“Hey, get your emotions in check, Carl. I appreciate the fact that you are under a great deal of emotional turmoil, but a little humor never hurt anyone.”
Carl’s breathing was heavy and his tone apologetic.
“I’m sorry, Eric. You’re right. I am under a lot of stress. It’s just, Jesus, our friends are dead and who knows what will happen to Audra. I feel like I am walking around in the worst kind of nightmare. Life can change at any given point, that’s for sure. Say, Eric, are you, um, back for good?”
I walked back to the Hertz counter to check on the status of my vehicle. The urge to leave had become even greater since I was going to get to play knight-in-shining-armor to Nicole and ride up and save her. Maybe that would be a good start to trying to make up for leaving her.
“Yes, Carl, I am back for good. Elaine is a great lady whom I will always adore, but I don’t love her like I love Nicole. I tried for months to play the game, but once I heard about what happened, well, I knew that I couldn’t stand the thought of living the rest of my life without her. Guess some good did come out of this since it made me realize what a fool I have been and that my place is by her side.”
Carl cleared his throat. “Well now, Eric, I have never heard you actually sound like a man in love in all the years I have known you. Sounds like you are following your heart. I wish you both the best, although really, do you think she will forgive you?”
That was the one part of my plan that worried me the most. Nicole had a stubborn streak a mile wide, and I knew I hurt her terribly in the past. Not just from leaving months before but because I couldn’t seem to keep my wicket out of others’ baskets. But they only were for fun, not love. But after being away from her so long, then the thought of her almost being killed, I knew that my love for Nicole was real. Deep. Strong. And that even if she wouldn’t forgive me right away, I was willing to spend the rest of my life trying to make amends.
“That is my hope, Carl. After all, she suffered a tragic event that probably altered her way of thinking about life too. Maybe it softened her heart just a tad. I don’t know, but I know I must try.”
“Well, good luck to you, Eric. You’re gonna need it!”
I laughed again, knowing he was right.
“Thanks, Carl. Oh, and if she calls back, which you know she will as impatient as she is, please just confirm to her that someone is on their way to pick her up; just don’t let on it’s me. I want to surprise her.”
“You better turn on the charm heavy because if she doesn’t forgive you, she is going to be extremely pissed at me for sending you to get her. And you don’t have to work with her anymore like I do!” Carl laughed.
“I plan on it! I’m getting the car now, so I will talk to you later. And Carl…thanks.”
I hung up before he could say another word. Thank goodness my car was ready and the attendant handed me the keys, telling me to have a nice day and thank you for using Hertz. Blah, blah, blah. I paid no attention as I went out the door and found the chariot that I was going to use to whisk away my fair maiden to safety.
If she didn’t kick my ass first.
I typed in the address to Mercy General and made my way out of the airport to the freeway. The directions said it would take me about two and a half hours to get there, which gave me plenty of time to think things through. This was the first time in my life that I had ever done something so spontaneous. I knew that I was breaking Elaine’s heart, but that didn’t seem to matter as much to me as getting to Nicole. After all, I had plenty of money and had no intention of leaving Elaine high and dry. I would make sure that she was well taken care of for the rest of her life. Besides, she was a good woman that deserved to be happy. She deserved a decent man that would love her for who she was, and that man wasn’t me.
As I exited the freeway and began the leg of the journey through the long, narrow roads, I wondered how long it would be before my kids spoke to me again. Of course, they would take their mother’s side on this divorce and be angry with me for a long time. Hopefully though, they would eventually understand. It’s not like they venerated me as some sort of saint or anything anyway. Truth be told, I hadn’t been much of a father to them anyway, and we really weren’t all that close. I would really miss the twins, but after spending the last few months being their continuous play toy, I needed a break. They were only children, and their thoughts about missing me would quickly be replaced by some new idea or the latest toy. Somehow, though, none of that mattered.
All that mattered to me was to see and hold the woman I knew that held my heart in her hands.
THE SPRAWLING EXPANSE OF the well-manicured yard was surrounded by dainty weeping willows that moved with graceful ease in the light breeze. Rolling Brooks Estates had, at one time, been an enormous plantation back in its heyday, and the years had been kind to her stately stature. The place had been owned by four generations of the McNeel family of Havensport, North Carolina, and at one time was one of the largest tobacco farms in the state. The last living heir, Virginia McNeel, left the entire estate to the city upon her death in 1945. Her only stipulation was that the city of Havensport agreed to maintain the place as a retirement home.
Michael Stevenson sat outside on one of the large wicker chairs that faced the small lake. The city had added the kidney-shaped water feature in 1989, hoping the addition would help attract more residents. It was one of the main reasons that Michael opted to call this place home for the last five years since he could wet a worm when the mood to fish struck him. He had been a frequent guest on the dock, enjoying the natural bounty before him, since it was the only time he could really relax. However, as his health declined during the past year, he had yet to make the half-mile trek over to the water’s edge.
