Committed (14 page)

“That’s theirs all right. We have him on video walking with them from the gas station out front of the store,” Hampton said.

Beth tossed them down next to the sweatshirt and walked back to the lieutenant and me. “Do you just want to have someone from your department collect that?” Beth asked.

Hampton nodded.

We continued up the driveway until it turned left directly in front of the house. I glanced over. The home looked the better part of a hundred years old. The big white farmhouse was two stories with a small front porch. A few children’s toys were scattered on the grass. A tire swing hung from a single large tree at the front. Back behind the house was a small shed that looked equally as old. A man stood at the back of an exceptionally nice nineteen-seventies orange-and-white pickup truck backed up near the house. The truck was lifted on big tires, but not so big as to look out of proportion. I imagined the man had put some serious time into the restoration.

He looked over at us and tossed us a wave. “Help you?”

The three of us walked over. He sat down on the open tailgate on the tonneau covered bed of his truck.

“Afternoon,” Lieutenant Hampton said.

He gave us a nod. “Still looking, I assume,” he said. The man wore a blue hooded sweatshirt and jeans. A mesh-backed baseball cap sat on his head with a bit of brown hair curling out from around the cap’s sides.

“We are,” the lieutenant said.

Beth and I introduced ourselves to the man as FBI. The guy said his name was Jim Rieger.

“Yeah, a couple of officers came through here a half hour or so ago. They said they were looking for a man and a woman. I let the guys have a look around the property, but I’ll tell you, just like I told them, I’ve been outside here all day and haven’t seen anyone. My wife told them she heard some dogs barking coming from the subdivision through the trees there.” The man pointed to the east.

“Is she here?” I asked.

“Babe!” the man yelled. “Catherine!” he yelled again.

A moment later, a woman appeared from the front screen door of the house and stood on the porch. The door clanked shut at her back. She stared down at us. Her dark-brown hair hung down along the sides of her thin face.

“Tell them what you told the other officers,” the man said.

The woman cleared her throat, and her first couple of words crackled. “I just said that I heard some dogs barking earlier, maybe about forty-five minutes to an hour ago, I guess. I didn’t think much of it. I think it was coming from maybe the second house down. I couldn’t really tell.”

“And the sound was coming from the other neighborhood back there, you said?” Beth asked.

The woman cleared her throat again and nodded.

“There’s actually a little path that goes right through,” the man said. “I see some of the subdivision kids come through every now and then. They cut through and then head on down the road. Probably going to one of the restaurants or stores or something out on the main street.”

“Show us,” the lieutenant said.

The man walked from the back of the truck and led the way to where his driveway ended. He pointed through the trees, down a one-foot-wide path that stretched out about fifty feet back. A street was visible on the other end.

“If they came down my drive, they must have been running and dipped through there while my back was turned or something.”

“They definitely came up your driveway,” Beth said. “We found some articles of clothing of theirs in the bushes right back there.” Beth turned and pointed toward where she’d found the sweatshirt.

“The other officers thought the same and then went to check the golf course. Who knows, maybe they saw me outside and hightailed it through the woods into the subdivision.”

“This is probably too close to where they knew we’d immediately look,” the lieutenant said.

“What’s the deal with these two that you’re looking for? I mean, is this something my wife and I should be worried about?”

I wanted to tell the guy how lucky he was that two wanted murderers had passed over his property but remained quiet.

“They’re extremely dangerous,” Beth said.

“You better hope your husband puts on an Academy Award–winning performance down there and gets rid of them, or both you and this little shit’s brains are going to be all over that wall,” Molly said. She held the sniffling boy directly in front of herself, her hand over the boy’s mouth to keep his sobbing quiet. “What’s it looking like out there, baby?” she asked.

Nick held the woman in front of him with the barrel of his gun pressed into her side. The woman didn’t cry—she’d been silent and dry-eyed since a few minutes after the pair had arrived at the house an hour prior. He pulled the woman to the window and quickly looked down at the group talking near the porch. “He’s talking to the cops.” Nick put his mouth near the woman’s ear and walked backward from the window, dragging her along. “He better get rid of them soon. I actually think my girl there is looking for a reason to kill your son.” He jammed the gun into her ribs harder. He felt the woman jerk.

