he wants me to kiss his ass some more. For all he knows, I’m his only child now. The lone survivor.
“The kidnapper has made contact. He has demanded twelve hundred dollars. He said he would trade the money for information about where Sarah could be found. Listen to me closely. You can’t fuck this up like you fuck everything else up.”
Twelve hundred dollars? The exact amount Pete and Kenny owe me. I would think they’re not that stupid, but then I would just be lying to myself.
“A policeman is coming by to pick up the ransom money and take it to the drop site, which is in the woods outside of Wyatt. It’s by Silver Creek where there’s that mini-waterfall. I want you at the site before the officer or the kidnapper get there, and I want you to watch the transaction take place. When it’s over, if the kidnapper isn’t in custody, you need to follow him to see where he goes and report back to me…it’s not that I don’t trust the police…but Aaron Grant is the one who is going to be doing it and he hasn’t been exactly reliable lately. He was drunk tonight and I can’t place my faith in the idea that he will get sober for Sarah. So, I need you to make sure we know who this kidnapper is…and if he doesn’t hand over S
arah, I need to know where she could be or at least where the kidnapper is, so the police can question him later. Got it? You cannot fuck this one up, Mason.”
Of course, I know where the drop is—it’s where Pete and Kenny give me the drugs to sell, and it used to be a favorite place for me as a kid. It’s actually a clever place for kidnappers to meet. There are so many nooks and crannies around the waterfall that it would be easy to escape from a police ambush. It may be the smartest decision that Pete and Kenny have come up with.
“Let me get this straight. You want me to go risk being shot by a possibly murderous kidnapper in order to get Sarah back?” I ask, trying to act casual.
My father clenches his teeth. “Yes. It’s the least you could do.”
Fuck him. Fuck Sarah. Fuck his plan. If he cares that little about me, I’ll be damned if he gets a single thing that he wants.
“Okay.” I glance over at Vanessa, who has her hand wrapped around a cross that hangs around her neck. Faith and prayers are for the weak and incapable. “I’ll go hide out near the falls and wait for the kidnapper. If he isn’t arrested, I’ll follow him. Got it.”
And everyone will get exactly what they deserve.
11
Pete, 2015 (Saturday morning)
“JUDGE LATHAM’S TEAM IS going to check around the northern part of town. Carl’s group is going to look around the southern part of town. Jacob’s group is going to look into the woods behind Secondary Street. Anna’s team is going to check the woods behind Bergerson Street, and my group is going to comb through the woods south of town. Everybody make sure you have a partner and don’t separate from them until you get back in town. The last thing we need is for someone else to disappear. Sarah was wearing the Wyatt High School senior jacket, which is green, black, and white, when she disappeared. She was also wearing black pants. Her photo is on the flyer I gave to all of you, but know that her hair is a bit longer since that photo was taken. Any questions?” James Dunlop takes a deep breath after his excessively long speech. Nobody says a thing. The whole crowd stares up at him except Kenny and me. Kenny is staring down at Sarah’s picture while I scan the crowd. Some of the people seem frightened—as if they already expect to find a body—while others look determined to bring Sarah home alive. Nobody is looking for anybody suspicious. They probably don’t even suspect that the kidnappers are from their own town. People are so naive that I almost want to walk around, joking about how I’m the kidnapper to see if anybody would believe me. But they won’t. Once you’re invisible to people, you’re invisible for everything. People will pick you last for gym class, which sucks, but your name also won’t come up when they try to think of a possible kidnapper.
Midnight Sun: A Gripping Serial Killer Thriller (A Grant & Daniels Trilogy Book 1) Page 4
