“I was the one who found this room before he even knew it was here. He told me to stay away from it, saying there was a mold problem, but I didn’t care. I wanted a place to sit and hide from his incessant neediness. The man was a fool, but he was my dad, and after what happened to us, I had to protect him. To keep him company, you know?” Teddy was rambling, and I couldn’t believe this was the same smooth-talking man I’d met at church only four days earlier. This man sounded fully delusional.
He paused, and I heard his footsteps coming closer. “They should be wearing off now. I don’t have time for this,” he said, and my leg flashed with pain again. He kicked my ankle twice, and I screamed, fresh tears falling onto my face. He hadn’t gagged me, at least.
“What do you want?” I begged.
“Good, you’re awake. How do you feel?” he asked.
I was miserable, the drugs still lingering in my bloodstream. I was groggy, and the agony in my leg was threatening to make me throw up.
He grabbed my jaw, holding it forward as he leaned down, his face inches from mine. “How do you feel?”
“Fine. I’m fine,” I lied, hoping it would calm him. I tried to get the lay of the land, but knew from the old reports that there were no windows here. The floors were packed dirt, and the walls were unfinished soil as well; wooden support beams ran horizontally along the ceiling, accented by thick posts in each corner and two in the center of the space. A crude staircase rose to the trap door above. He was blocking my exit, and I needed to escape past him. But then what?
“Now that we’re past the formalities, do you know why you’re here?” he asked, sitting on his own chair facing me. It was almost close enough for our knees to touch, and I wanted to reel backwards, away from him. Chester Brown’s 9MM sat in his lap as he talked.
“Because you blame me for your father going to prison,” I said.
“He’s dead, you know.” Teddy’s eyes were wild but focused solely on me.
I shook my head. “I didn’t know.” It was the truth. I honestly had no idea.
“Two months ago. Cancer. Can you believe it? After everything he’d been through, he dies of goddamn cancer.” Teddy laughed, a twisted sound.
“I’m sorry,” I said, unsure what else to offer him.
“That’s a good one. You’re sorry. Great. Be sure to tell him when you pass by on the way to hell,” Teddy said softly. “Did you ever wonder how it was that there was no evidence of you being kept here?”
My dad had talked about this with the lawyers a lot. “Your father cleaned it really well.”
“So well that there was no blood, hair, skin, nothing. No evidence of you being on the property, no proof you were taken by him at all, isn’t that right?” Teddy was up and moving now, a pantomime of a cross-examining trial prosecutor.
“I know. I don’t remember,” I said, and I caught him staring at my chest. I had the urge to cover up, until I realized he was looking at my necklace.
His hand snapped out, pulling it free. A drop of blood rolled down my neck from the clasp digging in. “Except this.”
I grimaced. “Yes.”
“This was inside our house. My dad claims he found it in the grass. Can you explain that?”
“I lost it.”
“Where were you? What happened?” he asked.
When I didn’t answer, he kept talking. “You don’t remember. You were with him for a full seven days, isn’t that what they said?” he asked, crossing his arms. The gun was set on the chair across from me, and I forced myself not to look at it.
I nodded in answer.
“Then wouldn’t you recall this place? He was questioned during those days, early on, and that fat sheriff even searched the cabin, finding nothing. Squeaky clean. Then there were rumors of my dad leering. That was the word they kept using. Leering at teenage girls. Did you know what happened to my sister?” Teddy asked, and my stomach sank.
“I didn’t know you had a sister,” I admitted.
“That’s because she died. Eight years before you were allegedly abducted by my dad. She was fourteen, my big sister. Hit by a truck on her bike ride home. Dad was obsessed with his little princess. When she was taken from us, he was so devastated. My parents couldn’t handle it, and I was shipped off to live with my boring waspy mom, who couldn’t even stand by her husband through a crisis. That summer was the first one I got to spend with my old man.” Teddy was still pacing, and the truth of what he was telling me was evident.
“He wasn’t looking at us because he was a creep.” My jaw went slack, and I felt how wrong the whole trial and accusations were.
