“Get the rest of her stuff,” he said quietly as he walked past Maggie.
Maggie grabbed a toothbrush and tube of toothpaste from the bedspread, tossed them into the overnight bag, then rifled for a moment to see if Zoe had the basics. She’d forgotten to pack any underwear, so Maggie found some in her dresser and tossed them in. She was about to zip up the bag when she saw the beaten-up brown teddy bear near the pillow. She tossed him in, too, then grabbed Zoe’s bag and headed out.
When she got back to the living room, Paulette was sitting on the loveseat, her cigarettes in her hand. She looked up at Maggie, and her expression was an odd blend of shame, regret, and defiance.
Maggie was going to walk right past her, but she stopped. The woman didn’t look away, and Maggie had to give her credit for that at least.
“You need to get it together,” Maggie said. “Neither one of you has anybody else, and having nobody sucks.” She closed the front door behind her as she went out.
Wyatt was talking to Carl next to Maggie’s Jeep. Zoe sat in the passenger seat. At the road, Dwight was shooing a few looky-loos back to their homes.
“Zoe says she doesn’t remember what the guy drives.” Wyatt said when she approached. “If he’s not at the pizza place, we’ll get that info from them.”
“Who else is going?” Maggie asked.
“Carl and Dwight. Jackson from PD is meeting us over there,” Wyatt said. He looked over at Carl. “Let’s go. Dwight!”
“Call me,” Maggie said, and Wyatt held a hand up to acknowledge he’d heard her. She got in and started the Jeep, and Wyatt waited for her to back out, then did the same.
She looked in the rearview once she got to 12th Street. Wyatt and the deputies were all behind her. They stayed behind her until they got to Main, then Maggie turned right and everyone else turned left.
There was quite a lot of traffic on the road, everyone piling into town for the Seafood Festival, or already there and looking for dinner. Maggie checked her rearview a few times, but didn’t see anyone who appeared to be following them.
A few minutes later, she waited for traffic to pass, checked the rear view again just before turning, then pulled onto her parents' driveway.
“Is this your house?” Zoe asked.
“No, this is where I grew up,” Maggie said. “My parents’ house. I live out in the middle of nowhere, and I may need to go back out later. Is this okay?”
Maggie glanced back at the road in her rearview. No one turned into her parents’ driveway, and no one seemed to slow as they passed.
“If you go out, are you coming back?”
“Yes,” Maggie said. “I’ll stay here with you.”
“Where are Sky and…your son?”
“Kyle. They’re at home.” Maggie pulled to a stop in front of the house and turned off the engine. “But they’re supposed to be spending the night here. We’re all going to the Seafood Festival tomorrow. Are you okay with them being here, too?”
“Yeah. I mean, I guess,” Zoe said. “Having people around kind of sounds good right now.”
Maggie looked at her for a moment. “You and I can just stay here tomorrow, if you don’t feel like being out in a crowd,” she said.
Zoe thought about that for a moment. “No, it’s okay,” she said.
“Okay,” Maggie said.
They got out of the Jeep. Maggie grabbed Zoe’s bag, and they headed for the front porch.
A few hundred feet short of the Redmonds’ driveway, an older blue Maxima with a Pizza One sign on the back seat sat idling in a gas station parking lot.
Maggie and her father were sitting out on her parents’ back deck, drinking sweet tea and listening to the bug zapper zap bugs. Behind them, they could hear Maggie’s mother Georgia talking to Kyle as she worked a puzzle with him at the kitchen table. Out in the back yard, Sky and Zoe sat close together under a Sabal palm, deep in conversation.
Maggie watched them from where she sat on the bottom step, until her phone buzzed beside her. It was Wyatt.
“Did you get him?” she asked.
“His name is Michael Finch, and no. He never came back to the pizza place,” Wyatt said. “In fact, he never delivered the other three pizzas he was carrying.”
“He knew,” she said.
“Yeah. We had to get the owner down here to access the employee records, but we got his address. Over here on Sixth Street. He’s not here, either. However, we put a BOLO out on his blue Maxima, and Apalach PD just called it in. It’s at a trailer over on 25th Avenue.”
