by Alex Gates
“I know what she’s worth…” Jason covered his face with his hands. “A father—putting a price tag on his own daughter. How terrible is that? I know how much it costs to save her from a life like Alyssa’s. I don’t want anyone else touching her. Holding her. She was supposed to be mine. I’m sorry, Detective.” Jason stared at me, tears in his eyes. “I’m just doing what any father would do. I have to save my little girl.”
“From who?”
Jason didn’t answer.
He looked behind me.
Boots scraped on concrete. Heavy. A man’s limping step.
I twisted, narrowly avoiding the five-inch blade flashing near my neck. The attack was quick. I grabbed the assailant’s wrist and twisted. It didn’t break, but it was enough for him to yowl in pain. The knife dropped to the ground, but I was thrown off balance.
The fist collided with my temple. I collapsed in the shadow of Tim Gibson.
He reached for the knife, but Jason reached it first.
“Don’t,” he said. “We can use her.”
Two men.
Alyssa’s note.
Jason Carter and Tim Gibson had organized the kidnapping and rapes of their own children.
And now they planned to murder me.
“Bring her with us,” Jason said. “We’ll make a trade.”
A trade?
With who?
Tim wore a boot on his broken ankle. It added weight to his kick to my head. Darkness swept over me.
I’d been wrong. So very wrong.
And the mistake would cost me my life.
30
It isn’t masochism to like pain.
Everyone wants to feel alive until the end.
-Him
My head cracked against the trunk’s floor.
The jolt woke me. The pain nearly put me back down.
The car bounced hard against what had to be ice covered roads. The wheels locked, and we slid. My stomach turned, but the fishtail was quick, rumbling into snow. We couldn’t have been on a main road.
Where the hell were they taking me?
My head ached, but a punch and kick tended to do that. Good thing the trunk was dark. Even the glow from the emergency release and the occasional press of the brake lights blinded me.
Panic was comforting, but I didn’t have the time. I sucked in a breath and tried to figure out why my arms hurt so badly.
Thick strips of duct tape tugged at my skin. They’d wound the tape over my wrists but left my legs free. In a hurry maybe? At least I was still alive. Whoever they’d planned to meet had a use for me. At least until an exchange was made.
Me for Sophia?
Maybe Jason hoped for it, but my life wasn’t worth hers. And whomever still held her would know it. Jason had acted in pure hysteria and grief. Tim was a finger of whiskey short of a bar fight on his best days. His anger didn’t allow him to think rationally. Neither realized that the meeting was suicide. They’d lose their hostage, their money, and their lives.
Whoever held Sophia lured them into a trap. Blood for blood.
My heart lurched with every bump of the tires. Slowing down. Rounding a bend. Skidding over snow. Wherever they took me wasn’t a place anyone else had been in a long time. Further into the woods, deeper into danger.
I ground my hip against the floor. No cell phone. They were getting expensive to replace. No gun either. I pawed in the back of the trunk. The emergency kit rested at my feet. It wasn’t much, but I kicked it into my gut and twisted my numb fingers over the zipper. I needed only a couple inches to realize their bag was stocked more for AA than AAA. Four Iron City cans rattled in the bottom, frozen. I shuffled them away and dug deeper.
Bingo. A multitool. It wasn’t much, but it at least one of the features was a small blade. Enough to piss someone off but not exactly lethal. I’d take what I could get.
If I ever got the chance to use it.
The car pulled to a stop. I gripped the tool. Did I risk freeing my hands and launching from the trunk? For all I knew, the car had parked right outside my execution. Then again, if they were planning on trading me for Sophia, acting too quick and attacking my captors would bury two bullets in my skull before I had a chance to see if she was even alive.
I didn’t have time. If they’d wanted me dead, they’d have done it already.
I tucked the multitool as far up my sleeve as the duct tape allowed.
The car doors opened and banged shut almost immediately. The sharp crack dizzied my head, and the pain swept from my throbbing temples along every nerve in my body. It didn’t go away, only grew worse the longer I stayed awake.
