Don't Turn Around

by Hunter Morgan

  She never saw me coming. They will never suspect me. I am too smart for all of them. I have duct tape and a spool of #4-gauge wire, for securing items; a box of disposable latex gloves, to keep myself tidy; wire cutters, for cutting tendons. Then there are garden shears, for snapping small bones; hand towels, to sop up blood; disposable coveralls, to keep my clothing clean; a drop cloth, for the dirt floor. I cannot carelessly leave trace evidence behind, even though there isn’t a chance anyone will ever come here looking for it. I also have a hacksaw, for cutting the larger bones, and then there are the disposable shoe covers.

  The shoe covers are a clever idea. In my haste, I might not have thought of them. But Maury is an experienced man. I dig to the bottom of the bag: a hunting knife, for the obvious; plastic sheeting, to contain blood spatter; zip-strips, for tying more than wrists together; a blue bandana, for a gag.

  Beside me, leaning against the old kitchen table, is a shovel. The correct term would be a spade. Good for digging. Good for burying. There are twenty-seven acres here, plenty of room. But I won’t bury her body parts here. I’ll take a trip to Maury’s ranch, instead. Just to be on the safe side…

  The last item I pick up off the kitchen table is the Glock 9 mm. I tuck it into the back pocket of my khakis, singing along with Pavarotti.

  “Casey, talk some sense into him,” Lincoln said. “Make him understand that he has to go for help.”

  “Daddy, please,” Casey begged. “You’re the only one who can do this.” She was scared, trying not to move. She didn’t even turn her head. Ed and Lincoln walked around her so that she could see them without shifting in the chair. Frazier had sat down on the dirt floor very close to her, but not touching her or the chair.

  “I’m not leaving you,” Ed insisted, looking down at her. “I wasn’t there when you needed me once. You know when I mean.”

  He seemed perfectly cognitive at this moment. His old self. He was just being stubborn. “I know,” she whispered, looking up at him lovingly through teary eyes.

  “I’m sorry for that, Freckles. For all of it.” Tears welled in his gray eyes. “I was wrong. I was very wrong. I need you to forgive me.”

  “It’s okay, Daddy. I forgave you a long time ago.” She sniffed. “But right now I do need you. I need you to go for help.”

  He shook his head. “Sorry, I can’t do that. Whatever happens this time, I’ll be here.” He looked at Lincoln. “He’ll have to go.”

  “Ed—Casey, we don’t have time for this.” Lincoln looked up at the ceiling. The music was still playing.

  A voice had joined the tenor. Adam was singing. He had an excellent voice.

  “I think you should both go.” She looked down at the boxer at her feet. “And Frazier, too,” she added sentimentally. “You should all go for help.”

  Lincoln turned to her father. “Ed, I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but I’m younger than—”

  “Oh, so you want me to traipse across that field again?” Ed threw up one hand.

  “Ed,” Lincoln said, his voice amazingly calm, “we’re trying to think what’s best for Casey right now, and it’s best if I stay here to protect her.”

  “With what?” Ed scoffed. “A hoe handle? I can protect her as well as you can.”

  Her father reached into his pocket and Casey gasped as he pulled out a pistol.

  “Oh my God, is that loaded, Daddy?”

  Lincoln took a step back.

  “Yes, it’s loaded,” Ed said incredulously. “It wouldn’t do much good if it wasn’t loaded.”

  Casey stared, as horrified by the thought of her father being in possession of a handgun as she was of anything that had happened tonight. “Daddy, I don’t know where you got that, but you need to give it to Lincoln.”

  “None of your damned business where I got it,” Ed said gruffly.

  “Casey,” Lincoln murmured.

  “I know, I know.” She looked back at her father, taking care only to shift her eyes. Despite the chill of the damp basement, she was sweating profusely. She wanted someone to take her coat off her, but she was afraid to let them for fear it might jiggle the chair.

  “Give Lincoln the gun, Daddy.”

  “He hates guns,” Ed protested. “Never fired one in his life.”

  “Have you?” she managed. All she could think of was that Ed would accidentally pull the trigger and shoot himself or Lincoln.

