AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Not a chance,” I said. “You’re paying for your crimes. But if you tell me where my—”
She gritted her teeth, closed her eyes, and the wounded leg began to spasm electrically. She screamed and screamed until the pain knocked her into unconsciousness. Her head lolled to the side.
I shook her again.
“Where’s my family?” I yelled. “Tell me where he’s got my family!”
I wanted to release the pressure on her wound and let her bleed out, make the world a better place by her absence. Instead, I slapped her, and slapped her again, trying to get her to wake up.
I felt a hand on my shoulder and looked up in confusion to find Aaliyah standing there. “That won’t help us when she gets to court,” she said.
A minute or so later, from the direction of the cabin, firemen and paramedics rushed onto the scene and started working on Acadia and Sheriff Gauvin. The second I saw the needle and the morphine go into her arm, I knew it would be hours if not days before we could question Sunday’s woman.
I felt dazed and looked around as if none of it were real.
Deputy Shields knelt by Maxwell, stroking the dog’s head; he had regained consciousness but looked incapable of getting to his feet.
“You’re such a brave boy,” Shields said in a baby-talk voice. “Such a brave, brave boy.”
The dog slapped its tail as EMTs rolled the alligator off Sheriff Gauvin, who was conscious but in considerable pain. I wanted to go to him, lend him my support, but I simply couldn’t because a thought had penetrated my brain and paralyzed me.
“Sunday was here to tie up loose ends,” I said. “He may have already done the same to my family. He may have already fed them to alligators or pigs somewhere else.”
I saw my despair mirrored in Aaliyah’s face when she said, “We don’t know that, Alex. We don’t even know if they’re here or not.”
We checked all the outbuildings then and found a lifetime of hoarded worthless junk but no evidence my family had ever been there.
The EMTs rushed a gurney bearing Acadia Le Duc up the hill, and I did hate her purely then, wished nothing but ill on her soul. I went to the second stretcher, to Sheriff Gauvin.
“Bunch of ribs broken,” he said to me hoarsely. “I felt them go when he came down on me.”
“That may have been the bravest thing I’ve ever seen,” I said. And everyone else there, Aaliyah included, muttered or nodded agreement.
“I’m just a stupid old boy got lucky,” Gauvin said. “Plus we used to hunt gators when I was a kid. You get to know their weak spots.”
I checked my watch as they hurried him toward an ambulance. It was past midnight, and I’d been up since Aaliyah woke me too early the previous morning. I wanted to be angry and use that anger to push on, but I couldn’t. Emotional and physical exhaustion crept up and strangled me.
“I’m no good right now,” I told Aaliyah. “I need to sleep.”
“I’m sure we can get a deputy to take you to a motel,” she said, looking concerned. “But someone should stay to make sure the crime scene work will be admissible in DC.”
“You’re up,” I said.
“Dr. Cross, we’re not done with this case,” the detective said, trying to sound encouraging. “Not by a long shot. One call, and the FBI puts out all points bulletins on Sunday. He’ll be seen eventually.”
“Eventually might not be soon enough,” I said, feeling leaden. “Like I said, Mulch is cleaning up. If he hasn’t already killed the
m, he’s probably on his way to do it.”
“Don’t give up hope,” Aaliyah said. “And text me where we’re staying.”
I promised to get her a room and then trudged back toward the rental car, not caring that it was raining again. Mulch had been here, done his dirty business, and fled, probably by skiff, and probably heading to wherever he was keeping Bree, Damon, Jannie, Ali, and Nana Mama.
For the first time since I’d left Damon’s room at Kraft, fear got hold of me, captured me, entombed me, and I felt like dying would be better than once again facing the dark depths of Sunday’s imagination.
CHAPTER
79
