Count to Ten

by Karen Rose

  Ethan nodded, jaw tight. “I’ll watch. Don’t worry.”

  “From a former Marine, that’s good enough for me.” Mia went into the living room and sat next to Jeremy. “Hey, kid.”

  He turned only his head to study her. “You came back.”

  Her heart squeezed. “Of course. I practically live here. Dana’s my best friend.”

  “You catch him yet?”

  “Nope, and I’m here to see you. I brought you something.” She reached into the bag from the bookstore and handed him the large glossy book on jet planes.

  His eyes widened and he took the book, but didn’t open it. “Thank you.” He turned back to the television. “This show is about ancient Greece.”

  “Yeah, I caught it last night.” She settled back against the sofa and put her arm around his shoulders. “But I find I pick up a lot more the second time around.”

  It was about time. He’d waited for Mitchell the whole damn day. He rolled his eyes. She’d been shopping. Somehow he’d thought more of a woman who filled her pantry with Pop-Tarts. But she was here. He crept through the wooded area that cut Dana’s house off from the rest of the houses on the street. He wanted to get a look inside. To check the lay of the land in case she planned on staying there tonight.

  He squinted through his binoculars. He could see in the living room window, barely. Well. He lowered the binoculars, blinked hard, then raised them again. It was double or nothing and he’d hit double. Finally. For sitting next to Mitchell, his head on her shoulder, was Jeremy Lukowitch. If he wasn’t with Yvonne, she must be dead or really sick, so the pill swap must’ve worked. If she was dead or really sick, the boy was the one who’d turned him in. I should have killed the brat when I had the chance.

  A plan started to form. He had three eggs left and he knew exactly how to use them. His stomach growled. But first he had to get some food and some sleep.

  Sunday, December 3, 6:15 P.M.

  The mustache and wig afforded him some anonymity. Enough so that he could chance entering a diner and getting some food. Mitchell had made it so he couldn’t show his face anywhere in Chicago. He scowled at the television behind the counter. His picture was on the news again. He fought the urge to see if anybody was looking at him, keeping his eyes on the screen. The reporter was talking about Penny Hill.

  “Action News has learned today that Ms. Hill was not the caseworker who handled Mr. Kates’s placement. An unfortunate accident placed her on disability for a year, during which time case manager Milicent Craven allowed the boy to go unmonitored. The boy was lost in an abusive environment, his cries for help unanswered. Now Penny Hill is dead. Ms. Craven could not be reached for comment. Andrew Kates remains at large, another victim of an -American social service system too bogged down by bureaucracy to adequately care for the children whose lives depend on them. We’ll keep you up to date on this breaking story. This is Holly Wheaton, Action News.”

  Fate had denied his justice with Laura Dougherty. He would not be deprived again.

  But the timing was interesting. Mitchell had proved far more resourceful than he’d expected. It could be a trick. He’d check out Craven. If she was legit, then he’d act.

  Sunday, December 3, 6:20 P.M.

  Spinnelli switched off the television in the conference room. “Good work, Mia.”

  “And I’d like to thank the Academy...” Mia smiled. “Okay, now what?”

  “Now I want you to meet Milicent Craven.” Spinnelli opened the door to a woman, middle-aged and graying. She came in and sat at the table.

  Reed leaned close. She looked fifty, but she was probably no older than Mia. “When I’m fifty, can you make me look thirty again?” he asked and the woman grinned.

  “I’ll give you my card.”

  Spinnelli smiled, too. “This is Anita Brubaker. She’s undercover, getting ready to come back to the real world. She’s been living as Milicent Craven for two years at the address in the phone book. Her neighbors know only that she works for the state.”

  “So you’re the canary in the cage,” Mia said. “You okay with this?”

  “I am. I’ll be in the house every evening through the night until we catch him. Then once we do, I won’t need the undercover ID anymore anyway. Everybody’s happy.”

  “Except Andrew Kates.” Spinnelli sketched the neighbor-hood on his whiteboard. “This is Craven’s house. Mia, I want you and Reed here, Murphy and Aidan here, and Brooks and Howard here, in unmarked cars. I’ll have cruisers in position. So-cial Services is alerted that if anybody calls for Milicent Craven they’ll be connected to a voice mail we’ve just set up. If Kates or the press call, they’ll get a confirmation of her existence.”

