by S J Sargent
Molly let out a deep breath. Molly’s phone buzzed again in her pocket. Another text from Alex. She read it as Bolin poured some more coffee for himself.
“Please call me. I want to make sure you are okay.”
“I feel like there’s one thing missing.” Molly said. “If what you’re saying is true, then tell me this. What is Alex’s motive? Why? Why would he do this? And then stay so involved in it?”
Bolin came and took a seat back in front of her. Leaning forward, he spoke softly. “That’s where I need your help. That’s where I need you to pry that out of him.”
51
Amy’s Abduction
Saturday, December 11 – 8:50 P.M.
Hours before Amy went missing, Alex was sitting at his bedroom desk.
He stared at a worn Christmas photo of him sitting on his dad’s lap in a Santa suit. Alex had never aged out of the holiday novelty. It’s what he loved about December. They’d even kept a wall of photos in their hallway that they added to every January with the annual Christmas picture with Santa.
The photo collection was taken down a few weeks after his dad’s funeral. The only one Alex held on to was this one when he was nine years old. Just old enough to know the truth about Santa but still young enough to appreciate the magic. And now the corners were worn enough for the picture to belong in a museum.
The unfinished film school application stared him in the face, a painful reminder of his inevitable reality. High school was ending, and he had to move on. All he wanted to do was write movies. Scary ones. But not the modern ones with gore and superfluous sex scenes. He wanted to bring back the classic style that he watched as a kid. Hitchcock. The Twilight Zone.
He shoved the picture in his drawer. How pathetic. December 11. Saturday night. And no plans. Typical Alex.
Picking up his phone, he scrolled through his message history with Molly for the third time that day. He’d tried to strike up a few conversations with her, but they never went too far. She was zoned into school, and everyone knew it. The hardest thing for Alex was how compatible he knew they were. Definitely more compatible than friends. He just had to show her that, too.
Fighting insecurity, he sent her a text. “Working tonight?” He knew she wasn’t. When she didn’t reply after a few moments, he stood up and scanned his DVD collection on the wall. What movie would he watch by himself tonight? Eh. He wasn’t in the mood. Instead, he plopped on his bed and pulled out his phone, scrolling through his social media apps.
His first stop: Molly’s page.
Her last post was the day before, one he’d already looked at several times. It was a picture of a latte. With Amy in the background laughing. Amy had shown up more and more Molly’s pictures the past few weeks. Alex swiped back over to his text app.
No reply.
He got back up, threw in a disk from The Twilight Zone into his Blu-ray-connected-to-wall-projector and landed on his bed again. Cracking open a Dr. Pepper, he tried to forget about Molly for a little while.
The episode was one he’d seen before. A desperate guy tries anything to get the attention of a girl he likes at work. Nothing does the trick, until she feels threatened by a car wreck that takes place right outside their office. That’s when the guy has the idea to manufacture another car wreck, this time with her inside. His thought is that the fear would cause her to long for comfort again. And surprisingly, it worked. The crisis made her more vulnerable and she ran into his loving arms.
It worked.
Scaring her caused her to draw near.
Alex sat up in his bed, picking up his phone again. Still no reply. Why? Was she rolling her eyes at every new text that came in? Was she just appeasing him? Or maybe she actually had a life, unlike Alex. His feelings bounced between insecurity and frustration. He knew they were a good fit together. She just needed to see it now.
What could he do?
He looked up at the screen of the episode he’d just watched about the desperate guy helping the girl realize her love for him. That’s exactly what he needed to do. Help her see their connection.
And that’s when the plan started brewing.
Scaring her caused her to draw near.
Nothing too elaborate. Just something to nudge her along, to open up her mind beyond academics and to see that this great guy in front of her cared for her. Once she saw their chemistry, she would have a change of heart and they would be together. Alex was sure of it.
He didn’t have to do anything violent. Just something harmless but enough to stir Molly up. In fact, it didn’t even have to be to Molly. That was too risky. Maybe he could do something that would affect one of her friends. Something that would shake Molly up and give her some uncertainty. Anytime a teenage girl sees something happen to one of their friends, it’s traumatic. It leads them to a place of vulnerability.
So that was the plan. Do something to shake Molly up a bit and draw her near to Alex. Not anything gruesome. Just a harmless incident directed at one of Molly’s friends.
Amy.
That’s it. He could kidnap Amy. Just for a day or two. Nothing harsh. Feed her. Have her skip a few days of school. Then release her. That’s all it would to take for Molly to be thrown off a bit and open to help, help from a guy that already cared for her so much, yet she hardly noticed.
The more Alex played out the story in his mind, the more intrigued he got. He pulled out his notebook and started to jot down his plan.