Teddy nodded, deep dips of his head. “He was watching you because you reminded him of his dead daughter.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t remember anything. I couldn’t say one way or another. I don’t remember,” I cried, wishing I could take it all back. I knew now, being here, seeing Cloud Lake again; I knew what happened to me, but there was no way this lunatic would believe me if I told him.
“I don’t care. All I know is, you have to pay,” he said.
“How… how did you set this all up?” I asked, and then it became clear. “The lake. You were going to take me for a boat ride yesterday. A nice quiet trip around the picturesque Cloud Lake.”
He laughed. “It was going to be much easier to kill you out there, sink you to the bottom of the lake.”
“Like you did to Mark Fisher,” I told him.
Teddy grunted. “Very good. You have a reporter’s mind.”
“That’s why you only booked me until Wednesday. Didn’t you think they’d search the receipts after I went missing?” I asked, and saw him blink in surprise. I didn’t think he’d considered that aspect.
“We’re dealing with McCrae here. He’s not the brightest bulb. I’ve been tiptoeing around him for years,” Teddy admitted.
“The drugs were yours too.” I kept going, calling him out. “The drugs they found stashed here in 2001 were your drugs. You sold them to kids, didn’t you? Unsuspecting teenagers, visiting Cloud Lake with their boring families. You’d hang out at Local Beach and sell pills, weed… what else did they find?” I pressed, seeing him so angry with me. It wasn’t going to end well for me, but I had to deflect some of the blame for his father’s incarceration onto him. “He admitted the drugs were his, and because there wasn’t enough evidence that I was held by him, they stuck him on that charge.”
Teddy’s jaw clenched. A vein pulsed across his forehead as he stalked over and slapped me hard across the face. Blood pooled in my mouth, and I spat it at him, wincing in pain at the sudden attack.
“He didn’t have to take the fall for me, but I was nineteen. I wasn’t going to juvie any longer.” He ran a hand through his disheveled hair.
“But he did go down for the stash of drugs. There were enough drugs there for them to throw the book at him. Did he ever forgive you?” I asked, knowing I was taking a risk diverting the blame from myself to the highly unstable man in front of me.
“You shut your mouth. It’s all your fault. Where were you?” Teddy asked.
“I don’t know.”
He grabbed the arms of the chair, pulling himself directly before me. His nose touched mine. “Where. Were. You?” he shouted, spittle landing on my face.
I craned my neck to the side, not answering him.
“It doesn’t matter. Maybe you were hiding out, playing a game. Show up unharmed a week later, on my dad’s doorstep. Because why not incriminate a man who was only trying to be nice to you and your sister? A man who missed his daughter so much that he didn’t have the time of day for his son. Maybe you were doing me a favor.” He stumbled and sat down in the other chair, the wind bursting from his sails.
I had to change the subject. “What did you do? Why did the cops vacate the Kick-Off so quickly today?”
He smiled now, a proud grin. “That was perfect, wasn’t it?”
I nodded, not sure what I was agreeing with.
“I saw you
arrive and turn around to go find a parking spot. I called it in.”
“Called what in?”
“I guess it doesn’t hurt to tell you now.” Those words were like the last nails in my coffin. I sensed my end was near. I worked the restraints behind my back, just like Dad had made me practice for a year after I was taken. It was part of his crazy regimen to make sure I never got captured by someone again.
“Tell me what?” I asked, trying to keep him talking.
“Your friends Clare and Dan. It seems she had an overdose, but not before she killed her husband, of course.” Teddy leaned forward, and I saw the face of a hardened killer. He wasn’t just a drug dealer with revenge for his jailed father on his mind. He loved this. He wanted to kill, he wanted to play games with me, luring me here, thinking he was so damned smart for pulling it off.
“You killed them.”
He nodded. “She’s a mess. You saw it.”
“Who were they, really?” I asked, knowing there was more to it.
