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MARCUS SUNDAY WATCHED MUCH of it through high-power binoculars from across the bayou. He’d relished that swirl in the chocolate water, and he’d held his breath when the first alligator prowled up the bank toward Acadia.
The expression on Acadia’s face before the attack was worth the price of admission. He didn’t think it could ever get better than that. But then she’d gotten her gag spit out a few seconds before the alligator tore into her thigh.
As Sunday heard her shrieks, saw her writhe, his fascination had soared exponentially. In an instant, he understood why ancient Romans had flocked to the Circus Maximus when the gladiators were fighting animals.
Keeping the binoculars glued to the bloody drama, Sunday thought that he’d been born in the wrong time, that being here, watching this, was, well, exceptional, a peak experience if there ever was one.
Then Cross, the police dog, and a small army of cops had appeared out of nowhere, which shocked Sunday, made him realize just how close he’d come to being surrounded and caught before he could bring his entertaining little experiment to an end.
Then the dog attacked the alligator, got hit by the tail, and was thrown to the ground. And the older cop had acted like a ninja or something, going in to save the dog and Acadia. Sunday had admired his bold moves, his élan, and his resolve, but he believed that it was too late. Bitten through the thigh like that, his lover almost certainly wouldn’t survive. Right?
Sunday’s confidence eroded, however, when Cross pressed a rag against the wound and appeared to be talking to her. The longer Dr. Alex stayed by her side, the more paranoia tried to worm its way into Sunday’s brain.
What was Acadia saying to him?
Could she say anything?
Sunday watched Acadia’s head loll to one side. Was she dead? He couldn’t tell. He lowered the binoculars. Cross had been with her thirty, maybe forty seconds. Was it enough time for her to spill her guts and reveal where Cross’s family was being held?
It was enough time, he decided. But had she? Could she even talk?
Sunday raised the binoculars again and kept them trained on Cross, anticipating some kind of hurry-up reaction, a sign that he had more desperate places to be. Instead, a woman came up behind Dr. Alex, and he just stayed there, looking at Acadia, hunched over in defeat.
Sunday allowed himself a thin smile.
Okay, then, he doesn’t know. We move to the endgame.
But how best to do it?
A cautionary voice in his head told him that, Cross’s defeated posture or not, he should assume that Acadia had confirmed that Marcus Sunday was Thierry Mulch. But honestly, that didn’t really bother Sunday much.
As a writer, he knew that names were just names. You could change them anytime you wanted because it’s the actions that really define characters, not what you call them. His dear departed mother had demonstrated that.
That same cautionary voice then told Sunday to cut his losses and slip away into a new identity. Forget the grand endgame. Let the Cross family be found, or die. It really didn’t matter in the greater scheme of things.
But it did matter in Sunday’s scheme of things. It mattered very much. He’d thought up the premise of the game. He’d looked at it from every angle; well, almost. Sure, there had been a few bumps in the road, but otherwise he was roughly where he’d hoped he’d be at this point, give or take a few days.
But how do I bring it to a satisfying end?
Flashing on the image of the container barge rolling on the high water coming fast toward New Orleans, Sunday played with the idea of meeting the barge, getting inside the container, and shooting air bubbles into the IV lines. Kill them all and let them rot, let Dr. Alex suffer the loss completely and permanently. And then slip away into a new identity. He had the money and the necessary documents already. Why take a bigger risk? He’d had his fun, and now it was time to move on.
Sunday had just about decided to let it end like that. He would get out his phone and punch in the GPS coordinates he’d taken on the way in, get to the skiff he’d stolen, take that to his rental truck, and then drive to New Orleans.
But then flashing lights across the bayou stopped him from leaving. An ambulance pulled into the yard, and it rapidly became a chaotic scene with more and more people. EMTs went quickly to Acadia’s side and began working on her. So she was alive.
And now Cross and Aaliyah were searching the outbuildings.
Sunday’s grin returned. That confirmed it.
Dr. Cross doesn’t know where his wife, kids, and granny are because Acadia did not tell him. You watch: He’s going to get chewed up now investigating the crime scene. He’s going to be neutered, a cog disjointed and spinning with nowhere to go.
Another sheriff’s cruiser came into the yard, followed by a Louisiana state trooper’s car and then another. In minutes, it would be a carnival. The investigation was moving out of Cross’s control. Mentally, spiritually, and emotionally, the detective would be wandering now. Isolated. Lost. Just as he had been the night before Easter.
A zombie.
Sunday checked his watch. It was past midnight. He thought again of that barge swinging south on swollen spring currents. He put the binoculars back on Cross, watched him talking to Aaliyah and looking like a man at the end of a long, weak rope, already fearing his loss, already willing to grasp at the last strand.
Strand of what?