He could take Amy and keep her at his cousin’s farmhouse. His cousin was deployed overseas on an assignment, so Alex often went out there to watch movies and escape Pecos. It was old and isolated and served as his version of a treehouse. He would stare out at the woods and dream of all the creepy things that might have taken place out there without anyone ever knowing. That’s where Alex could take her.
His cousin even had an old utility shed in the backyard that he could clear out and use as a room for her. It was so isolated that no one would even know she was there. He could keep her there, feed her before and after school, and then drop her on the side of the road and let someone find her. Just for a day or two.
Long enough for Molly’s fear to draw her near to him.
That was the plan he’d come up with on that Saturday night. Alex finished jotting down a few more notes in his notebook and checked his phone. When he still didn’t have a reply from Molly, that was the final affirmation.
What Alex didn’t realize at the time was how hard all of this would actually be for him. Even though he was able to tranquilize her using one of Alex’s cousin’s hunting weapons, the whole thing traumatized him. Transporting her to the shed, giving her food without talking to her, it all felt so wrong. It was so out of element for Alex. He hated how it felt.
And it didn’t even work.
Molly hardly talked to him at all after Amy went missing.
By the time Wednesday hit, he was ready to let her go and wrap up the plan. The town had gone far more into a frenzy than he thought. Much more than the movies depicted. What screenplays can’t portray is the petrifying reality of a small town having an abductor in their midst. Detective Bolin made public statements that he wouldn’t stop until the abductor was put behind bars for years and years.
So Alex panicked. He was in too deep. He had to fully commit to it now. The original plan of releasing her after a few days and hoping it would all go away was no longer a possibility. If Amy was kept alive, she’d be a liability.
So Alex found a poison off the black web that ensured that she would never get away with it. He slipped it into her food, brought her back to Pecos, and walked her to her death in the backwoods of the park.
Ironically, the plan finally did start to work once Amy had been pronounced dead on that Thursday night shift. It even worked out that Christine had called the staff meeting during the announcement of Amy’s death. That allowed Alex to be with Molly right at the moment she found out. She confided in him first. That’s when she started to warm up to Alex.
That’s when she started to be more receptive to him. And once he started to notice that, he knew he couldn’t let it stop. He had to keep the fear coming.
It was never his plan for things to play out the way that they did. It started out with what what he thought was just a plan to take Amy off the grid for a few days. Then it spiraled out of control into something that Alex never intended.
But that’s what was necessary.
It was the only way they would have been together.
Because Molly’s fear made her draw near.
52
Amy’s Abduction
Tuesday, December 21 – 9:23 P.M.
“I’m just glad you’re okay.” Alex smiled at Molly. She smiled back, though she wasn’t sure if she should.
They sat together on the floor of the horror section of Movie Madness, police hiding outside in the shadows. Ready to move in at any moment. The store was dark. Quiet. Alex held Molly’s hand, kissing it for a third time. She wanted to resist, but she couldn’t. She still found her heart trusting him more than Detective Bolin.
But Molly also knew that she was safe with him, that Alex would never do anything to hurt her. She wanted nothing more than for the two of them to be together. The past five days solidified something between them. And now, as she held his hand and talked to him in the dark video store, her goal was to convince Detective Bolin and all the other police listening in on their conversation that they were wrong about him.
That Alex was innocent.
Bolin, eagerly waited in his car in the shadows with a few other guys in his crew, ready to pounce. Molly knew her assigned job. Get Alex to share his motive. But her real job was to show them that they were wrong. That Alex, more than anything, was a protector. Not a killer.
“Why are we here right now?” Alex asked her.
“You tell me, Alex.” She looked up at him. “You’re the one that has this whole case solved. So tell me. What’s going on?”
“I think I’m falling in love with you.”
“That wasn’t my question, Alex.”
“What do you want me to say?”
Her blank stare gave him his answer.
“I remember as a kid watching Titanic,” he began. “It was corny. But it’s historic. And I always loved the connection Jack and Rose had together. It felt real. It felt meaningful. The way he would do anything for her because he loved her. That’s what I always wanted to have. My whole life. And ever since I met you, that’s how I’ve felt. I know we’re just getting to know each other, but this already feels so different.”
He held her hand. She couldn’t disagree with him.
But she stayed firm. “Who killed Amy?”
Alex frowned. “I feel like you already know.”
Molly waited for Alex to say more. Instead, he smiled. She retracted her hand. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that you’re focused on the wrong thing right now, Molly. This isn’t about Amy. It’s never been about Amy. This is about us.” Alex grabbed her hand again. “Amy had to die. That’s the only way we would have ended up together. That’s not what you wanted. That’s not what I wanted. But that’s what had to happen. That’s what had to happen for all of them. Because that’s what fate had in store. ”
Molly was ready to run out of the store. “So, you’re saying if I never started working at Movie Madness, none of this ever would have happened.”
“Exactly.” Alex smiled. “Yes. We did this together, Mol. It was our destiny. This was our pre-written story.”
