Murder Mountain (25 page)

“Yes sir. I’m sorry sir. We’ll leave now,” Michael said, starting the car.

Michael began slowly pulling away, and I sat up and looked in my passenger side mirror. The man stood there and watched us, definitely seeing our plates. It was safe to say we were made.

“Michael!” I said, grabbing my shirt from the floor, “Our car has Ohio plates on it! He’s gonna figure it out, we’re busted!”

“Don’t be so sure,” he shot back. “I didn’t turn my lights on yet. And he didn’t stand there that long.”

Michael drove down Oil Field Road to the bottom of the mountain. I was still shaking, and for the first time I questioned my own decision for coming there. I didn’t get a look at the guy, and Michael said he didn’t see him that well, either. At the bottom of the road Michael pulled off to the side and I began putting my shirt on.

“You don’t have to dress on my account,” he grinned.

“Very funny.” I realized my shirt was inside out and took it off again. “That scared the wits out of me.”

Michael started rubbing his face with both hands and let out a loud sigh. We were both exhausted.

“I guess that if I want to stay positive, I at least got to roll around with you in the car tonight, even if it was just pretending,” he laughed. Nothing seemed to scare him.

I didn’t laugh, especially at the pretending part. I really felt something when I was kissing Michael, and I was too scared and too guilt-ridden to tell him that. All of a sudden, I was overcome with a desire to have Michael. All of my guilt and fears aside, it was a feeling I couldn’t control. With my shirt still off, I turned, climbed over the seat, straddling him, grabbing his face and kissing him. He was clearly stunned by my actions, but didn’t put up a fight. We were kissing, and his hands were all over me again, and it felt good, and it felt right. We were comfortable together; I could only imagine what he would be like in bed. I had worked Michael’s shirt off, running my hands all over his amazing, muscular, tanned, body, (he had gotten my bra off almost immediately), and began to unbutton the front of his jeans. Michael, in turn, began to unbutton mine.

However, this time it was Michael who grabbed my hand and stopped. “CeeCee, oh my God, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but no, we can’t.” He held onto my shoulders and closed his eyes, placing his face in the middle of my breasts; he was breathing hard and shaking a little.

“Michael, stay with me tonight,” I murmured, burying my face in his hair and kissing his neck.

I didn’t care about anything just then. I just wanted to be with him and I would deal with the repercussions later.

“No, CeeCee,” he said, pushing me away.

I was astonished and felt ashamed as I crawled back to my seat and began putting my bra and shirt on. Then I got angry. “I thought this was what you wanted, Michael! Now you don’t?”

“CeeCee, please listen to me,” he said, leaning over and putting his hand on my cheek, “You cannot begin to imagine how much I want you right now, but I’ve done a lot of thinking. If I make love to you tonight, I will fall deeply in love with you—if I’m not already—and you don’t love me. Yes, you want to be with me right now, but what about tomorrow and the next day? What about Eric? You’ll never love me like you do him, and I don’t think I can put myself through this. I will go to bed tonight, being able to smell your perfume on my hands and it will hurt me. But to hold you in my arms all night, knowing it’s just one night will absolutely kill me. Please, understand, I’m being selfish and protecting myself.”

“I do, Michael. I do. I don’t know why I did that. I’m sorry. I guess I just got caught up in everything. I’ve never done something like that before, and it scares me. You scare me. Honestly, I’m not used to having feelings like this for someone other than my husband. They make me want to run as far away from you as I can. It scares me to think that I’ll wake up tomorrow, and look at you, admitting that I have fallen in love with you and never wanting to be without you, but it’s impossible. I love Eric, too, and I have my girls. But you’re right—I’m sure tomorrow I’ll be absolutely humiliated by what I’ve done.” I took a long, deep breath. “I’m sorry, Michael, I just don’t know what to do.”

He took my hand, gave it a squeeze, and kissed it. It seemed that we had come to an understanding, and we were both okay with it. I didn’t know what the future held for Eric and me, but just then wasn’t the time for Michael. As we drove to the motel in silence, I realized that by refusing my invitation, Michael might have saved my marriage. I also realized how hurt he was by that.

