by Erik Carter
Hush Hush
Erik Carter
Copyright © 2021 by Erik Carter
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
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Acknowledgments
Chapter One
Titusville, Florida
The 1990s
It was the perfect place to vanish.
Amber Lund’s mind always turned to that dark notion when she drove this isolated four-lane highway through an endless expanse of marshland.
She could picture a Cadillac packed with mobsters exiting onto one of the few dirt paths that branched off the highway, finding a nice patch of murk, popping the trunk, and depositing a heavy, six-foot, person-shaped bundle into the inky water.
She thought of murder weapons tossed into the primordial tangle, getaway vehicles slowly descending into swamp water, bubbles tracing up the sides, popping on the surface where the roof disappeared from existence.
She imagined corpses and the alligators that would find them. Limbs torn from torsos. Flesh and muscle stripped from bones. Yellowed, reptilian teeth destroying faces and fingerprints and dental records and all other identifying, incriminating elements.
They were dark, dark thoughts, but Amber knew they were nothing but novelties, the active imagination of a person who had read a few too many thrillers and detective stories but didn’t have the anger inside her to honk her horn when she was cut off in traffic. Yes, it was all those damn books she’d read throughout her life, a habit that her uncle engrained in her by reading Nancy Drew and Kara, Kid Detective books to her as a young child.
All the stories she’d devoured through the years were the reason she couldn’t drive State Road 50 in Central Florida without thinking about what a perfect place it was to make things and people vanish. It was an east-west thoroughfare bisecting the state into northern and southern halves, and the section between Orlando and the Atlantic Coast at Titusville was filled with miles of barely touched nature, a flat horizon of grassy marshland stretching in all directions, a plane of grasses and sparkling water peppered with hammocks of cabbage palms. Pelicans and cranes and eagles. Rabbits and raccoons. And alligators.
Yes, the perfect place to disappear.
But the one thing Amber’s active imagination could never have conjured, couldn’t have predicted, was that SR 50 was the place where she would disappear.
As she adjusted her foot on the gas pedal, she felt sand shift between her toes. An hour earlier, she’d been walking on Cocoa Beach, tracing the sparkling moonlight, warm waves lapping over her ankles, a perfect ending to a wonderful weekend.
No, not just wonderful. Life-changing. When her father had suggested that Amber and her brand-new husband, Jonah, pay a visit to renowned local couples therapist Kristen Nogulich, Amber had been more than hesitant.
Heck, on Friday morning Amber had still been dead-set on an annulment.
But Nogulich had been the miracle worker she was touted to be, and Amber had seen that Jonah was the man she’d hoped he was, a man who had overcome his troubles, undone the problems he’d caused. Her man. Not the most perfect man in the world, but certainly the most lovable.
She looked at the passenger seat. There was the VHS tape. On the label, in Jonah’s big, goofy, kid-like print, was her name—AMBER. She smiled, let the warmth of the moment flow over her. Nogulich had them both, in solitude, record “do-over vows,” videotaped messages they gave to each other. They hadn’t watched them yet. Nogulich said that each person had to hold on to the tape they received until the other person gave permission to watch it.
It had been a long weekend, and Amber’s best friend, Kim, the woman who’d been her maid of honor two weeks earlier, extended it even further. After convincing Amber that she should take her father’s advice and visit Dr. Nogulich—for which Amber would be forever grateful—Kim had given Amber a solemn offer. She said she would drive to Cocoa Beach, an hour-long trek from Orlando, to meet Amber after her therapy session and walk the beach with her. Some one-on-one time. Girl time. Best friend time. A chance to unload all the emotions that had surely built up in the therapy sessions. Such a kind offer—how in the world could Amber refuse?
But, damn, was she gonna be tired tomorrow…
A quick glance at the clock on the dash. 2:07 a.m. Another forty-five minutes to Orlando. Her shift started at six. With time to get ready and to drive to the dispatch center, that would give her a couple solid hours of sleep. A few drops of Visine—it really does get the red out, after all—and some cucumbers under the eyes, and she’d be good to go. She could nap in the afternoon.
Nah, things weren’t so bad. She had no reasons to complain at all, not with things improving so much for her—the newfound understanding of her husband and also the recent turnaround in her father. Both of the men in her life, both of the relationships blossoming at once.
