“God, that summer you were fifteen and a woman’s body and all them horny teenage boys hangin’ around you. I knew then that you were grown and I’d have you when you came back the next year.”
“What about your wife,” Harm asked, a cold picture beginning to form in the back of his mind. “What about Cissy?”
“That was her fault,” he shot back flatly. “I asked her for a divorce. Told her I didn’t love her anymore and that she could have anything she wanted. House. Marina. Whatever. But she wouldn’t hear of it. Said we were married and that she didn’t care about me makin’ a fool a myself over some little slut but she wasn’t gonna be made a laughin’ stock like John Crockett’s wife. I was hers ‘til death do us part.”
“You…you killed Cissy?” Elgin’s eyes grew huge with horror and shock. “You killed her…for me?”
“For us. So we could be together. When you came back the next summer, I was gonna tell you how I felt and enough time’d gone by that people wouldn’t think nothin’ of it.”
The dreamy look faded and something hard took its place.
“Only…only you didn’t come back that next summer. All those years I waited. Thinkin’…plannin’…dreamin’…lovin’. And one day you did come back. Bought Moon’s End and I thought you’d come home to stay. But havin’ you here once in a while was almost worse than not havin’ you here all that time.
“I saw those books you write down at The Mercantile and I knew that ‘Gillian Shelby’ couldn’t be my sweet little angel, Ellie, so the last time you were up here, I followed you when you went home. Back to that big old fancy buildin’ you live in with the fella in the fancy suit openin’ your door for you. It was like it was you but it wasn’t you.”
“So you started sending her things,” Harm picked up, a glimmer of understanding for Fisher and his obsession with Elgin dawning. “Things Ellie would understand like the carnations and the candy and things Gillian would understand like the whip and handcuffs and the lingerie.”
Fisher nodded, the tip of his tongue running along his lips. “I found a program on the internet that let me break into Ellie’s computer. Let me be with her every day, even when I couldn’t actually be in the city with her. Let me know how she spent her days and who she saw and even what that whore, Gillian Shelby wrote.”
“How did you manage to get in the elevator and fondle her ass without her seeing…recognizing you?”
A proud grin lit up his face. “I knew where she was gonna be all the time. I just followed her into the elevator and then elbowed my way to her back. I wasn’t gonna touch her but when I felt her ass through my jeans, I couldn’t help myself. You felt so good and I wanted to take you right there if I could have. When the elevator stopped and people pushed out, I just stood in the corner by the buttons ‘til you thought everyone’d left.”
“And the beggar on the street?”
“He put his filthy hands on Ellie,” Fisher growled. “Scared her. Tore her clothes and hurt her arm. I’d bought two new pair of blue jeans, a pint of whiskey to bring back to Captain Jack and a new carving knife for the concession stand. Everything fell into place. Like God wanted me to get rid of that animal.
“I followed him until he went in the alley. I gave him the whiskey and when he turned around, I pulled out my knife and stabbed him and stabbed him ‘til he stopped twitching. Changed my jeans, wrapped them and the knife in my jacket, went back to my car and drove home. Went out on the lake and threw the jacket, pants and knife in the deepest part.”
“If you loved her so much,” Harm pushed, desperate now to know the whole story, “how could you possibly have tried to kill her? Running her down in the street?”
“I wasn’t tryin’ to kill her,” he insisted, “just scare her so she’d want to come back here…back home to me.”
“What about the man?”
“That was his fault. I saw him hangin’ around her and I wanted him to leave her alone. I woulda missed him clean except he pushed Elgin out of the way and turned back, tryin’ to get a look at me and I swerved.”
“And the night we came back from the fish fry at your house?”
“I wasn’t tryin’ to kill Ellie then, either. I was after you. I knew you’d have to go the long way round to Moon’s End and get out at the gate. Shit, after all the hard cola Ellie’d had, I knew she’d be sound asleep before you got back to the main road. So I jumped in my pickup and took one of the logging road short cuts I know. I waited in the brush ‘til you stopped that big fancy truck of yours and got out. Just snuck up, turned the wheels, put the car in gear and took the emergency brake off. I figured the car’d run you over while you weren’t lookin’ then run into the ditch. Even if it’d run all the way down and into the trees, Elgin wouldn’ta been hurt bad because she had on her seatbelt.”
Fisher took a step toward them. “Guess I’m gonna have to finish the job the old fashioned way.” The gun reappeared.
“No, wait!” Elgin screamed, turning to face him. “Please! Don’t hurt Camp! I’ll…I’ll do anything you want. I’ll stay with you as long as you want. Anything, but please…”
The two men shared a knowing look, a cold smile touching Fisher’s lips.
“I don’t know,” he pretended to ponder. “I mean, if I let him go, how do I know you’ll keep your word?”
“You know me, Jim,” she stammered between sobs. “If you let Camp go, I’ll stay. I promise.”
“What about him though?” He nodded at Harm. “What’s to say he’d even go without you? Or that he wouldn’t come right back with the law?”
She glanced at Harm and then back to Fisher. “He’ll go because I want him to. And even if he does come back with the sheriff, it will be his word against ours. I’ll tell everyone that I’m with you of my own free will. We…we can have the life you always wanted.”
“Elgin,” Harm barked, “don’t be stupid. He’s lying. He can’t afford to let me live because he knows if he does, I won’t leave without you.”
“Make up your mind, Ellie.”
Tears flowed and she buried her face in Harm’s chest again.
“Listen to me,” he whispered, bringing his lips as close to her ear as he could, “and don’t say anything. Just nod if you hear me.” He felt her head move slightly and he took a deep breath. There was nothing left to do but make sure she knew the truth and that she had only one option.
“He’s crazy, Elgin and he’s going to kill me. There’s nothing you can do to prevent it. He intends to take you back into that room and…and rape you.” She shuddered and his arms pulled against the straps in their need to hold her, comfort her. He didn’t want to hurt her, but he had to make her understand the gravity of the situation and how much worse it could get.
“Rape you over and over and make me watch everything. When he’s finished, he’s going to drag you back here and he’s going to kill me…shoot me and make you watch me bleed to death. Then he’s going to kill you. Do you understand, Elgin?”
She nodded again, great sobs wracking her body. Harm felt as if a knife were twisting in his chest, but he had to keep going. There was no other way.
“I don’t mind dying,” he told her softly, his voice catching, his cheek brushing her hair, “except that I won’t be with you. But I’m not afraid. What I couldn’t stand would be to sit here and watch that monster…hurt you. Put his hands, his cock…” His voice faltered as he struggled against the pictures in his mind.
“You have to try and get away.”
Her face rubbed an emphatic “no,” in his shirt.
“I mean it,” he insisted, his voice a harsh whisper. “Let him take you back to the other room. He won’t be expecting you to try anything. Look for something to use as a weapon…your nails or fists or feet if that’s all you have. Remember how you took down the homeless guy. Just let yourself go and you can do it.”