by Joseph Lewis
CHAPTER NINE
Chicago, Illinois
“There is no way my brother would do any of that, especially to Brett!” Victoria said, leaning forward, teeth bared, finger rapping the polished faux mahogany conference table in a modestly furnished conference room where doctors met with patients and their loved ones to give them unwanted news or in some cases, messages of hope and relief. This was not an occasion of hope or relief. “No way!” She repeated for good measure.
Just as he had done with each of the boys’ parents, Jeremy sat on one side of the table with Dr. Blaine Flasch on his left and Agents Pete Kelliher and Vince Cochrane on his right. Flasch was the surgeon and attending physician for their son, Brett.
Initially, the meeting was as grim as the previous meetings Jeremy had had with Tim’s, Mike’s and Stephen’s parents. Disbelief, yet relief. Anger and frustration. Horror, shock and revulsion. He spoke about how the kids seemed to be more mature and older. Even though they looked young, perhaps because of what they went through, each boy acted older. Lost was the playfulness, the laughter. Instead, there was a somber attitude, a serious attitude that belied the fact that they were only thirteen or fourteen years old.
He talked about Brett’s caretaker role with the boys, cleaning up after Tim and Mike and he asked, “How many fourteen year old boys would do that? How many do you know who would ask for that kind of help from another boy his own age?”
Victoria and Tom stared at him in silence.
“But when you think about it, their childhood was ripped away from them. Stolen, if you will. Each boy acts older than his age. Each boy seems serious. There’s not the laughter or teasing you would find in boys their age. But as I said, that’s understandable given what happened to them for so long.”
Dr. Flasch explained the shoulder wound and the resulting surgery and the proposed rehab Brett had begun and would need to follow up with. Arrangements were made for the transmittal of records and x-rays. There were questions as to Brett’s overall health, which was surprisingly good, except for the fact that he’d have to be tested every six months for the next two years or so for HIV. He explained that, like the other boys, Brett had suffered from malnutrition and dehydration. He added that Brett had refused any pain medication other than Ibuprofen since coming out of surgery.
Unlike Jeremy’s previous meetings, there was open hostility towards Kelliher and Cochrane as well as a refusal to believe, at least on the part of Victoria, anything they had to say about her brother, Brett’s uncle, Anthony Dominico. She would not hear anything about him having anything to do with Brett’s kidnapping, his captivity, or that Dominico had any knowledge of Brett’s whereabouts during the twenty-two months Brett had been in captivity.
Speaking quietly, actually softly, Thomas asked, “What you’re suggesting is that Tony had Brett kidnapped, forced him into this . . . ring, had him held captive and knew where he was all along?”
Victoria shut her eyes and shook her head, refusing to believe.
Pete patted a manila folder and said, “We have pictures of Dominico entering and leaving the building where Brett and the boys were held captive. We have pictures-“
“-no!” Victoria said, leaning forward, fingertip pointing at the agent.
“-pictures of Dominico engaging in sex acts with your son and with the other boys-“
“-no!” she repeated, more forcefully this time.
“-as well as movies on DVDs of his encounters with Brett and several other boys-“
“-No! No! No!” she yelled, coming out of her chair. “Those are faked. They’re lies. You’re mistaken. You’re framing him.”
Thomas reached for Victoria’s hand, but she batted it away, and said, “Tony said you’d be telling us lies . . .” she stopped, knowing she had slipped and said too much.
Cochrane’s eyes darted towards Kelliher and then back to Victoria. Jeremy looked over at Kelliher, then back at Victoria.
“When?” Thomas asked. He had turned to his wife, shocked, and asked, “When did he tell you this?”
Victoria sat back down, placed both hands in her lap and glanced up at Kelliher and then down at her hands, refusing to say anything further.
Pete ran a hand over his face, sighed and said, “Do you believe your son to be honest?”
Thomas looked at his wife, then back at the men facing him and said softly but with force, “Absolutely. To a fault.”
