Turn the Tide

  “Yes. Patty is Freddie’s ex-girlfriend and the mother of his son. About a year ago, Freddie decided he wanted Donny with him, and when Patty refused, he almost killed her.” Marco paused. “You okay to come with me?”

  Sarah nodded without hesitation and climbed back on the ATV. “We both have jobs to do, so let’s move.”

  Marco wanted to explain the possible danger, make sure she understood, but his words were drowned out by Josh’s ATV.

  “Everybody stay in touch and stay safe,” Josh said and roared off.

  “Roger that,” Hunter said, then went back to trying to talk Charlee out of going with him.

  Marco waited until Sarah wrapped her arms around his waist before he revved his engine. He nodded to the still-arguing Hunter and Charlee and shook his head. Like everyone else in their FWC Ocala scrub squad, he wondered how long it would be before those two acknowledged they had the hots for each other. But he couldn’t worry about them right now. He winked at Sarah, tried to put her at ease. “I’m going to pick up the pace, so hang tight.”

  She nodded, putting on a brave face, but he could see her worry, and it mirrored his own. Between the weather and crazy Freddie Marshall on the loose, things were about to get worse.

  Worse came several miles later when the sky opened up and they were soaked to the skin in seconds. Still, Marco pulled under a tree and grabbed ponchos from the cargo box as thunder shook the ground. Once they were wrapped up, he took off again, desperate to get them out of the storm.

  Sarah ducked her head and burrowed closer as the rain pelted them and they raced through the Forest. As he squinted through the downpour, Marco felt a moment’s panic. He knew these woods, had made it his business to know them.

  Where was Mama T’s? They should have been to her place by now.

  ***

  When the driver finally pulled into the gravel lot outside Joe’s Diner, Freddie swore, long and loud. The place was abandoned, closed, done. And it looked like it had been that way for a while now, based on the height of the weeds growing around the perimeter and the faded For Sale sign plastered across the front window.

  Fury pounded through his veins, and he pointed the gun at the driver and yelled, “Out! Now!”

  He ran around the hood of the car in case the man tried anything stupid, grabbed his arm, and marched him around the side of the building, out of view of the road.

  “Where are you taking me?” the man squeaked.

  Freddie smacked him with the gun again for asking stupid questions. He couldn’t believe she wasn’t here. Where had she gone? A red haze crept over his vision, and he tucked the gun behind his back and punched the man in the face. The man tried to back away and covered his face as blood ran from his nose, but Freddie was having none of that. His plan had been thwarted, and someone had to pay.

  All the time he’d spent working out in the prison yard was coming in handy. It didn’t take but a few minutes before the driver crumpled at his feet, begging for mercy.

  Freddie couldn’t be bothered hauling him to his feet so he could keep beating him, so he settled for kicking his ribs instead.

  Once he’d taken the edge off his rage, he climbed behind the wheel of the car and spun out of the parking lot.

  Mama T would tell him where Patty was hiding.

  Or she’d die.

  Chapter 5

  Patty Thomas handed Mr. Winters his daily banana-nut muffin and tried to smile, though her stomach churned with dread. She shuddered when she saw the darkening sky, the building storm clouds outside the Corner Café. She hated weather like this. It always reminded her of the day Freddie… No. She wouldn’t think about him. “You sure you don’t want me to pack that to go? You shouldn’t be out in this weather, sir.”

  Mr. Winters smiled his toothless smile and sent her a wink. “Young lady, I’ve lived through plenty worse storms than this. This is nothing but a tempest in a teapot. Besides, a little rain never hurt anybody.” He shuffled over to the first table, his usual spot. The place was empty except for a family with two kids who were stocking up on sweets and coffee before heading out of town.

  Liz stepped up beside her. “You okay, Patty? You look a little green. You know how the weathermen exaggerate when a storm blows through.”

  Patty summoned a smile for the café owner. “I know. Storms make me uneasy is all.” She’d always been afraid to say too much about her past, grateful beyond words that Liz was giving her a chance, despite her spotty employment record. Liz couldn’t offer more than part-time work, but it was better than nothing.

