“Bridget, if you go back there,” I trailed off, knowing exactly what would happen. This was a warning for coming to me. She could have died. They wouldn’t have cared.
Monsters parading themselves around as Christians.
What if I could…” Josh started when two men entered the room. The first man I didn’t recognize at all, but he was wearing the church of god’s light pin on his shirt. The second one stayed behind the door in the shadow with his hat low on his head.
“Don’t answer anything,” the first man commanded, coming to stand at Bridget’s side. “This is my wife.”
“Funny,” Josh said, standing up to reveal her full police uniform. Her badge glinted under the fluorescent light. She scrunched her lips. “I didn’t hear a ‘thank, God you’re alright.’ I didn’t even hear a ‘I was worried sick.’ The only thing I did here was you proclaiming that she was your wife like you’re collecting your dog from the pound.” Josh pointed to Bridget’s eye. “This how you treat your dog, sir?”
“I’m in shock. That’s all,” the man said, picking up Bridget’s hand awkwardly like he’d never done it before. “How dare you accuse me of treating her like a dog.”
“No, I believe I indicated you treated her like less than a dog.”
“Can we talk later, officer,” the word dripped off his tongue in disdain. “I’d like a moment alone with my wife.”
“Only if it’s okay with our victim,” Josh said using the same stress on the word victim.
Bridget didn’t meet our eyes but nodded. “It’s okay. This is my husband.”
“Bridget, you don’t have to talk to them!” I cried as Josh moved toward the door. “We can stay. You don’t have to be alone with them. Never again.” Josh turned me around by my shoulders and guided me from the room, shutting the door behind us.
“We can’t leave her in there with them!” I shouted. “They’re monsters. Look what they did to her!”
“They ain’t gonna do shit with me standing out here.” She placed a hand on her belt. “I got a gun and shit. What are they gonna do. Fight me with some bullshit prayers? Sawyer, if they touch one hair on that girl’s head and I’ll go in their shooting like it’s the wild wild west up in here.” Her eyes were strong and serious.
“Thank you,” I said, grateful that I wasn’t the only one trying to protect her.
“But there is something you have to know,” Josh said, keeping her eyes trained on the door.
“What?” I asked.
She sighed and pointed to the window where Bridget’s husband was huddled over her bed. “That girl in there is gonna walk out of this hospital with them tonight.”
“No!” I shouted, feeling sick at the thought.
“What they did to her was a warning and she got the message loud and clear. Not even a blink or wink or shake of her hand to tell me otherwise.”
“No…!” I said, reaching for the handle. “My mother stayed with the man who tortured her. I’m not going to stand back and watch it happen again. I can’t I won’t!”
Josh pulled me back and set me down on the chair in the hallway. She crouched down so only I could hear here. “You need to realize they aren’t all as strong as you.”
The door opened and the familiar feeling of dread dripped down my spine as the men walked past me. I couldn’t bother looking up at them. I was too disgusted to give them that much. “We’ll be back,” Bridget’s husband said almost cheerily, like he was bragging. “To bring her home.”
When the bell chimed and the doors slid open, both men climbed inside. Before they slid shut again the other man spoke. The one who’d lingered in the shadows.
“Yes. We will be back. To bring them home.”
Chapter 14
Finn
I wish I could unsee the mangled girl lying between the reeds in the swamp. I wanted to wash Bridget’s image from my brain because it was all I could see except every time the image came to me it wasn’t Bridget I saw lying there bloodied and broken.
It was Sawyer.
The thought made me sick. I had to pull over twice on the way to Critter’s to purge the thought via the entire contents of my stomach. After heaving onto the road, I banged out my frustrations with my fists on my steering wheel. Screaming my rage out to absolutely no one.
Critter was out back of the bar puffing on his cigar and directing a liquor truck that was backing up to the door.
“A little early this morning?” I asked him as the driver of the truck hopped out and handed him a clipboard before sliding open the back door and pulling out the metal ramp.
“Is it? I hadn’t noticed,” Critter said.
“Maybe, if you got some sleep you would.”
“Too busy thinkin’ to sleep.” He said, taking a puff of his cigar.
I’d known the man my entire life. I used to steal sunflowers from the field around his house when I was still in diapers. Never once do I remember him appearing tired until that morning. I was too young when Sawyer’s mother left to remember how he handled it all although I’m sure he looked just as tired then.
“Anything you’d like to share with me?” I asked, hoping that maybe by talking I could ease his mind a bit.
Critter followed the drive ramp and inspected the shipment. He scribbled his signature on the paperwork, handing it back to the driver who tucked it away and started unloading. Critter, never one to sit idly by, grabbed a box and followed him into the bar, dropping it in the storage area next to the office. I followed and did the same. “Nothing you’d want to hear,” he grumbled.
“Try me,” I said.
Critter grabbed another box from the truck. I was bending over to grab one myself when he turned to me, dropped the box and reached into his pocket to pull out his phone. He pressed a few numbers and held up the screen so I could see his contacts pulled up to someone listed only as 911-B. “What is that? Or who is that?”
“This,” he said, tucking the phone back into his jeans, “is a number I could call and with one flick of my thumb I could have Richard Dixon wiped off the face of the fucking planet now that I know where he is.”
“Then, why haven’t you?” I asked curiously.
“Because she asked me not to,” Critter said, rubbing his hand on his face.
“What?”
Critter grabbed another box. “Caroline. Last night she had a moment of clarity. A longer one than usual. She told me it wouldn’t make me no better than him if I had his filthy blood on my hands. She made me promise I wouldn’t and now I gotta figure out how to put an end to that son of a bitch’s reign of terror some other way.”
“We,” I corrected him. “WE have to figure out how to end it.”
Critter grunted. “How’s Sawyer holding up after seeing him at the hospital?”
“She keeps saying she’s okay but I know she isn’t. I wouldn’t be if I was in the same room as the very man who kidnapped her mother, threatened both of their lives, and tormented for years?” Even saying the words made me downright murderous myself, but I saw how Critter was teetering on the edge and didn’t want to be the one to tip him over and have him break his promise to his wife.
“Yeah, I’m aware of the man’s resume,” Critter snapped. “But thanks for the update though. It’s always nice to have a refresher course in all things awful about the man I’ve imagined killing for a couple decades plus.”
“He ain’t exactly on the list of people Sawyer and I will be inviting to our wedding,” I said without thinking.
Critter turned to me and shot me a glare like I was the enemy. I turned around to make sure Richard wasn’t standing behind me. “What?” I asked.
He narrowed his eyes at me. “You serious about that? You thinking of marrying my daughter?”
I thought about my next words carefully, but the answer was a simple one and it wasn’t a day to be lying to Critter. “Yeah. Yes.” I grimaced. “Sir?”