An overwhelming sense of hopelessness pressed on her heart. She’d never get another chance to escape. She chastised herself for even making the attempt in the first place. Now Julie was on her guard and wouldn’t leave anything to chance. Her only hope was that the police were quick to discover the murders of Zeke and Sammy, put two-and-two together, and race to her rescue. What were the chances that would happen? Rodney was the only one who knew what—and where—the Shallows were.
They emerged from the wooded path. Kaitlyn peered at the dark waters of the pond before her. Up the hill across the pond, the glow of headlights from the occasional passing car on the interstate interrupted the darkness. Kaitlyn knew that no one on the highway would ever notice a pair of women standing in the dark beside a pond. No chance that a stray passerby would call the police.
Julie made a sweep of the perimeter with her flashlight. “Brings back memories, don’t it?” She spoke loud so that Kaitlyn could hear her over the roar of the pouring rain.
“Yeah.”
“All those summer nights. Just the three of us. Splashing around in the Shallows. Good times.”
Kaitlyn turned to face Julie. “Yes, those were wonderful times. I’ll never forget them. Julie, I loved him . . . and I loved you. Why spoil these memories with further bloodshed?”
“You know why I became a cop?”
Julie shone the flashlight in her face. Kaitlyn squinted, turning her head to one side to avoid the glare. She shook her head.
“Justice,” Julie said. “I wanted to ensure that justice was served.” She pointed the flashlight back down at the ground. “Years ago, I watched an abhorrent miscarriage of justice. A killer walked free from her crime. Got away with murder.”
Looking down, Kaitlyn studied her bloodied feet. “I didn’t murder Jesse.”
“What would you call it then?”
She was tired of defending herself. To Julie. To herself. “An accident. It was just an accident.”
“Even in an accident, someone has to take the blame.”
Kaitlyn looked up again, staring into Julie’s eyes. “Is that what this is about? Blaming someone for Jesse’s death?” A faint rage was building within her. “You want me to take the blame?”
“No, Laura. I don’t want you to take the blame. I want you to die.” Julie stepped forward and pushed her gun into Kaitlyn’s stomach. “Move. Out on the dock.”
45
Kaitlyn turned, remembering the state of the old dock from her last visit to the Shallows. The boards had splintered and looked unstable. One of the corners had already dipped beneath the water’s surface, with the rest on the verge of following. It hadn’t looked like it would hold her weight. Now, she could barely see it in the dark. She took a few steps forward and followed the flashlight’s beam toward the graying hulk that hovered over the water. Kaitlyn stepped cautiously onto the dock. The wood planks were rough beneath her feet. A nudge of cold steel in her back urged her forward. She took a few more steps. The dock shifted beneath her. Even over the sound of the pouring rain, she heard the boards creak.
“Keep moving,” Julie said.
Kaitlyn made slow progress along the dock, pausing every time it swayed. The slope grew worse the further along she went, forcing her to lean to the left to keep her balance. The rain pounded the pond water. The inky blackness was stirred by thousands of tiny ripples. She moved as far along the dock as she could without stepping into the water, then turned to gaze back toward the beach. Julie stood at the water’s edge with the gun hanging down at her side.
“Is this where you shoot me?” Kaitlyn shouted.
Julie laughed again, just as she had earlier in the house. “Shoot you? No. That’s not justice. You’ll die in the Shallows, just like Jesse.”
The dock swayed as a gust of wind blew across the water. Kaitlyn shifted her feet for better balance. She glared through the rain at Julie. “You’re a cop. How can you justify any of this?”
Julie’s face contorted into a sinister smile. “You’re the reason I became a cop. I watched you get away with murder and wanted to make others like you pay for their crimes.” She laughed. “I never thought I’d get to be your executioner, but here we are. Now you pay.”
