Hidden Threat (34 page)

The paranoia reminded him of the electric charge he had felt when he’d been caught with Emily Wilkinson in college. He had been careful since then and had narrowly escaped being registered.

The case had been handled discreetly. Given his age at the time and the fact that Emily’s parents had wished to hide the event as much as he wanted to get beyond it, the mediator was able to reach an out-of-court settlement.

She
had
been drinking, after all, and she
had
willingly returned to his dorm room, the argument went. There were multiple eyewitnesses that could place her as the aggressor at the party. While the college had forced the issue to court, her parents chose to settle and keep the record sealed. Ultimately, there had been no charges brought against him for having sex with the under-aged girl.

He clicked his mouse and pulled up the Photoshop program. Two more clicks, and he found her face staring at him. He had conducted a Google search on her and then found her page on Classmembers.com. Though considerably older now, she was his first. And this was how he liked to remember her. Her blonde hair was parted down the middle, and her head was tilted to the side just a bit in typical yearbook fashion.

“
So beautiful,” he whispered. “And so young.”

He smiled as he recalled Matthew McConaughey’s character’s line from the movie
Dazed and Confused
. “I love high school girls. I keep getting older, and they keep staying the same age.”

He had been careful to avoid obvious targets. With the broad reach of the Internet, his hunt had not been deterred. There were legions of young girls looking for adventure, especially from experienced men. For every twenty he “worked” through e-mails and chats, he might choose one.

Paranoia had to reign supreme. He knew about the stings the television programs were doing and how active undercover agents were patrolling the Net.

No, he was like a stockbroker who, if a stock doesn’t feel right to him immediately, he unloads it. And so it was with the girls. There were plenty that really did want to be with older men, especially one who would be famous one day.

His passion, aside from young girls, was his short stories. He fancied himself to be something of a modern-day Edgar Allen Poe, though he couldn’t portray that persona in public. This double life was fitting for a Gemini, born in June, he thought to himself.

Instantly his mood darkened as his eyes caught the cork bulletin boards he had posted around the spare bedroom. He had converted it into his author’s den. Viking, Random House, Pocket, Doubleday—all had rejected him, many times.

“
Thank you for your submission, but we only take solicited manuscripts. . . .”

“
While your writing is interesting, it’s not right for us at this moment. . . .”

Others were less kind, containing only the submitted manuscript and a form letter, usually unsigned.

Lately his short stories had taken on a more macabre tone, his real essence, with titles such as “
The Knife
.” It was about a married couple who learns each of them is cheating on the other. They scream at one another across the kitchen island, which has a solitary butcher’s knife poised in the middle.

Then there was “
Seductive Fire
” about a woman who bedded as many men as possible and burned them in their sleep.

“
Nectar of Darkness
” was perhaps his most disturbing, and most Poe-like, he believed. He had submitted it to an agent and was only waiting for the word that it had been sold. This was the one.

As he usually did, though, he was toying with the ending again. The narrator was contemplating whether to kill himself after falling in love with a young girl, or whether he should kill her because the laws prevented her from being his. Naturally he could not let anyone else have her.

Yes, “
Nectar of Darkness”
would be the one. If not, he didn’t know what he might do. But in part, his addiction to teenage girls was like a research project for his writing. He rationalized that if tapping into that prohibited wellspring of inspiration was required to catalyze his genius, then it was worth the risk. Society would thank him.

He thought that with some effort, he might be able to have it all at once—the writing, the girl, the reputation. It was all possible. He had desperately tried so many times to abstain from his weakness, but he could not. And he kept crossing the line. Like the marijuana user migrates to crack cocaine, it was to be expected, he told himself. He had considered waiting until she was eighteen, but that would be . . . not improper. And therefore less exciting.

And so, Amanda Garrett would be his . . . soon.

His computer beeped as an e-mail hit his inbox. He recognized the name and decided that it was time for more inspiration.

He read the e-mail and grabbed his car keys. Del Dangurs would have to wait, he decided. Though he was close, he knew, there would be no more research or writing today.

In fact, he would make a brief appearance and then pursue his new conquest.

CHAPTER 44

SPARTANBURG, South Carolina

“
Why’d you leave yesterday? Thought you were hanging with me?” Brianna Simpson asked Amanda as they waited for Mister Dagus to appear for their fourth-period journalism class.

“
Long story,” Amanda sighed as she slumped in her desk seat.

“
Lenard is late. Talk to me, bitch.”

Amanda grimaced, not able to control the fury that raged in her mind like a wind-whipped ocean. She extracted her cell phone from her purse and checked it. No messages.

“
Jake’s in jail,” she whispered.

“
No way!
” Brianna’s voice was not so much loud as it was emphatic. Sitting at the back of the classroom, each was convinced their conversation could not be overheard.

“
I just found out. And I’m going nuts here thinking about it. Mom made me come to school. You know the deal, missing two days of school before graduation can get you pulled from the ceremony.” Amanda fidgeted for a second with her pencil, a mechanical number two from Jamaica advertising “Fun In The Sun!” along its beveled edges. “Not that I care about a graduation ceremony.”

“
What happened? Why’s he in jail?” Brianna managed to hide her enthusiasm with a fair degree of furrow-browed concern—a kind of “I’m so sorry, but can you get on with the good stuff” approach. Inherent in a seventeen-year-old girl’s psychological repertoire was exactly this kind of duality. One hand was reaching out with consolation while the other was placed firmly around the throat, pumping for more information.

