Emma's Home (The Fairfield Series) (24 page)

Placing her hand on the rough bark of the tree in front of her to keep her balance, she leaned farther around the edge to see if she could identify the other man. She could see Ted facing in her direction, with his hands up.

“Come on man, put the gun away,” Ted said nervously.

Emma’s eyes searched the ground for something she could use as a weapon, but she saw nothing. Just then her pocket vibrated, and she realized someone was calling her cellphone. She quietly slid her hand into her pocket and pressed accept call. Looking down she saw it was from Jake.
Please let him hear what is going on.

J
ake and Tom finished interviewing Brad with his parents. Handling himself like a man, Brad gave clear answers and held nothing back. Wendy and Bill, were anguished that they had not tried harder to get their son to open up to them when they noticed his personality changes. They had chalked it up to teenage hormones, never realizing how much of it was due to the stress that he felt.

“Mom, Dad, you did nothing wrong – it was all me. I made stupid choices and then got scared. Coach even told me not to worry about it.”

Jake, Tom, Wendy, and Bill all looked at Brad incredulously.

“Coach? You told Coach Ted, and he said nothing?” Bill said, anger showing in his voice.

Brad looked around at the faces all staring at him, and he nervously admitted, “Yeah. I told coach right away, when I first got the note to stay quiet. He agreed and told me that the best thing I could do for everyone, including you and mom, was to stay quiet and pretend nothing happened.”

Wendy and Bill exploded in a flurry of cursing and threats. “Goddamn, son of a bitch, wait till I get my hands on him!” Bill threatened. Tom calmed them down and made them promise not to say anything to anyone until it could all be investigated. Wendy and Bill reluctantly agreed. Leaving, with their arms around Brad, they thanked the detectives for handling everything.

After they left, Jake looked over at Tom. “That son of a bitch works with Emma and knows she has been talking to the kids,” he cursed.

“Do you think he is the one who left Emma the notes?” Tom asked.

“I don’t know, but I sure as hell am going to find out.”

“Not alone, partner. I can’t have you go off halfcocked and ruin this investigation.” Tom threatened.

Jake turned and stared his partner in the eyes. “And what if it were Carol that were being threatened?” he asked. “Would you back off then?”

Tom stared right back at him, grim faced at the thought of someone ever harming his wife. “No.” Then he smiled at Jake. “But I sure as hell would want my partner at my back.”

Jake nodded his head firmly. “Damn straight. Let’s go.”

Striding out of the interview room, they grabbed their coats to head out the door. Sally, the dispatcher, called them back.

“I’ve got a message from your pretty lady, Detective Campbell.”

Turning back around, Jake pulled out his cell phone, noticing several missed calls from Emma. He started to call her back when the Sally continued her message. “She called earlier and talked to Mike. He headed out later to say he had to go check something out. Then Ms. Dodd called back to say that she had planned on being here with the Evans when they came in, but she decided to go out to find Mike. And she was….hmm, now what did she say exactly.” Sally shuffled through some papers quickly. Jake was already dialing Emma’s cell as Sally came up with the note.

“Oh yes, she said she was following someone suspicious from school and would try to meet up with Mike’s investigation.”

The Chief of Police walked over to Jake, looking confused. “Why the hell is your Emma following someone suspicious?” he bellowed.

“I don’t know, but I sure as fuck am going to find out!” Jake swore again.

Right then Emma picked up her phone.

“Emma, where the hell are you?” he roared. All he could hear was muffled sounds, and he gave Tom a questioning look.

“Put her on speaker,” Tom said wanting to hear what Emma was saying. Jake hit speaker as he, Tom, the Chief, and Sally all leaned in to listen more closely.

At first, Jake could just make out the sounds of two people arguing in the distance. His heartbeat began to pound as he realized that wherever Emma was, she wasn’t able to talk right at that moment but she must have wanted him to hear what was going on.

*

“I could shoot you now and dump your ass in the water. Or drag you over to the park and let the animals take care of you. So you got a choice. You either keep quiet, keep bringing those drugs over in the athletic buses from games, and you can keep living. How about that, you prick?”

“I never meant to get in this deep. I thought it was a time or two. I never meant for you to burn down this hut getting everyone suspicious. I can’t keep doing this to my boys.”

Jake and Tom looked at each other. “Ted,” they both said at the same time.

The chief turned to Sally. “Put out a call, I want everyone looking for Ted Williams and get Mike on his radio or cell phone. He is off somewhere, and we need to know if he knows where Emma Dodd is.”

Right then, they heard a gunshot and a scream.

“Mike, you son of a bitch, you shot me!” they heard Ted yell. There was a pause and then he screamed again, “Emma, NO!”

Another shot rang out.

B
lood pouring from his leg, Emma saw Ted go down. He looked up and cursed at Mike then saw her behind the tree. He tried to warn her away, and that was the last thing he was able to do before being shot again. Mike whirled around, gun still in his hand.

“Emma, you stupid bitch, why didn’t you stay away?”

Dumbfounded, Emma stared at the scene in front of her.

Mike? Mike? How could he be involved?

Looking at the gun in his hand, pointed directly at her, she felt fear trickle down her back in a way she had never known before. She wanted to run but was paralyzed at the sight of the gun.

“Goddamn, you are fucking up my plans!” he screamed.

“What plans?” Emma asked softly, thinking only to calm him. She had forgotten the phone in her pocket recording the scene like a bad movie script. Mike rubbed his hand over his face, then seemed to come to a decision. He walked over and grabbed her arm as she tried to back away.

“Come on, I gotta get rid of his body and then we’re going to take a little walk. Then I am going to simply lose you in the park, in the cold and dark. The chances of you getting out are minimal. That will give me time to get away, and everyone will still be looking for you and not me.” He held on to her upper arm tightly and started to drag her forward. He stepped over Ted’s body and pulled her over it when she hesitated. Emma tried not to look at Ted, but she had to see if he was still breathing. He was perfectly still, eyes staring open in death.