  He looked around the room. “Questions?” All heads shook no. “Then get busy. This time tomorrow I want Andrew Kates in custody.”

  Stacy stuck her head in. “Excuse me. There’s a man out here saying he needs to talk to whoever’s in charge of the Kates investigation. He says his name is Tim Young.”

  All eyes flew to Reed, who shrugged. “Tennant was -supposed to call me when Young got into Indianapolis. He never did.”

  “Show him in.” Spinnelli stood, arms crossed over his chest. “This should be good.”

  Tim Young entered slowly, his step heavy. He was about twenty-five. His gray suit was wrinkled, his face dark with stubble. “I’m Tim Young. Tyler Young’s brother.”

  “Please sit.” Spinnelli pointed to a chair. “Stacy, call Miles Westphalen. Tell him to get down here as quickly as he can. Tell him why.”

  When Stacy was gone, Spinnelli took the head of the table. “This is a surprise.”

  Young looked around the room, took in each face. “I had to change planes in O’Hare. While I was waiting for my flight to Indy I saw the paper. I walked out of the airport and took a cab straight here. Andrew Kates is a name I’ve tried for ten years to forget.”

  “Why?” Mia asked.

  “Andrew and Shane were placed with my family ten years ago. Andrew was thirteen, Shane nine. I was fifteen and counting the days until I could graduate and leave. My father had a farm. He liked foster kids because they were an extra pair of hands. My mother went along with it, because she did everything he said. My older brother Tyler...” He let out a breath. “Was bad.”

  “He abused the boys,” Mia said softly. “And you?”

  There was pain in his eyes. “Until I got big enough to fight back. He used to laugh that he liked his boys young enough to be flexible but old enough to put up a fight. He knew to back off when his prey got too big. Normally, none of the kids stayed that long.”

  “Did your parents know?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. I never knew if they knew or if my father would have cared if he had. My mother would have looked the other way. I don’t suppose you understand that.”

  Mia’s eyes flickered and Reed knew she understood too well. “So what was Tyler’s age of initiation?” she asked.

  “Ten.” Young’s lips curled. “But he nearly made an exception with Shane. Shane was an attractive child and he’d had it before. Tyler could always tell.”

  “He’d been abused by his aunt’s husband,” Reed said.

  “Like I said, Tyler could always tell. He teased Andrew that he’d make an exception for Shane, just to see Andrew try to fight back. Then he’d take Andrew. But Tyler had -standards and methods. He’d hurt the older ones, then count to the younger ones. He’d count from one up to their age, then smack his lips and say, ‘When I get to ten, you’ll be mine.’ Shane was nine. Tyler would count to nine, then taunt Andrew that soon Shane would be ten. ‘Count to ten, Andrew,’ he’d say. And laugh.”

  “That connects a lot of dots,” Mia said. “What happened when Shane turned ten?”

  “Andrew was desperate. He’d tried to run away with Shane at least a dozen times, but the police always brought them back. He begged my mother to do something, but she told him not to make up stories. He hated her. I know Andrew had tried to se
t a few fires in the basement. Newspapers in the trash can kind of fires. He wanted to get caught. He wanted somebody from social services to come and take them away before Shane turned ten. Anyplace would have been better than our house.”

  “What did you do?” Reed asked.

  Young’s laugh was mirthless. “Nothing. I’ve lived with that for years. Not just with Andrew and Shane, but all the others. So many others. But you’re interested in Shane.”

  “For now,” Mia said. “We’ll sort through the others later. Tell us about Shane’s tenth birthday. That was the day of the fire. The day Shane died.”

  He let out a breath. “The day Shane turned ten, Tyler... did his thing. First thing that morning. Shane was...” He shuddered. “The look on that boy’s face—I can still see it. He was just a kid. He was bleeding. But Tyler cleaned him up and our mother sent him to school. That afternoon, Andrew left school early. I saw him go.” He lifted a shoulder. “Andrew was thorough. The house burned very well. But he didn’t know Shane had left school early, too. Later the nurse said Shane had a stomachache. Later people said a lot of things. Nobody knew anything.”