  She shrugged. “I worry about Mama.” Which was true, just not the only reason she was uneasy. “Okay if I take a little break?” she asked instead.

  “Of course. Why don’t you call her, check in?”

  Patty hurried into the employee break room in the back and sank into one of the wooden chairs at the little table, the small television on the counter turned down low. Liz would never admit her love of soap operas to anyone, and Patty sure wouldn’t blab her secret.

  Patty had her head in her hands, trying to calm down before she called Mama, when the show went to commercial and she heard a voice say, “We interrupt this broadcast for a special news bulletin. Authorities in Marion County are searching for this man: thirty-five-year-old Freddie Marshall, a.k.a. Fang. He was charged with attempted murder and sexual battery. He escaped custody today by leaping out of a van headed for the sheriff’s work farm in Ocala. It is unclear why he was in the work-release van to begin with, given the nature of his crimes. He was last seen along Twenty-Seventh Avenue in northwest Ocala. He is believed to be armed and is considered extremely dangerous. Authorities urge citizens in the area to stay alert and report any sighting to 911. Don’t approach this person on your own.”

  Patty froze, sure she hadn’t heard correctly. But then her hands began to shake. Freddie’s shouted threats from the day he was sentenced rang in her ears. “This is not over! You won’t keep my son from me. I’m coming for you, and when I find you, you’ll die.”

  She tried to think past her pounding heart. Her hand automatically went to her side, to the scar noting where Freddie had stabbed her nine months ago. She leaped to her feet and almost lost her balance. After Freddie broke her leg in three places, it hadn’t healed quite right and she’d always have a limp. She gripped the back of a chair to steady herself. Donny. And Mama. She had to get to them. She couldn’t even think about what would happen if he got to Mama T’s before she did.

  She grabbed her keys and raced out the back door. It wasn’t until she turned Mama’s big Oldsmobile onto the highway that she realized she hadn’t told Liz she was leaving. She’d probably lose her job, but she couldn’t think about that right now. If she couldn’t save her family, none of the rest of it mattered anyway.

  ***

  By the time Marco pulled to a stop, Sarah felt like her teeth were going to rattle out of her head. Between the pounding rain and muddy ground, he hadn’t been able to see the dips in the terrain, and they’d bounced and splashed their way for what seemed like hours. She had no idea where they were. She could barely see a thing past the mud and pouring rain.

  Marco had parked the ATV beneath a small lean-to. He reached into the console for Sarah’s medical bag and tucked it under his poncho, then indicated a small cottage barely visible through the rain. He took her hand as they splashed their way through streams of water and gingerly made their way up onto the sagging front porch. Mama T’s little tin-roofed cottage wasn’t very big, though it was neat and tidy, never mind the obvious signs of age all around.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  Sarah pulled her helmet off, but when she started to reach up to wipe her face, he said, “Hang on. Let me get a handkerchief.” He fished one out of his back pocket, gently gripped her chin in his hand, and wiped the mud from her face while Sarah tried to ignore the feel of his han
ds on her skin.

  She looked over at him and down at herself, then laughed to break the tension weaving around them. Whatever part of them wasn’t soaking wet was covered in mud. “To say we look like drowned rats would be insulting to rats.”

  He chuckled, and she felt his laughter all the way to her toes. Focus, girl. She turned and knocked on the front door. “Mama T, it’s Sarah Dutton, the nurse from the clinic. I brought your insulin.”

  They waited for what seemed like forever. She knocked again, and she and Marco exchanged concerned glances. Maybe the old woman couldn’t hear them over the pounding rain. “Mama T?” Sarah called again. What if her sugar had gone out of control and she’d gone into a diabetic coma like before?

  Marco was poised to break in the door when they heard shuffling, and then the front door slowly eased open. A tiny woman of indeterminate age stood there, a long, gray braid over her shoulder. She squinted at Sarah as if trying to place her. “Who’d you say you was, child?”

