Chapter Twenty-One
Tanner
“If that little cunt’s mother doesn’t shut her mouth, I’m going to rip that kid apart with my own bare hands.”
“Shh, Derrick. He’ll hear you.” Too late for that. Dad’s yelling so loud I’m sure Mr. Reeve across the street can hear him.
“I don’t give a fuck. I’mma kill him too.
” Mom gasps, and for a second, I wonder if she cares.
I also wonder how he’d do it. Would he strangle me?
Shoot me? Maybe a knife to the gut so he can watch me bleed.
That’s what I’d do. No, that’s what I will do.
One day, I’ll kill him with my own bare hands and watch him bleed until there’s nothing left.
“You can’t do that! We’ll lose our benefits.”
“I don’t give a shit, she’s in our business and it’s pissing me off.
” My fists tighten even more and my nostrils flare.
Grandpa died last month and ever since, Dad’s been losing his mind.
I thought it was grief. I mean, even I’m a little sad that he’s gone.
He was the only family member who didn’t treat me like crap.
“You could make it look like an accident.” Mom isn’t yelling but I can still hear her because these walls are paper thin. “She deserves it after opening her big mouth. We’ll be lucky if Social Services doesn’t show up.”
I step back like I’ve been hit with a bat.
Is she talking about Berkleigh?
No.
She would never betray me like that. We pinky promised.
“She’s a whiny little bitch anyway. It would make the whole fucking neighborhood happy.”
Rage and sadness fight inside my chest and instead of taking Grandpa’s advice and keeping cool and calm, I lose my mind.
“We should send him to your brother’s. Out of sight, out of mind, right?”
Grabbing my butcher knife—I’ve been practicing all year—I run out of my bedroom and straight into Dad. My knife is out and his gut is right there. In the blink of an eye, it sinks in with little effort. I thought it would be harder to stab someone. Turns out it’s a lot easier than I anticipated.
My mom’s scream gets my attention, and before I can enjoy my handywork, I’m being shoved away and pushed into my room.
Did I kill him? Is he bleeding out and I’m missing it? I’m pacing a path across my carpet when Dad storms inside and backhands me so hard I go flying across the bedroom.
Guess I didn’t kill him after all. My last thought before I black out is that my life is only going to get worse after this.
I’ve got two different phones in my center console and a third on a mounted holder against the vent.
That’s the one following Berkleigh, the one tracking her hybrid, because of course I put one on each of her cars and on her phone.
I’m not a fucking amateur. Yet, here I am, full of goddamn gadgets with no woman at my side.
I mean, I get it. She saw the video setup and freaked out.
That’s the kind of reaction normal, well-adjusted people have.
You see a psycho, you run from said psycho.
No wonder we learn to adapt and hide the murderous tendencies we so often crave.
Psychopaths need love, too, right? Wrong.
We really don’t, but we do love getting laid so we tamp it down, we hide in plain sight, and we learn to adapt.
Except she’s not just a lay, and for reasons I haven’t had time to dissect and analyze to within an inch of their lives, I seem to have…
emotions. A whole fucking lot of them, too.
Like frustration when she just up and left instead of giving me shit and maybe kicking me in the balls or something when I got home.
And anger—it’s a common one I’ve learned to manage throughout the years—at these or any motherfuckers who think they can touch what’s mine.
The weird one is pain that’s not coming from any sort of physical wound.
Back at the house, when it finally sank in that she was gone, it felt like a lance piercing my stomach and ripping away my insides just to shatter my spine as it broke out on the other side.
How is that even possible? It’s ridiculous and I need to put a lid on that shit. I can’t be thinking of feelings and phantom pain when Berkleigh is clearly in danger.
As though he can read my mind, Cary starts kicking around in the back of my truck.
There was no fucking way I was driving someone else’s car down the Turnpike.
New Jersey State Police are thorough and no amount of camaraderie about being brothers in arms will deter them from their job.
I know, I’ve tried. Back then, I mistakenly thought that with the sheer number of former Marines now working for the police, there would be some wiggle room.
There wasn’t and I still got the ticket.
With the amount of tranquilizers I fed Cary, I’m stunned he’s even awake.
He must have an insane metabolism or I’m getting old and not reading dosage properly.
