Chapter 29
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Ben
When I came to, I’d been shoved over to the passenger’s side of my car.
I wasn’t buckled in and wasn’t even really in the seat.
Kat was driving, her eyes wide and maniacal.
I screamed at her, my head pounding with every bump.
I asked her to pull the car over, told her she didn’t really want this.
I tried everything to get her to stop. Tried everything to get her to choose a different path.
Despite it all, that’s my biggest regret. Because she could’ve had a good life. She should’ve. She deserved better.
I remember smelling fish and saltwater when she stopped the car, my vision still blurry from my throbbing head. When I pulled down the visor to get a good look, there was a nasty gash on my forehead.
She was wearing my ball cap, and I watched as she climbed from the car, taking the keys with her.
We were at the marina, but I couldn’t figure out why.
I watched her saunter across the yard to the boat rental shack.
She approached a group of guys, no one I knew, and handed them something that I couldn’t see.
I couldn’t worry about what she was doing. I had to act. It may have been my only chance. I got out of the car and shut my door carefully, lowering myself to the ground and crawling back toward Gray’s door. I stood up, pulling at the handle at the same time I heard the locks click.
She’d locked him in.
I pulled at the handle wildly, looking over the car to where she stood in the distance with my fob held in the air, a stern expression on her face.
I pulled on the car door so hard the whole thing shook, trying to figure out how to break the window.
It was ninety degrees and my son was locked in the car.
I slammed my elbow into it, which led to pain and nothing else, before she approached the car again, walking to block Gray’s door. “Do you want to come with us, or no?”
I looked to the group of guys, who were jogging off toward the lake, no idea what she was talking about. “Us who?”
“Not them,” she said with a scowl. “Gray and me. Do you want to go with us?”
“What are you talking about? You can’t take him anywhere.
He needs to go home, Kat.” I tried to reason with her, to find the sane woman I’d loved not so long ago, but she was gone.
Her eyes were empty and cold. “He needs to go home with me. To see his mother.” I spoke slowly, hoping to bring her back to reality.
As much as I could see the madness, I still wanted to believe she was who I wanted her to be.
“Don’t you understand?” she asked, storming back around to the driver’s side of the car.
“I’m his mother now, Ben.” She put the key in the door, unlocking just hers and climbed in, starting it up.
My life flashed before my eyes as I pictured her driving away with Gray.
I pounded on the window with all my might.
“Let me in! Kat, don’t do this. Please don’t do this.
Come on, Kat. Please! Please!” My voice grew high and desperate, attracting the eyes of a few passersby, but she just stared at me with a smug expression.
Finally, she unlocked the door, and I jerked it open in a second.
I sank down in the seat. My door wasn’t even closed before she whipped around and drove away.
“Where are you taking us?” I said, almost afraid to ask.
She looked at me, a mad twinkle in her eye that made me swallow audibly. “Don’t you know? We’re going home.”
I stared straight ahead and watched as she turned on the road, not headed toward Crestview, but toward Red River.
I needed to text her parents, to text Palmer, to call the police.
We needed help, and I wasn’t sure what help I could be.
I reached in my back pocket slowly, sneaking my hand across the side of the seat.
“You won’t find it,” she said, obviously spying what I was attempting.
She reached in her bra, pulling out my wallet and phone and waving them around.
“What the hell? Why do you have those?” I asked.
“You don’t need them anymore,” she said, then laughed loudly. “We’re all you need, Bennie Boo-Boo. Our family is back together. I can’t thank you enough for that.”
I stared straight ahead as the car began to gain speed, my heart thudding in my chest.
What had I done?
What had I done?