Past Imperfect

by Remington Kane

He’d grown up in a middle-class neighborhood in Florida with two workaholic parents and was left alone a lot. As a boy, he had amused himself by committing acts of vandalism on police cars with a can of red spray paint. When the police chief in town was quoted by the local newspaper as saying that they would soon catch the person responsible for defacing public property. Ballou, using his bike, followed the man home when he left the police station days later. The chief lived a few miles away from the station and Ballou was able to keep him in sight, thanks to the chief catching three red traffic lights.

  That night, just after two a.m., Ballou snuck out of his home with a set of spare keys to his father’s car and drove to the chief’s house. When he got there, he reached into the trunk and removed a can of white paint that was left over from when his parents had the picket fence repainted.

  When the chief woke up early the next morning, it was because a neighbor was ringing his doorbell. He then stepped outside to find the words, YOU’LL NEVER CATCH ME, painted across the front of his home in letters that were five feet high.

  The words proved to be true, and the chief lost his reelection bid several months later. By then, Ballou had grown bored of committing vandalism and was preparing for his initial burglary.

  He was well into the planning stages of his eighth heist when fate dealt him a harsh blow. Through no fault of his own, Ballou had been involved in a bad car accident. The daughter of the maid he had romanced during his first burglary just happened to be one of the nurses working in the emergency room when he was brought in. The police had wondered if her mysterious ex-boyfriend had been involved in the crime back then and had looked upon her as a suspect as well. When she learned that Ballou was brought in under a different name than the one she had known him by, she contacted the authorities.

  Ballou was smart to commit each robbery in a different town but that didn’t mean that no one in law enforcement hadn’t noticed the pattern.

  The Florida Department of Law Enforcement had linked all seven of the crimes and were actively searching for a young man who fit Ballou’s description. Two days after the car accident, the nurse and two of the other three women he had romanced during his string of burglaries picked him out of a line-up. The fourth woman had been the lady of the house he had robbed. She never mentioned Ballou to the authorities or anyone else, particularly her husband.

  A key found in Ballou’s possession was traced to a safety deposit box that contained a large amount of cash and a stack of bearer bonds. Ten days later, Ballou was in court agreeing to a plea bargain that would see him serving six years behind bars.

  The traffic accident he was in occurred because a truck driver lost control of his vehicle after spilling hot coffee onto his legs while driving. Had the man skipped the coffee or decided to drink it after he had parked, Kent Ballou might have never been caught.

  His six years in prison brought him into contact with hardened criminals and Ballou had learned much from them, while also making a friend. The man, a lifelong criminal named Larry Sheehy, was Ballou’s cellmate and was in prison on an assault charge. Sheehy had long red hair that he wore in a ponytail. He’d been suspected of murdering someone, but the cops hadn’t found any evidence to support their suspicion. Sheehy was a killer. After learning how Ballou had been caught, he told Ballou that his biggest mistake had been leaving the maid’s daughter and the other women alive.

  “If they had been dead, that bitch never would have called the cops on you.”

  Ballou couldn’t deny the truth of that statement. If he could have gone back in time and murdered the three women who had pointed to him during the lineup, he would have gladly done so. It was thanks to them that he had been exposed for what he was, lost all his money, and six years of his life.

  “Live and learn, kid,” Sheehy told him.

  Sheehy was released from prison eight weeks before Ballou’s sentence was scheduled to end. When Ballou got out, Sheehy was there waiting for him and they drove to a coffee shop to talk. He had a plan that would make them a lot of money.

  “Kidnapping?” Ballou asked.

  “Hell yeah. And I’ve already got the victim picked out. She’s eighteen and the apple of her daddy’s eye. Her very rich daddy. I figure that we could ask for a million and he won’t even blink.”

  Ballou chewed on his bottom lip. “I don’t know, Larry. I met three kidnappers in prison. They all got grabbed when they were picking up the money.”

