by Sean Black
The only thing he was sure about was that whoever had been sitting inside the car had been watching him.
17
Malik kept checking his rear-view mirror as he drove home. He was pretty sure that the car that had been parked outside the Barneses’ place wasn’t the same as the grey car that had been at the stadium. Pretty sure, but not certain.
He jumped as his cell phone rang. It was Kim. He hit the button to answer it, trying to keep his voice light.
‘Hey,’ she said. ‘You coming home for dinner?’
It was one of the fundamental sacraments of their marriage that, wherever possible, he’d eat with the family in the evening. ‘Sorry, got caught up with stuff.’
She must have sensed something from his voice because she asked him, ‘You okay?’
He reached up and rubbed his temple. ‘Just tired. All this excitement.’
‘Tyrone called.’
‘Oh, yeah?’ said Malik.
‘He sounded worried. Said he planned on coming up here next week to see us.’ There was a pause. Malik knew what was coming next. You couldn’t be married to someone for as long as he had, and sure as hell not a woman as smart as Kim, without her figuring out when something was off.
‘Are you going to tell me what’s going on?’
Malik sighed. ‘Yes. Tonight.’ There was silence at the other end of the line. ‘Kim?’
‘Yes?’
‘I love you. You know that, right?’
‘Okay, now you’re starting to worry me.’ He could hear the kids arguing in the background, Landon teasing his little sister about some boy in her class.
Malik’s eyes flicked to the rear-view mirror and the empty road behind him. He thought of his own kids, and what he would do if someone was messing with them in the way someone was with Jack Barnes.
He’d see it, he told himself. But what if he didn’t? What if he and Kim had split up and he wasn’t around them? Or he was totally wrapped up in work to the exclusion of all else? What then? He doubted Kim would let it happen. But what about Eve Barnes? She hadn’t seemed like a bad mom. She loved her son ‒ that was obvious.
More questions tumbled around in his mind. He’d read that most abuse went on in families. It was relatives or friends who hurt kids, not strangers skulking around play parks. Most people remained oblivious, either because the perpetrator covered their tracks, or maybe because something in their subconscious shut it out.
What if someone else knew Malik’s son or daughter was being preyed on? He’d expect them to tell him. He’d be angry if they said nothing. Above all else, he would want to know, however painful or gut-wrenching it was.
In that moment, he knew he was going about this the wrong way. He had been all along. It was obvious what he had to do now. It was staring him right in the face.
‘Sweetie,’ he said to his wife, ‘you go ahead and eat without me. I’ll be a little longer. There’s something I forgot to do earlier.’
What had been apprehension in his wife’s voice was replaced by irritation. ‘What did we talk about when you took this job? It was so we could spend more time together as a family.’
‘I know, baby. I know. But this is important.’
18
Eve Barnes opened the door, a glass of red wine in her hand, her glazed eyes suggesting that, even though he’d left only a half-hour before, this wasn’t her first of the evening. ‘Coach Shaw?’ she said, startled.
‘There’s something I need to talk to you about. In private.’
Malik followed her into the living room again. ‘Jack, could you go tidy your room? I need to talk to your mom,’ he said.
The boy’s eyes pleaded with him. It was the look Malik had seen in them on the night they had first met. A toxic mix of shame and guilt. It was time to put an end to it, or at least to begin the process. Malik saw it now for what it was: a festering wound that would only grow worse without air and light. Of course Jack didn’t want Malik to tell his mom what he’d seen. But Malik knew he had no alternative. To stay silent. To say nothing. To allow whatever was going on to continue. None of those were options.
Eve Barnes wasn’t smiling now. She looked worried. She knew something was wrong. Very wrong. And she knew it related to her son.
The boy threw down the games controller, and ran off to his room. There was a loud bang as he slammed the door.
Malik closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, Eve was sitting on the couch, the wine glass drained.
