by Alexa Grace
Around seven-thirty, Carly noticed movement on the closed-circuit television, and motioned for Brody. "Our first party-goer is here."
Brody and Cameron rushed to the front door, waiting for the doorbell to ring. From the back patio, Gabe circled around to the side of the house for backup. The doorbell rang and the men sprang into action. Brody flung open the door, and Cameron grabbed the arm of a short, wiry-built man in his late twenties as Gabe rushed up behind him.
Brody shouted, "Shawnee County Sheriff! Stop!"
The second the man heard the word "sheriff" he stopped in his tracks and began sobbing hysterically, tears spurting out of his eyes and streaming down his cheeks.
"Don't do this," he cried as he struggled to free himself. Cameron pressed him against the foyer wall and secured his wrists with handcuffs.
Skimming down Gabe's list, Carly identified the man as Aaron, who used the call name @AHOTGUY.
"His name is Aaron Walls," announced Carly. "He's twenty-nine years old, a full-time grad student at Purdue, and a part-time karate instructor for the After-School Program at Shawnee County Parks and Recreation. He drove here from West Lafayette."
Then with Cameron holding one arm and Brody grasping the other, Gabe asked, "So what did you bring to the party, Aaron?" Pointing at Aaron's jeans pockets, he asked, "Any needles or anything sharp in your pockets?"
Still wailing and begging them to let him go home, Aaron shook his head emphatically.
Gabe pulled items out of Aaron's pockets, announcing each one as he handed them to Carly for evidence bags. "Ten condoms stuffed in his wallet. Oh, what's this?" He asked as he pulled out a small plastic bag filled with marijuana.
Cameron pulled out his cell phone to call the deputy parked in a garage around the corner to come get their first arrest.
They'd barely gotten Aaron in the back of the patrol car and re-entered the house, when Carly, watching an image on the television, announced, "Get back in position, we have another one. He just pulled into the driveway. Wait a second. He's going back to the car. He got out a bag and is now walking to the front door."
The doorbell sounded, Brody whipped the door open, and Cameron tackled the forty-something man on the front porch. Gabe took the bag from his hands, and Cameron shoved the man against the wall to handcuff him.
"What's your name?" asked Brody as he patted him down, searching for weapons.
"Go to hell. I'm not giving you my name. I haven't done anything wrong," he said angrily.
Cameron pulled the man's wallet from his pocket, and flipped it open to see his driver's license. "This is Clay Dylan, age forty-six. Wait a minute." Turning the man around so he could see his face, Cameron glanced at him and said, "This sonofabitch is Hailey's English teacher at the junior high school. She was just talking about him the other night when I helped her with the essay he assigned."
Opening the paper bag Dylan retrieved from his car, Gabe looked inside and said, "English Teacher Mr. Dylan came to party. Look what we have here." In the paper bag were three adult toys, a pair of handcuffs, and a box of candy-flavored condoms. He handed the items to Carly, who recorded them on Gabe's laptop, and put them into evidence bags.
"You haven't done anything wrong, Mr. Dylan? Did you really just say that?" asked Brody incredulously. "Coming here to use those items on a thirteen-year-old girl isn't wrong? You make me sick."
By nine o'clock, they'd arrested fifteen predators, seven of whom were registered sex offenders. The majority of the men had contacted Carly through Craigslist, but three of them she met on Teen Chat.
Earl Haas had not arrived and Carly was getting worried. Their meet-up time was eight o'clock and he was an hour late. A ding sounding from her laptop drew her attention. It was a message from Earl. He was running late and would be there within ten minutes or so.
"Earl Haas is on his way," she announced to the others. "Are the search warrants ready to implement once we get him in custody?"
"Yes!" Brody and Cameron said simultaneously.
