Stolen Lives: A Detective Mystery Series SuperBoxset (29 page)

She had said the words, “It’s over,” with a level of finality that sent him reeling.

She had gone to stay at her mother’s house in Tampa. She wouldn’t answer his calls, and threatened to call the police if he came within a hundred miles of the house.

It had been three months since the collapse of the family business. Three months since the death of his brother, Gary, by an angry mob, three months since the disappearance and presumed death of his brother, Phillip, and two months since the death of his parents, Judith and Boone.

Over time, he had taken to drinking heavily. In the midst of his stupor, amid the clutter of his unkempt home, a knock came at the door, startling him. His head jerked up from the sofa’s pillow, and he felt a moment of elation that struck him like a bolt of lightning. Maybe it was Emily returning with the boys. He stumbled to the door, setting his bottle on the floor.

The knocking was loud and incessant. Walter opened the door, smoothing the gray mess of hair on his head, and tugging down his stained T-shirt. He was surprised and disappointed to see a man standing there, dressed in a black suit with matching black fedora and dark sunglasses completely concealing his eyes. Almost immediately, Walter noticed something off about the man, but couldn’t pinpoint it in his drunken state.

“Walter, it’s me, Phillip,” the man at the door said.

Walter froze in place, speechless.

The man continued. “
Your brother
?”

Phillip wasted no time, pushing his way into the house. Walter followed in deep confusion as the intruder paced around the living room, looking at the empty bottles and clothes strewn around the room. He put his gloved hands on his hips and turned to Walter, shaking his head.

“Well… this place looks like shit.”

Walter wondered where he had put his pistol. He had held it to his head only hours before, but couldn’t remember what he had done with it. “What do you want? I thought you was dead,” he said in a haggard voice.

“I was,” Phillip responded. “For a brief while.” He then took his hat and sunglasses off, exposing a burnt, disfigured face and head with eyelids seemingly missing from above his piercing blue eyes.

“Jesus. What happened to you?” Walter asked, shocked.

“Boat explosion,” Phillip said. “And something tells me that you might have had a little hand in it.”

“The fuck you talking about?” Walter snapped. His baggy T-shirt and blue jeans were covered in stains and cigarette ash. Gray facial hair sprouted from his jowls and chin, and he looked like he hadn’t gotten a good night’s sleep in ages.

“You see, Joe was
your
friend,” Phillip said. “And he tried to kill me. He said it was revenge for Dustin.” Phillip stopped and leaned closer toward Walter. “Now who on earth gave him that idea?”

Walter stared back, balling his fist and breathing heavily. For a moment, nothing was said between the brothers. Then Phillip pulled a pistol with a silencer from his jacket and pointed it at Walter. “I think it was for you.”

Nervous, Walter swallowed and decided to let his brother have it, all of his anger and resentment. “Emily left me because of you. She took the boys. She took everything. Mom and Pops died because of you. Gary died, hell, Dustin died—they all
died
because of you!”

“Where’s the money, Walter?” Phillip asked, disregarding his rant and keeping a steady aim.

“You’ve destroyed everything we worked so hard to build!” Walter shouted. “And you don’t deserve one cent of that money!”

“Last chance to talk,” Phillip added. “I’m guessin’ they buried it not far from the ol’ acorn tree in their backyard. And I’m guessin’ that you’ve been too drunk to get it.”

“Get out of my house,” Walter said, seething. He swung his thick arm toward the front door, pointing. “You stink of evil, and you look like something that’s crawled from hell!”

Phillip fired four shots at Walter in quick succession, sending him to the floor. Walter gagged, flat on his back with his bloated chest rapidly shifting up and down, with four holes gushing blood. Phillip stood directly over his dying brother and pointed the gun at his face. “It
is
under the acorn tree, isn’t it?” Phillip asked.

Walter gasped for life, and Phillip saw in his pale face not just fear of death but fear that Phillip had guessed right. It was all the confirmation he needed. He fired one quick and fatal shot in the face, and slipped out of the house as quickly as he had barged in.

