Free Bad Games 2 - Vengeful Games by Jeff Menapace

her shoulders, held her back at arms length, looked her up down. “ That. You look like some rich celebrity.”
    “I am rich,” she smiled.
    He gave her a face. “You’re hard to forget looking like that.”
    “This look,” she began contemptuously, “is one of many. I can be a bag-lady with a dead security guard tucked away in a utility closet in under five minutes.”
    “Scary.” He picked up his bag.
    She shook her head and could not help but smirk at him. “Such an asshole.”
    They walked side by side towards the escalators. A man and his teenage son were a step in front, but John shoved them to one side as he and Monica boarded the top of the escalator. The man went to open his mouth, but John need only glance at him before the man snapped it shut.
    “What’s our itinerary?” he asked as they descended. “When can I see Arthur?”
    “That won’t be for awhile.”
    They hit the bottom and headed towards the exit.
    “I have to wait until the trial,” he said.
    She nodded.
    They stepped outside the glass doors and stood on the pavement. Men and women in airport uniforms shouted at people who dare ask questions twice. Cars honked and swerved recklessly out of each other’s way. A family crossing the strip to get to the arrivals lot on the opposing side was nearly hit by a cab. An officer futilely blew his whistle as the cab sped away, the elders of the family clutching their chests as they watched the taxi disappear up the on-ramp.
    “Nice huh?” Monica said. “I’ve landed in Philly International several times. Believe it or not, it’s actually gotten better.”
    John just shrugged his thick shoulders and began crossing the strip, almost daring a cab to approach them the way it had the family. Fortunately for cab drivers throughout the Philadelphia area, none did.
    Monica stopped in front of a shiny black BMW tucked around a small bend in the lot.
    “This you?” her father asked.
    “For now.” She pressed her keychain and the car beeped and flashed twice.
    “ For now? ” John grunted and tossed his bag in the back seat. “Hot shot.”
    They both entered the car. John said, “So I have to wait.”
    Monica turned the ignition. “I’ve got plenty to keep us busy until then.”
    He grunted again.
    “We’re gonna have a good time, Dad. Trust your little girl.”
    He threw her a sideways glance and gave a thin smile.
    “Much better.” She reached to her right, opened the glove compartment, and took out her cigarettes. She lit one and cracked her window.
    He waved smoke out of his face. “Come on, can’t you wait until we get there?”
    “Deal with it, you big pussy.”
    He laughed as she took the ramp onto I-95 towards Valley Forge.
     

Chapter 15
    Once you received a ticket in King of Prussia to enter the Pennsylvania Turnpike, you had only a few hundred feet to make a decision. East and you would find yourself heading towards New Jersey. West and you were heading towards Harrisburg … towards Crescent Lake.
    The Lamberts were not going to New Jersey. And they certainly weren’t going to Crescent Lake. But they were headed west. They were headed to a small town outside of Harrisburg, just past Hershey, for a visit with Amy’s family.
    Every time Patrick had selected west during that brief stretch of turnpike with only two options (and there had been a few times since the tragedy, all business-related, which thankfully took him no further than a hundred miles or so), it was absurd to suggest that the memories of Crescent Lake would not come flooding back.
    Except it was not the brutal details of his family’s ordeal that he remembered most when he chose west. It was not the horrors of watching his children tormented, the knowing that his wife was being sexually assaulted while he remained bound and helpless in the next room, that she was eventually shot and almost taken from him. It was not the horrors of transforming into the monster he had become in order to protect his family: