Donny spun on his son. “Well, how the hell else do you explain what happened?!”
“I don’t know, and I don’t care! We got to help this little girl right—”
The little girl started giggling.
Donny spun back. Both men instantly shined their lights on the child.
Clearly illuminated, the girl was now sitting up in the boat, legs out in front, looking exceptionally amused. Her giggling was constant, her eyes wild with delight.
“She’s crazy,” Donny said.
“It’s shock,” Toby replied. “I heard of this. People who endure like a…like a trauma…sometimes they just go batty, you know?”
The girl stopped giggling and got to her feet, boat rocking slightly beneath her. She placed her hands on her hips, grinned, and said: “Knock, knock.”
Donny and Toby exchanged a dumbfounded look.
“Who’s there?” Toby answered hesitantly.
“Howie,” she chirped.
“Howie who?”
“I know howie gonna get rid of your bodies!” The girl dropped to the floor of the boat and started laughing hysterically.
Donny and Toby looked at each other again. If they were dumbfounded before, they were utterly speechless now.
A series of arrows whistled through the night, hitting father and son with a succession of thumps. One could say Toby had been lucky; one of the arrows had caught him in the back of the head, killing him instantly.
Donny, not so lucky.
Or maybe he was. He would finally get to see one hell of an alligator before he and his son were fed to it.
Chapter 20
South Florida
Miami
The hangover gods were generous to them the next morning. They slept late and ate in relative silence at a local diner, periodically snickering about incidents they could remember from the night before.
Leigh and Tommy’s tryst was subject to playful jests that might have gone unsaid had Tommy not stumbled out of Leigh’s room in the middle of the night to use the hallway bathroom and run smack into Stacey, she too getting up to use the toilet. And as if exiting Leigh’s room at such an hour hadn’t been clue enough, the fact that Tommy was bare-ass naked certainly helped solve the case.
Tommy was his typical bashful self throughout the jesting, but Leigh took it in stride, unfazed as she ate her breakfast, at one point in the midst of heavy taunts, leaning over with a mouthful of food and planting a big one on Tommy’s face, smearing ketchup everywhere, igniting a chorus of hilarity that had everyone wincing immediately after, groping for their coffee and praying to the hangover gods for mercy.
***
Breakfast over, they began their trek west towards…
“You don’t know?” Leigh asked from the back seat.
“Nope,” Stacey said enticingly. She undid her seat belt and spun in the passenger seat to face Leigh. “I’ve got a list of places in a general vicinity I want to explore, but as far as an actual itinerary goes, we’re going to be letting our findings guide us.”
“I’m not sure I follow.”
Bryan caught Leigh’s eye in the rearview mirror and volleyed his attention between her and the road. “It’s like we’re playing detective. The information we gather will tell us where to head next.”
Stacey leaned over and smooched Bryan on the cheek, hard and loud. “Brilliantly put, angel butt.”
“So, if we’re letting our findings guide us, then what’s the list for?” Leigh asked.
Tommy, seated next to Leigh, stopped fiddling with the camera for a moment and faced her. “If we stick with the detective analogy, we could call the list ‘leads.’ We keep going from one to the other until we find something promising to pursue.”
“Also brilliantly put. I frickin’ love you two.”
“So then where’s my kiss?”
Stacey spun in her seat again, a naughty twinkle in her eye for Leigh. “I don’t think you satisfied him enough last night, girl.”
“Oh no,” Tommy said quickly. “I am quite content with how last night went down.”
“Call me ‘Leigh,’ sweetie. ‘Last Night’ is my formal name.”
Stacey got it instantly and lost it. Bryan and Tommy exchanged a look in the rearview for a moment before the light bulb went on.
***
“So, can I see this list of leads?” Leigh eventually asked.
Stacey opened her notebook to the proper page and handed it back to Leigh.
Leigh squinted as she read. “Either your handwriting sucks, or some of these places have really weird names,” she said.
“Both,” Stacey admitted.
