by Dale Mayer
“Already did,” he said.
She approached the gate and studied it for a long moment. It was locked, and a wrought iron fence went all the way around. She checked to see if it was electrified, but it wasn’t. Rodney went to a big brick corner post and quickly climbed it and jumped into the main part of the front yard. She followed suit. Rodney raced around to the back, and she went up to the front. No sign of life inside. It was a big brick mansion, similar in age to Nico’s they had found in Richmond. But a very different layout, and it was completely black inside.
She moved around the front of the house, looking for any windows she could reach. Working her way around, she tried to look through the basement windows. Curtains were on every one of them.
Around the back at the kitchen, Rodney was there, searching through the windows. He looked at her when she joined him. “No sign of anyone.”
“A garage is at the back in the alley,” she said. “The asshole could be anywhere.”
“And maybe a vehicle’s there, maybe not,” he said, “but I want to go in and see if that child is here. Just because the perv says ‘basement’ doesn’t mean I’ll believe him.” With just cause, he quickly popped the door and pushed it open. They entered, calling out that they were the police and had a search warrant.
She didn’t know that they actually had one yet, but that was a moot point, since they were looking for a missing child and already had a confession with a confirmation that the child was in imminent danger. They raced through the main floor and headed toward the basement. With the door opened, they slipped down the stairs quietly. At the bottom was all dark shadows. With little alternatives, they waited for their eyes to adjust for a moment and quickly swept through.
There was a large locker room, with massive storage rooms off to one side. Several other smaller rooms were on the opposite side, all with doors. She checked one, placing her ear against it, but she heard nothing inside. She opened it quietly and found nothing. They went to the next one, and it was already open. The last one had a lock on it. She stared at it, pulled out her pick, and quickly popped the lock.
The presence of the lock meant that no adult should be inside, but they didn’t dare take a chance. She dropped low with her gun out, and Rodney went in high. There on the floor, in the corner, was a little boy. Maybe five or six. She picked up her phone, turned on the flashlight, and saw that he slept. The same drugged sleep that she’d seen before. But she didn’t recognize this child. Not Leonard. She turned to Rodney and nodded. He had his phone out in seconds, sending out a call for expedited backup and an ambulance.
*
Simon sat in the vehicle, as he’d been ordered to. His shoulder burned, and the bloody wound was making a mess of his clothing. He’d pulled off his jacket and used it to staunch the bleeding. Something in his pocket kept getting in his way.
He pulled it out. And snorted. It was the yellow ball Yale had tossed him. He’d automatically picked it up and pocketed it. The damn thing wasn’t leaving him alone. He vaguely remembered the ball from his childhood, but he’d blocked so many memories; this was just one more.
As he studied it, something, … someone, spoke to him.
“Mommy …” a young boy whimpered.
Simon studied the interior of the vehicle before dropping his gaze to the ball on the seat beside him.
He picked it up carefully, closed his eyes, and whispered, “Leonard?”
Instead of a yes, he felt the boy jolt.
“It’s Simon, a friend of your aunt’s.”
“Aunty Caitlin?”
Simon gave a silent whoop. “Yes, her. Are you alone?”
“I’m in a room all alone.” He started to cry. “I want to go home.”
“I know. That’s what we’re trying to do. I need you to hide though. The bad man is in there looking for you.”
“I know. I hid under the bedcovers. But he will find me again. He got angry with me. And gave me some more medicine. But this one tasted different.” His voice was fading, getting woozy.
“Can you find a better hiding place?”
“I’m too scared,” Leonard whimpered. “No place to hide.”
“Can you get out of the room?”
“Only to go to the bathroom.”
Simon exited the detective’s vehicle and stared up at the massive house. “Can you see a window anywhere?”
“No, no windows. Huge boxes are everywhere.”
Simon smiled, as an idea came to him. “Leonard, listen to me. I need you to find a box that you can climb into. It will slow him down. The police are at the house, but we don’t want the bad man to find you first.” Sensing movement, Simon whispered, “Look for a box just big enough for you. Best if other boxes are stacked around it.”
“I can’t move them,” he announced, his voice panicky.
“Calm down. Can you hide behind them? Can you see a ripped one that you could crawl into? Are they small enough you could stack them around you?” He knew a seven-year-old didn’t have much strength, but there was no counting how much could be summoned when needed.
He’s coming, Leonard said into Simon’s head. And he went quiet.
Chapter 27
Kate and Rodney moved from room to room. Most were empty; several contained boxes, as if packing were underway.
Suddenly a voice from the doorway said, “Hold it right there.”
She also heard the unmistakable sound of a gun being readied to fire. She turned slowly, her hands in the air, to face the other brother, standing in front of the doorway to the poor drugged little boy. “So, you’re York, the pedophile who likes to hurt the children. The cops are looking for you,” she said. “And your brother Yale is the one who just likes to cuddle them.”
“He likes to do it all too, no matter what he says.” he said, slowly leaning against the doorway. “And our sister just likes to hear all about it.”
“We’ve been to your place,” she said. “It’s quite a mess.”
