by J. B. Turner
“I wanted to disappear. Just like you.”
“What from?”
“My tow-truck business failed. Wife left me. I was broke. About to be homeless. A broke veteran. So far, so predictable.”
Beatrice said, “What about your kids? Couldn’t you have lived with them?”
“I didn’t want to impose. I was embarrassed. Besides, I had to serve time for an IRS problem that sort of snowballed. Filing false accounts or some such bullshit. You believe that?”
Beatrice nodded empathetically. “I know all about the IRS. Pain in the butt.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” he said.
The conversation flowed for over an hour. Fredericks talked about his marriage, his ungrateful children, and all manner of gripes. He talked of isolation, talked about feeling adrift from twenty-first-century America. But mostly he raged about all the sins he thought were afflicting the country. The work-shy, the blacks, the spics, Antifa fruitcakes, leftists, liberals, gays . . .
Fredericks stared into his chipped cup. “I don’t know what the fuck we’ve become. Who are we? Are we as a species going to survive for another hundred years, let alone a thousand? I doubt it. I’m supposed to care about these fucks? Degenerates the lot of them.”
Eventually, Beatrice began to yawn and stretch. “Interesting,” she said, noticeably uncomfortable with the tone and the subject of conversation. “I’m beat. You mind if I call it a night?”
Fredericks looked up at her with heavy eyes. “Not at all, young lady. You need your beauty sleep, right?”
Beatrice smiled, looking uncomfortable. “Indeed.”
A short while later Stone called it a night too. He and Beatrice were sleeping on mats on opposite sides of the wooden floor in the main room.
“I’ll keep watch,” Fredericks said. “You guys look dead beat.”
Twenty-Three
Despite Fredericks’s offer to keep watch, Stone slept lightly, so he was instantly alert to movement in the darkness. He stayed perfectly still. The creaking of wooden floorboards was followed by a startled murmur. Then a man’s voice, hushed and threatening.
Stone turned his head slightly and peered across the room. Bathed in shafts of pale moonlight, Fredericks’s hulking frame was on top of Beatrice, his hand over her mouth.
Stone held his breath, letting his eyes adjust to the dark. He could see that Fredericks’s other hand was pinning Beatrice’s right arm to the floor.
Stone turned gently onto his side, facing away from Fredericks. Fredericks still had his Glock—Stone had seen him lock it in a gun cabinet. It wasn’t a smart choice of weapon in this situation anyway—any struggle on Beatrice’s part meant there was a chance he’d hit her instead of Fredericks. But he’d chosen the mat on this side of the room for a reason. Glistening on the wall next to him was Fredericks’s array of weapons, including a serrated steel dagger. A hunter’s knife. He stretched up until he was able to lift it from its hook and gripped it tight.
Stone turned over again as quietly as he could. The wooden floorboards creaked.
Fredericks whipped his head around. The whites of Beatrice’s eyes shone in the moonlight. “What the—”
Stone got up and rushed him. He grabbed Fredericks by the hair and stabbed him hard in the neck. Blood spurted from veins and arteries. Down and down he thrust the knife repeatedly into Fredericks’s neck.
Beatrice screamed and curled into a ball.
Stone hauled Fredericks’s huge weight off her and flung him onto the floor. The bastard was gargling blood as he lay dying.
“What the fuck were you playing at?” Stone roared.
Fredericks gasped for breath and began to groan. “Please . . . please.”
Stone bent down and plunged the knife into his chest. When he stepped away, Beatrice released a high-pitched scream.
Stone hauled her to her feet. “It’s over, do you hear me?”
Beatrice was shaking, pulling down her top. “The dirty bastard!”
“It’s over.”
“He tried to rape me!”
She looked down and saw the blood pooling around Stone’s feet. Her hand flew to her mouth. “Oh my God. He’s dead.”
“I know.”
She punched Stone in the arm. “What the hell did you do that for?”
“You just said he tried to rape you!”
“You killed him. You fucking killed him.”
Stone grabbed her by the shoulders. “Of course I had to kill him. What do you think he was going to do to you?”
“You’re fucking crazy!”
“Maybe. But you’re alive, aren’t you?”
“I’m alive. But I’m standing next to a killer.”
“I know what I am, you don’t have to remind me. Should I have just let him rape you? He would’ve killed you afterward. And then me. Do you think he would have allowed us to leave here afterward?”
Beatrice went quiet.
“Well, do you?”
“Probably not.”
“You’re fucking right. He would’ve killed us and thrown us in the water to be eaten by crocs or gators.” Stone took his hands off her. “Now pull yourself together and—”
Beatrice hugged herself tight. “I hate it here!” she screamed. “Do you hear me? I hate it! This is like a living fucking nightmare.”
“We’re going to get out of here.”
“I want to go home.”
“You will.”
“You said that before.”
“In good time. Soon. But we need to be smart. We need to focus.”
She was breathing too fast, beginning to hyperventilate. “What in God’s name have we done?”
Stone grabbed her by the shoulders. “Listen to me. In situations like this, you either kill or get killed. The guy was a predator. And trust me, he wasn’t going to take no for an answer.”
She nodded, her breaths still coming rapidly.