  “Yeah, but there are two of us. I figure you could distract the cops while I grab the dough. Even if they were to question you, what could they do? You wouldn’t have the money and there would be no proof that you were involved. Once you were released, we’d meet up and split the cash.”

  Ballou had looked at his friend sideways. Did Sheehy think he was stupid because he was young? If his plan worked and he managed to get away with a million in cash, Ballou knew that he would never see him again. Saying as much would start an argument, so he used another reason to decline the offer.

  “Count me out. Even if you got the money there’s a good chance that the cops marked the bills or recorded the serial numbers. The second we tried to spend it we’d find cops showing up.”

  Sheehy tried his best to convince Ballou to join in the kidnapping, but Ballou declined.

  “All right, kid, but when you hear about a girl getting snatched and the kidnapper getting away with a bundle, you’ll be kicking yourself for not coming in on it.”

  “I wish you luck, Larry.”

  Sheehy had needed more than luck. The kidnapping went down eleven days later, and two days after that, Sheehy was dead. He’d been killed in a gun battle while picking up the ransom. It was reported on the news that the money used at the ransom drop had been counterfeit and also treated with a substance that would make the paper dissolve over a week’s time. Even if Sheehy had been successful, he would have come away with nothing.

  As for the teenaged victim, Sheehy had strangled her before going to pick up the ransom. Her body was found in an old shed in a wooded area. As Sheehy had told Ballou, “You never leave anyone alive who could pick you out of a lineup.”

  Ballou was congratulating himself for not getting involved only to be awakened in the middle of the night to the sound of the FBI knocking his apartment door down.

  Larry Sheehy had left behind balled up sheets of paper in a wastebasket that contained handwritten notes about the kidnapping. On one of them was a list.

  Buy duct tape.

  Get locks for shed.

  Buy magazines to cut out the letters for the ransom note.

  Talk to Kent Ballou about helping out.

  The note implicated Ballou in the kidnapping even though there was no other evidence linking him to the crime. To make matters worse, there was video of Ballou and Sheehy talking together at a coffee shop. The coffee shop had a CCTV security system and the owner kept the tapes for several months before recording over them. He had remembered seeing the red-headed Sheehy, found the tape, and handed it over to the police.

  Ballou took a lie detector test and the results came back as inconclusive. Although he had told the truth, that he wasn’t involved, he had still been aware of Sheehy’s plans to kidnap someone. That knowledge was reflected in how his body responded to certain questions. Ballou’s lawyer recommended taking a plea deal because if he lost a jury trial, he’d be lucky to do less than twenty years, considering that he would be facing kidnapping and murder charges. The worst-case scenario would see him going to prison for life.

  Ballou took the damn deal, even though it involved him admitting that he had played a part in the kidnapping. He was sentenced to twelve years without parole, to be served inside a maximum-security prison. His first night back behind bars, Ballou dreamed of strangling Sheehy to death as Sheehy had done to the kidnap victim.

  The new prison was much tougher than the first one he’d served time in. Most of the prisoners were in on violent offenses and many had committed murder. Gang life was th
e norm and was divided along racial lines. Ballou didn’t care what color someone was and refused to join a group of white supremacists. They told him that he wouldn’t make it on his own. Those words proved to be correct.

  Ballou was young and good-looking. A group of homosexuals targeted him, and he was beaten and gang raped in the shower.

  His left eye was swollen shut, he had several broken ribs, and two of his bottom front teeth had been knocked out. The eye and the ribs would heal on their own, but the teeth had to be replaced. The dentist the prison used smelled of alcohol but looked sober. The replacement teeth weren’t a perfect match, but Ballou figured that they were better than having a gap in the front of his mouth.