Most of the residents, as well as the staff, kept a fair distance from Mr. Stevenson, and that was just the way he liked it. Life had been cruel and hard for him ever since the loss of his son, Frank, and wife, Ethel, over forty years ago. He and his wife only had the one boy, and he had been the apple of their eye. His death, which was followed only months later by the suicide of his dear Ethel, had turned Michael into a bitter, angry man. His lumber business, which had made him a very comfortable man, began to suffer as Michael’s slow descent into unending depression worsened. Michael’s only competitor in town came to him on the sly one night and offered to buy him out for a reasonable price. Michael always thought the man was a pathetic businessman, but after that night, he knew for sure he was. Stupid fool thought he was doing the Christian thing by helping such a sad soul out.
It made Michael hate people even more.
Six years ago, Michael suffered a heart attack then underwent two heart operations. They left his body almost as weak as his brain, but he refused to leave his home that he had so many happy memories in. It was the last connection he had to his long-departed family. It wasn’t until he fell and broke his hip five years before that his spirit broke as well, and he sold his home and moved into a tiny room at Rolling Brooks. It took months for him to adjust to such a dramatic change, and he took out his frustrations on anyone that dared come near him. He knew that some of the staff members had nicknamed him ‘Mad Mike,’ but he didn’t care since he really was mad.
It was one of those beautiful spring mornings in the mountains of North Carolina, and the smell of fresh flowers and newly cut grass lured Michael out of his room after breakfast and out to the porch. He rocked slightly in his chair and gave serious consideration to making his way over to the lake to fish. For the first time in months, he felt a hitch in his giddiup and actually smiled at one of the nurses while she held the door open for him earlier when he came out to the porch. He couldn’t pinpoint why he felt sprier this morning, especially considering the time of year it was. In less than a week, it would be Frank’s sixty-third birthday, and each year, Michael would become almost a mute for the week before, during, and after.
He knew that folks around town still talked occasionally about Frank’s suicide
and the fact that Cassandra’s body was never found. After that punk ass, no-good Sheriff Chris Pennington closed the investigation, which Michael suspected was shoddy at best, and labeled Frank as a killer who then committed suicide after murdering his young bride, Michael’s world was forever altered. Poor Ethel couldn’t stand the scandal, plus the fact that the son she had doted on since birth would forever be remembered as a killer—a man that murdered his own wife in some morbid, sick way and then disposed of her body so that it would never be found. It drove her to the brink of madness, and she ended her mental anguish at the end of a rope in their garage.
So, in less than six months, Michael’s world was a jumbled mass of pain, and the only vestige of sanity that remained was his never-ending quest to prove that Frank never killed that Williams girl. He had hired some of the state’s best private investigators and even one former FBI agent, hoping they would unearth a shred of evidence to prove his heart-felt theory that Frank was innocent. Countless hours and tons of money later, all he ever was presented with was the fact that the farm that Cassandra’s parents had owned was bought out by a timber company in 1975 and had been under their control ever since. Every time that investigators he hired would come back empty handed, Michael would verbally assault them with only the viciousness that someone broken-hearted possessed, and he soon earned a reputation of a crazed man that was hell-bent on throwing his money away chasing the ghosts of his past.
When Michael couldn’t find anyone to investigate any more for him, he decided he would continue on his own. After all, who knew his son better than he did? He questioned every friend, former coworker, acquaintance, doctor, barber, store clerk, or bar-stool buddy that he could find, but all he ever heard was the same shit that had already been reported back to him before, and none of it he liked nor did it give a clue as to what really happened.
What he had gathered over the years from all of his research was that Frank liked to drink on occasion, and when he did, he became a raging bull. This came from only one source though, and Michael never was really sure whether the little harlot that told him that was telling the truth. She had dated Frank in high school and moved away her senior year, but Michael had tracked her down about ten years before to Nashville, Tennessee, where she had been living ever since. She was terrified at first to talk to him, but after some sweet-talking and a few tears from Michael, she opened up. She told him about the night of the junior prom and how irate Frank became after drinking some punch that someone had spiked with moonshine. When Frank saw another guy looking at her, they immediately left, and Frank began yelling at her once they were in the parking lot. Yelling accelerated into grabbing, and when she tried to fight back, he beat her up. She said once she collapsed on the ground and curled into a ball, he stormed off, and she made her way over to a friend’s house and lied about what happened to her, the fear of naming her attacker too great. That weekend, she convinced her parents to let her move to Nashville with her older sister so she could help her out with her new baby and attend college.
There was no one else to corroborate her story, so Michael had great difficulty believing her. After all, who would want to believe such things about his child? Frank didn’t grow up in that type of household, so why would he act that way?
Michael gave up searching for someone that might know the truth about what happened after that day. He figured if what she said was true, then there would be no one else to back up her claim anyway, since she swore that she had never told a soul. Michael had already spoken to his other girlfriends, and none of them ever hinted at anything of that sort. The only one left that he could question would have been Cassandra, and she wasn’t around to ask.