Molly turned away now. For the first time, his calming nature was cold and twisted. His sad, delusional mind was causing her to believe she actually played a role in all of this. That she was just as guilty as him, like a Bonnie and Clyde tandem. Tears trickled down her face as she battled with this deep shame. This tragic lack of discernment.
“Oh, no. Don’t cry.” Alex snuggled close to her. Molly allowed it. “We are together now. Bolin has Ken in custody. And we can be together. It all worked out.
Amy’s loss brought us together. Christine, Sofia…they solidified our relationship. In the midst of crisis and chaos, we grew closer with the people around us. Isn’t that amazing? We did all this together. You and I. Just like…Jack and Rose.”
“No.” Molly stepped back, ready to blow the cover on the whole thing. “We didn’t do anything. You did. You did, Alex. And you lied to me. You led me to believe I was safe. You caused me to doubt everything. Everyone. You killed my friend!” She now dropped to her knees and sobbed loudly. From the outside, Bolin and his crew started to move in. They had what they needed. Now they needed to rescue her.
“…And what about Peter? How do you justify that one?”
Alex’s tone changed. “Peter tried to separate us, Molly. He tried to split us up. Why would we want someone to tear us apart like that?” He stood up with her, putting his hand over hers. She turned away toward the glass. Her plan was failing. The boy that she was falling in love with was actually her worst nightmare.
And Bolin would be there any minute to take him in. She should have felt relief from knowing that this was all about to be over. But all she felt was heartbreak.
Heartbreak for herself.
And for Alex.
He came up and put his hand on her back, staring out at the glass with her. “I’ll keep fighting for us, Mol. That’s how much I care about you.” He could see the police coming up in their cars now. He now realized that Molly had turned him in. That the whole thing was a setup. And for the first time, they weren’t in on it together. Alex stepped back and stared at her. “Wait. How did…”
Molly stared. “I’m sorry.” Then shook her head.
Alex let out a long sigh. “I do understand. I didn’t expect for all of this to happen. Christine was trying to pull us a part from the one thing that we shared together. This.” He put his hands up. “Movie Madness. This is ours. I didn’t want her to take that from us. So I had to stop her.”
Molly nodded, not with empathy, but just for him to continue sharing his confession. “What about the movie?”
“I didn’t take into account that you would find out about it. I grabbed it from her car to use it as a decoy. But before I could figure out what to do with it, they searched our homes. So I moved it to my work locker after they had cleared out at the store. I don’t know how Peter found out about it. But that was to his detriment…”
Molly looked back at Alex. There was no shame in his voice. No regret.
“I didn’t plan for all this. But I became the monster. And in any horror movie, the monster has to be defeated. I was hoping we would have a Beauty and the Beast ending. But I guess this story has a different finale.”
Molly leaned into Alex in their final few moments together. Knowing that he did all of this for her gave her an unmatched emotion. The kind of affirmation and love she’d been searching for all her life.
“You’re done now, right?” She asked.
Alex laughed. “In the past week, I’ve learned that love is more powerful than you think. It can drive you to do great things that are far beyond your ability. And the fear of losing love…well, that can drive you to do just about anything to keep it. Because, you and I, we have something different. And if the flame ever starts to die, we both know how I can rekindle it…”
She looked back at Alex, who gave a flirtatious smile. That’s when she realized that he wasn’t done. That he wasn’t regretful. Killing Amy and Christine and Sofia, it fueled him. It made him fall deeper in love with her. In Alex’s mind, killing Peter was an act of passionate romance.
There was no true repentance in any of this.
What he called love, she called madness.
Afraid to look back at him, she just kept staring forward out at the beautiful winter night. Bolin pulled into the first spot in front of the store with his team. Police sirens flooded into the store as flashing blue lights filled the darkness. Three policeman got out of the car and began yelling through
the glass as they approached the front door with guns in front of them. Bolin led the charge, an eager smile on his face.
It was just a matter of seconds now.
Molly held Alex’s hand and looked him in the eye as they turned toward each other. “Thank you for keeping me safe. From…the killer. I know he’d never hurt me.” Alex smiled at her, just in time to say his final words before Bolin stormed in.
“I’m just glad I could keep you safe.”
The STORY Will Continue…
To receive updates on the sequel’s release,
please go to sjsargent.com.
A Note From S.J. Sargent
Thank you for reading my debut thriller novel!
I really appreciate all feedback, and I love hearing what you have to say. Please leave me a helpful review on Amazon letting me know what you think. And share this book along with a friend that might enjoy reading it. Be on the lookout for the sequel!
S.J. SARGENT is a pseudonym for my real name, Stephen Sargent. I worked at Blockbuster Video as a teenager, which inspired much of this novel’s story. I live in Massachusetts with my lovely wife and two daughters.
For more info, please visit sjsargent.com.
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