  Sarah smiled, her relief a palpable thing. “I’m Sarah Dutton. I just started working at the medical clinic. You didn’t come by to pick up your insulin yesterday, and we were getting a little worried, so I thought I’d bring it on by.”

  Mama T wrapped one arm around her middle. “That was right kind of you, child, but you shouldn’t have come out in this weather. Land sakes. It’s a frog strangler out there.”

  Sarah watched her closely, then hitched a thumb over her shoulder at Marco. “Officer Sanchez was kind enough to bring me on his ATV.”

  Marco dipped his head in acknowledgment. “How you doing, Mama T?”

  “Feeling a mite queasy, but I’ll be all right. I surely do appreciate all you boys are doing for my Donny,” she said.

  As Sarah stepped beside Mama, Marco said, “Donny plays on Josh’s basketball team at the community center. I do a bit of tutoring out there, too.”

  “And it’s helping. Come on in, both of you, ’fore you catch your death of chill.” She slowly led the way inside. “Leave your wet stuff on the porch. Don’t want to be cleaning up puddles later.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Marco said as he draped their ponchos over the porch railing.

  Once inside, Mama T sank into an old wicker rocker, hurricane lamps lit around the room.

  Marco handed Sarah her bag, and she took out her test kit. “Besides the nausea, how are you feeling, Mama T?”

  The older woman’s breath came out in little puffs. “Right as rain, child. Right as rain.”

  Sarah knew that wasn’t true, but she kept her voice calm. “I’m going to check your blood sugar, all right?” She kept up a steady stream of conversation as she worked. “I’ve been living in San Francisco, so I’d forgotten how quickly the weather changes out here. Is Donny home from school yet?”

  “He’s here somewhere, complaining about the electricity being out. They let the kids go home early on account of the storm.”

  Which meant Josh missed him at school. Marco and Sarah exchanged a worried look before he spun toward the bedrooms at the back of the cottage. “I’ll go say hi.”

  Mama T leaned her head against the back of the chair. “He’s been bugging me about getting a computer. I told that boy, if we can’t even keep the lights on when it storms, what we going to do with a computer?”

  Sarah read the test strip and hid her alarm. The older woman’s blood sugar was way up. If they hadn’t arrived when they did, this could have gone very badly.

  Mama T glanced up. “Sugar’s high, ain’t it?”

  “It is.” Sarah prepared the syringe. “But we’ll take care of that real quick, okay?”

  Mama T sighed. “Thank you, child.”

  Sarah gave her the injection, then asked, “Did you run out of insulin?”

  “Almost. Donny got in trouble at school yesterday, so I had to go get him. By the time we was done there, the clinic was already closed. Then today, I told Patty to take the car, what with the weather and all. I took half a dose. Figured I’d be okay for a couple days.”

  A common misbelief that could turn deadly. Sarah smiled to take the sting from her words. “You know that’s dangerous, right?”

  Marco suddenly appeared in the doorway, tension rolling off him in waves. “I can’t find him. Mama T, does Donny have a favorite hiding place?”

  He hadn’t taken more than two steps into the room when they heard the unmistakable sound of an ATV starting up. He took off running.

  Chapter 6

  Marco had his gun drawn before he hit the porch steps. Freddie Marshall had his arm around Donny’s neck, a gun pointed at the twelve-year-old’s head. “Stay back or I shoot him,” Freddie called.

  Marco ignored him, his own gun trained on Freddie. “Put the gun down, Freddie, for my sake and yours. You don’t want to do this.”

  “Hell yes I want to do this. Butt out, fish cop.”

  Marco eased down the porch steps, gun steady, as he inched in their direction. “This will go a lot easier on you if you turn yourself in, Freddie.”

  “I’m not going back to jail. Me and my boy got a few things to take care of, and then we’re out of here.”

  Based on the evil glint in Freddie’s expression, Marco figured the “few things” meant Patty. He wouldn’t give Freddie the satisfaction of reacting, so he kept his voice calm. “Leave the boy and go, Freddie.”

