Twisted End

by Tara Thomas

  Something crawled up her arm. She swatted it away. She also would’ve thought that the swamp would be less crowded with critters at night. But then again, what did she know? It’s not like she went camping or anything.

  Probably, she’d be doing better if she weren’t so tired. She wondered again what Mac had given her. There was no telling what sort of drug he had knocked her out with.

  Her arm itched. Damn bugs.

  She looked at her foot; the ground seemed to glow in the moonlight. If she weren’t running for her life, she might have thought it was pretty. She wished Brent was close so she could talk about it and show it to him.

  She wondered if he’d gone camping when he was a boy. He mentioned spending summers in Greece while he was growing up, but never camping. Did people camp in Greece?

  She shook herself. This is crazy. Must be the aftereffects of the drug he gave her. She never felt so loopy before. And being loopy on the run from a madman in the swamp was a bad thing.

  From her training, she tried to remember how to ensure she was walking in a straight line and not just circling around. Moss grew on the north side of trees. She checked several nearby and proceeded to do so every so often. She could also use the north star. She looked up, but that only made her dizzy.

  There were lightning bugs everywhere. She thought that was funny for swamp. Did swamps have lightning bugs? She shook herself and muttered that it was just the drugs again. Obviously, swamps had lightning bugs. She was standing in one. And she saw them.

  She yawned. Looking around, she tried to discover where she might sit down and rest for a while. Nowhere. She couldn’t stop.

  The light she’d saw before had disappeared. There wasn’t much of a light left anywhere, just the overall glow of the pond. Or swamp. Wherever she was.

  She was slowly going crazy.

  She needed a doctor. A hospital. Anything.

  She took a tentative glance over her shoulder. She didn’t turn all the way around, for fear of getting lost. Just a quick glance. Nothing but trees and swamp.

  She wondered what time it was and if it was almost morning. Would it get really hot during the day?

  Would she even be alive during the day? Or would some swamp animal come upon her and eat her at night?

  She tried reminding herself that she was a police officer, and that she couldn’t give up that easily. But it was getting harder and harder the further and further she walked to the swamp.

  She wondered what Brent was doing? What was the last time she saw him?

  There had been a party?

  Yes, that was it. An outdoor party. A cookout.

  He hadn’t wanted her to go. Said something bad would happen.

  Mac.

  She screamed. Then stopped immediately.

  He’d been right.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered to the night sky.

  She was cold all of a sudden, which was stupid because she was in the swamp, it was summer, and it should be hot. She told herself again it was the drugs.

  How long would it take to get them out of her system?

  She licked her lips. She was really thirsty.

  The best things she could imagine, at that moment in time, were water and a place to sleep. She laughed, looking around. There was nowhere to sleep. And knowing she was in the swamp meant she couldn’t drink. No water but the swamp water.

  Something rustled in the trees nearby. She shifted her glance over that way, desperate to see. But of course it was night. And it was dark. She couldn’t tell what it was. She squinted, hoping that would make it better. But of course it didn’t.

  She took a step forward and stumbled over something. Holding her arms out to catch herself, she realized they were untied. She couldn’t remember when that happened. But then she looked down and saw that she had stumbled over tree trunk. The best part of it was that the seat had been sawed off and provided the perfect seat for her. It was close enough to the nearest tree to provide a back.

  Without even thinking, she sat down on the stump. Indeed, the back was perfect for leaning against. She would just here for a few minutes she thought. Rest her eyes a bit. She laughed, remembering how her father used to say that.

  She opened her eyes again, just to make sure she was alone. But apart from the lightning bugs and whatever it was that was determined to make a snack of her, she was alone. Knowing she might not be when she woke up, she looked around for anything she could use as a weapon. She found a long sturdy looking branch, but she was afraid that if someone got close enough for her to use it, they could possibly take it away from her.

  She leaned it against the stump she was sitting on and continued her search. Her fingers brushed a rock that fit perfectly in her hand. If anyone showed up, she’d throw the rock at them. Maybe she wouldn’t even need the branch.

  She placed the rock in her lap and took a deep breath. The slump seemed to melt away. She was in her bed. She was sleeping. Nothing had ever felt so good before.

  She dreamed of Brent.

  Chapter Three

  Brent made it to the street where he knew it’d be easy to pick up a taxi, except he didn’t see any. But he did find Alyssa waiting in her unmarked car. He wanted to ignore her, but he told himself he was being ridiculous. Alyssa hadn’t done anything wrong, and he’d always thought she was a good friend to Janie.

  “I thought everything would go faster if we paired up,” Alyssa said.

  He hesitated for a moment. Did he want to pair up with Alyssa? Could he deal with the constant reminder that it was her boyfriend who had taken Janie hostage?

  The officer seemed to recognize his conflict. “You don’t have to, of course. I just thought I would offer.” She went to pull out, and in that second Brett knew he’d be stupid to pass on her offer.

  “Wait,” he said. “I’ll go with you.”

  She stopped the car and waited for him to get in. Before they drove away, she looked over her shoulder, as if expecting someone might be following her.