“Babe!” a voice shouted. “Catherine!” the man called again.

“If I don’t go down, those cops are going to come inside,” the woman said, the first words she’d spoken since Molly had ordered her to quit crying and shut up if she didn’t want her son strangled to death in front of her.

Nick pushed her away. “Get rid of them. Same story you gave the other cops. Anything cute, and little Ricky here gets it.”

“His name is Mark,” she said.

“His name is going to be Dead if you don’t get down there and get rid of those cops.” Nick waved her from the room with the barrel of his gun. She walked toward her son and reached out for him.

“Bitch, I will shoot you in the face if you touch him,” Molly said, taking the gun from the sniveling kid’s temple and pointing it directly at the woman.

The woman mouthed
I’ll be right back
to her son, turned, and walked out.

“That bitch is going to talk,” Molly said. “Let’s just take the group out from up here before it’s too late. We have the upper hand here.”

Nick remained quiet, in thought. He heard the screen door downstairs clank against its frame.

“Baby, come on. There’s only three of them.” Molly positioned herself to the side of the window. “They won’t even shoot back. Not if there’s a kid in here. Look”—she pointed the barrel of her gun at the window and down—“boom, boom, and boom. They’re dead, we take the guy’s truck, and we leave.”

“No,” Nick said. “They’ve been following instructions. I told them if they played it cool, we’d leave them unharmed.”

“You weren’t actually serious about that, were you? Let’s just kill them, kill the cops, and go.”

“No, Molly. We’re doing this my way. These two won’t risk us hurting their kid.”

“This little rat? Look at this kid. He pissed his pants. He’s been whining like a little girl since we got here.”

Molly removed her hand from the kid’s mouth, and he began crying and taking huge gulps of air. The boy started a sustained wail that was gradually growing in volume.

“Shut him up,” Nick said with a clenched jaw.

Molly replaced her hand over the kid’s mouth, silencing him. “I’m just saying. I think we should just kill everyone and leave.”

“Yeah, I heard you each time you said that. And that’s not what we’re doing. We start shooting, and the noise will draw more cops.”

“So we kill them too,” Molly said.

“Enough, Molly. Just do what I say.”

Nick went to the window and looked out. The homeowner pushed himself from the tailgate of his truck and led the cops toward the end of the driveway. The screen door clanked against the frame again, followed by footsteps headed upstairs. Nick lifted his weapon and pointed it at the doorway. The woman walked through. “He’s leading them away. I told them the same thing I told the other cops—I heard dogs barking in the other subdivision. They don’t suspect anything.”

“You better damn well hope they don’t,” Molly said.

Nick took a few steps toward the woman, grabbed her by the arm, and yanked her to him. He wrapped his left arm around her chest, pulled her back into him, and stuck his gun against her side. Nick walked her back to the edge of the window and watched her husband and the cops looking into the tree line at the back corner of the property.

Molly stared at Nick. Nick returned her stare. Molly’s nose twitched, and her eyes narrowed.

“What?” Nick asked.

“Nothing,” Molly said.

“Don’t tell me
nothing
. I can see it on your face.”

“You don’t value my opinion.
Just do what I say
? What kind of way is that for you to talk to me? We could have killed those pigs and been out of here already.”

“Baby, let’s just handle this my way.”

“Yeah, exactly. Do things your way, and what I think doesn’t matter.”

“It’s not like that.”

“Sounds exactly like that to me.”

“Don’t make a thing out of this, Molly,” Nick said.

“More orders? Yes, sir.” She mumbled the word
prick
under her breath.

He shook his head. “Did you just call me a prick?”

Molly shrugged. “I call it like I see it.”

“Really? Yeah, you’re a real genius when it comes with staying under the radar. Maybe we should light the house on fire so everyone knows exactly where we are?”

Molly let out a puff of air through her nose. “Go to hell.”

“Come on. This isn’t the time for this shit,” Nick said. “Get it together.”