Amanda slumped even farther in her chair. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen him all weekend and I haven’t been able to talk to him.”

“
You told me you two had a fight?”

“
I didn’t tell you the truth. Friday. We went up to North Carolina. To my dad’s place.”

“
You did
what?
” Brianna had been with Amanda during the peak of her hatefulness toward her father. What little Brianna “knew” about Amanda’s father was from the last four years. Now it seemed that there might be a difference between what she had been led to believe and what might actually be true—not an easy distinction for a seventeen-year-old young lady.

“
It’s part of the insurance thing. I had to go,” Amanda said, rolling her eyes out of habit. It sufficiently offset Brianna’s shock, making perfect sense to her shallow friend, she was certain.

“
Still, you guys risked a lot by going up there, graduation being so close and all.”

The class had been gurgling with the loud murmur of several similar conversations, yet Amanda was certain that none of them centered on a half a million dollars, a burned-down house, a possibly murdered woman, and a jailed boyfriend. Though knowing some of her classmates, she couldn’t be sure.

Abruptly, as if intercepting her thoughts, the entire class stopped talking and turned their heads toward Amanda and Brianna.

Someone knew.

Somehow, someone had become privy to the information, and now the tidbit was like the faint red tip of a cigarette tossed into a windswept Montana forest. Its fire and ravenous energy was spreading quickly across the student population, consuming Amanda’s life. The captain of the girls’ swim team and the captain of the football team were soon to be locked in scandal.

“
Is it true that Jake was boffing some old bitch and then killed her?” The voice was from a student whom she barely knew. She was a heavyset girl with oily brown hair and pimples across the bridge of her nose.

Amanda grabbed her book bag and purse and ran from the classroom. As she was approaching the door, she plowed squarely into Mister Dagus, who reacted by hugging her, wrapping his arm around her. She could feel her breasts pressing into his firm chest, her face against the bare skin exposed by the open collar.

He pushed her out to arm’s length, holding her by the shoulders.

“
Whoah, Nellie. Amanda, are you okay?”

“
I—I’m fine, Mister Dagus.” She looked away from him, embarrassed. She was drawn to something, though she couldn’t identify it. All she knew was that she needed to leave, and now. She felt herself starting to crack. She couldn’t take any more.

“
I was just coming in to release the class. Some other things have come up for me today,” Dagus said.

Amanda ran. As her mind tried to catch up with her instinct to run, like Lassie chasing Timmy, turning and barking as if he had missed something important, she felt a gnawing at the back of her mind. She
had
missed something important. Amidst the chatter of laughter emitting from the open door at her back, she fought the urge to stop and think.

It would soon come to her, but now she needed to run. Graduation be damned.

CHAPTER 45

Pakistan

Tuesday Morning (Hours of Darkness)

Zachary Garrett tumbled hard down the steep incline. Scraping his knees and arms, he spun into some gravel, then stood, resting momentarily. He could hear them in the background. They were coming for him. He had traveled two, maybe three miles since his escape. The black night provided no sense of relief. He knew that his captors could travel the trails of the Hindu Kush blindfolded if necessary.

He could hear the faint gurgle of a river or creek to his west. West would take him toward Afghanistan if his guess was right that he was in Pakistan. He cut through a deep ravine, sheer rock walls reaching upward like spires on either side. He was limping now, the fall having taken a toll. He touched his face, and felt blood. Water would be good. He needed to drink. He was becoming dehydrated again.

The moon sneered at him as he slid on his hindquarters down an embankment that stopped on a dirt road paralleling the water. The gurgle he had heard, however, was now a bold roar. Zach’s assessment was that the water was about a hundred yards wide and moving fiercely. He didn’t think it was fordable at this location, but with a road nearby, maybe there was a chance.

He chose to move south, to his left, anticipating that perhaps the river widened and lowered to the point where he might find a ford site.

He could hear more voices now, coming down the same way he had. The road was even and littered with potholes, standard for this part of the world, yet sufficient for moving wagonloads of poppy resin to the market.

Breathing heavily, working against his injuries, lack of sleep, and lack of water and food, Zachary needed to get across this river and buy himself some time. He could see in the distance, about a hundred meters away, where the road dipped to the right, toward the water. Could it be a crossing?

Shots now. Zipping over his head like angry hornets, these were AK-47 rounds. Maybe they were warnings. Maybe the shooters simply had bad aim. Either way, he needed to get on the other side of this river. If this was the Kunar, it would mean he had made it all the way back into Afghanistan. Instinctively he didn’t believe it was. However, the thought gave him a glimmer of hope, enough to get his adrenaline going.

He found the spot where the road turned into the river. It didn’t seem like much, but it was all he had. He waded into the tumbling water and immediately sank to his waist. Farther out, he pushed against the raging current. Now he was up to his chest and slipping deeper. He thought he could sense the
puck-puck
of bullets smacking the water near him. He was sure of it.

Suddenly something slapped him in the back, and he was down, rolling, gulping in water, and speeding with the current, the water whipping him around and banging him into jagged rocks that defined the path of the river.

Zachary Garrett retreated into himself, bundled up not unlike a paratrooper going through the door.
One-thousand, two-thousand, three-thousand, four-thousand . . . waiting for the opening shock.