“Are you on your way already?” Maggie asked, standing up.
“Yep.”
“I’m coming,” Maggie said, already headed down the steps.
Wyatt gave her the address, which was only about a mile and a half away. “About a hundred yards south on the left, there’s an empty trailer. Meet us in the driveway.”
It only took Maggie a few minutes to make it to the spot where Wyatt, Dwight, and two Apalach PD officers were waiting. It was a long gravel driveway leading to a dilapidated brown trailer with a few old tires and an oil drum in the yard. In between it and the trailer they were headed to was an empty wooded lot.
Wyatt and the others were standing by Wyatt’s cruiser. Maggie got out, carrying her body armor with her, and joined them.
“We’ve got two other cars in the yard over there,” Wyatt said, “in addition to the Maxima. They might run, they might not. They might have drivers, they might not. Safer to expect they run and have both drivers and passengers.”
Sgt. Bret Woods from PD looked at Maggie. “Like I told Wyatt, what we have here is Dwayne Charles’s place. He’s a small-time pot dealer, typical burn-out. Never been violent, as far as I know.”
Maggie nodded as she pulled the Velcro on her armor tight.
“Let’s go ahead and assume everyone is in a pissed-off violent mood, okay?” Wyatt said quietly.
Wyatt had his black vest on over his polo. Dwight wore his over his uniform shirt, as did the two PD officers.
“If he’s gonna run, he’ll run out the back,” Wyatt said. “Bret, you and I will take the back. Maggie, Dwight, and Bill will go in the front.” Everyone nodded. Wyatt crooked a finger at Maggie. “You, come with me for a minute.”
Maggie followed him back over to the far side of her Jeep. Wyatt turned around and frowned at her.
“I’m thinking I’ll be okay with this guy resisting arrest,” Wyatt said quietly, as he tugged on the Velcro straps of her vest. “I’m also thinking I’m okay with this job change. I’m not too enthusiastic about letting you go through doors anymore, much less ordering you to do it.”
Maggie swallowed, had a sudden flash of him lying on his kitchen floor, covered in blood and paler than the tile. “Well, I’ll be kind of happy when you aren’t doing it, either.”
“Maybe we should both get out,” he said.
“I’ll put my app in at Piggly-Wiggly,” she said.
“Lie about your people skills,” he said.
He looked at her and sighed. Maggie tried to smile. Cops on TV barreled through doors into unknown situations like they were crashing a toddler’s birthday party. The reality was that it was scary, every single time, like jumping blindfolded into a tank that probably held sharks.
“Okay, well,” Wyatt said.
“Yep,” Maggie said, and followed him back to the guys. Thirty seconds later, they were headed through the wooded lot next door.
Maggie and Dwight stood on either side of the trailer’s battered door, weapons at the ready. There was only room for two on the trailer’s tiny front deck. Bill waited at the bottom of the two steps. They could hear Nirvana playing, even though the windows were shut.
Maggie looked at Dwight’s profile as he stared at the door. She was almost ten years older than Dwight, but she’d known him since he was a teenager. He had a sweet wife who did cross-stitch, and three kids under the age of seven. He was the first male in his family to do something other than shrimping.
Maggie swallowed, closed her eyes for one moment, and then used her weapon to knock on the door. They could hear shuffling inside, then someone turned the music down.
“Who is it?” a male voice called, and Maggie could tell he was at least a few feet from the door.
“Franklin County Sheriff’s Office. Open the door,” Maggie called.
There was more shuffling, and the thumping of feet trying unsuccessfully to be quiet on the thin floors of the trailer. Dwight looked at Maggie and she nodded. He kicked in the door, and they went through it. A few seconds later, Maggie heard the back door slam open.
Wyatt was standing on the concrete blocks that served as steps when the back door swung open and a kid with long, dyed black hair flew through it. Wyatt stuck out his arm and clotheslined the kid, who went down hard on the kitchen floor.
“Stop,” Wyatt said quietly, and went through the door as Bret ran up the blocks. The kitchen was open to the living room, and Wyatt saw Maggie pointing her weapon at two guys standing against an entertainment center. One had orange hair, the other none at all.
