22. Chains

CHAPTER 22

CHAINS

BIG D

With a full bucket, I splash water into Jeremy's face. That wakes him up. He gasps, trying to catch a breath. With Mike and Jason's help, we tried to grab him from his bed tonight, to bring him here. Mike had thumped on his head with something and had knocked him unconscious. Not sure what, but it worked.

"Wh-where am I?" He asks.

Despite the lump on his head, he gazes around him, taking in the thick forest, adjusting his eyes to the dark. He'll have no idea where we are. Hell, I don't know either. Jason knew of this old campground tucked away in a state park.

"You." He recognizes me. Good, then I won't have to remind him with my boot up his ass. He eyes the other two men, Jason and Mike, as well and spits blood on the ground at their feet.

Then he tests the chains around his wrist, pulling them. The guys have him good and wrapped to the tree. Anyone happening by would think he's just some local tree hugger, instead of a dangerous man.

"What do you want? Let me go."

"Not until I get my answers. Until then, I'm your worst nightmare come true, motherfucker." I take the other bucket of water from Mike and dump it on him.

"Stop doing that." He spits on the ground again.

I take my phone out and press the recording that I'd made earlier of Marissa's confession. It's now stored on the pink phone and on mine. I hit play.

"This is Marissa Myers. I'm making this video of my own accord, and not under duress. I want to expose the truth about the Campbell family."

"What is this? Stop that, now." Jeremy fights to reach for the phone, but the chains aren't that long.

"On July fourth in the Summer of 2024, after a heated argument with her husband, Mrs. Isabella Campbell was involved in an accident. Intoxicated behind the wheel of her Mercedes, she ran over a young man, Domenic Aquintas. Unfortunately, he'll never walk again. Isabella didn't stop at the scene of the crime. It was a hit and run."

"No. Shut it off. Please," Jeremy begs. I let it play. I can't help but feel a certain part of me doing this for my father. He would have wanted to see justice served.

"The next morning, Mr. Campbell saw the bloodstains on her white car and she confessed to him what happened. Instead of going to the police, he went to Jeremy Whittaker instead."

"No!" He screams and screams over and over. I simply pause the video until he's done and ready to listen again. It takes some time, but we're patient. In fact, Mike takes out a thermos of coffee and pours a cup for each of us. We three sip in our own silence while, just a few feet away, Jeremy's shouts subside. I push play again.

Marissa recorded this confession like a champ, fully aware of what she was doing. She would not stand by and watch Jeremy ruin people's lives any longer. In many aspects, she was the bravest of us involved in this mess.

"Mr. Campbell had Jeremy do all the dirty work because he didn't want the hit-and-run accident embarrassing him or his family or the team. Jeremy spent much of the summer paying people off to stay quiet, from store owners with video footage that night, to members of the police force, even the victim and his family himself got paid off, reimbursed for any medical bills and a million transferred into their bank account. Anyone and everyone who could pinpoint Isabella as the driver was bribed or threatened."

"I'll get back at you, Ford." The man bound by chains dares to threaten me now. I'd like to see him try. I cross my arms and continue listening to the confession.

"This goes so deep, Mr. Campbell would be ruined if it all came to light. He thought he could trust Jeremy, often calling him his son. Only Jeremy got greedy. He held everything over Mr. Campbell's head, demanding more money. A new job. Even pushing to him to demand his daughter, Kallie Campbell, marry Jeremy. He wanted his hands on her sizable trust fund."

This part gets to me as well. If I hadn't met Kallie, she might have come back from Montana just weak enough to fall back into old patterns, back into his arms, his bed. Unknowing that all along, he only wanted her for the money.

Like I've always said, money can be a burden.

Thank God, I met her, and I like to think our night in Montana did wonders for her, helping her become the woman she was always meant to be.

"How did you come by all of this information, Marissa?" That's my voice on the video asking her that question.

"Kallie thinks our affair stopped once she found out, but it didn't. He kept using drugs and seeing me. Only quitting the drugs on Mr. Campbell's request because he worried Jeremy would screw things up impaired. There were too many details to keep track of to be messed up like that. But he started up again after Kallie got back from Montana."

"You have no proof. And Marissa is crazy, half strung out all the time herself. No one will believe her." He'll stop at nothing to ruin others and not take responsibility for his shit.

"Damn. You're a real piece of work, aren't you, Whittaker?" Myself and my teammates get closer, standing tall and imposing over him.

Marissa comes to the end of her confession. "Like Kallie, I did not know this was going on, until one night about a month ago, he came to my house just wasted. He blabbed on and on about it, and I recorded him. The next day when I asked him about all the things he'd said, that's when the man I thought I loved changed. He turned violent. This isn't the first visit I've made to the hospital because of him. But what he doesn't know is I set up cameras in my house after the first time. I've captured every beating I've taken. And now, Jeremy. It's your turn to pay."

Sirens play in the distance, down the dark country road. The guy in chains hugging a tree strains his neck, peering out. Finally, red and blue flashing lights break up the night, getting closer and closer.

"I convinced Marissa to turn you into authorities. Mike here has an older brother on the police force, just dying to meet you. They'll be here any minute to take you away."

"God no. I can't live my life in prison. Please fucking help me. Ford, I'll do anything. I'll leave Kallie alone. Her family too. Just let me go. Let me go." As far as a guy groveling for his life, on a scale of one to ten, I give him a zero. Not convincing enough.

I get right up to his face with the fiercest scowl I can muster. "You leave Kallie and her family and Marissa alone. You get out of Austin, too. Far away. If I ever heard of you coming near any of them or us, I'll haunt you until the day you die."

The lights and sirens pass and keep going on down the road, never stopping by us.

We abandon him, leaving him in his chains, and climb back into Jason's SUV. For so long, even I've been chained down by the grief over my father's passing. Hopefully, after tonight, we're all set free. Except for Jeremy.

"Wait. Wait!" He screams. "You're leaving me here? Oh, come on. I'm in chains. How the fu?—"

"I'll come back in a day or two and set him free." Jason rolls up the windows as we cut across the field. "I'll bet that felt good after everything he's put you and Kallie through."

It does. But I still have to face Kallie in the morning. I'll leave it up to her how to deal with her parents. I can only hope that we can put this behind us once and for all.