When Michael and I arrived at our motel, we were both exhausted and looking forward to the prospect of a good night’s sleep. In hindsight, I can see that we had yet to learn that this case was different from others, and that something simple as sleeping soundly was a luxury we weren’t going to have that night.

I began coming to grips with this realization as I stood in front of my motel-room door, which was standing open with its lock ripped out. Michael was already inside his room, and I yelled for him, bringing him running with his gun in his hand.

“What’s happening?” He was also suddenly alert and ready.

“They got into my room; look.” I pointed to the lock on the door, my gun already in hand. I started into the room, quickly hitting the light switch, astonished at the sight before me. My room was ransacked. My suitcase was upside down on the floor, my clothes were strewn all over the room, the sheets and blankets had been ripped off the bed, the mattress turned over, and the drawers had been pulled out of the dressers. I checked the bathroom and shower before putting my gun away.

“I’m going to go out on a limb and guess they know we’re here,” I remarked.

“One thing’s for sure,” Michael said quietly. “These people aren’t on the same page, or we would be dead right now. That guy on the mountain didn’t know who we were, but probably will soon; and he didn’t compare notes with whoever broke into your room.”

“That’s comforting,” I assured him sourly as I started gathering my clothes off the floor.

Michael flipped the mattress back onto the bed, put the sheets and blankets together, and then slid the drawers back into the dresser. I had my briefcase, including my files, with me in the car so, as with my house; they failed to take anything of interest. I thought they would’ve learned by now.

“I’m going to go talk to the clerk working in the office to see if he heard or saw anything,” Michael told me. “He’s a complete imbecile if he didn’t. Are you okay by yourself for awhile?”

“Of course. I’ll be fine.” I looked at him like he was crazy.

“Just asking. I’ll be back shortly,” he said briskly as he walked out of the room.

I sat on the edge of the bed, my exhaustion dissipating, and wondered what I would do for the rest of the night, since I was now wide-awake and on edge. Opting for a shower, I closed the room’s door as best as I could and went into the bathroom. I closed the bathroom door, turned the shower on, and splashed cold water on my face while I leaned over the sink. As I was sitting on the toilet seat, taking my shoes off, I heard the door to the motel room open.

“Michael?” I called out, not getting a response. I called his name again, and instead of a response, I heard something being knocked over outside the door. Alarmed, I decided to trust my instincts. I slowly stood up and reached over to the bathroom door, locking it. I started looking around the bathroom, praying my gut feeling was wrong, and knowing the bathroom was not where I wanted to be just then. I hoped it really was Michael outside the door and he just didn’t hear me calling, but if it wasn’t, I didn’t want him to come back right now and walk into an ambush. The shower still running, I quietly put my ear against the door, listening for any more noises, but as soon as I did, I was knocked backward from the force of someone ramming into it.

This is it,
I thought as the door was rammed again, a large crack forming down its middle, wood chips spraying the bathroom. My gun was in the room, underneath my pillow, and as I frantically looked around for any type of makeshift weapon my eyes veered to the small window above the toilet, a window that led outside almost directly next to the motel room door. The door wasn’t going to hold much longer, and in a worst-case scenario, if I used the window, I would run smack into someone standing in the doorway of my room. I didn’t know exactly how many people were there to kill me, but I took my chances they were all trying to ram the bathroom door, and not outside standing in the room’s doorway. If I could get through the window, I could run to the office and get Michael.

Standing on the toilet, I started tearing the screen apart on the open window. There were already holes in it, which made the tearing easier. I just hoped I could fit through. Hoisting myself up, I saw it would certainly be a tight fit. I went headfirst, looked to my right at my room door, saw nobody, and wriggled my way down to the ground, my hipbones scraping on the aluminum of the window. In my bare feet, I started a dead run for the office, praying that Michael was on his way back and I would be able to catch him early.

I saw a figure walking towards me on the walkway and I started running faster, until I saw that the figure wasn’t Michael, but someone shorter and heavier. At the same moment the figure yelled, “She’s out here,” I heard the loud crackling of the wood of my bathroom door being shattered. I made a sharp right turn and ran towards the woods, picking up my speed as best I could because I could now hear the shuffling of several people coming through my motel room door.