  “Are you allowed to do this?” he asked. The very last thing he needed was to get involved in some internal conflict with the police department. All that would do is slow the hunt to find Jamie.

  “Probably not, but I didn’t ask, so technically speaking, I wasn’t told no,” she said. He waited for her to say more, but she only added, “At the moment, I want to get away from here before I say more.” Alyssa looked over her shoulder once again.

  He didn’t like it, but he knew he had no other choice but go along with it. At least this way, he’d be the first one to get the information, right along with Alyssa. There was something to be said about that. In the end, that was the important thing. Anything that would help them find Janie faster.

  “Where are we going?” he asked. Had she already received news about Janie? It didn’t seem possible but she was certainly driving with a purpose somewhere.

  “I need to stop by my place. The police are going to Mac’s office and apartment, but his laptop is at my place.”

  “And you think not only are you going to be able to hack into it, but that he just happened to leave his master plan on his laptop for anyone to find?” He knew he sounded sarcastic, but truthfully, that was her plan?

  “Yes,” was all she said.

  Her apartment took less than five minutes to get to. Once there, she parked the car, but left it running.

  “I’m going to run inside to get the laptop,” she said. “I’m not expecting anything, but if you see anything suspicious, drive away and we’ll catch up later.”

  It very well could be the most ludicrous plan he’d ever heard. But since he didn’t have a better one at the moment, he nodded. She moved to get out, but at the last moment looked over her shoulder to him.

  “Also,” she said, “if I’m not back in five minutes, assume something’s happened and get out.”

  He nodded, even though hell would freeze before he’d leave her alone and in danger.

  “No.” She reached insi
de and placed her hand on his. “I mean it. Leave. It’ll be up to you to find Janie. Promise me.”

  “Okay,” he managed to choke out. “I promise.”

  She gave him a small smile and left. After that, time seemed to crawl. He watched the people who were out and about, but didn’t see anything suspicious. Then again, who could say what was suspicious?

  Alyssa appeared after four minutes, holding a laptop case and a duffel bag slung over her shoulder. She glanced around the parking lot and then jumped in the car, placing the laptop in the backseat and handing him the other bag.

  “Police are on their way,” she said. “We need to hurry.”

  He noticed she drove out the back part of the lot and seconds after they pulled out, several patrol cars with flashing lights entered through the front.

  She waited until they’d driven about ten miles before she spoke again. “There’s a tablet in that duffel bag. Can you get it out?” He opened it, while she kept talking. “About eight months ago, the department put GPS tracking devices on all our mobile phones. As long as Janie keeps her phone on, we should be able to find it.”

  “Wouldn’t they have disabled it when they fired her?”

  “They should have, but I doubt they did. With all the department has on their plate at the moment. I can pretty much bet it’s a low priority. In fact, I’d be willing to bet whoever is supposed to do it, probably doesn’t even know.”

  He nodded, but his mind was playing over her earlier words. Find it. He noticed she didn’t say they would find her. Even so, his heart pounded. He followed her instructions and found the app and punched in the code that would hopefully pull Janie’s phone. He beat down hope, trying his best to remain neutral. “And if Mac and whoever he’s working with happen to know about the GPS, they’ll throw her phone out the window and head one-eighty in the opposite direction.”

  “True, but we know she had the phone on her for a while at least. Besides, it’s the most we can do at this point, short of driving around blind and waiting for a new clue to drop in our lap.”

  “You surprise me, you know that?” he told her.

  Alyssa’s grip tightened on the steering wheel. “How’s that?”

  “It appears as if there’s an eternal optimist underneath that no-nonsense exterior of yours.” He paused, but knew he had to finish his thought. “That’s probably why you get along so well with Janie. She’s like that.” Though his voice had started out strong, the last sentence was only whispered.

  Alyssa glanced over at him, a look of fierce determination on her face. “We’re going to find her. I promise.”

  He simply nodded and turned to look out the side window.

  * * *

  Janie slowly woke to the sound of her name being whispered. She squinted against the light. Where was she? And why couldn’t she remember anything?

  “Janie?”

  She sat upright. Someone had called her name. She hadn’t imagined it.

  She held her breath and glanced around the area, hoping against hope it was anyone other than Mac. At first she didn’t see a soul, but once she’d looked over the area without any luck, she looked again. Slower this time. Straining to see if she saw anything that didn’t look right or if any of the many shadows moved.

  “To your left,” the voice whispered and while it didn’t sound like Mac, she couldn’t say with any certainty that it was Brent.

  But then he stepped out of the shadows and she nearly wept. “Brent,” she managed to get out in a choked voice.

  He smiled so big, it nearly covered his face. “Oh my God, Janie. Are you okay?”

  Then neither one of them could talk because they were both on their feet, making their way through the muck, trying to get to each other. She tripped over rocks, sticks, and even her own feet to get to him. Finally, she collapsed in his arms with a sound that was a combination of a sob and a laugh, but he was making his own made-up noises, so somehow it didn’t matter.

  His lips found hers and he was kissing her as if they’d been apart for months instead of mere hours.