  Freddie ignored him and tightened his grip on Donny, who clawed at his arm and thrashed around. “Quit fighting me, boy.” He tried to wrestle Donny onto the ATV in front of him, but Donny was having none of it. He kicked and shoved and tried to wriggle free until Freddie held him in a vise grip. “Quit squirming and climb on here right this minute. We need to go.”

  In one motion, Freddie shoved the boy onto the ATV and then climbed on behind him. Donny’s eyes were wide and terrified, and he swallowed hard, casting a pleading look in Marco’s direction. “I need to stay here. Mama T isn’t feeling well. She needs me.”

  Freddie spat in the mud. “Let the old woman die. I’m your father. I need you.”

  Freddie fired up the ATV, and Marco cursed himself for not grabbing the spare key hidden in the console earlier. How had Freddie known where to look for it? “If you need to go, Freddie, I won’t try to stop you. But leave the boy here.”

  Freddie laughed and revved the engine. “I’m done answering to coppers. Donny’s with me.” He aimed a last hard look at Marco. “Follow me and the boy dies.”

  He gunned the engine and Marco leaped after them, but he couldn’t get a clean shot. Not with Donny in front of Freddie. He wouldn’t risk a bullet going through Freddie and hitting the boy.

  Marco ran after them and fired at the tires, but by then they were too far away.

  He lowered his gun and ran back into the cottage. He couldn’t lose the boy.

  ***

  “Is my Donny okay?” Mama T cried. “Why were you shooting?”

  Marco quickly swiped his muddy boots on the mat, then hurried across the room and crouched down by Mama T’s chair, taking her gnarled hand in his. “You need to know—”

  She gripped his hand. “Spit it out, boy. Is Donny all right?”

  Marco didn’t mince words. “For the moment. But Freddie has him. They took our ATV.”

  Mama T’s grip belied her age. “How can he have Donny? He’s in jail for what he did to my Patty.”

  “He escaped this morning. He somehow got in with the work crew.”

  “But that doesn’t make any sense.” Mama T rubbed her chest, and Sarah immediately reached into her medical bag to pull out a stethoscope and a blood pressure cuff.

  “Take a deep breath, Mama T. Deep breath,” Sarah said, crouching by her other side, rubbing her hands.

  Mama T ignored her and gripped Marco’s hand, just as another crack of thunder shook the cottage. “Go find my grandbaby. The drugs done made
Freddie crazy. He’ll hurt my baby.”

  At that moment, Marco’s phone and Sarah’s both squawked a severe weather warning, indicating tornados were possible in their area. The rain pounded harder, until Marco had to yell to be heard above the noise.

  “I’ll find him, I promise. I don’t think he plans to hurt Donny. He’s…” He stopped, unsure of his next words.

  Mama T paled. “He’s after Patty. He’ll use that baby as leverage.”

  Marco nodded, heart breaking for the pain reflected in the older woman’s face. “That’s my guess, yes.”

  “Please. Go get him. Bring him home.”

  “I will, I promise. But I need your help. Where would Freddie go?”

  Mama T thought for only a few seconds. “He and Patty’s old place. It was nothing but a rusted single-wide trailer, but he thought it was a palace. Said something about getting it from a guy who couldn’t hold on to it. I was always afraid to ask what that meant.”

  “Do you know the address? Or where to find it?”

  Mama T’s chin came up as she straightened. “Don’t know that it has an address. But I can draw you a map.”

  Marco smiled and helped her to her feet.

  “Here, Mama. Let me get you settled, get you some paper and a pen.” Sarah helped her to a chair at the table, casting worried looks in Marco’s direction.

  Marco grabbed his phone and called Josh, but the signal dropped before the call went through. He tried again. Finally, he sent a text to both Josh and Hunter.

  He typed: At Mama T’s. Freddie grabbed Donny, stole my ATV. Mama T drawing map to Freddie’s old trailer. Think that’s where he’s headed.

  Josh’s response came back immediately: On my way. Leave me a copy of map.

  Hunter’s response said: Patty’s not at café. Her car’s gone. She wasn’t with Freddie?

  Marco typed fast: No sign of her. See if you can track an address on that trailer. Text us. Cell service sketchy.