Chapter Twelve
It wasn’t quite daylight when Sebastian woke up. The boat was still moving but it wasn’t moving correctly. He sat up and looked around. Roger and Emily were still sleeping but where was Jesse? That’s when he realized the engine wasn’t running and they were drifting.
Sebastian looked out at the river. They were headed for the bank and it was the current that was carrying them out of the main channel. He jumped up and tried to restart the engine. That’s when he noticed the broken key.
“Damn it!” He swore. He tried trying the steering wheel but that didn’t work either. Looking over at Roger and Emily, he found they were awake and looking back at him. He told Roger, “Someone shut off the engine and broke off the key. Is there any other way to get the engine started again?”
Roger jumped up and joined him. Squatting down, he had a look at the ignition. There was just enough of the key left to try and turn over the engine. After fiddling around with it for a moment, the engine roared to life.
When he made the correction, they were back on track and he began looking around the small craft. His fingers were sticky and when he raised them to see what was on his fingers he saw the blood. He slowed the boat and putting it in neutral, he let the boat drift while he looked a little closer at the boat. That’s when he saw the trail of blood leading to the back of the boat.
He found his phone up on the dash of the boat. Checking the battery, he found a text message. Punching in his code, he read the message. “Damn him. Damn that man to hell!”
Emily had fear and concern in her eyes and Roger was looking around to see where they were.
“Where’s Jesse?” Emily asked afraid she already knew the answer.
“Tucker’s got him,” Sebastian told her.
“What? How did that happen?” Roger blustered. “He was driving the boat last night.”
“I’m not really sure. I didn’t hear a thin.” Sebastian was furious. “All I have to go on is this message.” He handed the phone to Emily and watched as she handed it to Roger.
Her eyes were filled with tears but the fear in her heart prevented them from falling.
“Do you have any idea where we are?” Sebastian asked the older man.
Roger gave the phone back to Emily and stood up to have a good look around. He turned back to Sebastian and nodded. “We’re only about fifteen miles south of the farm. We should get there in about forty minutes or so.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “How the hell did Tucker get his hands on Jesse? I thought he was so far in front of us.”
Sebastian shrugged. “I wish I knew. All we can hope for is that Jesse is okay and we meet up with them at the farm.” Sebastian stopped to look at Roger. “Is there a place nearby that will hide a houseboat like the one Tucker’s got and still give him access to land?”
Roger thought for a moment and then nodded. “Sure, other than the dock there is a small inlet near the caves. It’s out of the way and you can’t see it from the river. You have to know where it is in order to get to it, but the boys used to go fishing there when they were younger.”
“Can you get us to the inlet? I have a feeling that’s where we’ll find the boat Tucker is using.” Sebastian stared at him.
Roger started up the engine and steered the pontoon back out into the middle of the river. As they got closer to the farm, he steered the boat over to the right side of the river and up into the backwater. Turning the corner, they found the black houseboat. They also saw another houseboat already moored in the inlet.
Sebastian sat forward and surveyed the scene. “Okay, let’s go back to the dock. We know where they are now but they don’t know where we are. Let’s keep it that way for at least a little while.”
Roger backed the pontoon out of the backwater and back on the main channel of the river. He wasn’t sure Sebastian’s plan would work. Tucker was expecting them, so there was no element of surprise.
They docked the pontoon at the dock for the farm. Roger turned to Sebastian. “What are your plans?”
Sebastian was busy gathering his things together. He looked up at Roger. “I want you to take your wife away from here. If things go wrong, I don’t want Tucker to get either of you. Go, find the nearest police department, and have them call this number and talk to Alex Hunter. He’s my partner in New Orleans and he’ll tell them what they need to know. Don’t come back here. Tell the police to stay away from here as well. Tucker will likely kill anyone he sees and I don’t want any more policemen in his line of fire.”
“How will we know it’s over and who survived?” Emily asked. She was terrified for Jesse as much as she was for the others.
Sebastian smiled coldly. “I don’t know what today will bring. I’ll have whoever survives give the nearest police station a call. You must promise me that no one will come here until that call comes.”
Emily nodded. “It will be so hard to wait but I can see your point. Please take care of yourself and try to get the others out alive.”
Sebastian smiled. “Don’t worry, that’s the first thing on my list of things to do today.”
He departed the boat and watched as they made their way back out to the river. He turned to the path leading to the barn and the house beyond. He didn’t know where anyone was, so he stayed out of sight as long as he could. The brush he struggled through was dry and scratched at his clothes. He got within fifty feet of the barn before he ran out of cover.
He didn’t have a choice. He broke cover to run across the road. The tall grasses there hid him well almost all the rest of the way. He stopped to see if he could hear any sounds coming from the barn.
