Page 18 of The Madman's Nightmare
“I don’t know where she is,” he pleaded and added, “My job was to keep you distracted while he took her.”
“Who?” I yelled and Timothy retreated against the side of the van.
“He never gave me a name. Just cash to rent the van and for helping him with an errand. I didn’t know what his plan was until he handed me the gun as we walked into the park.” He looked to Lucian for help as he tried to barter. “I swear man, I aimed so that I wouldn’t kill you,” he rushed out as Lucian snatched his phone from his hand and broke the device with his two hands. “I promise. He just needed a distraction to get her.”
“Your promise means absolutely nothing to me.” I returned and asked, “Where is my wife?”
“The guy who paid me didn’t tell me where he was taking her. Once we got away from you, he handed me a fistful of cash and walked away without saying another word.”
“How did he contact you?” Lucian asked as he kept the gun trained on Timothy’s face.
“I got an email last week about renting a truck and picking up something from a storage place in Nashville and to bring it back to Pierce Bluff. When I gave him the truck, he asked if I wanted to make some easy money and I said yes.” His words were coming out fast as he tried to bargain for his life. But nothing was going to save him. Not until after I got all the information he had.
“So, this man paid you to get a truck and bring something back to Pierce Bluff, and he happened to ask you to help him kidnap my wife while you were at it? Bullshit,” I yelled and pulled the knife from my leg strap and swung it into the backseat, sinking it into his knee.
He screamed out in agony as the blood seeped around the wound. I looked at Lucian and lifted my chin, telling him to move back as I slid through the front seat and down nextto Timothy. No one stopped him from screaming, but James pressing the gun against his cheek made him silent instantly.
Lucian was in the last row of seats before the storage area, and he sat with a sick smile on his face as I yanked the knife from Timothy’s knee and wiped it across his chest. I pointed the tip of the ultra-sharp knife at Timothy’s eye, and he pushed back until he was against the metal wall of the van.
“You are going to start from the beginning and you’re going to tell me everything. If I think you’re lying, I will remove a part of you, starting with your fingers.”
He nodded as I started asking questions again. When we got to the part where he and the unknown man took Elise from me, I paused his retelling to speak. “What was he driving? How did he get Elise out of the park?”
“He didn’t have a car, man. He pointed to the path where I could get back to the road and he kept walking into the forest,” he answered.
I looked at James and he furled his brow before setting the gun into his lap and pulling out his phone. Turning my attention back to the sniveling man in front of me, I observed his shaking form with pity. His addiction was obvious to anyone who looked at him.
“So, you just do odd jobs for sketchy people and they pay you?” Lucian asked from the backseat.
Timothy wiped his running nose on his forearm as he responded, “Basically. No one wants to hire an ex-con, so it’s the only way I can make a quick buck.”
“Where did you take the truck with the shipment you brought over?” James asked from the front seat as he typed on his phone.
“I left it at a warehouse on the edge of Portstill the morning that I met up with him.” his eyes grew wide as my face hardened at the mention of what he was involved with.
He was a part of the plan to take Elise from me, and for that, he deserved to suffer. I grabbed him by the front of his shirt with one hand and used the one holding the knife to open the sliding door to the van. He tried to struggle, but when he fell to his knees, the pain from his bleeding wound causing him to cry out.
I felt nothing as he tried to reason with me not to kill him, but his words meant nothing to me. All I could see was my Lamb being drugged and carried away by some unknown person who pain him to shot me. And that pissed me off to no end.
Lucian slipped out of the back and sat on the open doorway of the van as I dragged Timothy deeper into the vacant lot, far from prying ears or eyes.
I could be merciful, but I wasn’t feeling particularly generous at the moment. Lifting the knife up to his neck, I released the hold on his shirt and asked him one last question.
“Is there any information you have that will make me spare you your life?” He started to ramble about helping find the man, but that wasn’t what I asked him. “One more time. Is there any information you have that will make me spare you your life?”
Timothy seemed to realize his time was at an end, and he shook his head, lowering his gaze to the ground as he cried like a baby. I’d seen it before, and it never fazed me. People can beg for their lives, but when they know death is coming, the resolve that overtakes them is solemn.
I stepped up to the worthless man and gave him one message to carry into the afterlife. “When you get to hell, tell my father I said hi.”
With that statement, I stepped around him, pulled his head back from the hair, and dragged the knife across his neck. The blood spray rained down on the dirt below us as the river of red began to flow down his chest, The man fell to his knees, then his face, as the last breath of his life was expelled into the dirt he rested on.
Reaching down, I dragged the bloody knife across his back and slipped it back into the sheath before stepping over him. He wasn’t worth my worry as I returned to the van and an amused Lucian.
He slipped back into the seat as I closed the door and got into the passenger’s seat. James lifted his gaze from his phone and looked across my body to see Timothy lying dead in the lot. He sighed heavily as he cranked the van and pulled away from the vacant area, leaving Timothy to be found at some point.
Nothing would point back to us, but I knew he would scrub what he could from any cameras we had control of in the area. He maneuvered the van through the neighborhood as Lucian sat silent in the backseat,
As James pulled onto the interstate a little while later, I had to ask, “Are we any closer to finding her?”
