Paula Graves - Chickasaw County Captive

“Carl,” she said aloud, “what do you know about my mother’s condition?”

Carl gave her an odd look. “Her condition?”

She forced the words out. “Her madness. Why did she go crazy? Was it a genetic condition?”

He hesitated a moment. “I thought you knew.”

She turned to look at him. “Knew what?”

“It was part of her court proceedings. They assessed her condition to see if she could be treated.”

She looked down at the scar on the back of her hand, which glowed faintly in the light from the dashboard. “I’ve never read the case file. I guess I was afraid to.” She forced herself to meet Carl’s gaze. “What was wrong with her?”

“She had encephalitis a couple of years after Tammy was born. You must have been around eight. She’d have been in the hospital a week or so-do you remember?”

She nodded. That had been a couple of years after her father had left the family for good.

“The encephalitis apparently caused irreparable damage to the part of your mother’s brain that controlled her impulses.” Carl’s expression was gentle. “She probably started losing her mind immediately, a little at a time.”

Kristen felt her whole body begin to tingle as relief washed over her like floodwaters. Encephalitis, not genetics.

Carl reached across the car seat and touched her cheek. “I thought you knew, kitten. Have you been worrying all this time that you’d turn out like your mama?”

She blinked back tears, her throat constricted with emotion. She just nodded.

“Oh, baby.”

The radio crackled. “Team Two, in position.” A second later, Team One repeated the call-in.

Carl looked at Kristen. “Game on.”

She nodded, still trying to process what he’d told her about her mother’s condition. She wasn’t going to go mad the way Molly Tandy had. And whether or not she could be a good mother was up to her alone.

It changed everything, she realized. The life she’d thought she could never have was a possibility once more.

But not if something happened to Sam Cooper or his daughter.

BELLEWOOD MANUFACTURING’S Gossamer Ridge mill had been out of business almost ten years, and as abandoned buildings do in a small town where nothing exciting ever happened, the old mill had fallen prey to vandals and thieves. Sam spotted the building’s timeworn, graffiti-riddled facade as soon as he rounded a curve in the packed-gravel track that had once been the mill’s main drive.

He had parked his Jeep a few yards from the main road, near enough that he could make it back quickly if the need to grab Maddy and flee arose, but not so close or so exposed that his car was an easy mark for sabotage. He was playing by Burkett’s rules, for the moment, but he wasn’t an idiot.

The sun had set about a half hour earlier, days growing longer as June and the hot Alabama summer approached. A half-moon gazed down in cool blue dispassion, hidden more often than not by silver-edged storm clouds gathering in the western sky, heavy with the threat of rain. When the moon disappeared, the path ahead grew as dark as a cave, the lights of civilization too distant and few to temper the gloom of nightfall.

Sam picked his way carefully through the high-growing grass that had once been the mill’s front lawn. Broken liquor bottles and cigarette butts littered the ground beneath his feet, a blighted obstacle course on his path to the mill. He cursed as his foot hit the curve of one bottle, twisting his ankle. He bent to rub the aching joint, taking advantage of the chance to double-check the Glock tucked in the holster tied to his ankle.

He’d come alone, as Burkett said.

But he’d also come armed.

The interior of the mill was even darker than the outside, and smelled of dust and old beer. He pulled a small penlight from his pocket and switched it on. The weak beam illuminated only a few feet ahead of him. He saw the broken hulk of a curved wooden reception desk ahead, tumped onto its side, boards missing and gouges dug out of the wood.

Sam turned off the light and listened a moment. He knew he might be walking into a trap, but he’d had no choice. He just wished that whatever Burkett had planned for him, he’d get on with it. He was tired of waiting.

He decided to try the direct approach. “Burkett? Are you here?”

Silence greeted him, thick and cold.

He turned on the penlight again and started a methodical tour of the mill, going from room to room, trying to keep a map of where he’d already been firm in his mind.

He had reached the main floor of the shop, an enormous area littered with the stripped skeletons of what machinery the mill hadn’t been able to sell when it closed up shop. It looked eerily like an industrial abattoir, strewn with metal limbs torn from their mechanical bodies and electrical wires disemboweled from their metal husks.

A low hum against his hip made him jerk. He’d left his phone on vibrate in case Burkett had sent him any last-minute text messages, though he’d put all regular calls on automatic forward to his voice mail.

He pulled the phone from his pocket and flipped it open. The display panel lit up. One text message.

His heart in his throat, he accessed the message.

COPS IN WOODS. YOU DIDNT LISTEN.

Sam stared at the words, his body going cold and shaky. Cops in the woods? Had Hannah broken her promise?

He weaved through the mill’s maze of hallways and rooms, emerging a few minutes later through the front door and out into the cool evening air. The moon was peeking through the clouds at the moment, shedding pale silver light over the mill and the surrounding woods.

Sam turned a slow circle, looking for movement in the woods. The woods were usually alive at night, birds and small animals rustling leaves and disturbing the underbrush. But the woods around him seemed unnaturally still, as if the animals were lying low and watchful.

Aware of human intruders in their habitat, Sam thought, anger pouring into his body, driving out his earlier fear.

Stealth was pointless now. Burkett was long gone.

“You scared him off!” he shouted as strongly as he could, wanting to be sure whoever was lurking in the woods heard him loud and clear. “Did you hear me? He spotted you. He’s not coming. I want to talk to whoever sent you out here. Now!”

There was a long, silent pause, though Sam thought he might have heard a faint burst of static from a radio somewhere in the deep woods. He remained where he was, his heart hammering in his chest, driven by equal parts anger and fear, while his mind raced frantically for some idea what he should do next.

He prayed for another buzz from his cell phone with another chance to meet Burkett’s demand, but the phone remained stubbornly still. The number Burkett had texted from was blocked from receiving messages. Sam supposed, in time, the police might be able to trace his messages back to their source,

But he didn’t think Maddy had that much time.

Headlights sliced through the gloom, headed slowly up the access road. He heard the hum of the engine, the hiss-pop of tires on the gravel surface, and then the car came into full view. It was a Chevrolet Impala, and Sam knew before the car door opened who he’d see.

But it still hurt like hell when Kristen stepped out and into the headlight beams.

“You read the text message on my phone,” he said as she closed the distance between them. He was surprised by how betrayed he felt. “You surrounded this place with cops when Burkett said for me to come alone. Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

“Yes,” she said. He heard tears in her voice.

“He could kill Maddy.”

Kristen froze a few steps away from him. When she spoke, her voice was broken and raw. “I know.”