  “He set the fire in the trash can,” Reed said quietly and Tim Young nodded.

  “In a trash can in the living room, then he ran away. He came back a little later, pretended to be shocked. He knew I knew. He thought I’d tell, but I stayed quiet about that like I did everything else. Then the firefighters found Shane. They carried him out, looking like a rag doll. He was dead. Andrew went numb, into shock. Catatonic even.

  “The social workers came then. Took him away. A few cops asked me questions and I lied. I said he’d been at school. He couldn’t have done it. The autopsy showed Shane had been sodomized. But nobody said anything. And eventually, life went on. We rebuilt the house. I graduated from high school and left town and never looked back.”

  “And never heard from Andrew?” Mia asked, kindly now.

  “No. Although barely a day goes by that I don’t think about him or one of the others.”

  “Andrew always saves the pets,” Reed commented. “Do you know why?”

  “Yes. We had a dog.” His smile was sad. “Sweet old mutt. After Tyler was done with Andrew, Andrew would hide in the barn. A few times I found him, curled up against that old mutt. But he never cried. He just petted that old dog till it was a wonder he still had any coat. The day of the fire that old dog was in Shane’s room. He died, too.”

  “He never told the sheriff any of the times he was caught running?” Spinnelli asked.

  Tim’s smile turned sardonic. “You mean Sheriff Young, my uncle?”

  Spinnelli looked grim. “I see.”

  “I’m curious, Tim,” Mia said. “You said you lied and gave Andrew an alibi that day, but didn’t his teachers or some of the other kids notice he was missing?”

  “Funny thing about that,” Tim drawled, his tone self-mocking. “See, Tyler was a bully at school, too. All the kids knew it. The teachers did, too. Andrew’s teacher at the end of that school day would have been Miss Parker. She was young and pretty and terrified of Tyler. Nobody ‘missed’ Andrew that day.” He sighed. “Maybe if we had, none of this would have happened.”

  “I don’t think you can know what would have happened, Tim,” Reed said quietly.

  “Perhaps not. I’ve spent the years since I left home trying to make up for what I did. And what I didn’t do. Now I have to face my part in this. I can’t be free until I’ve made some kind of restitution. Legally and morally. I’ll do whatever you need me to do.”

  Sunday, December 3, 8:35 P.M.

  Mitchell thought she was smart. I am smarter. He approached Penny Hill’s car, then reached in the backseat for her briefcase. He was glad now he’d left it behind. If he’d buried it in the backyard, Mitchell would have it by now.

  Bitch cop, thought she could fool him. He’d found -Milicent Craven’s home address with ease. He’d called Social Services, was transferred to her voice mail. It was luck that he’d called again when the operator had been busy with another call. Well, not luck. That was instinct. He’d known it sounded too good to be true. When the operator was busy, calls were sent to the automated line. Please enter the first few letters of the person’s last name. So he had. Three times. And all three times got the same answer. No names match the letters you have entered. Please try again.

  So Milicent Craven was suspicious. Probably a fraud. But in the event he was wrong, he’d look at Penny Hill’s belongings. She’d had a retirement party the night he’d killed her. There were presents and cards. If Milicent Craven existed, maybe she had signed one of them. Maybe she’d be listed in Hill’s Day-Timer. He needed to know.

  He sat on the seat and started sorting through the contents of her briefcase. It was stuffed full of papers and files, but one labeled folder stood out. shane kates.

  After a moment his heart started beating again. He opened the folder and stared at the photo inside. He hadn’t looked at his brother’s face in nine years. He’d been such a beautiful little boy. Too beautiful. Too much of a temptation for perverts like his aunt’s boyfriend and Tyler Young. They’d killed him. Every last one of them had killed Shane.

  And they were all dead. Penny Hill was no innocent. She had Shane’s file. She’d known where he was all along. All those months of hell in the Youngs’ house.

  Mitchell had lied. There was no Milicent Craven. She’d lied to lure him into the open. She was as conniving as the rest of the women. She should suffer for that.

