Chapter 24

 

Tom quietly hung up the phone and leaned against the wall in relief.  He quietly complimented himself on gathering enough courage to call and turn him and his friends in; hoping that Charlie nor Adam would find out what he had done until after the police had come; if they were to find out at all.  As he leaned against the wall for a few more moments he began to reflect on all that had happened in those few days. 

 

As he looked back, he now wished he had never agreed to participate in Charlie and Adam’s "plan for adventure".  At first the plan had been to rob a local bank late at night, but the plan unsuspected changed when he, Adam, and Charlie walked through the park and Charlie spotted three college aged girls walking in the otherwise deserted park.  He had told Tom that "it would be fun" to see how much it would take to scare the girls.  Tom unwillingly agreed and followed Adam and Charlie as they made their ways over to the girls, but never did he know Charlie’s true intention was to rob and murder the girls if necessary.  Unfortunately, Charlie did feel that harming the girls was necessary and he shot the girls demanding that Adam and Tom helped, and left them to die.  Now the young girls were dead and there was nothing anyone could do about it.  Sure Tom needed the money but if he had known what would have happened, he would have never agreed and he wouldn’t be in this mess along with the Littrell kid and the Carter kid.

 

He felt the guilt consume him the most as he thought about the young blond boy.  The kid couldn’t have been more than 15 years old, what did he do to deserve what happened to him?  It was just a case of being at the wrong place at the wrong time, the very wrong time.  How were they to know that the kid would be in the park that late at night?  Even though Tom didn’t have any children of his own, he knew that most kids his age should be in bed by that time, but why wasn’t he?  He shuddered as he thought what the kid’s parents must be going through and the thought that he did nothing to stop what happened to him sickened him deeply.  He could only hope and pray that the boy who said his name was Nick had a will to survive that was strong enough to get through this. 

 

Tom had been the one that disagreed the most about Charlie’s plan for beating the kid and dumping his body in a desert alley but he knew that Charlie would make him pay dearly if he backed out of the plan.  He figured that the kid has suffered enough, but as usual Charlie’s plan was to cause as much pain as possible; and that is what he did. 

 

Tom jumped in surprise when he heard a weak voice whimpering through the slightly opened basement door.  Tom had left the door open so he could hear what was going on in the basement; he knew that Brian couldn't escape because he was now too weak to sit up, much less walk up the stairs and escape.  Tom sighed when he heard the volume of the whimpers increase and he quickly but quietly walked down the stairs, never noticing the vehicle that had been parked in the driveway for several minutes.