by K. J. Dahlen
Sebastian looked his partner straight in the eye. “I know, but he’s got my son and I want him back. And it’s not only Wyatt’s life at stake here. He’s got Kelly too.”
“Wyatt was alive tonight but he may not be when you get to Hannibal,” Alec reminded him. “This guy wouldn’t think twice about slitting his throat.”
Sebastian pushed Alec away from him and growled, “I can’t think about that. I have to believe that Tucker won’t hurt him. For reasons only he knows, Tucker Briggs has dragged me into this little game of his and I have to play it out to the end. He’s got the leverage right now and he’s smart enough to know that once that leverage is gone, my incentive to let him live might be gone as well.”
“At least, you can get there faster by car.” Alec pointed out. “It’s only about 800 miles to Hannibal from here. If he’s on the river it could take him a few days.”
“If we leave right now, we could be there by tomorrow afternoon,” Sebastian suggested looking at Jesse.
Jesse nodded. “I could drive a couple of hours but by then, we’ll both need to get some rest. Why don’t we get some rest now and start off fresh around daybreak?”
Sebastian realized he and the others were tired. He nodded and told them to follow him back to his house. They could all sleep there and he and Jesse could leave from there in a few hours. When they pulled up in front of the house Sebastian shared with his family, the fact that there wasn’t anyone there to meet him hit Sebastian with a terrible blow. His wife Carolyn was gone and his son might never come home. Even Carolyn’s mother Janet wasn’t there anymore. Rage and hatred began filtering in his soul where love once was and the rage he felt toward another human being scared him.
As Sebastian opened the front door and let the others come into his world, he looked around the home he once had. Everything was the way Carolyn left it just before she died. Sebastian hadn’t paid too much attention to the details but looking at the home she had made for them, he realized that without her and Wyatt, this home was just an empty house.
“Is anyone besides me hungry?” Alec asked.
When the others all nodded, Sebastian suggested they order a pizza. No one could sleep right now anyway. A half hour later Sebastian, Rob, Ian and Alec sat around the living room planning what they thought would happen next.
“If we leave just before daylight, we should get to the farm around nightfall. We can set up in the hayloft and wait for Tucker. It will take him at least another three or four days to get there,” Jesse suggested.
“Are you sure he’ll travel by river?” Sebastian asked between bites of pizza. He was only going through the motions of eating. He had no appetite but knew his body needed nourishment. A plan was forming in his head and he needed to know.
“He’s got the houseboat and he doesn’t know that we know that’s how he travels. He can hide the houseboat on the river easier than a car on the road.” Jesse shrugged.
“I think maybe we should travel by boat,” Sebastian suggested to no one in particular. His wiped his mouth with a napkin and waited for the response.
“Why?” Alec threw his food down on the plate and looked at Sebastian as if he’d taken leave of his senses.
“Because we might be able to find him out on the river,” Jesse answered for Sebastian. Unknown to the rest of the group Sebastian’s plan made sense to Jesse. “It would take at least four maybe five days to get to Hannibal by boat. He would have that long to look for Tucker, Kelly and Wyatt.”
“What happens if you don’t find him on the river?” Ian asked.
Sebastian shrugged. “I have to try.” He couldn’t allow himself to think about anything negative. His whole world depended on getting Wyatt back alive. “If Tucker is out on the river, then that’s where I will be. At least, I’ll be that much closer to Wyatt if I’m there.”
“I’m going with you in the morning,” Jesse clarified his intent.
“Why?” Sebastian asked still not trusting the other man.
“You may find this hard to believe, but all I want is to get your son back and get Tucker the help he needs. And if Kelly is still alive, maybe save her life too.”
“Your cousin is a killer. He needs to be sitting on death row waiting for the day a needle gets shoved in his arm,” Sebastian ranted. “And when we catch him, that’s where I’ll put him. On death row, not some damn hospital.”
