The Recruiter (A Thriller) (24 page)

“Three thirty four Bear Den Lake Road.”

The woman’s voice on the other end is breathless.
Did she actually run to the phone?
Esposito wonders. If she did, she deserves a gold fucking star.

“Got it,” he says and slams the phone down, mentally reminding himself to find out who she is and to thank her properly.

He snatches the phone back off the cradle and immediately calls the dispatcher, gives her the address, and tells her to notify the local police and have them immediately send all available officers to the address. He gets basic directions from the dispatcher, and she tells him it’s no more than fifty miles north of the city.

Esposito races for his car. He can be there in an hour. Something in his gut tells him he needs to go. That Ackerman is there. And the girl.

God knows what he’ll find when he gets there.

Gasping for her breath, Beth watches as Samuel gets to his feet with a roar. In his hand is the fireplace shovel, the very same one her mother had used to clobber Samuel and break free. Now, as a scream flies from Beth’s throat, the shovel swings in a high arc and smacks with a meaty thud on the side of her mother’s face.

Beth hears bone crunch and watches as Anna falls to the floor.

Samuel steps over Anna without so much as a glance. Beth is wobbly and disoriented.
This can’t be happening,
she thinks.
This can’t be happening.

“Samuel.”

“You shouldn’t have changed your mind, Beth.”

His voice is the same. But everything else is different. His eyes are almost yellow with an insane light. His face is waxy. A streak of blood from his scalp streams down the side of his head.

“But why are you doing this?” Her voice is hollow and thin, and she can hear herself pleading. She starts to go toward her mother, lying motionless on the floor, blood now pooling around her head. She stops, knowing what Samuel will do if he gets the chance.

“Why? I just needed a recruit,” he says. His voice low and gritty. His jaw is clenched. The muscles in his face bulge as they become slick with blood.

He is coming toward her now, backing her against the wall.

“All I needed to be a SEAL was to get a few lousy fucking recruits—one who was supposed to be you, Beth—and then in a few months, I would have been on my way. But no, you had to change your mind and decide you want to play basketball. Because that was your dream, right? Well, what about my dream, Beth? Huh? What about my fucking, goddamn dream that everyone seems to want to shit all over? Well the good goddamned fuck if I’m going to let everyone else live their dreams while mine go down the fucking toilet. Now do you understand, Beth?”

Beth sees the spittle hanging from Samuel’s mouth. She understands everything now. Samuel is completely insane and will kill her unless she can think of something. Anything.

“Okay, okay. I’ll go in the Navy if you let me go.”

“Too late, Beth, and I’m not that fucking stupid. The minute you leave here, it’s all over. In fact, it’s over anyway. It’s too late for me now too.” His voice trails off.

A soft moan escapes Anna’s mouth, and Beth turns, just for a split second, shocked that her mother is still alive. In the brief slice of time, she realizes the move is a mistake.

She snaps her head back to see the flash of silver as the shovel whips at her face.

Beth reacts, unthinkingly, her basketball reflexes still lightning-quick despite the months of rehab. She ducks her head at the last moment, and the shovel smashes down on her shoulder. At the same time, she lashes out with her foot, catching Samuel in the solar plexus. He sinks to his knees as Beth is knocked backward against the cabin wall. Beth recovers first, wrenches the shovel away from Samuel, and swings it. The blow isn’t very powerful, but it cracks him in the temple, and he falls to the floor.

Beth staggers to her feet, stepping toward her mother. Her legs wobble beneath her, the pain in her knee is searing. The cabin floor tilts upward at her. She regains her sense of balance. She looks again at her mother.

She’s dead.

She has to be.

Her face is gray.

Her mouth is open.

The pool of blood is big…and spreading. A gasp catches in Beth’s throat. She starts to walk toward her mom, wanting to hold her and stroke her hair, but just then, Samuel gets to his knees. He shakes his head, and then his eyes clear, and he looks at Beth.

She holds his gaze for just a moment.

And then she follows the only course of action available to her.

She runs as best she can.

The cold night air hits her like a slap. It speeds the focus of her thoughts, and she considers which way to run. The road. Samuel is faster. He’ll catch her for sure. Off the road—in the woods. Maybe she can duck into the woods somewhere, and Samuel will run by her.

Even as she limps across the front lawn of the cabin, she knows it won’t work. He’ll be right behind her and will see her before she can hide and try to get back to her mom.

