by Chelsea Cain
“You sure you want to do this?” Frank asked Kick. “You’ve thought about what it will mean?”
Kick met his gaze. “I was there,” she said, keeping her voice measured. She made a fist and felt the talisman sting her palm. “I saw what he did to James. If this will help catch him, it’s worth it.”
The muscles in his cheeks slackened; his eyebrows dropped. “Okay,” Frank said. “This is where I get off.”
“You’re not staying?” Kick asked. She hadn’t wanted him there, but now that he was here, she didn’t want him to leave.
“I can’t,” Frank said simply. He looked away from her and rubbed the back of his neck.
“He doesn’t want to watch,” Bishop explained.
Kick nodded and took a shaky breath. That was fair. She didn’t want to watch either. Frank held the door open for her. She couldn’t hesitate, couldn’t let them see any doubt. She squeezed the talisman tighter and stepped over the threshold. Bishop followed, and the door closed behind them.
39
THE SECURITY GUARD WHO greeted them on the other side of the door was wearing blue mascara and carrying what looked like a Glock 21 in her holster. She took Kick’s purse and gave her a claim check with a number on it, then made her go through the metal detector four times. Bishop didn’t have to go through the metal detector, but Kick did notice that the security guard took her time frisking him.
When the blonde decided that Bishop had been frisked enough, they were able to continue down the hall. The concrete walls were painted bone white. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. Corkboards lined the hall on either side at eye level, layered with bulletins and internal memos and Wanted posters and Missing Person fliers interspersed with random posters for local events. A high school production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat was coming up, as well as someone’s yard sale.
Kick stopped cold. Next to the yard sale notice was a new Missing Child flier for Adam Rice. In the picture he was hugging a worn stuffed monkey to his chest and his mouth was open, laughing.
“Take it,” Bishop said. He was a dozen steps ahead of her.
Kick unpinned the flier. In another six months they’d issue another one, and then one every year after that, showing computer-generated age progression. Adam’s avatar would continue to age, even if Adam didn’t.
“This is it,” Bishop called from an unmarked door up ahead.
Kick tucked the flier into her purse and hurried to catch up.
“Welcome to the cybercrime center,” Bishop said.
He pressed a buzzer mounted on the wall and gave a merry wave at the camera above the door. The door unlocked and Bishop reached for the knob. “They all call it the bunker,” he said. “You’ll see why.”
They stepped through the door, into a darkened, windowless room lit only by the glow of dozens of computer monitors. Each station had three or four flat screens of various sizes. At the front of the room, on the wall, a larger screen spun with an FBI logo screensaver. A half dozen people sat hunched over keyboards, their faces luminous in the reflected light of their monitors. Kick couldn’t help but think how much James would love it.
One of the technicians pushed his task chair back from his station and stood up to greet them.
“That’s Joe,” Bishop told her. He smiled as Joe approached. “Joe, this is Kick Lannigan.”
Joe gave Kick’s hand a firm shake. He had the soft, pale physique of someone who spent most of his time motionless in a chair in a dark room. “Pleased to meet you, Ms. Lannigan,” he said. “You’re the reason we’re all here.”
“Excuse me?” Kick asked.
“Your case,” Joe said. “If we’d had this up and running back when you were abducted, we might have found you a lot sooner. You’re the reason we got funding.”
Kick looked behind him at all the gleaming screens, every one a different image, a different website or chat room or string of addresses. “You monitor everything?”
“As much as we can,” Joe said. “We also work to flush out predators. It’s an uphill battle. There are hundreds of thousands of websites. We’ve logged ten million public IP addresses offering child porn or peer-to-peer file sharing in the U.S. alone.”
The meaning of what he was saying was sinking in. “So you’ve seen me,” Kick said.
Joe hesitated. “We have to look at the images to identify victims and perpetrators, locations,” he said. He wiped his lip. “No one here enjoys it.”
Kick smiled weakly. “Am I still popular?”
“The Beth Movies are still the most downloaded child pornography on the Internet,” Joe said. A flash of regret crossed his face. “You probably didn’t want to know that,” he said.
Kick tried to shrug it off. It’s not like it was news. Kick had a closet full of victim notification letters, a living memorial to her continuing presence on the Internet.
She looked over at Bishop. “I told you I was famous.”
Bishop was staring intently at his phone. He glanced up distractedly. “Where do you want to do it?” he asked Joe.
“Right,” Joe said, with an apologetic glance at Kick. “Follow me.”
He escorted them to the back corner of the room and through a door into a small conference room with a computer station against the wall. Kick pulled the rubber band off her braid and started to untwist her hair. “Have a seat here,” he said to Kick, motioning to the conference table. She glanced nervously at Bishop and then took a seat in a chair at the table. Joe sat down at the computer station and powered up its four monitors. Then he hit a switch, and a light came on directly over Kick’s head. The sudden spotlight made her squirm. She dragged her fingers through her hair to come out the tangles, snagging the talisman ring in the process. Joe placed a web camera in front of Kick on the table. The sight of it made Kick’s stomach hurt.