  Ed hesitated. Casey could tell he was considering turning the weapon over.

  “Daddy, please. You can’t legally have that handgun,” she said, trying a different approach. He had always been a law-abiding man. “Not with your diagnosis.”

  “But I wanted to help.” Ed’s voice was thick with emotion. He sounded scared, for the first time tonight. “I got the gun to protect you. I don’t want to get in trouble with the police. I just want to protect my daughter. I just want to protect you,” he insisted to her through tears.

  Casey felt as if her heart was splitting in two. She loved her father so much. She loved both of these men. She didn’t want this life to end. She thought about what Adam had said about the bomb. What he would do in her situation. About what she would do. He had been right. She wouldn’t blow herself up, because she still had hope. She had hope that she and the men she loved would get out of this alive. She had hope and now she had a gun.

  “Give the gun to Lincoln this minute, Daddy. Take Frazier and run for the car. Call the police. Do it now, Daddy,” she snapped.

  Ed stared at her for a moment and then lowered the gun. “I guess he should take it,” he conceded. “He probably has steadier hands. My hands aren’t as steady as they used to be.”

  Lincoln gingerly took the handgun from Ed. “You have to go for help,” he said gently. He handed him the cell phone. “You have to go now.”

  A sound coming from the direction of the inside staircase made all three of them and the dog focus. There were footsteps coming out of the darkness. Light. Then, Pavarotti’s singing got louder.

  “Go, Ed,” Lincoln insisted, giving him a push toward the outside door.

  Ed moved amazingly quickly, the phone clutched in his hand. “Frazier.”

  The dog bounded after him.

  Every muscle in Casey’s body tightened as she stared straight ahead waiting for Adam. Lincoln moved somewhere behind her, into hiding.

  “So here we are,” Adam announced, coming out of the stairwell, a green gym bag in his hand.

  The moment he stepped into the circle of light that surrounded Casey, she could see that he sensed something was amiss. He set the bag on the ground at his feet and slipped his hand behind him, reaching for something in the waistband of his pants. He gazed around the cluttered, shadowy cellar.

  “What have we done, Casey?” There was the slightest sound of surprise in his voice. He looked down at her feet. “You haven’t moved. Couldn’t have.” He made a clicking sound with his tongue. “So what’s different?”

  Casey just stared at him, afraid to speak. She couldn’t tell where Lincoln was, only that he was behind her.

  His hand still behind his back, Adam turned his head left and then right, reminding her of a prairie dog, of all things. In different circumstances, she might even have laughed. Adam was uncertain of himself for the first time tonight.

  “It’s cooler down here than it was,” he said suddenly.

  He drew his hand forward and Casey saw the gun he had warned her of. He pointed it at her face. “The outside door is open, isn’t it? Lock’s been broken for years. I’ve meant to replace it, but I never needed to.” He took a step forward, still aiming the gun at her face. “Why is the door open, Casey?”

  She heard something move behind her.

  “Because I opened it,” Lincoln said.

  Adam took a step back, swinging the gun in Lincoln’s direction. “How did you get here? How did you find us?” He was almost childlike in his astonishment.

  Lincoln was so scared for Casey, so scared of Adam and the guns in bo
th their hands that he could barely put one foot in front of the other. He had never held a gun in his life. He had hoped he never would, and now, he was pointing one at someone’s chest. But he had realized at the instant that Adam had appeared out of the dark that he would do anything to save Casey. He loved her and he would do anything to spare her life, including sacrificing his own.

  What he wasn’t sure of—even at this moment—was if he could kill another human being.

  “Lincoln,” Casey whimpered.

  “Put down the gun and deactivate the bomb,” Lincoln instructed.

  “Or what?” Adam challenged. He was still backing up, still aiming at Lincoln.

  “Or I’ll shoot you.”

  “You won’t shoot me,” Adam scoffed. “Mr. Gun Control, Mr. Guns Should Only Be in the Hands of Law Enforcement Agents,” he taunted. “You don’t have the balls.”

  “Please, Adam,” Casey begged. “He’ll do it.”

  “He’d let me kill him before he’d pull that trigger,” Adam taunted.

