The Hunting Ground (Deuce Mora Mystery Series Book 2)

by Jean Heller

  “I couldn’t tell you,” he said. “It might depend on who the next president is. This is one of those things better kept locked in a box and buried forever. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of a sufficiently compelling scenario to warrant disclosure.”

  We all turned that over in our heads for a bit.

  Mark spoke up. “You know, Deuce, the world needed to know about the trafficking. The world needed to know about the dead and abused children. The world needed to know that this ordeal, at least this Chicago piece of it, is over. But, well . . . the world doesn’t need to know the rest of it. Not really. We already know enough about the godawful inhumanity homo sapiens are capable of inflicting on one another. What we need is a plan to wipe out the scourge. Not more proof.”

  Mark was right.

  I knew he was right.

  But it would take me a long time to accept it.

  I said as much. “This is going to haunt me for a long time.”

  “Well, there is one alternative,” Cribben said. He looked at me with a sly smile. “You could wait a reasonable amount of time, change a lot of the pertinent details and identities, and write it all as a novel.”

  It took me a moment to realize he wasn’t joking.

  69

  Spring turned into summer, and Mark and I found reasons to spend every possible minute together. We spent time doing things that made us feel fresh and clean and very much in love.

  It didn’t occur to us until much later that this was our subconscious way of distancing ourselves from anything to do with the Ryan Woods deaths and the Saudi story. Neither of us ever repeated to anyone what Carl Cribben had told us in June. Who would have believed us, anyway?

  At one point I thought about taking Cribben’s suggestion and writing it all down somewhere and stashing the story in my safe deposit box to be fictionalized later. But in the near term, I didn’t have the emotional energy. I didn’t want to think about it any more. I wanted to go back to my column and write stories about politics and schools and police problems and wonderful new attractions coming to my city.

  It would be two years until Mark and I got together with my old college roommate and air traffic control supervisor Gina Brodsky and her airline pilot husband. The night was so strained and uncomfortable we never attempted to repeat it. My friendship with Gina became a casualty of war.

  I tried over and over to visit Joey and Charles. The refusals were steadfast. I was told they were doing fine. I needed to see it with my own eyes. Nobody cared.

  At one point, as fall began to encroach on the Great Lakes states, with summer’s green leaves turning yellow, orange, and fiery red, with temperatures beginning to dip from highs in the eighties to highs in the seventies and sometimes into the sixties, I got a call from Phyllis Metzler of the Cook County Juvenile Court.

  Joey was doing well, still rooming with his brother at the Faulkner Academy. He remained under his psychologist’s care.

  So what of Charles, I asked.

  He’s doing fine, I was told.

  “Phyllis, why can’t I see him?” I demanded.

  “You might,” she said. “One of these days you just might.”

  I didn’t talk to Mark much about Charles. I didn’t want a repeat of the upheaval months earlier when I had broached the idea of adopting the boy. I knew that adoption wasn’t in the cards, not with a child who needed as much hands-on attention as Charles. But I loved the boy, and Mark knew it. So occasionally, he brought up the subject.

  “At some point,” he said one evening, “Charles will get out of that school. If he comes back here, there’s no reason we couldn’t resume our friendship with him.”

  “I hope we get the chance,” I said.

  “Meanwhile, what I suggested way back last spring still stands,” he said. “We could get married and have children of our own. I think we’d be great parents.”

  I smiled at him, and in that moment I knew I really loved him. But I needed the status quo for a while.

  “I’m still trying to get past Ryan Woods and, and . . . well, you know,” I said. “I’m not up to life-changing decisions right now.”

  “No pressure,” Mark said. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  It was November.

  A cold, slashing rain had been cutting through Chicago for two days, slicing the last of the leaves from the trees and putting the city on notice that freezing temperatures and snow would occupy the next five months of our lives.

  The rain finally stopped on a Tuesday night about nine o’clock. I’m not even sure why I noted the day or the time. The doorbell rang, a bit late for visitors, I thought. I got up to answer it, and Mark followed me. So did Murphy.

  I turned on the porch light, looked through the glass, and unlocked the door.

  Charles stood there, half a head taller than the last time I saw him. He was dressed in light brown wool slacks and a dark brown blazer over an ivory-colored turtleneck sweater. He also wore a long black leather coat. His shoes were cordovan leather loafers. His hair was cut close. The gorgeous little boy was growing into a stunning young man. And the expensive clothes fit him perfectly.

  A burly guy stood at the bottom of the porch steps oblivious to the occasional raindrops still dripping from bare tree branches onto his head. He wore a black leather jacket over a black t-shirt and black pants. His face was expressionless.