Her father had come so very far recently. Just before the wedding, he’d done the right thing. The right things, plural, as a matter of fact.
After all his protestations, after all his insistence that Amber was making a mistake, that she’d chosen a fool, a loser, someone beneath her, he’d finally acquiesced and come to accept Jonah as his future son-in-law. Just in the nick of time.
And her father had also agreed to do the right thing regarding Amber’s research. Confronting him had been the hardest thing Amber had ever done. But again she was shocked—and subsequently overjoyed—when her father did the right thing.
There was a spasm in her left thigh, and she took her good hand off the steering wheel for just a moment to massage it. For the longest time, the idea of a wedding ceremony frightened her, the idea of standing in front of a crowd of people, all of them able to see the left side of her body.
Spastic hemiplegic cerebral palsy impaired half of Amber and gave her a slight limp. It had brought her physical discomfort, had shown her the cruelty in the hearts of other human beings, particularly during childhood, and had been an unwelcome defining characteristic.
But it was part of her. So two weeks ago, she strode proudly down the aisle, hobbli
ng, putting the palsy out there, making it visible, front and center.
Her lips pulled open for a yawn, and she brought her right hand up, as though she could stop it. It came out anyway.
She opened her eyes wide and focused on the road ahead, the patch of light on the streaking asphalt. Silver clouds, a large moon, and a spattering of stars decorated a bright and bluish nighttime sky. The swamp was well lit, glowing sapphire shadows, and beside her she could see the shapes of palms and swaying grass, the sparkle of water in the ditch.
She wasn’t far outside of Titusville, in Brevard County where the road was called Cheney Highway, so she knew that the land on the right side of the road was St. Johns National Wildlife Refuge, which had been established in 1971 to save the dusky seaside sparrow from extinction. The efforts had failed. The last known individual died at Disney World, of all places, and the species was declared extinct back in ’90.
Vanished.
Just like all those poor souls in her dark imaginings moments earlier.
A pair of headlights in the distance ahead. It was the first car she’d seen since she’d turned onto 50 and left civilization behind.
As she continued toward it, something felt off. She squinted, leaning closer to the windshield for a better look.
It wasn’t moving. The car was parked diagonally across both lanes on her side of the divided highway. Its headlights blasted across the median and disappeared in the swamp. As she drew closer, she saw that its flashers were on too.
She took her foot from the gas, put it on the brake, flicked on her blinkers.
Two men outside the car. Standing upright and still.
What in the world? It didn’t look like there had been an accident. And it certainly wasn’t a construction project.
Strange.
Slower yet. Within yards. This close, she could see that the men were looking in her direction. But their mouths were sealed tight, no panic, excitement, or pain on their faces.
A slight flash, something reflected by her headlights.
A gun.
One of them was holding a gun! A shotgun.
No, both of them had guns. The second man held a revolver.
Her heart jumped, and her mind instantly flashed to her research, the ramifications she’d worried so much about.
She’d known from the very beginning there could be trouble.
No time to think. She just brought her foot all the way down, smashing the brake pedal. A screech from the tires. The seatbelt cut into her collarbone. Her head went forward, hair flicking into the steering wheel.
And the Bonneville stopped within fifty feet of the parked car. The men looked through her windshield. Their expressions didn’t change. They charged toward her.
She threw the gear selector into reverse, gripped the wheel as best she could with her weak left hand, and tossed her other arm over the passenger headrest as she looked back through the rear window. There were shouts from the men, indiscernible.
She jammed her quivering, spasming left hand into a crook of the wheel, against the airbag, and yanked hard. More squealing from the tires. The tangy smell of burnt rubber. A glimpse through the windshield as she turned around. The men were shouting, approaching, aiming their guns.
She listened for the crack of a gunshot, the metallic thump of a round striking her car, sounds she was certain she would hear.
But they never came.
The Bonneville came to a halt, throwing her against the door. She used her good hand to put it in drive and then smashed the gas pedal. The engine roared. A chirp from the tires, and she rocketed off, driving the wrong way on an empty highway, heading back to Titusville.
They hadn’t fired. They had guns, they charged her, but they hadn’t fired. They weren’t trying to kill her, then.
She tasted that subtle relief for only a moment before a new realization replaced it.
If they weren’t trying to kill her, yet they were armed and blocking her path, what did they want?
