****

Donnie put down the slab of wood and stared at the reporter.

Damn! This changes everything. He knows where I live and who I am. Billy didn’t say anything about what to do if someone caught on to the plan.

He reached down and dragged Devin James away from the window. Taking a zip tie, he crossed the man’s hands behind his back, slipped the tie over them and pulled it tight.

James gave a slight moan. There was blood oozing from the back of the reporter’s head but Donnie was relieved to find out he hadn’t killed the man. As James started to come around, Donnie grabbed his tied hands and forced him to his feet.

“Move!”

“Where…where are you taking me?”

“Just move.”

Donnie steered the reporter into the garage and to the back wall, forced him to sit down, and pulled out another zip tie. He wrapped it around the legs of James and pulled it tight. Satisfied the reporter wasn’t going anywhere, Donnie turned to leave.

“Why are you doing this?”

Donnie turned and studied Devin James. Donnie found himself longing to tell someone. To talk to someone about the plan besides his brother but he didn’t think there was anyone he could trust. The reporter already knew who Donnie was and might try to understand.

“Because I have to.”

“Why? Does it have to do with Billy?”

The mention of his brother’s name made him pause. James may have figured things out and therefore Donnie could share with him. The moment passed and he realized this was wasting valuable time.

Donnie walked over to a shelf, picked up a roll of duct tape and wrapped a strip completely around the reporters head, covering his mouth.

“You ask too many questions for your own good.”

Donnie left the garage, closing the door behind him, and went to the front porch. Sitting in the same chair he’d found Momma dead in less than a week ago he weighed his options. He had a decision to make.

I don’t know who the reporter might have told about me. For all I know, the cops are on their way. There’s two choices. Abandon the plan and get as far away from here as I can. Or go through with it and risk being caught.

He sat looking out over the farm for a long time, but he knew he had to get moving and he knew he only had one choice.

I have to go through with it. I promised it to Billy and it’s what Momma would want.

He got up and went into the house.

****

Jason had just got to his desk when the phone rang. He hadn’t even sat down yet.

“Strong.”

“Jason, this is Marie. Found your file.”

“Fantastic. Be right down.”

Nina watched him turn and head back for the door.

“Where are you going?”

“Back to Records, Marie found my file.”

“What file?”

“Back in a minute.”

With that he was gone.

****

Donnie cleared off the kitchen table and pulled back the chairs. He had planned to pull the drapes and shut the front door to keep his captive’s from knowing where they were. With the reporter showing up, there wasn’t any point in trying to hide the location. He still didn’t know if they knew who he was, so that piece of information would remain secret. Opening the basement door, he headed down the stairs. It was time to set things up.

****

Jason returned to the office with a file in his hand and walked around to Nina’s side of the desk. Laying it out in front of her, he pointed at what he’d found.

“Ed Garland, Suzanne Cooper, Chelsea Burt and Dexter Hughes.”

“Shit! All four.” She flipped the file closed to look at the name on the front. “What is this?”

“It’s the report on a suicide from ten years ago involving a Billy Jarvis.”

“Okay, what’s the connection to our missing persons?”

“They were all there. They were witnesses. Apparently they took part in a game of Russian Roulette with Billy Jarvis. Jarvis shot himself while the four watched.”

“How did you find this?”

“You know the message Dave Connor waved at me when we came in?”

“Yeah.”

“It was from Devin James. It told me to look up this file.”

“But how did he know?”

“If I had to guess, I’d say he did the story.”

“So what now?”

Jason took the file back, sat at his desk, and opened it to a different page.

“The only names listed in the file besides the four witnesses are the mother, Betty Jarvis, and the younger brother, Donnie. Let’s start there. I’ll try to locate the mother, you see if you can find the son.”

“You think a family member is responsible?”

“Isn’t that usually the case.”

Nina nodded.

“Usually.”

****

Ed Garland had heard each of the people sharing the basement prison with him removed from their cells, one by one. First Dexter, followed by Suzanne and then Chelsea.  Each time, the lock would snap open, the door would complain with a grind as it was swung wide, and there would be the sound of chain dragging on the concrete. In the case of both girls, he’d heard them start to cry but nobody had said anything to Donnie. Within a few minutes, he would hear two sets of footsteps going up the stairs. He knew he was next and now he heard the lock on his own door snap open.

The door swung wide and the bare light bulb on the ceiling temporarily blinded him. He felt something hit his leg and when he looked down, there was handcuffs lying next to him.

“Put ‘em on.”

Ed was weak and didn’t have the strength to argue. He clicked one wrist and then the other into the cuffs. Next, something else was thrown to him. He picked it up. A key.

“Unlock the chain.”

He did, fumbling with the lock because of the cuffs. When it snapped open, he unwrapped the chain from around his leg to expose raw bleeding skin. The removal of the chain sent instant pain shooting up his leg as the air hit the open wound.

“Get up, come out here.”

Ed hadn’t stood fully erect in nearly a week and it was painful to try. Finally, he made it all the way up, but could only limp on the one good leg. He made it to the door and out of the cell he’d occupied for nearly seven days.

Donnie Jarvis stood there, gun in hand, gesturing towards the steps. Ed did his best to keep moving forward and leaned on the wall as he made his way up the steps and slowly in to the kitchen. His captor seemed content to let Ed take his time. He didn’t push or say anything to hurry Ed up. Just followed with the gun raised toward Ed’s back.

When Ed got through the door into the kitchen, he started to shake. He didn’t know if it was from the effort to get up the stairs or from the sight that greeted him when he got there. Probably both.

Sitting in three chairs were his three cellmates. It was the first time he’d seen any of them and they didn’t look any better than he did. Both girls had tears running down their face and Dexter looked terrified. No one spoke.

“Over there, sit.”

Ed thought about making a run for the door but he knew he was in no shape to do so and he wouldn’t get ten feet. He limped around to the chair and sat.

Donnie came around behind him, put a zip tie around his elbow and pulled it tight to the chair’s arm. He repeated it on the other arm.

Donnie then stood back against the door frame that led to the basement and slowly looked from one person to the next, studying each for something Ed couldn’t begin to guess at. When he’d made his way around the table, Donnie opened the gun and took all the bullets out of the rotary chamber. He then stood them one by one in the center of the table. When he was finished, he picked up the first bullet he’d stood up and shoved it back into the gun. He snapped it shut and spun it.