The years of investigating and finding nothing began to take a heavy toll on Michael. A few years ago, he came to grips with the fact that he would end up going to his grave without ever really knowing what happened that fateful night so many years ago. The only thing he continued to do was visit the abandoned shack that sat out in the middle of the Williams’ timberland, for their house had burned to the ground not long after Old Man Williams died. After the one investigator discovered its existence about twenty years ago, Michael would make a trek out to it several times a year, hoping that he would find something that would lead him to finding out what really happened to Cassandra. Even after years of hearing nothing to the contrary, Michael knew in the deepest corner of his soul that something wasn’t right with the whole scenario. There was something stuck inside him that wouldn’t let go, some inkling that kept telling him to go back and search for Cassandra. On his second trip out to the shack, he noticed that someone had been there after his last visit. Things were moved around and there were new candles on the dusty mantle. More importantly, he smelled the faint scent of perfume.
Up until last year, when his health wouldn’t allow it anymore, Michael made the three-hour trip to Havensport to check out the shack a few times each year. But after the last four visits with no new changes, Michael decided that it was time to let this cancerous monster of revenge that had stolen his life die, and he stopped his obsession with finding the truth. Hell, he was close to dying anyway, which meant that if everything he had been taught as a young boy during Sunday School were true, then in the afterlife, he would know everything anyway once he left this world.
As he rocked in the chair while the spring sun warmed his feeble frame, it crossed his mind that this excitement and burst of energy meant that he was close to dying. Didn’t women get some big burst of energy right before they gave birth? Maybe a dying man did the same thing. Michael’s paper-thin lips creased into a brittle smile at that thought.
“Mr. Stevenson, you look so happy this mornin’. Might I offer you some readin’ material while you enjoy this here beautiful, sunny day?”
The nurse that Michael had smiled at earlier was standing in front of him, holding out a small basket that contained various magazines and newspapers. On any other day, he would have barked some ugly remark out at the woman that dared invade his private thoughts, but today, he opted to be nice.
“No, thank you. I am just enjoying the view.”
“Well, I certainly can understand that. It’s quite beautiful out today. I don’t blame you one bit for not wanting to read the gossip rags or the news, for that matter. Goodness, it can be so darn depressin’! I got sad this mornin’ after readin’ ’bout that poor girl in Arizona! My gracious but what an ordeal she done went through! Such a pretty thing, too. I hope that she pulls through.”
The pull of curiosity was too great, so Michael held out his wrinkled hand.
“Ok, you talked me into it.”
The nurse smiled and handed him the latest edition of USA Today and walked away, pleased with herself for making some headway with “Mad Mike.” Michael set the paper down on his lap, content with just a few more minutes of soaking up the sun before straining to read the small print. But as soon as he set it on his lap, the sensation of urgency overcame him, and he found himself unfolding the paper to read the headlines.
When he began reading about the terrible events in Arizona, he became enthralled at the story and the beautiful face of the poor woman in the hospital. Audra Tanner was her name. He studied her picture and thought what a shame that such a lovely, young girl had suffered so much tragedy. He continued to read about the crazy goings-on at the firm she worked at, and the fact that another coworker was in the hospital as well, an apparent victim of a foiled kidnapping plot.
Michael turned to page two where the article was continued, and his stare was greeted by the full-color image of Nicole Simmons. His breath caught in his throat, and his heart stuttered and skipped several beats. He felt a rush of blood surge through him, and his ears pounded with each heartbeat after it began beating again. The sensation was exactly the way he felt when he suffered his first heart attack, minus the bone-crushing pain in his chest. Michael couldn’t blink, couldn’t speak, and couldn’t really think of anything except one thing.
That picture was of Cassandra Williams.
“I knew it!” he yelled to no one in particular.
I JERKED AWAKE AND almost screamed out in pain. In my drug-induced dream, I was standing over Olin, listening to him beg for mercy that I would never grant him, when his feet took out my legs and I toppled over, landing on top of him with a heavy thud. We were rolling over the ground, locked in a life-or-death battle, when we fell together down into the empty grave. I guessed that I must have been struggling in the hospital bed with my imaginary nemesis and bumped my broken arm against the bed railing. Damn but that hurt!
At least I was no longer sleeping. Stupid nurse. It was all her fault that I was writhing around in my dreams with the dead. I made a mental note to tell the doctor that under no terms did I wish to have any pain medication administered to me during the remainder of my hospital stay, which hopefully wouldn’t be much longer.
The television set was still on the news channel, but thank goodness, the news was yammering about something else other than the big murder story in Arizona, focusing instead on an earthquake in Mexico. I was glad they found some other tragic event to report on because I wasn’t sure I could handle hearing one more word about Olin Kemper while awake. Dealing with the bastard in my dreams was enough.
The damn pills had made my mouth feel like it was full of cotton, so I squirmed my way into full sitting position to reach the pitcher of water by my bedside, wincing in pain the entire time. Of course, the nurse failed to fill it up after I ordered her out of my room, so I had to call her back. Just freakin’ dandy.
I fumbled in the tangled sheets for the call button when I heard the door open.
“Great timing, I was just about…”
The sentence froze in my mouth when I recognized the figure standing at the door. Why in the hell was Trevor here?
“I thought I made it clear that we shouldn’t be seen talking to each other, Trevor.”
Eviscerating the Snake - The Complete Trilogy Page 43