Thomas Prescott Superpack (57 page)

I couldn’t.
I didn’t want to think about him dragging her from her bed into the kitchen. He had probably tried to rape her, but she was a tough girl. Maybe she gets away. But not for long. He grabs her, takes the blade from his pocket, the same blade he’s used to kill before, and slices her throat.

But I wanted him to know I knew everything.
I finished, “After you killed Riley with your knife, you plucked the knife from the dishwasher. Maybe you’d been watching through the windows with binoculars, maybe you knew I cleaned the dishes. Or maybe you just got lucky. Doesn’t matter. You dip the knife in Riley’s blood, then drive to my house. The door is unlocked; you stroll right in. Probably walked right past me there on the couch. Go into my sister’s room and plant the knife.”

He smiled.
Can you believe that?

He fucking smiled.

I smashed the gun across his face, then stuck the barrel in his mouth.

He shook his head and started crying.
Tears running down his cheeks. He was trying to speak. I pulled the gun out. I wanted to hear this. I wanted to hear him beg. He whimpered, “Please . . . please. . . come on . . . you don’t want to kill me . . . I’m not worth it . . . let the justice system deal with me . . . I’ll do life, man . . . I’ll tell them everything . . . I’ll tell them everything I’ve ever done . . . just don’t kill me . . . come on, man, you’re no killer . . . Don’t throw your life away on a piece of shit like me.”

I said, “I won’t go to prison.”

He wiped the tears from his eyes. Straightened himself. “Of course you will. First degree murder. This is premeditated. You’ll never get off.”

Gray had made his way to his desk.
I don’t think he wanted to get any of Proctor’s blood on himself. I pointed to him with the gun and said, “See that guy over there?”

Proctor looked at Gray.

“That’s my lawyer.”

Proctor turned white.

I took a step forward, pointed the gun at his forehead, and said, “I should have done this eight years ago.”

Proctor began to sob.

I pulled the trigger.

There was a soft click but nothing happened.

The old gun had jammed.

Proctor opened his eyes.

I was staring down at the gun, still wondering why it hadn’t discharged, so I didn’t notice the movement.

There was a loud
thump
and I glanced up.

Gray was standing over the top of Proctor, who was now slumped onto the couch.
Blood was splattered on Gray’s face and all over his suit. In his right hand, covered in blood, was the silver rhino. 

Gray took a step backward.

The right side of Daniel Proctor’s face was no more.
Caved in. Blood ran down what was left of his ear and down his neck. A soft gurgling came from his mouth as he fought to stay alive. His eyes swiveled in his head, then settled on both Adam and me. I suspect the last image Daniel Proctor processed was the two people he despised most in this world—smiling.

And then he died.

Adam and I traded glances.

I let out a deep sigh and said, “It might be time for another couch.”

Chapter
56

Puget Sound was choppy.

I spotted a wave two hundred yards out and kept my eyes trained on it as it approached.
A wrinkle of white among a thousand others. The wave curled into the side of the boat and disappeared. A thin voice beside me said, “You said there would be ducks.”

“I lied.”

Harold was silent. Even without the ducks, I knew he was in heaven. The crisp air, the soft ocean breeze, the gentle rocking of the large ferry. A bird soared high above and I pointed upwards. Harold craned his head back, the skin on his neck folding into six small ripples, almost like the waves on the water. Harold kept his head like that for awhile, watching the giant eagle soar majestically overhead.

In time, the eagle disappeared into the gray horizon.
Harold turned around and pushed his way to one of the small benches adorning the top of the ferry.

I sat next to him.
I patted the small fanny pack the nurse had given me. It carried two syringes. If Harold had another cough attack, I was supposed to insert the syringe into his thigh. I didn’t much mind needles myself, but the thought of sticking a needle in someone else made me feel queasy. But a single cough hadn’t escaped old Harold since I picked him up, so I wasn’t overly concerned.

The casts on Harold’s wrists had been removed, but he still wore two plastic braces.
He looked like he was getting ready to go rollerblading.

The two of us sat in silence for a good while.
We were the only ones atop the ferry.

When the ferry docked, we sat there for twenty minutes.
I pointed out a couple famous people’s houses to Harold, but he didn’t much seem to care. I could barely make out the tip of Adam Gray’s estate. Speaking of whom, Adam had called the police and turned himself in sometime after I’d left his office. He was looking at charges for second-degree murder.