Turning her attention to the television, it was only a few minutes before a man came into Carly's view. On the sidewalk in front of the house, he walked slowly past as he eyeballed the house. Carly sized him up. He looked to be around five feet and ten inches or so, with a slender build which fit Earl's description, but she couldn't be sure it was him. As he continued walking, he disappeared in the darkness. Moments later, he re-appeared in the decoy house driveway. "He's here," said Carly excitedly. Focusing her attention on the television image as the man neared the front door, she announced, "It's Earl Haas!"
Not even waiting for the doorbell, Brody dived out the front door and knocked Earl Haas to the ground. Somehow, Earl slipped out of Brody's grasp and sprinted down the street with Cameron and Gabe on his heels. Once he was close enough to Haas, Cameron tackled him and pinned him to the ground while he fastened handcuffs on his wrists.
"Was that one of your old football moves?" Gabe teased, as he dragged Haas to his feet.
"Yup, and I'm happy to find it still works," Cameron returned, as he grinned with amusement.
Back at the house, Cameron pressed Earl against the wall while Brody patted him down for weapons.
"Listen," Earl began, "I don't know what's going on, but all I did was come to this house to ask for directions. I got lost."
"You're not lost, Earl," said Carly. "You're exactly where you planned to be, at the house where you thought you'd have sex with a thirteen-year-old girl."
<><><>
The Master continued his search for his slave named Alison. The sun had gone down an hour or so ago and the dark of night in the thicket of trees made the landscape barely visible. The girl could be hiding behind a tree, and he wouldn't even see her, unless she made a sound.
The woods were dangerous at night, even with a flashlight. The landscape seemed determined to stop him. Overhanging limbs crossed his path, seen at the last second. Rock outcroppings, ravines, or tree stumps were undetectable, too hidden to avoid. He'd already twisted his ankle after catching a root, falling to the ground hard, ripping his pants. Driven by an unrelenting fury, he ventured forward, determined to capture the girl.
Things were unraveling, and the threat to his power and control was unacceptable. It wasn't in his plan to kill his sister, but what choice did he have? She'd become a liability, and liabilities were too dangerous to allow to exist. And then there was the dead slave. Though not his first victim, Jasmine was the first to die as a result of one of his beatings. His anger was getting more difficult to control, and he was making mistakes that could get him caught.
Thinking back to the restaurant earlier, a visual of the Chase brothers, along with their bitch profiler, appeared in his mind. What a fun lunch they seemed to be having — joking, laughing and planning his demise. He'd make them pay for crossing the Master. One by one, he'd make them pay, especially the asshole sheriff and his little profiling girlfriend. He'd spend more time focusing on a plan to abduct, torture, and kill Carly Stone, with Brody Chase watching helplessly, before he got snuffed out, too.
The crack of a snapping twig stopped him in his tracks. He was not alone. Aiming the flashlight in the direction of the sound, he strained to see. Suddenly, a huge antlered deer rammed into him in his haste to escape a predator, knocking the Master backward to the ground with a painful thud. Lying there for a moment, trying to catch his breath, the Master struggled to his feet, crying out as a sharp pain exploded in the middle of his back.
"Damn you, Alison Brown. You bitch!" he roared. "If you can hear me, know that I will find you and kill you, if it's the last thing I do!"
Heading back toward the house, he vowed to return to his search for Alison in the morning light. The little bitch was going down before she had a chance to run her mouth. He wasn't concerned about her identifying Erin or him because they both wore ski masks. The chance she could lead the cops back to his house was a real concern, however, so he had to find her.
Limping and rubbing h
is back, he snaked his way through the undergrowth until he could see his house in the distance. There'd be no rest for him tonight. He had two bodies to bury in a new place the cops would never find.
<><><>
Carly and Brody entered the interview room where Earl Haas was waiting at a table, after spending the night in a jail cell. Brody leaned against the wall behind Earl's chair, and then introduced Carly as the officer who would conduct the interview. Carly sat down directly across the table from Earl, placing her folders on the table.
"I hear you like little girls, Earl," Carly said.
"Baby, with a looker like you, I could change my mind," Earl offered as he stared at her suggestively.
