Not Alone

by Frederic Martin

  So here he was back at the beginning. He and Blue needed evidence in order to get anyone’s attention and it should be convincing and anonymous. No one listened to kids about serious stuff like this unless something that couldn’t be ignored was shoved right under their noses. Will was beginning to convince himself that maybe Blue was right. After all, just about everything she had said and talked about sounded like she was way ahead of him when it came to worldly matters like this. She obviously thought about things like this often and was passionate about them, driven by some deep motivation she felt she couldn’t share.

  Will tried to think of anything he was passionate about. Basketball? That seemed kind of shallow. Science? That had at least had some merit. But what did that matter beyond his own self? What did he care about outside himself? Well, he cared about his mom and dad. He and Rose were pretty tight, and he cared about her. Blue had said that if these drug dealers didn’t get caught, more and more kids were going to have their lives ruined. And Rose was one of those kids that could be affected. Rose, taking drugs? Will shuddered. That seemed way too creepy and depressing. He couldn’t imagine Rose as a sullen druggie. Was it possible? He had friends whose sisters or brothers had gotten into drugs. Some he wasn’t surprised about, but some were kids Will never guessed would go that way.

  So wasn’t getting these guys arrested the same as protecting Rose? And didn’t his parents say he should always stick up for Rose? And what about Blue? Did he care for her? What about protecting her? He must not have cared enough to go with her tonight. On the other hand, she seemed invincible.

  Arrgh! It was too confusing. He felt like he was doing what adults always expected of him—sticking to the rules. It was a safe path. If anything happened, no one would blame him, and everyone would say he made the right choice. But it didn’t feel that way. It felt like cowardice. It felt like abandonment. He wanted to change his mind and go, but he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. The thought of getting up, going out, and trying to bust some drug dealers was just ridiculous. He was sure that Blue would come to the same conclusion and chicken out, too. At least he hoped so. Morning would bring the answer and reveal that this whole thing had been just a crazy idea and nothing real would come from it. Blue would make more plans, not do them, and just be a wanna-be superhero like every other kid. The sooner Will fell asleep, the sooner morning would come, and this whole crummy feeling he was having would be over.

  He laid down in the dark, scrunched up his pillow, closed his eyes and sighed. His mind was still buzzing. What if, what if, what if? Cowardice, abandonment, crazy plans, drug dealers, Rose turning into a drug addict, Blue tackling the drug lord Gronk and tying him up. News headlines declaring Blue a heroine. Heroin, heroine, dope, dopey.

  He just could not get to sleep. He tossed, he turned, thought he was asleep, looked at the clock. Still only 1:30. God, it was hours until morning. The drug deal would have already gone down. It was officially too late. Still, he couldn’t stand it. He got up in the dark. He could at least sneak out, go across the street, check Blue’s window, and if she was awake, check to see if she had gone or not, been successful or not. If she was asleep, it wouldn’t matter—at least he would have done something.

  Without changing out of his pajamas, Will stuck his sneakers on. He was only going to slip across the street and down the block, and no one was going to see him at that time of night. He opened his window and slipped silently out, just as they had practiced. It was a pretty cool feeling, being able to slip around unnoticed. He crossed the street, keeping to the well-known shadowy spots. He knew the area well now and didn’t stub his toe or run into anything in the dark. He crouched at the spot in the O’Day yard where he had the best angle for reflecting vox into her room. It was quiet. There were no police cars or sirens or anything unusual going on. Everything seemed perfectly normal for that time of night.

  He did his signature, “click, click, click,” and watched for a moment. He waited for her “cht, cht, cht” reply. It didn’t come. He did it again, “click, click, click, click.” Nothing. He kept at it a few minutes more, but then he gave up. If she was awake, she would have come to the window by then. She had either gone out and come back safely or had never gone out, and he was guessing, the latter, but deep down, he was hoping for the former. It would be pretty cool if she pulled it off. The only way to find out for sure was to sneak into the O’Day house and up to her room. He considered that for a minute but . . . no way. No way could he do something that bold. If he were caught he would have no explanation of what he was doing and why. His parents would flip. The O’Days would flip. Wu would probably be completely miffed. And Nate? Well, getting on the wrong side of Nate was a scary proposition.

  Will came to the realization that basically, his excursion tonight had accomplished nothing. But at least he had tried, and that was something. And there were no sirens, only the normal peaceful night sounds. That made him feel a little better.

  He quickly slipped back to his room and checked the clock. It was 2 a.m. and this time when his head hit the pillow, he went straight to sleep.

  22

  Bronco

  He should leave tonight. That’s what kept running through Bronco’s head after he left the room where the girl was tied up. Leave tonight and I can get out of here clean, he thought. The problem was, the bulk of his “earnings” from the last ten months was sitting in a safe deposit box at the bank and he couldn’t get at that until 9 a.m. He was kicking himself for using a safe deposit box, but he knew he had to. Keeping that much money around the house was risky. Nothing worse than a criminal getting criminalized.