  Lincoln moved closer. His intention was to put himself between Casey and Adam. He was afraid if he didn’t do it quickly, Adam would just shoot her in the head. Lincoln didn’t know anything about handguns, but from the look of the shiny metal and the shape of the one Adam was holding, he had a feeling that Adam knew how to handle it. If he shot at Casey, he wouldn’t miss.

  Adrenaline pumping, Lincoln slid another foot forward. “You don’t want to do this,” he told Adam.

  “Sure I do. At this point, what do I have to lose?”

  Lincoln didn’t really see Adam turn the gun on Casey so much as he felt the change in the air. Without thinking, without taking aim, Lincoln squeezed the trigger.

  The cellar echoed with the shot, which sounded like the crack of a whip. Casey screamed. There was smoke and the acrid smell of gunpowder as Adam went down on one knee.

  Lincoln had shot him! He’d hit him!

  Adam slowly lowered his gaze to his upper thigh, which was gushing blood. “I can’t believe you just did that,” he said in awe. “I know people. I know what makes them tick. Odds were a million to one that a man like you would shoot a man like me.”

  “Drop the gun,” Lincoln ordered, fighting the urge to vomit. “Drop it and push it this way. You’re losing a lot of blood. I’ll put a tourniquet on it for you, but first you have to give me the gun.”

  Adam looked at the blossoming red wound and then slowly lifted his gaze to meet Lincoln’s. “You’ve got to be kidding. You don’t really think I would let anyone take me alive.”

  Lincoln lunged for him, but it was too late. Adam raised his gun to his mouth and Lincoln turned away at the sound of the shot.

  Casey screamed again. Lincoln closed his eyes for a second and turned away, staggering. There was no need to check Adam. He had heard his brain splatter.

  “Casey.” The pistol now hung at Lincoln’s side and he was fighting a sob in his throat.

  “Lincoln…Lincoln, look at me.” Casey’s voice pushed through Lincoln’s haze.

  “Look at me. This wasn’t your fault. You did what you had to do. You saved my life and you saved your own.”

  When he opened his eyes, she was smiling. She was crying, but she was smiling. Tied to a chair. A bomb under her. And Casey was still smiling.

  Lincoln leaned over, carefully laying the handgun on the ground. “I want to hug you,” he said, feeling light-headed. He stood upright again. “I wish I could…I think maybe…” He gazed into her eyes. “I’d like to ask you to marry me.”

  That was when he heard the first wail of the police sirens. Ed had come through. Somehow, Ed had found a cell phone signal and he had come through for his daughter.

  “I think I’d like you to propose to me,” Casey said, still looking up at Lincoln, still smiling through her tears. He knew she heard them, too. “But maybe we should wait until the police get this bomb out from under me, okay?”

  Chapter 38

  Maury lay on his bunk, stalling. He would have to go in a moment, but not yet. He was giving himself a second to calm his nerves and prepare what he would say to the authorities. He chewed his gum slowly, savoring the minty sweetness of it. With his eyes, he traced the pattern of the ceiling tiles.

  He was not entirely surprised when he was told the Delaware State Police were there to speak to him. He did not have to ask what matter it concerned.

  Maury had read the headlines of the newspaper all week. Assistant Deputy Attorney Adam Preston III had committed suicide. It had made national press. He had allegedly kidnapped a local woman named Casey McDaniel. He had held her hostage, tied her to a chair with a bomb, and then, when cornered by another attorney, the woman’s fiancé, Preston had put a gun to his head and killed himself.

  The assistant deputy attorney had allegedly been involved in additional crimes, including the murder of a local woman. It was believed, at press time, that Preston had been trying to frame a man named Charles Gaitlin who had previously been accused of killing a girlfriend. The case was still under investigation.

  There had been press about Charles Gaitlin, as well. It was believed that the attorney general’s office had information exonerating Gaitlin from the second murder, but indicating guilt in the first. Gaitlin had been out of jail only two days before he was arraigned again for the first murder. Some citizens’ rights group was up in arms about the arrest, but apparently the charges were going to stick this time. Poor, sorry sucker. Maury had been disappointed when he had heard that Adam Preston III had committed suicide. Danni had had potential. But he had never been in Maury’s league.

