The Fear in Her Eyes

by Grant McKenzie

  Ian allowed himself to be led three steps away before something in him snapped. He spun out of Angus’s grip and rushed back to the body.

  Angus reacted quickly and with his long reach managed to grab Ian in a bear hug just as he was preparing to finish the job the wire had started—to separate Young’s head from his body.

  Ian screamed with primal rage, squirming with all his might and kicking out at the steel table. Dr. Gage grabbed on to the table to stop it from toppling over and spilling the corpse to the floor.

  “Get him out of here!”

  Trapped in the guard’s iron grip, Ian used the only weapon left to him. He drew all the mucous and saliva in his mouth and spat.

  With a small sense of satisfaction, Ian watched cloudy spittle splash into the dead man’s eyes before Angus dragged him out of the room.

  AFTER IAN calmed down, Angus guided him through the yellow maze back to reception.

  “Don’t know what you were thinking,” Angus grumbled as they walked. “Trying to get me fired?”

  “Sorry,” said Ian without conviction. “I thought I would handle it better.”

  “Ha!” Angus scoffed. “You couldn’t have done much worse. You heard the doc. Young suffered before he died. Ain’t that enough?”

  “Not really,” said Ian. “I wasn’t there to watch.”

  Angus sighed and turned the lock on another steel door. “Maybe I would act the same if it had been my daughter beneath his wheels.”

  “I’m guessing you would.”

  WHEN THEY reached the last gate, Ian asked, “Is Kestrel Carroll still Young’s lawyer? You said she visited recently.”

  Angus frowned. “It’s not a woman. The guy wore a nice suit, but you could tell from his shoes that he was stretching his budget to afford it. He was last here a couple days ago, but I wasn’t working the desk and never caught his name.”

  “Huh. Kestrel must have finally wised up. Can you get his info for me?”

  Angus tilted his head and stared down through his strong eye. His other eye drifted off to the side as if to watch for anyone accidentally intruding into their space. “We don’t mention what happened in the morgue to anyone, and I’ll see what I can do.”

  Ian nodded in gratitude. “Deal.”

  At visitor reception, Angus helped Ian retrieve his cell phone and keys from the locker before directing him back through the metal detector. Returning to his post behind the main desk, Angus tapped a few keys on the computer and then wrote a name on a piece of paper. He handed it over.

  “I’ll make sure everything gets sent along. Don’t worry.”

  Ian nodded his thanks and glanced at the name. It plucked a small note of recognition in his memory bank, but nothing that stood out.

  Whoever Young’s new lawyer was, he certainly wasn’t anyone of note.

  8

  The wind was blowing colder, its wet tongue edged with ice, as Ian crossed the parking lot and climbed into his vehicle. Shivering, he allowed the engine to idle and switched the heater on low.

  The electric tremors that ran through his body and prickled the hairs on his arms weren’t all of nature’s making. The clacking of his teeth and the weight pushing on the dam at the back of his eyes told him he had suffered more of a shock from seeing Young’s face than he cared to admit.

  It was bothersome that, even in death, the bastard could wound him. The cuts ran too deep, etching claw marks on his soul that would never fully heal.

  Reaching into his jacket pocket, Ian brought out his cell phone and plugged it into a hands-free charging cradle glued to the dash. The numeral three in the lower corner of the phone’s screen told him the number of calls he had received while inside the prison.

  He tapped the icon for voicemail and listened to the first message as it played through his car’s speakers. The callback number displayed was for Children First.

  “Ian, call me as soon as you get this.” Linda’s voice was on edge. “We have a problem.”

  Ian wondered if Linda had run into trouble finding someone to cover his clients while he was away for the afternoon, but the tone of her voice told him it was something more serious.

  He played the second message, but it was a hang-up, and the callback number was listed as unknown.

  The third message was Linda again, the alarm in her voice more pronounced.

  “Ian, where are you? We’ve had to bring in the police. Call me!”