“You need to breathe slowly. Slowly . . . Take your time.”
Beatrice closed her eyes and did as she was told.
“That’s right, good. Slow it all the way down . . .”
In a minute, her breathing was back under control. Beatrice began to pace the room.
“Okay?” Stone asked.
She nodded.
“Just breathe.”
“I’m fine,” she snapped.
Stone held up his hands. “Just relax. We’re getting out of here in two minutes. Do you want to sit out on the deck while I deal with the body?”
Beatrice’s eyes widened. “What does that mean?”
“What do you think it means?”
“How the hell would I know? Unlike some people, I don’t make a habit of racking up dead bodies.”
“Well,” Stone said dryly, “then now is as good a time as any to learn that there are no good options for disposal. We could leave him here. The flies, insects, and some wildlife would peck away at him.”
“That’s disgusting.”
“We could take him with us.”
“Not an option.”
“Or we could throw him overboard in a deeper channel of water and allow the crocs—”
“You’re going to feed him to the crocs?”
“Do you have a better suggestion?”
Beatrice sighed and shook her head.
“Okay, how about I get him on the boat and dump him? Then I come back for you.”
“You’re not leaving me here by myself. I’m coming with you.”
Stone nodded. “Fine.” He gathered up the guns, knives, military crossbow, machetes, all the weapons off the wall, then the flares, $5,000 in cash, and placed them in a backpack. “You wanna help?”
“Sure.”
“Get the maps, water, and whatever food he’s got. I’ll get this fuck into his boat—we’ll make better time with it, and we’ll leave the other boat here.”
Beatrice stared at him as if in a trance.
“I’m really sorry that happened. But we need to get going.
So, we need to pull ourselves together. Can you do that?”
Beatrice nodded and began to move.
Stone dragged Fredericks’s hulking body by the feet through the hut and out onto the deck. He rolled the bloodied corpse onto the airboat.
A minute or so later, Beatrice emerged with the backpack containing the handguns and knives, two plastic bags with cookies, potato chips, bottles of Coke and water, insect repellent. And a bag holding rifles and ammo.
Stone and Beatrice took one last look around before they stepped onto the airboat. He started up the motor and checked the GPS display.
“He’s still bleeding out,” she said.
“Don’t look at him.”
Beatrice turned and looked out over the dark waters.
Stone inched the airboat away from the makeshift jetty and gently negotiated the low-lying sandbanks. When they’d reached deeper waters away from the island, he turned off the engine.
Beatrice was hugging herself tightly as Stone rolled the body off the boat and into the water. It quickly sank out of sight.
Stone waited for a few moments as he got his bearings.
“What about his children?” Beatrice said quietly. “What if someone misses him?”
“You can never tell anyone about this. You want to go to trial in Florida? Trying to explain how he was going to rape you? The press would have a field day. And the public? Not the most forgiving, let me tell you, no matter the circumstances.”
“What if the body resurfaces?” she asked.
“It will.”
“What?”
“Eventually, it will bloat with water and float to the surface. But it’ll also be unrecognizable. The crocs and gators and God knows what else will have torn most of the distinguishing features off of it.”
Beatrice went quiet as Stone restarted the engine. “This is insanity. Complete insanity. None of this is real. It can’t be.”
“It’s real.” Stone stared out over the brackish waters. “And now we need to move on.”
“When is this nightmare going to end?! I just want it to end!”
“It will end. But we need to stick together and not panic. The moment we begin to panic, we’re dead.”
Twenty-Four
Just before dawn, Berenger’s cell phone rang.
“Mark?” It was the gruff voice of Kevin de Boer.
“Yeah, go ahead.”
“Turn on your TV. Switch to channel 528.”
Berenger picked up his remote control and pressed the keys. The screen showed real-time night-vision footage from the Everglades of what looked like the inside of a log cabin.
“You got it?”
“Got it. Where is this?”
“Three nautical miles from the last key they visited. You’re seeing what we’re seeing. We have a team that just disembarked onto the island.”
“Is this someone’s home?”
“We believe so. We don’t know who. But there are clear signs of life there. But also this . . .”
The camera panned to what looked like stains on the floor.
“This is blood. We’re going to take samples and test the DNA to see if this is our guy. Or maybe the person who lived there.”
Berenger stared long and hard at the congealed blood. “You think this might be Stone’s blood? Or the girl’s?”
“We don’t know.”
“Take a guess. What do you think happened?”
De Boer was silent for a beat. “There are signs of long-term habitation on this key. So the question is, Where is the person who hangs out there? My guess? My best guess? Stone arrived there, things didn’t work out with him and the guy living there, and Stone killed him.”
“Why?”
“No idea. Take your pick.”
“Any estimate of how long the blood has been there?”
“That’s a tough one.”
“Guess.”
“A matter of hours. Might’ve happened five, six, seven hours ago.”
“Kevin, this is your area of expertise. I’m deferring to what you know. Could he have killed the girl there?”
“It’s a possibility. So is an accident.”
“You don’t believe either of those scenarios?”
“You can never be entirely sure. But I think Stone killed whoever was living there and grabbed the provisions. Shelves are pretty empty. Guy has to be a survivalist type to live out there.”
