Gwen sat on the concrete floor shivering in her wet clothes. She was angry and drained.
There was no possible escape. For a man who built a whole life on lies, Benson sure picked a great time to start telling the truth. She could hear pieces of wood ripping away from the house, along with cracking tree branches. The whistling of the wind was so loud that it was hard for her to think. But the room was holding up against Hurricane Ava. She didn’t know if that was a good thing or not.
She wasn’t sure what day it was, but had narrowed it down to either Sunday or Monday. It took her three days to get out of the handcuffs. A torturous experience of trying to maneuver her fingers in ways they shouldn’t bend, in order to get the key into the small hole. She did all this without being able to see her cuffed hands behind her. It was like trying to put her contact lenses in without hands.
The food and water had dwindled. It took a lot of willpower to ration it when she wanted to gulp the entire bowl. Her mouth was as dry as the Sahara, with lips chapped to the point they were bleeding.
Carter remained unconscious. She wiped the sweat off his head, and the stubble felt like sandpaper. She noticed a big gash where Benson had knocked him out. The blood, mixed with the sweat, trickled down his face like wet paint. Gwen guessed he was in some sort of body trauma or shock. She knew he needed a doctor soon or he would die.
With all the free time, she was able to catch up on her reading. But Benson’s journal entries were so disturbing that they made her never want to read again.
Suddenly a sharp noise jolted her. It was Carter—the giant was awakening.
“Did somebody get the license plate of that truck that hit me?” he grumbled as he tried to sit up. He didn’t make it, and laid back down.
Gwen felt relief. “Carter, are you okay? How do you feel?”
“Are you an angel?”
“I’m JP’s friend Gwen—you’ve been out for days.”
“I figured I’d only see a piece of ass like you in heaven,” he said, before going on a long tangent about some guy named Jimmy Snuka, who was something called a super fly, and one time jumped off a top rope in a wrestling match and caught him with an elbow that put him in a coma for a week. He was definitely delirious.
On his second attempt, Carter managed to sit up against the concrete wall. He took a whiff of himself and made a face of displeasure. “What the hell happened?”
“If you remember, you were following me like you shouldn’t have been. Now we’re being held hostage at the beach house.”
He rubbed his hand over the gash on his head and nodded like it was all coming back to him. “The pictures—I remember looking at them before I got whacked.”
A large crash shook the room.
“What the…?” Carter almost leaped to his feet.
“There’s a major hurricane hitting North Carolina.”
“There’s no way out of here?”
“I’ve searched every possibility.”
“What about these handcuffs?”
“I tried the key. It only worked on mine.”
Carter smiled.
“What’s so funny?” Gwen asked.
“I’m locked in a room with a hot chick and handcuffs, but I’m trying to get out. That hit on the head really musta effed me up.” He tried to laugh and it looked like it was painful.
“You make one move and a headache will be the least of your worries.”
He smiled. “I see why JP’s so crazy about you. You’re one tough broad.”
“Is that a compliment?”
“Let’s just say, I’ve known JP Warner for most of our nine lives, and in all that time you’ve been the only one to get entry into his heart.”
Gwen shot him a crooked look.
Carter shrugged. “Hey, I didn’t say there haven’t been others that got entry into other places … actually there have been a lot of…”
“Okay, okay, I get your point,” she cut him off.
“When you spend time in the places that me and JP have, you learn what makes someone tick. I always thought he was just a prick, but turns out he was a guy with a broken heart, and you’re the only one who can fix it.”
Gwen wasn’t so sure. “Then you’d know he’s programmed to always leave in the end. There’s always a next story.”
“The only thing I know about JP is that he’s honest to a fault. A fault that has gotten that cute nose of his broken a few times. If he says he’s stayin’, he’s stayin’.”
“I’ll believe it when I see it.” Gwen wanted to have faith, but there was just too much historical evidence working against her. But if they didn’t find a way out, and quick, it would be a moot point.
Carter’s eyes swept the room. “I’ve seen a lot of sick bastards in my time, but this guy takes the cake.”