Pete shrugged, looked at Jeremy and said, “It was Brett who first told us about his uncle.”
Victoria went white. Thomas covered his face with his hands and then ran them through his hair.
He looked from one agent to the other, then at Jeremy as if pleading for help. “What you’re . . . suggesting . . .” he didn’t finish, but merely shock his head.
“I know this is a shock,” Jeremy began to say.
“It’s a mistake . . . a misunderstanding,” Victoria said quietly.
“On who’s part?” Pete asked a bit more angrily than perhaps he should have.
She shook her head dismissively.
“What do we do now?” Thomas asked after the silence in the room thickened like congealed gravy.
“We’ll take you to your son. He’s anxious . . . nervous to see you,” Jeremy said.
“Nervous?” Thomas asked.
Jeremy nodded and said, “It’s been a long time, and a lot has happened to him. He’s a very tough and resilient boy, one of the leaders in the group . . . a boy the others looked up to and sought out . . . still do actually, but he’s still a fourteen year old boy. He’s scared you might not remember him . . . worried about what you might think of him . . . maybe that you’ll be disappointed in him.”
“Disappointed in him?”
“Please take us to our son,” Victoria said standing up. “Now.”
“One more thing,” Pete said.
“No! No more! I want to see my son!”
“If Dominico contacts you, we need to know because we believe your son and the other boys are in danger with him on the loose.” Then he added for good measure, “He’s a wanted felon, and harboring a felon or aiding and abetting a felon is also a felony.” This last part he said specifically to Victoria. Victoria shook her head dismissively, but said nothing. “If he contacts you, we need to know,” Pete repeated, looking first at Victoria and then at Thomas.
Thomas looked from one man to the next and then nodded slightly at Pete. It was slight, but noticeable by everyone, including his wife.
CHAPTER NINE
Northern Suburb of Indianapolis
He had hoped he wouldn’t be the only one but didn’t know for sure. Each of them knew it was a possibility that the ring would be broken. Strike that, a probability, if not an eventuality.
Each of them had a clean, unused Gmail address with a clean user name that only they had known about. He had come up with the idea and the plan and had shared it with nine others who had shared the same urges, appetites and tastes, and who had been paid well for the protection they had provided.
So much for protection. It was over- at least in its present form.
The question was, how many of them got away and were in hiding? He needed to know. He sat in front of his laptop and piggy-backed on an unsecured wireless network from one of the neighbors who lived close by.
Idiots! He thought. When would they learn?
He logged onto Gmail, clicked on Mail, then New, and typed in the nine e-mail addresses he had memorized. In the subject line, he typed, Survived! In the body of the message, he typed,
New location and new identity. Enough money to last a long time. Would like to get back at them. Maybe begin again. How about you?
He sat back and considered his message and then went back to the subject line, deleted Survived! and instead typed, Free! He then considered the message and thought it was too direct, and perhaps, too reveling, so he deleted the first two sentences. It was still direct but fairly innocuous. Besides, if anyone snooped looking f
or him, they’d find someone else’s IP address.
Now he’d sit back, wait, and see who would respond. If anyone did.
CHAPTER TEN
Chicago, Illinois
“Dammit!”
Brett slapped the water once, then twice, sending water up over side of the tub and onto the linoleum floor. He raised his bare, wet knees to his chest, hugging them with his good arm and hung his head. He was beyond frustrated. Tears sprung to his eyes, which made him even angrier.
Tim, who had been in the other room, but near the closed door, stepped into the bathroom, shut the door behind him, knelt down in a puddle on the floor next to the tub and rested his chin on his arms, trying without much luck to keep from smiling. Biting down on his tongue didn’t help either.
“Need some help?”
“I want to take a bath by myself!” Brett shouted. “For two years . . .” he shouted, sobbed, then quieted a bit and said through clenched teeth, “for two years, that fat fuck Butch washed us, and did other shit to us, and I’m sick of it!” He sobbed again and said, “After two years . . . now when I get the chance, I can’t wash myself because my left arm is fucking useless!”