“What do you expect? It’s not like I get the money they get.”
“No,” she said, “but you had it once. Just that yours had to go toward your defense.”
“Well, Yale could lose his too,” he said. “I’m not going down alone this time. He was supposed to look after me when I came out, and he didn’t.”
“He’s paying your rent, isn’t he? And your sister? Or is she covering everything else?”
“They both pay a couple thousand a month, just barely enough to keep me in what I need. My sister should be paying more, but she figures she’s paid enough. I’ll see about that.”
“I’m hearing a little anger there,” she said.
“More than a little,” he snapped. “But mostly because you could take me away from this again.”
“Don’t you think you should give up?”
“I don’t give a fuck,” he said. “I want to live the life that I want. I don’t want all these rules and restrictions.”
“I don’t think that’s an option anymore,” she said quietly.
“Well, it should be,” he said, with a sneer. “And who’s to stop me? You? Either of you? I don’t think so.” As he spoke he waved the gun at their faces.
“Have you killed anybody here?” Rodney asked. “In this house?”
“A couple,” he said. “I mean, they’re just children—and very fragile. It’s just like a chicken. You snap their necks, and they die within seconds.”
Her stomach hit the bottom of her toes and bounced back up to the top of her head before exploding outward. “Chicken? Goddammit,” she said. “These are children you killed. They had lives ahead of them.”
“What kind of life?” he said, with another sneer. “They are all just so fucked up.”
“Because of you,” she said.
“Doesn’t matter if it’s because of me or somebody else. They are all useless. I did miss a couple of them though afterward. My brother let me take one, I called her my China Doll, back to my place for a few days. I
was supposed to get rid of her, so he didn’t technically know what I did, but I took her to my little place and kept her for a couple days, just so I could enjoy her company, but it wasn’t the same.”
“Dear God,” she said. “That was her pink ribbon I found in your couch.”
“Really?” he said, looking at her in surprise. “I was pretty damn sure I cleaned all that up.”
“I don’t think so,” she said. “I also found your notebook.”
“Yeah, well, that notebook—I’d only gotten a little way into my lists,” he said, “when I decided I needed to get out and elevate my tactics a little more.”
“Why did you kill the other pedophiles?” she asked, curious.
He just gave her a blank look. “Why not? They were losers.”
“No. There was a reason,” she said. “What was it?”
“They wouldn’t share,” he said simply. “They had what I wanted, and they wouldn’t let me have it.”
“Besides the little Asian girl, who you were trying to buy?”
He frowned and straightened up. “Did you get into Nico’s laptop?”
“Oh, yeah, we got into his and your laptops,” Rodney said. “Interesting read. We got into the chat and saw that you didn’t like the price.”
“Then you came after me and rescued the little girl anyway,” he said. “What a waste.”
“Well, I don’t think so,” she said. “I’m pretty damn sure there is more to that than meets the eye.”
“Whatever,” he said. “That stupid Nico. He was a mess, and he should have just given me the damn girl. Then none of this would have happened.”
“Instead you killed him.”
“And took all the money he had with him,” he said. “There was a lot, and I was grateful to have it.”
“You speak so casually,” she said, “as if you don’t really care.”
“Well, I don’t,” he said in surprise. “What’s to care about after you’ve been through jail? Life is not the same anymore.”
“That doesn’t mean you have to go around making it worse,” she said.
“It’s just a fact of life,” he said. “It’s all about surviving, making something out of life for yourself to enjoy.”
“Says you.”
“Yep, says me,” he said. “Besides, that’s not what my life could be like now. I’ve got my brother’s cards now too. I could take the money, whatever I can get, and run. He will lose this house, just like I lost mine.”
“What makes you think you’ll just walk away so easily?” she asked.
He smiled and said, “Remember the gun?” He looked down at the little boy in the bed, drugged, and lined up his gun to the child’s head.
“And you would kill a child for that?”
“Well, I have to clean up loose ends,” he said.
“If you fire at that child, I will take you out.”
He looked at her, smiled, and said, “Women are so simple.” Just then, he moved and pointed the gun her way. But she was already running toward him. He immediately fired once and then turned it on Rodney and fired a second time. She felt the hit slamming into her shoulder, as she went down from the blast. But she refused to listen and had already bounced onto her feet, heading toward him again.
“Fuck you,” he snapped, lined up for a shot again.
But an arm snaked around his neck from behind, pulling York backward, his gun arm flying upward, as another arm came around, grabbed his trigger finger, and fired into the ceiling, until all the bullets were spent. She watched in shock as Simon slammed York into the ground and dropped on top of him, pinning him there. Simon grabbed York’s hands, pulled them behind his back, then looked at her. “Are you okay?”
She nodded, wavering a little bit on her feet. “I’m fine.”
Simon pointed at her partner. “What about him?” She raced to Rodney’s side and saw that he was out cold. “He’ll be okay,” she said. “The bullet wound is just a graze. He must have hit his head when he fell or something. He’ll be pissed off when he wakes up.”
