Splintered (33 page)

What the hell?

“Quit sucking your thumb and get going.” He picked up the bags off the ground and followed behind her. Every once in a while, she would get off course and he’d have to steer her back.

At one point, Maddy stopped and looked down at the bottom of her foot. Hank gave her a good shove from behind and she fell face-first. He saw that the bottoms of her feet were bloody. He hadn’t thought to buy her shoes when he went shopping.

In a couple of hours the pain in her feet will be the least of her worries.

He dropped the bags and roughly got Maddy back on her feet. The rough handling didn’t help and she teetered, threatening to fall again. He let out a long, guttural howl.

A yelp escaped Maddy.

“So help me, if you don’t start walking . . .”

Maddy regained her balance and picked up her pace.

The small, still-rational part of him knew she couldn’t help it. With her hands cuffed, if she stumbled, the pack on her back shifted and she had no way to reposition it. Yet that logical part of his brain had all but shut off. With every mile they had travelled down the river, the rage inside him had built.

It’s Maddy’s fault we’re out here in the middle of nowhere. She’s the reason I had to leave Daniel behind. Everything was fine until she came along.

Hank couldn’t’ get his mind off Daniel.

Without me around for protection, how will he cope? Is he safe? Is he being fed? This damn girl bewitched me—that’s what happened. Maddy somehow made me choose her over Daniel. If I’d been in my right mind, I never would have put anyone before my brother.

In the waning evening light, he saw the fishing shack up ahead. It was time to teach this girl the lesson of what happened when she tore brothers apart.

By the time Maddy reached the shack in the woods, she was practically hyperventilating, the terror inside her constricting her airway. But she knew the pain she’d endured at the house was only a warm-up session compared to what probably awaited her here. She wondered if she would survive to see another sunrise.

They walked inside the four-walled shanty, and Hank went crazy. A wild look overcame him as he pulled at the cobwebs hanging all over the room. He started mumbling something about how the cabin wouldn’t do. That he couldn’t train her in this filth.

The only thing that had inhabited the place in years was clearly spiders and cockroaches. The bugs seemed to protest when the new occupants arrived by scurrying into their hiding holes. Maddy knew from her own house they’d be back.

“Stop! Stop!” Hank bellowed.

Maddy froze.

“You’re making it worse.”

She looked down and saw the trail of blood she’d tracked across the dusty floor. The sweat dripping down her brow stung her eyes. She ignored it, refusing to move in order to wipe them dry.

“There’s got to be something around here to use to clean up this mess.” Hank ran over to the sink and opened the wooden doors underneath it. He reached in and pulled out a bucket. “I’m going outside to the well. Gotta get some water. If the damn thing still works. Don’t you dare move.”

When he left, Maddy remained in place, only turning her head to look around. One room, about the size of a master bedroom housed everything. Against the far wall, next to the door, was a counter with a sink. Two cabinets with their doors barely hanging on were below, and two doorless cabinets were above. Over her shoulder, she saw a bed in the corner of the room—a bare mattress lying on the floor.

She heard cursing from outside.

Please start.

For her own sake, she prayed the water pump would work.

What if I just ran?

Hank’s full attention was on getting water. She could walk right out the front door and have a good two-minute head start. If she didn’t leave now, there wouldn’t be another opportunity. Intuition told her she’d never walk out of this room alive. If Hank didn’t kill her in the next few days, her tachycardia would.

Twice she’d tried the finger-blowing technique to skip her heart back into a normal rhythm, but for some reason it wouldn’t work. If she could only stick her head into a sink full of ice, she could also shock her heart that way. She remembered her mom telling her that she’d resorted to that trick when Maddy was a baby.

Her instincts screamed, begging her to make a run for it, but terror and indecision kept her firmly rooted in place.

Where would I hide?

The ground was too flat for a good hiding space. The trees were too thin to conceal herself behind. If she made it to the water, where would she go? The alligators would attack her if she swam for it. The boat wasn’t an option as she didn’t have the strength to push it into the water—nor did she have the ignition key. Lack of food and little water had kept her barely able to put one foot in front of the other. There was simply no reserve of energy to call upon to make a run for it.