It very well could have been me facing the charges.
Should
have been me. I’ll never know why the gun hadn’t gone off. When I’d gotten home, I’d taken it apart. It was perfect. The bullet still resting peacefully in the chamber. But some questions aren’t meant to be asked. Later that night, I tossed the gun into the Sound.

The Sound, where it’d all started.

As for Adam, he’d hired the very best, or second-best, attorney on the planet, and the last time I talked with him, he hadn’t sounded too worried.

Newcomers to the ferry began to stumble up to the top deck, but other than one young couple, they disappeared as quickly as they came.
The ferry started back across the waterway.

Ten minutes into the voyage, I noticed Harold hadn’t taken his eyes off the couple.
They were standing at the ferry’s edge, by the railing—not far from where Harold and I had stood just an hour earlier—holding hands.

I watched as the edges of Harold’s mouth turned up just slightly.
Then he said, “It wasn’t an elaborate plan. It was just a couple of rats.”

In the shed where they kept all the tools, there was a decent amount of rats.
Big, brown rats. Jimmy decided three would do.

It was one of the hottest Septembers on record, and they kept the windows open for the most part.
But on Wednesdays, because they were to be cleaned, they closed the windows. But they did not lock them.

Jimmy waited until the teacher sat down.
Harold watched as all the girls took out pens and pads and started scribbling. Elizabeth sat on the far right, three rows back. Harold tried valiantly not to stare at her, but it was hard. Here she was just twenty feet from him. He wanted so badly just to reach out and touch her. To knock on the glass and wave to her. But he couldn’t. He’d be hauled out in two blinks. And then what?

Harold watched as Jimmy slowly pushed the window open.
Just an inch. A silent inch. Then one by one, he fed the rats through the opening. Harold couldn’t help but notice the wicked smile on his face when he finished.

They continued down the row of windows as if nothing happened.
Three windows later, there was a scream. It reminded him of his sisters on Christmas morning, but worse. The girls had scrambled onto their desks, crouched, and were emitting screams that would drown out a police siren. And then the room cleared out, the girls bolting for the exit.

Harold climbed down the ladder.
He’d written the note the previous night. The first note had been five pages. It took him ten drafts to trim it down to one.

Moments later, the doors to the south building crashed open and forty girls spilled out.
Some were crying. Some were shaking as if invisible bugs crawled across their skin. Harold looked for Elizabeth. He didn’t’ see her. Then he saw a girl leaning against a tree laughing. It was her. 

The other fellows had run over to the group of girls to make sure they were okay.
And to make it look less inconspicuous when Harold approached one of them and slipped her a note.

Harold took a deep breath and started through the barrage of girls.
He stopped a couple feet shy of Elizabeth, who still had her head leaned against the tree. He said, “You okay?” His voice was shaky.

She turned, wiped the tears from her eyes, and said, “Yeah, it was just a couple of rat—”

She stopped, her jaw still open.

Harold put a finger up to his lips.
He leaned to the ground, then stood up and said, “You dropped this.” He handed her the note, then turned and walked away.

As he moved past the small group, he gave a quick glance behind him.
Elizabeth had the note clutched to her chest. Tears streamed down her cheeks, but she was no longer laughing.

I patted Harold on the leg and said, “You old dog, you.”

He laughed. Then coughed.

I waited for the second cough, but it never came.
After a tense moment, I asked, “What did you say in the note?”

“That I couldn’t live without her.”

“That’s it?”

He nodded.

“That took you a whole page?”

He smiled.

“Did you ask her to meet?”

“Yep.”

“Where?”

“I told her to meet me in the movie theater on Sunday night.
To go with her friends. It was a movie I’d already seen. I told her to go get popcorn when the house in the movie caught fire. I figured they probably didn’t like the girls going out alone. But they obviously let them go to the movies.”

“They did have phones back then, didn’t
they.”

He shrugged.

“Well, did it work?”

“Yeah.
It worked.”

Harold leaned against a pillar and waited.
He could hear the movie from where he stood. He could hear the whir of the fire engine on screen. He waited and waited, but she didn’t come out. There were six people standing in line to get popcorn, but they were all guys.

After two minutes, Harold decided she hadn’t come.
His heart sank. Then he felt a light touch on his arm. It reminded him of the first time he’d felt her touch in the icy water. 

Neither said a word.
Their hands found each other. They ran from the theater, down a couple blocks, and turned down an alley. She said, “I knew it was you. That night at the movies, I knew it was you. I knew you’d come back for me.”

They threw their arms around each other and kissed.
It was everything Harold had pictured at the train station four years ago. And more. They kissed. They cried. They laughed.