She hears the cabin door bang open as Samuel crashes through it. Instantaneously, she veers toward the water’s edge, toward a small boat pulled hastily ashore. Beth breaks for the boat, a sudden lightning rod of pain striking her knee, and she nearly falls. The agony of it nearly topples her as she feels muscle and ligament, freshly healed, now tearing again. She screams, a moan and a wail all rolled up into one.

And then she is on top of the boat, pushing it into the water. It’s her only chance. Samuel can swim, but he can’t beat her in a boat with a motor. And there isn’t another boat nearby. Maybe she can make it across the lake and get help before he figures out a way to get to her.

Her entire body is shaking as she pushes the boat into the water, not bothering to slow down or break stride. She hits it full force, and the boat rockets from the sand and skids into the water, Beth behind it pumping and pushing. Before long, she is in thigh-deep water. With one last heave, she launches herself up and into the boat, landing in the bottom with a thud. Her shoulder crashes into the bench, and pain stabs into her ribs. Her head is inundated with pain; her shoulder from where Samuel hit her with the shovel is throbbing.

She struggles to the back of the boat, and her hand grasps the pull cord of the small outboard motor.

She yanks on it. Nothing happens.

“Oh God,” she pleads. “Please, please, please…”

She yanks again on the cord.

The motor remains silent.

Beth dares a look at the cabin.

Samuel is across the grass.

He’s charging into the water.

She regains her focus and turns back to the engine. She spies the choke and pulls it all the way out.

She yanks on the cord, and this time, the engine roars to life. But the boat’s not going anywhere. Beth sees the motor is in neutral. She pushes the lever to reverse, and the boat slams backward.

She puts her hand on the throttle, and twists it all the way to the right. The motor screams, and suddenly, the boat rocks. At first, she thinks it’s from the motor, but then something wet, cold and hard snakes around her throat.

“Gotcha,” Samuel says.

Beth is face down in the boat, Samuel leaning on her with his knee in her back. The boat is rocking, pounding the waves as he steers it out toward deeper water.

“You just don’t give up, do you, Beth?” he says.

“Let me go.”

“Can’t do that. I don’t quit either. That’s why we like each other so much, Beth.”

She pushes against him, but it’s no use. Her knee is useless, her lower left leg flopping around like a loose rope. A stream of water pours into her mouth, and she gags. Is this how she’s going to die? Is he going to kill her first and then throw her overboard?
Stop it,
she thinks.
You can’t let him win. You can’t let him win.

“Is this what SEALs do, Samuel? Kill old women and injured girls?” The words shoot from her mouth, and she knows they land with unerring accuracy. When he speaks, his voice is a mixture of acid and ice.

“Shut the fuck up, Beth. Or I’ll kill you the hard way—with a lot of pain.”

Suddenly the boat stops moving, and the engine throttles down. Beth is yanked to her feet, and she faces Samuel. His eyes are flat and cold. His hands move up around her throat. She kicks and hits him but to no avail.

His hands tighten.

Beth holds her breath, but the kicking and hitting takes her oxygen, and soon she has to gasp.

But no air will come.

She spits into Samuel’s face, but he remains impassive, looking at her with cool disinterest.

Beth feels her eyes cloud over. She feels unnaturally light, like her feet are off the ground and she’s floating.

This is what it’s like to die,
she thinks.

And then Beth hears a roaring in her ears.

Not what she expected at death’s door, a roaring, but there it is.

And it’s getting louder.

Suddenly, Beth sees Samuel look away from her. His hands relax for a moment, enough for her to turn her head.

And she sees out of the corner of her eye a police car with its lights and siren going.

Samuel’s hands relax even more around Beth’s throat.

The blow to his testicles is brutal, and the pain blossoms throughout his body. He sinks to his knees. He rolls over and looks up into Beth’s eyes.

“Beth,” he says. “I love you.”

She hesitates for just a moment, and he kicks out, hard, catching her in the solar plexus. Then Samuel is up and into Beth, knocking her backward where she lands against the motor, breaking it from its wooden platform. The propeller comes out of the water, moving slowly, while the engine races in neutral.

“You should have just drowned, Beth. It would have been far less painful,” Samuel says.

“I don’t give up,” she gasps.

“Admirable.”

“High praise coming from a SEAL
wannabe
,” Beth says. “You’ll never make it, you know.” Her hair is in wet tangles, and her face is a sheet of pure white.

“I won’t?”