The trunk popped. A flood of obscene white brightness washed over me. Snow. Snow everywhere, pristine and reflecting the morning sun. Hands grabbed me. I couldn’t tell who. He wasn’t gentle hauling me from the car, and my head banged against the trunk door again.
I tumbled onto the coldness and fought the nausea.
“Get up.” Tim spoke with his fists. A jab to my kidney rolled me over. I squinted directly into the barrel of a gun. “You don’t make a goddamned sound. Got it?”
Easy enough. I couldn’t form words, only an incoherent groan as he pulled me to my knees and settled me in the snow ten feet away from the car. Pain choked me. My leg bent awkwardly under me. I couldn’t move. Tim waited behind me, aiming the gun.
I’d make one very cold, very pissed off corpse.
The snow seeped into my clothes. Jeans and a long sleeve shirt. Not great attire for weather blowing more bad weather off Lake Erie. I squinted. The light blurred everything. Not that I had much to see. Trees surrounded us, some bare and stripped of leaves, others towering thick pines. The clearing seemed artificial. Someone had manually cut through the forest to create a sort of campground. Maybe big enough for a couple families on a vacation.
Had they ever done that before—Tim and Jason?
Taken their families away? Let the kids play under the stars? Barbeque and camp and sing songs around a bonfire?
Or did they only work together when planning how to kidnap and rape their children?
“He’s coming.” Jason bit his nails as he paced around the car. He clutched something in his glove. A storage drive. The fifty grand in Bitcoin? “Can you see her?”
Tim frowned. “No.”
“Fuck.” Jason panicked too quickly to have a gun so near his hands. “Fuck. What if he didn’t bring her?”
“He’ll have her.”
“I don’t like this,” Jason said. Neither did I, but they hadn’t asked my opinion. “What if he sees the cop and starts shooting?”
“Then you better hope he’s aiming for her.”
I forced my eyes open, staring at the tracks left by Jason’s car. A red pick-up truck bumped along the road.
I recognized it. Christ, did I recognize it.
And I should have known.
David Wicker parked the truck a good twenty feet away from Tim and Jason. He slid from the driver’s seat, removing a shot gun from a bracket in the back.
“Shit, shit, shit.” Jason’s murmured hysteria helped no one. “What the fuck.”
Tim’s gun bumped against my head. An accident? No. His attention fixed on the truck. They weren’t the only ones who brought a guest to this meeting.
David hollered at the passenger door. He yanked it open, and the body fell out, weeping and begging for mercy.
Amy Wicker stumbled at David’s feet as he kicked her through the snow. Her nightgown flew up, and she panicked when the snow touched her thighs. I worried more for her feet—bare and already turning pink. The gun edged her through the clearing. She half-crawled, half-sprinted, eyeing Tim and Jason with a momentary relief.
“Help!” She shouted.
She wouldn’t find it here.
Not now.
Not from these monsters.
David Wicker.
Tim Gibson.
Jason Carter.
Three fathers, grieving the loss of the child
ren they kidnapped.
Three fathers, inconsolable about the perverted abuses of their daughters.
Three fathers, liars and frauds, deceiving their own families.
They’d worked together on it.
It was why no alibis fit. It was how the mine had been cleared so thoroughly. How no one had ever thought to question the victimized families.
They’d plotted it together.
How could that much evil exist on a single street?
“Detective!” Amy’s scream pierced the wilderness. “He has Sophia—”
The butt of the gun jammed against her skull. Not hard enough to knock her out, just painful. Her cry shrilled into a yelp.
Jason wasted no time. He raised his gun. “Where is she?”
Tim ignored him. “What the hell is Amy doing here?”
David jammed the shotgun against Amy’s back. “Our guest of honor? I should ask the same. What’s that bitch doing here?”
“Thought we could make a trade. The cop for Sophia.”
“Not a great bargain. Why do you get the girl and I get a corpse?”