The only way to do this, he’d decided, was to start at the beginning. He told her about how he’d driven out to the stadium and how he’d found her son in the showers. By the time he’d got to that part she was sobbing loudly, her body folded in on itself. She had aged by a decade, and Malik knew that the change would stay with her.
As a player, then as a coach, he had realized long ago the power of words to inspire. This was the first time he had seen, really seen, their ability to crush.
She looked up at him. ‘I’m glad you told me. It’s like, it’s . . .’ Her words fell away. She swallowed, collecting herself. ‘Things make sense now. How he’s been acting around me.’
Malik nodded. ‘The man he was with? You know who it was, right?’
She swiped at the mascara running down her cheeks with the back of her sleeve. ‘I can’t believe he would do something like that. He’s been like a father to Jack.’
One fucked-up father figure, thought Malik. ‘Who has, Eve? Who was there with him?’
‘You don’t know?’ It was only then he realized that he’d told her the man had fled before he’d caught up with him, not that he hadn’t seen him.
Malik shook his head. ‘I never got a good look at him.’
There was a loud crash, like a window breaking. Eve got up and rushed from the living room. Malik followed her to the back of the house. The door, with its stickers and prominently displayed red and white ‘Private! Keep Out!’ sign, was closed. Eve tried to open it, but it wouldn’t budge. She pounded on it.
‘Here,’ said Malik, putting a hand on her back.
Eve stood aside as he threw a shoulder against it. The lock flew off, and Malik’s momentum carried him into the room. Through the layers of tween detritus, Malik’s gaze snapped to the broken window.
Jack Barnes was gone.
He walked across to look at the jagged hole where the glass had been punched out. It crunched under his feet. It had been broken from the outside.
19
A breeze picked up, whipping the drapes into Malik’s face. He reached up, pushing them away and stared through the broken window, only to be met by darkness.
‘It’s not the first time he’s run away,’ Eve Barnes said. ‘That’s why I had to put the lock on the window.’
She seemed not to have noticed the floor, or if she had, she hadn’t realized what it meant. Malik moved past her, almost tripping on a pile of dirty clothes. ‘He didn’t run,’ he said.
He moved through the house, breaking into a jog, covering the ground fast. Eve was chasing after him. ‘What do you mean?’
He didn’t have time to stop and explain. He reached the front door, threw it open and ran out onto the porch. For the second time in less than a week, he caught the red tail-lights of a car as it roared down the street. Eve caught up to him. He turned to face her. ‘You know where this guy lives?’
She didn’t say anything. She still looked to be in shock. Malik grabbed her by the shoulder, trying to snap her out of it.
‘He wouldn’t have . . . I don’t believe that . . .’ she stuttered. ‘I mean, I’ve met his wife.’
Lord help me, thought Malik. Had no one ever explained to this woman that being married didn’t mean anything when it came to stuff like this? Marriage was just a cover for people, all the better to make sure that kids and their parents lowered their guard.
‘Where does he live? You been to his house?’
She nodded.
‘Good. You show me,’ he sai
d, grabbing her and heading for his car.
He bundled her into the passenger seat, and they took off. He got Eve to dial 911 and hold his cell phone up to his mouth as he drove. She was still far from coherent, in no state to talk to the dispatcher. He had to ask her for details, though.
He glanced at her ‘What’s the guy’s name?’
‘Aubrey Becker,’ she said.
He was taking a corner as she said it. The wheel slipped through his hands and he almost lost control of the car. He corrected the steering just in time. An oncoming vehicle blared in fury at the narrowly avoided collision.
He lowered his voice. ‘Aubrey Becker?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Yeah, the man’s name is Aubrey Becker. B-E-C-K-E-R. No, we didn’t see him, but we’re fairly sure that’s who Jack’s with.’
The dispatcher asked for an address. Eve gave it to him, and he passed it on. ‘And can you put out a call to all your units to keep an eye out for his car?’
The dispatcher did her best to tell him that he should take Eve Barnes back to her home and wait for a patrol car to arrive. Malik agreed, killed the call and kept driving.