Jake, the youngest Anderson brother, was playing his acoustic guitar by the fire pit in front of his mobile home when he saw the headlights. Not expecting a visitor, he set down his guitar and walked to the front to see a 1973 two-door El Camino, brown with wood paneling, idling in his driveway. The headlights shut off, and a man got out and walked toward Jake, struggling to carry a giant duffel bag over his shoulder, clearly visible in the fire pit’s light.

“Who’s there?” he asked in a demanding tone. A stranger driving up at night without warning made him uneasy.

The man continued his leisurely pace up the driveway, coming closer to Jake, with his face concealed by darkness.

“It’s your brother,” the man said.

Jake squinted his eyes. “Walter?”

The man stopped within a few feet of Jake, pulled the bag off his shoulder and tossed it at Jake’s feet, kicking up a cloud of dust. “No. It’s me, Phillip. And I’ve got your half of everything right there.”

Jake stared at the bag and then brushed back his shaggy, blond hair. He looked up at his brother in extreme bewilderment. “Phillip? Well, hell. I thought you was—”

“Walter set it up,” Phillip said. “He tried to have me killed, but I survived.” He took a step closer, removing his black fedora and exposed the burnt flesh that was once his face. Jake gasped and couldn’t help but avert his eyes. Phillip told him, “He was holding out on you, Jake. He was holding out on all of us.”

Jake shook his head, too stunned to put together the words. “I don’t… I just don’t get it. Where’s Walter?”

“He’s dead,” Phillip said. “That makes it just you and me. And I have another duffel bag with your name on it if you can do one thing for me.”

Jake eyed Phillip with suspicion. He and Phillip had always gotten along, but he also knew his older brother to be ruthless, cunning, and seriously deranged. In a way he felt sorry for Phillip. In other ways, he feared him.

“What happened to your face?” Jake asked.

“Well, surely you heard about the boat explosion, right?”

“Yeah. You, Joe, and like four other people,” Jake answered.

“Yep. Except, not me. I’m back now, and I have a mission for you.”

Eager to get the money and get as far away from his brother as possible, Jake asked him what the mission entailed.

“You still know people, right?” Phillip asked.

Jake nodded, understanding what his brother meant by “people.”

“Good. All my people are dead,” Phillip said.

He then reached into his jacket and pulled out a woman’s photo and displayed it for Jake. He squinted and studied it closely, seeing a pretty woman with black hair tied in a bun and a police officer’s uniform. He knew the face well. It was Sergeant Miriam Castillo, the cop who went after Phillip. He always said that she had framed him, and that the case against him was a witch hunt, but Jake knew enough to believe that at least half of the charges against Phillip were true.

“I need you to find her,” Phillip said. “She’s disappeared from the area completely.”

Jake took a step back, placing his hands in his pockets with a sigh.

Phillip lashed out with anger at his brother’s hesitance. “I can’t move freely like I used to anymore. Look at me!” He then calmed himself and placed a hand on Jake’s shoulder, stroking the soft flannel material. “She shouldn’t be hard to find. And once you do, the money is yours, and I’ll be out of your life for good.”

Jake looked down, ashamed. “Well, I ain’t trying to say that…”

Phillip raised a finger, silencing him. “No. It’s for the best. I’m no good, and you know it. The whole family knew it. But I have to find this woman if it’s the last thing that I do.”

Jake bit his bottom lip and looked up at Phillip, nodding. “I’ll try my best.”

***

Miriam awoke to an empty room, expecting that Phillip would enter at any moment with her daughter on the phone. But it had been days since that agreement and she hadn’t seen him. He had been avoiding her.

As little as she had allowed herself to sleep each day, he had managed to slip in when she dozed off and leave bits of food and bottles of water for her. He was up to something. She didn’t trust him, but the anticipation of hearing her daughter’s voice kept her going each day. Somewhere, Ana was sitting around just as worried about her.

If the waiting game was some kind of new torture Anderson had devised, it was working. She rose from her bed and pulled at her chain again, noticing some dust falling from the plate where it was mounted where it had been mounted. She readied herself to scream for him, demanding the call with Ana, when she suddenly stopped. She tugged on the chain again and saw more dust. The plate, it seemed, was loosening.