The pot cloud was enough to get them all high, and Wyatt coughed as he stepped over the black-haired kid, who looked like he was trying to back into the cupboard under the sink. Wyatt pointed at him. “Up.”
The kid stood up, hands in the air, and Bret patted him down.
“In the living room,” Wyatt told him.
The kid held up his hands, which were shaking violently, and walked in front of Wyatt. Bret followed them into the living room, and they arrived as Dwight came into the room from a hallway.
“That’s it,” Dwight said.
“What’s going on, man?” a skinny kid guy with orange hair and a brown goatee asked.
“Michael Finch,” Maggie said.
“He ain’t here,” the kid said.
“His car is,” Maggie said.
Wyatt shoved the black-haired kid toward his friends. “Which one of you citizens is Dwayne?”
The guys just stood there. “The kid with the goatee,” Bret said. The kid with the goatee looked unhappy.
“Where’s Finch?” Wyatt asked him, as Dwight and Bret began patting the men down.
“I don’t know, man,” Dwayne said. “What the hell.”
“He left, dude,” the bald guy said. He appeared to be a few years older than the others.
“When?” Maggie asked.
“Like an hour ago,” Dwayne answered.
“Without his car?” Wyatt asked.
“He sold it to me for four hundred bucks,” Dwayne said. “He said he needed the cash to get out of town.”
“How’s he getting out of town without his car, Dwayne?” Maggie asked.
“His bike, man,” the kid answered. “I was holding his bike for him ’cause he doesn’t have a driveway or nothin’ at his place.”
“What kind of bike?”
“I don’t know man. Some not-Harley kind of bike,” the kid said.
“It was some kind of Kawasaki,” the bald guy said. “Crotch rocket. Black.”
“Where’d he say he’s going?” Wyatt asked, as he poured what was left of a can of Diet Coke into an ashtray that was about to burst into flames.
“He didn’t say, dude,” the black-haired kid said.
“What’d he do, man?” the bald guy asked.
“He was rude,” Wyatt said. “Do you know where he went?”
“No, man,” the guy answered.
“You wouldn’t lie to me?” Wyatt asked. “Because I couldn’t care less at the moment how much weed you’re holding, but if you hand me crap you’ll all be getting cavity searched within the hour.”
“I swear, man,” the bald guy said. “I barely know the dude.”
Wyatt sighed and looked at Bret. “Can you get IDs and license plates?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Bret answered.
“Maggie, Dwight,” Wyatt said, and they followed him out the front door and into the yard.
“You buy what they’re saying?” Maggie asked.
“Yeah, but I don’t know that I buy what he told them,” Wyatt said.
“Me, neither,” she said.
“More than likely, he is hauling ass. I just don’t like that we don’t know that.” Wyatt looked at Dwight. “Dwight, go on back to the office, see if we can get a license plate for this guy’s motorcycle. Then go ahead and file a preliminary and go home.”
“Gotcha, boss,” Dwight said. “This was fun and all,” he added as he headed back to the woods.
Wyatt looked at Maggie, who was chewing on the corner of her lip. “What’s on your mind?” he asked her.
Maggie shook her head. “I don’t like that he delivered the pizza,” she said.
“Talk to me about that.”
“Would you have delivered a pizza?”
“I don’t think they get to pick their deliveries, but no. And yeah, it’s troubling.”
“I’m wondering if this guy isn’t a typical rapist,” Maggie said.
“Because he came back?”
“I think maybe the possum was convenient, but it wasn’t alone,” she said. “And I think he fully expected to have to deliver another pizza over there. He wanted to.”
“You think his thing is to mess with her head?”
“I keep going back to the leaves,” Maggie said.
“Okay,” Wyatt said.
“Dr. Callahan said it could have been some kind of repair, like he was trying to undo taking her virginity, like he was putting it back,” Maggie said. “But what if he was putting it back so he could take it again?”
Wyatt looked at her and sighed. “We think a lot of sick crap,” he said.
“We know a lot of sick crap,” she said.