“You seem awfully confident that you can catch him. That’s the second time you said when not if,” Rob remarked. “How do you plan on doing that?”
Sebastian shrugged. “Anyway I can.” He turned to Jesse and glared at the other man. “Any objections?
Jesse shrugged. “The problem with that is we have to find him first.”
A few hours later as dawn broke over the eastern horizon Sebastian and Jesse were already on the river. They had woken up the local boat renter and had rented a houseboat. Armed with navigational maps they plotted their course.
Ian told them before they left that he would contact the police along their route in case they needed assistance. Sebastian looked at the river ahead of him and couldn’t help but think that his son was up ahead of him somewhere.
As they stowed the groceries for the trip, Alec surprised Sebastian by handing him his hunting rifle. He’d often admired the rifle and Alec often teased Sebastian that the only time he would ever let him touch it was when hell froze over.
“Hell might not be freezing over, but you might need a little extra edge,” Alec told him as he took the weapon. “Bring the boy back alive, will ya?”
“I can’t imagine it any other way.” Sebastian had stared at his partner.
“Watch your back,” Alec told him.
He nodded at Jesse and knew he didn’t have to explain to Sebastian what he meant. Alec didn’t quite trust Jesse either.
“If you hear anything about Jesse, you will let me know, won’t you? I’m not really sure about his part in all of this, and I know what he says his motive is but I don’t know him well enough to trust him completely,” Sebastian said. “There’s more to this than what he’s willing to tell us.”
Alec knew him well enough to know what he was asking him to do. Alec looked away as he nodded. “I’ll check into it for you and let you know what I find.”
As Sebastian boarded the boat, Alec tossed him the mooring lines. Neither said what they were thinking but they had been partners long enough that words weren’t really necessary. That didn’t mean that Alec didn’t say a prayer for what lay ahead. He had a feeling that Sebastian would need all the help he could get.
Chapter Eight
As Sebastian steered the houseboat north, much of the beauty of the Mississippi river escaped his notice. He didn’t really see the expansion of water bending at the mercy of Mother Nature or the hundreds of sandbars popping up everywhere offering shade and a place for travelers to rest on. All he could think about was the fate of his son in the hands of a killer.
He knew that the eight hundred land miles between New Orleans and Hannibal would be considerably more traveling by river and that the journey would take more than a couple of days. He also knew that he had to control the quiet desperation he felt growing inside him. He couldn’t afford to make any mistakes at this point. He couldn’t let his imagination run loose about what Wyatt might be going through either. All that would do was turn him into a blithering idiot and he needed to keep focused on the matter at hand.
Jesse stood at the front of the boat and while Sebastian wondered what his motive was, he wondered just how far he would go to protect his cousin. Sebastian knew he’d have to keep an eye on the other man.
Jesse raised the binoculars to his eyes and watched the river. He knew Tucker traveled by river and probably knew each turn and every backwater route between here and Hannibal, but Jesse didn’t know if he knew the river well enough to chance traveling at night. If Tucker had to wait until daybreak to leave New Orleans, it was just possible that he wasn’t that far ahead of them.
“What are you doing?” Sebastian asked. “He’s got at least a four hour head start.”
“Are you so sure about that? Maybe he had to wait until first light just like we did,” Jesse commented. He wasn’t going to take the chance at overlooking any possibility.
Sebastian didn’t respond as he didn’t feel much like talking anyway. The morning went by quickly but not quickly enough. They were making good progress but traveling by houseboat on the river wasn’t exactly a speedy process. They could see signs by the water’s edge that told them of upcoming towns along the river and according to the map and their traveling speed, Sebastian figured they would make it to the Arkansas/Mississippi border by nightfall. He couldn’t help but wonder where Tucker and Wyatt were at this time.
Sebastian glanced at his watch and found it was almost noon. He shut down the engine and drifted for a while. He glanced over at Jesse and asked, “Do you want to grab something to eat?”