“Get it together? Meaning I don’t have it together?”

“Quit, Molly.”

“Whatever. You’re in charge. Let’s just sit here. I’m sure you’re enjoying having that bitch all pressed up against you.”

Nick snapped his head away from the window and looked at Molly. “What in the hell are you talking about?”

“I’m just making an observation. I think it looks like you’re enjoying having her that close to you,” Molly said. “Probably turning you on.”

“You have to be kidding me right now,” he said.

“Do I look like I’m kidding?”

“Baby, please, just be quiet. This isn’t the time.”

“This is the perfect time, and don’t
baby
me,” Molly said. “Is she what you want now?”

“Do you hear yourself?” Nick asked.

Molly shoved the kid toward Nick and walked toward the doorway leading out of the bedroom.

“Where the hell are you going?” he asked.

“You’ll see,” she said, her back to Nick. She left the room.

“Don’t you dare leave this house,” Nick said.

Molly didn’t respond.

Nick could hear her footsteps heading down the stairs to the first floor. He stared out the window, hoping Molly wouldn’t appear outside. Nick listened for the clack of the screen door but heard nothing.

The mother grabbed the boy in her arms and held him close. Nick kept his grasp on her. “Put your hand over that kid’s mouth. A peep, and I snap his neck.”

The mother did as instructed.

“Good. You just keep him close,” Nick said. “If that kid runs from this room, your blood will run from your body.”

The woman didn’t make a sound. The only noise came from the boy’s erratic breathing and the faint whining from his mouth being muffled from his mother’s hand.

Nick watched out the window while the cops appeared to be looking into the woods at the driveway’s edge. Then he heard footsteps coming back up the stairs. He turned his head to see Molly at his shoulder with a butcher knife. She jabbed the blade in front of him, and he looked down. Molly had plunged the knife into the side of the woman’s neck. Blood spilled from the woman’s throat and covered his arm.

“What the hell are you doing!” Nick said.

Molly let go of the knife’s handle—the knife remained lodged in the woman’s throat. Molly grabbed the kid, yanked him in front of herself, and placed a hand over his mouth. She turned her back to Nick and walked the kid toward the corner of the room. “Let’s see the bitch turn you on now,” Molly said over her shoulder. She kept one hand over the boy’s mouth and pressed his face directly into the room’s corner.

Nick let the woman drop to the ground and stared down at her. The woman’s hands reached for her neck. She grasped the knife’s handle briefly before her grip went limp.

“Dammit, Molly! Everything was going just fine, and you get some stupid idea in your brain and have to go off the rails.”

Molly looked back at him. “Whatever. It’s done, and I feel better about the situation.” She nodded at the woman, lying in a pool of her own blood. “Give me that knife so I can kill this little shit.”

“You’re not killing that kid,” Nick said. He placed his foot on the dead woman’s head to create leverage and reached down to yank the knife from her throat. The knife slid out with a sound of suction. Nick walked to the bed in the room and used the bloody knife to cut two strips of fabric from the bedsheet. Then he walked to Molly and held out the strips. “Tie his hands and gag him.”

Molly looked away.

“Ugh,” Nick said. He grabbed the boy’s hands and tied them behind his back. Nick spun the boy around to face him, put the center of the strip of bedsheet in the kid’s mouth, and tied it around his head. The boy stared at his mother’s body as tears streamed down his cheeks. Nick pulled the boy toward the closet, opened the door, and pushed him inside. “There, problem solved,” he said.

“Yeah, whatever,” Molly said.

Nick walked to the window and glanced outside. The cops were gone, and he caught a glimpse of the man walking back toward the house. A moment later, he heard the screen door clacking against its frame downstairs. The man’s climbing footsteps caught Nick’s ear. He closed the bedroom door halfway and put his back to the wall beside the door. Molly stood against the far wall staring at the doorway.

“I got rid of them,” the man said from the hall outside of the door. “They went through the woods to the other neighborhood.”

Nick watched the door push open at his shoulder. He swung the knife in a backhand motion into the man’s chest as he came through the doorway. The man stumbled into the room and dropped to his knees.