Twisted: A Tracy Turner Murder Mystery Novel (The Tracy Turner Mystery Series Book 1) (24 page)

I peered inside the water and shivered. South Florida was gator country. When I peered in I could see the bottom. I didn’t see any evil eyes staring back, just a mixture of sand and stones. There were some rushes toward the middle of the river, but I would take a chance.

I spied a branch and picked it up. The sun blazed down on the stones and they were dry. I pierced the river bed with my makeshift walking stick and took my first step. The sun baked stone felt warm and comforting. I could do this.

Taking a few more steps, I grew hopeful. I needed to follow the stone pattern. They were the stepping stones to freedom. He would never have thought that I would cross. The next plunge of my stick indicated that the water was at least six feet deep. I shuddered at the unexpected dip.

I was in the middle of the river now. On the other side of the bank the trees were dense. They gave shade and covered the stones with a waxy green sheen. I was almost there. No going back now. I dared not to turn my head. What if he was waiting for me on the other side? His gun gleamed in my mind’s eye and edged me on.

One more step closer. The water was flowing faster now. I put the stick in. This time it went in deeper than the last and stuck fast in the sand. Placing my foot on the stone, I pulled at the stick. I tried to dislodge it, but it didn’t budge. I pulled at it again and my foot splayed out like I had stepped on a banana peel.

I hung on to the stick for a moment, but it gave way. I plunged deep into the water and bobbed up again. Coughing and sputtering, I held on to the closest rock. I tensed my body and clung on. My fingers gave way. I felt a wave against my back. My fingers scratched the rock and I slipped back into the water.

I willed myself back up, but my foot was entangled in a giant root. I pulled on it and felt a searing pain. The blue green water turned red and then black.

A drip, drip, dripping sound drove me crazy. It added to the pain in my head. I wanted to rub the place that hurt, but I couldn’t move my arms. Drip, drip, drip, it continued. “Close the damn tap,” screamed a voice in my head.

My eyes fluttered open, but I couldn’t see a thing. Where was I? What had happened? I was no longer running. It must have been a dream.

My eyes were getting accustomed to the light. The chink of light under the door helped. I was lying on a narrow bed. The thin mattress was hard. A spring dug into my back. I felt wet and cold. I wriggled my bottom to try and get more comfortable, wanting to roll over, but my arms wouldn’t move.

The memories pierced through like shards. I was running. Mike was behind me, following me, taunting me. I fell into the water, hit the bottom, and kicked back up. How had I got here? Brett. It was Brett. He had found me. I knew he’d come. Was I in a hospital? Why couldn’t I move my arms?

The door opened with a crash. My head felt like it had been split open. Daylight flooded into the room. I cringed and closed my eyes. I opened them one at a time. This way the light was tolerable. A silhouette framed the door post. Too thin and too tall, it wasn’t Brett. It was Mike.

He stood at the doorway and watched me. When he realized that I was awake, he entered the room and grunted. My arms were bound to the posts of the steel-framed bed. In front of me was a tiny kitchenette. The cabin was sparsely decorated. There was a dining table and a few chairs scattered around the room.

“I told you I’d find you,” he said. “Did not think you’d be stupid enough to actually run.”

“Where am I?”

“My home away from home; the heart of the Henderson estate.” There was pride in his voice. “Old man Henderson first built this place when he moved to these parts years ago. Now no one comes here but me.”

I remembered Millie talking about the place. It was their first home in South Florida. She wouldn’t come here since Harry’s death. “Too many memories,” she’d said. A few times a year she would have the place cleaned. What would she say if she knew I was being held here?

He limped across the room and flopped down into a wicker chair. A rudimentary bandage was tied around his shin. He had been injured in the exchange. That was why he had slowed down. That was how I had made it that far.

I tugged on my bindings.

He laughed. “They are not coming off. I found you lying in the water. I could have left you there. It stopped raining. You slept through it.”

“Why didn’t you leave me… Why didn’t you just let me die?”

“You are my ticket out of here. As long as I have you, they won’t touch me. That boyfriend of yours will do anything for you.”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” I said through gritted teeth.

“Or whatever you call yourselves. I have a first-class ticket to the Bahamas. My flight is a few hours away. I’ve got to sit tight till then. No one would find me here. If anyone did and they tried to stop me, I’ll tell them that I will kill you.”

“You think you’ve got it all figured out, huh?”

“Think? I know how it’s going to happen. When you came to my house, you did me a favor. Now because of you I’ll be getting away. Funny, huh?”

I bit down on my upper lip and averted my gaze.

“Then I can get away from that miserable place and I can start a new life.” He stared at the briefcase of cash at the door.

“So that’s your plan? You want to keep me here and you think that they won’t find a way to get you. That’s awfully dumb.”

“Look, bitch, don’t make me kill you like the last man who called me a fool.” He caressed the weapon as though it was a kitten. He pointed the knife at me. “She’s my friend and she’s been real useful.”

“You killed Frank because he called you a fool? Did you know that he was your father?”

“Of course I knew. That’s why I went to him for help.”

“And he refused?”

“He said that I was not his, that I was like Doug. I was nothing like him. I didn’t belong with that whack job. Being in that house drove me crazy. I went to my real father for help, but he laughed at me. I couldn’t stand it. I’m not a fool.”

I changed tactics. He was getting irritated and I needed him to stay calm or I would get my head blown off. He seemed to be in a talkative mood; that would help me buy some time.

“But why did you kill Katherine?”

