by Ryan Schow
She got up from the table, gave him a hug and a kiss. “Just try to relax, Dad. Go with the flow. Mingle.”
He looked at his beautiful daughter and nearly refused to leave her. Ever since Astrid had died, he didn’t want to spend a minute away from Kaylee. He’d smothered her, though. He was fully aware that he was clinging to whatever remnants of Astrid he could find. In this case, he was too attached to Kaylee, which he feared was unhealthy for them both.
She kissed his cheek once more. “Mom would want this.”
“I know. You’re right.”
Outside, he got into his Bentley Continental GT, started the engine, then sat there thinking of all the ways to skip out on the get-together. Eventually, he put the car in gear, backed out of the driveway and forced himself to go, to just take it a mile at a time.
Halden casually negotiated the busy Philadelphia streets, heading for the highly desirable Chestnut Hill. His friend and former business associate, Marcus Aetós, had recently purchased an eight-thousand-square-foot home for just under six million. The estate sat on three luxurious acres and backed up to the Wissahickon Valley of Fairmont Park. Everyone who’d been there said it was gorgeous.
When he arrived at the property, he slowed to meet the staff, who looked more like bouncers in tuxedos than hired valets.
“Good evening, sir,” the man said. He was Greek, like Marcus, but taller and far more muscular.
“Halden Barnes,” he said.
“ID please.”
Halden produced his ID, had it scrutinized, and was then greeted again warmly and waved through. A young valet waiting at the circular driveway welcomed him to the Aetós estate, then parked his car.
Halden wasn’t accustomed to so many greetings, let alone ones that felt both protective and genuine. For a moment, he relaxed, told himself everything would be okay.
As the last of the Pennsylvania daylight burned off, the sunset bathed Marcus’s new home in a molten, fiery light. The tile roof glowed while the covered stone porch and the open columned archways reminded Halden of something he’d seen in Scotland, rather than an estate on the outskirts of the city of brotherly love. The rock work alone was breathtaking, at least for such a tidy price. Either way, he was happy for his friend, and pleased to have received an invitation to his housewarming party.
Upon entering the sweeping estate, he was greeted by Marcus. The Greek entrepreneur was tipsy, with booze-heavy eyes, a loose smile and too much welcome in his embrace.
“Halden Barnes, my eccentric friend, I wasn’t sure you’d make it!”
Marcus slapped his back a bit too hard before letting go and just standing there, looking at him with an unrestrained smile. A waft of alcohol assaulted Halden’s nostrils, lessening Marcus’s otherwise natural charm. His friend turned and hailed one of the hostesses, a devastatingly attractive twenty-something wearing only high heels and a small patch of pubic hair.
“Drinks, please!” he said to her. “For my friend!”
The nude woman arrived a moment later, put a flute of something amber and bubbly in Halden’s hand, then softened her gaze and looked him over as if he were special. Even if he was, Halden was sure of one thing, and that was that he wasn’t special to her. There were twenty years between them, if a day. He sipped the liquid cautiously, let it roll down the back of his throat and settle into an otherwise empty stomach.
“This is your first big getaway,” Marcus said.
Halden nodded.
“That’s good,” he said, as if there was nothing else to say. “Really, really good.”
Yep, nothing to say at all.
Ahead of him, a large staircase led to the top floor of the palatial mansion. The enormity of the home impressed him. Glancing up, he saw that the ceiling was at least thirty feet tall. The grandeur was quickly lost on him, however, for all along the hardwood floors, trailing up the two carpeted staircases, were bodies in various stages of undress. From somewhere deeper in the house, or from a sound system hidden in the walls of the house itself, seductive lounge music played, the heavy notes and lofty runs not only soothing his heart but speaking to his soul.
In that moment, he tried once more to relax, but there was something about the party that felt off. Partway up the stairs, a man had his mouth attached to a woman Atlas couldn’t see. His hand was snaking up her extra-short dress. She wasn’t wearing underwear. Taken aback, he looked at Marcus, who smiled, then returned his eyes to the couple. Neither of them seemed to mind that others might be looking at her privates.
Blushing, Halden returned to his friend, struggling to hold the merriment in his eyes. “I don’t often find myself in the mood for social affairs.”
“We all miss Astrid, but it’s been two years,” Marcus said, as if her passing needed only an allotted amount of time to reach resolution. Halden was not sure such a finite time existed. “Surely you’re anxious to get out into the real world again, yes?”
“I haven’t left the real world,” Halden replied, seeing a man cutting through the clot of bodies and heading their way. “I’ve merely chosen to be less a part of it than before.”
The man walked by them, shamelessly clinging to a child, a girl so young she hadn’t even gotten her hips, let alone the fullness of her breasts. A creeping dread set in. Startled, not sure he was seeing this right, Halden watched the older man and the child all but float up the staircase. Bile rose in his throat. He felt the tender lining of his esophagus burn. Discreetly burping, his eyes watering in the corners, he fought to swallow past the gigantic lump in his throat.
“I didn’t realize our children were invited,” he managed to say.
“They weren’t,” Marcus replied. He held Halden’s eye too long, as if he were studying his reaction through that ugly alcohol-addled haze. “This is a party for adults, a place to alleviate your inhibitions.”
