by James Hunt
Samuel held up his hand, silencing the lawyer. The man was more concerned about defending his reputation than he was about doing what was smart and keeping silent. Because while he might be able to withstand holding in the shame of his actions, he couldn’t stand the idea of someone besmirching his good name.
“I take pride in making sure that all the children under my care and supervision receive one-on-one attention,” Samuel said. “And that’s because I care about who they are and what they do.”
The lawyer was muttering to himself, shaking his head, frustrated that his client didn’t know how to be quiet. The man must’ve known Samuel was screwed, and he resigned himself to leaning back in his chair with his arms crossed over his chest, tilting his chin down.
Denial was a hell of a thing to witness, but even the strongest denial fell apart when it finally came face to face with the cold hard truth.
Jim removed his phone from the inside of the jacket and opened the attachment that contained some of the images from Samuel’s hard drive. Once he had the images up, he flipped his phone around to show them to Samuel and the lawyer
“Recognize them?” Jim asked. “I haven’t gotten around to identifying all the children here, but the moment I step out of this room, I’m going to start making calls. It won’t take very long to find out their names. And then I’m going to make sure they all turn against you, Samuel. Every last one of them. All of your ‘special’ relationships gone.”
Samuel's face turned a crimson red. It seemed he not only cared about his repetition with the schools but his relationships with the children as well. “They won’t turn against me.”
“Yes, they will,” Jim said. “I must admit you do a fantastic job of convincing them otherwise. But should know that another one of your students from a few years ago already turned against you. And while it’s going to take a long time to undo all of the damage you inflicted upon them, I can promise you that it won’t take me very long to convince them of what you really are. Because deep down, they already know.”
Jim took immense satisfaction over the sheer terror on Samuel’s face. The man’s walls were crumbling around him, and Jim couldn’t be happier that he was responsible for bringing them down.
“Now,” Jim said, now that Samuel was trembling uncontrollably. “I want to know who else you might have taken. Someone who wasn’t in the pictures.”
Samuel frowned. “What?”
“You had a very special little project, didn’t you?” Jim asked. “Someone who you wanted to keep all to yourself. And I want to know what you did with him.”
“I did,” Samuel said, his voice trembling with a sick note of desire. “I don’t think I had ever wanted a child more.”
Samuel’s lawyer quickly lunged forward at this new omission, trying to stop his client from saying anything else. He tried to get into Sam’s line of view, but the floodgates were already open.
“It’s important to establish trust in the beginning,” Samuel said. “It’s the only way any of this works. But once you have that trust, once you’ve established yourself as somebody who is going to help them, once you’ve established that you’re the only person who can help them, then that’s where you’re free to do whatever you want.” Samuel smiled. “Gaining the trust of the child, there is really nothing like it. People think it’s easy to do, but it’s not. It’s actually incredibly difficult. You see, children are much smarter than people give them credit for. Their intuitive as well. If they sense that your intentions are to harm them, you’ll never get close enough to do any damage. When they trust you…” That smile widened, and his eyes watered. “It’s that trust that is the most delicious aspect of what I do. That’s what I crave more than anything else. It gives me… power. Power that is incomparable to anything else in this world.”
Jim leaned back, disgusted. He had listened to some very disturbing confessions over the years. These interrogation walls had borne the brunt of several horrible conversations. But this one might’ve been the most troubling he’d ever heard.
But Jim still needed a name.
“Who?” Jim asked. “Who did you want more than anything else?”
Samuel looked Jim in the eye, and Jim was convinced he had figured it out. He was certain the name Samuel was about to speak would be Nate’s son, Tim. But he was wrong.
“Harry,” Samuel said. “I wanted Harry more than any of them.”
“I would like a moment alone with my client to discuss his options,” the lawyer said.
“Your client doesn’t have any more options,” Jim said, standing up. “He’s going to spend the rest of his life behind bars. But who else?”
“What?” Samuel asked, confused.
“There had to have been another boy,” Jim answered, growing desperate. “You took another boy, didn’t you!”
Samuel shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Jim slammed his fist on the table. “There was someone else! Who was it?”
Startled by Jim’s explosion, both the lawyer and Samuel jumped backward. Jim’s grip on the situation was unraveling. He had let his anger take control, and when he heard the door open and turned to see the lieutenant standing in the doorway, he knew his time was up.
“That’s enough, Detective,” Mullocks said.
Finished, Jim stormed out of the interrogation room, fuming, and didn’t stop until he found an exit to the side parking lot. He paced, furious with himself over how he reacted. It wasn’t enough for the defense lawyer to get Samuel off the hook, but it was enough for the defense to want to take a closer look into why Jim was investigating Samuel in the first place.
A few minutes later and Mullocks stepped outside. She looked cross, and Jim waited for the verbal scolding he knew he deserved.
But it never came.
“Hell of a show you put on back there,” Mullocks said.