She pressed harder against the pedal, her calf straining.
A look to the rearview.
The car was following, lights on.
And yet…
She was getting away. Easily. They weren’t driving fast. They weren’t exactly chasing her, only following.
She couldn’t fathom why, but at that moment she was simply thankful that things were working out the way they were.
Maybe she’d escape these men, this sudden, unknown threat.
Then two additional sets of headlights appeared in front of her, flashing into existence so suddenly and so close that it made her scream.
A pair of cars. A quarter mile away. They must have been sitting at the side of the road, parked in one of the rare paths that led off the side of 50 into the wilderness. They flew up the road toward her, one in each lane, blocking her out.
She yanked the wheel to the side and laid on the brakes. The Bonneville shook horribly, its seams and rivets creaking. More of that smell, the sour odor of annihilated tires.
The seatbelt locked and cut into her collarbone, right where it had earlier. Burning. It would leave a mark.
She looked through the windshield. The cars were closing in, braking. She turned. The car behind her was closing in too.
Gasping, she fumbled with the seatbelt. Two attempts. Three. And she got it unlatched. Threw open the door.
Outside. Earthy, moist air. Crickets. Frogs.
Her left leg spasmed, and her knee bent. A hand on the car, its sheet metal slick with humidity, kept her from tumbling over.
The bright sky showed the endless expanse before her. Everything blue and glowing. Spiky palms. A few pine trees. Grasses.
And fortunately, little water. She’d found herself in an area that was mostly dry, aside from the puddle in the ditch.
She bolted down the embankment. Her left leg gave out, and she fell, landing on her shoulder, yelling out.
She rolled, tumbling twice, and splashed into the water.
Her mind went to alligators. She knew what this water looked like in daylight—all green and murky—and her thoughts changed to those of bacterial infections.
She scrambled to her feet, which sank into the mud. Feeling the presence of the men at the road above her, she willed her legs to move, especially the left one, and she splashed out of the water and into the marsh.
Grass. Brushing against her jeans, tickling her hands.
And a palm tree. The only bit of height nearby. She ran toward it.
Car doors slamming shut behind her. Footsteps. Voices.
But still no gunshots.
Her left leg spasmed. Her knee gave out. And she fell again, into the grass.
Damn leg. Goddamn leg!
Her eyes filled with tears. Her stomach roiled.
Focus. Get through this. Think.
The tree. She saw the fronds ahead of her, through the grass. Maybe having fallen wasn’t such a bad thing. Now that she was on the ground, she could crawl to the tree and—
No.
No, they had seen her going for the tree. And what kind of plan was that, anyway? What exactly was she going to do once she got there?
She scanned her surroundings. A large indentation in the earth. About ten feet away. Some brush beside it—dried palm fronds, pine branches.
The men would think she’d still be going for the tree. That had been her plan, after all, and she had been running that direction when she fell.
They would think she would crawl to the tree, that she would use her fall to her advantage, hiding in the underbrush as she moved.
But she was going for that indentation.
Footsteps closer behind her now. Closing in.
But she could make it. There was just enough time.
Her knees dug into the earth. She clenched the grass with her good hand, using it to pull her to the indentation.
And then she was there.
She rolled herself in, grabbed a hold of the brush, covered herself.
Footsteps. Even closer.
Very close.
Approaching.
Within feet of her.
Her lips trembled, and her chest shook. Her leg spasmed.
The footsteps continued on. Growing a bit quieter, a bit more distant.
And stopped. The men were beside the tree.
They’d fallen for the ruse.
A long, mostly quiet moment, punctuated by the small sounds of shifting weight in the underbrush.
The footsteps started again, moving in circles, stomping at an urgent pace. Then they slowed. And there was a voice.
“Shit! Where the hell did she go?”
The man’s voice frightened her more than anything so far. It wasn’t particularly loud or deep or menacing. But it personified the forces that were pursuing her. These were actual people who had chased her into the wild.
People who couldn’t find her.
She tried to contain her shuddering breaths, which she felt warm and wet against her cheeks, bouncing back upon her from the scratchy palm frond lying on her face.
Slow. Slow the breaths down.
If she could do that, she just might make it out of this.
Chapter Two
Two months later.
Silence Jones stared into the darkness. Somewhere in there was his target.
Somewhere…
