“Who?”
“Who what?” the kidnapper asked. “You need to walk this way—to your right. John you need to send him over here now. We’ll grab Anna again if you don’t. Anna stop where you are. Don’t move until Ronnie starts heading over here.”
Anna continued walking.
“Who hired you?” Cardigan said.
“Anna stop where you are or we’ll shoot.”
“I did what you asked me to,” I said. “Leave her alone. Let her keep coming.”
“Something’s not right,” Ronnie said to me.
“I told you,” the kidnapper said. Your family.”
I watched Anna as she continued toward me, tracking her progress. Things were unraveling. If the balloon went up, I wanted to be able to get to her fast.
“No. Who in my family?” Cardigan said. “I don’t buy it, don’t believe you.”
“Your dad. Who else?”
“My dad’s been dead for three years,” Ronnie yelled.
“Oh shit.”
Ronnie looked over at me. “You just got me killed,” he said. “My dad’s not dead, but they don’t know it. What’s really going on here?”
“Grab him,” the kidnapper yelled.
A rustling in the underbrush, fast footfalls, running, snapping branches, crunching twigs.
“Follow me if you want to live,” I said.
“GET HIM NOW.”
I took off running toward Anna, the .38 out now, in my right hand. At my side. Pointed toward the ground. Hammer back. Finger on the trigger.
“Stay with me,” I said. “I’ll protect you.”
“Fuck that,” he said, and took off in the opposite direction.
Running.
Stumbling over tree limbs. Slipping on pine straw. Twisting around tree trunks. Bushes and plants and branches impeding my progress.
Looking for Anna. Scanning. Searching.
Shots fired. Small caliber gun. Pop. Pop.
“ANNA,” I yelled. “GET DOWN. STAY DOWN. I’LL FIND YOU.”
“WE WON’T HURT HER, JOHN,” the kidnapper yelled. “SHE’S SAFE. YOU BOTH ARE. YOU DID WHAT WE––”
Another shot. Pop. Then another. Pop.
“STOP SHOOTING FOR FUCK’S SAKE.”
Still running.
Dress shoes sinking in soggy sand, sliding down the small embankment toward the pond.
“Anna,” I said.
“John.”
She was there. Not far away now. So close.
Get to her.
Diving beside her, I grabbed her. Hugged her. Held her.
She felt so good.
“You okay?”
“Am now.”
“JOHN,” Merrill yelled from the other side of the pond. “ONE RUNNING YOUR WAY.”
I was shocked to hear Merrill’s voice, but didn’t think about it, just responded to what he said.
Spinning around in a crouch, I came up behind Anna, shielding her body with mine, gun up, eyes scanning the area behind the barrel.
In the glow of the institution, I could see a figure sprinting––but away from and not toward us, perpendicular to the prison.
Then more rustling and running from the opposite side.
A shout I couldn’t make out. Another shot. Different gun this time.
A figure running toward us. Cardigan. Getting close. Merrill behind him, gaining.
Urge to stand, move toward him. Staying with Anna.
Merrill overtaking him, tripping him. Cardigan crashing hard on the forest floor.
Merrill snatching him up, zip-tying his wrists behind him, moving over toward us.
“Think they only two of ’em,” he said. “One down. One runnin’.”
“What’re you doin’ here?” I asked.
Chapter Thirty
“Her ex,” Merrill said.
“Huh?”
I was helping Anna to her feet, continuing to scan the area as I did.
“Are you okay?” I asked her.
She nodded.
I hugged and kissed her and held her for a long moment.
Above us, the moon continued to disappear incrementally.
“Whatta you mean, my ex?” Anna asked.
“He hobblin’ over here,” Merrill said, jerking his head back in the direction he had just come from. “I’a let him tell you.”
“He’s alive?” Anna asked.
“But we better walk toward him if we want to see him anytime soon.”
We did.
As we made our way over toward Chris Taunton, who was moving like a man who should be in the hospital, I checked behind us periodically.
“Not her ex,” Chris said when we got near him. “Not yet.”
“Tell ’em how your ass helped save the day and my ass,” Merrill said.
He looked at me. “Day I checked myself out of the hospital and came to your house to ask you again if I could help you,” he said. “When you left, I went inside and looked around. Found the letter you left for Merrill.”
“Brought it to me and asked what we should do,” Merrill said. “We been watchin’ you ever since.”
“I didn’t want to do anything to risk Anna’s life,” Chris said. “But I didn’t want to not do anything that might help save her.”
“Thank you,” she said.
Chris had turned and started his way back toward the path. We had all matched his pace, moving slowly out of the bowl that formed the lake, up toward the trail we had walked in on, Merrill with a hand on the cuffed Cardigan.
“It’s not just my wife but my child we’re talkin’ about,” he said.
“So we watch and wait,” Merrill said. “Follow you out here tonight and––”
Ronnie said, “I didn’t do anything wrong. Why am I cuffed?”
“You ran,” I said. “In the wrong direction.”
“Then your ass ran from me,” Merrill said.
“I didn’t know what was going on. Guys in correctional uniforms. Guns goin’ off. Figured y’all brought me out here to kill me ’cause of what I know.”
