by EMILIE ROSE
“Taking down the kitchen wall. You walked right by it and didn’t see the new island.”
“For real?” Mason hustled back to the house. Brandon grabbed Belle’s pink bag and followed. If he played his cards right he’d get to talk to the boy sooner than expected. He passed Mrs. Leith on her way out. “Have a safe trip home, Mrs. Leith.”
She kept walking with her nose up in the air.
Belle was chattering nonstop about the trip. Brandon waited for her to pause for a breath. “Mason and I will go get dinner.”
Hannah looked relieved. “Are you sure? We could do sandwiches.”
“I’m too hungry for a sandwich. Let’s go, Mason.”
“Do I have to? I’ve been cooped up all day.”
“Yeah. You can tell me what Belle will eat.” He clamped a hand on the boy’s shoulder and steered him out the door and to the truck. He put the vehicle on the road. “So how was the trip?”
“The train and plane rides and the model train convention were awesome. But Grandmother and Grandfather bitched the whole time.”
“Are you allowed to use that word?”
Mason rolled his eyes. “They say they want us around, then all they do is complain.” A few moments later he protested, “Where are we going? This is a bad part of town. Mom never takes us here.”
“The best fried chicken is sold in the heart of downtown. You and Belle eat fried chicken, don’t you?”
“Yeah. Let me guess. It’s somewhere you and my dad used to eat.”
“Yes, we did.”
Brandon turned into a parking lot in the roughest part of downtown. The chain-link fence surrounding the restaurant was sagging and rusty. It was a safe bet Mason wouldn’t try to bolt here. He kept the windows up, the doors locked and the truck in Drive, and he kept an eye on his surroundings. “I had a look at your mom’s laptop while you were gone.”
Mason stiffened and gulped.
“How did you find the site with the kids on it?”
“I—I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He knew. Brandon could tell by the widening of his eyes and his increased respiratory rate. “Do you know any of them?”
No answer.
“I recovered your erased browsing history. You’ve visited the site multiple times in the past three months. Why that site, Mason? Did someone send you the link?”
No answer.
“Do you know who runs it? Have they approached you?”
“I think I’m going to be sick.”
The boy was pale and shaking. “I wouldn’t recommend getting out of the truck here.”
Brandon reached in the backseat and retrieved a bucket. He put it in Mason’s lap. “It’s an illegal site, Mason. Taking part in it is a federal offense.” When the boy remained silent, Brandon added, “You can tell me what you know now, or we can wait and discuss this with your mom and the feds in my office. Right now it’s just us guys talking. There it’ll be a sworn statement.”
“Did you tell Mom?”
“Not yet. I’m giving you a chance to do that. But if you don’t, I will.”
“I haven’t done a video!” he blurted. “I mean...not really.”
Apprehension rolled through Brandon. “Do you know someone who has?”
The boy’s face scrunched up. He looked out the window, surveying the area as if he wanted to run, but then his shoulders slumped as he aborted the idea. “Yeah.”
“Who?”
Another long stretch of silence filled the cab. “A kid from school.”
“Is he the one who sent you the link and the note?”
Mason startled, his eyes stretching wide, then he blanched even more then finally nodded. He picked at his shirt, his pants and his shoe.
“How did you get involved?”
Mason kept his head low. Brandon counted to thirty before the boy looked his way. “Because he tricked me and he’s threatening to tell Mom or the cops if I don’t do what he says.”
The warning prickle crawled across Brandon’s neck. “Tricked you how?”
Mason picked at a fingernail until it broke off. “He asked me to take a movie of him and his girlfriend kissing. And then they...you know.”
Dread filled his stomach. “No I don’t. Tell me what they had you film.”
He squirmed. “She...she...blew him. I didn’t know she was going to. I’ve never seen that before. I mean I’ve heard of it, everybody has, but I never...watched it before then or did it, so I didn’t know until she was going to do it until she was like...doing it, and then I kind of froze because we were at school! I couldn’t believe she’d do that there. I mean, they could get caught! And then he said that because I watched them do it and I made the movie that I’m in trouble.”
The words had poured out too fast and too earnestly for him to be making it up. “‘Do it. Or else.’ What does that mean?”
“He wants me to give him something.”
“Give him what?”
“A movie or pictures of me and...somebody. I told him I don’t know anybody to do that with. But he said he’d get somebody. If I do it, he’ll leave me alone.”
“You know that’s a lie, right? Once you give in, they’ll have an even bigger hold over you.”
The boy nodded. “But what am I supposed to do? He said if I told anybody he’d turn me in to the cops and say I took the video and posted it without their permission.”
Brandon’s protective instincts roared, but he kept his voice calm. “Did you post it online?”
“No. He did that. I don’t even know how. I keep stalling, hoping he’ll leave me alone. But he won’t.”
“What excuses have you given him?”
“I told him I didn’t have a camera, and I don’t. Except for Mom’s laptop. And I can’t get that out of the house when she’s there. But he’s getting real ugly. He had some other guy—older, I think—call me. And it scared me. That’s the only reason I agreed to go with my grandparents. To get out of town.”
