Secrets of Grady by J. L. Hyde

Author:J. L. Hyde [Hyde, J.L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: J. L. Hyde

Eighteen

SEPTEMBER 2023

Rich succeeds at most things in life because he is careful. He prepares. He overthinks every possible outcome before making a decision. Rich has kept the most-searched-for girl in America under his log cabin for twenty years without incident. Tonight, he realizes he’s made the biggest mistake of his life. It’s all because of Ronald. Fucking. Reagan.

He didn’t even want to grant that little podcast pest an interview to begin with, but Nicole guilted him into it, and his mother told him she thought it would be a great way to keep the suspicion off the family. That interview could very well be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

He remembers the day in 2004 well. It was a beautiful summer day, and Rich still believed it was his own daughter he was protecting from Lincoln Palmer. He came downstairs to deliver her dinner when the nightly news came on the small TV he allowed her to have. He set the tray in front of her, transfixed by the breaking headline on the screen—Ronald Reagan has died at the age of ninety-three.

“Good,” Malorie had muttered while she took a forkful of mashed potatoes and shoved them in her mouth.

“Good? Did you just say good? Ronald Reagan is dead, Malorie.”

Rich was livid. He took the rest of her meal away and slammed the door behind him. Ronald Reagan was one of the last great conservative heroes, in Rich’s opinion. How dare his own daughter disrespect his legacy?

This is the worst part of his mistake—he knew that Reagan died after Malorie arrived in his basement. He remembered it vividly. He slipped up and didn’t even realize it until he came home and mentally replayed the entire interview. It was a quick anecdotal comment made in passing about what a bleeding-heart liberal Malorie was, and he didn’t give it a second thought until it was too late.

Twenty years in, he’s having to resort to an alternate plan to keep Malorie from being discovered and to save his own ass. He hastily unlocks the door to Malorie’s room and throws a pillowcase on the mattress next to her. She’s sitting on the corner, startled by his sudden arrival during a non-meal time.

“Put this on,” he snarls.

She knows better than to ask any questions. Nineteen of her twenty years in captivity have been spent receiving little to no communication from Rich. She puts the pillowcase over her head and stands. He quickly ties a rope around her delicate wrists with a knot he learned as a child in Boy Scouts and never forgot. Silently, he leads her up the stairs and out to his truck, where he puts her in the back seat and tells her not to move.

Two minutes later, he’s pulling down the gravel road to his vacant property when Lincoln Palmer passes him in his Cadillac Escalade. He has a female passenger that Rich doesn’t recognize and he’s driving too fast, even for his above-the-law, reckless ass. Rich shakes his head in disgust.

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