Now he finally understood why everyone had been so cagey. Aubrey Becker wasn’t just a respected pillar of the community. He wasn’t just wealthy, and one of the biggest donors to the university: he pretty much owned this corner of the state. And he just happened to be the brother of the governor, Tom Becker, who was hotly tipped to be making a run in the next presidential election, with the opinion-poll ratings and the cold, hard cash to stand a good chance of making it all the way to the White House.
20
Malik followed Eve’s directions down a narrow country road, with switchbacks and sharp bends that loomed out of the darkness. As he drove, she managed to fill him in on a little of the history. He got the feeling that she was still overwhelmed by the whole thing.
On the one hand, in her gut, she knew that Malik was right. But part of her wanted to be protected from the horror of it. And the best way of protecting herself was to come up with reasons why it couldn’t be true. From his own experience, Malik knew that the truth can be a lot harder to take than what you want to believe, but sometimes you can’t avoid it. This time the truth had to be faced. No matter how painful.
* * *
They pulled up to a set of black gates set into a seven-foot-tall stone wall that ran as far as Malik could see in either direction. A police cruiser was already parked outside, its roll bar sending a red wash splashing across the entrance. A lone state trooper pushed off the side of the cruiser as Malik stopped his car. He seemed casual for a cop who’d just turned up to the scene of a possible child abduction.
Malik tried not to let the paranoia he’d begun to develop get the better of him. Maybe the trooper was relaxed because Jack had already been found.
Malik hit the button to lower his window. ‘This is Jack Barnes’s mother. We called in that her son was missing.’
‘Uh-huh.’
It wasn’t a promising start. What the hell was ‘uh-huh’ supposed to mean? Malik wondered.
‘Can we go up to the house?’
The trooper took off his hat. ‘And you are?’
‘Malik Shaw. I work at the university in Harrisburg.’
Eve leaned over Malik. ‘Is my son here or not?’
The trooper ignored her. But his features did soften. ‘The NBA player Malik Shaw? Guy that coaches the Wolves?’
Malik tried not to roll his eyes. ‘That’s me. Now, can we go up? You have people there, right?’
‘Yeah, the captain’s up there now. Hasn’t found the boy, though.’
‘I need to find my son,’ said Eve. She was bordering on hysterical.
Malik didn’t blame her. If it had been Landon, he would already have driven through, whether the gates were open or not.
‘Your captain’s going to want to talk to Mrs Barnes here in any case.’
That piece of logic seemed to work. ‘Yeah, okay.’ The trooper turned and waved at a man in a dark blue private-security-guard uniform. The man was about six feet even, 240 pounds, with fair hair that ran to his collar and a three-day beard. He didn’t look to Malik like your standard-issue mall-cop type.
The man shrugged, and said something into a walkie-talkie that Malik didn’t catch. A few seconds later, the gates began slowly to open.
Driving through them, he had an uneasy feeling. Here they were, looking for a boy presumably abducted by a pedophile, and they were being treated with suspicion. He hadn’t liked the look of the guard either, and now he wished he’d asked for a name, or at least that of the company he was working for.
The driveway was long. They drove slowly. On either side open land sloped upward. After a full thirty seconds they breached the top and saw the house. It looked as if a typhoon had picked up an estate from the Hamptons and dumped it there.
Three cars were parked at the front of the sprawling house. Malik pulled up next to them and got out with Eve.
The cops here must have known they were coming because an older guy in a grey suit headed them off as two uniforms spoke to a distressed blonde woman, whom Malik assumed was Becker’s wife. She was in her late forties, with perfect hair and makeup, and was clutching to her chest the kind of small, yappy designer dog that Flint, his retriever, hated.
The guy in the grey suit introduced himself as Detective Johanssen from the state’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. Once the pleasantries were out of the way, he said, ‘So, tell me what happened.’
Malik took him through both of his visits with the Barnes family, all the way up to Jack’s disappearance.