  And now the police were investigating every step the assistant deputy attorney had taken in the weeks leading up to his death. This was where the matter got a little sticky.

  When Preston had come to the work-release building to visit Maury, he had signed himself in at the front desk. That meant he had left evidence behind, linking him to Maury. The police were interviewing everyone who had had contact with the assistant deputy attorney in the last days of his life.

  Of course, the police couldn’t ask Maury about what Preston and he had spoken of. Well…they could ask, but Maury was under no obligation to answer. Attorney/client privilege.

  “Pinkerton!” a CO summoned from the hallway.

  Maury climbed down off his bunk and spat his gum into the trash can. The sweetness was gone.

  This interview with the police was nothing but a technicality. He would not tell them about the drawings he had sent to the assistant deputy attorney, per his request. He would not tell them of the small role he had played in stalking Casey McDaniel, or about the information he had provided Preston on how to prepare the perfect “murder kit.”

  As Maury walked out of his stark room, he glanced at the calendar on the wall. He thought about the woman in the barrel.

  Thirty-six days.

  He would be released in thirty-six days.

  It would be good to see her again.

  It was time she had some company.

  “This is so nice, Lincoln, but really, you didn’t have to go to all this trouble.” Casey set her wineglass on the coffee table. Dinner had been amazing: lamb chops, parsley potatoes, asparagus, and homemade applesauce. Lincoln hadn’t let her do a thing to help prepare the meal or clear away the dishes and now they were seated comfortably together on his couch in front of a blazing fire. “I feel silly about all this fuss. I’m fine.”

  “There’s been no fuss.” Lincoln took her hand and pressed it between both of his.

  “There’s been a great deal of fuss. Everyone’s treating me like I’m spun glass; the police, the people at work, Dad, you. Even Jayne’s been unreasonably accommodating.”

  “Well, you were kidnapped from your home less than two weeks ago. You did have a homemade bomb strapped to your tail-end.”

  She groaned and laughed, but didn’t pull her hand from his. She wasn’t scared anymore. In fact, surviving her ordeal with Adam had made her feel empower
ed. She was not a victim. She would never be a victim again. That didn’t mean she didn’t want to keep Lincoln close. Her near encounter with death had not only made her feel stronger, it had also made her amazingly thankful for what she had. Family. Friends. And Lincoln. Especially Lincoln.

  “I just want to get back to my life before all this,” Casey said, trying to find the right words to explain how she was feeling. “I want to get back to work. Back to fighting with my sister. Back to chasing Dad in the yard, him dressed in my bathrobe. The way things were before Adam and Gaitlin.”

  “Before me?” He lifted one eyebrow.

  “No. Of course not. Not before you.” Casey leaned toward him, meeting him halfway for a kiss. His touch was warm and comforting, but there was still that thrill of sexual attraction.

  “You want to stay again tonight,” he whispered, his voice deep.

  “I shouldn’t.” Looking up at him, she stroked his cheek with her fingertips. “Dad—”

  “Your dad’s in his PJ’s and his own robe watching TV with my grandparents. There’s a John Wayne marathon on TNT tonight. Grandma already had me come set the DVR for them. Let your dad spend another night. My grandparents are tickled to have a guest in their spare room.” He gestured. “Frazier’s already adopted them as his second family.”

  “I have to go home sometime,” she insisted, gazing into his dark eyes.

  “No, you don’t.”

  She kissed him again, lightly this time. “Yes, I do. There’s no reason for me to be afraid and no reason for you to be afraid for me. They’re gone—Gaitlin, his brother, Adam, Billy. They’re all gone.” In the hospital, Casey and Lincoln had had a long talk about her past, about Billy, with her father. He’d been a good listener.

  “You really don’t have to go home if you don’t want to.” Lincoln let go of her with one hand and slipped it into the pocket of his jeans. “I was thinking maybe we could make other arrangements.”

  The walkie-talkie on the kitchen counter squawked and they both looked up and laughed.

  “Base Camp Two, this is Base Camp One, do you read? Over.”