  The police? Ian felt another trickle of ice water run down his spine, and his first thought was: Tommy.

  Had he been wrong about the father? Had the idiot actually tried to kidnap his own son and take him to Brazil? Could he have possibly misjudged him that badly?

  Ian backed the car out of the stall and aimed it toward the freeway for the return trip to Portland. As he drove, he told the voice-activated phone to dial Children First. When Jeannie answered, her tone was less bubbly than usual.

  “It’s Ian,” he said quickly. “Is she in?”

  “Ian, we’ve been trying to call—

  “Sorry. I was behind closed doors.”

  “We were so worried.”

  “About me?” Ian was confused. “Why?”

  “I’ll put you through to Mom.”

  Linda picked up instantly. “Where are you?”

  “Salem, like I told you this morning. I’m just heading back now.”

  “Is Molly with you?”

  “Molly?” Ian asked. “Molly Flannigan?”

  “Yes. She’s missing.”

  Ian struggled to find his voice as a clammy hand wrapped around his heart and squeezed. “How? I dropped her off at the foster home this morning. The meeting with her mother didn’t go well, and we finished early.”

  “Her foster parents haven’t seen her,” said Linda. “Social Services called and when I couldn’t reach you, they contacted the police. There’s no sign of her.”

  Ian’s mind reeled. “That doesn’t make sense.”

  Linda’s voice dropped to a near whisper. “You’re positive you dropped her off at the foster home?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  Ian’s throat tightened. He had been distracted, his mind more on the prison visit ahead of him than the child in his care. But he dropped Molly off exactly where he had picked her up, in front of the foster home. Normally, he waited in his car until she went inside; sometimes he even walked her to the door so that he could chat with the foster parents and get an update on how she was fitting in. But this morning … caught up in his troubled thoughts, he drove away without so much as a backward glance.

  How could she have vanished in the six steps it took to travel from the sidewalk to her front door?

  Breaking into his thoughts, Linda said, “She’s run away before.”

  Ian knew Molly’s history, but could she have been so distraught over seeing her mother again that she would choose life on the streets over foster care? He didn’t think so. Molly hadn’t seemed bothered at all by the visit. On the ride back, she’d been chatty and funny and full of her usual confidence. But could he have missed it? Could her bravado have been a mask? As Ian knew, sometimes the pretense of being happy was the only thing that got you through the day.

  “What did the police say?” he asked.

  “They want to talk to you, obviously, just to confirm that you dropped her off. They’ve already talked to the mother and grandmother, who say they haven’t seen her since you both left the house. When I talked to the investigating officer, he said they were both so zoned out he doubted they had the capacity to move off the couch. The cops will broadcast Molly’s description and keep an eye out, but other than that, not much will be done until she’s been missing for the requisite twenty-four hours. I looked into the father, to see if—

  “He’s dead,” said Ian. “Last year in a gang hit. Police suspected it was part of a power play by the Mongols, but the investigation hit a dead end.”

  “Does Molly know?”

  “I escorted her to the
funeral.”

  “Oh Jesus, that’s right. I remember now. You said she never shed a tear.”

  “He wasn’t much of a father.”

  Ian didn’t want to ask his next question, but knew he had to. “Have they checked the sex offender list to see if any of the neighbors are predators?”

  Under Oregon state law, the name, address, and description of registered sex offenders who may pose a risk to the community are posted on a public website. In addition, law enforcement agencies must notify neighbors when the most dangerous predators move nearby.

  “I ran the list myself,” said Linda. “There are four living within walking distance of the house, but none are classified as high-risk. The police likely won’t talk to them until after the twenty-four-hour deadline.”

  “Christ!” Ian chewed his lower lip. “Can you make sure we have an up-to-date list and send me the addresses of those four? Also, get Jeannie to check the archives to see if anyone else pops up. Once they’re no longer on parole or probation, their details get dropped from the website.”