Son of a bitch. I tested the duct tape. Thick, but manageable. I could rip through it, but not yet. Not with shot guns and a magnum pointed at my head.
“You don’t get a goddamned thing until I see my daughter,” Jason said. “Where the hell is she?”
David didn’t answer. He stared at his friends, shoulders heavy. “You know. I’m goddamned insulted. You invite me here. You bribe me with money. Then you point a gun in my face. It’s enough to make a man feel threatened.”
He walked backwards, approaching his truck. He lowered the gun only as he picked up something far more precious. The little girl was bound and gagged, shivering and weeping, but Sophia was alive. She frantically struggled against the ropes binding her hands and feet.
“Sophia!” Jason’s shout somehow sounded like the agonized cry of a father and not the relief of a desperate pedophile. “It’s okay, sweetheart!”
“Is it?” David ripped Sophia’s hair back, forcing her to look at her father. “How can this be okay? Last I heard, everything had gone to shit. You two cowards didn’t even have the balls to murder me yourselves. A drive-by? You could have hit my precious, faithful wife.”
He kicked her. Amy wailed. Sophia stiffened in horror.
Tim’s voice burned with hatred. “And that Christmas present you left me? You murdered Kaitlyn.”
“And I should have killed you.” David shrugged. “My aim isn’t what it used to be.”
“Then we’re even.” Jason holstered his gun. “Everyone’s a lousy shot, and we should all be dead and buried. It’s over. Give me my daughter, and we’ll go our separate ways.”
“I don’t think that’s possible anymore.” David’s eyebrow twitched. “That all changed when mother-fucking Alyssa showed up dead at the hospital.” He pointed at Tim. “You said you’d killed her.”
Amy wailed. Another slam of the gun silenced her sobbing.
Tim didn’t show any remorse. “Alyssa must have gotten away.”
“You let her go.”
Jason spoke when he should have stayed quiet, especially in range of the shotgun. “She wasn’t gonna be any trouble. I wasn’t killing a girl because she grew tits.”
“So you jeopardized everything?”
“Alyssa didn’t talk,” Tim said. “Neither will Sophia. We should have ended it months ago. It’s over, David.”
The gun drifted down. Sophia screamed into the gag as it poked her belly. Just a tease. David kicked her into the snow and reached for his wife.
“See…I had this vision of how it’d end.” David hauled Amy up by the neck. “And I was hoping we’d all be here for it. Gone, but not forgotten, isn’t he, honey?”
Amy stayed still, but the terror trembled her head to toe. “W—who?”
“Your lover. If only Todd were here to see the fall of our empire.”
“What are you talking about?”
Tim stepped forward. “David, what the hell are you doing?”
He ignored his friend, grinning malicious and cold at his wife instead. “I thought you’d have figured it out by now. The girls? The videos?” He leaned down, his whisper too callous to be soft. “We never credited the films, those Todd Desmond productions.”
“No!” Amy struggled, batting him away. He smacked her into submission once more. She covered her ears. “No, I don’t believe you.”
“What’s not to believe?” David nodded towards Jason and Tim. “All it took was a little push. Todd was a deviant. Loved everything he couldn’t have. Kids. Other men’s wives. And he had this plan…”
“No.”
Jason swore. “David, stop!”
“He knew a way to make money and have fun,” David said. “All he needed was one itsy bitsy little girl. He’d get his dick wet, and we’d profit. Oh, Amy. You have no idea how much people would pay to watch your boyfriend hump those girls to bed each night.”
Amy’s words sputtered from frozen lips. “Todd would never—”
“You didn’t know him as well as you thought.”
David pulled the photographs from his pocket. He didn’t bother handing them to her. He let the debauchery fall like snowflakes over his wife. Images of pain and suffering, perversion and sickness. Ones I’d never seen.
The first and only photos of the actual rapist with his child of choice.
Todd Desmond and Alyssa Wicker.
Tim and Jason fell silent as Amy screamed. She tore at the snow in front of her, burying the images. Her wailing sorrow echoed against the absolute stillness of the forest.
