Silent Key

  Chapter Fourteen: Over the Streamlet

  I followed McGammon as he walked across the gravel lot toward the archway sign. Darkness was settling in around us, swallowing any comfort I was attempting to hold on to.

  He didn’t look back. He knew I would be right behind him, following him like a puppy. It took everything I had not to rush forward and kick him in a kidney.

  “How old are you?” I called.

  “Old enough to know what I’m doing and young enough to enjoy it.”

  “No, seriously. How …”

  “Does it matter?” he interrupted as he passed under the arch and toward the grassy hill leading up to the railroad tracks.

  “No. I guess it doesn’t.” Then in an attempt to maintain some control, I said, “Looks like you’re in your early 50s.”

  McGammon stopped and turned. “You can’t be serious.”

  Ah, the ego. I should have known that would work. Innocently, I blinked. “Why? Am I that far off?”

  “Yes. A bit.” As he turned to start walking again, he said. “44.”

  “Ah. 44. Well to someone my age anything over 35 is old.”

  He almost hesitated again but instead glanced over his shoulder and continued walking until we reached the base of the grass-covered hill. When I caught up with him I slid off my pink heels and sat them on the ground, making me three inches shorter.

  McGammon rested his hand on the top of my head and smiled down at me. “Shall we?”

  Reaching to brace myself with a nearby tree branch, I started my ascent up the hill. McGammon stayed behind me, once in a while placing his hand on my hips, although it was clear I didn’t need his help.

  When we reached the top, I stepped onto the railroad tracks. I was out of breath. He was not. We began walking toward the drop-off.

  “How long have you been doing this?” I asked, now following behind him again.

  “Doing this?” he asked.

  “Screwing around with young girls.”

  “Years,” he said, not reacting to my description.

  “How many women?”

  “Four, five.”

  "Are you ever afraid that you will be found out? That you will get caught?"

  “No.” He continued to move ahead. I could only see his silhouette now in the dim light.

  "Were you abused as a child?"

  We had reached the edge of the bridge and he turned to face me. “Ah, yes. That’s always what the consensus is. He must have been abused as a child in order to do what he does.”

  In a flash, his hand was around my throat. I popped up on my tiptoes to keep from choking.

  “Nobody can ever grasp the idea that maybe, just maybe, I do what I do because I like it. Plain and simple. And my girls? They like it, too.”

  As he let go, I tumbled backwards, grabbing my neck and gasping.

  “Does that answer your question?”

  In that instant, I saw Tatum’s boot convulsing in the ravine. I imagined the girl in the back of the bar, her head slamming back against the wall, and I saw Reagan’s face as she paced next to my hospital bed. Slowly I looked up to meet his gaze.

  “Yes sir,” I said, the words sliding past my lips. “I understand completely.”

  “I thought you might.” McGammon reached out and took my hand, this time a complete gentleman. “Are you ready?”

  He began moving forward before I finished nodding.

  The bridge was narrow, high enough to evoke phobias, and rusty enough to prompt nightmares. Although it had been active since the early 1900s and had never fallen, my fear climaxed as cool air blew up from beneath us.

  “Fantastic, isn’t it?” he said as we moved further out. “There is something about danger … it can be so exciting.”

  “Have you done this before?” I asked, although I already knew the answer.

  “Once. With another girl.”

  We had almost reached the halfway mark and I was thankful that I couldn’t see how far it was to the river below.

  “Was it Tatum?”

  McGammon stopped so suddenly that he almost lost his balance. He gripped my hand. “What did you say?”

  “I asked you if the girl you walked this bridge with was Tatum.”

  His grip on my hand tightened so fiercely that my eyes welled with tears. Then he let go and took a step back. The look I had seen on his face the night of the wreck resurfaced. I was thankful he was a few feet away.

  “Oh. I see now.”

  “No. I don’t think you do. You’re not going to do this to anyone anymore. Not to me, not to Reagan, not to anyone.”

  McGammon remained calm. “Did Tatum set this up?” He shook his head and smiled. “Of course she did.”

  “You have no idea what you have put these women through, what you have put me through …”

  “Where is she?” he asked, ignoring me. “If this is Tatum’s game, why are you standing on this bridge with me? I will tell you why. She is afraid. She knows exactly what I am capable of.”

  McGammon’s eyes suddenly left my face and jerked over my shoulder. His lips widened into an overly stretched grin and he began laughing. “Well I’ll be damned. Good for you, Tatum. Good girl.”

  I didn’t turn but I could hear her behind me.

  “I’m not your girl,” she called. “I never was. And now it’s time for you to be afraid.”

  The wind had picked up and McGammon had to raise his voice to be heard. “Come, come, Pinky Pie. What exactly are you going to do?”

  A shot rang out and for a moment I thought we were falling. I dropped to the tracks, gripping the metal, the sound still ringing in my ears. McGammon yelled and I looked up.

  He was crouched down, clutching at his left leg, pain highlighting the lines on his face.

  I finally turned to look at Tatum and, from behind her, Vicki appeared. A small pistol hung in her gloved hand and when she reached Tatum, she nodded at her.

  “What the hell?” I screamed. “What are you doing? You never said we were going to shoot anyone!”

  “Shut up, Foster. Just stay down.” Tatum walked closer to us. Vicki followed.

  “What the hell are you doing?” McGammon growled.

  “I’m keeping you from running,” Tatum said.

  Vicki walked directly to McGammon, pointing the gun at his head. From her back pocket she pulled out a length of rope. “Tie yourself to the side rail.”

