I will procrastinate no longer. This is a have to chapter that seems so out of place; there is nothing that seems "meant to be" in this. Yet, I am writing it as part of Carol's story. She was fated to meet Ed Peletier and have her life profoundly impacted by that meeting. This chapter has violence and sexual assault. There is also a racial slur that I would personally never use but Ed would so I put it in. Ed reveals the depth of his depravity. You are warned.

Intersection

Ed Peletier had known he had gone too far when he torched the Homestead, the barn, and John McAllister's house on McAllister Mountain. He had come down off of his arson induced high that day at the bank and began to plan his next move. He expected that all of the McAllisters would crawl out from their hidey-holes and run to view his work on their homes. They would suspect him and he had to maintain his story of being home all night. Worse than that the police might come here to his place of work and talk to him. He didn't want his employers to start doubting him and begin to scrutinize some questionable actions he had taken at work.

Ed had money that he had inherited from a generous grandparent. His grandfather had left a million dollars to each of his grandchildren and his silly sisters had taken their money and squandered it on building Mcmansions. Ed had bought an old farm on the edge of nowhere and if the deed was recorded in another name that was his business. There was cash stored there but most was scattered in different accounts. Some in this country and some not.

Ed knew that he should have accepted that Carol wasn't interested in him. He should have parted from her on good terms. Revenge is a dish best served cold and all. If Carol McAllister disappeared six months from now then the police would not connect a prosperous young banker to her disappearance. Young women disappear all the time. Instead he had stalked her like some loser. He had tried to kill the big man who had followed him at the hospital. He had burned her family's home in Adair County. Ed starting to look at his personal exit strategy.

This morning he had jogged past his house and had seen the police cars parked on his street. They would get a warrant and then find the gas cans. Maybe talk to all night gas station attendants. He had thrown the clothes that he had worn in the trash but not the boots. Ed jogged on past and knew that the noose was tightening around his neck. He had driven to work this morning and had sat down to contemplate his options.

He could just stay cool and force the police to prove something, but his employers at the bank would start sniffing around his accounts. Ed decided to get out while the getting out was still good. He knew where they kept the keys to the repossessed cars and where they were parked. Ed lifted the key to a repossessed car and took an early lunch. He knew he would never be back and he spent most of the time moving money from the bank into accounts that he controlled and then erasing as much of the evidence as possible. Ed took his laptop with him when he left.

He left by a back exit and waited to see if anyone followed. He walked to the parking garage where the possessed vehicles were kept and drove off in the one that matched the information on the key ring. He drove to the other side of Charlotte and left the bank's car. He suspected it would be stolen and chopped up for parts before it was reported missing. He walked a couple of miles before he called a cab using his burner cell phone. He had smashed his old cell phone and put it in the trash at work. He had burned bridges all day.

Ed bought a minivan at the used car dealer and paid cash for it. His next step was an apartment complex close to Charlotte General Hospital. He asked for an apartment on the bottom floor. He went to a medical supply store and bought a wheelchair. The apartment was furnished and he bought only what he had to have for a few days. Carol would think that he had disappeared and then she would go back to work and he would be ready.

He knew he should have just ran but Carol McAllister had ruined all his plans. He had wanted to marry her; she would be the perfect banker's wife. She was beautiful, sweet, and had the social skills that would advance his career. He would be a good provider for her and he could still have his weekends at his hunting cabin. Ed knew that it would take time to mold her into submission but it could be done. He would start with a slap and then gradually work up to real discipline. They could have been so happy and it was all Carol's fault. She would be sorry.

ooOoo

The McAllister family left Sunrise Beach when the grandmas broke the news that their homes were burned. Ashton drove his grandmas and mother back to the mountain. Emily and Brian had followed them. Merle had ridden back to Charlotte with Christie. Carol and Daryl went back to the apartment that he and Merle had rented. Andrea and Rick had finished emptying out their old apartment. Carol had cancelled her lease on that apartment and hired a maid service to clean it.