She froze, hearing the door unlock. The LED light in the far corner of the room flickered as the door opened, revealing Phillip with a tray of food. The aroma of ham and mashed potatoes, an unexpected treat, had her stomach growling. He grabbed a stool with one hand and dragged it across the floor, setting the tray on top of it.

“Today is an important day,” he said, clapping his gloved hands together.

Miriam stared at him with only one thing on her mind.

“This is the day that everything happens,” he continued with a smile. “Here’s what’s going to happen: you get to talk to your daughter, I set the congressman’s daughter free, and then you and I leave this place for good.” He reached into his black robe and pulled out a pair of handcuffs, dangling them in front of her. “You’ll be trading your chains for this.”

Miriam’s eyes narrowed as she stared back at him enraged. Her intense scowl did not go unnoticed.

“Relax, Miriam. It’s just for the time being. I know what you think of me. But I’m confident that you’ll come around soon enough.”

“Why have you waited so long?” Miriam asked. “It’s been days since you told me I could speak to her.”

Phillip gestured, waving his hand defensively, brushing her complaint away. “While you’ve been lying around in here, I’ve been out there making things happen. There were a lot of arrangements to be made.”

“Like what?” She blew away a strand of long, stringy hair that had fallen in her face.

Phillip turned away, ignoring her, and headed toward the door.

“
Like what
?” she shouted.

“One moment,” Phillip said, opening the door. “Eat your food, and I’ll be back in one moment.”

The door creaked shut and locked as she looked down at the steaming ham and potatoes before her eyes. It almost looked like some kind of royal banquet. But what caught her eye wasn’t the food—it was the silver utensils on the side of the plate.

It was the first time he had given her actual silverware to eat with. There was a dinner knife and a fork. As much as every part of her wanted to eat, a troubling thought entered her mind. If they were supposed to leave soon, he would no doubt have tainted the food with some kind of sedative. It was the only thing that made sense to her.

She looked around the darkened room, grabbed the knife, and went over to the wall near her mattress, dragging her chain along. The four-inch plate that bolted the chain into the wall looked secure enough, but she wanted to give it a shot. She placed the knife flat against the wall and slipped it under the plate as far in as it would go and began to twist it. To her elation, the plate moved slightly. It was attached by four long screws, and with each movement of the knife, she could feel it coming loose.

The door unlocked again. Her head jerked to the side and she ran back to the tray shaking. Her best bet was to get rid of the tempting and potentially tainted food as fast as she could. She grabbed the plate, just as the door began to open, and flew to her knees in front of the mattress. She lifted it up at the bottom and dumped the entire plate underneath, dropping the mattress onto a moist mound of ham and potatoes.

She vaulted up and placed the plate back on the tray while Phillip approached proudly, with an electronic tablet in hand.

He stopped in his tracks noticing the empty plate. Miriam wiped her mouth, playing along. “My God. You really were hungry,” he said, eyes widened.

Miriam said nothing as his expression changed to one of near disappointment. “I was hoping you could have waited,” he said. “At least until you saw this.”

He swiped the screen and displayed a local news report already in progress. She watched the screen from a few feet away, chain dangling on her arm. A female news anchor was reporting from the field, while a news ticker scrolled across the bottom of the screen, reading “Kidnapper Demands Ransom.”

Phillip smiled and muted the sound. “Just wanted to give you a glimpse of what has been happening in the world since you’ve been in here.”

He unmuted the tablet as the news anchor continued.

“The kidnapper called Congressman Bynes’s office two days ago demanding one million dollars for the safe return of his daughter, Sarah. The man who made the call insisted that he is not a part of any cartel and is acting alone. However, he said that if his demands aren’t met in the next five hours, he will, and I quote, ‘eliminate the problem.’”

Phillip muted the video again, clearly pleased with himself. “Pretty cool, huh?” he said.

Miriam stared back at him with contempt. “My daughter…” was all she said.

He tossed the tablet on the ground where the screen shattered, cracking the screen. “Don’t you know what this means?” he asked. His arms were outstretched, almost as if he were pleading for her approval. “With what I’ve already got, we’ll have enough money to get the hell out of here and live royally for good. And I did it all for you!”