by Alexa Grace
"Just like Amanda and Sophia," Carly said with a sigh. "I'm curious, Gabe. How much personal information did they give in their profiles?"
"All four girls included their ages, physical descriptions, and phone numbers. Two of them posted multiple photographs, some of which were pretty suggestive."
Brody shook his head and commented, "An online predator's wish come true."
"Unfortunately," Gabe agreed.
Brody asked Cameron, "What did you find out when you interviewed the passengers on Alison Brown's bus?"
"Alison must be a quiet, low-key girl because out of the eleven passengers I interviewed, only one remembered her and that's because she sat next to her the entire trip."
"Really?" asked Carly leaning forward in her chair.
"Yes. Mrs. Henderson traveled on the bus to be in Morel for the birth of her first grandchild. She said she and Alison talked during the trip, but only if Mrs. Henderson initiated the conversation. She said for most of the trip, Alison read a young adult romance on her laptop. Mrs. Henderson couldn't remember the title. She said at one point, Alison asked her questions about Morel, and what it would be like to live here."
"Alison's questions about Morel are telling," said Carly. "It makes me think our killer romanced Alison. She wanted to know about Morel because she planned to live here with him."
"That's a hell of an important decision to make based on an online suitor," exclaimed Brody.
"I know, but consider that teens and preteens spend hours and hours chatting with online friends. Most of them are having problems at school or at home and get caught up with these online friends who appear to completely understand what they are going through. Before long, the online relationships turn into romances, and the kids get involved with something dangerous when the online buddy turns into their boyfriend or girlfriend."
<><><>
In a small booth at the other end of the restaurant, the Master ate his lunch and watched the sheriff's group with interest. It pissed him off that once again, he was too far from them to hear what they were saying, and he desperately needed information about where they were on their serial killer case. None of the cops he hung out with knew a thing. They said the sheriff was keeping most of the investigation on a need-to-know basis.
Draining the rest of his tea from his glass, he shook it to make the ice rattle to get the waitress's attention. Not noticing, the waitress headed back toward the kitchen, but soon a young girl appeared with a refill.
"Thank you very much," he said in a smooth, sexy drawl as he scanned her from head-to-toe, appreciating her seductive young body and wholesome good looks. Eyeing her name tag, he remarked, "Hailey is a pretty name for a pretty girl."
Blushing, Hailey said, "Thank you. Is there anything else I can bring you?"
Looking at his watch, he said, "I have time for dessert. What do you recommend?"
Hailey named off a variety of pies and cakes available.
With his best seductive smile aimed at her, he asked, "Which one is your favorite, Hailey?"
"I really like the chocolate brownie cheesecake that Mom makes," Hailey said with a wide grin that revealed a line of silver braces.
"Then that's what I'll have."
As he watched Hailey walk away, he imagined her naked and hanging by her wrists from the pipe on his basement ceiling and became aroused.
Suddenly, his cell phone chimed announcing a new text so he fished it out of his pocket to look at the display. His damn sister, Erin, had sent him another text. It was the third one in an hour's time. What the hell was wrong with her this time? Erin was getting on his last nerve. She came up with something new to freak out about nearly every day. He'd told her a thousand times not to bother him at work. He called home.
"What?" He growled.
"A deputy came to the house looking for one of the slaves in the basement. He's got a photograph of Alison."
"So what? Unless you took him on a tour of the basement, he's got nothing on either of us."
"There's more," she said, nearly hysterical.
"Spill it," he said impatiently, wishing he were home so he could slap Erin.
"The deputy had a photo of me at the bus station the day I picked up Alison. It's grainy and I had the hood on my sweatshirt pulled up, but it was definitely me."
"What? That's impossible. The surveillance cameras at the bus station are fake."
"Bullshit!" Erin screamed.
