by K. J. Dahlen
Sam looked at Cole and wondered if he could trust him. His son's life hung in the balance, and there had been times over the last few days when his gut instinct had screamed at him not to trust the other man. Whenever the mistrust reared its ugly head, Cole came through with just enough information to bring him back into the investigation. Sam wondered if he should trust his instincts or if Cole really was innocent and just wanted to bring his cousin in.
Alec pulled him aside and warned, "This could be a trap. This man, Tucker Briggs, is playing a dangerous game with you."
Sam looked his partner straight in the eye. "I know, but he's got my son and I want him back"
"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."
Sam 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 eight hundred 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," Sam suggested, looking at Cole.
Cole 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?"
Sam 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 Cole could leave from there in a few hours.
When they pulled up in front of the house Sam shared with his family, the fact that there wasn't anyone there to meet him hit Sam with a terrible blow. Chloe was gone, and their son might never come home. Even Tessa wasn't there anymore. Rage and hatred began filtering into his soul where love had once been, and the rage he felt toward another human being scared him.
As Sam opened the front door and let the others into his world, he looked around the home he'd once had. Everything was the way Chloe had left it just before she'd died. Sam hadn't paid too much attention to the details, but looking at the home Chloe 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, Sam suggested they order a pizza. No one could sleep right now anyway. A half hour later, Sam, Rob, Ian, and Alec sat around the living room discussing 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," Cole suggested.
"Are you sure he'll travel by river?" Sam asked between bites of pizza. A plan was forming in his mind, and he needed to know. He was only going through the motions of eating. He had no appetite but knew his body needed nourishment.
Cole shrugged. "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"
"I think maybe we should travel by boat," Sam suggested to no one in particular. He wiped his mouth with a napkin and waited for the response.
"Why?" Alec threw his food down on the plate and looked at Sam as if he'd taken leave of his senses.
"Because he might be able to find him on the river," Cole answered for Sam. "It would take at least four, maybe five days to get to Hannibal by boat. He would have that long to look for Tucker and Wyatt"
"What happens if you don't find him on the river?" Ian asked.
"I have to try." Sam couldn't allow himself to think negatively. 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," Cole said.
"Why?" Sam 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," Cole told him.
"Your cousin is a killer. He needs to be sitting on death row waiting for the day a needle gets shoved in his arm," Sam said firmly. "And when we catch him, that's where I'll put him-on death row, not in some blasted 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?"
"Any way I can" He glared at Cole. "Any objections?"
Cole looked at Sam. "Let's find him first. What happens after that will be up to a court of law."
A few hours later, as dawn broke over the eastern horizon, Sam and Cole were already on the river, preparing to leave. They had woken up the local boat renter and chosen 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. Sam looked at the river ahead of him and couldn't help but think about his son being up there somewhere.
As they stowed groceries for the trip, Alec surprised Sam by handing him his hunting rifle. Sam had often admired the rifle, and Alec had often teased Sam that the only time he would ever let him touch it was when hell froze over.
"Hell might not be freezing over, but you'll need a little extra edge," Alec told him as he gave him the weapon. "Bring the boy back alive, will you?"
"I can't imagine it any other way," Sam told his partner.
"Watch your back," Alec told him. He nodded at Cole and knew he didn't have to explain to Sam what he meant. Alec didn't trust Cole either.
"If you hear anything about Cole, you'll let me know, won't you? I'm not really sure about his part in all this, and I know what he says his motive is, but I don't know him well enough to trust him completely," Sam said. "There's more to this than what he's telling us."
Alec knew him well enough to guess what he was asking him to do. He looked away as he nodded. "I'll check into it for you and let you know what I find."
As Sam 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 Alec didn't say a prayer for what lay ahead. He had a feeling Sam would need all the help he could get.
As Sam steered the houseboat north, much of the beauty of the Mississippi River escaped his notice. 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 when traveling by river, and that the journey would take longer 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. He couldn't let his imagination run loose about what Wyatt was going through either. That would only turn him into a blithering idiot, and he needed to keep focused on the matter at hand.
Cole stood at the front of the boat. While Sam knew what his motive was, he wondered just how far Cole would go to protect his criminal cousin. Sam knew he'd have to keep an eye on the other man.
Cole raised the binoculars to his eyes and watched the river. Tucker regularly traveled by boat and probably knew each turn and every backwater route between here and Hannibal, but he might not know them well enough to chance traveling at night. If Tucker had had to wait until daybreak to leave New Orleans, it was possible that he wasn't that far ahead of them.
"What are you doing?" Sam asked. "He's got at least a four-hour head start"
"Are you sure about that? Maybe he had to wait until first light just like we did," Cole commented. He wasn't going to overlook any possibility.
Sam didn't respond. He didn't feel much like talking
anyway. The morning went by quickly, but not quickly enough. They were making good progress, but the houseboat wasn't exactly a speedy form of transport. 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 Sam figured they would make it to the Arkansas/Mississippi border by nightfall. He couldn't help but wonder where Tucker and Wyatt were right now.
Sam glanced at his watch and found it was almost noon. He shut down the engine and drifted for a while. He glanced over at Cole and asked, "Do you want to eat something?"
Cole nodded, and they went down to the cabin. They each fixed a sandwich and, grabbing a can of soda, returned to the deck. The afternoon sun beat down on them as they ate their lunch. It was Cole who broke the silence by asking, "So, what do I have to do to get you to trust me?"
