Randy White - Haunted

I hung up, fuming, furious because the dispatcher had ordered me to stay put and wait for an officer to arrive, which had given the girl a long head start. Now the question was, should I drive to the campground or save ten minutes by walking?

Because I was anxious and angry, the answer seemed obvious, but I couldn’t decide. Either way, the camera gear needed to be locked in the trunk, so I hurried to my SUV while I argued back and forth. I hid the bag under a towel but removed the pistol first. It was too big for my purse-a clutch wallet, actually, by Kate Spade-so I zipped the gun into the little backpack I had carried on Carmelo’s boat. The few supplies it contained weren’t heavy. The gun added only a pound.

When I shouldered the bag, I remembered that I was supposed to meet Belton between eight and eight-thirty. It was nearly eight now, which was another reason to take the shortcut across the railroad bridge. With the flashlight, if I jogged most of the way I could be at the campground entrance in a few minutes. Belton, I felt sure, would be willing to help search for Krissie. Then he could drive me back to my car when I was ready.

I wasn’t a coward and I was armed-taking the bridge made perfect sense.

Don’t do it. Deep, deep in my mind, the persistent voice of reason demanded to be heard. You’re not thinking straight. You’ve been drugged.

But I had already wasted a lot of time. Krissie was in no shape to be roaming alone. I had to find her before her friends-or an even crueler man-hurt her more. Take the shortcut, urged the reckless woman inside me.

That’s what I decided to do.

My SUV is equipped with a keypad on the driver’s-side door and only I know the five-digit code. It’s a nice feature that eliminates the possibility of locking the keys inside and reduces the risk of theft. So I touched the keypad to engage the locks.

Don’t do it. That voice again. This time, it added a mental image: me standing alone at the entrance to the serpentarium where Theo lived. I would have to pass that driveway to get to the campground.

Suddenly, I was convinced.

Using the keypad, I got into my SUV and did a fast U-turn on the gravel road.

THE REASON it was faster to walk to the RV park was because I had to drive four miles north to a bridge that crossed the Telegraph River, then east for a mile to a macadam road, where I turned right. That road doubled back southwest, four miles again, and wasn’t wide enough to dodge all the potholes. Until then, I hadn’t realized how remote the spot was.

Four miles? The repetition sparked a detail that didn’t surface immediately. Gradually, it came back: Birdy had said the weather girl’s car, and the car of another missing person, had been found in a woods four miles from the Cadence property. Not the same place but similar.

Four miles on either road, if driving north, would intersect with a spot near the highway bridge. No doubt police had considered the significance, yet that didn’t relieve my anxiety. This was lonely country. Occasionally, an eighteen-wheeler roared past, slapped me with a wall of wind, then left me alone. The moon was up, orange and smoky, its size distorted by an October horizon. It showed cypress trees on both sides of the road and vacant land that had to be swamp or open range for cattle. Mist pooled in my headlights, the tang of brushfires bespoke a land that might yield to hard work but would never be subdued.

Men like Brit and Joey Egret-and Capt. Ben Summerlin, too-would do fine out here, sleeping rough and traveling by foot or on horseback. The same was true of my distant aunts, Sarah and Hannah Smith. But this was no place for a modern girl. Especially one like Krissie who was lost and alone, her brain hallucinating.

My thoughts shifted to the three missing people, then to the Florida State cheerleader who’d become a TV weather girl. Why had she stopped her car in a place like this? Whatever indignities she had suffered, however feverish her fear, the truth had not vanished with her. Someone knew. Someone who had traveled this same narrow road. A man, most likely. A man who was a beast-or whose inner beast lived just beneath the skin and had a taste for the unspeakable.

Both hands on the wheel, I kept the speedometer at seventy-five, hoping a sheriff’s deputy would stop me for speeding. That’s what I was thinking about, what I would say to the officer, when my phone rang. The noise so startled me, I jumped and crossed the center line, then overcorrected and swerved toward a ditch. I got the car under control, slowed to sixty, then engaged cruise control, before I finally answered.

Too late. Belton Matás, according to caller ID, had hung up. But then the phone pinged with his voice message:

“Hannah, dear, I assume you’re on your way. But, the thing is-and there’s no reason to worry, so don’t-but I think a mutual acquaintance of ours knows . I’m talking about what you found today. And he’s acting very damn strange. So I’m in my RV now and I’ll meet you-”

A sustained metallic screech, possibly static, ended the message. Or maybe that was all Belton had to say. But why guess? I touched Call Back . Six rings… Seven… Then a message said the subscriber was not set up for voice mail.

I tried again. No answer.

Ahead, the road forked. To the left was a tiny concrete church, Calvary Baptist, lights off, parking lot empty. On the right, a sign read Slew RV Park 1 Mile . I slowed, followed the arrow to the right, then pulled over into the weeds. I rechecked the door locks and listened to the message again.

… a mutual acquaintance of ours knows… And he’s acting very damn strange. Belton surely meant Carmelo and hadn’t said his name in case Carmelo was eavesdropping. That made sense. But why end the message so abruptly?

So I’m in my RV now and I’ll meet you-

Meet me where? If Belton had added a location, his voice had been obliterated by the metallic noise that overpowered the speaker in my phone.

It didn’t matter.

Belton was a smart man. If he wanted to intercept me before I got to the campground, he would know where to park. Probably somewhere on this road-I was only a mile away. If not, he would soon call. When he did, I would explain that Krissie was a priority. And what could it matter if Carmelo knew I’d found a sunken canoe?

That all seemed reasonable, but I double-checked my line of reasoning anyway. Rather than lessening its hold on me, the drug in my system had branched deeper. Headlights of passing cars were painful to my eyes. The Halloween moon, bright as it was, pulled at the darkest fears within. As a defense mechanism, my anger exerted a thrumming pressure on my temples. It made me irritable; even eager for a fight.

You’re not yourself, the voice of reason warned. Don’t be reckless. If you lose, the drug wins.

Lose what? A scrawny teenage girl was the person who had something to lose, not me. I was a grown woman, belted safely in the steel confines of her car. I had my cell phone and a gun.

Reckless thinking, the voice countered. Then proved it by stressing an uncomfortable fact: You don’t know Belton Matás any better than you know Theo… or the others you’ve met in the last two days.

My lord… that was true. I sat there a moment, wondering if I should return to the Cadence property and wait for police as the dispatcher had ordered.

No… I couldn’t do that. If someone organized all the women in the world who had been plain-looking and unpopular as teens, life would offer more hope for girls like Krissie. But here, on this night of wind and moon, I was an organization of one. And, by god, I was not going to leave that girl out there alone.