Fearless

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Fearless Page 24

by Mike Dellosso


  “What’s going on, Spencer? You okay?”

  Jim’s first thought was to lock the doors and avoid Miller, but he knew that if Miller was in with Peevey and bent on murder, a single piece of glass wasn’t going to stop him. So he opened the door.

  Miller came around the door and squatted next to Jim. “What happened here, Spencer?”

  Cautiously Jim said, “You don’t know?”

  “I have an idea.”

  “Peevey.”

  Miller cursed and produced the key for the handcuffs. After freeing Jim, he said, “C’mon, you have to come with me.”

  Jim hesitated. “Jake Tucker is coming.” He was still unsure of Miller’s motives and wanted him to know that someone else was aware of what happened and where he was. If anything happened to him, Tucker would know it.

  “I know,” Miller said. “He called me. C’mon, let’s use my car.”

  Jim relaxed a little and rubbed his wrist. “I think Peevey took Amy and Louisa.”

  “And I think I know where he took them.”

  Under Peevey’s coercion Amy steered the SUV right up to the front porch of the large farmhouse. The porch light was not on, but she could tell by the feeble light spilling out of the window that the place was well cared for, that the occupants took pride in the way they kept their home.

  “Turn it off,” Peevey said.

  She obeyed and shut off the engine.

  “Now get out slowly. You try to be a hero, and I swear I’ll blow her head off.”

  Amy opened the door and stepped out of the vehicle. Peevey rounded the tail end holding Louisa by the arm, the barrel of the handgun pressed against the side of her head. Louisa’s eyes met Amy’s, and in them Amy did not find fear but rather sadness, a deep sorrow that brought the tears to Amy’s eyes again.

  Peevey released Louisa and nudged her forward. “Inside. Both of you.”

  Amy took Louisa’s hand and crossed the porch, opened the door, and entered the living room of the home. If it once served as a place of rest and comfort, a room where weary muscles found respite after a long day of labor, there was no sign of it now. Furniture was toppled, books strewn across the floor. A lamp lay on its side, the shade bent and torn.

  “This way,” Peevey said, as he passed through and headed for the kitchen.

  The kitchen showed none of the signs of the destruction so evident in the living room, other than dishes littering the sink area. Peevey opened a door that led to a staircase that descended to the basement of the house. He motioned with his gun. “Down.”

  Amy hesitated. With one step Peevey reached her and grabbed her arm. His grip was unbelievably strong, and she almost cried out in pain. He shoved her toward the steps, and if not for the railing to grab onto she would have toppled headlong down them. Amy stumbled down the steps, Louisa staying close behind her. At the bottom she turned and surveyed the large concrete-floored room. The walls were fieldstone and the ceiling open-beamed. In the far corner there was what looked to be a small room only half-completed. The bare studs were placed extremely close, a door was on one end, but no drywall yet and no electrical wiring.

  Peevey nudged her toward the room. “That way.”

  As she got closer, Amy noticed something that made her squeeze Louisa’s hand tighter and almost burst into tears. There were people in the room, an older man and woman, standing next to each other, caged like animals.

  As Jim’s head cleared more and the trauma from the Taser wore off, panic exploded in his chest. They needed to find Amy and Louisa soon. No, now! Time was not on their side.

  Jake arrived five minutes after Miller had found Jim and pulled his truck up alongside the cruiser. “Where ya headed, Chief?”

  “You know the Appletons’ farm?”

  “Sure do. Bob and I go back some ways. You think he took them there?”

  “Got a hunch and can’t ignore it.”

  Jake paused, looked straight ahead out the windshield, then back at Miller. “Why?”

  “Just stay close. If I’m right, I’ll explain later.”

  “You callin’ in help?”

  Miller massaged the steering wheel as if he was trying to work the tension out of it. “Not just yet. Let’s wait ’til we get there and see what comes of it.”

  Jake shrugged. “Your call. I got my twelve gauge.”

  “You let me handle the guns if it comes to that.”

