“Not lying,” he said. “Not . . .”
They struggled a bit longer, and David finally got off him and sat there, gasping for air and snapping out of his rage. His victim’s eyeballs were white marbles rolling backward in a sea of red. He grabbed the man by the shoulders and shook him again.
“Don’t you die on me without telling me where Charlie is! Where did you put him?”
Brad lay still. He couldn’t move. “I don’t want to die,” he finally said.
And just like that, like the flicking of a light switch from full glare to complete blackness, terror seized David. He was gripped and slapped hard by the reality of what he’d done.
He’d nearly beaten a man to death.
Bloody and weak, Brad Collins fought for air. It was a sickening sound. A trash fish caught in a gillnetter’s line, fighting for life.
“Jesus,” David said, “what did I do?”
“Doctor,” Brad said. “I need a doctor.”
David sat there on the floor next to the other man, who was slippery with blood. His own hand was bleeding, and there was blood spatter on his face. He wondered who, if anyone, had seen him at the Pines. He wondered if the guests in the next cabin over had heard him land blow after blow, or if in places like the Pines people just minded their own business. He got up, surveyed the cabin. He wondered what evidence he would leave behind. How long it would take Brad to die. The cabin had an old-school rotary phone, and David grabbed it, yanking its cord from the wall.
The pervert wouldn’t be able to call for help.
David staggered toward the door, still coming to grips with what he’d done, and knowing that there would be consequences.
I shouldn’t have let Carole get to me.
I should have been a better father.
I shouldn’t have screwed the waitstaff at Sweetwater.
I shouldn’t have killed Brad Collins.
Brad stirred and David turned around. Doing the right thing after doing something so wrong was the only right choice. “Can you get up?” he asked. He held out his hand.
The bloody man tried to move on his own, terrified by his assailant, but he was too weak.
David knelt down and pulled Brad to his feet. He helped the man into a pair of jeans and flip-flops, then swung his arm over his shoulder and staggered with him out of the cabin to the car. A woman and a man fifty yards away, heading to their own cabin, barely glanced at them. David’s mind was racing. He wondered if they thought Brad was drunk.
Lots of drunks in Bend this time of year, he reasoned.
“You didn’t take my boy?” he asked as the gravel spun under the black car’s tires.
“No,” Brad said. “No.”
David looked over at him, the bottle rolling on the floorboard beneath Brad’s feet.
“I’m sorry for what I did to you,” he said.
Brad’s eyelids had started to swell, but he returned the gaze. “Hospital,” he coughed out through bloody teeth.
“Right.”
“You’re not going to kill me, are you?”
David returned his eyes to the road. Though it was a thought. Killing the man in the seat next to him would ensure that what he’d done might never be found out. It would silence the one person who could ruin his life. It passed through his mind over and over as he drove down the highway and to the hospital. By the time he exited the off-ramp, his passenger was unconscious.
Maybe he would die.
Maybe he’d never tell anyone what David had done to him.
David stopped the car under the wide portico in front of the emergency room entrance. It was deserted. He looked over at the parking lot. All quiet there too. He honked his horn a few times. He expected a swarm of attendants to besiege him with gurneys, stretchers, and wheelchairs.
No one was there.
He opened the passenger door and hooked his arms under Brad Collins’s and pulled him from the car.
Still no one.
What should I do?
David dragged the unconscious and bloody Brad Collins to the big double doors. The glass-and-steel jaws opened wide.
A moment later he was back in his car, heading home to the house on the river.
The big house was empty, and David thanked God for that. He tore off his bloody clothes and put them in a yard waste bag in the garage. Dried blood colored his hands like a bad spray tan. He ran the shower and jumped in before it had even warmed. The blast of cold water numbed him. Hell, he was already numb. Numb from the alcohol. Numb from the beating he’d given a complete stranger. The water turned pink and swirled down the drain. As the temperature rose to near scalding, David stood there and let the hot water flow over him. He didn’t try to step to one side and move out of the way. It burned, but he still stood there, immobile. Letting it happen. He didn’t care if the water cooked him alive.
He turned off the water and stood in front of the mirror. What had he just done? As the condensation on the mirror began to fade, the eyes of a stranger stared back from its smeared surface. Who was this man? He took a step back—so far back that he nearly hit the opposite wall. His paunch sagged over the white skin of his beltline. His pecs had become pancake breasts. Bags hung under his eyes. David Franklin was no longer anything but middle-aged. He was never going to be anything as great as he had been before his son went missing. The tug-of-war inside of him—whether he’d be better off if Brad Collins died, as it was his only chance to weasel out of what he’d done, or if it would be better if his victim lived so he wouldn’t be guilty of causing the man’s death—was over. He hoped that Brad Collins survived.
He hoped that his son was not dead. Tears came to his eyes.
There was nothing else to do but dress and wait for the doorbell to ring. He put on a pair of black jeans and a white linen shirt. He combed his hair without the assistance of any product and looked in the mirror. Whoever that man was, he would never, ever be what he’d once been.
Most certainly, he’d never be what he’d wanted to be.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
MISSING: EIGHTEEN DAYS
Amanda Jenkins opened her apartment door a crack. It was late, and she wore a pale blue terry cloth robe; her luxurious red hair was pulled back, and she was half-asleep. She didn’t even speak. She looked at him and sighed. Considering all that had been going on with the investigation and the staff problems at Sweetwater, Owen Jarrett on her doorstep was the last thing she’d wanted to see.
“Can I come in?” Owen asked, edging forward.
“No. What do you want?” she said, opening the door a little wider but not letting him inside.
Owen was wearing a T-shirt and shorts. Sweat bloomed under his arms and across his brow. He’d been out running.
“Seeing you at the restaurant . . .” He started again: “I’m under a lot of pressure, Amanda,” he said. “I need to talk. My wife’s falling apart. Damon is screwing me over.”
Amanda started to close the door, but he stuck his foot in the gap.
“You never want to just talk, Owen,” she said.