Devil's Den

by Jeff Altabef

  Buck knocks on the first door to his left and a female voice calls out, “Enter.”

  He opens the door and waves for Megan to go inside. She doesn’t want to walk through that doorway. Whatever’s on the other side frightens her. She can’t imagine anything good in that room. Her body trembles even though she tries hard not to show any reaction.

  Buck encourages her with a small sincere grin.

  “Don’t worry. She’s not going to hurt you. She’s going to save you.”

  Kate rolls her eyes and turns her back on me, knowing how much that infuriates me. Even after all these years, the effect is the same. My blood turns from liquid to steam, but I can’t lose control, so I dial down the temperature just enough.

  I touch her arm and do my best to keep my voice level. “How old is she, exactly? It’s a fair question.”

  She spins, her face twisted with fury. “You haven’t changed at all! Everything is still about you!”

  That’s not an answer, and it’s not true. “I have a right to know.”

  “What right do you have? You left me and told me you never wanted to see me again. You were joining some secret special operations group and I’d be better off without you. As if you had the right to make that decision for me. I thought you were dead!”

  “I have changed, and you were better off without me. You are better off without me. Answer the question, Kate. How old is Megan?”

  She narrows her eyes and shoves me in the chest. “She’s not your daughter. Okay, I said it. Are you happy? You’re off the hook.”

  The answer doesn’t make me happy. More like oddly hollow, as if something special has been robbed from me. “Where’s her father?”

  “I met Megan’s father a month after you left me. Ethan was a good man.”

  She turns that last part into an accusation, as if I’m not a good man. I can’t blame her. She’s right.

  She lifts her hand and spins a simple gold wedding ring around her finger. It’s strange that I didn’t notice that before. I never miss details like that. People have a way of skipping over the obvious if they don’t want to see it. I’m no different.

  “Ethan and I got married before Megan was born,” she says.

  “What happened to him?” She used the past tense when describing Ethan, which either means he’s dead or she wishes he was.

  She glances at the floor and bites her lip. “Ethan died three years ago in a robbery. One of the gangs jumped him. I never found out which one.”

  “I’m sorry.” And I am. She deserves happiness. At least she had thirteen years with this Ethan. Thirteen years can last a lifetime. It’s more than some people get. It’s more than I’ve had. It’s ridiculous, but I’m jealous of him, this dead man, who died in a robbery three years ago. He had thirteen years with Kate. Thirteen years of passion, of life, of sharing Megan, the daughter who isn’t mine.

  “So am I,” says Kate. “If you don’t want to help because Megan isn’t your daughter, I understand. You can go. You don’t owe me anything. Not anymore.”

  I squeeze her hand. “Megan’s your child and that’s good enough for me. I’ll see this through to the end.”

  She collapses against my chest, tears flooding down her cheeks. “She’s all I have, Steven. I can’t bear to think what...”

  Even though she can’t bear to think about what’s happening to Megan, that’s exactly what she’s doing, and it rocks her. I hold her tight, and for the first time in a long while, I wonder what could have been. What if I didn’t join the special operations unit? What if I had left the intelligence agency earlier? Would I be a better person? Would the demons have left me alone? Could we have been happy together?

  Megan looks like a good kid. Would it have been so bad if I were her father? She’s at least half Kate. She’d be special just because of Kate, but it’s best I’m not her father. My genes are bad. They’d probably end up poisoning the good ones from Kate.

  Kate’s still crying, so I breathed her in for a few seconds more until she pushes against me and turns away.

  Worrying about the past is a sucker’s game. All I can do is make sure Megan returns home safely. Make sure she has a future with her mom.

  “Okay, there are four explanations for Megan’s disappearance.” I carefully avoid mentioning kidnapping. Disappearance is a neutral term, and I start ticking them off with my fingers. “One, she could have run away, but from what you’ve told me that seems unlikely. Two, it could be personal like a boyfriend, or someone else who knows her, and has become obsessed with her. Three, someone who didn’t know her could have targeted her for some reason. Or, four, it’s totally random.”

