Followed

by Mark Lukens

  What was the man’s name? Something with a P. Paul . . . Peter . . .

  Phil. Phil Stanton.

  Dr. Stanton, the man had said, correcting him.

  Yes, the man’s name was Dr. Phil Stanton. Wells was good with names, good at remembering details. He hoped that his great memory, along with other skills he had developed, would help him make detective in a few years.

  One of the reasons Wells hadn’t been able to help Phil Stanton that night, or even on his second trip to that house on the same night, was because Phil hadn’t had many details about the truck or the driver. He had no description of the driver, a vague description of a common vehicle, and no license plate number.

  But now Wells had the tag number right in front of him. He called in the pursuit while hanging back behind the truck a few car lengths. He didn’t want to crowd the truck just yet; he didn’t want to make the driver more reckless, causing him to hit another vehicle or a house. Maybe the driver would begin to slow down soon and pull over when he realized that he had no hope of outrunning Wells.

  A moment later dispatch came back with the name of the owner of the truck: Carlos Ramirez. Thirty-eight years old and no warrants or criminal record. She also informed Wells that backup was on the way.

  Wells had hoped that Mr. Ramirez would come to his senses eventually and pull over. But after a few more minutes he realized that the driver wasn’t going to give up. There were many reasons drivers refused to pull over: warrants for their arrest, they were drunk or high, they had drugs or something else illegal in their vehicle. And sometimes it was just for the fun of it, or to maybe get on the nightly news, some kind of criminal superstar for the night.

  But Wells had a pretty good idea of why Carlos was running—Carlos had been stalking Phil Stanton and his family for some reason.

  Two other police cruisers had joined in on the chase, their lights and sirens flashing. One of the cruisers was Davis’ car. The other one was Penski’s car. If this chase went on too much longer, the helicopter might be dispatched.

  Carlos Ramirez still wasn’t slowing down even though there was no chance of him getting away. Wells wished the man would just pull over before he or someone else got hurt or killed.

  Davis passed Wells and bumped the tail end of Carlos’ truck, nudging it just enough to get him to overcorrect. Davis slowed down as Carlos veered off the road, hydroplaned a shallow ditch, and then the pickup truck collided with a gigantic oak tree. Carlos had hit his brakes at the last second, but the impact had still been violent. A sickening crunch rang out in the night. There was a blast from the truck’s horn from when the driver had slammed into the steering wheel (no airbags in a truck that old), and then silence. Steam drifted up from the front of the truck in the glow of the one headlight that hadn’t busted on impact.

  Wells skidded to a stop in the road in front of the shallow ditch. The other two police cruisers also slid to a stop. Everything seemed to be slowing down for Wells, yet everything was also a blur at the same time. It was the same contradictive sense of feeling he had sometimes of drifting along helplessly, yet still being in control with laser-like focus. He jumped out of his car, his weapon drawn without his even realizing it. He was behind his opened door, shouting at the driver to stay in the truck, his training taking over, almost like he was on autopilot.

  “Stay in your vehicle,” Davis shouted from behind his own car door. He had stopped his car almost directly across from Carlos’ truck, Davis’ headlight beams shining onto the side of the truck. All of the cop cars’ lights illuminated everything like a movie set.

  Wells watched as the driver fell out of his truck with his hands up. The driver wasn’t armed, and he was hurt. But he wasn’t following orders, and Wells was afraid Davis was going to shoot Carlos Ramirez at any moment.

  Before Wells even realized what he was doing, he had holstered his service pistol and he was across the shallow ditch in a flash.

  “Don’t shoot!” Wells yelled at Davis as he entered the splash of light from the headlights, running towards the fallen man.

  “What the hell are you doing, Wells?” Davis yelled. “Get out of there!”

  Wells ignored Davis as he hurried over to the driver. He was working on instinct now. Something was wrong with this picture. Why would a man like Carlos, a man with no prior criminal history stalk a man and his wife?