“I’m looking at a live video feed right now,” Joe said. One of the monitors showed an image of a satellite map. He tapped the webcam. “You’re going to look into that camera right there,” he said. “Keep it short and sweet. Start by telling them who you are. We can do as many takes as you want, so no pressure.”
“Wait,” Bishop said. He had his hands pressed together, prayer-style, his index fingers against his lips. “You want a minute?” he asked her.
Kick dug her fingers into her thighs under the table. “Don’t watch me,” she said to Bishop. “Watch the monitor. I don’t like being watched.” She shook her hair out and quickly rebraided it to the side, in front of her left shoulder: if this was going to work, her hair had to be on the left. Then she inhaled and lifted her head, and she gazed directly into the camera. All she had to do was believe in two facts. Adam Rice was still alive. He was out there, and Iron Jacket was responsible.
She drew a picture of Adam’s face in her mind’s eye. “I know you know who I am,” she said to the camera. “And I know you can help.”
It was like she could feel the men on the other side, through the lens, their eyes roving her body; it made her skin crawl. But she couldn’t think about that. She forced herself to continue. “I’m looking for a murderer, a man we think was in Portland, Oregon, just yesterday. He’s been active for at least fourteen years, and he may go by some form of the name Iron Jacket.” The picture of Adam shifted in her mind, and now she could only see James, the boy he’d been when they’d first met. Pain darkened Kick’s face before she could stop it. She could feel herself losing control. Her throat closed. “He has a special interest in dark-haired Caucasian boys,” she said. She had to clear her throat to get the words out. Her mental picture of James shifted again, and now she saw him unconscious on the ventilator. “Maybe you fool people in your lives. Maybe some of you have families.” She pulled at her braid, twisting it around her fingers, eyes still fixed on the camera. Under the table, her free hand was balled into a fist. “But I know who you are.” Kick star
ed hard at the lens. “I see you,” she said. “And you owe me.”
“Okay,” Joe said softly. “I think we got it.”
Kick lifted her eyes to Bishop. She felt light-headed, out of breath. The back of her neck was wet with sweat. “Do you want another take?” she asked. “I can do another take.”
“No,” Bishop said. “It’s perfect.”
Joe was typing away on a keyboard, opening websites on his monitors. “Okay,” he said. “I’m uploading it on several popular sites, and including a contact email.” Kick watched the monitors. Red dots peppered the world map, blinking across almost every continent.
“What’s all that?” Kick asked, leaning on her elbows.
“Those are all the servers currently hosting Beth Movies,” Joe said over his shoulder. “We wanted to be sure to post this where you’re most popular.”
“Sure,” Kick said.
“We’re getting some responses,” Joe said, focused on his center monitor.
Kick glanced brightly at Bishop. But he looked cautious. He walked over to Joe’s chair, positioning himself between Kick and the screen. She stood and edged around the table. She could see part of the monitor, messages popping up one after the other.
“Anything?” she asked.
“Don’t read it,” Bishop said.
“If you’re trying to keep me safe from the fantasies of pedophiles, you’re too late,” Kick said, elbowing him aside.
Bishop made room for her.
Kick put her hair behind her shoulder and leaned in so she could see the screen.
Messages were coming in so furiously that Kick barely had time to skim them. Message after message about what men wanted to do to her, what they fantasized she’d do to them, how wonderful they’d make her feel.
“It’s already getting reposted to other sites,” Joe said, glancing at another monitor.
“It’s okay,” Kick said tonelessly. Sometimes she felt so hollow it scared her. “It’s not me. I don’t mind.”
That was Beth they were talking about, not her. And Beth was a ghost.
Kick was real; she was the one with the power now. She was the one laying the trap. The thought made her stand up a little straighter.
“I’m done here,” she announced. She slipped a hand into her purse and withdrew the flier of Adam Rice that she’d taken from the bulletin board. She was going to find him, one way or another. She made herself a promise.
There wasn’t much time.
40
“IT’S TIME, BETH,” HER father said. She could hear the frustration in his voice, but she kept swimming.
The sky was dark and full of stars. Beth’s fingers were pruned. She kicked her legs and propelled herself on her back over the surface of the pool. “I don’t want to.”
“She’s tired,” her father said to the man with pale legs. “She’s not usually like this.”
“Let me try,” the man said. He lowered himself over the edge of the pool and swam toward her. Beth kicked harder, pushing through the water, but he had long arms and caught up with her in a few strokes.
“I see you,” he said. He was a head in the water now, his feet planted on the floor of the deep end. The arrows tattooed on his chest, sharp points and feathered fletching, distorted under the water, so that they seemed broken. “Are you having a nice vacation?” he asked.
She nodded, paddling in place, the water lapping at her ears.
“Your father worked hard to bring you here. He counts on you to be a good girl.” The man’s voice sounded muffled through the pool, distant, but there was still something in his tone that made Beth’s stomach hurt. “Don’t you think you owe him that?”
She could feel him getting close to her, and she strained her eyes sideways. His wet, dark hair was flattened back, like paint. The water came to his bottom lip, so that his face seemed divided into two different shapes. One of the tattooed arrows stretched up his neck, the tip pointing at his jawbone. “I know who you are,” he breathed. “I know your real name.”
