“How’d the retreat planning go?”
“Good. Stacey’s got it covered. A few other details to work out, but we’ve still got a couple of weeks.” She swiveled on the barstool as her father sat next to her.
“I’m sure you’ll get it all done.”
She took a deep breath. “I’m kind of happy to hand it off, is that bad?”
“The retreat? It’s a lot of work. There’s no dishonor in being relieved to turn it over to someone else.”
“I love the program. I just don’t want that to be all I’m about.”
“You’re only eighteen, sweetheart. Plenty of time to build a legacy.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
Her father looked down at his newspaper, now with ugly front-page headlines staring up at him. “What happened to my sports page?”
“Lots of things happen in the world besides sports, Daddy.”
Her father grumbled as he rustled the paper.
“Hey,” Megan said. “I got a big packet from Duke yesterday. Included was the basketball schedule. Just before Thanksgiving, we’re playing North Carolina and it’s a big rivalry game. You and Mom should come that weekend and we’ll go to the game. It’ll be fun.”
“Thanksgiving? That’s a long ways off.”
“I’m not saying that’s the first time you guys come to visit, I’m just telling you to save the weekend so we can go to the game.”
“What’s the date?”
“It’s the weekend before Thanksgiving. Then I’ll just come home with you and Mom on Sunday for break.”
Terry McDonald scrolled through his phone and set a reminder. How easy it was to think November would come without problems.
“You ever hear from MACU?”
Megan smiled and rubbed her father’s forearm. “Not yet, Daddy.”
It was a longstanding joke, between just the two of them, for her father to ask about her status with the Mid-Atlantic Christian University, the closest college to Emerson Bay. He sometimes asked about Elizabeth City State, as well. Both schools were within thirty minutes. Megan had applied to neither.
“Well, maybe they’re just making you sweat.”
“You know I’ll be home for every holiday, and even some long weekends.”
“MACU is twenty minutes. You could commute. Keep your room at home.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Sounds super fun for college. Keep checking the mail for me, okay?”
They ordered lunch, two salads per Megan’s request. Her father, now in his early fifties, had gathered an impressive bulge around his waist Megan was constantly on him to lose.
“So what’s going on this weekend?” her dad asked.
“End-of-summer beach party.”
“Adults going to be present?”
“It’s right next to my friend’s house, so her parents will be around.”
“Name?”
“Jenny Walton.”
“No drinking.”
“Got it.”
“And if you end up making a bad decision—”
“I’ll call for a ride home.”
“And when you’re at Duke, the same rules apply. I know kids drink, I’m not an idiot. I bust enough punks around town to know what’s going on. But no drugs, and no drunk driving. And that means—”
“No drunk riding, either. Don’t drink and drive, don’t drink and ride. I got it, Daddy. I never have.”
Terry McDonald leaned over and kissed his daughter’s cheek. “As long as you keep that deal with me, anything else can be worked out.”
“Don’t forget the deal I have with you,” Megan said. “I get straight As first semester at Duke, you lose fifteen pounds by the end of freshman year.”
Her father picked at the salad in front of him, pushing arugula to the side. “Yeah. Deal.” He took a deep breath. “Got a feeling I’m going to be eating a lot of this crap.”
They ate a quiet lunch together, two weeks before college, discussing the future—basketball games and Thanksgiving break and weight loss and medical school and big cities. The future was something taken for granted. It was always there, waiting to be lived.
CHAPTER 27
August 2016
One Week Before the Abduction
Nicole helped Casey pack the generator into the back of his pickup truck, along with the chalkboard and folding tables. They took one last pass through Coleman’s to make sure the old brewhouse was empty of the club’s presence. They were sure to sanitize the ruins out back where they had kept Diana Wells, removing the tape and plastic wrap they had used to restrain her, and tossing the chair that held her onto the tracks for the next passing freight to demolish.
When they were satisfied, they jumped into Casey’s pickup and headed up Highway 64, leaving Coleman’s as nothing more than a decaying brewhouse in West Bay.
“She looked like a goddamn zombie when we cut her loose,” Nicole said in the passenger seat. “If she goes to the cops, they may not take her seriously.”
“Either way,” Casey said, “better to close things down for a while just in case.”
“What are the cops going to do to us? She agreed to it,” Nicole said. “Like all of us. You asked her if she wanted it, just like you asked me. She’s just mad because of how we did it. She was expecting us to grab her from a dark alley, and instead you seduced her.”
“Doesn’t matter. All I know is that we’re done with club stuff for a while.”
“This is bullshit,” Nicole said. “It’s not our fault she’s so soft.”
Diana Wells’s breakdown while bound and gagged at the brewery was proof that she expected none of it. Casey had misjudged her response to the ordeal when they finally cut her loose and welcomed her into the club. Nearly catatonic when they pulled the plastic wrap from her arms and wrists, Diana Wells could not walk. And when the gag came from her mouth, words never followed. Prepared to cheer and celebrate, the club instead dispersed quickly that night, some running with scared looks and coolers in tow when Diana collapsed to the ground and no one could rouse her. Casey finally drove her back to the bar and left her in the parking lot.
The Diana Wells situation now posed a problem. There were rumors that she would go to the police, and that her parents knew about the club. With his deadline approaching for delivering the next girl, Casey couldn’t afford attention from the police. But he had to move forward. There were precautions he could take to cover his tracks should the cops hunt him down and ask about Diana Wells. Clearing out Coleman’s was the first step. Today’s errand was the next.
He pulled off the highway and turned right at the end of the off-ramp. A strip mall unfolded along the side of the road. Casey pulled into the lot and parked a good distance from the entrance of a Goodwill store.
“Here’s the list,” he said to Nicole, slipping her a piece of paper.
“Why’d we come all the way out here for this stuff?”
“Just go get it, okay? And throw some random stuff in with it.”
“Like what?”