Chapter 9
Mark”s demeanor changed when Charlie told him she”d been working with Tommy. He looked on edge or not as confident as he was when he first walked in. Willow was on pins and needles waiting for Tommy’s driver to make it to the location and kick the door down. But that time never came.
“Grab her and throw her in the car.” He instructed Charlene. “The kid too. I’ll take care of this one.”
Charlene pointed her gun at Richy’s back; that was all the incentive Willow needed to follow her directions. Charlie and Mark were squared off in the corner of the room on their way out. Willow thought for sure he would kill Charlie right then and there. But, when he marched to the car with Charlie in handcuffs, she was relieved.
“Where are we going?” Charlie asked.
“Just sit back and enjoy the ride,” Mark replied. “It might be your last one.”
“Why can’t you just take the money and leave!” Charlie shouted. “You have what you want! Let Willow and the kid go!”
Willow grew nervous hearing Charlie yell at Mark. They were in such a small space that if Mark’s gun went off, there was no telling where the bullet would go. Willow wanted Charlie to calm down and just wait it out until they got wherever they were going, but he wouldn’t shut his mouth. Not for one second.
“You’re only doing this because you’re jealous.” He continued to taunt Mark from the backseat. “None of this would be happening if I would”ve kept playing your do-boy and letting you run all over me. The last job, you saw my potential. You saw how quickly I could have done away with you and made a way for myself. That’s why you’re doing this.”
Mark’s ears turned redder and redder the more Charlie picked away at him. His jaw clenched harder with every word. When he looked into the backseat, his eyes were black beads of anger and rage, and Willow just knew it was the end for one of them.
“You better watch it,” he growled. “You know what they say about words. They might be easy to forgive, but they’re something you’ll never forget.”
“I don’t care what anyone says anymore!” Charlie continued on. “Do what you want! If I make it out of this alive, you better believe I won”t stop hunting you down until you”re dead. Mark my words, Mark.”
Willow gently patted Charlie’s knee to calm him down. There was so much tension in the car that she felt like she couldn”t breathe. And she still had Richy to look after until someone found them and got them to safety. A few times, Willow wanted to lunge for the door and try rolling them out of the car, but Charlene was driving much too fast for that.
About an hour later, they pulled into the driveway of another old cabin. It wasn’t as rundown and beat up as the first one she had met Charlie in, but it was getting there. Willow wondered how many properties Charlie and his family owned in Sanibel, and why he felt the need to become a scam artist. It seemed as if his family had more than enough money at some point.
“You remember this place, Charlie boy?” Mark asked. “It’s been a long time since we’ve been up here, huh? Remember we used to come here to count our loot for the month, or hang out with girls and party?”
Charlie didn’t say a word. His eyes were glaring at the old cabin like he had a bad taste in his mouth. Willow figured something terrible must have happened there sometime in their past because the look on Charlie’s face was one he got when there was something terribly wrong.
“Yeah,” he finally spoke. “I remember. I remember a lot of things from this place. Like when you killed that girl and they never found her body. I remember her family coming to my grandfather”s house every day because they felt like they knew she was on this property somewhere.”
Mark started to laugh again. Willow hated his laugh. It was the kind of laugh you’d hear from the killer in a horror movie. It was soulless and dark, like he didn’t have a single care in the world about how he treated other people. Mark was a true devil.
“Did they ever find her?” he taunted. “I don’t know why you guys think I’m as stupid as you do, but I can assure you I’ve been doing this for a long time. I know the do’s and don’ts. I would never hide a body somewhere I”ve laid my head. That’s a dead giveaway. Get it? Dead giveaway.”
No one laughed at his joke. Not even Charlene. She looked like she was just as disgusted as we all were. Richy looked terrified. Willow imagined he was after being away from home for as long as he had been in the company of a mad man.
“Are you okay?”
Willow whispered to him and pulled him close to her. His trembling hands clung to her shirt for dear life and she hugged him even tighter. She felt terrible. Willow felt like it was her fault Richy was gone and the more he trembled, the deeper that pain struck her.
“Everybody out. Now!” Mark ordered. “And don’t make any stupid moves. I’m not in the mood to chase anyone.”
Everyone got out of the car and charted up the driveway. Charlie, even with his hands cuffed in front of him, still looked like he wanted to test his luck and run for the woods. Willow thought she should do the same—grab Richy and just run. But she had no idea where they’d run to. Sure, he could have directed her, but he was far too afraid to even speak a word.
The inside of the cabin looked better than the outside. It was decorated subtly, but still nice. Willow figured either Mark or Charlene had been staying there, or both, because there were used dishes on the counter and the couch was made up like a bed.