  My eyes returned to Charles. I wanted very much to hug him, but something stopped me. Perhaps it was the absence of his effervescent smile or the empty look in his eyes. Or the fact that, when Murphy whined in recognition, Charles didn’t so much as glance at him.

  Those changes broke my heart.

  “Charles,” I said, “it’s wonderful to see you. Are you okay?”

  He nodded once.

  “I’m sorry to bother you,” he said, “but I needed to come tell you that you won’t be seeing me around the neighborhood again. I’m going away.”

  I felt my heart clench.

  “Why?” I said. “Where are you going? Who is this man with you?”

  He ignored the questions. “I came to thank you for all you did for me. And for Joey. You won’t be seeing me again.”

  “You said that already. Why won’t I be seeing you again? What’s wrong?”

  “Everything’s fine,” he said. “I have to go now.”

  He turned, and I glanced into the face of the man who had come with Charles.

  “Who are you? Where are you taking him? I demand to know.”

  Nothing. His expression remained inscrutable.

  Charles turned and started down the front steps.

  “Charles, wait,” I called to him. I could hear the pain and urgency in my voice. “Tell me how Joey’s doing.”

  He stopped. He didn’t turn his body back toward me, but he turned his head, so his chin almost touched his shoulder. It was the way of a child who doesn’t want to look an adult in the eye.

  “Joey’s good,” he said. “He’s stayin’ with me.”

  “Where?” I asked. I got no answer.

  I tried again. “Do you know where you’re going, Charles? Has anybody told you where you’re going?” He ignored the question.

  Instead he said, “My name’s not Charles. I made it up. It’s my street name.”

  Then he turned his head away and followed the steps to the sidewalk, his handler following a few feet behind. I couldn’t think of anything to say.

  I caught a good glimpse of him as he walked through the arc of light under a street lamp. Then I lost him.

  When he reached the next street lamp, I could see him again, but his image was wet and blurred because of the moisture in my eyes. He was slipping away from me, one step, one street light at a time. It was like a back-and-white noir movie from the 1940s.

  He walked down the block that way, into light, then into darkness, light and darkness, just as he had entered and left my life over the past months. Then came a street corner. He turned, and he was gone.

  M
ark came up behind me and put his arms around me in support.

  I knew the boy had told me the truth. I would not see him again.

  I felt empty, angry, frightened, betrayed, heartbroken.

  I sat down heavily on a step and fought to hang onto my composure. I stared up the empty sidewalk, trying to will Charles to return, knowing it was useless.

  And I thought about what might have been.

  This boy, who could have been my son.

  I didn’t even know his name.

  THE END

  Note from the Author

  This book carries the usual disclaimer that any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. That’s only partially true.

  I feel compelled to assure readers that the child trafficking ring depicted in Chicago, the burial ground in Ryan Woods, and most certainly the entire story of Saudi Arabian complicity, are figments of my imagination. I do not hold the House of Saud in high regard. The Saudi ruling family is guilty of many things. But the crimes depicted here are not theirs. I chose them for the role they play in this book only because their role in the fractured relations of the Middle East fit perfectly into the scenario I needed to draw.

  Human trafficking worldwide is a huge problem that all nations must face up to and wipe out. Women and children are most vulnerable as victims, but men are not exempt. That trafficking continues as one of the world’s most lucrative international businesses is worse than shameful. It is profoundly sickening and utterly inexcusable. But as described in The Hunting Ground, it never happened.

  At least not here.

  At least not yet.

  Charles is another matter entirely.

  While the trafficking story line is fictional, Charles’s story is true. Almost every detail of his story is exactly as it happened to me and a boy I knew as Charles a long time ago. Not in Chicago, but in Washington, D.C. My husband and I met the real Charles much as Deuce met hers. We fell in love with him the same way. We talked about adopting him. He broke into our home, where I caught him, just as Deuce did. I called the police. He was arrested. I agreed to drop the charges from a felony to a misdemeanor. He went off to a special school.

  Several months later he returned. I saw him break into the school behind our house. He saw me see him. He didn’t care. He smiled and waved. Again, I called the police.

  The real Charles came to our house one night, months later, with a very large, very tough-looking man. Charles had come to thank me for helping set him straight. Then he walked away with his handler and never returned. Like Deuce and the fictional Charles, I never learned the real boy’s real name. I tried several times, but juvenile records are sealed.

  Even after all these years, I still think of Charles and wonder what happened to him. My gut on that last night told me he was in good hands and headed for a better life. I hope my gut was right.

  Although the real Charles never reentered my life, I suspect the fictional Charles will be back to revisit Deuce in some later story. I won’t let anything bad happen to him. I loved him, after all, like a son.

  jh

  HOW ABOUT A FREE BOOK?

  Click HERE to join my mailing list and get The Storm!