Tick Tock (Michael Bennett 4)

“Mike? What is it? What’s going on?” Mary Catherine called after me as I banged open the front door.

I decided I couldn’t tell her. Apt had said just me. He sounded way too crazy to mess with.

“Nothing, Mary. Go back to bed,” I hissed.

“What do you mean nothing?” she said, coming out after me. “It’s three in the God-

loving morning! Where are you going?”

I didn’t need this shit. Not now. She started following me. I didn’t have time to explain. How could I stop her?

“Do I have to say it? I’m going to meet Emily, okay? Are you happy now?”

Mary stopped dead-still on the porch steps. It killed me to hurt her like this, but I didn’t have a choice.

“How could you?” she said very quietly as I started to run.

“Just get back in the house!” I yelled.

Chapter 102

PLEASE, GOD, I said as I sprinted. Please, please, please, let my boy be okay.

Calm, calm. I can handle this, I thought, trying to relax myself as I huffed. I could talk to Apt. Get him to release Ricky. God had given me that gift, the power to talk to folks, to calm them down, especially people who were hurt in some way. People with sick minds.

I’d negotiate for Ricky whatever it was Apt wanted. It was what I did. I had no choice.

Tears in my eyes, my lungs on fire, I crossed over the concrete path of the boardwalk onto the dark sand. I spotted a quarter moon out over the water. On the horizon were red lights, tiny ship lights, so far away.

I was panicking, thinking I’d come to the wrong place. Then I spotted some movement by the lifeguard chair where Mary and I had made out.

Oh, my God! It was them. There was a man standing next to Ricky. He had a Mohawk and was wearing an army jacket and aviator sunglasses. Not only that, but he was holding a knife to Ricky’s throat!

I couldn’t really tell if it was Apt. He was just a crazy man. A crazy, evil man with my eleven-year-old son’s life in his hands. Ricky was actually taped to the chair, I realized. Black electrical tape crisscrossed over his arms and legs, over his neck.

“I’m here,” I said, falling to my knees about twenty feet away. My whole body was covered in sweat. “You win, Carl. Let’s talk, okay?”

Apt cocked his head at me, his mouth tight and angry.

“Get up, Bennett! Get up, tough guy. Mr. Badass. Stand up like a man!” he said.

I slowly stood. “We can work this out, Carl,” I said.

“Oh, we’re gonna work this out, all right,” he said. “What are you waiting for, Bennett? Come and get me!”

I stood there frozen.

That’s when I noticed he had a baseball bat in his other hand. Ricky screamed as Apt turned and hit him in the back with it.

“You want me? Then come and get me!” he screamed.

I ran at him. It wasn’t a conscious decision. Some force sent me hurtling forward through the darkness, my feet flying, my toes digging, kicking back sand. Both of my feet were off the ground when I dove at him. I don’t think he expected me to reach him from so far away. I know I didn’t. I saw shock in his face before I plowed into him as hard as I could, sending the bat flying.

Chapter 103

WE BOTH SCRAMBLED BACK UP. I got up first and swung as hard as I could at his face. It was a good right. It felt the way it does when you’ve swung a golf club perfectly, two hundred yards pin straight down a fairway.

It would have probably ended things right then and there, but my swing was too high, and I heard my pinkie snap as I punched him in his thick-skulled forehead. I screamed as I hit him with my broken right hand again. I made contact with his glasses and nose this time. He screamed as I felt something squish.