“Which is what?” Merrill said.
“How I know you not in on it?” he said. “Ain’t sayin’ shit.”
My arm was around Anna. I held her as we walked. I had no intention of ever letting go again.
“What happened?” I asked. “Why would they let Anna go and then start shooting before Ronnie even made it over there? And where is the other guy, the one who didn’t run?”
“Soon as they let Anna go and start shootin’,” Merrill said, “I start easin’ up on ’em. Then this fool”––nodding toward Cardigan––“come running up behind me and knock me down. I look up and they got the drop on me. My ass staring up at the barrel of a cannon.”
“A cannon?” I said.
“Well, least a .357. Do this fool help? No, he off runnin’ again—in the opposite direction this time.”
I continued to glance behind us, making sure there weren’t more of them or that the one who ran hadn’t doubled back to come up behind us.
“What was I supposed to do?” Cardigan said.
“Hop-along Taunton here with a little hitch in his giddy-up stumble out of the bushes and shoots the guy. Save my black ass from dyin’ in the dirt where I sat.”
“He’s dead?” Anna said.
“As I would’ve been,” Merrill said.
“Thank you,” I said to Chris.
“Yes, thank you,” Anna said.
“For everything,” I said.
Chris shrugged. “Happened so fast I didn’t have time to think. If I had . . .”
When we reached the path, the last of the moon’s paleness appeared to be vanishing, as if evanescent in nature––a vapor instead of a planet.
Merrill looked at his watch. “Whatcha say you don’t do any jail time,” he said to me. “Maybe even save your job. You might just have time to get him back in before anybody realize he gone. Call your dad on the way. Tell him what’s what. We stay and wait for him.”
>
“Could work,” I said.
“Worth a shot,” he said.
“And tell him to send an ambulance,” Chris said. “I think I ripped something open.”
“Okay,” I said. “Wish me luck.”
“I’m going with you,” Anna said.
I nodded.
“I mean everywhere. For the rest of my life.”
Chapter Thirty-one
“You sure you didn’t recognize him?” I asked.
Anna, Cardigan, and I were in her Mustang racing back toward the institution. I was driving, Anna was in the seat beside me, Cardigan stuffed in the nearly nonexistent backseat.
Anna had been telling me every detail she could recall from her time with the kidnappers while they were fresh on her mind, and my question to Cardigan had been intentionally abrupt.
Before we had left the path near the pond, we had taken Ronnie over to look at the kidnapper to see if we could get an ID on him, which was the reason for my question now as I looked at him in the rearview mirror.
“Positive,” Cardigan said. “Never seen him before in my life.”
The kidnapper was just that. A kid. His youthful appearance matched the voice I had been hearing on the phone.
He was a pale, blond-haired, blue-eyed boy in his early twenties, in khaki pants and a light blue short-sleeved sport shirt. Average height. Average build. Though not overweight, there was a certain softness about his body. He looked more like a camp counselor or fast food manager than a kidnapper.
His soft body was sprawled out across the narrow path, his pale-blue shirt wet with blood, blood that looked black in what was left of the moonlight.
“He was so young,” Anna said.
“Wonder who he is and what he wanted with me?” Cardigan said.
“Dad will try to get an ID first thing.”
“He was genuinely good to me,” Anna said. “Incredibly so. It’s not Stockholm syndrome. He really was.”
I looked in the rearview mirror at Cardigan again. “You said you wondered what he wanted with you,” I said, “but you probably know.”
“I’m not lying. I really don’t.”
“Think about it,” I said. “Only a couple of things it can be.”
“Well, please enlighten me,” he said, “’cause I honestly don’t know.”
“Could be what he said. Your family. And it just went wrong. But if it’s not, there are two obvious possibilities I can see, and I just met you.”
“Let’s hear them.”
“Your case. You claim to be innocent.”
“I am.”
“If that’s true, it could be whoever’s guilty. Or maybe someone who believes you’re guilty of not only robbing your neighbor but killing her too.”
“Hadn’t thought of that. What’s the other?”
“You know what it is. You keep talkin’ about knowing something that’s going to help you get out. Hasn’t crossed your mind it could be connected to that? Wanna tell me what you know?” I said. “I can’t help you if I don’t know what it is.”
“You should let him help you,” Anna said.
“I don’t know that you’re not involved. I don’t know you. I could’ve gotten killed tonight.”
“It doesn’t have to be one of those,” I said. “It could be one of a thousand different things I know nothing about. Those two are just obvious from what I know about you and what you’ve told me about your case.”
He didn’t say anything.
“I’m willing to look into your case,” I said, “see if I can help you. But I can’t do it if I lose my job and go to jail.”
“I don’t understand,” he said.
Anna squeezed my hand. “You risked so much for me.”
“Are you gonna work with me to get you back into the institution, in your uniform, and back into your dorm? Not gonna say anything? Not gonna sabotage what I’m about to try?”
“I won’t. Helping you helps me. I don’t want to be out here like this. I don’t want to do anything to risk spending even one second more than I have to in there.”