  Carlos was down on the ground, on his side, facing the cop cars. His face was cut, blood pouring out of his nose—most likely from the impact with the steering wheel.

  “Are you Carlos Ramirez?” Wells shouted at the man.

  The man nodded, wincing in pain.

  “Get an ambulance here!” Wells yelled back at Davis. He turned around to look at the other two officers. It looked like Penski was calling it in, but Davis was still in position behind the cover of his driver’s door, his gun still aimed this way.

  Wells turned his attention back to Carlos, not even sure exactly why he had run towards him. But there was something strange about this whole thing, something strange that he couldn’t identify, but that he could feel. And he always went with his gut-feelings. “We’ve got an ambulance on the way, Mr. Ramirez,” he told Carlos.

  Carlos rolled over onto his back, breathing with difficulty like his nose was broken.

  “Don’t try to move,” Wells told him. “You might have injured your neck or back in the crash.”

  “My baby . . .” Carlos said.

  “Baby? What baby?” Wells’ heart jumped. “Is there a baby in your truck? A child? Someone else?”

  “No,” Carlos groaned. “No one in my truck. But I have to . . . have to get my baby girl back from him.”

  “Back from who?”

  Carlos’ eyes opened wide with fear as he stared up at Wells, as if finally noticing that someone was standing over him. “He’s got my daughter. He’s going to kill her.”

  “Who?”

  “He’s making me do this.”

  Davis was suddenly beside Wells, his gun still in his hand and aimed at Carlos. “You don’t have to say anything,” he told Carlos. “You haven’t been read your rights yet.”

  Wells could feel Davis’ scowl, but he kept his attention on Carlos as a creeping fear moved through him. “Who’s making you do this?”

  “Don’t answer that,” Davis snapped at Carlos.

  “I don’t know who he is,” Carlos said and then winced in pain. He swallowed hard. He seemed to be trying to focus on Wells, but also seemed to be having trouble focusing at all.

  “Wells, read him his rights,” Davis ordered.

  “He’s crazy,” Carlos said, ignoring Davis as much as Wells was. “He’s got my daughter. He told me he’d let her go if I did this one last thing tonight.” Carlos’ face crumpled in anguish. “Please . . . help me.”

  A siren wailed in the distance.

  “Did you follow a couple to their house last Saturday night?” Wells asked Carlos.

  Carlos started to cry.

  “That’s enough,” Davis snapped.

  “I need to know,” Wells told Carlos.

  “He can’t answer that,” Davis said. “He can’t incriminate himself without his rights being read. He’s injured, not in his right mind.”

  Wells ignored Davis, his eyes still on Carlos.

  And Carlos locked eyes with Wells.

  “Lawyers are going to have a field day with this,” Davis muttered as he holstered his pistol.

  “Tell me,” Wells said to Carlos.

  Carlos stopped crying and stared up at Wells. He nodded slightly. “Yes. He told me to.”

  “Is he there?” Wells asked. “Is he there right now?” Wells watched him, not even sure if he understood his question.

  But then Carlos nodded, his eyes squeezed shut, his breathing rattled through his broken nose.

  Wells jumped to his feet and ran to his police cruiser.

  “Where the hell are you going?” Davis shouted.

  Wells didn’t answer Davis—he d
idn’t have time to explain.

  THIRTY-SIX

  Phil

  Phil watched Grady. He was trying his best to figure out the right mental buttons to push with him, trying to figure out the best way to slow things down and hopefully calm him down somehow.

  “I realize the pain you’ve been through,” Phil told Grady. “I don’t understand it, and I don’t know it, but I can only imagine the loss you still feel, and your need for retribution.”

  “You don’t know shit!” Grady barked, his expression fierce for just a moment. And then he was smiling again, his expression changing again to a smug look of satisfaction. “See? That’s my whole point. You’ll never know how I feel until you experience that feeling yourself.”

  Phil felt his stomach drop. “That’s not going to make things better. That’s not going to make your pain go away. It’s not going to bring your sister back.”