Beth swallowed a gulp of pool water and choked, and her legs sank as she paddled frantically with her arms to stay afloat. She was still sputtering on the chlorine when she felt a viselike grip on her arm, propelling her to the black and white tiles at the edge of the pool.
41
BISHOP HEADED EAST, OVER the Hawthorne Bridge. Below them, the Willamette River looked so tranquil, but even in the summer it could kill you—if the currents didn’t get you, the hypothermia would.
“Are you all right?” Bishop asked.
“Yes,” Kick lied. She glanced down at the flier with Adam’s photo on it in her hand.
“They don’t know where you live,” Bishop said.
She could tell he was trying to make her feel better; the problem was, he didn’t know what was wrong.
“It’s all words,” he continued. “They wouldn’t know what to do with you if they had you.” He caught himself. “That was the wrong thing to say, wasn’t it?”
Kick could feel the barrel of the Glock through the leather of the purse on her lap. “I knew what I was doing, John.”
Bishop looked at her sideways. “John?” he said. “I’m John now?”
Kick shrugged. “I was just trying it out.” It had sounded all wrong coming out of her mouth. It probably wasn’t even his real name. “I don’t like it,” she added.
“I don’t like it either,” Bishop said.
Kick put the flier back in her purse and pulled out the Glock.
“You want me to drop you off at the hospital?” Bishop asked, with a glance at the gun.
Kick ejected the magazine, inventoried the ammo, and inserted it back in the well. It needed cleaning. “Can I get into my apartment?”
“James’s place is still sealed, but there’s no reason you can’t access yours. You’ll be alone, though: all the neighbors are out until tomorrow.”
“I want to go home,” Kick said. “I can drive myself to the hospital.” She swallowed hard. “Will you be by later?” It sounded like a proposition. Maybe it was. She didn’t know yet.
Bishop hesitated. “I’m going to head back and help Joe.”
Right. He had to scour her deviant fan mail for clues. That wasn’t humiliating at all.
“You need to dry-fire that before you clean it,” Bishop said, nodding at the Glock.
“I know,” Kick said. She peered over the skyline at where the Mount Hood was supposed to be and wasn’t, but it was like it had never been there in the first place. She wanted to ask Bishop where he was going to spend the night, but it wasn’t any of her business, really. She didn’t know what she was to him.
“It’s the right thing to do,” Bishop said.
For a moment she thought he had seen through her plan.
But when she looked over at him, he seemed completely unconcerned, gazing out the windshield, one hand on the wheel. “You’ll feel better sleeping in your own bed,” he said.
She couldn’t figure him out.
“I’m going to see you again, right?” she asked.
“We will see each other again,” Bishop said.
He said it with such absolute authority that Kick almost thought he meant it.
“Good,” she said.
42
“I KNOW WHO HE is,” Kick whispered to James.
James’s eyelids twitched. Kick lay next to him on the bed, on the side with fewer tubes, wedged between his body and the rail of his hospital bed.
His skin felt clammy and cold. “Breathe,” she reminded him. The muscles of his neck strained. His forehead was shiny with sweat. His vitals skyrocketed, matched by the quickening electronic pulse of the monitor alerts, lights blinking. The doctors were weaning him off the ventilator, forcing him to take every other breath on his own. He had to decide, with each breath, if he wanted to live
or die. It made Kick sick to see him struggle. She closed her eyes and put her forehead against to his cheek. She could barely smell him anymore. The machine took a mechanical breath, and she felt James relax. The electronic pulses slowed.
“I’ve seen him,” Kick whispered.
All those years, Mel was teaching her escape tricks, teaching her to be afraid. It wasn’t the FBI he was worried about. He had borrowed money from a dangerous man, a fixer for the Family, a man with a military background and a child bondage fetish. A man like that, he wouldn’t just invest blindly in a project: he would want to know what he was getting into; he would want to inspect the merchandise. She had met him, when she was a kid, at the Desert Rose Motel. He had made her get out of the pool that night. You owe him, the man had said. But a child’s description and a vague memory of a tattoo were not going to help Bishop find him.
“He’ll come tonight,” she said.
She knew Iron Jacket was watching her. The gray Taurus had been behind them on the way down to the state pen, but it hadn’t been there on the trip home, because it had turned around and doubled back as soon as Iron Jacket realized where she was headed. Her visit with Mel had been the trigger.
James was struggling to breathe again. Kick caressed his cheek. If they made it through this, she would tell him everything. All he had to do was breathe.
Poor, sweet James. “I think all of this might be my fault,” she said. They had assumed that James had been attacked because of his history with Iron Jacket. But why now, after all these years? No, it had been about Mel. James and Monster had been hurt to send Mel a message. It had been a threat. Give me what I want or I will kill your daughter. I will kill Beth. James and Kick lived in identical apartments. If he could get to James, he could get to her. She remembered how her skin crawled when Iron Jacket came up out of the pool next to her. I see you.
She took James’s hand, the wire talisman pressed between them. She wondered if he could feel it too. If he even knew she was there.