  He rolled the window up and shifted the car into gear. Once on the road Miller radioed in to the dispatcher informing her where they were headed and to be on standby for backup. If he needed it, he’d holler.

  Jim said, “So who are the Appletons?”

  “Couple who lives out on Pine Grove Road. They have a farm, nothing big, just small time, but it suits them.”

  “Why would Peevey go there?”

  “Tuesday afternoon I got a call from some big shot with Enviro-Pride. Said one of his sales guys, Cody something, had gone missing, never checked in at the end of the day on Monday. He wondered if we’d gotten any calls. Apparently his family was pretty worried.”

  “What’s that have to do with Peevey?”

  “At the time of the call I didn’t think anything of it. This Cody guy was young, just out of college, you never know with those types. He may have decided the sales gig wasn’t for him and split. But I checked into it, asked for his schedule for the day. He had four farms to visit, and he only got to three. Guess which one he never got to?”

  “The Appletons.”

  “Bingo.”

  Miller hit the turn signal, slowed, and turned left. Rain continued to fall, and the wipers continued to swoosh back and forth, clearing the windshield with each arc.

  “Why didn’t you check it out then?”

  He shrugged. “I did try to call the Appletons a couple times, but there was no answer. Even drove out here Wednesday, but no one was home. I figured maybe they went away for a couple days. They do that from time to time. I guess . . . ” He let the words fade as he made another turn.

  “You know there was no way to put the two together,” Jim said, trying to alleviate Miller’s remorse even a little.

  Miller shook his head and checked the rearview mirror. “Looking back on it now, I don’t see how I could have missed it.”

  “You still don’t know if there’s any connection.”

  “No. I don’t know, but I feel it. I didn’t feel it yesterday. Should have, though.”

  They rode in silence as the darkness outside the cruiser loomed just beyond the blurred light of the headlamps. Who knew what lurked in such lightlessness, what evil, what malevolence. The panic was still here, clawing at Jim’s chest, itching his nerves, screaming a warning that he was about to find out what true evil was.

  Chapter 54

  DEREK PEEVEY WAS in no mood to talk. He should have killed Spencer back there. Should have put a bullet in his head and been done with it. But for some reason he couldn’t. Jim Spencer was a good man, respected the law, respected everyone. He didn’t deserve to die like that. Derek thought the Taser would be enough to disorient him until they got out of there, and it didn’t disappoint.

  Derek held the handgun shoulder high and pointed it at Spencer’s wife. She was a pretty thing, trying to appear brave, but he could tell she was ready to do it in her pants. He could always tell right before they dumped on themselves. It turned his stomach. The kid showed no fear, though. She looked at him with those tired, sad eyes and could see right through him; he knew she could. He hated the way she eyed him, exposed him like an X-ray, pitied him. He needed no one’s pity.

  “Quit looking at me,” he said to the girl. He motioned to the wall with the gun. “Stand over there, both of you.”

  When he unlocked the door to the room he’d built for the Appletons and pulled the door open, Clare was right there. She shifted her eyes between him and the woman and girl. “Mitch, what have you done?” There was disappointment in her voice.

  Derek motioned toward the room an
d said to Spencer’s wife, “Get in, the kid too.”

  She leaned against the wall and gripped the stones with both hands. “No. I’m not doing anything until you tell me if my husband is still alive.”

  Derek didn’t have time for this. He’d made a stupid mistake in letting Spencer live, and now he had to get out of there. Funny, how he’d never really come up with an escape plan. Maybe he wanted to be caught. Maybe he wanted the respect of a trial. All those lawyers, giving him the benefit of the doubt. Innocent till proven guilty. Respect.

  He reached the woman in two steps and in one quick motion slapped her across the face. Her head snapped back and her knees buckled, but she didn’t go down. The blow had so weakened her, though, that Derek was able to pull her from the wall and toss her into the room with no resistance. The girl followed without a word. Once they were in, he shut the door and locked it.

  Clare guided Spencer’s wife to the floor and put the woman’s head in her lap. “You didn’t have to do that,” she said, scolding him like a child who’d just been caught tormenting the family cat.