“The stupid bitch double-crossed me. I gave her the letter and she promised to give me money, but when Frank died she said she had no use for the letter. She said that she’d tell the police if I didn’t leave her alone.”

“What about your dad?”

“You mean Doug? What about him? He was good for nothing. A damn fool. He was an embarrassment to me and an embarrassment to himself. Do you know he can’t even read?”

“You sent him messages.”

“That’s just to mess with him. He’s a great pretender. He’d been fooling the Henderson’s for years. The man’s a complete loony tune.”

“But he loves you…”

He sniffed and turned his face away.

“Doug knew that you killed Frank. He tried to protect you.”

“He was meddling. He tried to get the letter back from Katherine. I told him that I would take care of it. The fool almost got us caught.”

“So Doug knew everything, yet he tried to help you?”

“He didn’t do anything for me. Everything I had, I’ve earned. I take care of myself, always have. He pretended to be my dad, but I knew, I always knew.”

“You knew that Frank was your father, but you still killed him?”

“He had no respect. He laughed at me on the golf course that morning. All I asked was for his help.”

“You needed money?”

He nodded. “But he said that I would amount to nothing. He said that I was not his son. I heard them talking to Doug at the bar, so he knew. Oh yes, he knew. He said… he said I was a good for nothing b-bastard.” His eyes flashed at the memory.

“That would have hurt,” I said. “You looked up to him. I saw the pictures in your drawer. You loved him. You knew for years”

“I watched him, the way he walked, how he talked, his strokes. I was his.” Mike’s voice cracked. “I wanted to be just like him. B-but he… he wouldn’t give me the time of day.” His head drooped down and he sniffed. He raised his head with a jerk, nostrils flared and his glazed eyes narrowed to slits. “He said I would never amount to anything. I showed him didn’t I?” His face cracked into a twisted smile.

“I went to his room to scare him and show him who I was, what I could do. Burns was after me. I needed the help. He knew I was in trouble, but he didn’t care. I asked him. I pleaded.”

I rolled my eyes and snorted. “He had no money. He was in it as deep as you were, maybe worse. He couldn’t help you even if he wanted to. He was probably too proud to admit it.”

He took a step back and stared at me.

“Th-that’s not true. You are lying. He had that money in his room.” He nodded at the briefcase. “He was counting it when I went into the room. He lied that he had no money.”

“He was right. It wasn’t his. That was what he owed Burns. He was a gambler, just like you, and he was in trouble, just like you. Like father, like son, I guess.”

“Shut your dirty mouth.”

I felt cold steel against my temple. Though my clothes were damp the room was hot and stuffy. Sweat poured down my face and tickled my underarms.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…”

“Too late,” he barked

He cocked the gun.

I turned my head, but there was no getting away. The weapon followed my movement. A whimper escaped my lips. I felt hot and cold at the same time. Pulling at my bonds, the bed rattled in response. He snarled down at me. “Say goodbye, Tracy.”

The gun was plastered against my temple. I felt the sweat rippling down from my hairline onto my face. I shut my eyes and had to think fast. Why did I agitate him? I really needed to learn to keep my mouth shut. Think, I told myself. This is no time for regret. Reason with him. “There is no rationalizing with a mad man. Make your peace, Tracy,” said the voice. Get out of my head.

Think, I commanded. He has not pulled the trigger yet. I have come this far, and I can’t give up now. Help is on the way. It’s a matter of time now. I have to get over this moment, but how? In the middle of a forest, my arms immobile with only my legs free, and a gun so close to my head, I was going nowhere. My only hope was to somehow talk Mike out of pulling that trigger.

What about his mother? He had a photo of her on his table. He obviously cared about her. I could remind him about her and how she wouldn’t have wanted this from him. But would it work? What if she was an even stronger emotional trigger? What if her memory made him so angry that he took it as his cue to finish me off?

What else could I use? I worked through the clues that I had picked up about him over the last couple of days. I sifted the options and permutations, but nothing really felt right.

He had said that I was his contingency plan. I could play on that. What if I told him that his best option was for us to keep moving rather than being trapped inside the house?

I could say that my phone’s GPS coordinates were being tracked and that his best chance of getting away was to keep moving. I could play on his ego, that he knew the surroundings better than anyone else. Once we were outside I would give him the slip and I would double back here.

I heard him pull out something from his pocket. A drop of whiskey sloshed down on me. I opened an eye and peered up. He was drinking out of a bottle now. There was no other way. Getting drunker by the minute, his impatience grew. That could also mean that he would get sloppier with the gun or trigger happy. His injury would also make him slower. It would give me the chance to get away, at least it would buy me some time.

Millie had told me about a cellar beneath the house. Edward had built it in during the war as a safe haven to be used in case of an emergency, but it was never used for its purpose. It was the coolest place in the house and during warm nights the family would sleep down there. Did Mike know of it? Probably not. If he did, we would be down there.

Millie had said that it was directly beneath the house. I racked my brains trying to remember exactly what she had said about it. As I remembered, there was a trapdoor and a stairway that led down to it. It was at the entrance in front of the front door under a rug.

I glanced over to the door and it was ajar. Mike was so cocky that no one would find us that he had left the door wide open. There was a faded runner at the entrance as Millie had said there was.

It was a hard call, but I had to do something to save my life. I didn't want to die in this cabin. If I played my hand right, this would work. I hoped that I was about to do the right thing. If not, the next few words would be the last that I would ever utter.