  He grabbed the police scanner out of his backpack, his bug-out bag. It was stuffed with the critical items he would need in case he had to make a quick escape. He switched on the scanner and set it on the kitchen table. He slid out his laptop and put it on the table, along with his cell phone, and he plugged them both into their chargers. Then he put on some coffee. It was 2 a.m. He wasn’t going to get any sleep, and he had a lot of planning to do. He wanted his equipment charged and ready to go and he wanted to be charged and ready to go.

  There was no activity on the scanner, at least not yet. He expected the night cruiser to do a check-in with the dispatcher periodically, and once he heard that, he would know that no one had called in a missing person.

  He considered the situation carefully. He recognized this girl. It was a girl he had seen at the park when he was getting Jack started with the dope trade. She was notable because she was a loner—carried a book bag, sat by herself, and did a lot of reading. He had looked for identification on her when she was still half-conscious, but all he found was a name written with a permanent marker on her shirt tag: O’Day. That should be enough for him to find some information on her. If she was from a well-connected family, he would have to consider leaving his safe deposit box behind. He wasn’t going to stick around if somebody pulled out all the stops looking for this kid. It wasn’t worth it.

  On the other hand, the fact that she was a loner kid with a high-tech camera, and that no one had reported her missing yet, meant that she probably “borrowed” the camera and snuck out without telling anyone. This wasn’t an activity any parent would sanction, so she was probably on her own. Pretty gutsy kid, but pretty stupid also. On the other hand, he had to give her credit. She had nearly nailed him. The video and the stills she had captured on that night vision camera were good. Good enough to put him in jail. If he hadn’t dropped his lighter, that’s where he’d be headed. That bugged him. He had nearly gotten caught down in the city a couple of times, but that was by cops, and that was their job. That was why he was up here and why he was being way more careful. But this came out of nowhere. Who in hell would suspect a little kid in a park of being some sort of mini-vigilante, and why would this kid be after him? And most importantly, how did she get the information she had? And who else knew about it?

  The wild card was just that. When would the police get the call,
and how much had this girl left behind that they could use to catch him? And how the hell did she find out about the rendezvous the previous night? And where the hell did she get that night vision camera? That was not just a consumer night vision camera, this was the kind people bought for jacking deer or spying.

  As for the rendezvous, Jack was about the only person who would know, besides his customers. He and Jack had talked it over more than once in public. Could she have overheard when they were in the park? Not likely. Bronco was way too cautious for that. He was sure no one could possibly have heard them, unless they had Superman-like hearing or could read lips. He considered that for a moment. It seemed daft, reading lips—too much like a movie script. It didn’t happen in real life. There were lip readers out there, of course, but they were usually deaf and had to focus carefully to understand a person. They’d have to be right in front of you, and this girl had never been even close. And she certainly wasn’t deaf.

  Maybe one of his customers gave it away, but why would they do that? They would put themselves at risk, too, and why would they tell a kid? Maybe she was a stoner. Maybe Jack had sold her some weed. Maybe she had asked for something more. Jack could have told her about how to get heroin, but even Jack didn’t know any details about when or where a deal happened. For any new potential customer, Jack would give Bronco a phone number and some background info. Bronco would call the customer and set up a place and a time, but he would only give them an exact time after he had confirmed that the night police cruiser had passed or was out of range.

  It kept coming down to the same thing—it didn’t make sense that anyone would give information like that to a kid. And it was clear that no one had talked to the police already. If the police knew, he would be hearing a lot more activity on the scanner. That was the one sure thing. The police did not know about the drug deal. They would never know about the drug deal. His customers did not know his identity. This girl was the one person that could nail him, and the police did not know where she was. He was going to make sure it stayed that way until he was a long way away. He just needed to find out who she was and where she lived. Once he had that information he would have better control of the situation.

  He typed “O’Day Westbury Vermont” into Google, and the results relaxed him a little. The whole first page was full of good hits. It looked like there was only one O’Day family in town, and it was a foster family. It looks like his girl might be a foster kid, and that was a good sign. Their first thought would be “runaway” and that was a whole lot better than “abducted.” Better for him, anyway.

  He made up his mind, he was going to stick around and get his money. That would also give him more time to erase as many of his tracks as possible. This was better. Be smart, take your time, don’t look like you’re in a hurry, don’t look like anything is out of the ordinary. That’s how you stay out of jail. Hide in plain sight like what his father had taught him. His father may have been a bastard, but he was damn good at staying out of jail.

  Then he had to decide what to do with the girl. His preference was to just leave her behind and then maybe call in an anonymous tip in a couple of days with information on where they could find her alive once he was safely gone. If they found her alive and had no trail to follow, they would give up. It wasn’t worth the search, not for a two-bit drug dealer. They would just be happy he disappeared and that they got the girl back safely.

  His second choice was to kill her and dump the body. This was not a problem either. He’d helped his dad dump plenty of bodies. It just involved a good location and a lot of digging, which he was not fond of. It would also require the cover of darkness, which meant he would have to wait around until after dark to leave. He had no real reason to kill her yet, except the certainty that anything in that head of hers that could get him nailed would be erased, unequivocally. He doubted a great deal if she knew anything that would help the police to follow him once he had split. But he was going to find out when she woke up.