Jesse nodded and they went down to the cabin to get something to eat. They each fixed a sandwich and grabbing a can of soda, then went back to the deck. The afternoon sun beat down on them as they ate their lunch. It was Jesse that broke the silence by asking, “So what do I have to do to get you to trust me?”
Sebastian looked at him briefly before switching his gaze back out to the river. “Do you really care if I trust you or not?”
Jesse thought about his question for a moment then nodded his head. “Yeah, I think I do. I know I wasn’t as honest with you in the beginning as I should have been but now we’re in this little adventure together. In fact, we are all the other one has.” He hesitated and then told Sebastian, “I think you should know something. I spoke with my boss before we left and he told me that we had to work together on this. Apparently, Ian told him that together, we have the best chance of finding Tucker, but separate neither of us have a chance in hell of tracking him down. So yeah, I guess I do care whether you trust me or not.” Jesse shifted in his chair. “It looks like we both have our own reasons for this mission and neither one of us can say it isn’t personal.”
Sebastian thought about his statement of fact for a moment and nodded. “Okay, I can see your point. Let me point out something. I have the feeling that you’re only sharing information on Tucker Briggs on a need to know basis. Only when we need to know something, do you come across with just enough information to satisfy us. You never give us any more than we ask, and that makes me think that you’re still holding back information that we need to know in order to catch him.”
Jesse nodded. “Okay fair enough. Ask me anything you want to know and I’ll try to answer.” He hesitated then continued. “Please understand something. This man is someone I shared my childhood with. We went to family gatherings together, we shared our dreams together, and we did the same things as other families did. For a while, we were closer than brothers. I don’t know what turned him into a killer and I may never find the answer to that question. I would like to see him get the help he needs.”
“I think he chose to become a killer. If what you say is true, he had the same advantages you did, the same upbringing and the same sense of values. What turned him into a killer and you into a cop?” Sebastian asked. “I think each of us is born with our own sense of worth. Some of us get it beaten out of us by someone we love, while others nurture it and use that sense of self-worth to give ourselves the values and morals to get along in this world. You apparently did the later, while your cousin gave his away to the baser side of life. At some point in his childhood, he connected with the wrong side and it led him away from good straight into evil.”
Jesse shook his head and sighed.
Sebastian paused for a minute. “I’m probably not explaining this right, and I’m not blaming anybody. I’m sure his parents are very good people, but there comes a time in everyone’s life where the choices we make have consequences. Your cousin chose the wrong path, and as long as we are being honest with each other, if he hurts my son in any way, I won’t hesitate to kill him. I just want you to know that.”
Jesse nodded slowly.
When Sebastian started the boat up again, Jesse took up his position searching the river. As the afternoon passed, they found no sign of Tucker’s boat. They made it to the Arkansas border just as the sun was dipping below the western horizon. They pulled into a small river town called Readland.
Rather than pull into the town, Sebastian pulled up the river a little way to a spot called Bert’s Place. It looked like a filling station and grocery store on the water’s edge. While Jesse filled the gas tanks, Sebastian went inside the store area. He saw an older man sitting behind the counter and an older lady stocking shelves. He nodded to both of them and began looking around.
The little store carried just about anything a person could want, from live bait to chicken noodle soup. Before they left New Orleans, Sebastian stocked the galley on the boat, so he really didn’t need anything from the store. He was just waiting for Jesse to fill the gas tank. He approached the old man. “Can a person travel this stretch of river at night?”
Bert Carmichael took the toothpick out of his mouth and shook his head. “Not unless that person knew where the shallows are, and they’re shifting all the time. It would probably be best to tie up and wait until daylight.”
Sebastian nodded. He had figured as much, but it didn’t hurt to ask. “I’m looking for a friend of mine. Tucker Briggs. Do you know him?”
Bert nodded and laughed. “Sure, we know Tucker. He was just here about four hours ago.”
“How well do you know him?” Sebastian asked. His heart rate sped up with the knowledge that they were so close to Tucker and Wyatt.
