“What the…?” Carter almost leaped to his feet.
“There’s a major hurricane hitting North Carolina.”
“There’s no way out of here?”
“I’ve searched every possibility.”
“What about these handcuffs?”
“I tried the key. It only worked on mine.”
Carter smiled.
“What’s so funny?” Gwen asked.
“I’m locked in a room with a hot chick and handcuffs, but I’m trying to get out. That hit on the head really musta effed me up.” He tried to laugh and it looked like it was painful.
“You make one move and a headache will be the least of your worries.”
He smiled. “I see why JP’s so crazy about you. You’re one tough broad.”
“Is that a compliment?”
“Let’s just say, I’ve known JP Warner for most of our nine lives, and in all that time you’ve been the only one to get entry into his heart.”
Gwen shot him a crooked look.
Carter shrugged. “Hey, I didn’t say there haven’t been others that got entry into other places … actually there have been a lot of…”
“Okay, okay, I get your point,” she cut him off.
“When you spend time in the places that me and JP have, you learn what makes someone tick. I always thought he was just a prick, but turns out he was a guy with a broken heart, and you’re the only one who can fix it.”
Gwen wasn’t so sure. “Then you’d know he’s programmed to always leave in the end. There’s always a next story.”
“The only thing I know about JP is that he’s honest to a fault. A fault that has gotten that cute nose of his broken a few times. If he says he’s stayin’, he’s stayin’.”
“I’ll believe it when I see it.” Gwen wanted to have faith, but there was just too much historical evidence working against her. But if they didn’t find a way out, and quick, it would be a moot point.
Carter’s eyes swept the room. “I’ve seen a lot of sick bastards in my time, but this guy takes the cake.”
Gwen looked up from the journal. It was filled with stories that rivaled Stephen King for pure horror. “Each one of those photos on the wall represents someone he’s murdered. He described each depraved act in this journal.”
Carter viewed the photos. “A US senator? This guy has some set of nads, I’ll give him that.”
“You’re complimenting our captor? That must have been some blow to your head.”
“It’s only half a compliment. You need nads
Gwen began to lay out the case against Benson like a prosecutor. Unfortunately, this tomb was likely the only place that the case would be tried. She’d put together what she and JP had discovered, along with what she’d learned the last few days from the journals. She brought Carter back to the beginning, where Benson’s parents were killed by a drunk driver, and then took him step by step through each sick act up until the present, including his transformation from Benson to Jones.
It was Benson’s glimpse into the future that scared her most. He wrote of a “final” climactic event to take place in Rockfield, in which he didn’t believe he’d survive.
He planned to “eliminate” Bobby Maloney, who had been a key figure in the Kingsbury cover-up, and the reason that Benson went to Rockfield in the first place. And most distressing was that he also planned to use JP to complete his “mission,” by using Gwen as the bait. It was to take place on the tenth of October.
Carter’s face scrunched-it wasn’t a pretty sight. “What’s today?”
Gwen sighed. “I think today is the day.”
As if it was the last straw, she began to break down. First a sniffle and then a single tear. When the floodgates opened, she began to sob uncontrollably.
Carter struggled to raise his massive body off the floor. He wobbled with dizziness, and the handcuffs made it near impossible for him to push up off the floor. But he made it to Gwen. She wrapped her arms around his large frame.
“Is it something I said, or that I smell like piss?”
“It’s hopeless. We’re going to die here like rats. There’s no way out!”
Gwen held on for dear life. She really needed JP, but Carter reminded her of the oversized teddy bear she would grip onto as a child when she was upset.
Suddenly he pulled away. He looked around the room as if he were searching for a lost set of keys. Then he flashed a big grin, which confused Gwen.
“We are going to get out of here,” he stated confidently.
“There’s no way you’ll be able to bust the door down.”
Carter pointed to a black box that looked like a lunch box. It was neatly placed next to the bookshelf where Benson kept his journal.
“What is that thing?” she asked with a hopeful sniffle-she had tried to open the box earlier, hoping it might contain food or a tool that might help them pry their way out of there. But she couldn’t open it.
“It’s called a videophone, and it’s our ticket out of here.”
Chapter 83
When I awoke this morning, I knew today would be the most memorable day in the history of Rockfield. I just wasn’t sure if it would be recorded as a triumph or a disaster.
Our Saturday press conference had played to rave reviews, except from the FBI, who stormed in later that day like the cavalry. An agent named Hawkins made it clear he was in charge, and would be handing out our punishment. The severity of which would be based on our level of cooperation.
The rest of the crew consisted of an African-American woman agent named Clarisse Johnson, who appeared to be second in command. A bearded agent named Hendrickson who looked like Shaggy from Scooby Doo, and seemed to be a little nuts, which might not be a bad thing in our predicament. And two young agents, looking as if they were late for their high school geometry class. One was named Ellsworth, while the other was Agent Justice, which I thought sounded like the name of a cheesy 1970s detective show.
Rich Tolland took the brunt of Hawkins’ wrath. He focused on falsified arrests, public spectacles, and endangering the life of a college theater major. I insisted that the fake arrest was a hundred percent my idea. They ignored me at first, but I remained adamant, to the point that Hawkins eventually shifted all blame and anger in my direction. But with the business of 10/10 at hand, a temporary cease-fire was called.
I played nice enough so that I wasn’t completely banished from the operation. And as an offer of goodwill, I secured my mother’s historical society building to use as a makeshift command post. Hendrickson, posing as a maintenance man, fitted the town hall with hidden cameras that would show a closed circuit video back to the historical society. Ellsworth and Justice took turns tailing Benson for most of the day, but he showed no signs of having done anything out of his normal routine.
Maloney was fitted with a wiretap. The first option was to bug Benson’s squad car, but Hendrickson thought it would be too risky. Maloney would be used as bait, and once hooked, his job was to get Benson to confess his “heroic” tale. When he provided enough to make it an open and shut case for a federal prosecutor, the FBI would move in, arrest Benson, and use threats of the electric chair to leverage the location of Gwen and Carter. It sounded good in theory, but I was skeptical.
