Through the Fog

by Michael C. Grumley

  28

  Roa was a well-trained Marine, and he moved like one. When he saw the tip of the gun appear from her pocket, he moved like lightning and grabbed for the gun. It was pure instinct. Shannon’s attempt at surprise had vanished. In an instant, he had her gun raised and pointed back at Shannon, even while his brain was still catching up with this sudden reversal. But once it did, his expression changed completely. His brief look of confusion very quickly turned to anger.

  “Why did you do that, Shannon?” he said accusingly. “Tell me you weren’t just trying to do what I think you were. Tell me that was an accident!” He kept the gun pointed at her, while the look of worry returned to his eyes. “Please tell me you’re not one of them!”

  “I—I—” she stuttered, raising both hands helplessly.

  “Tell me!” Roa said, louder. He began shaking his head. “Tell me you didn’t mean to do it. Tell me it was a coincidence that you showed up here tonight. That you’re leaving with us.” Roa began to glare intensely at her, growing angrier by the second. “Tell me, because I think you were going to shoot me with this gun. That you’re here, not to join me, but to take Ellie back. To take her back to a life that I’ve spent almost two years trying to provide you a way out of!” Roa was shaking his head harder, and his hand holding the gun began to tremble. “Tell me you want to be with me and that I didn’t just spend the last two years on a woman who’s really one of them.”

  Shannon didn’t move a muscle. She was petrified, staring at the gun just inches from her face. It was shaking erratically and Roa’s finger was still on the trigger.

  “Can you do that Shannon? Can you tell me that?”

  She backed up and Roa smoothly stepped forward, following her.

  “Why are you here, Shannon? Tell me. Tell me right now. Because if you’re not with me now, after all this, then you were never with me! You just led me on and used me, like some kind of a lab rat.” His face began to contort with anger, as he could see the truth emerge in Shannon’s eyes. She wasn’t there for him. She was there for her daughter, and only her daughter. He was nothing to her. No, he was worse, he was a criminal. In her eyes, he was just a criminal, a kidnapper, a monster. He dedicated two years of his life to her, and in just minutes, she had destroyed it. All of it. Every single thing he had cherished about her had deteriorated right before his eyes. In a single evening, the woman who he thought could save him had destroyed him instead.

  “Sit down on that couch,” Roa spat, motioning behind her.

  Shannon backed up awkwardly while he followed. As she sat down on the plastic, Roa took a curious glance at Shannon’s gun. He smirked, wondering if she realized that she’d brought a .22 pistol with her, one of the world’s weakest calibers.

  In that moment, while he was examining the gun, he saw a flash from the corner of his eye. From behind him, Evan swung the old rusty shovel as hard as he could, glancing off Roa’s shoulder and into the side of his head, taking a large slice of skin with it.

  Roa stumbled backward, stunned, and Evan quickly drew back and swung again. But Roa recovered quickly and this time stepped forward, closing the distance, and catching the shovel at the base of the handle. He twisted it easily out of Evan’s hands, then stepped back and kicked the boy squarely in the chest. The impact sent Evan’s weakened body into the hall, where he hit the wall and crumpled to the floor.

  A piercing scream filled the room as Evan’s mother charged with a can of pepper spray. Roa calmly ducked out of the way and blocked the stream of spray with the blade of his shovel. He then hit her with it in the same motion, knocking her down.

  29

  It was a busy night in Santa Clarita. Between the soft economy and improving weather, the number of burglaries and domestic disturbances was almost twice as high as last month. Deputy Bill Donaldson turned off the main road and drove up the dirt road toward Roa’s house.

  He rolled past, slowing to examine Shannon’s BMW, and gradually pulled to a stop. After a few moments, he flipped on his searchlight and reached for the radio’s microphone.

  “Clarito, 130. At the house on Canyon Ridge for the possible two zero seven. Requesting 10-28 on California passenger plate 2DAS321.”