Carol and Daryl had taken a quick trip back to the mountain the next day and Carol had wept when she saw the ruin of her grandmother's home and the barn. They visited the Nancy and Lydia at Lydia's house which was thankfully untouched. The barn cat had been sitting on Lydia's porch when they got there. Daryl had picked it up and cuddled it. He had carried it inside with him and the cat had left his lap and settled on Lydia's lap looking surprisingly comfortable. Lydia gave her a friendly pat, "The outside cat has decided to be an inside cat. She stays out during the day but usually comes in to stay at night."

Carol was amazed at how well her grandmother was taking losing the Homestead. "Grandma, I am so sorry that you lost your home."

Nancy declared, "It's worth it, the police have found a witness that places Ed buying gasoline that night at an all-night convenience store in the foothills. There is security tape showing Ed filling his truck up and three gas cans. We have people tracing every house, storage facility, and building ownership in a three mile radius around his apartment. Something hinky will show eventually. You just need to lie low a few more days and we'll have him". Nancy was going to live with Lydia until her new home was built and she wasn't in a big hurry, "I am letting Emily design it. I want it built to last no matter what may come."

Carol and Daryl went back to Charlotte that evening. They were working on finding Ed's lair. He had to keep the truck somewhere close and they sat down with Jesse and created a grid of a three mile radius around Ed's apartment. They wanted to find the truck and build the case that Ed had committed arson. Their computer geeks hacked in to the utility companies and created a list of new hookups in the area. None was listed to Edward Peletier but they were getting closer to his hideout all the time.

The computer geeks had found that Ed had inherited a million dollars two years ago when his grandfather died. Five years ago there had been some sort of payoff to a family in his hometown. Ed had beaten a girlfriend and Ed's family had paid her off to not press charges. Ed had also been involved in some "incidents" when he was a juvenile but those were sealed. He had graduated from college three years ago and then moved to Charlotte to begin a career in banking.

Jesse had created a map with the all the places gridded in and he had driven through the area. He highlighted those places he thought most suspicious. One was a slightly rundown ranch house with a large garage. It just seemed too empty and he saw that a lawn service was cutting the grass. It just seemed odd and he found a friendly gardener in the house across the street willing to gossip about her reclusive neighbor. "He just comes in and out all hours of the night. I never see him drive in but he does have a truck because I saw him drive in one morning really early."

Jesse got the police interested and eventually they got a warrant. They found the truck inside and three full gas cans. There was a pair of boots that matched the boot prints found in John McAllister's partially burned house and around the McAllister home.

In the meantime Ed had disappeared and the computer geeks had found that he had been siphoning money from accounts at the bank recently. He had money and apparently different identities because he had rented the house under a different name and had paid all the utility bills from an account listed in that name.

Daryl and Merle had driven to Ed's hometown one day leaving Carol and Christie in Christie's apartment. It was a nice town, clean and fairly prosperous and the Peletier family home was a mansion sitting gracefully on a little slope outside of town.

Daryl stared at the house and thought about the shitty places he had lived in his life. Carol should live in a place like that house. She should be with some college educated man who had the right manners and not some dumbass redneck like him. Carol loved him though and not the man who had grown up here. Carol belonged in a place like this but somehow it didn't fit Ed either. Ed who had a separate places to live in Charlotte. Ed who had money of his own.

He grabbed his phone and called the computer geeks. "I need something else. I want you to start making a list of all real estate transactions in and around this county starting three years ago. We are looking for a remote farm or hunting cabin. The location has to be out of the way and the owner will not be from this town."

Merle looked at him, "You think Ed has a lair here too?"

Daryl nodded, "I think he took part of his inheritance and bought a place around here someplace. Not a nice place but a place he could be himself in. Look at that house. It is all about being seen, but Ed does things that he wouldn't want the rest of the world to know about."

"There is still a lot of open land here this far from Charlotte. Good hunting and if you bought enough land you wouldn't have any close neighbors. You aren't just a pretty face, Derlinda. I think you found your balls and your brain." Merle said, "Let's stop and get something to drink. A mom and pop kinda place. Where they are glad for business and want to talk".