“You’re a coward inside. You’re a quitter. You take the easy way out. That’s got nothing to do with being a soldier. A soldier is all about honor and courage. You’ve got none of that. You’ll never be a SEAL. But you’ll always be a piece of shit.”

He springs at her, but she rolls out of the way and swings the oar from the bottom of the boat. It catches him in the middle of the forehead, and stunned, he lands on his stomach on the bottom of the boat. He reaches out and grabs Beth’s left ankle. He wrenches it with everything he has, and she screams as Samuel feels the knee collapse. Beth falls forward, over the motor. She hears something crack, sees the plywood transom holding the small engine in place split in half. The motor swings free, roaring as the prop clears water.

Beth’s leg knocks the throttle, and the engine howls.

Samuel rolls onto his back, still holding Beth’s left leg. He wrenches it again the other way, and Beth screams.

And then Samuel looks up.

He sees the motor in Beth’s hands.

Sees the prop comes down.

Suddenly, the engine revs, and the prop is an invisible blur.

And then she plunges the motor down.

Into Samuel.

The gym is less than half full. This surprises Anna. She had always pictured college basketball games as gymnasiums packed full of crazy, screaming kids with their faces painted in the school colors, waving banners and yelling at the referees.

But here, the bleachers are empty for the most part. And not very many kids are here. It seems mostly to be parents, who tend not to paint their faces and wave banners.

Anna shifts her weight on the hard wooden surface. Her body has not fully recovered from the insanity of a year and a half ago. She nearly died that night. She remembers nothing after cutting through the tape that had bound her, breaking the trunk release, and confronting Samuel. The last image was of him swinging the fireplace shovel at her. After that, the new memories start in the hospital. Having her jaw wired, her ribs taped, and CAT scans done to see if there was any brain damage from when Ackerman had strangled her.

But she is as good as can be, considering her life.

At times, she still can’t believe the miracle. Initially, she had tried to email Beth’s highlight video to the prospective colleges, but the file had been too big and every attempt to email it had failed. That was why she put the video on a thumb drive and asked Ackerman to mail them.

But one of her email attempts had actually gone through.

And it had gone to the right coach at the right time.

A miracle.

Anna’s thoughts are broken by the sound of the pep band blaring the opening notes to “Sweet Georgia Brown.” The teams run onto the court, and Anna automatically searches for Beth, spotting her instantly. Anna watches her, amazed as always at the recovery. After the scene at Ackerman’s cabin, Beth had yet another surgery on the knee and then had thrown herself into rehab like a woman possessed. No more feeling sorry for herself.

Now, Anna watches Beth move through the pregame warmups. She is moving smoothly and confidently. Maybe not as quickly as she had been as a senior in high school, but with the same easy grace.

Now, watching Beth, Anna thinks of all the people hurt by Ackerman. All because one sick mind put everything he wanted above everything else. Above life even.

The shrill insistence of the referee’s whistle makes Anna look up. The teams are assembling at center court.

The referee is ready to toss the ball.

Anna finds Beth sitting on the bench. She watches her daughter shout out encouragement to her teammates. Beth is happy. Happier than she’s ever been in her life.

She has come to grips with Peter’s death, thrown herself into her classes and is studying psychology. So far, she is acing all of her classes. 

The referee tosses the ball, and the game begins. It is not until shortly before halftime that the opposing players drop into a 2-3 zone. Beth is immediately called from the bench by her coach and placed in the game. Anna knows that Beth has spent most of her time in practice perfecting her shot. Relieved of ball-handling duties, she has turned her uncannily accurate, purely fluid shot into something even more precise and deadly.

The point guard on Beth’s team, a small, lightning-quick girl brings the ball up the court. Beth fans out to the left side of the court.

Anna sits back in her seat. She is calm. She knows what’s going to happen, and for her, it signifies the new life she and Beth have reconstructed since Samuel Ackerman walked into their lives and blew the old one apart.

The point guard drives into the middle of the lane, and the opposing players collapse the zone to protect the inside. With a subtle flick of her wrist, the point guard shoots the ball over to Beth who has squared up toward the basket, her feet behind the three-point line.

Beth catches the ball deftly and, in one silky motion, brings the ball in and then up. Her arms and legs all working together effortlessly. The textbook demonstration of a pure shooter.

As the ball lofts through the air, the backspin perfect, Beth’s hand is hanging in the air in a perfect follow-through, as the ball swooshes through the net with barely a whisper.

THE END