Marcus turned and summoned someone. The next thing Halden knew, there was a young woman standing before him. She was prettier than his daughter, but younger. Thirteen, maybe fourteen years old to Kaylee’s fifteen years of age. The way she was looking at him, with that empty gaze, it was as if her soul had long been scraped from her body, and standing before him was not a human being but a thoughtless, expressionless vessel.
“Hi,” she said, no interest in him, no interest in life.
He bit back his revulsion but worried that his flaring nostrils would affirm his discomfort with her, with this entire situation. A soft pain started in his heart. Was this hypertension? Or was he so sickened by the idea of being with a child that he turned and looked away, unsure of what to do next? He burped again, a second slick of bile coating the back of his throat. Again, he swallowed the acid excretion.
Turning to her, he asked, “How old are you?”
With absolutely no change in expression, the young girl said, “How old do you need me to be?”
The cold sweat of dissatisfaction came—not unexpectedly—yet he was fascinated with her, unable to pull his eyes from hers. Her expression was devoid of all life. Was she even real? She had a smattering of freckles, bony shoulders, a straight frame and makeup meant for someone twice her age. He slid his gaze to her neck, to her carotid artery, where he saw a steady beating pulse.
To Marcus, he said, “I’m not sure…”
“There’s all measure of candy in this world, my friend. And for men of our stature and persuasion, I find it perfectly natural to sample life’s more eclectic delights. Who knows, you might acquire a new taste. And wouldn’t that be wonderful for a man of your distinction? I mean, for God’s sake, Halden, you have everything. But I assure you, you have not had a taste of the forbidden fruit until you’ve had a taste of her.”
Halden did not have everything. His wife was gone. And if he had any interest in this kind of “fruit”—which he most certainly didn’t—it would be because he’d lost his conscience, his respectability, the very blessing of a soul.
“There’s not a single cell in my body that yearns for this.�
�� Squaring his shoulders, trying to drain the horror from his face, Halden turned to the girl. “It’s not the way you look, my dear.”
“I’m too old for him,” she said to Marcus. She made a pouty face, sticking out her lower lip like a five-year-old child. The sight of it sent shockwaves through him.
“Perhaps you are,” Marcus said with a smile. “But that’s not your fault. Run along, see who else would like to play with you.”
With that, he turned to Halden, his face no longer merry, his cheeks untouched with rosy delight. What Halden saw in its place was tempered anger.
“Halden, my old friend,” he said, lethally calm, “you need to stop being so judgy and just go with the flow.”
“I’m afraid I’m new to the party circuit.” He was embarrassed, yet enraged at having been put in this situation in the first place. “Well, I’m new to parties like these.”
“We were all new at one point or another.”
Marcus was a good-looking man, late forties, no stranger to the gym and certainly well-to-do. He didn’t need a child when he could have any number of women. But there he was, offering Halden these morsels of youth like he’d been partaking for years.
“There’s being new to a scene,” Halden explained, “and then there’s the question of morality. Or decency, at the very slightest. My God, Marcus!”
“Don’t lecture me from some moral podium. I saw the way you were not looking at your drink when it first arrived.”
“Excuse me?”
“That drink in your hand,” Marcus said, pointing to the champagne flute. “The woman who brought it to you, that’s what you saw. Her body. Not the drink. Don’t you see, my friend? There’s no need to play coy with me or anyone else here. When you live like us, when you can have everything you want, it becomes difficult to satisfy your more carnal enchantments. We all need a little something extra. That surge of newness. A fresh thrill to sweep us away, to allow us to finally return to that one delicious moment in time when we understood what it meant to be mesmerized, to swim in abandon, to lose ourselves.”
Just then a young boy walked up. He was wearing white underpants, his chest and shoulders boasting the pink remnants of bite marks. He appeared to be no older than the previous girl, but there was a pastiness to his skin that caused a slight, barely noticeable whimper in Halden. The boy had no muscle definition to speak of—just shoulders, a rib cage, and eyes that had never known a day of happiness in their entire life.
“Are you serious?” Halden turned and growled.
“First off, he’s not for you. And second, you’re really starting to piss me off,” Marcus said, his anger far less tempered than before.
He shooed the boy away, then brushed his hair back and undid the top button of his shirt. Calming him for what Halden felt was the last time, he forced a smile that was every bit as false as it appeared.
“Look, I get it,” he said. “Everyone’s tastes vary. I see yours are more pedestrian. My apologies. What’s your acceptable age range? And do you prefer male or female? Or are you indifferent?”
“I’m not indifferent. It’s female and within five years of my age either way, but I’m not going to be part of this.”
“Stop being such a stick-in-the-mud.”
“I’d like to go now.”
Marcus appraised him through molten eyes. “When their clothes come off, and their skin is like porcelain, yet to be ravaged by the difficulties of life or the cruelties of age, you will find that all of your pitiful attempts to—”
Halden turned, walked right to the coat check attendant and said, “I’d like my things, please.” He couldn’t eradicate the heat in his eyes, let alone soften the edge on his voice.