“Is this kid why you missed the bus that day?”
“Yeah. Promise me you won’t tell my mom,” he repeated. “I won’t go on the web page again. Not ever!”
“I can’t promise that, Mason. There are close to a hundred other kids on that site. It has to come down and the people behind it need to be caught and punished. Underage porn is a federal offence.”
Silence filled the cab, then, “What will happen to me?”
Good question. “If you’re telling the truth, then you’re a victim, not a criminal. Are you telling the truth, Mason?”
“Yeah. I am. I swear.”
Brandon looked into the eyes so like Rick’s. He didn’t think the kid was lying. But if he was wrong and Mason was more deeply involved than he’d admitted, the case and the media attention that it would draw, could very well destroy Hannah and her family. And there would be nothing Brandon could do to prevent it.
This was the dilemma his father had warned him about. Putting away the bad guys might mean prosecuting Rick’s son.
Chapter Sixteen
“I LOVE THE breakfast bar, Mommy,” Belle said as she carried her plate to the sink. “When can we eat there?”
“I’ll have to get some stools, sweetie. Go upstairs and unpack your suitcase. Dump your dirty clothes down the laundry chute. Then get ready for your bath.”
Belle skipped off. Hannah couldn’t recall a more tense meal, and she was glad it had finally ended. She looked from Mason, who’d eaten practically nothing, to Brandon and back, trying to figure out what had happened while they were out picking up dinner. “What’s going on between you two?”
Mason slumped in his chair without answering, but he had guilt written all over his face.
“We’ll talk after Belle goes to bed,” Brandon replied when her son didn’t. “M
ason, you have time to unpack. Then come back downstairs.”
The boy bolted. Hannah’s concern grew. “Did he argue with you? He’s always cranky after he’s been with the Leiths.”
“I found out the reason for his bad behavior. We’ll discuss it when he’s present. Get Belle to bed. I’m going to put away my tools.” Then he grabbed his gear and stalked out.
With anxiety tying her stomach in knots, Hannah raced upstairs, rushed Belle through her bath then tucked her in. “What about my book, Mommy?”
“It’s late. We’ll read two tomorrow.” She forced a smile, but it felt like her face might crack. When Hannah returned to the kitchen the dishes had been washed and were in the drying rack and Brandon was seated at the table with her laptop and a pad of paper.
Mason, his face pasty, sat slumped across from him. Brandon pointed to a chair for her to sit down in, much the same way he’d direct a suspect. Anxiety tightened Hannah’s throat.
“You want to tell her?” Brandon asked and Mason shook his head. “Mason has been visiting a porn site approximately twice a week for the past three months.”
Shocked, Hannah looked at her son, whose chin couldn’t be tucked any tighter. “How? I had parental controls.”
“That are easily bypassed,” Brandon stated.
“He told you this?
“When I confronted him with the evidence, yes.”
What had Brandon done? It was like her father’s snooping all over again. “What evidence? And where did you get it?”
Brandon went still, his eyes guarded. “I installed software on your computer when Mason went missing. It alerted me to his online activity.”
“You did that after I specifically asked you not to?”
“I promised you I wouldn’t unless he was in danger. When he went missing, I thought he was. I wanted to bring him home safely and that meant retracing his movements.”
“You had no right—”
“Hannah, Mason is in serious trouble.”
Dumbfounded, she gaped at him. “For looking at porn? You bet he is. I’ll take away the computer and ground him—”
He shook his head. “Bigger trouble than that. He installed an anonymous web browser to get onto a dark web site with flicks of underage kids doing very adult things.”
“The dark web?” She searched her brain, retrieving snippets of conversations she’d overheard between Rick and Brandon. “That’s the hidden internet, right?”
“Right. Because the encryption makes it difficult to trace IP addresses. He says a friend sent him a link to download the TOR software and another link to access the site. That same friend has been trying to coerce Mason into providing a video of himself committing a sexual act, which he claims he hasn’t done.”
Horrified, she searched Mason’s face. “Is this true? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“The guy threatened to turn me over to the cops if I did.”
“That doesn’t make sense, Mason. Why would he turn you over to the police if he was in the wrong?” When Mason didn’t respond she looked at Brandon.
“Mason shot a video for that friend—a sex video—on the school campus. The boy is using Mason’s involvement in that for leverage.”
“I didn’t know it was going to be that kind of video,” Mason defended. “He was supposed to just kiss her.”
This was so far out of Hannah’s realm of normal, she didn’t know what to say. “Who?”
Mason slid farther down in his chair until Brandon shot him a look. “A new kid. An eighth grader. He was one of the cool kids. He didn’t treat me like an egghead. I thought he was my friend. Guess I was just stupid.”
“You weren’t stupid, Mason,” Brandon said. “Bullies know how to find a victim. What’s his name?”
Mason’s face scrunched, then he folded under Brandon’s stare. “Jonas Owens.”
“Where does he live?”
Mason shrank even more. “Two streets over. On Dixon.”
Hannah stiffened. “That’s where you were going the night you snuck out?”
“Yeah.”