Looking around, he noticed that something was lying in the grass just ahead of where he was. Moving in closer to see what it was he found the first dead body. It was Jasper Wiley. Tucker had slit his throat. Sebastian reached out to check if the blood had had a chance to dry yet. That would give him some indication of how long ago Tucker had killed him. ‘So much for friendship.’ Sebastian thought to himself. He couldn’t help but wonder how the other man had gotten out of jail but he didn’t dwell on it too long.
The blood on Jasper’s body was still warm and sticky, so Sebastian concluded that Wiley had just been murdered. He pulled out his weapon and snuck closer to the barn.
Roger and Jesse had thought that this was where Tucker planned to kill his family and Sebastian had no doubt that they were wrong.
Sebastian saw a way to get inside without using the door. There was a broken window. He got closer to the window and peeked inside. The small room was dark and smelled of old leather. This must have been the tack room. He hoisted himself up on the sill and slipped inside. He waited for his eyes to adjust to the dim surroundings before he moved to the door.
He peeked through the slats of the door and listened for any sounds from outside the room. He saw a young boy lying on the ground on the main floor of the barn. It wasn’t Wyatt and he paused for a moment to squelch the burst of disappointment inside him. The boy was tied up and appeared to be unconscious. Sebastian couldn’t see anyone else from this angle.
He took a chance and slid his hand down the door to find the handle. Carefully turning the old knob, he heard the door protesting the motion of movement after being stationary for so long. Sebastian waited for any movement outside the room but when he didn’t hear anything, he slipped out of the tack room and into the main part of the barn.
He flattened himself against the wall and crept toward the end of the wall. Taking a deep breath, he lifted his gun to firing position and carefully peeked around the corner of the wall. He saw three more bodies lying in the same way as the first. All were tied and unconscious. He checked for signs of them breathing and was glad to see they were.
Sebastian cocked his head and listened for any other signs of where Tucker and Jesse were. He hadn’t yet seen Wyatt or Kelly, so he was hoping that they were with the two cousins. He didn’t hear anything so he moved a little closer.
When he was closer to the man he understood to be Ethan, he saw that Ethan was looking straight at him. Ethan didn’t dare move but he looked upward toward the loft and Sebastian understood what he was trying to tell him. Tucker was up in the loft. Sebastian fished his pocket knife out of his pocket and slid it over to Ethan. Then he put his finger over his mouth and told Ethan to be quiet. Ethan nodded, picked up the knife and began sawing at the ropes around his wrists.
Sebastian found the ladder to the loft and taking one step at a time, made his way up the ladder. Peeking his head over the floor of the loft, he finally saw Jesse and Tucker.
Jesse was on his knees with his hands tied behind his back. He was facing Tucker, so he didn’t even notice Sebastian. Tucker was pushing the hay around Jesse so he didn’t notice Sebastian either. Sebastian looked around the loft again. He couldn’t see any sign of Wyatt or Kelly.
“So what are you going to do now, cousin?” Jesse asked him.
“I have to get ready for your friend, Sebastian.”
Sebastian heard someone sneeze and he recognized the sound. Wyatt was there and he was still alive. Sebastian knew that his son was still alive and he almost jumped right up at that moment, but he knew he couldn’t.
“What are you going to do?” Jesse asked.
Sebastian peeked over the edge of the loft and saw Tucker smile. Jesse had hay around him up to his chest. A path had been cleared in a circle all the way around him. Sebastian feared that when the time came Tucker was going to burn his cousin alive. He caught the sight of someone else laying not too far off and he recognized it to be Kelly. She was lying on her side with her hands behind her back. He couldn’t see her face and he could see her struggle so he knew she was still alive at least, for the moment anyway.
He had to distract him somehow but how? Sebastian looked down at Tucker’s family. Ethan had cut through his ropes and Joyce’s but the boys were still bound. He caught Ethan’s eye and motioned for him to get his family out of the barn.
Ethan nodded and he and Joyce each carried or dragged their sons clear of the barn. Taking a deep breath, Sebastian raised his weapon to his chest and called out Tucker’s name, “Tucker Briggs, you are under arrest.”
Tucker laughed out loud. “Guess who’s here and ready to play out the end of the game.” He peered over to the top of the ladder leading up to the loft. “Why don’t you join us Sebastian,” he called out.
Sebastian climbed up the rest of the way into the loft. There at the edge of the loft, in the middle of the double doors leading to the outside stood Tucker and Wyatt. Sebastian knew that one step backward was all it would take to send them both crashing down a twenty foot drop to the ground outside.
Tucker had an unholy gleam in his black eyes, as he knew it too.
Sebastian could see that Wyatt was scared to death. Who wouldn’t be with the seven inch knife blade at your throat, and being dangled so close to a fall.