Gwen looked up from the journal. It was filled with stories that rivaled Stephen King for pure horror. “Each one of those photos on the wall represents someone he’s murdered. He described each depraved act in this journal.”
Carter viewed the photos. “A US senator? This guy has some set of nads, I’ll give him that.”
“You’re complimenting our captor? That must have been some blow to your head.”
“It’s only half a compliment. You need nads
and
brains. But what happens with these psychos is they get hooked on the arrogance drug and their brains turn to mush. Taping your victim’s pictures to a wall in your house comes to mind.”
Gwen began to lay out the case against Benson like a prosecutor. Unfortunately, this tomb was likely the only place that the case would be tried. She’d put together what she and JP had discovered, along with what she’d learned the last few days from the journals. She brought Carter back to the beginning, where Benson’s parents were killed by a drunk driver, and then took him step by step through each sick act up until the present, including his transformation from Benson to Jones.
It was Benson’s glimpse into the future that scared her most. He wrote of a “final” climactic event to take place in Rockfield, in which he didn’t believe he’d survive.
He planned to “eliminate” Bobby Maloney, who had been a key figure in the Kingsbury cover-up, and the reason that Benson went to Rockfield in the first place. And most distressing was that he also planned to use JP to complete his “mission,” by using Gwen as the bait. It was to take place on the tenth of October.
Carter’s face scrunched—it wasn’t a pretty sight. “What’s today?”
Gwen sighed. “I think today is the day.”
As if it was the last straw, she began to break down. First a sniffle and then a single tear. When the floodgates opened, she began to sob uncontrollably.
Carter struggled to raise his massive body off the floor. He wobbled with dizziness, and the handcuffs made it near impossible for him to push up off the floor. But he made it to Gwen. She wrapped her arms around his large frame.
“Is it something I said, or that I smell like piss?”
“It’s hopeless. We’re going to die here like rats. There’s no way out!”
Gwen held on for dear life. She really needed JP, but Carter reminded her of the oversized teddy bear she would grip onto as a child when she was upset.
Suddenly he pulled away. He looked around the room as if he were searching for a lost set of keys. Then he flashed a big grin, which confused Gwen.
“We are going to get out of here,” he stated confidently.
“There’s no way you’ll be able to bust the door down.”
Carter pointed to a black box that looked like a lunch box. It was neatly placed next to the bookshelf where Benson kept his journal.
“What is that thing?” she asked with a hopeful sniffle—she had tried to open the box earlier, hoping it might contain food or a tool that might help them pry their way out of there. But she couldn’t open it.
“It’s called a videophone, and it’s our ticket out of here.”
Chapter 83
Rockfield
October 10
When I awoke this morning, I knew today would be the most memorable day in the history of Rockfield. I just wasn’t sure if it would be recorded as a triumph or a disaster.
Our Saturday press conference had played to rave reviews, except from the FBI, who stormed in later that day like the cavalry. An agent named Hawkins made it clear he was in charge, and would be handing out our punishment. The severity of which would be based on our level of cooperation.
The rest of the crew consisted of an African-American woman agent named Clarisse Johnson, who appeared to be second in command. A bearded agent named Hendrickson who looked like Shaggy from Scooby Doo, and seemed to be a little nuts, which might not be a bad thing in our predicament. And two young agents, looking as if they were late for their high school geometry class. One was named Ellsworth, while the other was Agent Justice, which I thought sounded like the name of a cheesy 1970s detective show.
Rich Tolland took the brunt of Hawkins’ wrath. He focused on falsified arrests, public spectacles, and endangering the life of a college theater major. I insisted that the fake arrest was a hundred percent my idea. They ignored me at first, but I remained adamant, to the point that Hawkins eventually shifted all blame and anger in my direction. But with the business of 10/10 at hand, a temporary cease-fire was called.
I played nice enough so that I wasn’t completely banished from the operation. And as an offer of goodwill, I secured my mother’s historical society building to use as a makeshift command post. Hendrickson, posing as a maintenance man, fitted the town hall with hidden cameras that would show a closed circuit video back to the historical society. Ellsworth and Justice took turns tailing Benson for most of the day, but he showed no signs of having done anything out of his normal routine.