  “No, it won’t bring my sister back. But it will make me feel better. You took her away from me. You never gave me a chance to finish . . .”

  Grady stopped abruptly.

  He had almost said something, Phil realized. Grady had almost let something slip. And in that moment Phil realized what it was that he’d been trying to remember, the clue that had been hidden from him, the clue that tied everything together. And he knew what Grady had been about to say.

  “You think you shrinks know everything,” Grady continued on quickly, trying to cover his slip now. “Just because you went to a fancy school and got a degree, you think you know everything about a person. But you don’t.”

  “What did you do?” Phil asked in a gentle voice, taking a chance. He knew this line of questioning could be dangerous; it could backfire and make Grady even angrier.

  “Get her up on her feet,” Grady ordered, nodding at Cathy.

  “Wait,” Phil said. “Grady. Let’s . . . let’s slow down for a moment and think about this.”

  “NOW!” Grady roared, jabbing his gun in the air at Phil, his finger on the trigger now.

  Cathy let out a moan and shook her head no as Phil grabbed her arm gently, helping her up to her feet.

  “Take her over there away from the couch and the table,” Grady said, gesturing with his gun at the large open area of the living room.

  “What are you going to do?” Cathy asked, her voice remarkably steady even though she was trembling so badly.

  “I’m not going to do anything,” Grady said. “Phil is.” He reached behind his back and pulled out a large knife from a sheath underneath his clothing.

  Phil heard Cathy’s gasp and he felt his own breath stop for a moment. The knife blade was at least seven inches long and came to a wicked point. It looked like some kind of hunting knife. And then he remembered his phone call with Travis’ father a little while ago. Ted said that Travis had been gutted with a hunting knife.

  Grady bent down and set the knife on the floor. He kicked it over to Phil, the knife sliding easily across the tiled floor with a scraping sound.

  Phil watched the weapon slide towards him like a shuffleboard puck, until it came to stop right by his foot.

  “Pick it up, Phil.”

  Phil tried to stall, tried to think of something to say, some way to get through to Grady.

  “I haven’t got all night,” Grady said.

  Phil still hesitated, looking down at the knife, then at Grady again as thoughts raced through his mind. Maybe Cathy could run. Maybe he could take a bullet and let his wife escape. But where was Cathy supposed to go with her hands cuffed behind her back? How far would she get before Grady overtook her?

  “You’ve got two choices, Phil. One: You kill your wife with that hunting knife, and I let you and your daughter live. Yes, you live with that loss in your life like I have, but at least you’ll still have your daughter.”

  “Megan,” Phil whispered.

  “Or two. All three of you die.”

  “You leave our daughter out of this,” Cathy said.

  Grady smiled at Cathy. “I’ve already been to Barbara’s house earlier tonight.”

  “Where’s Megan?” Cathy yelled.

  For a moment Phil’s mind was sluggish. Grady’s been to Barbara’s house . . . he did something to Megan?

  “What have you done to her?” Cathy roared, tears flowing now.

  “She’s safe,” Grady said, gesturing at Cathy to calm down like her theatrics were beginning to annoy him. “But she won’t be safe for long. I’ve set a little . . . I don’t know what you’d call it, like a trap she’s in; a time-sensitive trap. She only has so much time before . . . well, you know. So we can’t dilly-dally around.”

  A surge of anger suddenly boiled inside of Phil, threatening to blow. For a split second Phil was ready to grab the knife from the floor and make a suicide run at Grady. But he had to stop himself. He couldn’t let his emotions run him right now, he needed to think and outsmart Grady somehow.

  Grady had turned his attention back to Phil, and that amused grin was on his face again. “I see it in you,” Grady said. “I know you can kill your wife. It’s not that hard to do. You just stick that knife into her abdomen and then rip up to her breastbone. Or rip to the side. She’ll bleed out in minutes. Or you could slice her throat open. I don’t care how you do it, but you’d better get started soon.”

  “You’re a sick fucking bastard,” Cathy said, wrenching her arm out of Phil’s grasp. “I hope you pay for this. I hope you rot in hell.”