Sebastian could see that Wyatt’s hands were tied behind his back. Tucker had a hold of his shirt and was holding him almost off the ground. Wyatt was standing on his tiptoes.
“Well, I see you saved the good people that are supposed to be my family,” Tucker said. “By the way, why don’t you drop your gun? I would hate to have to drop your son out the window.”
Sebastian lowered his weapon slowly to the floor. “Let the boy go Tucker, or you don’t have a chance in hell of getting out of this barn alive.” He watched his son struggle to keep his feet on the ground.
Tucker threw his head back and laughed. “You don’t scare me fool. Don’t you know by this time what I was planning? Hasn’t it sunk in yet why I let you follow me? I explained my reason to you that night out on the river. Didn’t you believe me?”
Sebastian frowned. He wasn’t sure what Tucker meant. He tried to think about what was said that night. He remembered that Tucker had told him that he might be the only one that could stop him. Sebastian decided to stall for more time to figure out what to do. “Tell me one thing, will you? Why did you kill all those people?”
Tucker’s eyes looked sad for a moment, as if he really cared, and then his eyes hardened as he began to finally tell his side of the family saga, “Do you know what it’s like to be a disappointment to your parents, almost from day one of your life? To grow up hearing the words, ‘why can’t you be as clever as your cousin’ or ‘come on Tucker, Jesse walked at thirteen months, why can’t you?’ You know some kids might fight harder to please their parents, but I didn’t. I knew no matter what I did, I could never be as clever or as smart as my cousin Jesse…Jesse knew it too, and while we were younger, it didn’t seem to matter. Hell, we were more like twins than real twins ever were. Then something happened to change all of that. Jesse betrayed me.” Tucker paused as if just by remembering the incident brought back fresh memories of the betrayal.
“Is this about the bully in school teasing you about your mother being pregnant?” Sebastian asked.
Tucker laughed. “No, but I am surprised he told you about that. Jesse doesn’t like to admit to anyone that he isn’t perfect.” Tucker began pacing back and forth in front of the window, dragging Wyatt with him.
Sebastian’s heart leaped to his throat as he watched his son struggling to keep up with Tucker.
“No, this happened much earlier in our young lives.” Tucker turned to face Jesse. “Do you want to tell him how you betrayed me or shall I continue?” Tucker asked his cousin.
Jesse shrugged and nodded for him to continue.
Tucker sneered at him and continued with his story, “We were about six, I guess, when my Dad said I could have a puppy, if I was the one to take care of it. I was so happy. I was finally going to have something Jesse couldn’t. Jesse’s mother Emily had allergies, and Jesse wasn’t allowed to have pets, but my Dad said I could have a dog. We went to the pet store and I picked out the dog I wanted. It was a golden cocker spaniel and I called her Lady, after Lady and the Tramp. She was everything a young kid could want and I really took care of her the best I could, until the day I came home and found Jesse playing with her.” Tucker’s voice hardened as he remembered that day.
“Somebody had to play with her, you never did,” Jesse interjected.
Tucker snarled. “He always took the glory and I was left with nothing.” Turning to his cousin, he screamed, “You had no business being around her, she was my dog. She was the only thing I could have that you couldn’t, and you managed to steal her love away from me.” Tucker frowned as he thought about the utter sense of betrayal he had felt.
“No I didn’t,” Jesse said quietly. “All I did was play with her when you didn’t. I was glad that you had her.”
“What happened next?” Sebastian asked. He sensed that Tucker was getting too caught up in the drama unfolding to think about his hostage, Wyatt.
“Tucker got so mad at me that he killed the dog,” Jesse took over telling the story. “He called her over to him and she went willingly. Then he twisted her neck so hard, he broke it. Then he told me, ‘Now, play with that.’ “
Tucker took the storytelling back, “My mother came in just about that time. When she saw the dog, she asked what happened. I told her that Jesse killed Lady but she didn’t believe me. She never believed me. She turned to Jesse for the explanation. At first, Jesse wouldn’t tell her what happened. He wouldn’t say a word, but then his mother came in and asked what happened and he little whiner told them what I’d done. He betrayed me.”
“You just killed a dog in front of me! We were only six at the time but I knew why you did it. Did you think you were the only one to feel the pressure of being an only child in a family of twins?” Jesse asked. “I had those feeling too. The fact that we looked so much alike didn’t help. People were always mistaking us for twins, but that day I was glad we weren’t. I hated you for killing Lady and a part of me was glad when you got in trouble for it.”
Tucker looked at Jesse in a new light. “You told them that I killed Lady because I didn’t want her anymore. You told them that I told you that she was too much trouble.”
“I was mad at you and only six years old. I was a kid. What you did traumatized me. I had nightmares about what you did for the longest time,” Jesse defended himself.