Leigh read some of the names out loud, enunciating unsurely. “‘Daigles’…‘Jumbo’s’…wait—what’s this one? It’s scratched out with ‘Sam’s’ written next to it.”
“It was the name of a boat rental place. The exact place the Burk family used the day of the massacre,” Stacey said. “They renamed it to Sam’s after the driver of the boat who took the Burks out. Poor guy was killed by the Roys before they abducted the Burks.”
“And what about Daigles and Jumbo’s?” Leigh asked. “They’re at the top of the list. They must be important, yeah?”
“Yeah,” Stacey said. “The Daigles are the family that—”
“Oh wait!” Leigh blurted. “I know the name. Duh. They’re the family that lived on the river near the Roys. The whole ordeal started with those two families, right?”
“Exactly.”
Leigh’s initial excitement over her recollection then slowly drooped into unease. “Wait…are we going to try to see that family’s house on the river? The Daigles’?”
“Of course,” Stacey said as though the answer should have been self-evident. “We’re going to get footage of both places—the Daigles’ and the Roys’. Especially the Roys’.”
“Do they allow that? I mean, can you do that?”
Tommy lifted his head from the camera again. “Both houses are tourist spots along the river now.”
“I thought you wanted to avoid touristy spots,” Leigh said.
Stacey, Bryan, and Tommy all exchanged quick, eager glances, as though bursting with secrets.
“What?” Leigh said, annoyed.
“They are touristy spots,” Tommy said. “They’re also the wrong spots.”
“What do you mean?”
Another excited glance between all three of them, minus Leigh.
Leigh frowned. “I’m too fucking hungover for you guys to keep doing this. Can you just tell me, please?”
“Patience of a flood,” Bryan said.
Leigh smacked the back of his head. He winced and muttered nonpleasantries.
“What do you mean by the wrong spots?” Leigh asked again.
“The Roy and Daigle homes are tourist attractions,” Stacey said. “Remember when Morgan said people are fascinated by the macabre? It’s true. You’d be stunned by how many murder sites, gravestones of killers, homes of killers—whatever—have been turned into tourist spots to make a buck.”
Leigh snorted. “Makes you wonder who’s worse: the patrons or the proprietors.”
“Aren’t we technically patrons?” Bryan asked with a pleased little smile.
Stacey ignored him. Leigh smacked the back of his head again.
“Here’s the thing, though,” Stacey began. “Most of these sites across the world are not the actual spots. For more than a few reasons—mostly legal stuff enforced by the families of the victims, or relatives of the killers who want to distance themselves as far from their fucked-up kin as possible—the proprietors relocate the site and basically lie, hoping no one will be the wiser. And usually no one is.”
“So, the tourist spots now—for the Daigles and the Roys, I mean—they’re not the actual spots?”
“Correct,” Stacey said. “There was no real legal issues with the spots, but the trouble was that they were too far up the river. It was just too risky to be dragging tourists so deep into th
e swamp. So, they relocated the”—she did air quotes—“‘sites’ of the Daigle and Roy homes closer to shore.”
“But wouldn’t people who knew the Roys and the Daigles know that they aren’t their real homes?”
“Locals don’t go on those tours,” Tommy said. “Hell, most of them are the ones running the show and lying to everyone. They’re like carnies looking for rubes.”
“Except Stacey’s no rube…” Leigh said to Tommy while looking at Stacey, a proud smirk starting at the corner of her mouth. “She knows the true location of the Daigles’ home. The Roys’ home.”
Stacey’s turn to wear the proud smirk. “Indeed I do, sister.”
Leigh was now grinning. “How the hell did you do that?”
“How did I get Netflix to take me on?” she replied coolly.
Bryan took Stacey’s hand in his and kissed it. “Because you’re the best,” he said.
“It was a rhetorical question, honey, but thank you.”
***
“So, how are we going to get there?” Leigh asked. “The real Roy home, I mean?”
“We’re gonna have to rent a boat,” Stacey said.