At first it was once or twice a week.
Then Elizabeth was sneaking out every other night.

Each Wednesday, Harold would have trouble not staring at her.
Not staring at his Elizabeth. The love of his life.

At the end of October, Harold was waiting for her outside the back fence of the college near a seldom-used gate.
He heard a rattle, and then she appeared. As always, they kissed for a long while before they even said a word. There was a park nearby and this was their location of choice. Rarely did they ever encounter anyone.

That night Elizabeth finally told him what had happened.
Harold had never pushed it. He didn’t care about the past; he only cared about the present. Elizabeth said that her father had ransacked her room and found the letters they sent each other. He forbade her from ever speaking to him again. She said she would run away. But she couldn’t.

They moved to Seattle two days later, and a week after that she was in boarding school.
The school was on strict instructions from her father that she was not allowed to use the phone, mail a letter, or leave the campus. It was as if she was in jail.

Harold had always figured as much.
Elizabeth cried as she told the story. Harold wiped the tears from her eyes, telling her a million times that everything would be okay.

She didn’t look convinced and said her father would never let them be together.
It would never be okay. They were from two different worlds. Harold told her they would deal with that when they had to and not to worry.

But when they parted, it was all Harold could think about.
How could her father be so ignorant? So close-minded?

Two days later, Harold once again heard the familiar rattling of the gate.
Elizabeth emerged and ran to him. They embraced, holding each other under the moonlight. Then Harold heard a soft rattle and looked up. Two men stood not ten feet from them, one with a flashlight.

One of the men said, “There they are, sir.
She’s been sneaking off to see him for about a month now. I didn’t know if I should tell you at first, but I worried about it.”

The other man stepped from the shadows.
It was the dean with the slicked-back hair. The mean guy that let them in the gate every Wednesday morning.

Elizabeth broke from Harold and said, “Daddy.”

My eyebrows rose to the crown of my hair. I said, “You’re kidding.”

“Nope.
The dean was Elizabeth’s father.”

“You didn’t recognize him?”

“Well, I always felt something familiar about him, but I wrote it off as something from the army. That day when I’d first seen him, he had this huge mustache and he was skinny. Since then, he’d shaved the mustache and put on a good fifty pounds.”

I nodded and said, “What happened?”

Mr. King looked at Elizabeth and said, “Who is this boy?”

Before she could answer, Harold stepped forward and said, “Harold Humphries, sir.
I believe we met a few years back.”

He didn’t seem to remember Harold.
Harold jarred his memory. “My father used to lease land from you in Missouri. I saved your daughter’s life. You thanked me by slapping me in the face and throwing rocks at me.”

Recognition flashed across his face.
“Oh,
that
boy.”

Harold stuck his chest out and said, “I just want you to know that I love your daughter very much.
And I plan on marrying her.”

Harold could see Elizabeth from the corner of his eye.
She had her head buried in her hands. Her father let out a loud bellow and said, “Marry her?” He let loose another deep bellow from within his large gut and said, “Boy, you shall never see my daughter again.”

He turned to his security guard and said, “Arrest this boy for trespassing.”

The security guard shook his head and said, “Can’t boss.”

“What do you mean, you can’t”

“He isn’t trespassing.”

Mr. King peered at the man.
Harold surmised the guy wouldn’t have a job come the next morning. And Harold, he was thinking about just surviving to see the morning. And he planned to have Elizabeth in his arms when it came.

Mr. King looked at his daughter.
He seemed repulsed. He said, “Get over here.”

She brought her hands down, gulped a half dozen times,
then said, “Daddy, I love him. I want to marry him.”

He took a step forward and slapped her.
“Marry him? Why, he’s nothing but trash. Nothing but trash. Just like his daddy. You will not marry him.” He raised his voice and said, “Hear me. You will not. I won’t allow it.”

Harold was shaken by the blow to Elizabeth.
The dean turned to him and said, “You hear me too, boy. You are nothing but trash. Now get. Get, or I’ll kill you. Swear to the mighty, I’ll kill you.”

Harold took a step between the man and his daughter and said, “Go head.
Kill me.”

Elizabeth’s father yanked the baton off the security guard’s belt and hit Harold in the stomach.
Harold doubled over. Dazed, he managed to get to his feet. He stood tall. The baton cracked him over his left eye. Then on the ear. He crumbled to the ground. The hits came in droves. Harold could no longer feel the pain. After each blow, he thought about Elizabeth. No pain could compare to the thought of losing her again.