So she stood firmly rooted in the same spot, waiting for Hank to come back. Her feet begged her to sit down, to give them a break, but she refused, remaining locked in place. She would try her hardest to follow all of his rules.

Anything to stay in his good graces.

The dominos had finally started to fall. Wallace could feel the momentum rising. He knew the speed with which each piece would crash into the next would increase until finally the last domino fell and he found Maddy Eastin.

He just didn’t know whether she’d still be alive when he finally reached her.

That’s why he couldn’t decide whether he should shut Emma Parker out of the investigation from this point on, or not. He had every right to.

Corporal Rhodes will be up my ass if he finds out I’ve been consulting with her on the investigation.

But then he thought about what it would be like if the roles were reversed.

What if someone had taken my wife? Could I handle being kept out of the loop? The not knowing is always the worst part. No matter what the situation, a mind could all too easily fill in the blanks. Like a smorgasbord of terrifying scenarios to choose from.

His decision made, Wallace dialed Emma’s number.

“Hello?” Her voice sounded bone-deep with exhaustion.

Wallace glanced at his car’s dashboard clock: 12:14 a.m. “The BOLO on Hank Fry’s van finally turned up a hit.”

“What?”

“We got lucky. You know the old fishing village north of Fowler Avenue?”

“No, I’m not familiar with it.”

“It used to be a popular place to bunk down and take a boat out fishing on the Hillsborough River, but it’s closed to the public now. The owner got too old to keep the place up. It’s usually deserted, but the guy’s grandson, a USF student, periodically checks on it. He admits his grandson takes his buddies out there to party, but figures it’s a good trade-off. Anyway, the kid went out to the cabins tonight and found our white van out there.”

“Did he find Maddy?”

“No. The vehicle was abandoned, and there’s no sign that Fry even went inside any of the cabins. However, there is an old boat ramp at the bottom of the hill. He could’ve entered the Hillsborough River at that entry point. It makes sense. The place is deserted—a much better location than the busier boat ramp off Fowler Avenue. If he’d parked on Fowler, we would’ve found his van too quickly. Same thing with all the other state park entry points along the river.”

“That picture on Hank’s wall . . . the shack has to be somewhere along the river. That helps, right? It narrows down the search.”

“Yes and no. We do have a smaller search radius now, but we still don’t know where the place is. There are hundreds of miles of wooded area along the Hillsborough River. With all the dense brush, it would be impossible to search on foot, and a helicopter wouldn’t have a line of sight through the thick canopy of trees.”

Wallace heard a bang on the other end of the line—no doubt a fist making contact with a hard object. “Don’t worry, Emma. We’ll find her. The pieces are all falling into place. I’m headed out to the old fishing village now. I’ll search the area and get back to you if I find something.”

“What are you doing here, Emma? I told you I’d call if I found anything.” Wallace stood by his car, arms crossed in front of him.

“I can’t just sit around and wait.” Emma slammed her car door shut.

“Try sleeping then. You look like shit.”

Her hair was sticking straight up in thick patches all over her head. Her shirt was a wrinkled mess.

“You sweet-talker.” The momentary lightness that had skirted across her face faded with a deep sigh. “Every time I close my eyes, I see Maddy writing on the floor, in blood. Do you have any idea how many possible scenarios have run through my head about the source of all that blood? So no, I can’t sleep.”

Wallace nodded his understanding.

Emma looked around. Floodlights illuminated the pathways to the cabins and down the hill. “This place looks like a summer camp from a creepy old horror flick.”

“I thought the same thing. Wondered when Jason Voorhees would show up.” He pointed over to the cabins. “None of the four were touched, but CSU found one set of shoe prints, one set of footprints, and what looks like drag marks made by a boat just over there, down the hill.”

Emma walked to the edge and peered over. Jutting out from the bottom of the hill was a narrow, rickety bridge made from a bunch of two-by-fours. A few of the planks were missing. “Doesn’t seem like much of a ramp. How could anyone launch a boat off that thing?”