  After being released from the infirmary, Ballou joined the white supremacists. Their protection would buy him the time he needed to get his revenge. He’d done some weight-lifting during his first stint in prison, but he dedicated himself to getting bigger and stronger. Within a year he had packed on thirty pounds of muscle and gotten tougher. At the same time, he tried his best to avoid any sort of confrontation, so that he wouldn’t be considered a troublemaker. He wasn’t a model prisoner, as he sometimes got into fights in the yard when provoked, and he tried to shirk the work assignments he was given. But no one thought of him as a risk or as someone prone to violence. However, he could be violent, and would be when the opportunity arose.

  Ballou had fashioned a knife out of a piece of scrap metal he’d obtained. He found the strip of steel when he was assigned to clean up an area of the prison that had needed plumbing and electrical repairs. Along with the makeshift knife, Ballou had a piece of galvanized pipe. He planned to put them both to good use when the time was right.

  He knew the moment was approaching when a new prisoner arrived who was named Scott Mills. He had been sentenced to twenty years for killing his girlfriend after he discovered that she had cheated on him. Mills was only nineteen and had a face and build that made him look younger. The homosexuals practically drooled when they saw him.

  Mills didn’t want to join a gang and so the word was put out that he was fair game. He was attacked in the shower the same way Ballou had been. It was the opportunity that Ballou had been waiting for. The guards had been bribed to look the other way and make sure that the cameras in the area “malfunctioned.” None of the rapists bothered to keep watch at the entrance to the showers. They didn’t know Ballou was among them until he had caved in the skull of one of them while slicing open the throat of another. Ballou was naked, having shed his clothes before beginning his butchery.

  There were six of them in all. Ballou disabled them with a blow to the head with his pipe or left them bleeding on the floor of the shower from a knife wound. He made it a point to smash the knees of the group’s leader, a vicious son of a bitch named Franco. Ballou had a special hatred for Franco because the sadist had taunted him during his entire ordeal. He saved the man for last and tortured him by cutting off his genitals. After that, he inflicted more torment by blinding the man, cutting out his tongue, and slicing off his fingers. For good measure, he yanked off Franco’s ears and perforated his eardrums.

  Scott Mills, the latest victim of the rapists, had been savaged by four of them before Ballou made his appearance. After seeing what Ballou had done to Franco. Mills was as frightened of Ballou as he had been of the others. He was wise to be. Mills was not only a victim; he was also a witness. Ballou killed him with the knife before showering the blood off and getting redressed.

  Franco was the sole survivor. He was blind, deaf, made dumb because of his missing tongue, and was unable to write because his hands were fingerless stubs. He had no way to tell anyone who had maimed him and killed his friends.

  The other prisoners knew, and their respect for Ballou increased, and gave birth to a healthy fear of the man.

  The rest of Ballou’s time behind bars passed with little drama until eight months before he was to be released. That was when a prison riot broke out and two guards were killed. Ballou had harmed no one, but he was found to have a shiv in his cell. That eventually wound up to him having another three years added onto his sentence.

  By the time Kent Ballou was released, he was forty, weighed two hundred and twenty pounds of solid muscle, and had a hatred for the world. The teen who had planned to retire at twenty-five was an ex-con with barely a dime to his name and no one to call a friend.

  Kent Ballou left prison a time bomb just waiting to go off.

  Chapter 4

  The private school that the Whites’ children attended provided classes for youngsters between the ages of five and eighteen. Fraternal twins Liam and Emma were seven. The Whites’ adopted daughter, Samantha, had recently turned thirteen. Samantha’s last class ended a few minutes earlier than Liam and Emma’s, so she waited with Jessica for her brother and sister to show.

  Samantha was not your average thirteen-year-old. She had murdered five people at the age of six. They had been murdered with a gun she had tricked a dim-witted pedophile into giving her, before deceiving the man into electrocuting himself. She killed the pedophile and others because getting away with murder seemed like a fun game to play.

  When evidence pointed to her being the killer, Jessica was brought in to consult with the FBI agent investigating the case. That was when she and her husband first met Samantha. Jessica believed that Samantha was beyond redemption.