Wyatt put his hands on his hips and huffed out a breath. “I’m gonna wait on the guys and see about keeping this place under eyeballs for a bit,” he said. “Finch could come back, or one of these Stanford applicants could try to go see him.”
“Okay,” Maggie said. “I need to get back to Zoe. I feel bad. I know she feels out of place.”
“She’s safe,” Wyatt said.
“Yeah,” she said. And Zoe was; Daddy could work that .38 revolver of his just as swiftly as he did a shucking knife. “Okay, I’ll see you later.”
“See you later.”
Maggie crossed the yard, heard Wyatt going back up the trailer stairs, as she stepped into the wooded lot.
The wind had picked up some, and the tall, skinny pines were all whispering the secrets that trees tell. 25th Avenue was quiet, and Maggie listened to her boots crunching through the pine needles, pine cones, and dead leaves as she made her way through the woods.
She looked up through the trees, saw the moon glowing above her. She thought about Zoe lying in the dirt looking up through the treetops, looking at the same moon. Thought of herself lying in different woods, at a different time, staring up at the cloudless, blue November sky and wishing she was looking at it from somewhere else.
She brushed at her arms, quickened her step, and hurried through to the other side.
When Maggie got back to her parents’ house, most of the house was dark except for the kitchen, where Gray sat at the table playing cards with Zoe. Her dad was up by five every morning and in bed by ten. Maggie knew he’d stayed up for Zoe, and she loved him for it.
They both looked up as she walked into the kitchen.
“What happened?” Zoe asked. “Is he in jail?”
Maggie put her purse down on the counter and sighed. “No, I’m sorry. He isn’t,” she said. “He might have left town.”
Zoe just sat there, eyes wide, and Gray gently laid a hand on her shoulder. “Wyatt and Maggie will find him,” he said.
Maggie knew that very well might be a lie, and she wished he hadn’t said it, but she knew he felt he had to say something.
“Everybody’s looking for him, Zoe,” she said quietly.
Zoe nodded, and Gray patted her shoulder and pushed back his
chair. “I’ll let the two of you talk,” he said as he stood. “Try to get some sleep tonight, Zoe. You’re okay here.”
Zoe nodded. “Thank you, sir,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
Maggie watched Gray walk out of the kitchen, then Zoe stood up. “I need air,” she said.
“Okay. Come on, we’ll go out on the deck,” Maggie said.
She unlocked the sliding door and stepped out first, looked around. The grass beyond the deck started out a light yellow-green from the deck lights, then faded out into a circle of black. Zoe stepped out onto the deck behind her, and Maggie led her to the steps.
Once they’d both sat down, Maggie reached out and gave Zoe’s hand a squeeze, then let it go. “I know you’re scared,” she said.
Zoe opened her mouth to say something, then stopped. She twisted her hands on her knees and shook her head. She squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them again.
“I’m not scared. I’m…I just hate!” she said. “I just feel hate!”
Maggie watched her, let her say what she needed to say.
“He smiled at me! He smiled right at me, touching my food and…smiling!” she spat out. “He made me sick.”
“I know,” Maggie said.
Zoe whipped her head around. “He shoved a bunch of leaves in me. Did you know that?”
“Yes.”
“Like I was a trash bag or something, like I wasn’t even a human being,” Zoe said. “I keep thinking about him standing there, smiling at me like he was a normal person, and I want to stab him in the face!”
Maggie waited. Zoe lifted her hands from her knees.
“My hands are shaking, I hate him so much!”
Maggie reached out for Zoe’s hands, but the girl jerked them away.
“No! I can’t stand feeling so much hate, but at least I’m not standing in the corner like a baby! I don’t want it to stop!”
Zoe looked away, up into the trees in the wooded lot next door.
Maggie stood up and walked down the steps. Zoe watched her as she opened the doors of a low shed beneath the deck, and pulled out a softball hitting stick. The bright yellow-green knob at the end had seen better seasons, and was patched with duct tape. Maggie reached into the shed and rummaged through a few aluminum bats before pulling out one of the dark, wooden Louisville Sluggers that had belonged to her late husband.
Awash (The Forgotten Coast Florida Suspense Series Book 6) Page 14