Tim smiled at his friend, took a plastic cup, dipped it into the water and poured it on Brett’s head and then ran his hands through Brett’s thick brown hair, getting it thoroughly wet. He set the cup on the side of the tub, picked up the shampoo and squirted it into his hands, lathered them up and began washing Brett’s hair.
Brett hadn’t changed position but had stopped crying.
“This is embarrassing,” he muttered into his knees.
“Really? Embarrassing?” Tim asked with a laugh. “Mike and I take a shit, and you have to wipe our butt. That’s embarrassing. This is nothing.”
Brett glanced at his friend and said, “I don’t mind.”
“Yeah, but you gotta admit that’s more embarrassing than helping you with a bath.”
Tim rinsed Brett’s hair and when all the soap was out, took a bar of soap and started on Brett’s back. He washed Brett’s chest and his legs then told Brett to kneel and handed him the soap.
“I think you can wash down there, right?”
Brett didn’t say anything, but took the soap from Tim’s hand and washed himself. He tried to wash his backside, but had a difficult time turning, wincing at the pain.
When Brett finished and after he sat back down Tim said, “You’re clean, you smell reasonably nice, and I’ve done all I can. You’re still ugly, but hey, can’t have everything.”
Brett smiled for the first time since he began his bath.
His long brown hair still damp, but scrubbed and shined, Brett perched nervously on the end of his bed wearing khaki cargo shorts and a blue and yellow striped polo shirt that Skip had purchased for him. He had his right hand out so Tim could clip his fingernails. Tim held Brett’s hand gently and snipped away, starting with Brett’s pinky.
“You concentrate better with your tongue hanging out?” Brett asked quietly.
Tim smiled up at him.
Mike was in the same bathtub behind them with the door shut soaking and humming some tune neither Tim nor Brett recognized.
“Think he’ll stop stuttering?”
Tim shrugged.
“Hope so.”
Brett stared intently at his friend as Tim finished with his right hand and reached for his left.
“I did the best I could on it,” Brett said. “I can’t do my toes ‘cause my sling gets in the way.” Then he added as an afterthought, “Sort of embarrassing you having to help me like this.”
Tim stopped, looked up at his friend and laughed, “We’ve been through this already,” and he laughed some more.
Brett smiled, shrugged his good shoulder and said, “I guess.”
Tim started on Brett’s toes.
“You’re my best friend, Tim,” Brett said shyly.
“I know. And you’re mine,” Tim said without looking up from what he’s doing.
“Promise we’ll stay that way?”
Tim stopped clipping Brett’s toenails, looked up at his friend and said, “I promise. Nothing and no one will change that.”
Brett nodded.
When Tim finished, he got up off the floor and flopped down on the bed, and Brett lay back with him, resting his head on Tim’s shoulder.
“Jeremy told me to tell you that your parents are here.”
Brett sighed. “I know. Monique told me.”
“Nervous?”
Brett nodded.
“It’s gonna be okay, Brett.”
Brett shrugged his good shoulder.
“What if they don’t remember me? What if they don’t like me anymore?”
“They knew you for, what . . . twelve, fourteen years? I’ve only known you for two years, and I know I’ll never forget you,” Tim said with a yawn, moving to his side and propping his head up on an elbow to face him. “It’s gonna be okay, Brett.”
“Will you and Mike be nearby . . . like in the hallway or close by?”
“Promise. Mike will be there for sure, and Stephen should be here any time. I’m going to run down and visit Johnny, but I’ll be back.”
“Skip said Johnny’s mom is here. She flew in late last night.”
“Just his mom?” Tim asked.
Brett nodded. Neither boy commented, but they had the same thought. Johnny’s parents must have split up, just like Ben’s and Ian’s did. Their parents had shown up together, but before the two boys had left- Ben with his parents to St. Paul, and Ian with his parents to Des Moines- their parents explained that they had divorced. It had saddened the boys, and even though their parents had explained that neither Ben nor Ian had anything to do with it, neither boy had believed them. Two of the other boys, Cory and Patrick, had sent a text to Stephen that their parents were shaky.