The thought of drowning in the Shallows terrified Kaitlyn. She almost would prefer a bullet to the head. She recalled the horror on Jesse’s face as he slipped beneath the surface more than a decade ago. His eyes wide, filled with rage, surprise, and fear. Jesse shouted—begged—her to give him her hand, to pull him back up. The mud at the pond’s bottom had an iron grip on his feet and its drag was slow and agonizing. The water was already up to his chin and encroaching on his mouth second by second. Jesse tilted his head back to keep it from filling with water. His struggles to free himself only accelerated his descent.
Julie waved the gun, trying to direct Kaitlyn further along the dock. “Keep moving.”
Kaitlyn didn’t move. She barely heard Julie’s words. Her thoughts were still deep in the past. Thinking of her torn blouse, of the scrapes on her knees and arms from their struggle. She remembered his painful grip on her arm and how hard she fought to break away. The sting of his slap on her cheek. The roughness of the dock’s planks on her back as he held her down. His groping hand forcing its way into her pants.
“Move!” Julie’s command was more forceful this time.
Tears ran down Kaitlyn’s cheeks, mingling with the rain drops. She’d hidden these memories deep for years, not even telling her therapist the whole truth about that night. Jesse’s episodes had grown in intensity over that last year. Maybe undiagnosed bipolar. Perhaps schizophrenic. She knew very little about mental health, and as far as she knew, he never saw anyone about it. His violence that night had been unlike anything that Kaitlyn had ever experienced. Luck, and a swift knee to Jesse’s crotch, had been her saving grace. As he was bent over in pain, she pushed away from him. That was when he lost his balance and fell off the end of the dock. The neck-deep water wouldn’t have been a problem if it had been anywhere else in the Shallows, but that mud . . .
Julie took an angry step forward onto the dock. “Are you deaf? Move it.”
The dock swayed beneath the additional weight. The water breeched the wooden planks and lapped at Kaitlyn’s toes.
“He tried to rape me,” Kaitlyn said. “That night, on this dock.”
Julie stopped moving and glared. “Liar!” She jerked the gun forward as if to punctuate the accusation.
“He had another episode. The worst I’d ever seen.”
Julie pointed the gun at her. “Shut up!”
“He held me down. Tore my blouse. We struggled.” Kaitlyn saw the burning rage in Julie’s face. “He fell in during the struggle. But you knew that already, didn’t you? After all, you were there.”
The truth hung between them within the drops of the rain. The gun shook, as if Julie was cold, scared, or both. Kaitlyn waited, half-expecting the bullets to fly, fast and furious.
“What? Why would you think I was there?” Julie stammered.
“I just figured it out. How else would you know what Jesse said to me that night?” Kaitlyn bowed her head and stared at the warped boards beneath her feet. “I remember now. You disappeared for a couple hours that night. No one knew where you went. Were you in the bushes spying on us?”
“I . . . I was—”
Kaitlyn turned her eyes back up toward Julie. “Why didn’t you help me? You must have seen what he tried to do.”
Julie’s gaze was vacant and dark. “I was frightened . . . of him.”
“So was I. He’d never assaulted me before. It broke my heart. But . . . all I could do was kneel on the dock and let him drown,” Kaitlyn admitted. “I watched him sink into the water.” After a pause, she added, “And so did you.”
“Shut up, you bitch!”
Kaitlyn flinched and waited to be shot. But nothing happened. She looked again to find Julie still pointing the gun at her with a trembling hand. The Glock’s muzzle n
o longer holding a dead-on aim at her.
Kaitlyn continued her confession. “I could’ve saved him. I just needed to grab his hand, and all would’ve been different. But, I didn’t.”
Julie’s hand wavered; the gun lowered.
“Julie, believe me. I never meant for him to die.”
Julie lowered the gun to her side and bowed her head. Her shoulders gave a violent shudder. There might have been tears streaming down Julie’s face, but Kaitlyn couldn’t be sure through the rain. She felt a sense of relief. She’d hidden the truth about Jesse’s death for so long that to finally reveal it was like a burden lifted. If this was to be her deathbed confession, it was a comfort knowing that she had finally spoken the whole truth.