  Mr. White disagreed. He saw a kindred spirit in the child and began counseling her. Later on, at the request of Samantha’s grandfather, Brendan Ryan, Jessica agreed to work with the child. Over time she saw that her husband had been right. There was a core of goodness inside Samantha. Her sense of empathy needed to be expanded and her high intelligence and predatory nature had to be directed toward positive pursuits.

  Samantha adored Mr. White. His influence had been good for Samantha and as she grew older, she realized how horrible her earlier murderous actions had been. After the child was left orphaned, the Whites adopted her. She was currently the youngest member of an organization named PREY. PREY was started by Dr. Elena Colt and was a vigilante group that targeted serial killers and sexual predators.

  The adorable blonde, blue-eyed child was now a lovely young teen who was the perfect bait for pedophiles. In the three years Samantha worked with PREY, she helped to capture over a dozen dangerous sexual predators who were targeting children.

  PREY didn’t hand their captures over to the authorities; they eliminated them. By killing them, they guaranteed that they would never harm another child.

  Violet was a member of PREY as well. She often accompanied her little sister and made sure that no harm came to Samantha. That was not to say that Samantha needed a protector. She was deadly in her own right.

  “How was school?”

  “Okay. I’m not bored as much now that they’ve placed me in a higher grade. But I can’t wait to get to college next year. I’ll finally learn something that I really want to know.”

  Samantha had shown great talent at fashion design. When she wasn’t wearing her school uniform, she wore clothes that she had designed and made herself. Jessica also had several dresses that Samantha had created.

  Jessica gave a small shake of her head. “Off to college at fourteen. If you were Liam or Emma, I’d be worried about you being mature enough to handle it.”

  “But you’re not worried about me?”

  “Oh, I worry. Despite your maturity and experience, you’re still a child, my child. I’ll worry over you no matter how old you get.”

  Samantha smiled. “Thanks, Mom.”

  “For what?”

  “You make me feel normal sometimes. I like that.”

  Jessica reached over and patted Samantha’s knee. “You’ll do fine in college. It’s a little scary for everyone at first, but you’ll make friends.”

  “All my friends here are at the PREY house. I don’t have to hide who I am when I’m there.”

  “But once you’re at college, your peers will be several
years older than you. You might find someone you find compatible.”

  “Like a boyfriend?”

  Jessica frowned. “If that happens, he’d better be close to your own age. Your father would not take kindly to a twenty-year-old man showing interest in you.”

  “You mean that he might kill him?”

  “That would be a possibility, yes.”

  A bell rang and the younger students began leaving the building a minute later. They spotted Liam first. He was tall for his age and stood out. Emma was beside him and they both smiled as they said goodbye to friends and rushed toward Jessica’s SUV.

  “Hi Mom,” Liam said. It was followed by Emma shouting “Mommy!” as she leaned over from the rear seats to plant a kiss on Jessica’s lips. They didn’t need to greet Samantha, as they saw her in school throughout the day.

  After asking the twins how their day had been, Jessica drove home.

  They arrived to find that Violet had returned from the PREY house and was just getting out of her red sports car. She was not alone. Her fiancé, Brandon Morning Star, was with her. Brandon was a Cheyenne with raven hair and copper-colored skin. The young man had been a wanderer until he’d met Violet. Once they began dating, he put down roots in the town. Brandon had taken a job as a maintenance man at the police station. When the town’s new municipal center opened eight months ago, Brandon was hired on as the head of the maintenance department and supervised five employees.

  Mr. White approved of the relationship after seeing how happy Brandon made Violet. Viola, Violet’s twin sister, had also found love. She was living in a nearby town with a young woman named Marina. Marina, who was studying law, was a good influence on the flighty Viola. Under Marina’s urging, Viola was going to school to be a veterinarian’s assistant.

  Violet and Brandon greeted Jessica and the children before everyone went inside. It had been a sunny but cold day, with the temperature to drop into the single digits overnight. The weather report was calling for snow flurries by morning.