“I hope you’ll remember that,” I said.
“Whatta we gonna do?” Anna asked.
“See if we can get him back in before the service is over in the chapel. Get him changed and back in the dorm. Then get Emmitt Emerson out.”
“You should tell us what you know,” Anna said. “Let us help you. We owe you.”
“You already know,” he said. “If you think about it. It’s all anybody’s talking about.”
We didn’t say anything. I didn’t know what he was referring to.
“A certain . . . investigation going on right now.”
“Into the death of Hahn Ling?” I asked.
“No. It involves a group of officers.”
There were always investigations involving correctional officers, but there was only one he could be talking about.
Three correctional officers were under investigation for a use-of-force incident that led to the death of inmate Reggie Dalton.
If found guilty, Officers Marty Perkins, Lewis Milner, and Sergeant Jack Kirkus would be fired and arrested on charges of official misconduct and manslaughter or murder.
The incident involving twenty-eight-year-old Reggie Dalton, who was serving a twenty-year sentence for drug trafficking and armed robbery, was being investigated by Rachel Peterson and her office, with additional assistance from FDLE.
There were a lot of questions surrounding the case, but video footage from both the use-of-force camcorder and the prison surveillance system seemed to exonerate the officers and demonstrate they did nothing excessive. However, one crucial video feed from the surveillance system was missing and the camcorder recording appeared to have been stopped and restarted, leading to questions of whether the equipment involved had malfunctioned or been disabled.
The footage showed Dalton being belligerent, yelling obscenities, refusing orders, antagonizing the officers, and eventually slinging feces from his cell. A chemical agent was used to subdue the inmate, and on the way to the decontamination shower, he somehow broke free and assaulted the officers. He was eventually subdued again, but shortly after collapsed and was taken to the hospital. He died en route.
“The Reggie Dalton case?” I asked.
“Ain’t sayin’ anything else. Said too much already.”
My phone vibrated in my pocket.
It was Merrill.
“Hey.”
“Your dad, some deputies, and one of his investigators just arrived. Ambulance takin’ Taunton back to the hospital. They gonna interview him there. Me, here or the sheriff’s department. While I was waitin’ on ’em to get here, I might have searched the kid’s pockets for ID, and between his wallet, business card, and his website, which I might have glanced at on my phone, discovered a few things.”
“Like what?” I said. “Hypothetically.”
“Like his name is Karl Jason. Like he live in Tallahassee. Like he a thespian and not a thug. He a theater adjunct at TCC and audition a lot. Does a lot of theater. Been in a few local commercials and student films. Had a small role in Victor Nunez’s last joint.”
“Thanks man.”
“Just ’cause he a actor don’t mean he was actin’.”
“True.”
“But it probably do. He most likely hired to play a part.”
“Most likely,” I said. “And that would explain some things.”
“And call some others into question.”
Chapter Thirty-two
“How are you feeling?” I asked Anna.
We were still holding hands, still driving toward the institution.
“I’m okay,” she said. “Really. I need a shower in the worst kind of way, and I’m tired––haven’t slept well without you. I’m emotional, of course. It’s been an ordeal, but . . . I’m okay.”
“I’m so . . .” I started, but got choked up. “I’m so happy to have you back.”
“I missed you so mu
ch,” she said. “Part of me thought I’d never see you again. I thought . . . there’s no way they’ll just let me go. But . . . I knew if anybody could save me . . .”
We fell silent a moment, something beyond words passing between us.
The night grew darker, but only the night.
Before us, the moon looked like a petri dish with black mold overtaking it. Beneath it, the prison glowed more brightly in the darkness.
“We’re almost there,” I said to Cardigan in the rearview mirror. “Sure you don’t want to tell me more?”
“Yeah, I’m good.”
“The name Karl Jason mean anything to you?”
“No. Why? Should it?”
The three of us walked toward the control room. Slowly. Deliberately.
When we got close I veered off and went over to talk to Randy Wayne Davis through the document tray while Anna and Cardigan walked straight to the gate and waited for me.
Randy Wayne looked at me with wide eyes, a quizzical expression on the tired face beneath his raised eyebrows.
“He got to feeling better,” I said.
He shook his head and frowned. “It’s a miracle.”
“He left his Bible and notes in the chapel,” I said. “I’m gonna take him in to get them and check on everything.”
“And Anna?” he asked. “She feeling better?”
“She is. Thanks. She needs to grab a few things out of her office too.”
“Oh hell,” she said on cue. “I forgot my keys. Can you grab me a set?”
“She forgot her keys,” I said. “Can I get a set for her?”
He looked suspicious and a little annoyed, but he located the keys, logged them out to me, then popped the lock on the gate for us.
We walked through both gates and toward the chapel, something I honestly believed I’d never do again.
Unlocking the front door to the chapel, I stepped aside and let Anna and Ronnie walk in first.
The service was still going strong in the sanctuary. The officer watching from the back turned to look at us, but when I waved he looked away.
We went into my office and they sat down while I stepped into the bathroom and checked on Emmitt.
He was still out, but seemed to be rousing a bit, mumbling and moving a little.
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