Memories Never Die by C Thomas Cox

Author:C Thomas Cox [Cox, C Thomas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-06-05T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Forty

My shoulders slumped as I dwelled on the word nothing. I was a prisoner with a death sentence that would never be commuted. And Liz's words reinforced the reality that I didn't want to accept.

"But there must be something," I said. I was almost begging Liz to help me...to help us. To protect my life so I could restore hers.

"He has weapons."

"You mean more than just the gun?"

She nodded somberly. "Oh, guns are just the beginning."

"What do you mean?" I asked, not sure I wanted to hear her answer.

"Explosives. Enough to take down a building. Maybe even a big building. Perhaps one containing people who he feels didn’t treat him right."

I didn't need her to elaborate further. I was certain that Oak Ridge was his target. His depravity was going to lead him to destroy the hundreds, if not thousands, of residents and staff members inside the facility. "All because they wouldn't help him get into college?" I knew that blowing up a building over such a trivial matter didn’t make sense, but we weren’t exactly dealing with a run of the mill serial killer.

"Well," she said, "that’s part of the reason."

"What else?"

She gazed at the floor, and I could tell she was unsure whether she should continue. "It's okay," I said, my hand grazing the point of her elbow. "What do you have to lose?"

"Okay, fine," she said after a minute. "Thomas knew that one day he'd lose his job as a result of getting one of his grandfathers out of there. And when he did that, he'd need to destroy any remaining evidence of his crimes -- including the witnesses."

I shook my head. It didn’t make any sense. "Since he abducted others without getting caught, why wouldn’t he employ the same tactics when he snuck me out? He didn’t want the staff to stop us, but he didn’t exactly flinch when one of his co-workers saw us."

She leaned her back against the wall beneath the window. "Thomas can become careless when he has his mind set on reaching a goal. And from the first time he met you, he was certain that pulling you out of Oak Ridge was his goal."

"Why me?"

"From the first time he told me about you, he said he knew that you were the one. After years of searching, you were our grandfather."

"What convinced him?"

"Because, in addition to your service in Vietnam -- mandatory in Thomas's eyes -- you sympathized with him. You cared about him and his problems more than anyone other than a family member could."

I shook my head as I realized that I condemned myself multiple times without even knowing I'd done so. "Since he's so convinced that I'm his grandfather, can I assume that I'm safe until the DNA test comes back?" I asked.

She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly through pursed lips. "I wish that was the case." I pleaded with my eyes for a reprieve...for her to tell me that I was misunderstanding. Hoping that I, in fact, could trust the United States Postal Service to delay my end.

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