“Oh my god, you killed him!” Emma could feel the bile rising, and she flopped forward and began to throw up. Mike threw her on the ground in disgust. As soon as she stopped retching, he grabbed her arm again and hauled her to her feet.

“Roll his body down the embankment,” Mike ordered, swinging the gun wildly in the air. Emma stood in shock, not moving. Shoving her in front of him, he ordered her to move Ted’s body again.

“I… I… can’t. I… can’t,” Emma repeated, shaking her head, tears welling in her eyes.

The crack of Mike’s hand slapping her across the face sounded out in the silent woods. Her body jerked to the side with the impact of the blow. She brought her shaking hand up to touch her stinging cheek, feeling the wetness of tears streaming down her face.

“Emma, you do it now, or I will kill you here and bury you with Ted!” Mike shouted.

Terrified, Emma felt her legs give out as he forced her down on the ground next to Ted’s body. She tried to roll him, but his weight was too much. Frustrated, Mike grabbed her arm again and shoved her away. He rolled the body over the river embankment out of sight, while keeping his eyes on Emma. Still kneeling in the dirt, she wanting to run but could not seem to get her trembling legs to stand.

Finished with Ted, Mike trained the gun back on Emma as he stalked over to her. Grasping her bruised arm once again, he pulled her up and pushed her in front of him.

They walked to the edge of the Little River where an old log lay across it. Hesitating at the end of the log, she turned around to see what he wanted her to do. Mike used the butt of the gun to push her forward.

She tentatively placed her foot on the log, then stumbled across the distance over what she remembered Brad had referred to as a big creek. Perhaps it seemed narrow to teenagers playing in the summer, but Emma tried not to look at the swirling water rushing below her.

As they reached the other side, Mike ordered her to move forward a few steps and then told her to stand still. Turning around he pushed the log to the side, so that it fell into the water.

Emma wanted to run, but the gun trained on her back kept her following Mike’s orders. The wind blowing stronger, sent shivers through her. Her hands were cold, and she slid them into her pockets to keep them warm. As she did, she felt her cell phone.

Oh my God, I forgot the call from Jake. Oh please let him have been listening.

With new resolve, she decided to see if she could get Mike to talk just in case Jake was still on the phone.

“I don’t understand Mike. What did Ted mean by the athletic buses?”

“It was the perfect set up. My contacts in the pipeline needed an easy, undetectable way to keep the heroin coming into the area. One night Ted and I were at Smokey’s, just drinking and shooting the shit, when he mentioned that part of his job duties was that he had to arrange all the buses for the athletic teams when they travel from one county to another. God, it was so easy – the idea just came to me that night,” Mike bragged.

Emma kept her hand in her pocket, trying to hold the phone up in a way to maximize the chance that Jake could hear the conversation. She stumbled over a root and went down on her knees.

“Get up. We don’t have time for you to be stumbling every step.” He looked over at her. “Why are your hands in your pockets?” he asked.

“My hands are freezing – I’m just trying to keep them warm.” It was only a partial lie as she could feel the cold seep into her fingers as well as her toes.

“Girl, you are going to feel a lot colder before this is over.”

“Where are you taking me?” she asked, hoping he had a destination in mind that could be relayed to Jake.

“My Jeep is up here over this next ridge. I’m taking you on up the mountain and getting rid of you there. I’ll have time to get back to town, circle around, and join the search for you.” He chuckled, congratulating himself on his grand plan. “It won’t be too hard to get everyone off the trail.”

“Why did you burn down the old shack back there,” Emma asked, turning around to look at Mike’s face. His face darkened.

“Goddamn, you really have screwed things up since you landed here, you know that?” he growled. “No one has lived there for years; it was the perfect place to hide the stash when it came off the buses. Once I got Ted involved, my contact would get the drugs into the equipment bags on the buses while the teams were in the locker rooms. After the kids got home, Ted would bring the bags to the hut and lock them up. I would get them the next day and get them out to my southern contact. Goddamn, it was perfect. Then you moved in, and I had to try to keep you from wandering around your property.”

Remembering the times that Mike had warned her about the woods and vagrants, Emma remembered he convinced Jake that she didn’t need to walk around check out her acreage.

The landscape around them became steeper, and Emma was having a hard time walking. Her toes ached from the cold, and she was shivering under her coat. The wind picked up more, whipping her hair about her face. The woods were thick, bare limbs and underbrush scraping her hands, face, and legs as she stumbled along. Whenever she would stumble, Mike would curse and prod her with the gun again.

She looked back at Mike and was shocked to see that he seemed impervious to the cold or strain of climbing, as he continued his diatribe.

“The last drop I made, I wanted to make sure that there was no evidence in case you started looking, and I heard those kids across the river watching me. I knew I had to get rid of all evidence permanently so I set it on fire.” He chuckled to himself again. “I even stayed behind to handle the fire investigation after making sure that Jake was caring for you.”

Emma was astounded – Mike had been in the perfect position to make the contacts, cover evidence, even to make threats to keep everyone in line. And no one would suspect him. She even thought of him as a friend.

And Jake. Oh my god. This will kill him to think she was kidnapped by his friend. Fellow detective. A brother. A psychopath.

By this time, they were making the last climb to the top of the ridge. The cold had seeped in as Emma realized once again how poorly she was dressed. Her knee length skirt, stockings, and heeled boots made for poor hiking attire she thought ruefully. Her stockings were torn, and her knees were bleeding where she had fallen several times. She looked up and saw Mike’s familiar Jeep. She didn’t know if she was relieved or terrified.