I can’t stop watching the scene in my rearview mirror. I’m thirty yards away from the police. I could walk out of my truck, walk right up to them, and end all of this. That, too, might seem reasonable. The police are always the answer to those who have never needed them. The rest of us know. We understand. Between me and anyone else, my word loses. And that’s a horrid understatement in this case.
As I stare, other thoughts slip into my mind. I picture Lauren back at the cabin. I see her as if I am in two places at once. Time seems to speed up. She wastes away. Parched. Suffocated by the tape across her mouth. Her flesh dries and peels away, leaving nothing but bones. More bones.
Jesus!
I grind knuckles into my eyes, trying to push it all away. When I open them again, look back into the mirror, I see it. The dark blue Crown Victoria with a yellow strip and shield. Although I’m sitting in the city, that cruiser belongs to the Delaware State Police. Less than half an hour and it’s already here. Faster than I thought. My brother has a lot of friends in the state police. He worked in the Department of Public Safety for years before getting elected to County Council. There is only one reason they would be responding to a call in the city limits.
Seeing it, I grab the wheel, gripping it so tightly that a bone in the back of my hand crackles. Sitting there in my truck, I’d convinced myself that everything was progressing as I meant it to. But it was a lie. It is always a lie.
As if in answer to my thoughts, a Mustang Shelby 350, blue with a black stripe, appears in the intersection not far behind the police. The sight of it vibrates through my body. To see him so close, so quickly. It is electric. It is contrary. My first impulse is to get the hell out of there, to run away. Never look back. But he is like a star, his gravity tugging at the very center of me, drawing me ever toward him.
My hand is shaking. He’s right at the corner. So close. Everyone else, everything else, it all just disappears. It is just Drew and me, careening together at terminal velocity.
“Fuck!” I say, but the word is so soft that I can’t even hear it.
The engine roars. I swerve back onto the street and leave him behind. For now.
I’M STILL SHAKING when I roll to a stop outside of the second cabin nestled among the trees lining the old swim club. I try to list the steps of the plan, but they won’t appear in my head, not fully. Words dance just on the edges, hard words that hint at unwinnable choices.
I know one thing. Lauren Branch is bound and helpless inside the cabin just outside my window. It is the only truth now. I lift my hand up, hold it before my eyes. I will it to stop shaking. It takes a second but it eventually stills. Once it does, I lean over and pop open the glove box. When I reach it, I immediately feel the cool grip of the Ruger 9 mm semiautomatic pistol sitting above my registration and insurance card. My fingers wrap around it, finding the trigger guard.
Things are moving fast. I need to stay one step ahead of my brother or everything’s lost. So I get out of the car, gun in hand, and walk slowly up the decking, to the locked door, the only thing between me and the woman I have abducted.