With Julie’s attention distracted, Kaitlyn took her chance. She closed the distance between herself and Julie with slow, deliberate steps. With every step, she watched Julie for reaction, but none came. She crept forward until she was a mere few feet away. With a sudden swift movement, Julie’s arm leapt forward, bringing the gun inches from Kaitlyn’s face.
“Going somewhere?” Julie said.
Surprised, Kaitlyn stammered an unintelligible answer.
Julie took a step forward and forced Kaitlyn to back up along the dock. “I won’t let you blemish my brother’s reputation with your lies.”
“I swear, Julie. It’s the truth. I loved him.” The dilapidated dock swayed as Kaitlyn continued to back her way along it. “But I was so scared. He tried to rape me, Julie. That’s all I could think about. He tried to rape me, and he’d do it again.”
“Shut up! I don’t want to hear your lies anymore.”
“Damn it, Julie. You know it’s the truth. You saw it!”
Kaitlyn reached the far end of the dock. The pond’s water lapped at her feet. She was exhausted—both physically and emotionally. She had no fight left within her. “What do you want from me? I can’t change what happened!”
Julie moved along the dock toward her. “I want you to die.”
46
Rodney doubled back to the interstate in hopes of finding the old pond from there. The pavement was slick, and his tires spun as he sped down the onramp. He fought to keep the Dodge in the lane and nearly clipped the backend of a passing tractor trailer. He raced north up I-95, searching the darkness along the shoulder for any sign of the Shallows. He would have missed it if the glare of a distant flashlight hadn’t caught his eye as he raced past. Slamming on the brakes, he skidded the car to the shoulder and doused the headlights. The rain crashed against the windshield. Thick trees lined the slope leading down from the side of the highway. The car had come to a stop a hundred yards from where the light had caught his attention. A bit of a hike getting back to the Shallows. It was a miserable night to be traipsing through the woods, but Rodney had no choice. There was a flashlight in the glove compartment. He checked the magazine in his Glock to make sure it was full, then stepped from the car into the rain.
As he made his way around the car, a truck raced past, horn blaring. He cringed at the thought that his advantage may have been lost. Could they hear the horns and traffic through the downpour? He stepped off the pavement into the grass. Climbing the fence that lined the interstate had been his first big hurdle. Chain-linking snagged at his shirt and trousers as he fell over the top.
Rodney scrambled down the muddy slope through the underbrush. One hand held the extinguished flashlight and the other gripped his gun. The saturated ground made for treacherous footing. More than once, he stumbled, falling backward onto the drenched earth. In the distance, he could just make out the outline of the pond he’d come to know as the Shallows. He kept his eyes focused on the solitary flashlight beam near the dock. He could only see the silhouette of the person holding the flashlight, but he knew beyond doubt who it was. The light shone on Kaitlyn as she teetered over the water near the end of the dock. Another step back and she would end up in the pond, right where Jesse Riley drowned. He had to get closer to have any hope of saving her.
As he crouched in the underbrush, he picked up bits and pieces of the conversation between Julie and Kaitlyn. He heard Kaitlyn say something about rape, then an angry outburst from Julie in response. The words were garbled by the rain. Was he close enough to get off an accurate shot at Julie? Between the dark and the rain, he wasn’t certain he’d get a clear enough aim on Julie to take her out if things went south. He had to get closer, but there was nothing but open ground between him and the pond. He couldn’t let Kaitlyn die . . . wouldn’t let her die.
Then Kaitlyn’s voice echoed through the rain, “. . . and let him drown.”
Rodney closed his eyes and felt his heart fall. He’d worked under the assumption that Kaitlyn was innocent of wrongdoing. The police report on Jesse Riley’s death painted the picture of a girlfriend who had tried in vain to rescue her drowning lover. But the truth was different. She’d watched him die, which meant Kaitlyn was guilty of manslaughter. He couldn’t help but think of his daughter. He’d turned her over to the police after her hit-and-run. He’d never been able to turn a blind eye to crime, no matter who was involved.