  She wipes her eyes with the bottom of her shirt. For a second, the shirt lifts and reveals her flat stomach and a piercing through her bellybutton. Damn, I used to love playing with that ring, taking it in my mouth, tugging on it when we were naked.

  She lets go of her shirt and looks up at me with watery eyes. Luckily, she can’t read minds.

  “I don’t think it’s personal either,” she says. “She would have told me if someone was bothering her and she doesn’t have a boyfriend. We don’t keep secrets like that from each other.”

  “Okay, let’s focus on the other two possibilities then. Someone targeted her, or it’s a random thing.”

  I take one last look around Megan’s room and nothing stands out. I’m itchy to start investigating. The walls are closing in. If the kidnapping is personal, I have time to find leads and pull on strings. If it’s random, I don’t have time. We need to find a witness right away. Every minute reduces my chance of finding Megan alive.

  “We need to start moving. I want to see the last place Megan’s friends saw her and the two blocks she had left to come home.”

  I return to the living room and open the duffel. I add another bullet to the clip of my Smith and Wesson and then holster it at the small of my back. I stuff the Glock I took from the gang members into the bag. It isn’t a bad weapon, but I need to spend time with it to make sure it’s reliable. A small, ceramic throwing knife is secreted inside my belt, a thumb-sized explosive device snuck inside the heel of my right boot, and my four-inch blade is tucked inside the pocket of my jacket. I never go anywhere without those. It’s sad really, but I think of them like they’re almost friends.

  Kate’s eyes widen a bit when I put the Glock in the duffel. “What else do you have in that bag?”

  “Enough. You lead the way.”

  She grabs a plain brown jacket from a hook by the door and leaves the apartment, with me a step behind her.

  “Still afraid of elevators?” she asks.

  “Not afraid, but I avoid them if possible. I like choices.”

  “Right. I forgot. You’re not afraid of anything. How silly of me to have forgotten.” She walks past the elevator and down the stairs.

  A minute later we step outside. “Megan’s school is a half-dozen blocks that way.”

  She stops two blocks later. “This is where her two best friends, Eddie and Denise, left her.” She points down a side street. “They live down that street.”

  The neighborhood is quiet. We passed only one bodega and a handful of large apartment buildings like the one where Kate lives.

  “This stretch is perfect to abduct someone,” I say. “What time was she here?”

  “Around three?”

  Interesting. “Few people would be out then. That means fewer witnesses. Easy escape down the main street. Plenty of parking.”

  “So, what does that mean?”

  I shrug. It’s never good to jump to conclusions but my intuition starts buzzing. “It’s too early to tell for sure. But if we assume this thing isn’t personal, whoever took Megan knew what they were doing, and they picked an ideal location for the abduction.”

  “That’s bad then...right?”

  “No. It means Megan isn’t their first abduction. They probably do it for a living, which will make it easier for us to find a trail. The more abductions, the
more obvious the trail they’ll have left behind.”

  Kate shudders. “That’s cold. I wouldn’t wish this on anyone else.”

  I retrace our steps down the block, scanning the neighborhood with a keen eye. Where would I abduct someone? Almost any place would work. I’d avoid the entrance to any of the apartment buildings. No need to take the chance that a Good Samaritan would intercede.

  If I knew Megan’s routine, I’d stay away from the end of the street where she’d leave her friends. They might linger for a bit to watch her walk away. I stop at the edge of a bodega about half a block from Kate’s building, and a block and a half from where Megan left her friends. The store is long enough that a kidnapper could use the front section to take her. He’d have clearance from the door, and at three, this place would be empty. It would be a good location, the best in the two blocks. This is where I’d do it.

  I study the glass storefront and smile. “Did you talk to the owner of this place?”

  “I talked to everyone. He said he didn’t see anything. He’s a nice man, works hard, and keeps the store clean. He charges too much, but there’s not a lot of choices around here.”