  “What are you going to do?” Linda asked. “Knock on their doors?”

  “Absolutely,” said Ian. “Twenty-four hours is too damn long to wait if she’s been snatched up by one of those monsters.”

  “We should let the police handle it,” said Linda. “This is a minefield. We don’t have the power or authorization to—

  “Molly is my responsibility,” Ian interrupted.

  “Not all the time. Your job was done when you dropped her off.”

  “No.” Ian swallowed. “She trusted me to keep her safe. I’ve let her down.”

  Linda sighed, and in its heaviness Ian felt an unspoken lecture being held back. Linda and Jeannie were the rocks he had clung to since Emily’s death left him shipwrecked and drowning. They desperately wanted to see him happy again, to lift some of the weight that burdened his shoulders. But, as if in defiance or penance, Ian kept adding more.

  “I know,” Ian said before Linda could speak. “But I have to do this. Nobody else in her life gives a damn.”

  He heard her nodding; the jangle of earrings. “Just be careful, OK?”

  “Can you let the police know I’m on my cell if they want to reach me?”

  “I’ll call them now.”

  Ian hung up and pressed his foot harder on the accelerator. As his speedometer rose above the posted limit, the only vehicle that didn’t disappear in his rearview was a classic yellow-jacketed Dodge Coronet Super Bee that, despite the weather, some devoted gearhead had obviously taken out for an afternoon joyride.

  WHEN THE phone rang, Ian assumed it was the police. He tapped the button to mute his music—Joe Pass’s stirring Virtuoso—and answer.

  “I fuckin’ warned you, man,” growled a male voice. “But you couldn’ keep your nose out.”

  “Who is this?” Ian recognized the voice from the previous threat, but nothing about it brought up a matching face or name from memory.

  “Oh, you’ll find out soon enough and then you’ll really be—

  “I tell you what,” Ian interrupted angrily, “Fuck you! You picked the wrong day for a fight. You want to meet, settle this man-to-man? Bring it on. I could use a little bloodletting.”

  The man hesitated.

  “What?” Ian practically screamed. “You have a beef, asshole, you know how to get in touch. If not, leave me the hell alone.”

  Ian hung up. His palms were sweating and his heart was racing, but the release of anger had felt good.

  Glancing down at the speedometer, he saw he was pushing his luck and eased off. A spattering of rain had slicked the tarmac, and his dull beige hatchback had never been designed for anything beyond practicality. It wasn’t exciting, stylish, or even particularly comfortable, unlike …

  He searched for the Super Bee’s round headlights in his rearview, but the damp weather had fogged his back window and the electric defroster was on the blink. Typical.

  When the police eventually called, Ian was calm enough to tell them what little he knew about Molly’s disappearance without sounding like a raving lunatic.

  He didn’t mention what he planned to do once he was back in the city.

  9

  The first house on the list that Linda had emailed to him was also the one closest to Molly’s foster home. Across the street and less than two blocks down, Ian couldn’t fathom how it was possible that someone who had been convicted of such disturbing crimes was allowed to live so close to a home that attempted to offer a sanctuary for troubled young girls and boys.

  Parked outside the home, Ian studied the offender’s rap sheet that Jeannie had emailed to his phone. Patrick Beihse had served three years at the medium-security Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution—a former state mental hospital that offered specialized sex offender treatment, but was better known for its commercial Prison Blues brand garment industry. Both of Beihse’s victims had been underage boys, but this predilection didn’t make him any safer to be around girls—especially if the right opportunity presented itself.

  In the seedy underground that these sewer rats operated, it wasn’t unheard of them to swap children like sports fans traded baseball cards. A quick three-word tweet—BEG for BHB—and one blue-eyed girl was exchanged for a blond-haired boy. The Internet and instant social networking made everything easier.

  Ian walked up the garden pathway and knocked.