“What about the girl?”
“What about her?”
Berenger sighed. “I mean, where the hell is she?”
“She’s with Stone. That’s what I think.”
“Against her will?”
“Maybe.”
“You think she might’ve gone willingly? Why the hell is she still with him if not under duress?”
“It doesn’t really matter. She’s with him. I’m convinced of it.”
“Get your guy to show me the rest of what’s in and around this place.”
The night-vision footage roamed through the wooden hut. Two mats laid out for sleeping, one bed. A wall full of empty hooks. Pots and pans. On the deck was a half-eaten pig on a spit.
“Who the fuck lived out there, Kevin?”
“Like I said, survivalist probably. Screwball. Who knows. But whoever it is, is gone.”
“Are we sure he’s not nearby out hunting or something?”
“We’ve scoured nearby. Nothing.”
Berenger put himself in Stone’s mind-set. It should have been easy to do, given how well he knew him. But then again, Stone had already surprised him by not killing the girl. Something was going on that Berenger couldn’t put his finger on. Stone couldn’t have changed so much in the year since his raid on the Commission. Could it have something to do with the actress’s resemblance to his sister? The idea gave Berenger a little thrill—in a way he felt as though he were still pulling Stone’s strings. “There are hundreds of other islands around Florida Bay and beyond, right?”
“I’ve been told the Keys occupy nearly a thousand square miles. A lot of space to hide in that.”
“Every hour we don’t get him is an hour he’s closer to disappearing for good.”
“We’re closing in,” de Boer said confidently. “But we need to get lucky to find them out there.”
“I don’t want to hear about luck. We need to change our fucking luck, Kevin. I want that fucker. I want the woman. And I want them both dead. Before they make it out of the Everglades.”
Twenty-Five
A tangerine dawn peeked across the horizon, bathing the water in an eerie pale-orange glow. Beatrice was curled up in a ball on the wooden floor of the airboat. He wasn’t sure if she was actually asleep.
Stone felt exhaustion wash over him. The events of the early hours had taken their toll. Beatrice had finally been starting to trust him. Now he worried that she might try and disappear, endangering herself and him in the process. If she did, he couldn’t blame her. She was so far out of her comfort zone it had to be traumatizing for her.
Stone checked the GPS and saw they were within a mile of Cluett Key. It was an east-west tide as they approached the island through seagrass-filled water, the spray on his face. He switched off the engine and jumped out. He was knee-deep in mud, silt, and sand as he hauled the boat ashore, up past the mud bank, up the beach and beyond the high-tide mark. “You wanna shake a leg?” he said. “Need some help.”
Beatrice stirred and handed him the backpack containing the weapons and flares, the plastic bags holding the food, and the bag containing the guns and ammo. She jumped off the boat and immersed herself in the warm water for a few moments.
“Feeling better?”
Beatrice shook her head. “What do you think?”
Stone turned and led the way farther inland. They headed through some cypress and marshy grasses and into a clearing. He took a machete out of the backpack and began to chop down branches for a makeshift shelter. “Keep busy. It’ll help.”
Beatrice sighed. She h
eld up the wooden frame as he tied the pieces together with vines, layering palm fronds on the base. She swatted away a cloud of mosquitos. “Goddamn fucking insects!” She pulled out the insect repellent and sprayed it all over herself. “I’m being eaten alive. Fuck!”
Stone carefully laid down more palm fronds. “Be careful with the sand flies,” he said.
“What?”
“Be careful. They’ll be burrowing away just beneath the surface. The females will feed on your blood.”
“I need to get out of here.”
“Let’s get the shelter up, get a fire going, get some breakfast, and then we can talk.”
Beatrice grumbled for a while but reluctantly unpacked the provisions and placed them neatly on the fronds.
“Keep the flares away from the fire, for God’s sake,” he said.
“Do you think I’m stupid?” she said.
“No, I don’t. Just being cautious.”
“Cautious?” She swatted away a cloud of mosquitos. “This is terrible. I can’t put up with this any longer, I’m telling you.” She lashed out at some bugs. “Fuck!”
Stone tried to ignore her. He cut down strips of black mangrove wood and threw them on the fire. They gave off a pungent aroma, almost like incense.
“What is that? It stinks.”
Stone hunched over the fire. “It’s supposed to. The Native Americans and early white settlers who lived out here used this to get rid of mosquitos and bugs.”
Beatrice scrunched up her face, unimpressed.
“Swamp angels, they used to call mosquitos.”
“How do you know this stuff?”
“Long story.”
“I want to believe that you can get us out of here. I’m trusting you.”
Stone nodded his head. “I know you are. And I want to get back home just as much as you do.”
Beatrice closed her eyes as she sat on the sand beside the makeshift shelter.
The sun was rising, and the acrid black smoke was dissipating in the breeze.
“Won’t this give away where we are?”
“It might. But in an area so huge, unless you’re in a plane going overhead, you won’t spot it. More importantly, it stops crocs and snakes from getting near you. Besides, kayakers, day-trippers, and survivalist crazies like Fredericks all have fires on beaches and islands all over Florida Bay, or didn’t you notice?”
