LITMIR.BIZ

       Prologue

      It had been easier than he’d expected. He drew a deep breath to calm the rush of adrenaline he’d sustained for the past hour and a half.

      As the adrenaline eased, a new sense of euphoria flooded his veins. He’d done it. He’d actually managed to pull it off. All the months of planning had finally paid off.

      To assure himself of his success, he walked across the shack’s wooden floor and opened the slat in the door that offered him a view into the small room.

      They were both still out, unconscious on the mat where he’d placed them when he’d carried them in from the boat. Billy had been easy. He probably weighed no more than fifty pounds.

      Jenny had been more difficult. He’d struggled beneath her dead weight, not wanting to drop her into the gator-infested water that surrounded the shack.

      They were out, but soon the drugs would wear off and they’d wake up and know they were trapped. They wouldn’t know who had taken them or why they were here. And then the fear would begin.

      Although, on the outside, the shack looked as if a stiff breeze could blow it over and into the murky waters of Conja Creek, that appearance was deceiving.

      He’d spent the past month making sure the small interior room was strong and secure, like a fortress, not to keep people out but rather to keep people in. It was the perfect place for, when they woke, when they began to scream for help, there would be nobody to hear them but the gators and the fish.

      He checked his watch, then closed the slat with a sigh of satisfaction. They had all the basic necessities they needed to survive until he returned here. But now it was time for him to go.

      Minutes later he lowered himself into his boat. It would take him nearly an hour to maneuver through the maze of waterways half-choked with vegetation.

      He didn’t mind the time it would take. He’d use it to think about Sheriff Lucas Jamison, the golden boy who had it all. He tightened his hands on the boat’s steering wheel. Sheriff Lucas Jamison, the confident know-it-all, the town’s favorite son, the man who looked at him like he was nothing. Right now Lucas was the town’s favorite son, but soon he would know what it was like to be terrified.