“Know what I can’t get used to?” Tim asked softly.
“What?”
“That I can leave my room and go pretty much wherever I want.” Tim paused and said, “That first morning here? Mike and I didn’t know if we could leave our room.”
“I can’t get used to wearing clothes,” Brett said with a laugh.
“I know,” Tim laughed. “That first night, Mike and I slept naked.”
Brett laughed. “I was going to, but Skip said I might want to wear the hospital thingy in case the nurse came in to check me.”
“Those things don’t cover much anyway. Our butts were always hanging out.”
The boys were still laughing as Mike came out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel as Stephen came in from the hallway.
“Your parents are coming up from downstairs,” Stephen said as he plopped in a chair by the side of the bed. “They were just coming out of the conference room with Jeremy, Pete, Dr. Flasch and the other agent guy.”
Brett sat up and took a deep breath.
“It’s gonna be alright, Brett,” Tim said for the third time.
“I b-b-better get d-dressed,” Mike said disappearing back into the bathroom after grabbing his clothes off the back of the chair Stephen was sitting in.
“Need help?” Stephen asked.
“N-no, I g-got it,” Mike answered as he shut the bathroom door behind him.
“Is he getting any better?” Stephen asked in a whisper to Tim and Brett.
Tim made a face and shook his head. Brett didn’t answer. He just stared at the door to the hallway as if the two other boys weren’t in his room.
“Stephen, can you and Mike hang out in the hallway, while I go visit Johnny?”
Stephen nodded and looked back at Brett who seemed to be in another world, a shade whiter, licking his lips nervously.
He got up, knocked on the bathroom door and asked, “Mike, almost done?”
In answer, Mike stepped out of the bathroom dressed except for bare feet. He carried his Nike sandals.
He walked over to the bed, put a hand on Brett’s good shoulder and said, “W-w-we’ll b-be i-in the h-h-hallw
-way, ok-kay?”
Brett nodded, but continued to stare at the doorway, expecting his parents any moment.
Tim’s parents didn’t want Tim to talk about anything that had happened to him. Stephen’s dad thought Stephen was gay. Ben parents were divorced, as were Ian’s. And Patrick’s and Cory’s parents were probably headed that way.
Given all that, Brett had no idea what might be in store for him.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Waukesha, Wisconsin
Even though the morning was both hot and humid, George liked being outside, because it was where he was most at home. Jeremy had a list of chores that needed to get done before the boys left for Chicago with Jeff and Danny Limbach, so George, Randy and Billy split them up. George chose the outside work- lawn cutting and trimming and pulling a few weeds. Since the Lane lawn was about the same length as the Evans lawn, he decided to cut and trim their lawn too. Randy and Billy took care of the inside- dusting, vacuuming and bathrooms with a little laundry. Jeremy, Randy and Billy had packed up the night before, and Jeremy had taken their suitcases with him so the Limbachs wouldn’t have a huge load to carry. And when it was all said and done, George didn’t have much to pack by way of belongings.
Running the lawnmower around the two yards was pretty mindless, and it gave him time to think. Despite the fact that he had actually never mowed a lawn- living in the desert of northeastern Arizona didn’t call for much lawn mowing- he caught on quickly after Billy showed him. He liked the smell of freshly cut grass. He liked the physical activity of the work. Mostly, he felt he was somehow paying back Jeremy and the Lanes for the kindness they had shown him, at least in a way that dusting and vacuuming wouldn’t do. It was solid and tangible.
It took him a little over an hour and a half to do both lawns and another half an hour to trim each yard. Weeding didn’t take him long at all, but by the time he was finished, he was dripping in sweat and had a layer of dirt and flecks of grass on his legs, chest and back that made him itchy. Still, he felt good, satisfied with what he had done.