When he opened his eyes again, Julie had inched forward along the dock, her gun raised and pointed at Kaitlyn. The dock swayed beneath their combined weight. Kaitlyn had backed to the very edge of the dock, but Julie kept moving closer.
“I want you to die,” shouted Julie.
Kaitlyn yelled through the rain, “How does this make you any better than me?”
Rodney crept forward to the edge of the trees. He tightened his grip on the gun.
Julie yelled, “I’m not the one who’s confessed to murder.”
“I didn’t murder Jesse. You’re a cop, you know that murder takes intent. But killing me like this, planned like this. That makes you a murderer for sure.”
Julie waved her gun from side to side. “No! I’m the executioner!”
Kaitlyn spread her arms out before her. “Execution? Without a trial?”
Rodney had heard enough. He rose from the ground and moved toward the Shallows.
47
Kaitlyn inched back along the dock until her bare heels hung over the edge of the last plank. There was nowhere left to go. If she couldn’t get past Julie, she would end up in the Shallows. There was no way she could free herself from the murky depths with a wounded arm. And Julie would most likely shoot Kaitlyn if she tried to escape. What would it be like to drown? To be swallowed up by the water. Would it hurt? Would it be quick? She stared up the barrel of the gun at Julie. She saw nothing but a dark silhouette, the glare of the flashlight obscuring almost everything behind it. Maybe Kaitlyn could rush her. Try to tackle her and wrestle the gun from Julie’s hand. Probably wouldn’t succeed, but at least she would go down fighting. The soaking rain and the damp cold had sapped most of her energy. It was too hard to tell if her trembling was from fear or the weather. She didn’t stand a chance against Julie, she knew that. But she had to do something.
The second beam of light came as a surprise. It shone across the Shallows and outlined Julie in its bright spotlight. She felt a sudden rebirth of hope as she recognized the voice that accompanied the light.
“Drop the gun, Julie!”
Kaitlyn glanced to her left and caught sight of a silhouette rushing toward the dock from the tree line. Julie turned as well, swinging the gun in the direction of the approaching figure. The gun barked twice; the muzzle flash lit up the water beside the dock. The second flashlight went dark. Julie’s shots were answered with a single blast, which struck the dock nearby.
Seeing her chance, Kaitlyn leapt forward and made a grab for the gun. Under the sudden movement, the dock lurched and sent them both off balance. The flashlight fell from Julie’s grip. It bounced off the dock and rolled into the water. A ghostly glow illuminated the sediment that was disturbed by the flashlight’s plunge into the depths. Kaitlyn’s fingers wrapped around Julie’s wrist, but she couldn’t get a good hold. Julie spun from her grasp and swung her ba
ckhand into the side of Kaitlyn’s head. The butt of the gun smacked hard on her temple. Kaitlyn lost her balance and fell onto the dock. She landed on the edge; her legs plunged into the water. The warped boards and rusty nails dug deep into her stomach. Her fingers scrambled for a handhold.
Julie, standing astride the skewed dock, fired a few more shots across the water into the darkness. “This is between Laura and me,” she shouted. “Stay out of it, Rodney . . . if you don’t want to die with her.”
Kaitlyn got a couple fingers in between two planks. Her shoulder raged with pain from her earlier wound. Splinters speared deep into her skin. Despite the agony, she held firm and tried to heave herself back up.
From somewhere in the dark, Rodney yelled, “I can’t let you do this.”
Julie fired another shot. “She killed my brother. Don’t I deserve justice?”
Hoisting her legs onto the dock, Kaitlyn rolled over and stared up into the dark sky above. Her chest heaved with every breath. Her fingers ached, her wounded arm throbbed, and her stomach burned where she’d dragged herself across the abrasive wood and nails. She barely had any strength left, but she couldn’t remain where she was. She tried to scramble to her feet.
“It’s not your job to dole out justice,” shouted Rodney. “Come on, Julie, I don’t want to shoot you.”
Dead Air Page 23