  She should die for that, just like Penny and Brooke and Laura and his aunt.

  They’d be watching Milicent Craven’s house. The minute he went in, he would have been dead. So he wouldn’t go in. And he’d master their game. His original plan would stand. He’d draw Mitchell to him. And then he’d kill her. He’d see her burn.

  First he’d get a good night’s sleep. She’d wait for him outside Craven’s house all night long. She’ll be tired tomorrow and I’ll be fresh as a spring daisy.

  Monday, December 4, 12:45 A.M.

  “Wake up, Reed.” Mia poked him in the darkness of the car. They were staked out, watching for Kates. Anita Brubaker was inside the house, armed to the teeth while their unmarked cars watched from all directions. If Kates approached, they’d know.

  “I’m not asleep,” Reed muttered, turning from the window. “Wish I were, but I’m not.”

  “Poor baby. You worked hard this afternoon, cleaning your house.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “You said you’d come help.”

  “I did... just later. I went to see Jeremy.”

  His eyes softened. “You’re getting attached to the kid.”

  Her chin lifted. “Is that so wrong?”

  “No. Not if you don’t plan to walk away. He’ll have enough people walk away in the years ahead. The kid’s got a long row to hoe.”

  Her gaze swept the area and seeing nothing, returned to Reed. “I wish I could take him home with me. But he’s not a cat. I can’t take him. I don’t even have a home.”

  “So you gave him to Dana. It’s the next best choice. You did good, Mia.” He resettled himself in the seat, grimacing. “Where did Spinnelli get this car? Yugoslavia?”

  She chuckled. “We couldn’t use yours. Kates’s seen it.”

  “And five minutes in your car would put me in traction.”

  “Hey, it’s a classic. I can’t help that you’re too big.”

  “I don’t get it, Mia. You wait to buy a coat until you get paid, and it’s a nice coat by the way, much better than the old one, but you have enough cash for a sports car?”

  “Most of my money goes to Kelsey’s lawyer. Every time we get close to parole, his billable hours go up, so I’ve been cash-strapped this month. Besides, the car wasn’t that expensive. David got me a deal on a fixer-upper. I’d broken up with Guy and wanted something to lift my spirits, so I splurged. David fixed it up, keeps the engine happy.”

  He frowned. “Mia.” He hesitated. �
��About Hunter.”

  “Friends. Just friends. Always have been, never will be more.”

  He looked unconvinced and she sighed. “Look, I’ve told you all my secrets, but I won’t tell you his. It would have been easier if we had wanted each other, but we didn’t.”

  “You were with him last night.”

  She lifted a shoulder. “I guess I wanted to be with someone else who couldn’t have who they wanted.” She smiled. “But things change.”

  He smiled back. “Yes, they do.”

  “I never asked, did Beth win the slam poetry competition last night?”

  “First in her age-group.”

  “Did you hear her poem?”

  He shook his head. “We haven’t made up quite that much.”

  “You should ask her to... slam it for you, or whatever the right word is. It was good.”

  He frowned and looked out the window at shadows. “Christine was a poet.”

  She thought about the poetry book she’d found. This is my heart. “Really?”

  “We met in college. I was taking a lit class and poetry was like ancient Greek to me. She saw me scowling, told me if I bought her a cup of coffee, she’d explain it all.”

  “And she did.”

  “She did. Then she read me her poems and it was like... listening to a ballet. She brought beauty into my life. I’d made myself disciplined through the army, gave myself a career with my degree. Made myself into a son the Sollidays were proud of. But I couldn’t make beauty. Christine did that for me.”

  Mia swallowed hard. “I can’t do that for you, Reed. I don’t have that gift.”

  “Not for ribbons and bows, no. But last night I realized you make me happy.” He turned his head. Met her eyes. “And what’s more beautiful than that?”

  Moved, she had no words to give him back. “Reed.”

  His lips quirked up as he settled back into the seat. “Plus you’ve got really nice breasts. So when I’m feeling lonely for ribbons and bows, I’ll just look at those.”

  She laughed. “You’re a bad man. Who makes bad rhymes.”

  “I never claimed to be a poet.”