“But at least he will wake up,” Simon said. He looked down at Yale’s brother, York, and said, “So, asshole, Yale finally told me all about my childhood and my connection to your family.”
“Yale told you, did he? That’s funny,” York said. “Did he also tell you that he used to curl up in bed beside you at nighttime and that you were the child who made him want to cuddle and to save everybody? The one who made him want to collect all these poor souls,” he said. “I bet he didn’t. He’s just that much older than you that, of course, you don’t remember.”
“No, I don’t,” he said. His voice hard, bland. “I don’t plan on remembering him anymore either. Now that we’ve got the two of you down, it’s over, as far as I’m concerned.”
“I don’t think so,” the older brother said. “Yale could bring it all out and make sure everybody in the whole world knows.”
“Knows what?” Simon asked.
“That you are a victim yourself,” he said. “He might even detail how he abused you and all the others. The world will look at you differently. Our father marked you. Some kids go through several rings and every new one gets a new line. But it always made me smile to know that my brother insisted you get the same mark. The one that says who owns you.”
“I’m not an unprotected vulnerable six-year-old anymore,” Simon said. “So fuck off, asshole.” And, with that, he hit him hard in the head, knocking him out cold.
Looking around, he saw her standing there, leaning against the doorjamb, placing pressure on her wound. He checked her out and said, “It’s not too bad. I’ve got one to match.”
“I said it was okay,” she snapped. “So they were involved in your victimization?”
“Apparently my foster father was their biological father,” he said, with a hard sigh. “According to Yale, my biological father was a no good drunk while his was a prominent local businessman. My birth mother was some bar-hopping floozy he got pregnant, and Yale didn’t give me her name. When my father refused to acknowledge me, she ended up selling me to Yale’s father for a pittance. I wouldn’t doubt that that they deep-sixed her somewhere. I don’t know that for sure however. Yale did say they killed Josh, his own father, so that’s another cold case file covered in dust somewhere that needs to be closed.”
“Sounds like she didn’t know what to do as a single mother with her lifestyle,” she said. “Maybe she deluded herself into thinking a better life was there for her baby.”
“I’m not sure what kind of rosy scenario you’re dreaming up in that head of yours, Detective,” he said calmly, “but that’s not reality.” He tossed the ball up in the air, as he waited for her to answer. Her gaze locked on the ball. Had she not seen him in the park that day tossing that same ball?
“Maybe not,” she said, “but it makes it easier to sleep at night. And, when you do this shit all day long, you realize a hell of a lot of monsters are in the world who are worse than you ever thought.”
“But this time,” he said, “you won the day, and now you get to go on and fight some more.” And that’s why he was keeping the ball. He’d beaten that memory, that nightmare. He figured touching the ball had triggered his slide into the darkness, but now he was back in the light. And that’s where he would stay.
“Maybe,” she said, straightening up and groaning. “But not today. No way in hell today. The focus is finding Leonard, the little boy.”
“Look for packing boxes,” he said, suddenly staring around at the mess. “He’s hiding here somewhere.” And he called out, “Leonard, it’s Simon. Let me know where you are.”
“What the hell?” she snapped, staring at him.
“Don’t ask,” he said, with a head shake. “But we need to find him. His voice sounded funny. And he said York gave him medicine, a different one this time.”
*
“Jesus.” She assessed their space. “Let’s split up and look for him. We’ve got cops coming. We’
ll tear this place apart to find him.” She bolted out of the room and, ignoring her shoulder, moved as fast as she could through the basement area filled with boxes. When she came to a roomful of boxes, she groaned. “Leonard, are you in here?”
No answer.
She walked through the stacks, looking for the little boy. Nothing. Not behind the boxes or anywhere close. She found a bathroom and a small bedroom, but no sign of the boy. She turned to study the boxes. A packing slip crossed her gaze. She walked closer. The box was large, slumped to one side. The numbers running along the sticker were 4441 4441 4441.
She jumped into action, shuffling boxes, until she could get to the one she wanted. As she reached for the side and tried to shift it, Simon suddenly appeared beside her. He ripped open the top of the carton.
Out tumbled a little boy to lie at their feet. Simon dropped down beside him.
“Is he alive?” she asked, struggling against the dizziness attacking her. Using his back for support she crumpled to the floor beside them.
Simon put his finger on the boy’s neck, then looked at her. A huge grin broke across his face.
“Yes, he’s alive.”
Chapter 28
Friday
“You will stand and will accept the commendations,” Colby said in exasperation, “with a smile on your face.”
Kate glared at him. “I don’t want to go.”
“Doesn’t matter if you want to go or not,” he said. “You helped crack a very major child abuse ring,” he said, shaking his head. “I still can’t believe this has been going on so long right under our noses.”
“I think it’s more about them keeping track of each other, sliding victims back and forth, depending on who was in jail and who wasn’t. They covered each other’s asses and stayed in their own dark little shadows, only coming out enough to touch base with each other, only as much as they needed to.”
“And Simon?”
“Simon is fine,” she said, her tone brittle.
He gave her a half smirk. “So, one-night stands don’t work for you, do they?”