“Not without a lot of difficulty, that’s for sure. But a motivated man could make it happen. I went down there. It’s more stable than in looks.” He stared down at the uneven boards. It looked like it had been thrown together one afternoon by the owner and a couple of buddies after they’d downed a few six-packs.

Wallace couldn’t understand the draw of fishing, especially fishing in alligator-infested waters. His wife had tried to talk him into taking a canoe trip up the river once. He’d refused, citing an agreement between him and the wildlife: he didn’t trespass on the alligators’ territory and they didn’t trespass on his.

Wallace’s phone rang. As he listened to the caller, his smile widened. Emma grabbed his arm, but he gave a signal for her to wait a moment. Once he finished the call, he slowly clipped the cell phone back onto his belt holster. He was running the implications of what he’d heard through his head.

Emma tugged on his arm again. “What is it?”

“The next domino just fell.”

You did a piss-poor job of it this time, didn’t you, boy?

Earl Fry’s deep voice kept echoing inside Hank’s head. The constant criticisms and belittling were impossible to tune out.

How many times have I told you, son? To pull off a project this big, you have to plan. Your planning is for shit, and that’s why you’ve found yourself in a big pile of it.

Hank covered his ears, trying to block out the booming laughter in his head.

“Nooooo!” He kicked the bucket, sending it flying into the corner of the room. Water spilled all over the floor. When he saw what he’d done, he shouted and cursed, shaking his fists at the ceiling. He yelled at the girl to clean up the mess. She scurried over and kneeled down to right the bucket. By the light of the lantern, she used her dirt-blackened towel to soak up the spilled water.

They’d been cleaning this shithole for hours and had barely made a dent in the grime. He couldn’t stand the smell of the place. It was like being stuck on his family’s farm all over again. Clean. This place needed to be clean in order to think, to work, to train.

He cursed Jim Yardley for having let the place go to rot. Hank threw his sponge on the ground as the futility of it all hit him.

Giving up, boy? You gonna be a quitter like your ’tard brother?

“Don’t you talk about Daniel like that,” Hank screamed.

Oh, come on. You know how worthless he was. That’s why you left him back at the house. Good riddance, I say.

“I didn’t want to do it!” Hank said.

I’m proud of you, boy. You’re a chip off the old block—dumping your moron brother, finding a girl to train. Quit your moping, and let’s get back to her.

He didn’t want to be like his dad. He’d fought the darkness for fifteen years before it finally took hold of him. Hank looked over at Maddy crouched in the corner. He wondered what was so special about her anyway? She looked like a boy in that stupid sweatshirt. Her hair was all matted down with oil and clumps of dirt. How could anyone be attracted to something like that?

Hank had to start over. Had to get out of town. With twelve thousand dollars, he could start over fresh. A new name. A new girl. He just had to get rid of the one he had.

Right now though, he needed sleep. His father’s voice had finally quieted down, and Hank felt heavy. He would lock the girl up tight for the night and then lie down on his sleeping bag. A few hours of rest would make everything better. The morning light. He’d just wait for the morning light.

Emma knew this was going to end badly for her career. She was no longer sitting on the periphery of another force’s investigation. She’d firmly rooted herself directly in the middle of it. Her sergeant hadn’t caught wind of her involvement yet, but she knew it was only a matter of time. Up to this point, only Wallace and a couple of crime scene guys knew about her enmeshment with the case. Now the entire Temple Terrace SWAT force was privy to her presence.

Yet none of that seemed to matter. Her job was the least of her worries. Maddy coming out of this alive was the main objective. Emma had to know what was happening, had to know that everything that could be done
was
being done. She wouldn’t let any detail, no matter how trivial, fall through the cracks. Not on her watch.

“Gather ’round, everyone,” Wallace said as the ten SWAT guys who’d broken off into smaller groups came together. They were all gathered near the Trout Creek Wilderness Park boat ramp east of the floodgate near I-75 and Morris Bridge Road. Floodlights illuminated the 5:00 a.m. darkness. “All of you know most of the details of this case because of the takedown at the Fry house yesterday. Daniel Fry was taken into custody, and because of your quick efforts Katie Norris was retrieved unharmed.”