“So was I, cousin.” Tucker reminded him. “You knew I really did love that dog. You, of all people knew how I felt about her.”
“How could you kill her just because I was playing with her?” Jesse asked. “She was so happy to see you. She came to you willingly.”
“That didn’t stop you from getting a dog a few years later. My Dad would never let me have another pet, but when you could, you got a dog,” Tucker reminded him.
Jesse nodded. “Yes I did, and as I recall I never once denied you access to him. I wanted to share him with you, whereas you never wanted me near Lady.”
“It wasn’t because of your feelings for me that you let me play with Rufus; it was your guilt about Lady,” Tucker admonished Jesse.
Jesse shook his head. “Only in your mind. You changed that day. I saw it but didn’t recognize the change for quite a few years. It was like you shut off part of your brain. You weren’t the same after that.” Jesse paused and had to ask, “Did you cause the accident that broke grandpa’s back and made your Mom lose her babies on purpose?”
Tucker frowned and then remembered the incident. “What do you think?”
Jesse shook his head. “I always thought it was an accident but now I’m not so sure.”
“There was a lot going on in my life at the time. Everyone was laughing at me and telling me how having new babies in the house would really suck. John was the worst but I got even with him that day in chemistry. I could feel the rage building inside me and then I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to hurt somebody, so I grabbed the rope and pulled as hard as I could.” That one incident had been the first steps toward what he had become.
“Now what?” Jesse asked. He couldn’t believe what he’d just heard. Tucker was blaming him all this time for something he’d done himself. His cousin was more screwed up than he thought.
“I won’t let you take me in,” Tucker told them. “With my history, there isn’t a jury in the world that would let me go, and I won’t spend the rest of my life in prison.”
“You need help,” Jesse started to tell him.
Tucker laughed out loud. “You think I’m crazy? Is that what you’ve been telling yourself all these years?” He grabbed Wyatt’s shirt and pulled him closer. Lifting him up off the ground, Tucker whispered loudly in his ear, “Is that what you think boy? That I’m crazy? Huh? Am I a crazy man?”
Wyatt shook his head. His eyes were round with fear and his feet were looking for something solid to rest on. Sweat beaded his forehead and Sebastian grew alarmed. “No sir.” Wyatt whispered.
“Please don’t hurt him. He’s just a kid,” Sebastian begged, as tension was mounting in the hay loft. Tucker was holding all the cards. Sebastian and Jesse knew it. Sebastian could tell from the look in his eyes that Tucker wouldn’t hesitate to kill his son.
“Why did you carve a headstone in their backs?” Jesse asked. His question was a diversion to cut through the tension.
Tucker looked away from Sebastian to answer his cousin’s question. “I knew that was the one thing you and only you would know about. How long did it take you to figure out what the design meant?”
“I figured out what the design was on your third victim, Sarah Gold,” Jesse told him.
Tucker nodded. He remembered Sarah. He remembered them all. “You know what you have to do to stop me, don’t you?”
Jesse shook his head. “I won’t kill you.”
Tucker smiled as he looked at Sebastian. “How about you Dad? Are you going to kill me or let me walk away with your kid again?”
Sebastian looked at his gun and looked back at Tucker.
Tucker could see the want on Sebastian’s face. “If you don’t, I’ll use this boy as a shield to get away from you and I will kill again.”
Tucker paused in his tirade.
Sebastian and Jesse watched as he became the monster they vowed to stop.
“It bothered me at first, killing them I mean. Whenever I felt empty inside, I would go on the hunt. I remember the lesson our fathers taught us about stalking our prey and that’s what I did. I would stalk my prey, only this prey was the human kind. I would pick someone I felt had nothing left to lose and after I watched her for a day or two, I would just slit her throat. Then something happened. Around the fourth or fifth homeless person I killed, I started to enjoy the whole process. It all became something I craved, like a junkie craves a hit of heroin. I needed to feel the excitement of looking for my next victim. As a challenge, I stepped up my choice of the type of person I wanted next. It gave me something to look forward to. I would find just the right one and even then, I watched them go about their lives like they had nothing waiting for them. The waiting for me was the best part because I grew to appreciate what I was waiting for. I waited until the rage inside me was so strong I needed to feel the release only her death could bring. I loved to hear them scream as I carved their own headstone into their skin. I can still hear them scream when I think about the way they all died. That’s why I carved the headstone into their skin while they were still alive. Hell, maybe I am crazy after all.”
Sebastian shook his head. “How many victims didn’t we find?”
Tucker just smiled. “Well now, that would all depend on when you started looking wouldn’t it?”
From out of nowhere came a gunshot.
Jesse stared at his cousin. He had an odd look on his face.
Sebastian turned around with his gun drawn.
At the top of the loft, steps stood Ethan Cooper. The gun in his hand was pointed at where his oldest son stood.