Merle bought sodas and junk food and chatted up the bored woman at the counter. "My brother and I like to hunt and get away from the big city. How is the hunting around here? We know a guy from here….is name is Ed but I he has some kinda weird last name Pella something?"

The woman looked less friendly, "You know Ed Peletier?"

Merle smirked, "That's his name. Now I'm telling you that he is a number one asshole but we're just looking for a hunting cabin and he said he had one someone around here."

The woman snorted, "I see him driving by ever now and then on the weekend. His family don't have much to do with him. I justa soon that he didn't stop in here. He's a bad one. Hurt that girl real bad and his family bailed him out. The girl and her family left after that."

Merle looked alarmed. "Maybe I don't want to have a cabin around here. Sometimes our wives come with us. Wonder where Ed has a cabin because I don't want here near my Christie."

"There are a lot of hunting camps out this way. I did see him turn in on the left hand side of the road one Friday night. He drives a green Ford truck. I remember because it has that tonneau covering on it. He gives me the creeps." The woman looked unsettled now.

Merle smiled, "I think that I'll look on the other side of the road. How far away is his camp?"

"Maybe seven or eight miles in that direction. Lots of little side roads out that way." Her eyes met his and he knew this woman wasn't falling for his fake charm. "Thank you, ma'am".

The next morning Daryl brought Carol to Christie's apartment. Merle was there but then he usually was. Christie had been called to work because there wasn't enough doctors. Jesse arrived to stay with Carol and Merle had business to do downtown. Daryl was going to drive back and start looking for the needle in the haystack that might be where Ed was hiding. Merle would drive out there when his work was finished.

Daryl kissed Carol goodbye, "I'll see you this evening."

Carol and Jesse hung out at Christie's apartment. Her apartment was located on the second floor close to the hospital. Christie liked it because she could walk to work when she was on day shift. Carol's cell phone rang. It was Christie, "Things are really busy here, I could use another pair of hands. Do you think you and your keeper could work today?"

Carol laughed, "Sounds good. We'll be over in a minute." Carol called Daryl and left a message on his cell phone. She and Jesse walked to the hospital.

A minivan pulled out of the apartment building lot and drove slowly to the hospital. It parked in a handicapped spot close to the hospital. Ed pulled the wheelchair from the second row of the minivan and wheeled it toward the hospital. He was dressed in the uniform of an orderly and the credentials that verified that he was employed at Charlotte General Hospital. He entered the hospital and went to the men's room. He took off the loose scrubs of an orderly and dressed a hospital gown. He had applied makeup to look pale and sickly. He was completely bald. He wheeled himself out in the corridor wearing glasses and waited outside the Emergency Room door.

Carol and Christie were busy all morning. Jessie had went downstairs to pick up lunch so that they could eat in the office area. Ed saw Jesse leave and he made his move. He wheeled back to the rest room and he came back wearing the orderly uniform. He wheeled the wheelchair into the Emergency Room and saw Carol entering a cubicle. Christie was nowhere to be seen. He moved the wheelchair into the cubicle that Carol was in. She turned as he walked in and he plunged the hypodermic into her arm. He also put a hypodermic into the patient. He stripped Carol's clothes off and put the hospital gown on her. He looked out and didn't see Christie and he wheeled Carol out of the ER and to his waiting vehicle. He deposited her into the minivan and folded up the wheelchair. He drove away and was soon on the interstate heading toward his hometown.

Jesse came back from the cafeteria with lunch. The cafeteria had been crowded and it had taken him longer than he had expected. Christie was filling out paperwork and she looked up as Jesse came back. "Let's eat." It only took a minute for them to figure out that she was gone.

Daryl stopped at the mom and pop store and checked his messages and listened to Carol tell him that she was going to work with Christie at the ER. He had stopped at the computer geeks to talk with them about the search for Ed's hunting camp on the way. They had a map of the area and they had marked the places that had changed hands in the last three years. He had left then and drove to Ed's hometown and checked the real estate purchases against the map.