  “Did he tell you about the video camera?”

  “What camera?”

  “See that box of corn flakes facing the street. There’s a tiny camera in that box. It’s almost impossible to see, but it’s there. Trust me. He probably needs it to get insurance against robberies.”

  “Son of a bitch! He didn’t say anything about a video.”

  “The store opens at seven.” I check my watch. “That’s only fifteen minutes from now. Let’s see if he’ll open a little early for us.”

  She should be prepared for what might happen next, so I touch her arm and warn her. “Things might get rough. You can wait outside if you’d like.”

  She shakes her arm free. “Damn right it might get rough. If that prick held out on me, I’ll kill him myself.”

  That’s the Kate I know—full of fire and strength. Strange how people never really change. I rap against the glass door. No one comes, so I add more urgency the second time.

  A middle-aged man totters into view. Mostly bald, his frame holds twenty pounds he could do without. The excess weight has settled around his stomach, an occupational hazard for a job that involves so much sitting.

  Standing a few feet away from the door, he shouts, “Come back in fifteen minutes! We open then.”

  I remove the photo disk Kate gave me, press the button, and point at the girl’s face in the holographic image.

  Kate catches on and makes a pleading motion with her hands. “Please, Mister Peterson. It will only take a second.”

  Peterson sighs heavily, glances at the floor, and hesitates before he strides forward. Signs of guilt sprout across his body like weeds: downcast eyes, the slope of his shoulders, the frown. He knows more than he told Kate and now he’s going to spill it.

  He opens the door and speaks with a midwestern accent. “I told you yesterday that I didn’t see anything. I don’t know what else I can add.” His eyes jump to the right, a clear sign he’s lying. Why people look to their right beats me, but they usually do.

  We step inside, and I don’t bother looking at Peterson yet. Instead, I shut the door, and turn the lock until it clicks into place.

  Peterson’s eyes grow as wide as plates. He reaches for a gun holstered on his hip, but he moves at glacial speed.

  I grab his throat and slam him against a wall before he ever touches the grip on his weapon. He forgets about the gun and tries to pry my hand from his neck. He’d have a better chance wrestling a bear. His pasty complexion turns crimson.

  I grumble, “We’ll need to see the video.”

  When I relax my hand, he gulps in a breath.

  I remove my knife from my jacket pocket. Most people are more afraid of a well-placed knife than a gun, especially if the knife flutters near their eyes, as this one now does to Peterson.

  “If you grab that gun, I’m going to take it away from you and shoot your dick off. One shot and you’ll sing an octave higher in the choir, understand?”

  He nods.

  I don’t take the gun from him. It’s better this way. It reminds him how powerless he is against me, and I’m sure he won’t reach for it again. “Now about that video.”

  He rubs his throat, and his voice sounds coarse. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Some people don’t know when they’ve been caught in a lie. They’d rather continue with the deception even though they’re caught red-handed. Peterson’s one of those guys. We don’t have time to screw around, so I grab his wrist and yank it behind his back.

  “The video from the camera in the cereal box.” I place the tip of the knife close to his left eye. So close the blade nearly shaves off his eyelashes. “If your memory doesn’t suddenly improve, they’re going to call you One-Eyed Jack. Do you remember now?”

  He groans. “Okay, okay. I don’t want any trouble. The feed is hooked up to the computer in front.”

  I shove him toward the counter. “Pull up the video. Now.”

  He stumbles, but rights himself before he crashes into a rack of cans. He’s more agile than I expected. Pity. I wanted to see him crash into the cans and send them rolling around the store.

  Kate slaps him across the face. “Last night, you said you didn’t see anything. You said you couldn’t help me. How could you lie to me like that? You know Megan.”

  He touches the new red bruise on his cheek. “I told you the truth. I didn’t see anything.”

  “But you didn’t check the video either,” I say.