Furious, he disconnected the call and tried to calm himself. He'd known about the house-to-house search for Alison Brown, but knew they didn't have search warrants, so he'd dismissed it in his mind as unimportant, so he hadn't given his idiot sister a heads up. The two cops he'd talked to about the search hadn't mentioned any photo taken at the bus station. Damn it. When did that cheap-ass Ernie McBride get real surveillance cameras installed? He should have kept better track of the situation. If he had, he would have known. He couldn't afford these kinds of mistakes. Now the cops had a photo of his sister with Alison Brown. The smart thing for him to do was to kill them both. And when was he anything but smart?
<><><>
Lying with half of her body inside the dog cage and the other on the outside, Jasmine was dead, her face a frozen mask of pain. Alison wept and cursed the monster who had ended such a sweet girl's life. She'd never hated anyone, not even the bullies who'd made her life miserable at school. But she now hated the Master, and if she had the chance she'd kill him herself. A shimmering wave of pulsing fury clouded everything as she wished the worst for him.
"Jasmine, I am so sorry this happened to you," Alison whispered as she crawled to the end of the cage closest to the girl's body.
Leaning against the cage, Alison closed her eyes. The Master would kill her soon. She'd witnessed him killing Jasmine and her knowledge would be too dangerous for him to let her live. Her blood turned to ice, and she held back the urge to scream.
Sun streamed through the small bathroom window, and a flicker of light cast off something metallic that caught Alison's attention. Lying next to Jasmine's foot was a set of keys. In her haste, the woman must have dropped the keys to the padlocks securing the cages. Shoving her hand through a slat, she discovered she could only push her right hand as far as her index finger knuckle — not far enough to touch the keys. She tried again, this time with her left hand, but no luck. Using both hands, she pulled on the heavy gauge wire in an effort to widen the gap, but it wouldn't budge. Somehow she had to get to the keys before the woman upstairs realized they were gone.
In the opposite end of the crate, Alison noticed the plastic container that held her breakfast. Peeling it open, she removed the lid. Using it, she might be able to reach the keys and pull them toward her.
Sliding the plastic lid through a slat, she wanted to cheer out loud when it touched the end of a key. Although she was unsuccessful with her first attempts, eventually Alison was able to use the lid to pull the keys close to her crate until she was able to grasp them.
Moving to the other end of the crate, Alison held the padlock between two fingers as she worked the key with her other hand. In minutes that seemed like hours, the padlock finally opened, and she pushed out of the crate. Leaning against the crate to steady her legs, Alison remembered the washer and dryer were housed in a small room under the staircase. As fast as her wobbly legs would carry her, she headed for the room. Inside there were clean clothes stacked on top of the dryer, and Alison found a pair of black sweats along with a sweatshirt. She quickly slipped these on and searched the room for a pair of shoes. Finding no shoes, she grabbed a thick pair of men's socks and raced to the bathroom.
Pulling on the socks, she noticed the dingy towel she'd used for her shower was draped over the rod. Alison grabbed it and wound it around her right hand. She then stepped on top of the toilet and punched at the glass in the window several times to no avail. She whacked at the window one more time and the sound of the glass startled her so much she nearly fell off the toilet. Gaining her com
posure, Alison shook the slivers of glass from the towel and tried to pry the larger slivers out of the window frame. Pulling out most of the larger pieces of glass, she folded the towel and placed it across the lower section of the window frame.
Boosting herself up, she pushed her head and shoulder through the opening. Bracing her hands against the outside wall, she was able to twist the rest of her body through the window and drop to the ground.
Looking to her right, she saw a driveway that led to a small garage, then wound around the property to a red barn. To her left, was a wooded area that seemed to stretch forever. Deciding to take her chances in the woods where she'd at least have some cover, she rushed to the thicket of trees. Alison ran until her lungs burned and her legs ached, fearing if she hesitated for a second, she could be discovered. Sharp pains at her mid-section caused her to stop and lift her sweatshirt to see a long, jagged cut near her belly-button that was bleeding profusely. Alison must have cut herself without realizing it as she shoved through the window.