It was early afternoon before he got to the store. He picked up two bottles of water and some beef jerky and put them on the counter in front of the same woman who waited on him yesterday. She smiled, "You were in here yesterday with the big guy."

Daryl smiled and ducked his head at her, "Still looking for a hunting camp."

Daryl drove seven miles down the road and stopped and looked again at his map. A red minivan passed by and Daryl watched it go by. There was a bald man in the driver's seat and there was something familiar about him. Daryl watched the vehicle disappear out of sight and then he finished the first bottle of water. His cell phone rang and a nearly hysterical Christie, "O, thank God, Daryl. We have been trying to get you for an hour. He got her, he got Carol at the hospital."

Daryl got out of the car. Ed had Carol and he could have taken her anywhere. She might be dead right now. He had failed to protect her. He didn't know where to look. Daryl had always been scornful of people who believed in God. He sneered at praying to an unseen God, but now he was felt completely helpless. He asked God to help him and felt like a fool when nothing happened.

Suddenly Daryl thought of the man in the minivan. Bald as an eagle but looking familiar. He was Ed and for some reason their paths had intersected today. He jumped into his car and gunned the engine. He looked at his map. He didn't know which left hand turn to take. He had a moment of indecision and then chose the one that was closest to where he was right then. It might not be the right one but he had to start somewhere.

ooOOoo

Carol woke up inside of a rundown house. She had no idea where she was and she felt dizzy and was unable to focus. She looked to find Ed looming over her. "Wake up, princess. Daddy is home."

Carol tried very hard to think clearly. She remembered seeing Ed at the hospital. She saw that she was naked and she wished she could cover herself from his piggy eyes. Ed hit her once and then again. He pulled her up against the wall and slapped her again. She hit the floor hard and she knew that she had broken her left wrist. Ed smiled. Her pretty face was already marked and he was just getting started.

He dragged her to the table and bent her over the table and took her brutally. He bit and clawed at her body and when he was finished he turned her over and hit her again, "Are you sorry yet?"

Carol knew that she wasn't going to last very long. Ed was too strong and she was too weak. She must be out in the middle of nowhere and Daryl was never going to find her. She was going to die out here but Ed was going to toy with her first. Ed kicked her and she rolled away from him instinctively and saw an old rusty knife under the edge of the sofa. She reached for it but Ed grabbed her hair and dragged her away.

He grabbed her broken wrist and she screamed in pain, "Hurt's doesn't it. Are you sorry yet? Do you want to know how I found you? I just got an apartment in your old friend Christie Alston's building and waited until you showed up. I have been in and out of the hospital all the time when you were missing. I knew you would show back up. Saw your and your Black boyfriend walking to the hospital this morning and knew that you were going to work. And I knew I was too."

Carol realized that Ed thought Jesse was her boyfriend. Ed picked her up and threw her on the sofa. "You turned me down and then your fucked your nigger boyfriend. You fucking whore. We could have had the perfect life and you had to fuck it up." He hit her again and she saw that he was getting aroused by her pain. He was going to rape her again very soon and he wanted her to suffer. He fell on her and bit her breast so viciously that she screamed again but let her right arm fall down the side of the old sofa. He pulled her up by her hair and hit her again. She fell back against the sofa and let her hand dangle again.

"I'm going to take you again, you whore. You can't stop me." He pushed himself back and hit her face again. Her nose and lips were bleeding and she could hardly see. Carol realized that she couldn't use her right arm to defend herself or she would lose her chance to grab the knife.

Ed pulled his orderly uniform pants down again and released his erect cock. He pushed her legs apart and Carol knew that she had to let him. She couldn't waste the little strength she had fighting him. He slammed his body on top of her and thrust his penis into her. Her hand touched the knife and she grasped it and started bringing it up slowly as Ed continued to bite and claw at her. She waited until she had a clear shot at his carotid artery and she used the last of her waning strength to bring the knife up and she severed the artery and Ed's blood gushed out and covered her. He tried to get up but he collapsed on her again and she was too weak to move him. She dropped the knife and checked for a pulse. He was dead. She tried to pull him off but she was too weak but she managed to scoot far enough so that she could breathe.