  Bob came to the wall and gripped the two-by-fours with both hands. “Why are you doing this?” He glanced at the kid who was on her knees next to Spencer’s wife. “She’s just a child.” His lips quivered when he spoke, and there was a flash of contempt in his eyes.

  Derek had lost their respect. He’d enjoyed the Appletons and let them live because they had respected him, genuinely, but now that respect was gone, and he had no use for them. And the girl had to go too. She’d seen too much. When she touched him back at the Spencer house, brought him back from that cliff where there was nothing but blackness below, she peered over the edge and saw into his soul, saw his dark side, his thoughts, his desires, his wounds, everything. It was as if his life was a picture book and she’d flipped through every page at once, saw every photo, every illustration, every gruesome image. He had no secrets with her. And the exposure scared him.

  Derek turned his back to the room and headed for the staircase. An image was in his head then, the fire, his father. The fear.

  At the bottom of the steps Derek had to grab the simple banister to steady himself.

  From across the basement Clare said, “You don’t have to do this, Mitch. You don’t have to give in to those demons. Don’t you see, even after all these years, your father is still controlling you.”

  She was right, of course. He was controlling him, that old sack, even from his grave where he belonged. But at the moment Derek didn’t care. He had to be strong. He had to clean this up and get out of there. He’d find a nice secluded place and disappear, find a new life and start over. No one would find him, not even his father.

  He rushed up the steps and out of the house. It was still raining, but it had slowed to only a mist now, not enough to thwart his plans. In the barn he felt for the light switch and flipped it. Inside it was dry and warm and smelled of hay and grease. In the far corner, under the workbench, he found what he’d come for: the red fourteen-gallon rolling gasoline container with a siphon handle.

  Chapter 55

  AMY CLUTCHED LOUISA to her chest and rocked back and forth, humming a tune her mother used to sing to her when she was a child and afraid in the night. The woman who had introduced herself as Clare sat in a chair, one arm wrapped around her chest, the other hand over her mouth. Tears spilled from her eyes and ran down her cheeks. Her husband, Bob, paced along the wall, both hands in his pockets.

  Overhead, on the first floor of the house, Peevey’s footsteps crisscrossed back and forth, thudding like he’d come through the boards. Whatever he was doing up there, he was in a hurry to get it done.

  Another sound was there then, like water splashing. Clare looked up and found her husband’s eyes. “What’s that?” she said.

  Bob stopped pacing and listened, his eyes following trails on the basement ceiling.

  The splashing continued and seemed to follow Peevey’s footsteps around the floor.

  “Sounds like . . . ”

  But before Bob could finish, Amy smelled the unmistakable fumes and said, “Gasoline.”

  “Get up,” Bob said to Clare.

  She stood and he took the chair, lifted it above his shoulders, and rammed it into the studs that made up the makeshift prison. The collision made a solid thud, but the studs didn’t budge.

  “You tried that already,” Clare said.

  Bob lifted the chair again. “But this time I’m not going to stop until we’re out.”

  He tried again and again, but each time the chair merely bounced off the studs.

  Ever since his father put a match to his son’s pants, Derek had dealt with an abnormal fear of fire. But it was a fear he had to overcome; he could no longer be its slave. He must be strong. For that reason he chose to destroy the house and everything (and everyone) in it in a blazing inferno. It would be his final statement, his stand against the fear that had gripped him so tightly and anyone who had disrespected him since his mother and father first did. No longer would they cast condescending looks his way. No longer would they show their indifference and disdain for him. He would be legendary. Yes, a roaring blaze was a fitting conclusion.

  After dousing the interior of the house with gasoline, being ever so careful not to get any on his shoes or pants, Derek poured a line out of the house, across the front porch, and around the perimeter of the stone foundation. With the age of the house being well over a hundred years, it would burn hot and quick, like taking a match to the driest of kindling after soaking it with lighter fluid.