  “I appreciate the spunk, Cathy, but no one’s going to catch me.”

  “You can have me,” Cathy said. “I just want to know that you’ve let my daughter go.”

  “If you cooperate,” Grady said. “You have my word that I will let her live.”

  Cathy burst into tears again, shaking her head. “No you won’t.”

  Phil felt like the knife was ripping through his own guts now, a blade of guilt and shame. How could he have let this happen? Why couldn’t he have seen this coming? How did he let things get this far?

  “Tick tock,” Grady said. “Time’s a-wasting for Megan.”

  Phil didn’t want to imagine where Megan might be, tied up somewhere in the dark, or stuck in some kind of box. Or maybe dead somewhere. Of course there was always the chance that Grady was lying about going down to Barbara’s house. Maybe he hadn’t gone there yet. But he would definitely go there after he was done here.

  And Phil, like Cathy, was under no delusions that Grady was going to keep his promise. He suspected that Grady would kill him after he killed Cathy. And then he would take a leisurely drive down the road to Barbara’s house and kill both of them. There was no way out of this, nothing but a dead end at every turn.

  Except . . . that one clue that had come to him, one last card he might be able to play. And now he’d seen it. He remembered now everything that Dolores had said to him that night.

  “Three seconds, Phil.”

  Could he use that against Grady? Would that kind of revelation be enough to rock Grady, to throw him off balance enough? Maybe even shock him into realizing what he was doing?

  “Go on, Phil. It shouldn’t be too difficult for you to kill your wife. You’ve killed before. You’re a killer.”

  “No,” Phil said. “I know why your sister rode her bicycle out of the woods that night in front of us.”

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Officer Wells

  Officer Wells turned into the entrance of The Oaks subdivision a little too quickly, his tires sliding, the back end of his squad car fishtailing just a little. It was raining now and the roads were too slick for him to be driving this fast. He had already turned off the flashing lights and the siren as soon as he’d entered the neighborhood. If someone was at Phil’s house, then he didn’t want to alert them just yet.

  Wells had to do this on his own; he couldn’t involve Davis and Penski in this crackpot theory of his. Carlos had told him tonight that someone had kidnapped his daughter and made him follow the Stantons home last Saturday night. And then
that person had made Carlos do whatever he’d done tonight. Had Carlos done something to Phil and his family?

  There was always the possibility that Carlos was lying about this man who was making him do things. Or there was the possibility that Carlos was mentally disturbed, or high on drugs.

  None of that mattered right now. What mattered the most was that Phil Stanton and his family were safe—he had to check on them; he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if something had happened to them, or something was happening now and he hadn’t tried to help. Maybe Carlos was lying about a man making him do things, but Wells couldn’t help feeling that Carlos was telling the truth; there was something about the look in his eyes, the anguish in his voice.

  Even if no one was at Phil Stanton’s house, this visit would give Wells another chance to talk to the doctor. Because there was another gut feeling that was nagging at Wells, a certainty that Phil knew more about all of this than he was willing to say.

  “Where the hell are you going?” Davis had yelled at Wells as he was leaving the scene of Carlos’ accident.

  Wells hadn’t had time to explain everything to Davis. He knew that Phil, his wife, and his daughter were in some kind of danger—he could feel it. It would take too long to explain everything to Davis and Penski, and he probably would never convince them anyway.

  “You can’t leave the scene!” Davis had yelled as Wells ran back to his squad car. “You’re going to get suspended for this!”

  Yes, he probably was. But if he could stop this person’s plan before it started, if he could at least warn Phil and Cathy and their daughter, protect them somehow, then the suspension would be worth it.

  “I have to check on something,” Wells had yelled over his shoulder as he’d gotten into his car.

  And now he was here in the subdivision where Dr. Phil Stanton lived. He followed the curve of the road through the homes, finally coming to another road that led to the second phase of this neighborhood, a phase that had never been completed because of the economic crash. Some places had never really recovered completely after all these years.