“Where? At that Sam’s place?”
“Probably not. I can’t imagine they’d agree to take us out there, given the history.”
Leigh frowned. “Well, then why is it on the list?”
“How can it not be? We need to at least get some footage of the place. Interview any people who might be willing to talk about Sam and what happened.”
“So where are we gonna rent a boat that’ll take us where we want?” Leigh asked.
“Jumbo’s,” Stacey said. “Maybe.”
Leigh frowned again. “Why maybe?”
“Because it’s a bar,” Tommy said.
Leigh’s frown started setting up camp. “You guys are talking in riddles again. Stop.”
Stacey turned and gave Leigh’s knee an apology rub. “Jumbo’s is a place that’s pretty much off the grid. They don’t advertise. It’s…” She struggled for something optimistic.
“It’s a shithole,” Tommy said. “But word is that the Roys used to frequent it. More importantly, locals who knew the Roys, and maybe even the Daigles, likely still frequent it. More important than that, locals with boats almost assuredly frequent it. Locals who are easily swayed by the almighty dollar and will take us as far up the river as we want.”
“Christ, they’ll take us out into the swamp, rob us, and leave us for dead,” Leigh said.
“That’s why Mick’s coming along,” Stacey said.
“And us,” Bryan said, gesturing to himself and Tommy.
Stacey rubbed his shoulder. “Of course, baby.”
“Should I even ask how you found this place?” Leigh asked.
“Only if you want to hear Bryan tell you I’m the best again.”
Bryan glanced over at Stacey and pumped his eyebrows. “I will, you know.”
Stacey kissed two fingers and pressed them to his lips.
“You know, it’s kind of like Star Wars,” Tommy said. “When Luke and Obi-Wan go into the cantina on Mos Eisley looking for a pilot to get them to Alderaan?”
“Was that English?” Leigh said.
Tommy reddened, muttered, and dropped his attention back onto the camera.
“So, basically, Jumbo’s is just a bar with hopeful leads?” Leigh asked.
“Exactly,” Stacey said. “We’ll go in, have a few drinks, try to blend in—”
Leigh barked out a laugh, cutting her off. “Blend in?”
“Well, maybe not blend in, but at least try and make nice. Buy a few rounds, be respectful. Worst-case scenario we get some footage of the place and maybe an interview or two. It’ll be fine.”
“Why do I feel like this is the part in the horror movie when people start yelling at the screen, telling us not to go?”
Stacey’s eyes shimmered with playful craziness. “Because it is like that.”
Leigh shook her head. “You’re nuts. But I love you.” She massaged one of her temples. “So, I guess this means we’re drinking today?”
Bryan caught her eye in the rearview again. “Do I detect some reluctance? You’re the last person I thought would be against a little hair of the dog.”
“Who said I was against it? Shots as soon as we get there. You and me, bitch.”
“Bring it on, ho.”
“You guys are pretty carefree about this place,” Tommy said. “You know, in that Star Wars scene, someone gets their arm cut off, and then another guy gets shot.”
Leigh placed a hand on his thigh. “Then I guess you’ll just have to use that big lightsaber of yours to protect me.”
“If I die on this trip,” Tommy announced, “I want my tombstone to read: ‘I regret nothing.’”
Chapter 21
South Florida
Deep in the Everglades
Travis sat on the back porch alone, eating breakfast.
Cooper appeared in the doorway, the forever sheen of sweat on his bald head dripping into his eyes, forcing him to wipe it away every few minutes.
“So how come you’re not joining us at the table?” he asked.
Travis only shrugged and took a mouthful from his bowl of stew. Venison and cabbage and something else his aunt Trudy wouldn’t divulge. Had they not fed every last bit of the two men from last night to Harlon’s new congregation of gators around back, he might have wondered whether the secret ingredient was them. Trudy was certainly fucked up enough to do such a thing. They all were.