Pressing against the cut with one hand to stop the bleeding, Alison pushed on, ignoring the briars that caught at her sweats. The only sounds in the quiet woods were her ragged breathing and the crunch of branches and leaves beneath her feet.
<><><>
Carly opened her laptop in the sheriff's conference room and couldn't believe her eyes. She had over twenty additional respondents to her ad. Spending the next hour hurriedly responding to each one, she went back through her messages looking for anything from Earl Haas. She was not disappointed.
@EarlH: Hi. How is your day going?
@SweetTeen: Great, since I'm hearing from you.
@EarlH: Are you going with me to the Twilight movie marathon?
@SweetTeen: I can't go this weekend. My parents are leaving on Friday to go out of town and I have to stay home alone watching the house.
@EarlH: No kidding. Why don't I bring a six-pack and come over to keep you company?
@SweetTeen: I don't know.
@EarlH: Sure you do. You can't convince me you haven't had a boyfriend over before.
@SweetTeen: Of course, I've had boyfriends.
@EarlH: Sex?
@SweetTeen: Maybe.
@EarlH: Baby, I want to do things to you your old boyfriends never thought of.
@SweetTeen: Really?
@EarlH: Invite me over this Friday night and find out.
@SweetTeen: See you at eight o'clock at my house at 654 Covered Bridge Road in Morel on Friday.
@EarlH: Can't wait to see you.
<><><>
The Master skidded to a stop in his driveway and sat in the car for a couple of minutes to calm down. Still royally pissed from Erin's call, he waited until pixels of red faded from his eyes. His anger could be a scary thing, even to himself.
Erin was in the kitchen waiting for him when he entered the house.
"The Master is home," he called out, jokingly.
His sister's face was a twisted mask of fear and anxiety. "We're in a lot of trouble. I think the cops are closing in on us," she said as she brushed a tear from her cheek. "They've got my photograph with that slave they're looking for. How long do you think it will take for them to figure everything out?"
"Shut up, Erin," he warned in a low voice.
"Not this time, Master," she spat.
Erin saw only a blur as he raised his hand and struck her across the mouth, knocking her into a kitchen cabinet.
"I knew about the search, and I should have warned you. They didn't have a search warrant, so I dismissed it as being unimportant. They're on a fishing trip. They've got nothing, Erin. Nothing. Can your pea-brain understand that?"
Wiping the blood from her mouth, she said, "What I understand is that they have a photograph of me, but you said the surveillance cameras were fake."
"Gee, Erin," he said sarcastically. "Don't you think the deputy who was standing a foot away from you would have recognized you if the photo hadn't been so grainy?"
Getting some ice from the refrigerator, she filled a plastic sandwich bag, wrapped a dishcloth around it, and pressed it against her lips. "I don't know," she said.
"Well, I do, and he didn't, so stop freaking out. I'm sick of the drama."
"Speaking of drama, I wished you'd checked on the slave last night when I asked you to."
"Why?"
"Because she's dead," Erin replied.
"Are you sure she's dead, or is she sleeping off the beating I gave her?"
"Check for yourself," she said, pointing toward the basement door.
With his sister close behind, he descended the basement steps until he reached the bottom. The first thing he saw was Jasmine's body lying across the opening of her crate. The second thing he saw was the open door of Alison's cage. Where was she?
Furiously, he spun around to face his sister. "Where the fuck is the other slave?"
Her mouth opened in surprise, Erin looked around the room and stammered, "I don't know. She was here at breakfast time in her cage."
"Where are your keys?" he asked, with ice cold fury on his face. He strode to the bathroom, noting the broken window, and then returned to his sister.
"I asked you a question. Where are your fucking keys?" he roared.
Patting both pockets of her sweats, Erin panicked. Her keys were gone.
The Master pulled his gun out of his pocket and shot her point-blank between the eyes. The force of the blast slammed her body against the wall, and then she slid to the floor. One brain-shattering shot and her life was over. Bye-bye, Sis.