  “How did you find me?” she asked. “How did you know where to look?” But he shook his head and held his finger against his lips.

  Her blood chilled. Mac hadn’t been caught yet. He was still around and quite possibly nearby if the way Brent was acting told her anything.

  She tilted her head. Was it strange that it was only Brent who showed up and not a group of police? At the very least, wouldn’t Alyssa be with him? And surely it was beyond strange that other than the one question about her being okay, she was the only one who had spoken.

  * * *

  “We have something,” Brent told Alyssa fifteen minutes later when the GPS tracking app finally pulled enough data to show a red dot at the location it estimated Janie’s phone to be.

  “About damn time,” she said. “I thought I was going to have to throw that piece of trash tablet out the window. So tell me, where are we going?”

  Brent squinted at the tablet to make sure he was reading it right. “Somewhere in the Francis Marion National Forest.”

  “He could hear the frown in her voice. “Why would he take her there?”

  “I’m thinking the couple of hundred thousand uninhabited acres is a good enough reason. He could hide for days.” And he didn’t want to go any further down that path. Likewise, he was glad when she didn’t say anything else. The silence gave him the opportunity to focus on the red dot that was currently his only tie to the woman he loved.

  The scanner Alyssa had turned on crackled to life and she reached down to turn it up.

  “I’m in Officer Adams’s apartment,” a voice that sounded like her partner’s said. “No sign of her or Mac, but the place has been ransacked.”

  “You trashed your apartment?” he asked her.

  But when he turned to look at Alyssa, her knuckles were white and her face several shades paler. “No,” she whispered.

  * * *

  She was in Brent’s ridiculously large antique tub. He’d just drawn a bath for her and promised he’d be back in just a minute to join her. As she waited, she sank down into the bubbles to where a few tickled her nose. She couldn’t name the scent he’d used, but it smelled like sunshine. Or summer back when she was a kid and out of school and having nothing to think about except where she was going to ride her bike that day.

  “Is that smile for me?” Brent asked, walking into the bathroom.

  She couldn’t reply right away because instead of waiting for her to answer, he started taking his clothes off. First, he toed off his shoes, then he slid his socks off. He’d unbuttoned his shirt before lifting his head as he waited for her to reply. He smiled.

  “I took that to be a rhetorical question,” she said. “But I’ll answer any way you want as long as you finish what you were doing with that shirt and move on to your pants.”

  This time his smile turned into a laugh. She loved his laugh. It was deep and rich and never failed to send shivers up her spine.

  She still couldn’t keep her eyes off him. Especially as he stripped his shirt off. And most especially as his fingers drifted to the button of his pants. But then they stopped again and she almost whined.

  “Janie,” he said, but his voice was all wrong.

  Heart pounding, she looked up.

  He smiled, but it wasn’t the smile that made her all warm and happy inside. It wasn’t Brent’s smile at all. She blinked. Brent was gone and the man in his place was partially hidden in the shadows.

  “Ready for some fun?” the man that wasn’t Brent asked.

  She tried to get out of the bathtub, but found she couldn’t move. Looking down, she realized she wasn’t in a bathtub at all. She was bound to some sort of table.

  Her eyes watered because even as she tried to pull and jerk against the rope that held her to the table, she knew it was a lost cause. She tried anyway.

  He stood in the shadows and laughed. “I’m glad you’re finally awake enough. I though
t maybe I gave you too much the second time and ruined the game for everyone.” He took a step forward and her heart raced. The light fell across his face and she screamed.

  Mac. She hadn’t escaped after all.

  Chapter Four

  They stopped at a remote part of the park that Brent estimated was about two miles from the red dot that represented Janie. There were several roads through the forest, but they’d decided on this one because it got them the closest. Which was why he din’t understand why Alyssa told him they needed to stop where they were. He paced back and forth in front of the car as Alyssa turned on the computer.

  “I don’t understand why we aren’t getting closer.” He spun around in the dirt and looked at Alyssa.

  She didn’t even look up from what she was doing. “Because the dot hasn’t moved. So either it’s just her phone or they’ve stopped for the night.”

  But he knew there was one other possibility that could explain why the dot hadn’t moved. He wasn’t going to say it out loud. It was bad enough it had been a thought in his head. He stormed over to where Alyssa was.

  “What you doing?” he asked.

  “I’m getting into Mac’s computer.” She didn’t stop her actions, but at least she was explaining what she was doing. “I know his username, and if I remember correctly and he hasn’t changed his password . . .”

  He looked down the road would take them to Janie. Or at least the red dot that symbolized her at the moment. “Let’s go.”

  “Hold on.” She didn’t even look at him.

  “I’ve been holding, and I’m going to find her myself. If you want to come-” The rest of the sentence left him as Alyssa lifted the laptop up and showed him the bottom.

  “Holy shit.” Brent couldn’t believe what he was seeing. “He taped his password to the bottom of his laptop?”

  “He made it too difficult to remember. He thought he was being clever.” She talked while she typed. Her hands paused. And then she spoke with a huge grin. “I’m in. Trust me on this. We need to take a few minutes to plan.”