  Standing in the gravel driveway, Derek retrieved the matchbox from his pocket, withdrew a match, and stepped up to where the trail of gasoline ended. His movements were quick and determined. He struck the match head against the striking surface and watched it ignite. The flame was insignificant compared to the chain reaction it would start, but the sight of the flame made him tremble. He must be strong.

  Quickly Derek dropped it on the gasoline. It flared with a whoosh and took off from there, splitting in two directions, one following the perimeter of the house, the other racing through the front door. Within seconds the house was ablaze, the heat of it buffeting Derek like a torpedo heater.

  Shielding his face, Derek backed up, turned to get in the Explorer, and saw headlights cresting the hill of the lane.

  The arrhythmic glow just over the rise reminded Jim of the soft light that emanated from a jar full of fireflies. At first the source of the light was a mystery. But as the cruiser drew nearer and Miller’s foot got heavier on the accelerator, the lights seemed to have a breath of their own, a familiar movement pattern that put a rock in the pit of Jim’s stomach.

  And when the cruiser crested the small rise and the source of the light was in full view, a guttural groan, involuntary and unbidden, escaped his throat.

  Miller cursed and the cruiser lunged forward, spitting gravel from under its tires. The shocks creaked and moaned as they absorbed the impact from the uneven path.

  Ahead, not even a hundred yards away, a farmhouse sat ablaze with a growing fire.

  Grunting with each effort, Bob Appleton rammed the chair against the studs again, and this time one of them cracked and splintered. He stopped and looked at his wife and Amy. Sweat soaked his hair and wet his face, and he panted heavily. Amy was afraid he’d hurt himself. He had to be nearing seventy, and although he looked to be in good health, one never knew what lurked under the surface.

  She could hear the fire crackling above them, and some smoke had begun to make its way through the floor joints and collect around the beams in the ceiling.

  Again Bob shoved the chair at the stud, and again it cracked, this time bent like an elbow slightly flexed.

  “One more,” he said, and reared the chair back before thrusting it forward again. The two-by-four snapped and folded and broke in the middle. Bob lost his balance from the exertion and would have gone to the floor had it not been for Amy stepping forward quickly to steady him. He apologiz
ed and wiped sweat from his eyes.

  “I can take it from here,” she said.

  “No, no,” Bob said, shaking his head. “I’ll do it. One more should be all it takes, and then . . . ”

  And then what? That was the question pounding in Amy’s head. The first floor was an inferno; there was no hope of escaping that way. Their only chance would be the outside cellar doors, the same kind she and Louisa had exited back home when Peevey was the menace above them.

  The smoke was beginning to thicken and roil along the ceiling, following the subtle drafts that made it through the old windows and seeped down through the joints in the flooring.

  Bob heaved the chair one more time at the stud, and it finally broke loose and fell to the concrete floor.

  “Out,” he said, motioning toward the opening in the prison. “Quickly now.”

  Amy and Louisa went first, followed by Clare then Bob. He was still panting heavily, and his face was as red as raw meat.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” Amy said.

  Bob dragged his sleeve across his face, mopping up the sweat. “I’ll be fine. Quickly now, the doors.”

  Amy ran ahead and tried the outside doors, but she found them sealed shut. They had a locking mechanism on the underside, but it was already disengaged. The doors were locked from the outside. She pushed up on them, and they gave a little but didn’t open.

  “They’re locked,” she said. “From the outside.”

  Bob came over and stood on the stairs so the back of his shoulders were pushing up on the doors. He tried to straighten his knees and wedge the doors open, but they refused to cooperate.

  “Go check the other door,” he said.

  Amy hurried across the basement, leaving Louisa with Clare, and ascended the steps. About halfway up she was met by a wall of black, sooty smoke. She held her breath and climbed the rest of the staircase. At the door she put her hand on the wood and immediately pulled it away. It was too hot to touch. The fire raged just on the other side. To open the door would be to feed the fire the cool oxygen-rich air from the basement and send her flying down the steps in a backdraft. Returning to the outside doors she screamed, “No use. Too much smoke, and the fire is right there.”

 

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