“My baby…no. No, no, no. David…”
“Todd never told you?” David asked. “Here I thought you were so close. Sharing a bed. Sharing a life.” His voice darkened. “Sharing a family.”
Amy choked, her breath a shocked squeal of pain and desperation. She stared at her husband.
David scowled. “You think I didn’t know? That I couldn’t tell?” He slapped her across the face. “I knew about the affair, Amy. I knew from the first time you came home reeking of sex. I knew the instant you got pregnant.”
He laughed.
Actually laughed.
Cold and menacing and absolutely insane.
“I held that baby in my arms and knew,” he said. “Alyssa wasn’t my daughter.”
“Jesus Christ.” Tim’s gun lowered. More secrets, some not even David’s closest friends knew. “What the hell are you saying?”
David kicked a photo, examining a particularly graphic image. “Todd thought he could hide it from me. The affair. How night after night he cucked me. Called me his best friend too. Well, I couldn’t let that stand. What sort of man would I be if I hadn’t defended myself?” He smiled at his wife. “And then there was Alyssa. Pretty little Alyssa. Todd always liked her the best. And when I offered her to him…when I whispered the plan in his ear and promised him full access in exchange for a little videotaping?” He knelt down to face his wife. “He was so eager to rape that little girl he never realized he was fucking his own daughter.”
Jesus Christ.
That’s what this was? That’s why three girls were lost and hurt?
Revenge?
Jason and Tim went still. As shocked as us. That wasn’t good for this hostage negotiation. Insanity would turn this into a massacre.
I shifted my weight. Every little movement, every ragged breath pained my head. I wasn’t in a position to save myself let alone defend an innocent girl and a traumatized woman from three armed rapists and murderers.
Amy kept her eyes closed. It wouldn’t help. Those images would never go away.
“You killed Todd…” she whispered.
David nearly shot her then. He restrained himself, teetering on the brink of anger and madness. “You really do think I’m stupid, don’t you?” He shoved the gun under her chin. “Answer me! You think I’m that goddamned stupid?”
“No!” Amy screeche
d the words. “No! No, I don’t! I swear!”
David forced her to look at Tim. “There’s your murderer. But why you’d even care who killed that piece of shit after he raped your daughter…”
Amy collapsed. She clawed the snow, her arms, her husband’s leg. “Why are you doing this?”
“Ask Tim,” David said. “Oh, he’s got a great story about Todd and how much he liked to blackmail his friends. Bet you didn’t know that either, huh? Todd had dirt on everyone. Liked having that control almost as much as he liked his little girls.” He arched his eyebrows. “How do you think we got Kaitlyn and Sophia so easily?”
Amy groaned. So did Jason.
David nodded. “Todd knew what Jason was the instant they met. Took a while before he had the proof that Jason was molesting Sophia. After that? Well, Todd was very convincing. Told Jason once Sophia was old enough, they’d have her together. Make enough money that Jason could run with her and no one would ever be able to find Daddy and his little girl.”
Amy stared at Jason in horror. “How…how could you?”
Jason nearly turned the gun on himself. “I had no choice. He would have called the police. Had her taken away! This was the only way I could keep her close!”
Tim’s gun shifted towards David. “You’re a goddamned prick. I should have killed you when I had the chance.”
“You do like spilling blood, don’t you?” David glanced at his wife. “Tim had to kill Todd because Todd knew the truth.”
“Don’t.” Tim shook his head. “Don’t you dare—”
“Because Todd was there when Tim murdered his son.”
Tim’s hand shook. The gun trembled with it. “I didn’t murder him! I loved my son!”
“And yet, he’s six feet below, and you’re still breathing above it, for now.”
“It was an accident!”
“An accident?” David’s laugh carried over the trees. “He died with your cock in his mouth. That’s one strange accident!”
“You son of a bitch!”
Jason lunged at Tim, preventing him from shooting. “Stop! Don’t! You’ll hit Sophia!”
Tim fought the hold. “He was my son!”