Daryl hadn't found anything at the first property and he turned around and went to the second property. It was farther away and he was more and more afraid that he would never find her and that this was a fool's errand. He pushed the car as fast as he could but the road was narrow and rutted. He rounded a curve and saw the driveway to the house and he saw the red minivan. He got out of the car and grabbed the gun that Merle had given him. He ran toward the house saying over and over again, "Please, please, please just let her be alive". He burst through the door and saw blood everywhere.

Carol was lying on a sofa covered in blood and he was sure that she was dead. Ed was on top of her and Daryl grabbed him and pulled him off of her. Carol opened her eyes and looked at Ed. "Are you sorry now?" She looked up at Daryl and he saw that she was alive.

Daryl picked her up and carried her to the car. He took off his shirt and put it around her. There was a beach towel in the trunk and he got it out and covered her with it. He gave her a drink of water and he drove her out of there. "Take me home and have Christie come and take care of me. I don't want to go to a hospital. I don't want to talk to the police. He is dead and gone." Carol's voice was weak but sure and Daryl nodded.

Daryl called Merle. He was closer to the mountains here than he would be in Charlotte. He told Merle where Ed was. He called Christie and told her that Carol needed her. Carol spoke to Christie and outlined her injuries in a cool detached voice. She had a broken wrist, bruised or broken ribs, lacerations, she had been raped and sodomized, and needed stitches.

Christie stopped at a pharmacy and bought everything she needed and headed toward the mountains. She called the hospital and told them that she was starting her vacation early because there was a family emergency.

Merle followed Daryl's directions to the farmhouse. He dragged Ed out of the house and buried him beside of two other shallow graves. He pulled the red minivan behind the house and wiped it down. He took anything that could belong to Carol and locked the house up. He started down the road and he threw the rusty old knife deep into the woods a mile away from the house. Merle took off for the mountains after that. He had thought of burning the house down but that would only attract attention.

Daryl moved Carol into the cabin. She asked him to give her a shower and he held her up and washed her. She asked him to cut her hair short and he propped her up and cut her hair with a pair of scissors. It looked awful but it seemed to please her.

Christie arrived and she stitched and bandaged Carol. She started a round of antibiotics and a painkiller and she set Carol's wrist. She laughed at the haircut until she cried and then she couldn't stop crying. The grandmas showed up and wanted to take Carol to their house but she said that she wanted to stay here. They left but kept coming back with food and clothes for Carol.

Merle came in and took a shower. He and Christie sat on the front porch and talked most of the night. Christie continued to check on Carol all through the night. Daryl was lying on the bed beside her wide awake and Carol was sleeping fitfully. She would wake and he would soothe her back to sleep.

Daryl fell asleep as the morning light began to filter into the room. Carol had woken up in pain and Christie gave her another pain pill. Carol looked at her beaten and bruised body and was glad to be alive. She had killed someone yesterday and had no regrets, no feelings of remorse or pity. She had faced her enemy and defeated him and she was never going to be the same again. She was a lot stronger than she thought she was and somehow she knew that she would need that strength in her life. Right now she only needed to lie here beside of Daryl and she smiled as she went to sleep.

AN

Go ahead and pile on the hate. It was a terrible chapter to write, but I wanted Carol to kill Ed in this story. Daryl can be a hero but she is going to save herself.

Daryl was very antagonistic about belief in God and the power of prayer so in this version he asks for help but doesn't recognize when it comes. Albert Einstein has a quote that applies here. "Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous." Daryl looks up at the very instant that Ed passes by? He finds the right road so quickly? Coincidence?

Carol recognizes that she is stronger than she thought she was. She doesn't fight being raped because she needs Ed to be close enough to kill. Now that is the pragmatism that is Carol.

Review.