  “Do it yourself, you fat cow,” McGammon spat but as Vicki took another step forward he grabbed the rope from her hand. Suddenly he laughed. “Oh, Tatum. Pinky Pie. Is this our rope?”

  “Tie it tight,” she said, her voice remaining cool. “And stop calling me that. You don’t get to call me that anymore.”

  McGammon used his free hand and his teeth to tie himself to the side rail of the bridge. When he was finished, Vicki pulled her arm back and threw the gun over the rail. I didn’t expect to hear it hit the water below but I listened anyway.

  “Here’s what going to happen,” Tatum continued. “You are going to stay here. We are going back down the hill. Vicki will place a call to the local police and they will come and find you. At that time Foster and I will tell them everything we know.” A grin grew on her lips. “You’re screwed, Dr. McGammon.”

  McGammon was still clutching his leg and I could see blood dripping on the wooden beams below him. “And if a train comes?”

  “Then God help you,” Tatum said.

  I stood up, balancing on the tracks in my bare feet. “Tatum, wait. This isn’t what we talked about. We were just supposed to scare him, to keep him out here while Vicki called the police.”

  “That never was my plan,” Tatum said, her eyes not leaving McGammon.

  “Vicki,” I said. “Please. We need to turn him in but we can’t … we can’t to this.”

  Vicki didn’t look at me. She was watching McGammon as intently as Tatum.

  “I won’t be like Lucy,” Tatum said. “You are probably wi
shing I would be. But, believe it or not, you made me stronger, Jacob. It’s our turn now.”

  “Lucy?” I asked, squinting in the dark to see everyone around me. “Who is Lucy?”

  “Lucy,” Tatum repeated, “Lucy was Jacob’s first, at least the first I know of.” She turned to me, her features intense. “Foster, he broke her so bad that she ended up killing herself. Isn’t that right, Jacob?”

  McGammon gritted his teeth against the pain that was continuing to grow in his leg. “What that slut did after we were finished was none of my doing.”

  “You caused it!” Tatum screamed, her cool now gone. “I looked her up. I spoke to her father. She didn’t even leave a suicide note. You fucked her up so badly that she just couldn’t stand living another minute of her life.” Tatum took a step forward. “Say her name.”

  “What?” McGammon asked, his energy fading.

  “This is for me and for her and for every woman, past and future, that you touched and would have touched. Say her name.”

  “Dammit, Tatum …”

  “Say. Her. Name!”

  Tatum’s voice echoed in the hills around us. Somewhere far off in the hills, a dog barked.

  McGammon mumbled something.

  “Louder!” Tatum screamed.

  “Lucy Lane! Lucy fucking Lane!”

  As McGammon’s voice also echoed through the hills, loose ends in my head quickly began to connect.

  “Do you have a family?” I had asked.

  “Yes,” Dr. Lane had said, smiling. “My wife and my daughter.” His smile faltered. “Unfortunately, Lucy, my daughter, passed away a few years ago.”

  I looked at Tatum. “Wait. Lucy Lane? Is she—was she—Dr. Alden Lane’s daughter?”

  As I turned back to McGammon, he smiled.

  “Ah, so you know the good doctor? How is he, Foster?” he asked, his words beginning to slur.

  “No. No. Please tell me no.” I turned to Tatum and Vicki. “Did you both know he was counseling me?”

  “Foster …” Tatum began but she was cut off by a deafening sound. 

  From behind McGammon, a train whistle screamed, echoing through the river valley, then sounded twice more for impact. As a large black engine rounded the bend, the lone headlight swooped across our bodies, now appearing quite small and insignificant in the middle of the bridge. 

  "No!" McGammon yelled, his voice barely a squeak above the rumbling tracks.

  “Foster, run!” Vicki yelled.

  Before I turned to run behind Vicki and Tatum, I caught a glimpse of McGammon’s face, a look that would be etched in my memory like a Polaroid picture. It wasn't just a look of fear. Pure unadulterated exhilaration flooded in as the brightness of the headlight cast a halo around his whole body, lighting his hair like fire.

  I took off, my bare feet, wet from evening dew, clinging to the tracks below as I attempted to run and balance myself at the same time. The train screamed again from behind us as it quickly lessened the gap.

  I reached land and immediately jumped to the right, sliding down the steep hill that McGammon and I had climbed together. Dirt lodged under my fingernails as I clung to the ground to slow myself. In a matter of seconds I was crashing to the bottom. The train continued to blare its whistle as it passed by overhead, the wheels making a fading Chuga-Chuga-Chuga sound. It never stopped.

  I pressed my back against the hill and sat in the dirt, eyes closed, until the entirety of the locomotive had passed. When all was silent again, a voice spoke.

  “Let’s go, Foster.”

  I opened my eyes to see Vicki standing over me. “Where is he?” I croaked.

  “I … I don’t know. I guess the train … I don’t know.”

  “It didn’t stop.”

  “Maybe the conductor didn’t see us.”

  “Where is Tatum?” I took Vicki’s hand and stood up.

  “She is going to drive my car back. I’ll drive your rental car.”

  “Oh, God,” I said, my knees weakening. “What did we just do? Had she planned this from the beginning?”

  Vicki held me up. “Let’s go, Foster. We need to leave.”

  Picking up my pink heels at the bottom of the hill, I walked back across the park to my car, not even noticing the gravel cutting into my feet. As I slid into the passenger seat, Vicki closed my door.

  The keys were still in the ignition.