Only it wasn’t the kind of fucked up Travis had grown accustomed to. Their “fishing” excursion last night had proved to be only mildly amusing. At first it had seemed promising, bringing the older of the two back alive, seeing his expression when the younger one was dumped into the gators’ pen.
At that point, Travis had felt that familiar tingle in his belly he had grown to love. Began to feel it course through his body like the burgeoning climax he’d only ever experienced in dreams. He was counting on the family to feed the older man to the congregation of gators while he was still alive. Witnessing such a thing would have been nice. The dread. The emotional suffering. To stretch it out as long as possible.
But they had not. With the exception of witnessing the man’s absolute terror as he watched his dead companion be torn apart and devoured by thrashing blurs of teeth, knowing that he was to be next, the remainder had been painfully unfulfilling, his climax thwarted as cruelly as a stroking hand that changed her mind midway.
They’d simply cut the older man’s throat, bled him out, and then tossed his lifeless body in. The end.
“Something on your mind, son?” Cooper asked.
Travis swallowed a spoonful of stew and shook his head.
“Thought we had ourselves a bit of a bonding moment last night,” Cooper said. “I guess not.”
Travis lifted his head from his bowl. “Last night was all right.”
“Just ‘all right,’ huh?”
Travis shrugged again and stuffed in another mouthful of stew.
“Son, I know you ain’t the talking type, but I’m gonna need you to start telling me what’s on your mind, ’cause right now I’m starting to get the feeling you think you’re too good for us.”
Travis shook his head. “No, no—it ain’t that, sir…it ain’t that.”
“Call me Granddaddy, you hear?” He appeared annoyed with his own insistence. “No more of this ‘sir’ and ‘ma’am’ bullshit. You’re family. I’m Granddaddy—” He gestured through the doorway towards the kitchen. “And in there’s your aunt Trudy, your uncle Wayne, and your cousin Darla. I don’t wanna hear you calling them nothing else, you hear?”
“What about Harlon?”
Cooper’s frown dissolved. He chuckled into his fist. “Oh right…and your uncle Harlon. Although seeing as how you fixed him the way he is now, I suppose you could call him half uncle—no, make that quarter uncle.” He chuckled into his fist again.
; Travis smiled.
“Well, now, that’s a bit better; he’s coming to life, folks.” He wiped more sweat from his eyes. “So, you gonna tell me what’s going on in that head of yours? Why you’re seeing fit to have breakfast out here all by your lonesome?”
“Guess I was hoping for more last night, is all,” Travis said.
“More? More like how?”
“I don’t know. It started all right, but it all kinda ended too quick for my taste.”
Cooper threw his head back and roared, a laugh that shook his big belly enough that he clutched it with both hands as if in pain.
Darla, hearing the laughter in the kitchen, terrified that she might actually miss a single second of fun, came sprinting out onto the porch. Her face, covered in breakfast and an accumulation of grime from days without bathing, was burning with need.
“What? What? What?” she cried.
Still laughing, Cooper bent and scooped her up, placing his granddaughter on his thick shoulders as he always did.
“Your cousin Travis here is itching to start a Roy Night.” He craned his neck to one side and looked up at his granddaughter. “How you feel about that, pumpkin?”
Darla bounced on her grandfather’s shoulders, squealing and squeaking, rubbing her hands back and forth over his sweaty scalp.
Cooper grinned up at her glee, then placed his eyes back on Travis. “I think she might just be excited some. What says you, Travis?”
“What is it?” Travis asked.
“What’s what?”
“Roy Night.”
“Why, it’s just what it sounds like, son. It’s a night for Roys.”
“Let me down, Granddaddy! Let me down!”
Cooper lifted Darla off his shoulders and set her down. She instantly bolted into the kitchen, shouting: “Roy Night! Roy Night! Roy Night!”
Cooper lifted his chin, eyeing Travis playfully, like a parent asking their sweet-toothed kid whether they wanted ice cream. “What do you say, Travis?”
“I say I’m curious.”
Cooper smiled.
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