“You and the kid, go in the room and shut the door,” Mark ordered. “I’ll deal with you later.”
Willow was afraid to go anywhere other than where she could see everyone. She still didn’t trust that Charlie wasn’t working with Mark. However, being in the room would give her the opportunity to use her phone to get through to Tommy, so she grabbed Richy and did as they were told.
The windows in the room were boarded from the outside, so there was no way for them to escape. Mark had already given her the lecture about trying anyway. He said if she tried anything crazy, he’d make her watch him kill Richy.
“What are we going to do?” Richy finally spoke since she”d laid eyes on him.
“Richy,” she soothed. “Don’t worry, we’re going to get out of this.”
Willow pulled out her phone to try to call Tommy, but she had no signal. The cabin was a deadzone. There wasn’t a single spot in the room for her to get even one bar.
“Shit!” She cursed. “I can’t get a signal.”
She continued walking around the room trying to catch a break. It wasn’t until she heard the loud crash of what sounded like a table that she stopped to listen to the door.
“This is all your fault!” She heard Mark shouting. “If you had kept to the plan and not fallen off your game, we wouldn’t be here right now! You and your lover boy antics are what got us in this mess!”
Willow heard Charlie groan in pain and Charlene begging for Mark to take it easy on him. Whatever he was doing to Charlie on the other side of that door had to be bad if his own partner wanted him to stop. Either that or Charlene had a soft spot for Charlie the same way Willow did in the beginning.
“Are you taking his side!?” Mark growled at her. “Whose wife are you, mine or his?”
Willow found out through the door that Charlene and Mark were married. It made no sense to her. They didn’t even seem to like each other that much. Willow knew Charlie was Charlene’s brother, but Mark, being her husband, was something completely unbelievable to Willow.
“What are you going to do to Willow?” Charlie groaned again. “And the kid? Just let them go, Mark. Your beef is with me. They haven’t done anything wrong.”
“They’ve already seen too much. I can’t just let them go. You know that’s not how things work here.” Mark chuckled. “Willow, she might be useful to me getting out of here. But the kid? He’s not useful at all to me. Just dead weight trying to weigh me down.”
Willow quickly covered Richy’s ears so he wouldn’t hear anything else. He was already trembling with fear and anxiety. She didn”t need him thinking he would never make it home to see his parents again.
“He’s going to kill me,” he cried. “He’s going to kill me. I’m not going to make it home.”
“Hey, Richy, listen to me. You’re going to make it out of this, okay? We both are. If we have to fight tooth and nail, we will. We’re going to make it home. We have a whole team of people out there looking for us and they’ll be here before we know it. All right?”
“How!?” He raised his voice and Willow did her best to quiet him down before Mark barged in. “They don’t even know where we are. We can’t call anyone because you have no signal. How are they going to find us?”
She held him close and rocked him like a baby. The truth was, Willow had no idea how Tommy and his team would find them. She didn’t even know if they knew where to look. Willow wasn’t able to leave any clues before they left, so she silently hoped they had somehow tracked her location.
“Just let them go, Mark. Please. You can have the money. I’ll do another job for you if that’s what you want, just let them go.”
It amazed Willow how Charlie begged and pleaded for Mark to let her and Richy go, but he wanted to take the money for himself and flee again. She couldn’t tell if he truly cared about her or if he really was a terrible guy.
“You know what I think?” Mark asked. “I think we should bring Willow out here. She might not want to miss you taking your last breath. After all, you have caused her a lot of trouble.”
Charlie groaned again as the sound of Mark’s boots headed toward the door of the room. Willow’s heart pounded in her chest the closer his footsteps got. When he finally opened the door and demanded she come to the living room, Willow didn”t budge.
“Come on! Get out here!” he ordered.
“No!” Willow shouted back. “I’m not leaving Richy alone again!”
“Woman,” his eyes squinted at her. “You’ve got until I count to three before I blow Little Richard to smithereens.”
His countdown started and she had no choice but to get up and move. Mark was a mad man—a man true to his words of wrongdoing—and there was no way Willow could take a chance like that with Richy’s life. She had to do what she was told.
When she stepped into the living room, she saw Charlie on the floor with his face all bloody. He was weak, injured, bleeding on the floor in front of her. Willow started to cry, but not because of Charlie. She was afraid the same thing would happen to her and Richy before Tommy could find them.
“Mrs. Shorts,” Mark said. “What do you think we should do with your husband? Should we leave him for the cops to find or just put him out of his misery? He wanted a different life, one more simple and quiet. A grave might suffice, huh?”