“Lieutenant—”
“Save it, Jim.” Mullocks held up her hand, silencing him. “It’s been obvious to me that you were working a different angle on this case, and now it’s obvious to a lot of other people, too.” She walked over to him. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on? Or are you intent to die on this hill alone?”
Deep down, Jim knew that telling the lieutenant was the right move. She had always been in his corner. But telling Mullocks would only implicate her in Jim’s crimes, and he refused to bring down a good cop because of a mistake that he had made.
“I have it under control,” Jim said.
Mullocks shook her head. “You and your old partner are really made for each other, you know that?” She returned to the building, leaving Jim confused about the meaning of her message.
Jim returned to his desk and collapsed in his chair. He didn’t know where else to look. After expending so much energy on catching Samuel, he didn’t know where to turn next.
A sense of hopelessness flooded through Jim at the prospect of having to call Nate, his friend, a man whom he trusted with his own life, telling him that he didn’t know where his son has been taken or who was responsible. He had no answers and was going to be starting over from scratch with even less time on the clock. Because once they reached the twenty-four-hour mark, the chances of recovery dropped to almost zero.
Out of time, out of options, and out of any new leads, Jim almost didn’t look at his phone when it buzzed in his pocket. He figured it was Jen, wanting to know what time he would be getting off work tonight, but was surprised at the unknown number.
A filter on Jim’s phone always revealed whether or not the call was from a telemarketer or a scam, but an unknown number meant it was from the local area code and from an actual person. Intrigued, he answered it.
“Detective North,” Jim said. Silence greeted him, and Jim checked the call to make sure it hadn’t dropped. It was still connected. He listened again before he spoke one more time. “Hello?” Jim asked. “This is Detective North, is someone there?”
Another stre
tch of silence and Jim was about to end the call and search for who was registered to the number when a woman’s voice finally answered.
“Hello, Detective,” the woman said.
Jim struggled to listen to what she was saying. It sounded like she was whispering and was in a very crowded area. “Who is this?”
“I spoke to you earlier today at the apartment complex,” she answered.
Jim realized that he had only given out one business card, and he suddenly remembered a woman he had spoken to on Nate’s floor. She had been the only person who had given him more than ten seconds of their time.
“Yes,” Jim replied quickly. “What can I help you with?”
Jim hoped he didn’t appear too eager because he understood how skittish people could be talking with the police. This woman obviously knew something, or she wouldn’t have called him in the first place.
“Are you still… looking for information?” the woman asked.
“Yes,” Jim answered.
Another silence stretched between the two of them, and Jim was afraid he had lost her again, but at least he knew where she lived.
“I need to meet with you and speak to you about something,” the woman said. “Are you familiar with the park by the complex building?”
“Yes,” Jim answered.
“Be there in ten minutes.”
The call ended before Jim could ask any more follow-up questions, and he checked his watch for the time. It would take him at least ten minutes to get there, and that was if traffic were good.
Not wanting to waste any time, Jim grabbed his jacket and hurried out of the door just as Samuel was being brought out from the interrogation room. His fate was sealed, but Jim hoped that Nate’s son still held a future.
13
Because it was getting later in the evening, most of the kids at the park had gone home for the day, though there were a few that had lingered behind, enjoying the last few bits of sunlight before night descended upon them.
It took Jim a moment to find the woman from earlier, but he finally spotted her sitting on a park bench that was partly concealed by bushes, hidden from view of the main road.
The woman saw Jim approach, and she gave no sign that she was there to meet him. Jim picked up on the queue that their conversation was meant to be clandestine and sat on the other end of the bench. Neither of them looked at one another, and while Jim didn’t want to hurry the woman, he was short on time.
“I appreciate you calling me,” Jim said.
“Yeah, well, I don’t know about that,” the woman said.
The woman was very skinny but had a large head. She had very thin, long hair and wore too much makeup. She looked like she may have had some drug problems, either in the past or currently.
Jim could tell that she was distressed. Whatever information she had could potentially be dangerous for herself. After his visit to the apartment complex where Nate lived, he got the impression that people tended to be quiet out of survival.
“You must have called me for a reason,” Jim said, trying to sound encouraging. “I can promise you that whatever you tell me will not come back to you.”
The woman laughed. “You can’t promise that. No more than you can promise Nate that you’re gonna bring his son back.”
Jim frowned, unable to hide his shock. Had Nate told her? Did she know who took Tim?
“Don’t worry,” she answered. “Your little secret is safe with me.”
Unsure of just how much the woman knew, Jim trod carefully. “How did you find out?”
“The walls in the apartment building are thin,” she answered. “And there’s only one reason why a detective would be walking around our building, asking vague questions. Everyone knows what happened. They just don’t know who was taken.”
Jim frowned, not following what the woman was saying. “What do you know?” Jim asked.
The woman was quiet for a moment, and she stared out at the playground where some of the children were still playing tag with one another.
“The only reason I called you is that Tim is a good kid,” the woman said.
“Did you know him?” Jim asked.
The woman nodded. “I would check in on him from time to time when his father was working. Sometimes we would play chess. I’m more of a checkers woman, but I enjoyed learning from him.”