“They’re old customers from the area. He used to work for some resort company, but it’s all bullshit now. They canned him a year ago. Caught him doing a line in his office. What an idiot. They were only too happy to get a week in the country. Come to Cloud Lake, I told them. Play a role, and they were both only too happy to be part of it.”
Clare’s words flashed into my mind. Do you ever wonder what it’s like to drown?
She was clearly an addict, and Teddy was feeding her alcohol and drugs while she was here, setting her up for a downward spiral that would end in two deaths and the local department’s full attention. The other tourists at Cloud Lake Cabins would have seen her stumbling about, heard the two of them yelling late at night. It would all add up, and Teddy would go scot-free while he killed me down here.
“What’s killing me going to do for you?” I asked softly.
He shrugged. “Close a chapter. Once I burn this place to the ground, I’m out of here. Skipping town.”
I noticed the jerry cans of gasoline for the first time, two sitting side-by-side near the stairs. Fear of being burned alive filled my entire body. Sitting here, not knowing if he was going to shoot me, stab me, or leave me to die, hadn’t been as bad as knowing my future. Tears fell down my face as I imagined the flames coming closer, licking my skin as I screamed.
“It doesn’t have to be like this,” I told him. “Let me go. I’ll never tell a soul what happened. I didn’t do anything to your father. I’m sorry I misread his stares. I never once told the sheriff it was him. I never admitted it! I don’t remember what happened.” That was a lie now. I closed my eyes and saw the lights above Cloud Lake, moving toward me, stopping directly over my body.
I had no choice. My chin sank to my chest as I spoke. “You’ve heard about the sightings.”
“Sightings?” he asked, a curious tinge to his voice.
“UFOs, flying saucers, the Grays.”
He laughed again, this time with a little trepidation. “What are you talking about?”
“You wanted to know where I was. I remember now. I’ll admit it. I was outside; I’d tripped and lost the necklace.” I jutted my jaw toward his pocket, where he’d shoved the chain with a cross on the end. “They came overhead and took me.”
“They took you?” His voice was nervous.
“You’ve seen them, haven’t you?” I asked, hoping against all odds that he had.
“I’ve seen a lot of things while stoned,” Teddy said, nearly admitting it.
“I arrived again a week later. Just like the little girl in town did. I found her, you know,” I told him, and he shook his head. I had him. If I could only keep talking, he was delusional enough to believe my story, where most wouldn’t. Even I was having a hard time believing it.
“Carly.” He said her name, and I wished I hadn’t brought her up.
“You didn’t have anything to do with that?”
He looked appalled. “Why would I?”
“That’s what I thought. She was taken too, I’m sure of it.” I told him my truth, because there was nothing else left.
“You can’t seriously believe you were abducted by aliens?” Teddy asked. The gun was in his hand, and his finger twitched near the trigger.
“I couldn’t remember then. I was outside here one moment, upset at my sister for kissing the boy I liked, and the next I was crawling toward my grandma’s house, my dad running to me. There were dreams, and the drawings, and the hypnosis, but my dad and the therapist told me I was tricking my own mind. Creating something fantastical to cover what your father had done to me. I never believed them.” I was crying again, unable to hold back. “My whole life has been about that week. My whole damned life!”
Teddy sat there, not speaking, but staring at me like I was a feral animal.
“I came back here to put my fears to rest. It looks like I finally know what happened to me, at least. If I’m going to die, then I’ll die knowing.”
Teddy was up now, standing over me. “You lie. You can die knowing what a poor liar you are.”
I fiddled with the rope around my wrists, feeling it loosen enough that I might be able to slip out. It was going to be difficult without him noticing.
The doorbell rang.
Teddy’s gaze darted to the stairs, and I took my chance to slide my left hand out. It almost worked, but there wasn’t enough slack. I needed another minute.
The bell rang again, and again. Someone was shouting, a man’s muffled voice. Teddy looked pissed and scared at the same time. He was pacing, his gaze firmly on the closed trap door. He scanned himself, as if seeing how disheveled he was.
The visitor was banging on the door relentlessly, heavy, hard sounds.