“Oh, he’s been coming by here about three times a year for the last ten years or so, always in the same old houseboat,” Bert told Sebastian. “Of course, I didn’t recognize him at first. He was in a new boat.”
Jesse finished filling the tanks and came into the store.
Bert’s jaw dropped and the old woman called out Tucker’s name.
Jesse just smiled. “I’m not Tucker, ma’am. I’m his cousin Jesse.”
Letty looked over at her husband. “Are you sure? It’s just that you look so much like him, you two could be brothers.”
Jesse nodded. “Yes ma’am. Our fathers were twin brothers and our mothers were also twins. Tucker and I used to switch places a lot as kids.”
Letty smiled. “I’ll bet that was enough to confuse most people.” Letty leaned closer and nodded. “Now I can see a difference between you and Tucker.” She smiled. “You’re both handsome men but there’s a ruggedness to Tucker that you don’t have.”
“We used that ploy to get ourselves out of trouble as well,” Jesse admitted.
“Well, at least Tucker’s little boy won’t be mistaken for anyone’s twin. He must take after his mother through because he sure doesn’t look like his dad.” Letty shook her head.
Jesse looked at Sebastian and shook his head. Sebastian was about to say something and Jesse wanted him to shut his mouth. “Did Tucker have his son with him? I’m surprised about that; the boy’s mother has a problem with Tucker being on the river so much.”
Bert nodded. “Tucker explained all that. He told us that he felt it was time the boy learned about what was important to him. It seems the boy’s been having some problems dealing with the divorce and all the stuff that goes with splitting up a household.”
Jesse agreed. “Yes, it was a shame Tucker and his wife couldn’t have worked things out, but that’s life. Everything nowadays is a gamble.”
“Well, when you catch up with Tucker, you tell him that Bert and Letty say hi.” Bert told them.
Sebastian stepped up to pay for the gas and as they left the store, he told Jesse, “It really is a shame that Tucker’s marriage didn’t last.”
“Well I couldn’t very well tell them the truth could I?” Jesse remarked. “They wouldn’t have understood that their friend Tucker was wanted for murder and kidnapping. This w
ay, we got the information we needed and they aren’t going to run to their phone and call someone up river to warn Tucker that we’re after him.”
Sebastian nodded his head. He hadn’t thought about that. At least he knew Wyatt was alive and that Tucker was passing him off as his own son. He was still ahead of them but he felt confident that he would feel safe enough to slow down when he got far enough away from New Orleans and that’s when he would catch up with him. Sebastian pulled the boat over to the docking area and tied it up for the night. He wasn’t about to risk hitting a shallow and having to be towed off in his pursuit of his son.
* * * *
When the sun hit the halfway point on the second day, Sebastian and Jesse felt like they were making progress. They had Arkansas on the left and Mississippi to their right. They actually saw more of the river life on the second day than they did on the day before. There was still no sign of Tucker but Sebastian understood his means of travel a little better.
With the gentle lapping of water on the sides of the boat and the incredible beauty only seen on the river, Sebastian knew he could get used to this kind of carefree life. The slow easy going pace of life on the water was seen in the people that lived and worked on the river. Yesterday, they had been in too much of a hurry to see it, but today, Sebastian and Jesse saw the river in a different light.
The water was calling them, seducing them as they plowed through its gentle swells and the pull of its current was taking them farther and farther away from the city sounds of rushing traffic and unbearable noise. Out on the water, it was quiet and you could actually hear the sounds of nature. It was like a whole other world out here.
Sebastian was checking his navigational charts when Jesse brought him a sandwich and a beer. “So how far do you think we’ll get by sundown?” Jesse asked, as he bit into his own sandwich.
“We should get at least to Helena, Mississippi. We’ll have to stop around there anyway for gas.”
“How much farther ahead of us is he, do you wonder?” Jesse finally asked the question both men had been thinking about.