Nate hadn’t mentioned any of the neighbors checking in on his son.
“Did you have a key to the apartment?” Jim asked.
The woman cast him an angry glare. “No, of course not.”
Jim realized his comments sounded more like an accusation than a question. And he tried to recover quickly. “I didn’t know if you watched him regularly.”
“I just said it was from time to time,” the woman said.
“The night that Tim went missing, did you hear anything from his apartment?” Jim asked.
The woman shook her head. “I didn’t hear a thing. Which was rare for where we lived. It was one of the peaceful nights, ironically.”
Jim wondered what the woman had to tell him if she didn’t have any information from the night of the abduction. But he paused, sensing that the woman wanted to take her own time in revealing her information.
“A couple weeks ago, around midnight, I heard somebody pounding on a door in the hallway,” the woman said. “That’s not uncommon at our apartment complex, but there was something vicious about this particular greeting. Seeing as how I wasn’t asleep, I walked over to the door and peered through my peephole. Since I’m directly across from Nate’s apartment, I could see the back of a man standing in front of Nate's door. He was the one making all the racket.”
Jim refrained from trying to stick questions into the woman’s train of thought. Once someone got talking, it was best to let them go until they were finished.
“I was a little worried about it since I knew Nate wasn’t at home, and his boy was there by himself,” the woman said. “I was about to step out and say something when Tim opened the door. I think the man was a little surprised that the kid answered.”
The woman sighed and then reached for a pack of smokes in her pocket. She pulled one out, stuck it between her lips, and lit the tip. Once she had taken a nice drag, she leaned back and continued speaking. The cigarette remained between her fingers.
“I heard a little bit of their conversation,” the woman said. “But a lot of it was muffled because I was on the other side of the door. I understood the gist of the discussion. The man wanted money from Nate. Something about a payment being late, or overdue, or not enough.” She waved her hand dismissively. “It doesn’t matter. The moment they come knocking, they don’t stop until they get what they want.”
“The moment who comes knocking?” Jim asked.
The woman only smoked and continued to glare at him.
“You mentioned before that everyone already knew why I was looking around, but they didn’t know who was taken,” Jim said. “Do a lot of people disappear from that building?”
The woman was visibly shaking now, and her stoic expression had cracked. She looked like she was on the verge of tears. “They’ll kill her if they find out I’m even talking to you.” She sobbed once and then took another drag, struggling to regain her composure. She was shaking so badly she nearly dropped the cigarette.
“Whatever is happening, I can help,” Jim said.
The woman laughed louder this time, but it was enough to keep her from crying. “You can’t stop the sun from rising, and you can’t stop the rain from falling.” She gazed at him for a moment through bloodshot eyes. “I didn’t know Nate had a cop friend.”
Jim wasn’t in the mood for games anymore. “A boy is missing. Now, you tell me what’s happening, or I take you downtown, and we handle this a different way.” He didn’t really want to do that, but he hoped the comment would cause her to speak up.
“Fine.” She tapped her cigarette and sprinkled ash on the concrete. “Most of the people in our building
have a connection with a past we’d rather forget. I don’t know your friend’s story, but I’m assuming it’s close to something like mine.” She took a long drag before she continued. “I used to own a nail salon downtown. It was a nice place. Money was great. The people who worked for me were easy to get along with. I was living the dream. But there’s something about life that, when it’s going good, it makes you reckless. Like you want to test the limits, you know?”
She took another drag and then held the smoke for a second longer than normal. “I know I don’t have anyone to blame but myself. I should have known better. It was greed that did me in. I had so much, and I wanted more.” She chuckled to herself. “Don’t know why I did it looking back, but at the time, it made all the sense in the world.”
She dropped the cigarette onto the ground, finished with it, and then crossed her arms, remaining standoffish as she spoke. “I met a guy at a party, and we got to talking. He mentioned how I could triple my income in a matter of weeks. So, naturally, me being in the market to make more, I said sure. The booze and the drugs probably didn’t help with my judgment, but that’s another story for a different day. Anyway, the guy tells me that all he needs is access to my books, and then sure as hell, just like he promised, I’ve got triple the money coming into my account, all cash.” She shook her head. “I don’t even know what I did with all of that money.”
“He was laundering money through your business,” Jim said. “The man who approached you.”
“Yeah,” she said. “I never asked any questions, except for when the money stopped. I got angry, you know? Who wouldn’t be? Losing all of that free money so quickly, hell it would make anyone get angry.” She picked at one of her nails, the green polish almost gone. “The guy I spoke with told me to let it go, that the free ride was over. But then I got really pissed and threatened to go to the cops. And that’s when I realized just how powerful the people I’d gotten into bed with really were.”
She wiped some snot from her upper lip. “Next thing I know, I get another visit, saying that my shop’s been closed after an ICE raid, and I’m being audited. My whole world starts crumbling around me, and then I go back to that guy because I know this is all his fault, and the—” She started crying and quickly covered her mouth.
