She doubted that a man this creepy really intended on helping Mariella, but Mrs. Mint couldn’t argue that, if she walked away, at least she wouldn’t get hurt. She hadn’t become a school teacher so she could battle serial killers with her clip-on nails.
“Give her back, and then I’ll walk away,” Mrs. Mint said. Her tone lacked the force that she had intended. Instead of reeling from intimidation, the man chuckled as if he had been threatened by a squirrel.
“If I can make her better, you’ll get her back,” the Lagoon Watcher said. His breath stank of over-fried crawfish. “I wish I could promise you that she’ll be fine, but I haven’t been able to fix much that’s gone wrong with the lagoon. We finally killed nature’s precious treasure.”
He sounded almost teary as he spoke of the lagoon, as if it were his child.
“I love the lagoon too,” she said. She hoped that having a common interest would ingrain some sympathy with him. “I’d like nothing more than to preserve it for the children.”
“If this works, maybe we will,” he said. “Now go. I’ll take care of the girl.”
The Lagoon Watcher brought his hand down and let Mrs. Mint take a step away from him. Wondering whether his sincerity sprang from madness or genuine concern, she spun around for a look into his eyes before he disappeared. His gray-blue eyes peered out at her from beneath a long sun-scorched scalp and a shock of thinning blond hair that hung down his neck. He reminded her of a drunken middle-aged man living on a roaming house boat, not a serious scientist who could help a disturbed little girl.
He reached out to her with a gloved hand that looked deceptively comforting. Mrs. Mint whirled around and dashed out of there. She didn’t even recognize the stabbing pain in her ankles and knees until she reached the parking lot and saw the SUV with the tinted windows.
“The Lagoon Watcher has Mariella! They’re in the trailers.”
Moni yanked on the door handle so hard that she cracked a fingernail when it didn’t open. When she saw DeWitt’s smug grin as he held his finger over the master lock, she socked him on his lard-loaded arm. “Open the fucking door!”
“We’re not supposed to leave until we get word from Sneed,” he said. “You would never disregard an order, would you?”
Moni grumbled bloody murder as she dialed into the secure line. “Detective Sneed, I have confirmation from Mrs. Mint that the Lagoon Watcher has Mariella captive in the trailer area. May I have your permission to pursue the suspect?” That last sentence burned her tongue like battery acid.
“We’re having three officers converge on the suspect’s location,” Sneed said. “I’ll go while my partner here keeps an eye on the video. Officer Connors from the playground will go and one more, hmmm…” She grabbed her seat’s armrest and nearly peeled the cover off. The teacher pounded on her window about the kidnapped girl while Sneed took his sweet-ass time. “Moni, you can come too. Everybody else will watch the perimeter and make sure no one leaves. And call for backup to get firepower along that perimeter. Now move!”
The moment that prick DeWitt unlocked her door, Moni bolted from the SUV. She ignored the teacher and raced between the cars toward the trailers. Even though she ran faster than she ever had, the mental torture of worrying about Mariella stretched out each step into a month’s worth of agony. In the time she took one stride, he could snap the girl’s fragile neck and let her head dangle with lifeless eyes. He could thrust a knife into her heart until it stopped beating. He could pinch her flute-like windpipe between his fingers and crush it. Maybe he had brought his precision slicer. Moni couldn’t bear guessing how long that would take him, but she knew that Harrison hadn’t been dead for long when the police arrived at her house and found his headless corpse.
Moni pumped her legs so hard that her thigh muscles throbbed as if they were about to rupture. She didn’t care if she wound up on crutches: Mariella’s life literally hung on every second.
She drew her pistol as she dodged between the trailers. Moni heard a door open on the other side of a trailer. She dashed around it and pointed her gun. A pre-teen boy screamed and nearly fell off the steps leading up to his classroom. Without apologizing, Moni hurried on and circled around more trailers. She didn’t see anything. Mariella couldn’t even yell for her. The girl couldn’t cry out in pain from the horrible devices that the Lagoon Watcher inflicted upon her.
The pressure welled up inside Moni’s head. It pushed on the inside of her skull as dread invaded her thoughts. Had she already taken too long? Those piercing eyes that had stared at Mariella from across the dark parking lot that night had but one intention behind them. It wouldn’t take them much time once they caught her. If she hadn’t found the girl by now, she might not find anything besides a petite decapitated body. Moni would never gaze into the brown jewels of her eyes again.
As the fluid in Moni’s brain lapped around violently like a storm inside a snow globe, she jammed her thumb into her temple and beat back the pain. She wished she could jab her eyes out, and rub the agony away, but she couldn’t stop looking for Mariella for a second. Moni kept scampering around the trailers until the tremors rocking her head literally brought her to her knees. She steadied her hand on the wooden skirt of the trailer. Moni fought to regain her balance. Then she realized that the wood moved easily when she pressed it. She hobbled behind the trailer and scanned the narrow column near the A/C unit. She saw one skirt halfway off. With the pressure in her head mercifully fading, Moni dashed through the opening.
When she ducked underneath the trailer, she couldn’t see a thing in the darkness beyond the narrow angular path of light that spilled from the opening. Realizing that the light reflected off her face, making it a clear target, Moni sidestepped into a dark corner. She hunched down so her head didn’t hit the floorboards. Moni heard the kids in the classroom above her scuffing their feet and shuffling around their desks. They yammered on gleefully without any idea that a mutilator of human beings lurked below them. Moni didn’t see him; she knew it by the way the putrid scent of salty fish intestines stung her nose and made her eyes water.
Some part of her also felt Mariella, waiting for her underneath that trailer. She couldn’t hear the girl breathing or moving with all the commotion from above. But the Lagoon Watcher wouldn’t let his catch stray far from him. He would keep her right in his paws, where he could slice her open at any moment.
With a trail of sweat rolling down the back of her neck as she suffered under the sweltering heat, Moni fumbled for her flashlight. It would reveal her location, but she’d rather have the killer target her than focus his wrath on the little girl. She hoisted her pistol, and turned on the light. In just a few seconds of sweeping the beam through the dusty compartment, Moni spotted the shiny black hair of Mariella in the far corner. The girl stared at her not in surprise, but in relief. Beads of sweat glistened on the girl’s trembling lips. She sat scrunched into the corner with her legs against her chin. She had been so petrified by him, that she couldn’t even reach out her arms. Her sleeves were soaked in blood.
I’ll kill that motherfucking pig.
“Just stay there, baby,” Moni said softly, as if a loud word would set off a stick of dynamite. “I’ll be right there.”
Moni crept toward her with her beam squarely focused on the girl. Mariella’s eyes darted around, casting a wide net through the darkness. The Lagoon Watcher wouldn’t make this so easy. Moni kept an iron grip on her pistol, and her eyes shifted in both directions. It didn’t do much use. She couldn’t see a thing outside of the narrow beam of light bathing Mariella. Suddenly, she heard a footstep that didn’t come from the floor above but from a few feet away. Moni swiveled to her left-directly into a gloved fist that pummeled her cheekbone. Her head snapped around as she stumbled backwards. She dropped her flashlight. Yet she kept her pistol, which she raised in the direction of the blow. Before she squeezed a shot off, a damp jacket brushed over her face, followed by a knee crashing into her ribcage. A gloved hand snared her wrist and another hand swatted the pistol free. Her only weapon fell under cover of darkness. The Lagoon Watcher shoved her into a wooden board that bruised the back of her rib cage.