Michael where are you?, my head screamed as I continued my run, now being pursued by at least three people, as I learned from a quick glance over my shoulder. I didn’t know what kind of shape the other two were in, but the short, fat guy I saw on the walkway would have a hard time catching up to me, and I wasn’t by any means a skilled athlete.

The tree branches and briars were scraping my face and arms as I ran through the dark woods, and the bottoms of my feet were being ripped to shreds by the rocks, sticks, and other elements of the wilderness ground, but I hardly noticed. I took a quick glance behind me and saw I was maintaining a fairly wide distance, with the exception of one of them who seemed to be narrowing the gap too damn quickly.

Coming upon a hillcrest, I made the decision to veer left, but it was too late, I was running too fast, and I ultimately fell, rolling down the hill. It was a large hill, as it seemed to me that I rolled forever, with rocks piercing my ribs, branches jabbing my legs, briars tearing at all parts of me, and pieces of my hair getting caught and ripped out. My roll stopped abruptly when my back slammed against the trunk of a tree at the bottom of the hill, knocking the wind out of me. For a split second, I thought my back was broken, but the sounds of my pursuers getting closer and the amount of adrenaline running through my body quickly brought me off the ground.

I looked around, trying to adjust my eyes to the dark and to find a place to hide, when I looked up and saw I had fallen against an enormous pine tree. I grabbed the closest branch to the ground, placed my feet on the trunk, and started climbing, branch by branch, towards the top of the tree, stopping when I heard the men reach the crest of the hill. I was more than halfway up the middle of the tree, which was very thick, and I didn’t want them to see the tree sway or any branches shaking, since there wasn’t any wind just then. The branch I was standing on was wide and seemed sturdy, so I straddled it, held onto the trunk for support, and became very still.

I was covered with dirt, leaves, sweat, and blood, and had to make a conscious effort to control my breathing and trembling. We had been in West Virginia less than 48 hours, and I was hiding in a pine tree from a bunch of psychos. Fantastic. I could hear the men make their way down the hill towards my tree, one of them coughing and breathing profusely, sounding as if he were on the verge of a heart attack, God willing.

“Where’d the fuck she go?” said the coughing man in a raspy smoker’s voice.

“She’s around here somewhere. We’ll find her. It’s just so goddamn hard to see in these woods,” said the same man whose voice I’d recognized on Murder Mountain.

“If you wouldn’t of fucked up on the mountain and taken care of her then, we wouldn’t be dickin’ around with this,” the coughing man said.

“That was Tim’s fault. I didn’t know they was out there. And ya forget, that fed was with the bitch. Ya know what we agreed,” said the man with the recognizable voice.

They were all breathing hard, and when they started walking around my tree in different directions, looking for me, I heard Michael yell from a distance,

“CeeeeeCeeeee!”

Don’t come and look for me Michael,
I thought, assuming they would kill him instantly. I was, however, wrong.

“It’s the fed! I thought ya tole me he left!” said the coughing man.

“I thought he did! I watched him leave!” said the third man, whose voice I didn’t recognize.

“We need to get the fuck outta here, now! We’ll cut through the back, down by the gorge. Let’s go!” said the familiar man, as I heard the sounds of leaves crackling and sticks breaking, as the men ran away.

Oh, thank God, I’m still alive and they’re gone—for now,
I thought as I slowly began climbing down the tree, listening to Michael continuously calling my name. I was sore all over. Standing at the bottom of the hill, I didn’t think I had the strength to climb it again and make my way back to the motel. But somehow, I found the will to make the climb, and once at the top, noticed that each step towards the motel brought on a new ache or pain which I had ignored until then. It didn’t even dawn on me that I wasn’t wearing shoes until I felt the bottom of one of my feet and discovered that it was covered with blood and debris from the woods. I was scratched everywhere and my ribs were sore from the rocks I’d rolled on when I fell down the hill. As I neared the edge of the woods and saw Michael on the walkway, I was too sore and tired to speak, merely uttering a slight grunt to draw his attention to me. He came running.