  He glances at the floor. “I don’t want to get involved. I’m just a shop owner. If I cross the wrong people, they’ll put me out of business, or worse.”

  The world is filled with people like Peterson, the it’s-not-any-of-my-business people. If they could just overcome their fear, the world would be a way better place, but the fear becomes too large an obstacle for them. It’s hard to blame them. They’re just not hard-wired to be brave.

  I shove him forward again. “If you cross me, I’ll do things to you they couldn’t even imagine. When I put my mind to it, I have a vivid imagination. It goes back to my mother. She used to tell me stories when I was little. Stories you’d rather not hear.”

  He half stumbles and half marches behind the counter. I stand beside him and watch as he types on his keyboard. It’s an old model, at least five years old. After a few keystrokes, the monitor jumps to life, and the view outside of the store appears on the screen.

  “Go back to three o’clock yesterday afternoon,” I order.

  A few more keystrokes and the time on the lower right of the screen shows three o’clock. A new white van is parked on the street in front of the store.

  “All right, fast forward.”

  Time jerks forward until a young man steps from behind the vehicle.

  “Stop and play from here.”

  The man wears an army surplus jacket, camouflage pants, and has short black hair that peeks through a green beret. He moves with a military bearing, looks powerfully built and serious.

  I know what’s going to happen next. I want to be wrong, but there’s no chance.

  Megan steps alongside the van and into view.

  Kate gasps, lifts her fingers to her face, and watches the video through a web of fingers.

  Megan pauses two steps away from the beret guy and they speak for two seconds. From her demeanor it’s obvious she doesn’t know the stranger. She glances over her shoulder for a heartbeat and charges forward. She kicks the big man in the knee, which bends him over, and punches him in the throat.

  I admire the young woman. She looks fearless. I root for her to keep running, even though I know she won’t. She loses her balance and hesitates. Two other young men, similarly dressed, come into view. One grabs her by the shoulders and tosses her against the side of the van, and the other punches her in the stomach. She falls to her knees, gas
ping for air.

  I clench my hands into fists. I’ll find those two and make them regret what they did. Both men lift her by the shoulders and carry her to the back of the van. One of the guys walks with a limp.

  Beret guy stalks to the back of the van, rubbing his throat. His angry footsteps tell me he wants payback. A few seconds later, the van takes off with Megan inside. The entire abduction took less than two minutes. They looked as if they’ve done this before. Certainly, Beret guy didn’t expect Megan to attack him. Good for her. She has grit.

  I make Peterson replay the recording a second time. Nothing changes.

  Kate stares at the images silently, a detached look on her face, as if some part of her can’t process what she’s watching.

  I’ve seen it before—denial. Soon it’ll wear off and anger will replace it. She’ll be so mad she’ll have no room for denial.

  I grab Peterson by the back of the neck and dig my fingers into his flesh. “I need a copy of that video.”

  “How much time do you want?”

  “The whole day.”

  He copies the file on a flash drive and hands it to me.

  “Let me explain something, Mr. Peterson.” I lean close to his ear and speak softly so he has to focus to hear me. “You’re now on Team Megan. If I can’t find her, I’ll make sure no one will ever find you. If she’s hurt, I’m going to hurt you ten times as much. Do you understand me?”

  He nods but refuses to look at me.

  I squeeze his face in my hand and twist it until he sees my eyes. “Have you seen that van around here before?”

  He shakes his head. “Never, and I would have noticed a new van like that one. No one drives anything new around here. It must come from one of the Upper Districts.”

  “How about these three thugs? They remind you of anyone?”

  “No one.”

  “Stand up,” I tell him.

  He stands, and I punch him in the gut with a short right hook that cracks at least one of his ribs. He bends over and gulps for air.

  “You see, Mr. Peterson, this is how it works. One of those thugs punched Megan in the stomach, which forced me to break one of your ribs. I sure hope that’s the worst of it. Don’t tell anyone we were here. I’m letting you off easy for now.” And I am.