  When Beihse answered the door, he had the saggy appearance of someone who had been punctured and allowed to slowly deflate. Pale, milky skin hung from his cheeks to form heavy jowls, and fleshy sleeves drooped from his arms like the useless wings of a dodo. It was as though he had recently lost half his weight without toning any muscle.

  His casual wardrobe didn’t fare much better. An oversized pea-green T-shirt was practically kissing his bare knees and its collar was stretched to fraying, as if it had once accommodated a much fuller neck. Bare feet were nestled inside a pair of brown carpet slippers, and a flash of khaki assured that, thankfully, he was wearing shorts under the shirt.

  Beihse studied Ian through guarded eyes, while a soft double chin stayed tucked against his chest. The submissive pose made him look slightly comical and perfectly harmless. A wolf in clown’s clothing.

  “Can I help you?”

  Ian held up his phone with a recent photo of Molly displayed on its screen.

  “Have you seen this girl?”

  Beihse wiggled his chin from side to side and crossed his arms in a protective hug that also served to inflate his mass, like a puffer fish defending itself from attack.

  “She walks this way to school,” Ian added. “Right past your front door. She and her young friends.”

  “No school today, it’s—” Beihse suddenly lowered his eyes. “I don’t watch them.”

  “Sure you do,” said Ian. “How could you resist? Teasing little scamps, right?”

  “I think you should go.”

  “What happened?” asked Ian. “You see her standing alone outside her house. Maybe she was upset and you thought, ‘why not?’ Get her inside and then trade her for something more to your taste?”

  The man’s doughy cheeks blushed red. “I don’t do that. I just want to be left alone.”

  “You sure?” Ian pressed.

  Beihse raised his chins and stared into Ian’s eyes. “Yes.”

  “Mind if I look inside?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s my home.”

  Ian slipped his phone into his pocket to free his hands, and then stepped a little closer, purposely invading the man’s personal space. He lowered his voice but not its intensity.

  “I used to believe that everyone deserves a second chance, but that’s such an easy thing to say and quite another to do once you’ve seen what I have. If you let me come in and I don’t find anything, I’ll be on my way.” Ian’s hands flexed and curled into fists, the knuckles turning white before he released them. “If you don’t let me l
ook inside, I want you to know that I’m having a lousy day, and I can’t be fully responsible for my actions.”

  It was a bullying move and so far away from the man he used to be that Ian wasn’t even sure if the old him would recognize the new. But if he was supposed to feel bad about it, the message wasn’t registering.

  Beihse stepped back and gulped. “W-w-who are you?”

  “Neighborhood Watch, does it matter? Are you planning to stand in my way or not?”

  With a slow, shuffling step, Beihse reluctantly moved aside.

  CALLING OUT Molly’s name, Ian searched both floors of the small house to no avail. Despite his rumpled wardrobe, Beihse kept the house in perfect order. Even the various pottery and glass knickknacks—he had a thing for penguins—on the bedroom shelves had recently been dusted.

  When Ian discovered the entrance to the home’s crawlspace, he held his breath. An ache burned in his chest until he made damn sure the space wasn’t used for anything other than extra storage and access to the gas furnace.

  “Told you,” said Beihse in a sulky tone. “I don’t watch those kids.”

  “I would say I’m sorry,” said Ian, “but I wouldn’t mean it.” He pulled out his phone again and brought up the list of nearby sex offenders. He showed it to Beihse. “What can you tell me about these three?”

  “I don’t know them.”

  “Sure you do. You’re all part of the same sick club.”

  “We’re not allowed to congregate.”

  Ian glanced over at an older Dell computer set up on the kitchen table and shook his head in disgust.

  “If I find out you’re lying, nothing will stop me from ripping your life to shreds, understand? This girl’s important to me, and you don’t want to find out what I’ll do if anything has happened to her.”

  Beihse stuck the tips of his fingers into his mouth and sucked. “I’m telling the truth,” he mumbled.

  “I sure as hell hope so.”