“You’ll need to surrender your computer,” Brandon told Hannah.
By surrendering her laptop she could be providing evidence against her son. She hadn’t been a cop’s wife without picking up a few things over the years. “Don’t you need a warrant for that?”
Brandon’s lips tightened. “I’ll get one. If Mason isn’t leveling with me, then he’s going to be in serious trouble and you’ll need a good lawyer.”
A good lawyer. Something she couldn’t afford unless—“I’d have to sell the house to pay for one.”
The gravity of the situation sank in. Her son had been watching porn. Child porn. On the dark web. And he’d been threatened. And she hadn’t known. Maybe she really was a bad mother. And if the Leiths found out they could use this against her.
If that wasn’t bad enough, Brandon had been tracking Mason’s online activity behind her back even while he’d been intimate with her. How was she supposed to trust him?
Fear for Mason made her heart race, and betrayal over Brandon’s actions burned the back of her throat. She knew Brandon’s ruthless reputation for solving a case regardless of the costs. Would her child be hurt in the process?
She’d invited Brandon into their lives, and now he could destroy her son. “Mason, go take your shower and get ready for bed.”
For once, he didn’t whine about being sent upstairs. She waited until she heard the bathroom door close. “Why didn’t you uninstall the software when he was found?”
“I didn’t get the chance before it alerted me to a visit to a porn site—”
“When? When did it notify you?”
He exhaled. “Last Friday.”
“A week ago? The night I had the sitter? I asked you what was wrong when I got home and you didn’t tell me.”
“He had the laptop upstairs in his room. I caught him looking at porn that night—not the illegal site. He slipped up and used your regular browser to access that site. That’s the only reason I was pinged. When I asked Mason about it, he swore he was only interested in learning about sex, and he was too embarrassed to ask you. It’s normal for boys to be inquisitive. I took pity on him. He doesn’t have a father he can go to with his questions. He gave me his word that he’d stay off porn sites in the future.”
“You’re not his father. Talking to him was not your job.”
“Hannah, you won’t ask the difficult questions. Somebody has to.”
Would she have been able to prevent this if she had asked those questions instead of running to Brandon? “You should have told me. When did you find this child site?”
“Yesterday.”
A chill ran over her. “You slept with me Thursday night then searched my computer Friday while I was at work?”
“Mason was too nervous at my parents’ for a kid who’d only been curious. I had to find out why. You asked for my help, Hannah. Reading people and busting computer criminals is what I do.”
“I know what you do. But my son is not a criminal. Was renovating my kitchen just an excuse to gain access to my computer?” Guilty color flagged his cheekbones, and her stomach sank. “Was sleeping with me part of your plan, too?”
“No.”
She didn’t know if she could believe him. “Gathering evidence is all you care about. Your obsession for closing cases is what got Rick killed.” She ignored his flinch. “And now you’re trying to destroy my son.”
“Hannah, these pedophiles have to be caught and stopped. There were dozens of other victims on that site.”
“I’m not arguing with that. I just can’t believe you’d keep this kind of secret about Mason from me! I invited you into my home, my life, my family and even my bed, and all the while you were sneaking around behind my back? Get out, Brandon. Get out and
don’t come back.”
“Hannah—”
“I don’t want to hear your excuses. I can’t trust you anymore.”
She marched to the front door and opened it. Brandon held her gaze for torturous long seconds, then nodded and walked out into the darkness. She slammed the door behind him, staggered to the stairs and sank down on the bottom tread. Panic, pain and fear filled her chest, making it difficult to breathe. She was terrified for Mason’s sake.
But the agony she felt over Brandon’s betrayal made one thing very clear. Somehow she’d made the mistake of letting him become more than just a friend with benefits.
She was—had been—falling in love with him.
* * *
“WELL? ARE YOU going to talk or make me drag it out of you?” Rebecca Martin asked Sunday afternoon as soon as Brandon shut down the tiller.
He met his mother’s gaze across the garden row. She’d asked him to come over after church and help her get her summer garden planted. Brandon had jumped at the task because he couldn’t stand his own company. He shouldn’t be surprised she’d guessed there was more to the visit than just a desire for her companionship.
“I’m facing the biggest bust of my career.”
“That should be exciting news. But I gather it’s not.”
“Busting the case could implicate Hannah’s son. She asked me to help her find the cause of Mason’s bad behavior. The investigation led me to an underage porn page that Mason’s been visiting and a ring of kids that have been coerced into committing sexual acts they shouldn’t and uploading the videos.”
His mother’s eyebrows arched then she shook her head. “Times have changed from the days boys ogled naked girls in magazines stored in an old tobacco barn.”
He jerked in surprise. “You knew about that?”
“Your father saw you and Rick. He decided it was better for you to look at pictures than the real thing. Can you talk to Mason about his viewing habits and let it go?”
“I have talked to him, but I can’t look the other way because of the other victims. The site needs to come down, and the ones peddling the children need to be prosecuted. But if news of the investigation gets out the media blitz could cost Hannah her job—and if she has to hire a lawyer—her home. It’s the only real home she’s ever had.”