Brody kicked the back of Earl's chair to get his attention, and said, "Show a little respect."
Carly glanced at Brody with surprise. They hadn't discussed playing bad cop, good cop, but she was game.
Earl swung around to glare at Brody, the heavy chain attached to his ankles, clanging against the metal table leg.
"As you know, Earl, last night we implemented a search warrant on your house and workplace. At your house, we made some interesting discoveries. You've been a busy and bad boy," said Carly. "We found over a hundred nude photographs of underage girls." Retrieving a thick stack of pages from her file and placing them on the table, she added, "These are transcripts of conversations with you and underage girls you found on the Internet, some of them as young as eleven or twelve-years-old."
"Oh, shit," Earl mumbled as he scrubbed his hands over his face.
"Believe me when I say we already have our detectives searching for these girls, and they will interview each and every one of them. I, for one, can't wait to hear what they have to say."
Shaking his head, Earl sat back in his chair and stared at his hands in his lap.
"We already had you for traveling to meet a minor for sex and soliciting a minor for sex, charges that will send a registered sex offender like you away for a long, long time. But with this new evidence, that long time may stretch into infinity."
"What do you want from me?"
"The truth."
Carly pulled out a stack of photographs that gained Earl's attention. She then slowly slapped each one down in a horizontal row before him, as if she were setting up for a Solitaire card game. With each photo, she paused to say the victim's name, ending with the last photograph, which was Amanda Jenkins.
Staring down at the photos, Earl stammered, "What the..."
"Shut up until you're asked a question, Haas." Brody growled, delivering another kick to the back of the suspect's chair.
"Contrary to what the sheriff thinks of you, Earl," Carly began. "I think you're a very smart guy. It takes a high degree of intelligence to do what you've been doing for years without suspicion."
"Doesn't take that much smarts to be smarter than the county cops," Earl said as he sneered at her.
Carly nodded, as if in agreement. "Yes, you're certainly smarter than us law enforcement types, who had no idea who you were and what you were doing."
"What are you talking about?" Earl asked pointing at the photos. "Who are these girls?"
"Oh, c'mon, Earl. Don't be shy on my account," Carly said. "I know you're dying to take credit. I mean, you're the man."
Earl shrugged his shoulders. "I've got no clue what you're talking about, Lady. I repeat, who are these girls?"
"Let me introduce you to them again, just to refresh your memory," Carly said, as she tapped the first photo with a long fingernail. "Meet Sydney Jackson. She was thirteen when she disappeared three years ago. Before that, she lived with her parents in Knightstown."
"So?" Earl muttered.
"Keep quiet, Earl, until you're asked a question," snarled Brody, behind him.
Moving to the next photograph, Carly said, "You remember Alysa Benjamin, right? She was fourteen-years-old when she ran away to be with you four years ago."
Saying nothing, Earl visibly gritted his teeth and scowled at her.
Carly described each victim. When she got to Amanda Jenkins, she said, "Earl, you must remember Amanda."
Earl picked up Amanda's photograph to get a closer look. "Okay, this one does look familiar. I might have seen her online, but I don't know her personally."
"Sure you do, Earl. A year-and-a-half ago, you transported Amanda to Morel in the Greyhound bus you drive," Carly said. "And once you had her here, you kept her against her will. You raped and tortured her, then shot her point blank in the back of her head. Then you put her, along with Sophia Bradford, in a car you set on fire to hide your crimes."
Earl jumped to his feet and screamed, "That's fucking bullshit. What the hell is going on here?"
Brody pushed off the wall to intervene, but Carly held up her hand to him to signal for him to stop.
In a hard, cold voice, Carly said, "Sit down, and don't raise your voice to me again."
Earl slunk down in his seat, shooting Carly a decidedly nasty grin.
"Oh, I almost forgot. I have one more photo to show you," said Carly, as she pulled it out of her folder. "This is Alison Brown. She's missing and before you leave this room, you're going to tell me where she is."
