Daniel Palmer - Helpless

His shivering hands made it difficult to manipulate the unwieldy shelf with its broken wire rod into the tiny hole at the center of the release handle mount. Before long, though, he had the rod inserted and the trigger mechanism engaged.

Tom emerged from the darkness of the cooler, wearing his Windbreaker on his head. He blinked his eyes to adjust them to the light.

“Thirteen minutes,” Roland said. “Not bad, Tom. Not bad at all.”

Tom turned.

Roland Boyd kept his distance from Tom and held a stopwatch in his hand. Even from twenty paces, Tom could see the welt on Roland’s face—it was red but had subsided some already. Cold air from the open cooler door continued to chill Tom’s skin. Sullivan was there, too, diagonal to Tom.

Smart move.

With the three of them forming a ragged triangle, Tom could go after either Sullivan or Roland, but definitely not both. Sullivan now had a suit jacket on, and Roland still wore his. Tom had to believe both men were armed, though neither brandished any weapon.

Tom shivered as he spoke. “What the hell game are you playing, Roland?”

“Sorry, Tom,” Roland replied. “But you’re not as easy to frighten as Bob.”

“You could have just asked me to stay away from your wife.”

“Not good enough. I needed to be sure.”

Sullivan shifted his weight, right to left. Tom kept his eyes fixed on Roland, but he was ready to evade Sullivan if the need should arise.

“Hope you’re satisfied,” Tom said.

Tom battled back the urge to take down Roland. Sullivan aside, having his bail revoked proved to be a powerful deterrent.

“Look, Tom,” Roland said. “This whole thing is really unfortunate. I considered you a friend. And I still do.”

“Can’t say the feeling is mutual,” Tom replied.

“What choice did I have? You’re a friggin’ Navy SEAL. Guys like you don’t frighten that easy.”

“Well, I’m not scared now.”

“But at least you know how far I’m willing to go,” Roland said. “You know if I want to put you back in jail, I can do just that. I hope we’re clear about this.”

“Crystal.”

“Keep away from my wife, Tom.”

“Like I said, you could have just asked.”

Roland’s smile looked more like a grimace. “Maybe when the dust settles, you and I can go out for drinks, have a little laugh about this. Okay?”

“That’s not going to happen,” Tom said.

“Never say never,” Roland replied. “Look, I regret it had to come to this, Tom. But a man’s got to protect his castle.”

Roland opened the stockroom’s rear door, then retreated to his prior position. Sullivan didn’t move. Tom walked between the two men with his gaze fixed forward, but stopped just short of the open door. Tom looked first at Sullivan, then at Roland.

He walked outside and stood between the yellow painted lines of the loading zone. He took a few steps forward, then stopped. He kept his back to the open door, arms hanging loosely by his sides. He waited there, with his eyes fixed on a shapeless patch of unlit woods before him. He kept perfectly still. Didn’t flinch. Not even when Roland’s shadow appeared within the narrow shaft of light cast outward from the open door behind him, not even when Roland closed that door with a slam.

Tom had delivered a message of his own: he was not afraid.

“You’ve got to tell us where she is.”

Irena Kalinowski sat at her kitchen table, looking sheepish and defeated. Vern Kalinowski sat across from his daughter, glaring. Tom tried to keep his composure but found it challenging under these circumstances. Jill, who should have been upstairs in the Kalinowskis’ guest bedroom, was gone.

Earlier, Tom had called Vern from the Plenty Market parking lot. Vern’s home phone rang several times before his former assistant coach finally answered it. Tom had told Vern he needed to speak with Jill, and that it was urgent. While Vern went to get her, Tom sat in his car and watched Roland and Sullivan drive away.

He commended his own restraint.

The purpose of Tom’s phone call to Jill was simple—he needed to tell her that Mitchell Boyd, effective immediately, was officially off-limits.

Tom’s stomach sank when Vern picked up the phone again. “She’s not there,” he said. “She must have snuck out the window, or something.”

Tom sent Jill a text message.

She replied: Green.

The tightness in Tom’s chest released some. Where are you? he texted her.

In bed, she sent back.

You’re lying.

No response.

He texted her again: Where are you?

Still no response.

Now it was up to Irena, Vern’s oldest by twelve minutes, to tell Tom what he needed to know.

“Honey, this is a very serious situation,” Vern said to Irena. “You’ll be in big, big trouble if you lie to me. Where did Jill go?”

Irena let out a loud sigh. Her gaze sank to the table. Tom could see her trembling. “She went to this place called the Spot,” Irena said in a quiet voice.

Tom and Vern looked at each other.

“When?” Vern said.

“About an hour ago.”

“Who’d she go with?” asked Tom.

Irena paused. She looked at her dad, then to Tom.

“Mitchell Boyd,” Irena said in an even softer voice. “She’s there with Mitchell Boyd.”

Tom heard the music long before he saw any of the kids. It was an unseasonably warm September night, which made the Spot the ideal place for a weekend hangout. The moon stood high and bright in the cloudless sky. Almost full, Tom observed, and from its position, he could tell it was closing in on midnight.

Tom knew this place well, almost by memory. Each step brought him deeper into his past. The trail markers—yellow triangles painted on trees—were the same as he remembered from his high school days. But Tom didn’t need any markings to guide him back to the Spot. His soul was connected to this place like the deep, flowing roots of the forest trees surrounding him.

The Spot was nothing more than a large clearing of land tucked inside Willards Woods. Willards Woods occupied hundreds of acres of undeveloped land in Shilo, vigorously protected by conservationists and taxpayer dollars. The Spot had been a favored teen hangout long before Tom’s high school years, and from his work as both a coach and guidance counselor, he knew it remained in vogue to this day. Kids from Shilo and neighboring towns came to the Spot to do what Tom and Roland had done back in their heyday.

Listen to tunes.

Drink beers.

Swim in the cold quarry water.

Tom emerged from the overgrown trail and into the clearing. When he did, the chatter of teens abruptly stopped, like a hunting tiger silencing the noises of a teaming jungle. A fire burning bright in the stone fire pit cast a flickering yellow light across Tom’s face.

Teenagers, long and lanky, some with short hair, some not, some fully dressed, some soaking wet, some smoking cigarettes, some smoking something else, turned in the direction of Tom’s bright shining flashlight.

Somebody shut off the music.

Tom heard a loud splash.

Somebody yelled, “Cops!”

Tom heard another loud splash.

The frantic scramble to escape capture was in full effect. The teens packed up their illegal pleasures in backpacks and cardboard boxes and made for the woods with great haste. Tom heard branches breaking, leaves crunching. There were panicky voices shouting from within the darkness: “This way!” and “Over here!”

A flashlight cut through the dark and shone directly on Tom’s face. Somebody yelled, “It’s Coach Hawkins! It’s not the cops. It’s not the cops!”

Soon, more flashlights were shining in Tom’s eyes, blinding him. He continued to hear the sounds of kids scattering, but no longer could he see them. Movement to Tom’s right pulled his head in that direction. He stepped out of the beams of light and into the path of two boys trying to make their escape. Tom grabbed hold of one boy’s jacket, pulling him to an abrupt stop.