Racing up the stairs, he shot out the back door into the yard and tried to figure out which way Alison may have run. Thinking she may be hiding in the barn, he sprinted down the driveway. Taking out his gun, he entered the dark barn and searched every crevice for the girl, but she was not there. Sweating and out of breath, he wiped his forehead with the back of his sleeve, went to the garage and searched it, but Alison was not there either.
Walking to the basement window, he stood before it and thought of what he would do if he'd escaped. He would probably have avoided the driveway, the barn, and the flat fields beside it. There were too many opportunities to spot him. He would have headed for the woods, and he'd bet his last dollar that was the direction Alison went. Grabbing a flashlight from his car, he entered the woods to search for the girl to end her life before she could ruin his.
<><><>
Chapter Nine
At six o'clock, Brody, Carly, Cameron, and Gabe arrived at the decoy house on Covered Bridge Road in a white unmarked van. The house was a new, red-brick two story on a cul-de-sac lot in an upscale community. Brody opened the garage door and pulled the van inside to hide it.
Once inside, Gabe installed temporary wiring for a digital camera to record the events, as well as a closed-circuit television. Watching the television on the kitchen bar, they could see anyone approaching the driveway, the front yard, or the front door. The house was staged to lure buyers with designer furniture, so Carly set about turning on lamps on both floors to make it look like someone was home. Cameron had talked to the neighbors days before, and most of them had chosen to go away for the weekend, with the exception of seventy-six-year-old Clarence Jackson, who planned to set his telescope up to watch the action. Three of the neighbors offered their garages to hide deputies in patrol cars who would take each perp to the county jail after he'd been arrested and read his rights.
An estimated twenty-one men were set to arrive that night to have sex with a thirteen-year-old girl — including Earl Haas. Several of the men had asked Carly if she was a law enforcement officer, and they'd believed her when she said she wasn't. A couple of men said openly they thought it was a sting, but were coming anyway, which told Carly a lot about the power their sexual urges had on these predators. They were risking their freedom for the possibility of sex with an underage girl.
Brody asked, "Gabe, do you have the list of party-goers for tonight?
Gabe nodded as he pulled a
folder out of his briefcase and handed a stack of papers to his brother.
Brody smiled and said, "Good job. You've got their call names along with their real names and addresses.
"Don't forget the small photographs," offered Gabe with a grin. "I'll pull the list up on my laptop, so we can document anything they bring into the house that can be used as evidence."
"I'll help with that," offered Carly.
Looking at Cameron, she asked, "Anything new on Earl Haas?"
"The surveillance team watching Earl reported the house had been quiet with no signs of underage girls visiting."
Though the news was a relief to Carly, she wondered if Earl had Alison Brown hidden somewhere in the home. Was she still alive? If Earl Haas was the killer, she prayed he had not already murdered Alison and dumped her body somewhere in Shawnee County.
Cameron came in carrying sodas and bottles of water that he placed in the refrigerator, followed by Brody holding an armful of snacks. It was going to be a long night, but they wouldn't go hungry. Over their shirts, Brody, Carly, Cameron, and Gabe wore black bullet-proof vests with white letters spelling S-H-E-R-I-F-F on the back. They were taking no chances, in case any of these men were armed.
Setting up her laptop in the kitchen, Carly logged onto her Internet account and visited each site her ad was posted on. There were a few new respondents, but no messages from the men who were coming to the house that night. Gabe joined her at the bar and opened his laptop, planning to do some work before the men started arriving.
Brody opened the refrigerator and handed Carly, Cameron, and Gabe bottles of water. The group was filled with anticipation and adrenalin. They might end their night with the capture of a serial killer. At the very least, they'd arrest sexual predators and prevent them from victimizing more young girls. Carly felt good about the operation. Going after predators who prowl the Internet for victims helped keep real children from being abused. She was all for that.