Page 35 of Her Last Refuge

“Yeah. Stings a bit and I’m getting sticky with blood.”

“Get a band aid out of the kit in the dashboard.”

“Yes, mom.” He looked to the GPS and then said, “And also, take the next right.”

She did, pointing the car southeast. The backroads continued to twist through wooded sections and occasional open fields that had once been farmland. The denser stands of trees gave way in places to clearer ground near the river drainage, but the overall feel remained isolated. Houses appeared again and started growing tighter together.

She kept the speed up where the surface allowed and slowed only when she absolutely had to. She did her best to temper her urgency but on the other hand, she’d be damned if she’d lose Roy Alcott again.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Roy parked two streets over from the Tremaine house and shut the engine off. He’d sat here several times in the past few weeks, looking to the house and watching the coming-and-goings of the judge who had let those three lifeguards go—Tremaine. He was the last, and then Danny would leave him alone…hopefully.

He sat for a moment with both hands still on the wheel, listening to the quiet settle around the truck. The photograph of Danny rested in the inside pocket of his shirt, folded small and pressed flat against his chest. He could feel the edge of it each time he breathed.

After a few seconds, he stepped out and closed the door without sound. He knew he was going to have to move quickly. The FBI agents had thrown off his rhythm and he’d had to completely restructure his plan. He was already late. He knew that, and that was his fault, he supposed. Tremaine would have left the house ten minutes ago to start his walk—a walk that Roy now also knew like the back of his hand. He knew every stop along the way, every bend in the trail. He also knew that the walk from here to the midpoint of Tremaine-walk—a little break he took every time he made the hike—was only about eight minutes away. And with the FBI on his tail, he was going to have to really move.

He had intended to wait until the end of the walk, when Tremaine would be tired and moving slower, but the FBI had come by and ruined that plan. Now he had to act while the chance was still open. They would be looking for him. But that didn’t matter as long as he finished what he had started.

Roy kept to the edge of the sidewalk and moved at an ordinary pace. The photograph shifted slightly against his chest with each step; he could just barely feel it, like a little nudge at his heart. Danny’s face was in there, the same smiling face from the last summer morning, the Boy Scout uniform still clean, the light still falling across his eyes. Roy wanted to cry. He’d cried over that picture more times than he could count. But when Tremaine was gone, it would be over. He could forever release Danny, and he would be free.

He carried more than the picture, though. He also had the pocketknife he’d taken to each location where he’d taken a life. He’d always taken it as a just-in-case. Just in case they were stronger than he thought. Or, in the case of Cecilia, if her husband became a problem. But for the lifeguards, he’d never had to use the knife. They never really fought back all that hard. It was as if they knew they deserved to die and had accepted it long ago.

The park came into view at the end of the next block. It was the kind of place that stayed nearly empty most afternoons. It might pick up later in the evening when kids came out after dinner to play basketball on one of the two courts on the backside, or a game of pickup football on the huge expanse of lawn between the basketball courts and the toddler playground.

The grass along the edges grew longer than the mowers usually allowed. Tall pines and mixed hardwoods stood in loose groups, their lower branches thick enough to throw deep shade. A few worn benches sat near the entrance, the wood gray and split in places. And it was there, just beyond those benches, where the little nature trail began. It started just past a low wooden sign that no longer carried a readable name—due to both age and because a few miscreant teens had defaced it with graffiti over the years. The surface of the path was packed dirt mixed with old gravel that had worked its way up through years of rain and foot traffic. Roughly two feet wide and mostly smooth, Roy had seen a few cyclists and joggers use it. But those had been few and far between. Because whenever he was on it, it was only to observe Tremaine. And at that time of the day, between three and four, the trail tended to be very quiet.

Roy stepped onto the trail and felt the ground change under his shoes. The trees closed in on both sides within the first twenty yards, screening the street and the houses beyond. And somewhere ahead of him, Tremaine was on his walk. Maybe not quite to the duck pond yet, but he’d be close.

He knew the full loop by heart. It started here in the rarely used park, then swung onto a narrow footpath that cut behind the local library, curved around the small pond, and eventually led back to the same entrance. From start to finish the distance measured 1.4 miles. George Tremaine walked it every Tuesday and Thursday evening without fail, unless it was raining. He’d been keeping this habit for nearly four months now. And on those walks, Tremaine always stopped at the bench beside the pond to watch the ducks and the smaller birds that came to the water.

Roy had passed by him two different times in the past six weeks. Tremaine had never noticed.

That was the place. That was where the work would end.

Roy kept moving. The photograph pressed against his chest with every breath, and he clasped and unclasped the pocketknife in his coat pocket. He thought of Danny under the water, the way the thrashing had looked like play at first, the way no one had listened when he tried to raise the alarm. He thought of the three lifeguards who had been talking and laughing instead of watching. He thought of the attorney who stood up later and said no one could prove anything. All of that had stayed with him for so long, growing easier and more rancid in his heart. The names had stayed clear even when other memories began to slide. Ruth. Howard. Cecilia. And now the last one—not a lifeguard but the man who’d had the power to see that justice was done and failed.

The trail bent left and the trees opened a little. Ahead of him the path stayed empty. He could already see the place where it would narrow into the footpath that led behind the library and then into the stretch of woods that surrounded the pond. It truly was a quaint and welcoming little hike.

However, just before the trail properly submitted to the forest and the trees hid it away from everything, Roy noticed something that made him uneasy. A marked county car sat at the edge of the small parking area near the old, deteriorated tennis courts. The tennis courts had gone the way of the dinosaur years ago, now in the process of being replaced with pickleball courts. But that barely even registered in his eyes. What he was more focused on was the car. A uniformed officer stood beside it with his arms folded, looking toward the street rather than the trail. There were perhaps twenty feet between them, and Roy couldn’t clearly see the cop. So he kept his pace steady and his face neutral.

As he passed, the officer glanced over and gave a short, polite nod. Roy returned it without slowing.

He thought the nod landed harder than it should have. It sent a pang of nervousness through his shoulders and down into his hands. But he kept walking. The photograph shifted again against his chest through the shirt pocket as if reminding him of why he was here. He pressed his palm flat over the pocket for a second to settle it, then let his arm drop. The officer hadn’t followed. The trail ahead remained clear.

He told himself the work still had to be done. The FBI had forced the timing, but the route had not changed and the bench by the pond was still waiting. George Tremaine would be there, like always. And if Roy was a little late, then he’d just have to do it somewhere else along the trail. He just had to catch up to the old bastard before he made it back onto the street.

But even if it came to that, he’d still take the man’s life. If he got caught, that was fine. Hell, he almost expected it at this point He had, after all, stabbed an FBI agent with a drill.

He followed the main trail deeper into the park. The canopy thickened overhead and the light dropped another degree. The packed dirt underfoot gave way in places to softer ground that held the shape of earlier footprints. Tremaine’s were among them, he was certain.

The footpath that led into the forest waited at the next turn. He had just stepped into the shadow of the trees when he heard the voice behind him.

“Excuse me…sir? Hold on for a second?”

Roy turned, his heart slamming like a piston. It was the cop. He had moved silently across the little expanse of grass at a quick jog to catch up to him.

“Yes?” he asked.