Sam looked at him briefly before switching his gaze back to the river. "Do you really care if I trust you or not?"
Cole thought 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 Sam, "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 alone neither of us has a shot. So yeah, I guess I do care whether you trust me or not" Cole shifted in his chair. "It looks like we have our own reasons for this mission, and neither of us can say it isn't personal."
Sam thought about this statement of fact for a moment and nodded. "Okay, I can see your point. Let me point out something, though. I have the feeling that you're only sharing information on Tucker Briggs on a need-to-know basis. Only when it's absolutely necessary 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 you're still holding back information we need in order to catch him."
Cole nodded. "Okay, fair enough. Ask me anything you want to know, and I'll try to answer." He hesitated, then continued. "But please understand something. This man is someone I shared my childhood with. We went to family gatherings together, we shared our dreams, and we did the same things siblings 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 values. What turned him into a killer and you into a cop?" Sam asked. "I think each of us is born with our own sense of worth. Some of us get it beaten out of us, while others nurture it and somehow retain the values and morals needed to get along in this world. You apparently did the latter, 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 straight into evil."
Sam shook his head. "I'm probably not explaining this right. I'm not blaming anybody. I'm sure his parents are very good people, but 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."
Cole nodded slowly. Sam's insight had helped him understand his cousin a little better. It also lessened the degree of guilt Cole felt. Sam had leveled with him, and he knew Sam would do just what he said he would if the need arose, but Cole would be right there to prevent that from happening.
When Sam started up the boat again, Cole 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.
Sam docked up the river a little way near a spot called Bert's Place. It looked like a filling station and grocery store on the water's edge. While Cole filled the gas tanks, Sam entered the store. He saw a man sitting behind the counter and a 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, Sam had stocked the galley on the boat, so he really didn't need anything from the store. He was just waiting for Cole to fill the gas tank. He approached the old man. "Can a person travel this stretch of river at night?"
The man 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."
Sam 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?"
The man nodded and laughed. "Sure, we know Tucker. He was just here about four hours ago."
"How well do you know him?" Sam 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," the man told Sam. "Of course I didn't recognize him at first. He was in a new boat."
Cole finished filling the tanks and came into the store. The man's jaw dropped and the woman stocking the shelves called out Tucker's name. Cole just smiled. "I'm not Tucker, ma'am. I'm his cousin Cole."
The man introduced himself as Bert Carmichael and said the woman was his wife, Letty. Letty looked over at her husband. "Are you sure you're cousins? It's just that you look so much like him, you two could be brothers."
Cole 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." She leaned closer and nodded. "Now I can see a difference between you and Tucker. You're both handsome men, but there's a ruggedness to Tucker that you don't have"
"You're not the first person to notice that," Cole admitted.
"Well, at least Tucker's little boy won't be mistaken for anyone's twin. He must take after his mother though, because he sure doesn't look like his dad." Letty shook her head.
Cole glanced at Sam. Sam was about to say something and Cole wanted him to shut his mouth. "Did Tucker have his son with him?" Cole asked. "I'm surprised by 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"
Cole 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.
Sam stepped up to pay for the gas, and as they left the store, Sam told Cole, "It really is a shame that Tucker's marriage didn't last."
"Well, I couldn't very well tell them the truth, could I?" Cole remarked. "They wouldn't have understood that their friend Tucker was wanted for murder and kidnapping. This way we got the information we needed, and they aren't going to run to their phone and call someone upriver to warn Tucker that we're after him."
Sam nodded. 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 Sam was confident that Tucker would feel safe enough to slow down when he got farther away from New Orleans, and that's when they would catch up with him. Sam 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 while in his pursuit of his son.
By the time the sun hit the halfway point on the second day, Sam and Cole felt they were ma
king progress. They had Arkansas on the left and Mississippi to their right. They were actually seeing more of the river life on the second day than they had the day before. There was still no sign of Tucker, but Sam 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, Sam knew he could get used to this kind of carefree life. The slow, easygoing pace of life on the water was evident in the people. Yesterday they had been in too much of a hurry to see it, but today Sam and Cole saw the river in a different light.
The water was calling to them, seducing them as they plowed through its gentle swells, and the pull of its current was taking them farther and farther 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.
Sam was checking his navigational charts when Cole brought him a sandwich and a beer.
"So, how far do you think we'll get by sundown?" Cole asked, as he bit into his sandwich.
"We should get at least to Helena, Mississippi. We'll have to stop around there for gas anyway," Sam told him.
"How much farther ahead of us is he, do you wonder?" Cole finally asked the question on both of their minds.
"I wish I knew," Sam replied as he looked at the huge expanse of river ahead of him. They had been passing swampland and river islands all day. For all they knew, Tucker could be on one of those islands right now. Cole had been searching as far as he could see, but it would have been easy enough to hide a boat if you really wanted to. They had to hope that he was still making his way north to Hannibal.
"What do you think of our chances? Of finding him and Wyatt, I mean," Cole clarified.
Sam thought for a moment, and then nodded. "Actually, I think we made the right decision about traveling by river. We have the element of surprise on our side, and in this sort of game we need every advantage we can get. He doesn't know we followed him by river, and he won't be looking for us until he gets to Hannibal."