“Damn it! Stay put and quiet.” He gripped my gun, running for the stairs. He was going to kill whoever was at the door, and I didn’t have much time.
I fought with the rope against my wrists, not having to keep it secret any longer. Teddy’s footsteps clunked across the floor above, and I broke free, yanking my arms forward. In all the excitement, I’d forgotten about my throbbing ankle, and when I stood up, I fell to my knees, groaning in pain.
I moved quickly, pushing through the agony, and grabbed a gas can. I spilled the liquid around the dirt ground, the gas soaking in quickly. I threw some on the walls, the stairs, and grabbed the matchbook Teddy had sitting beside the cans. I dragged myself up the first three steps, putting the matches between my teeth.
I heard the door open, and shouting. There wasn’t much time. Thunder boomed, and even from here I could feel the breeze roll into the house and down the hole in the floor, the smell of ozone and rain entering my swollen nostrils.
I scooted up one stair at a time, using my good leg to push myself upwards. Just before the open trap door, I pulled the matches from my mouth and struck one, throwing it toward the basement. It blew out before it landed. My hands shook fiercely as I repeated the process. This time, I crouched before throwing the burning stick, and it worked. The gasoline caught, and if anything, someone would see the burning cabin. Even if I was dead, they might catch Teddy. I needed to know he wasn’t going to get away.
The shouting was still going on, and I heard the struggle.
“Where is she?” a voice asked, and I knew it was Clark. My sweet Clark, the fun-loving man I’d grown to know this week; the cool kid who’d stolen my heart as a young girl was here.
“You’ll find out right away.” Venom poured from Teddy’s voice as they rolled around the front porch. I couldn’t see them, but someone was winning the battle, and I didn’t think it was Clark. I was finally upstairs, the flames stretching high. It wouldn’t be long before this wooden tinderbox was encompassed in fire.
I needed to help Clark, and I remembered the fireplace tools. I crawled over to them on all fours, grabbing the poker. The iron utensil was heavy in my hand, and I knew it would do just fine. I had to push myself if I was going to help, and I used a chair to pull my body onto my feet. I could put a
little weight on the ankle, but not much.
I hopped across the room and saw the two men in a struggle to secure the gun, which had fallen down the front steps and into the mud. I had to get there first.
Clark was on the bottom, and rain blew in sideways, drenching the two men as they fought. Teddy’s fist flew back and struck Clark the moment he saw me standing there. My appearance fueled Clark, and he threw Teddy off him, elbowing the slightly older man in the throat.
“Grab the gun!” Clark shouted to me, but I was already moving. I neared the steps, and my ankle gave out, sending me sprawling to the bottom, face-first in the mud. I frantically searched for the weapon.
Rain washed the mud from my eyes, and I glanced up to see Clark get kicked in the face. Teddy lumbered over to the steps and picked up the gun a second later. “Looking for this?” he asked, his voice loud. Lightning flashed in the sky, followed closely by its shadow thunder, and the bright strobes lit up Teddy’s front side.
He peered up to the sky as Clark dove from the porch, taking Teddy to the ground. The gun flew free again, this time a yard from my position. I grabbed it, pointing it toward the two struggling men.
“Shoot him!” Clark was yelling, but I couldn’t fire without risking hitting Clark too.
“I can’t get a clean shot!” I called as Teddy shifted behind Clark, using him as a shield.
The lightning flashed brighter, faster, and the memory flooded back to me. I looked to the stormy sky, seeing most of it blotted out by the ship. Eight lights dimmed around the vessel, before increasing in brightness.
Clark wasn’t aware, but Teddy had noticed. He stopped struggling, and Clark had him in a headlock.
Teddy’s gaze met mine, and he finally understood I was telling the truth. I hadn’t blamed his father; the evidence all pointed at Peter Martin, but he was innocent, and now he was dead. Teddy was the killer. Clark saw me aiming the gun at them, and he let go of the other man, ducking and rolling away.
Lights Over Cloud Lake Page 24