“Is something wrong, sir?” he asked. Halden glared at the man; he had that same dead stare as the kids.
“Get me my damn coat!” Marcus was suddenly at his side. Halden turned and said, “You and your friends are sick.”
“You are free to leave, but there are repercussions to discussing the affairs of these people, myself included,” Marcus warned. “We’re friends, Halden. For that reason alone, this is a bridge you don’t want to cross.”
“Are you threatening me, old friend?”
“Yes, Halden, I am.”
“Well, you aren’t the first to do so, and you certainly won’t be the last.”
“I get that you miss Astrid, but brother,” Marcus said, hostility twisting his face, “you have got to move on.”
“Not like this.”
The attendant returned with Halden’s jacket, but he did not immediately hand it over. Instead, he looked to Marcus for permission. Marcus gave the man a curt nod. The attendant handed Halden his belongings.
“Sir…,” he said to Halden as if this exchange were nothing.
Halden grabbed his coat, practically threw it on, then turned to face his former friend. “Lose my number, forget you know me, put our entire friendship out of your mind now and forever.”
“Don’t be like this,” Marcus said.
“You just watch me,” he barked on his way out the front door.
Chapter Three
HALDEN BARNES
The nightmares started the minute Halden laid his head on the pillow and continued through to the next morning. The first thing he did when he woke was quietly curse to himself. He was thinking about the boy with the bite marks, and the young girl who’d been offered to him as a snack, or a treat.
Throwing back the blankets, he plodded rather quickly to the bathroom, lowered himself to his knees in front of the toilet, and wondered if the surging feeling of sickness would pass. It wasn’t passing, though. He kept burping, swallowing hard, waiting for that forceful bucking sensation, that charging-up-the-throat feel of him throwing up. Was he really sick, though? He didn’t think so. He was revolted, disgusted, scared.
In the back of his mind, all he saw were those rich men—a collection of old perverts and deviants who couldn’t get laid on their own if not for their power, their money, their influence.
Invariably his thoughts turned to Kaylee. She was a young woman, her body evolving, her interests in life taking on a more adult nature. These physical and emotional changes she was experiencing were to be expected. What he’d never expected, however, was that he would have to raise his daughter alone. Or that he’d look at every man who saw her as a potential predator. Now he knew otherwise.
He saw the way boys and men alike looked at Kaylee, how their eyes wandered with a barely moderated need over her developing body. But to think someone would ruin such innocence—that sexual vampires like the ones he’d met last night would so willfully damage a child, or children—triggered his more protective instincts. He needed to do something! Tell someone! Then again, he couldn’t get Marcus’s threat out of his head.
Memories of the night before scratched at his brain, showed him all the things that had brought him there, to that place of disgust, that moment of steep, unchecked loathing. The era of being a bystander was over. He needed to be bold, brave, courageous. If these kids couldn’t speak for themselves, then by God, he’d speak for them!
His stomach made another hard roll, his lower back flaring. Halden wasn’t old like many of the men he had seen at the party. He didn’t feel the desperation he imagined they felt as vigorous relics who no longer held the physical appeal or the erectile stamina of their youth. Halden was still young enough, handsome enough, and human enough to steer clear of those parties, and those well-dressed bottom-feeders. But the kids? Dear God, the kids.
A swift convulsion squeezed his insides. The thought of one of those monsters exercising his perversions on a child was nauseating. He couldn’t focus on that, though. He had to calm down, lest he work himself into a frenzy. Instead of letting his imagination run wild, he focused on his breathing, tried to slow his heart rate. Whatever sickness clutched his abdominals finally relaxed its grip. Sitting up, he blew his nose, wiped the gathering sweat from his brow, then got to his feet. He took
a deep breath, blew it out. Avoiding his reflection, he splashed cold water on his face, but then he looked up and met his own eyes. He knew exactly what he needed to do.
In his home office, Halden shut the door, sat down and scrolled through his list of contacts until he found William Kim at the Washington Post. He’d met William at a D.C. fundraiser a few years back, something posh and overrated. Shortly after that night, Astrid had died and nothing was ever the same again. Halden hadn’t thought of the man until now. Taking a deep breath, he dialed the number, waited a couple of moments, then breathed a sigh of relief when the journalist answered.
“William Kim,” he said, sounding preoccupied.
“Hello, Mr. Kim. I’m not sure if you remember me, but my name is Halden Barnes. We met a few years back at a function in—”
“Even if we hadn’t met, Mr. Barnes,” William interrupted, “I’d know exactly who you are. And please, call me William.”
“Ah, well, thank you, William.”
“What can I do for you, Mr. Barnes?”
Halden suddenly found himself short on words. How do you explain something like this? Where do you even begin?
“I wonder how brave you are as a journalist these days,” Halden said.
“The way your name is synonymous with self-made billionaires is the way my name is synonymous with investigative journalism,” Kim said, as if he’d leaned on some cute variation of this self-aggrandizing proclamation for years.
“I have something that might be outside the bounds of normal journalism, a story that—if told right, if given the right permissions by your editor—just might earn you the Pulitzer you were denied last year for your coverage of the slave blocks in Somalia.”
“Did you actually read that story?”
“Of course I did.”