Either way, I have to pull over and knock him out or else he’s going to cause even more trouble.
I just need to make sure I don’t kill him.
Which, to be fair, is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do—not kill this son of a bitch.
The image of Berkleigh pops into my mind as I pull out at the nearest exit and park in an empty lot where an old, decrepit warehouse barely stands.
“Motherfucker.” Mumbling the curse helps to keep my killing urges at bay. Just barely.
When I slide open the hard cover of the truck, I notice one of the ropes from the hogtie is loose.
“Fucking Christ, you’re like a herpes sore. Just keep on pissing me off.” When I reach in to tighten the restraints, he tries to kick me, so I do the logical thing and break his leg right at the knee. Ah, the sweet sound of breaking bones.
“Fuck! What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Obviously, I didn’t think this through because this motherfucker starts screaming like a goddamn pig.
“We don’t have time for that conversation.” Rolling my eyes at the theatrics, I take out my syringe and stab him in the thigh with enough benzos to put a rhino to sleep.
“Go…to…Hellll…” The sandman takes him away as he breathes out his last word. Fitting, really.
“There isn’t a Hell that can contain me. Night, night, you piece of shit.” He’s back to sleep within seconds, thank fuck. Not sure how long I could have taken the whining. After securing the back, I jog back behind the wheel and pull my seatbelt on while checking the tracker phone.
I do a double take because it’s stopped moving.
My first thought is that this is good news.
It gives me time to catch up, even if by short increments.
Then that annoying niggle in the back of my mind tells me something’s wrong.
In not so many words, Cary said they had her, but she’s been moving in her own car.
No respectable kidnapper would drive their victim’s car straight to the hiding place.
That would go against every “Kidnapping 101” course out there.
Up until now, I’ve been hoping they were merely following her and I saw myself showing up, killing them all, dragging her back to our house—yes, I said “our” and I’m not even sorry about it—and fucking some sense into her. A lot of sense into her, if I’m honest.
I don’t waste time getting back on the road and the longer the tracker stays immobile, the more my body itches to get there. That sinking feeling in my gut tells an entire story that reads a lot like a Stephen King novel, circa 1986.
By the time I reach Delaware and find the gas station from which the tracker hasn’t moved in close to two hours, I’ve got my emotional armor in place.
It’s too soon to be losing my shit. What Berkleigh needs is a level-headed, clear-minded asshole with tunnel vision.
Lucky for her, I check all of those boxes.
Off to the side, near the car wash, I spy the hybrid.
It’s parked backwards so the front license plate reflects off the early fall sun rays.
Contrary to the Delaware registered cars on either side sporting various promotional plates, New York state requires both front and back.
My eyes lock on the number-letter combination that, of course, I’ve memorized, and confirm it’s Berkleigh’s car.
Not giving a single fuck about being in anyone’s way, I pull up close to the Prius and shift the truck into park.
I’m out and running for the convenience store knowing damn well she hasn’t been in their bathroom for two hours, but hope springs motherfucking eternal. Who knows? Constipation is a bitch.
“Hey!” I call out just as I push the glass door open, the bell above it signaling my entrance. “Did you happen to see—”
“Dude, wait your turn.” My head swivels to the guy at the counter waiting for the attendant to scan his items. He’s a college kid, average height, average looks, average build.
His gut instincts, however, are severely subpar because they should be screaming that this—me—is not the hill he wants to die on today.
I don’t speak when I rush three steps to him, grab him by the back of the head, and slam his face into the counter. When I pull him back up, his nose is bleeding all over his mouth and shirt.
“Go wash yourself up, you’re making a mess.” Do I feel bad that he’s hurt and crying? Not even a little bit. Let this be a lesson for the future. Don’t fuck with psychopaths.
“Is he gonna be okay?” The attendant is wary. To be fair, he’s probably pissing his pants thinking I’m coming for him next. And I might be if he doesn’t tell me what I want to know.
“He’s fine.” My eyes narrow and my jaw locks, telling him I’m not fucking around.
“Did you see a woman about this tall”—I level my hand at about chest high to show him—“short, dark-blonde hair, wearing less than what the weather requires? That Prius out there is hers.” The kid—he looks to be about nineteen, maybe twenty—flicks his gaze to the parking lot then swings it back at me.