Johanssen listened patiently. ‘I’ll need to get all that in a statement from you. Including what you saw at the stadium.’
‘No problem,’ said Malik, relieved that someone finally seemed to be taking him seriously.
Johanssen took Eve Barnes by the arm. ‘We’re doing everything we can to find your son. We’ve issued an amber alert statewide, and if we don’t locate him soon we’ll widen it.’
‘I just want him home,’ she said.
Over her shoulder, Malik could see the blonde woman with the dog growing more agitated. She kept glancing at them, and the two cops with her were trying to distract her. ‘Is that her?’ the blonde lady shouted. ‘We’re going to sue you. And your son.’
Eve Barnes couldn’t help but hear. Anyone within a half-mile radius would have heard. Malik moved in front of Eve. ‘Ignore her . . . That his wife?’ he asked Johanssen.
‘Gretchen Becker,’ said the detective, with a nod.
‘I mean it,’ shouted Gretchen Becker. ‘I know what this is. We have money, and you think that if you make up some outrageous story about Aubrey we’ll pay you to keep quiet. Well, think again.’
Eve pushed Malik, and began marching toward her. Malik and Johanssen had to race to catch her before the two women went toe to toe.
Behind them a car horn sounded. Everyone stopped and turned, as a grey Volkswagen sedan rolled slowly down the driveway toward them.
Malik froze. His hands bunched into fists. Even without looking at the bumper stickers on the rear, he was almost certain it was the car that had fled the stadium. Next to him, Eve was frozen too.
Johanssen stepped in front of them. ‘Let’s just stay cool, okay?’ He waved over one of the state troopers.
The car rolled to a stop. Malik noted the smoky tint of the windows. The passenger door opened. No one moved. Jack Barnes got out, a hoodie obscuring his face. His right hand was swathed in a thick white bandage.
Letting him get out first was a smart move on the part of whoever was driving. Eve rushed to her son. He stayed motionless and she threw her arms around him, sobbing with relief.
The driver’s door opened. As it did so, an SUV raced up behind the sedan, skidding to a halt. The fair-haired security guard leaped out and ran toward Aubrey Becker as he emerged from the grey sedan. As he reached Becker, Malik saw his jacket ri
de up to reveal a gun holstered on his right hip.
Aubrey Becker looked around at all the assembled people, the cops, his wife, Malik and Eve. He didn’t look like a guilty man. He stared at everyone in turn. If anything, he looked pissed. He stood up straight, shoulders back, chest out, chin tilted upward. ‘Would someone like to explain to me what the hell is going on?’
No one moved. No one spoke. Malik had expected the cops to rush him and slap on the cuffs, private security guard or not. But they didn’t. They just stood there and stared at the man who had just shown up with a twelve-year-old boy in his car.
Malik was the first to move. He nudged Detective Johanssen with his hand. ‘What are you standing there for? Aren’t you going to arrest this guy?’
Johanssen had the look of a man to whom the idea hadn’t yet occurred. ‘Coach Shaw, I wouldn’t dream of telling you how to do your job. I’d appreciate the same courtesy.’
Malik looked at him. The two state troopers were busy studying the ground, like it held some sort of ancient secret. ‘You’re kidding me. This is the guy who was with Jack at the stadium.’
‘You told me you didn’t actually see the person,’ Johanssen said.
‘It’s the same car,’ said Malik, pointing at the grey sedan. ‘His mom told me he’s been “mentoring” the boy as part of some school program.’ He lowered his voice to spare Eve the details. ‘The kid was butt naked. At midnight. You need me to draw you a picture?’ He stopped himself adding ‘asshole’, but only just.
‘We will certainly be talking to everyone involved,’ said Johanssen.
‘Talking? You should be slapping the cuffs on that goddamn freak.’
Becker wouldn’t meet his stare. He tilted his chin to avoid making eye contact with Malik. But the security guard’s hand fell to the butt of his handgun. That was enough to make Malik take a step. ‘Oh, yeah? You want a piece of me?’