  For now, he had a lot of other things to do in the time before the bank opened. First thing was to find out more about this O’Day family. Bronco poured a cup of coffee and got to work.

  23

  Captive

  Blue kept trying to get some sleep, but between the throbbing in her head, the digging of the zip-ties, and the ache in her shoulders from having her hands bound behind her, she was having little success. She would nod off uncomfortably until the throbbing woke her again, and then she’d try another position, and nod off again, only to wake again moments later. It seemed like forever, but eventually, daylight came and in spite of the hellish night, she felt a little bit rested. She lay there alone in the dimness of the early morning and tried to set aside the pain and discomfort and think of what she could possibly do to get out of there. Unfortunately, a new concern started to dominate all her thoughts. She had to pee. Badly. She couldn’t believe that a biological function could trump being kidnapped, but there it was. Time slowed to a crawl and she was getting to the point where she couldn’t hold it anymore when she heard a noise outside the room and then watched as the door opened and Bronco stepped into the room. She hated herself for being happy to see him as he was the only one that could save her from her immediate plight.

  Bronco looked at her and mistook her pleading look, “Don’t worry, girl, I’m not going to break your arms. You cooperated nicely.” He walked over, pulled a chair to the bed and sat opposite her. He said the words she was hoping he’d say, but his menacing tone was a reminder of her real predicament, “I’m going to pull the tape off your mouth. Don’t even think about shouting for help. You make a single loud sound, and you will not make another. You got that?”

  Blue nodded sincerely. She was going to be the cooperative captive as much as she could. At least for now.

  He reached over to her face. She felt him tugging at the tape and then felt it slowly release from her skin. As soon as a corner of her mouth was free, she finally ventured her urgent question, “I’ve really got to pee.”

  Bronco glared at her. “All right, just don’t do it right here. I’ll get you to a bathroom.”

  He released her from the bed frame, but her hands were still bound behind her back. He carried her to a small closet toilet. She was shocked at how clean and tidy it was. Somehow she expected a low-life like Bronco to be a slob. He set her down on her feet and then took out a pocket knife. She stiffened.

  “Relax, little girl—I’m just taking the zip tie off your wrists. Turn around.”

  She hopped herself around on her bound feet and then felt his knife cut through the zip tie. The relief on her shoulders and wrist were instant. He turned her back around and said, “Your feet stayed tied. I’m not taking a chance of you running. You are way too fast. Just sit down and do your business, I’ll be standing right outside.” And he stood up and stepped out, but kept the door halfway open.

  She took a second to move her arms around and to get her hands working again. It felt so good to move them! She managed to get her pants down without falling over and sat down on the toilet. It was hard for her to relax but she managed to ‘do her business’. The relief was tremendous. Unfortunately, filling the void that the relief left behind was a sickly feeling in the pit of her stomach. She was a prisoner, she didn’t know where she was, and she didn’t know what Bronco was going to do to her.

  She stood up pulled up her pants and zipped them. She flushed the toilet and whispered, “I’m done.” He opened the door all the way and picked her up and carried her back into the room. He wasn’t rough, just business-like, carrying her like a piece of furniture. He sat her down in an armchair.

  “Sit still for a minute,” he said. He picked up a roll of duct tape and reached for her upper arm. She instinctively pulled her arm away, but he grabbed her firmly and said “I said sit still. I need to tie your arms up for a while until we can trust each other. This will be more comfortable than the zip ties, but I can zip tie your hands behind your back again if yo
u’d like.” He looked at her. She looked at him. His eyes were dead. His words sounded sympathetic, but they were just words with nothing even human backing them up. It was the most terrifying thing she had ever seen. There was no doubt this guy was a psychopath. She put her arm back and sat very still.

  He didn’t say anything more. He pulled off a long piece off of duct tape and wrapped it around her upper arm, and around the back rail of the chair. It was snug but her shirt protected her from the aggressive stickiness of the tape. He then taped her forearm to the arm of the chair. He did her other arm the same way, and then cut the zip ties off her ankles and taped them securely to the chair legs. She wiggled them a little and her heart fell. He had used a lot of tape.

  “There now,” he said. “You can move your arms around a little and scratch your navel if you want, but good luck trying to get out of that.” He sat back studying his work with satisfaction.

  “Now let’s have a little chat. I don’t know who you are or what the hell you thought you were doing last night. All I know is that you’re a kid that made the mistake of sticking her nose in my business, and now I have to take care of you somehow, like a stray dog.”

  He stared at his feet and started tapping one foot thoughtfully. “I took a look at that night vision camera of yours. You recorded a very nice video. I’d like to think it was just an accidental film, just something you thought interesting to shoot, while you were casually walking around dressed in black clothes and blackened face past midnight in the park. I like how you zoomed in on the license plate and the faces. It came out very clear. It’s a very nice piece of equipment. I’m wondering where the heck you picked it up.”