Maloney was fitted with a wiretap. The first option was to bug Benson’s squad car, but Hendrickson thought it would be too risky. Maloney would be used as bait, and once hooked, his job was to get Benson to confess his “heroic” tale. When he provided enough to make it an open and shut case for a federal prosecutor, the FBI would move in, arrest Benson, and use threats of the electric chair to leverage the location of Gwen and Carter. It sounded good in theory, but I was skeptical.
What they didn’t take into account was Benson’s planning and creativity. The murder of Kingsbury was probably years in the making. And there was no specific pattern to his murders—he killed Leonard Harris and Casey Leeds in public spots full of potential witnesses. But he acted covertly when it came to Noah, Buford, and the Kingsburys. And now that we put all the cards on the table with the fake arrest, we had turned him into a cornered animal. Would that change how he operated? And was it possible that he knew the ballgame was over and he’d decide to go out in a blaze of glory, perhaps just walking into Maloney’s office and shooting him? Since Maloney was already an emotional disaster, and we needed him to pull this off, I kept these questions to myself. Not that anyone was listening to me at this point, anyway.
I was told that I couldn’t be involved from this point on. A proclamation that led to a lot of yelling on my part—I was more invested in this than anyone, I argued. But they cited an FBI policy of not allowing civilians in operations such as this, particularly crazed ones like myself. When I declared that this was America, and they couldn’t stop me, they informed me that they were the FBI, and yes they could. And just to be sure, I was left with a babysitting task force made up of Ellsworth, Justice, and Officer Williams from the Rockfield PD.
As dusk descended, the FBI agents and Rich Tolland moved to their position in the surveillance van. The van was white with
Martinez Painting
inscribed on the side. Until today, it had been the
Rockfield Gazette
van. I hoped to see the angry look on Gwen’s face when she discovered the FBI sponsored paint job.
At 8:32 pm, my babysitters and I watched on the video surveillance as Benson parked Kyle Jones’ patrol car in front of Rockfield Town Hall. The only light came from the office of First Selectman Maloney, who was presumably burning the midnight oil.
Benson walked methodically through the corridors of the deserted building, in full police uniform, including the straight brimmed hat. It was eerily quiet, except for the rhythmic clicking of his heels. He knocked on the heavy oak door that read
First Selectman Robert J. Maloney
in silver engraving.
A meek voice on the other side uttered, “Come in please.”
Chapter 84
Maloney hid behind his large desk, wearing a brown suit over a crisp white shirt and a fashionable wiretap. He noticed the gun attached to Benson’s belt and swallowed hard. He rose to his feet, his legs feeling like jelly. He didn’t think they’d hold him upright very long.
“Can I help you, Officer Jones?”
“I think we need to go for a ride,” Benson responded coldly.
“I’m very busy. Can you tell me why?”
“I think it would be in your best interest to come with me.”
He doubted it would be. Benson tapped on the gun holstered at his waist to make his point. Maloney took a quick look down at his desk calendar that read October 10. It made it seem too real.
The two men walked into the dimly lit parking lot. Benson showed the first signs of aggression by grabbing Maloney’s elbow and forcing him into the passenger side of his squad car. He drove out of the complex onto Main Street.
“What is this about?” Maloney asked again.
“I think you know,” Benson replied, his eyes never leaving the dark country road as they sped by the village store.
“I demand you tell me right now what is going on,” Maloney attempted to be stern, but he knew he wasn’t convincing. He lived as a coward and now it was obvious to him that he was going to die as one.
“On the anniversary of this day, twenty years ago, you, along with Craig Kingsbury, Lamar Thompson, and Brad Lynch, made a conscious choice to toss a dummy resembling a human onto an oncoming car, giving the driver the perception of striking a human being.”
“It was just a college prank,” Maloney defended. He always knew that night would come back to haunt him. “We never meant for any of this to transpire.”