"Listen," Earl begged. "Alison Brown rode my bus from Indianapolis. I remember her. I also remember that Amanda girl riding on my bus, but I swear to God, I don't know who these other girls are. I swear."
<><><>
Alison continued to make her way through the woods, stopping periodically to check the long, jagged cut near her belly button, which continued to bleed despite her efforts to stop the bleeding. Her socks, now torn and covered by twigs and burrs, provided little protection for her feet.
Resting a while, Alison sat down and leaned against the trunk of a huge tree. Though it was only fifty degrees or so, she swiped at her sweaty face, and tugged at the sweatshirt sticking to her midsection. Although she felt as if every muscle in her body was crying out for relief, she refused to stop. She couldn't stop until she found help. Exhaustion was creeping in, along with a sense of weakness. If only she could stem the bleeding.
The forest was a scary place at night, filled with sounds of creaking tree trunks, hooting of owls, the cries of prey caught in the jaws of predators, and calls of coyotes and wild dogs. She shuddered to think what a pack of wild animals might do to her. Alison was a city girl who had never camped or ventured out much after dark. Without a flashlight or a full moon to guide her, there were times when she groped blindly in the dark using her outstretched arms to guide her.
Shoving the terror of an animal attack to the back of her mind wasn't difficult. All she had to do was to think of what the Master would do to her if he caught her. That couldn't happen. She'd get help, and once she could talk to the police, she'd do everything in her power to lead them to the Master and the woman who helped him.
Bracing against the tree, she pulled herself to her feet. It was time to move on. Pressing her hand against her tummy, she hiked for an hour or so before stopping again. Aching and hurting so much she could barely breathe, she leaned against a tree, not trusting she could get up again if she sat down.
Thinking of the last time she saw Jasmine alive, swinging near the ceiling by the wrists as the Master whipped her small body bloody, Alison bit back a sob rattling in her chest. If only she could have done something...
She froze as she heard the sounds of branches snapping and dried leaves crunching. Someone was moving toward her, and there was little time to hide. Diving behind a wide tree, she pulled the black hood of her sweatshirt over her head, curled her body into a ball, and prayed whoever or whatever was approaching would not find her.
Crackling of undergrowth continued until it stopped abruptly, very close to where she was hiding. Holding her breath, she froze, willing herself not to move and give away her location. Something warm and heavy bumped against her, and Alison turned her head to look straight into the eyes of the biggest German Shepherd she'd ever seen. Sitting on his haunches, the dog licked
her face and began happily panting as if she were a long-lost friend.
Hesitantly, she touched the dog's soft fur. He didn't bite her, so she stroked his back as he inched closer.
"Who are you, and where do you live?" Alison asked, wishing dogs could talk. "I know you're not Lassie or one of those super-smart rescue dogs, but do you think you could lead me to your house?"
The large dog inched still closer until he was almost on her lap, seemingly delighted that she was now rubbing and scratching his ears. Feeling his neck for a collar, she was pleased to find he was wearing one, complete with metal tags. The dog was in good shape, and obviously had a home, which she prayed was nearby. She didn't know how much longer she could continue walking.
Pulling herself back on her feet, Alison moved in the direction from which the dog had come. He bounded ahead of her as if he thought they were playing a game. Barely keeping up, Alison struggled to keep the dog in her sight.
Soon she saw the beam of an outside light. Moving closer she saw a farmhouse and nearly cried out with joy. Alison was so tired and weak, the short distance to the house seemed miles away to her. Feeling dizzy, faint, and nauseated, Alison could barely put one foot in front of the other. She was nearing a structure that turned out to be a large dog house. In front of it, the German Shepherd stood, wagging his tail. She leaned on it for a second, to gather strength to move forward. Sweating profusely, she began to feel a cold chill throughout her body as her legs weakened so badly she could barely stand. Dropping to her knees, Alison crawled into the dog house, seconds before losing consciousness.