  A few moments later the dispatcher replied. “130, California 2DAS321 issued to Shannon Mayer of 785 Hilltop Drive, Glendale, on 2012 BMW, blue in color. No stolen.”

  He rotated the bright searchlight with his left hand, examining the barn and water tank, then the old Honda. Finally, he swept it across the house’s lower level and then up across the top. The place looked very old. “Don’t see anyone.”

  With that, Donaldson returned the mike to its holder and shifted the patrol car into park.

  Evan’s unconscious body fell hard against the floor next to Shannon, who was already bound and lying face down on the cold linoleum. The duct tape over her mouth prevented her from making any sound louder than a muted mumble. On her other side, Evan’s mother was tied in the same position.

  Roa straightened up, looking down at the three of them. Sickening. Without a word, he stepped over the trio and left the room.

  Just before the door closed and plunged them into darkness, Shannon could see the blood leaking from around Evan’s taped mouth and dripping onto the floor.

  Roa was returning from the far end of the hallway, thinking how best to dispose of the bodies, when he heard a loud knocking on the front door. He jumped back and ducked into the bathroom, waiting a moment before tilting his head back out past the doorframe. The front of the house was now awash in bright light. Roa cursed under his breath and turned to look in the mirror. The large bandage along the side of his jaw was more than a tad obvious. He needed to think. The loud knocking came again, but this time, he thought, it sounded like pounding.

  In front of the house and getting no reply, Deputy Donaldson took a few steps over and looked through the large living room window. He could see the place was sparsely decorated and looked like someone might have just moved in. He was about to return to knock on the door again when he saw movement inside. A large man had emerged from the hallway and was walking toward him.

  When the door opened, Donaldson was greeted by a man in his late forties, bald, and just a few inches taller than himself.

  “What’s going on?” the man asked, squinting into the bright lights of the patrol car.

  “Are you Sam Roa?” the deputy asked.

  “Yeah. Who are you? What’s going on?”

  “Sheriff’s Department,” Donaldson replied, peering inside over Roa’s shoulder. “We received a call a little while ago indicating there might be a problem out here.”

  Roa feigned a confused look. “What kind of problem?”

  Donaldson examined Roa’s face and bandage. “I’m not really sure. What happened to your face there?”

  “I was just trimming some trees,” he lied. “One of the damn limbs snapped back and took a piece out of my jaw. Guess it didn’t like being chopped down.”

  Roa was trying to keep the deputy calm. If the man sensed any danger, this was about to become much harder. Roa just needed an opportunity.

  Deputy Donaldson frowned and peered inside again. “I see. Is that your BMW out there?”

  Roa looked out, squinting again into the light. “I only see your car.”

  The turn was only momentary, but it was all Roa needed. As Donaldson turned to motion over his shoulder at Shannon’s BMW, Roa was on him instantly. He moved hard and fast, hitting Donaldson under his jaw and pushing his hand up and over, following the officer’s face. At the same time, Roa wrapped his leg around Donaldson’s closest ankle, which kept him from stepping back to balance. Donaldson toppled over backward, with Roa almost riding him down onto the wooden porch.

  By the time they hit the floor, the officer already had his gun out, but Roa quickly knocked it away. He reached behind his back, where he’d stashed Shan
non’s gun, and drew it out of his belt in less than a second.

  Shannon heard the sickening popping sound coming from the front of the house. She closed her eyes and laid her face on the floor, her crying muffled through the duct tape. She knew the pounding on the front door was the sheriff’s department, and she hoped beyond hope that if those were gunshots, it was the officer shooting.

  After a long silence she heard something scraping in the hall, a grating against the floor. Whatever it was, it was coming their way.

  Less than thirty seconds later, the door to her room burst open again. Shannon struggled to look up and saw the silhouette of Roa’s figure stumble in. He was dragging something. When Shannon saw what it was, she almost threw up. He was dragging the officer’s dead body.

  Roa pulled Donaldson’s corpse to the other side of the room and, with some effort, set him upright and slouching against the wall. He reached forward and removed the officer’s radio before finally standing up and taking a deep breath. This was a problem, a big problem.

  Above all, Marines were trained to adapt to a changing environment. Roa’s mind was racing, trying to adjust his plan to fit a situation that was becoming more complicated by the minute. Making the women and the boy disappear was one thing, but making a cop disappear was a much harder task. They knew where he was, and soon, when he didn’t reply, they would send backup—if they hadn’t already. He now had very little time.

  He stared down at the deputy’s body. Having taken the .22 from Shannon, he used it to kill the deputy. After falling on top of the officer, he shoved the gun over the lip of the man’s bulletproof vest and unloaded the entire magazine straight down into his chest. The .22 caliber rounds were small enough that Roa was able to keep them all inside the body, without exiting, which meant no blood spatter. There was no way to clean up blood spatter in the mere minutes he had left to escape.

  He turned and looked downward at Shannon, who was still lying face down. He couldn’t believe it. He just couldn’t believe she had turned on him. But now he was in a survival situation. He had to cut loose his feelings for her and focus. There was still one comforting thought. Ellie was just like her mother, but she hadn’t been poisoned. And now he was developing a real relationship with her. Shannon betrayed him, but he still had Ellie.

  With a growing distaste to even look at Shannon, he reached down and did one last thing. He used his shirt to wipe the prints from her gun, then reached down and placed the tiny semi-automatic back in her hand to add her prints again. He released her wrist and watched as she threw the gun away in protest.

  Roa shrugged. It didn’t matter. It wouldn’t fool anyone, nor would the lack of blood spatter, but together they would create some initial confusion and slow the investigation down. At least in the beginning, which is all he really needed. He’d be at the airport in less than an hour and in the air shortly after that on the first flight he could get. The police would spend at least that much time trying to figure out what happened and where to set up their checkpoints. Hell, it would take them far longer just to find the car, and when they did, they would still be looking for Samuel Roa, not his new identity.

  Roa was interrupted by the squawk of the radio still in his hands. The dispatcher announced the deputy’s backup would arrive in ten minutes. He knew it would be closer to six once they realized the deputy was not answering his radio. Even six minutes was more than enough time to disappear into the canyon. But he had to leave now.

  Young Ellie Mayer looked up as the basement lights came back on. She had been sitting silently in the dark, wrapped in a blanket, wondering what was causing all the commotion. Now she heard the pounding down the stairs. He was coming, and fast.

  Ellie slipped her small necklace and locket inside the arch of her shoe. It was the only thing she still had to remember her mother by, and she’d managed to keep it hidden from him all this time. She didn’t want to leave it behind.

  They were about to leave. She had been lonely for so long, constantly crying herself to sleep. But finally, the man named Sam told her about the trip, which gave her something to look forward to. He also began removing things from her room. She was going to see her mother for the first time since he’d taken her. He told her he felt bad and wanted to give her back to her parents. If she was good, they would go on a long trip to a place where he would give Ellie back. And that day had finally arrived.

  She grabbed her bag of clothing and stood up in anticipation, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. Nothing, not even whatever was happening upstairs, could keep her from wanting to leave.

  The door unlocked quickly from the other side and opened to a disheveled Roa wearing a look of urgency. “We’re leaving,” he blurted, and grabbed her wrist. He quickly climbed the stairs with Ellie trailing closely behind him, clutched in his iron grip. Her soft bag bounced around her knees as Ellie almost had to hop from stair to stair to keep up. When they reached the top, Roa pushed the door open and pulled Ellie into the hallway. “Shh,” he sounded, and put a finger over his lips, now whispering. “We have to get to the car as soon as we can.”

  Ellie nodded quietly. She was eager and more than ready.

