Growing impatient, he placed the gun at the center of my forehead. “Keep walking.”
I gritted my teeth. “You know, why don’t we find out how tough you are. Put the gun down and take these cuffs off, and we can go at it,” I challenged. I pictured myself gouging his eyes out.
He let out a sick laugh. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Think you got the best of my brother so you can do the same to me. Let’s go.” He pulled me by the arm, and we continued down the familiar trail.
About a hundred feet farther down, I kicked off one of my shoes, leaving it behind. Thank goodness I chose to wear sneakers and socks earlier instead of sandals.
“We’re almost there,” McDowell said to himself.
I knew where we were. It was the remote swimming hole where my grandparents used to swim. The same spot where my grandfather’s body was found.
“This is where you killed him, huh?” I asked as he pulled me down the steep trail that led to the river bank.
“Damn straight. Had to toss his old ass down the trail practically.”
I yanked away from McDowell, ready to strike.
“Get over here,” he ordered, pulling me toward him again. “Make this easier on yourself. You’re as doomed as your granddaddy.”
“Why’d you kill him?” I demanded to know as we approached the edge of the water.
He looked me over contemplatively and, after some time, shrugged. “It wouldn’t hurt for you to know seeing as how you’re about to meet a similar fate. He got too nosy.”
“My grandfather minded his business.”
“Not this fucking time. He walked into Greene’s office late one day, unexpectedly. Amy was there. She’d been having trouble with the pregnancy.”
“She was pregnant?” I gasped, asking.
McDowell nodded. “All those little heifers end up pregnant. We promise them a little easy money in exchange for carrying a baby. Most can’t turn it down.”
“You’re selling babies?”
He shrugged. “Something like that. Rich couples who can’t carry their own kids ask us to make it happen. So we do.”
“As in you and Dr. Greene?”
“Along with a few others. I discovered the game once I began moonlighting at Children’s Crusade and wanted in. So, almost four years later, here I am. Everything was going well after we decided to keep it strictly focused on the runaways and foster girls. That Titum bitch brought down too much heat on us. She was too pretty and from a middle-class community. Neighbors and town got too concerned, but no one gives a shit about foster kids.” He grunted.
“That’s horrible. You’re a deputy. You’re supposed to protect those girls.”
“Fuck that,” he yelled. “Who protected me when I was in foster care?” He shook his head, waving the gun. “No one gave a shit about us. It’s a dog eat dog world. I learned better than others. If your grandfather had minded his business, he’d still be alive.”
“He recognized Amy?”
“Yeah. He told Greene she looked like a girl on a flyer he’d seen in the next town over. He asked too many questions. Greene mentioned her ring was missing after your grandfather came to him asking about the girl.”
I was confused.
“So you killed him because he saw Amy Cherny in his doctor’s office?”
“Not only that. He came down to the station to report it,” he said, before his lips formed an evil grin. “Luckily, I was the deputy he reported it to. I never made the report.”
He shouok his head. “She shouldn’t have been there in the first place. Greene usually keeps shit away from his office. But the family that was buying the baby got concerned.”
“What family?”
“State senator. That’s whose baby Amy was carrying.”