  Shannon remained face down in pitch-blackness. She couldn’t see anything at all and was beginning to lose her orientation. She had struggled so much on the floor that she couldn’t remember whether Evan, or his mother, lay to her right or left side. Shannon stopped moving. She was having trouble breathing through just her nose and was at risk of suffocating.

  At that moment, as she lay helplessly on the cold floor, neither she nor Ellie knew that through the wall, they were less than ten feet from each other. It was the nearest the two had been in a year and a half.

  Ellie followed Roa in silence, as she had been commanded, away from her mother, down the hallway, and toward the front of the house. Roa was still holding her tightly by the wrist.

  When he finally reaching the living room, Roa jumped back, as the front door was violently kicked open from the outside. A large figure stepped out of the blinding light and into the house.

  Ellie screamed. She recognized that shape; it was her father.

  30

  Roa was stunned, but he managed to keep Ellie behind him. His gun was instantly out of its holster.

  Dennis Mayer stood in the doorway, his rigid features bathed in the spotlight emanating from the patrol car outside. In his right hand, Roa could see the shadow of a gun. Mayer’s eyes softened momentarily when he saw Ellie, then hardened again as he glared at Roa with immense anger.

  Roa did not lose his cool. He whirled Ellie around him, placing her between Mayer and himself. Roa’s thoughts were racing as fast as ever. He had very little time, and now, after seeing her father, it would be nearly impossible to get Ellie into the car with any level of cooperation. He would have to force her in and try to explain things later.

  And as much as he disliked the man, Roa didn’t want to kill yet another person. It would only make things harder for him. But it was clear from the look on Mayer’s face that they were going to have to go through him to get out. This was going to have to happen fast.

  Dennis Mayer’s eyes dropped again to his daughter, standing in front of Roa. He could not imagine what she had gone through, or what mental state she was in. Was she brainwashed or did she still remember? Mayer stared at his daughter, now wondering only one thing. Did she remember what he had practiced with her so many times in the past? Did she remember what to do when he gave her the signal?

  He prayed she remembered the most important thing he had ever taught her: when to drop to the ground.

  Shannon lifted her head when she heard yelling in the hallway followed by two thundering gunshots. A chunk of drywall fell to the floor as one of the bullets passed through the wall over her head. What she heard next nearly stopped Shannon’s heart: her daughter’s screams.

  From the far end of the hall, Shannon c
ould hear heavy steps coming her way again. This time they were mixed with the sound of Ellie wailing. She lowered her head to the floor, beyond devastated. She had come all this way only to find herself utterly helpless in the end and unable to save her daughter, who was now almost within reach.

  The steps grew louder, as did her daughter’s crying. There was a long, foreboding pause in the hallway before the door to Shannon’s room was pushed opened.

  The door seemed to open in slow motion. Now in the light and looking up from the floor with blurred vision, Shannon saw the large silhouette in the doorway. It was an odd shape and appeared to slowly bend down and separate into two. Before she could understand what was happening, one of the shapes fell to Shannon’s side on the floor. Two small arms wrapped themselves around her bound body and sobbed. It was Ellie. The silhouette was Ellie!

  The second shape approached and knelt down beside her. As he bent down, Shannon recognized the unmistakable form of her husband.

  The tape was painfully pulled from her mouth, and Shannon gasped. “Ellie! My Ellie!” She closed her eyes as Ellie kissed her all over her face. She quickly opened them again and barked to her husband. “Check Evan!”

  It was all she got out before her words dissolved into a blubbering mess.

  None of them heard the faint sound of a siren in the distance.

  EPILOGUE

  The temperature had dropped slightly as the last of the season’s cold winds battled the warm springtime sun through a thinly overcast sky. Across the valley, a cool breeze from the Santa Anas began to pick up as the afternoon made its way into evening.

  At the top of the large stone steps, Evan sat quietly with his backpack, watching dozens of other teenagers mill around, waiting for their rides. Most were standing in small groups, talking and laughing.