The Silent Child Boxset

by Roger Hayden

  Sterling recalled her readings on captive situations, where the captor uses sustenance as a simple way to assert his dominance and control. She knew that, in turn, she had to go along with it for the time being, despite the risk such food or liquids being drugged.

  “That would be great,” she answered back. “Thank you.”

  “I don’t have much right now, but I’ll pick up some stuff on my way back into town,” his muffled voice replied.

  “Sure,” she answered. His comment suggested that they were in a rural, distant location, just as she had suspected. Now she just needed to find out where. She thought of Summerville camp grounds and its ten miles of open forest. Rental cabins were a big business out there. She had a hunch but little else. She knew that the prospects of her being found were unlikely. She was on her own with no idea what he planned to do with her in the end.

  He leaned closer to the door and spoke through the crack of the frame. “I can get you a bottle of water and a snack right now if you’d like,” he said. Every word from his mouth had a slight slur to it as though his facial injuries, whatever they may be, impeded his vocal clarity.

  “Yes, please,” she said, backing against the wall at the head of the mattress.

  He unlocked the deadbolt and turned the doorknob. The door creaked as it opened. Sterling took a deep breath and braced herself as ray of light entered the room from the hallway. He paused with the door halfway and hesitated.

  “I’m going to say this once. You try anything on me, I’ll kill you, plain and simple. Got it?”

  Sterling nodded and faintly confirmed.

  “I can’t hear you!” he said louder.

  “Yes,” she repeated louder. “I wouldn’t even think about it.”

  “As long as you know where we stand,” he said, opening the door further.

  Sterling squinted as light entered the room. He slowly approached her as one big silhouette, just under six feet and walking with a noticeable limp. His black boots clanked along the hardwood floor with each step toward her. He wore baggy clothes, long sleeves that covered his arms, gloves and a hat. He had on round glasses that reflected a glare of light as he glanced behind him. He had a bottle of water in one hand and a bag of chips in the other.

  Sterling felt hopeful that the itchy rope would soon be cut, but as he held the water bottle out, it seemed like he had other ideas. “Come over here and take a sip.”

  Sterling looked up at him, confused. “Couldn’t you… I really think that it would be easier if you untied me.”

  He shook his head in response as though it wasn’t an option. “Why on earth would I trust you enough to cut you loose?”

  “I won’t do anything,” Sterling said with a slightly defensive tone.

  “Of course you would,” he said. He then rose, knees cracking, and stood over her. “I’m a homicidal killer, right? And you’re a rookie detective. We couldn’t be more distrustful of each other now. Don’t ya’ think?”

  “I’m nothing more than your captive right now,” Sterling said. “Obviously I’d like to escape, but not at the risk of dying.” She then turned and displayed her bound hands. “This is awfully uncomfortable. Please… just cut the rope.”

  Silence followed as he stared down at her in contemplation. He sighed and scratched his head just as the water bottle dropped onto the floor and rolled past her. “Sure, Detective Sterling. I’ll free your hands.”

  The bag of chips dropped to the floor next. She turned her head slightly to see him pull a knife from a sheath attached to his belt. The brief glimpse of its glistening blade made her heart skip. She quickly turned her head and closed her eyes, praying to herself.

  “You’ll need to lie down first,” he said in a frank tone

  Sterling hesitated and remained still. “I’m sorry?”

  “On your stomach!” he snapped. “What are you waiting for?”

  Sterling took another deep breath and slowly squatted down near the mattress. She looked ahead and saw the shadow of his leg reel back. She flinched in a panic just as a swift and intense kick pummeled her back from his boot.

  The force hit her like a block of cement, sending her flat onto the mattress in shock and agony. She screamed in pain and felt momentarily paralyzed as he charged toward her and squatted over her backside, pushing her deeper into the mattress. “Please don’t!”

  He pressed down against her back upper back, pinning her down with overbearing force. She knew that the knife wasn’t far from entering her skin and braced herself for the worse. A split second later, he brought his knife under the rope and cut it in half with swift precision. Her hands fell to her sides as a chunk of the rope dropped onto the mattress inches from her face.

  With his hand still pressing against her back, the killer spoke with a snarl. “There. All better now, eh?”

  “Yes…” she said faintly, fighting back tears.

  He pushed himself up against her back, adding extra force for good measure, and then paced near the bed as she gasped for air. Her back throbbed, just above her kidneys, but nothing felt broken. A few inches to the center of her spine, and she knew that would have been a different story.

  “Frankly, Detective,” he began, “I don’t have all night to toy with you. I’m a busy man.”

  He turned toward the door as she lay motionless on her stomach. She still couldn’t quite make out his face and hoped more than anything that he would leave.

  “I brought you a surprise,” he continued. “In addition to the food and water.” He dug into his jacket pocket and tossed a handful of photos onto the bed followed by a miniature flashlight onto the bed. “I won’t leave you sitting here in the darkness anymore. Just don’t use up all the batteries in one sitting.”

  She had yet to look at him or the photos. Instead, Sterling turned onto her side and went into a ball, trying to contain the pain shooting through her body.

  “You’re welcome…” he added with a pivot and turn toward the door. He headed outside and then stopped with his hand on the frame. “Just in case you think I’m someone to toy with, let those pictures be a reminder of what I’m capable of.”

  He said nothing else as he closed and locked the door behind him. Sterling winced as his footsteps trailed off. For a moment, she lay still, afraid to move. She took the small red plastic flashlight in one hand and pushed herself forward near the floor. She then slowly sat up, holding her side, at the edge of the mattress where scattered photos lay about. The light didn’t shine very far, but she flashed it around the room anyway, revealing what she already knew from being confined in the darkness. The two windows of the room were boarded up.

  The room looked emptier in the glimmer of light; no furniture or anything around the room beside a bucket, chair, and thin mattress wrapped in plastic. She took another careful breath and then aimed the flashlight down onto the pictures.

  For a moment, none of them seemed real. One of a woman’s headless body propped onto the bed recalled the same sight Sterling had seen in Betsy Wade’s bedroom. Seven photos in all, each one capturing the gruesome aftermath of a brutal murder. She saw Gordon McDonnell, sitting upright in his car, eyes gouged out and throat slit.

  And then there were the murders she wasn’t familiar with. One woman stabbed to death. Another woman lying on the concrete, scalped. Cooper Erickson lay in the bushes, covered in blood, and in another picture Sterling saw his wife, stabbed like the rest, and lying on a table stripped naked and covered in blood.

  Her heart sank at the sight. Landon, if that was his real name, undoubtedly took pleasure in killing people. If he was looking to frighten her, he’d done so. Sterling knew that if she didn’t escape, her time would come soon. She’d be another mutilated body in a picture. She swore that it would never happen. He wasn’t going to win. Not this time.

  * * *

  Dobson called Detective Harris to his office immediately. They had a suspect’s name, he believed, and that was a good start. The next step was to find out everyth
ing they could about Landon Kearney. An Internet search and brief examination of the records database produced little results. After the fire, it was as though he didn’t exist. The furthest Dobson could get for a known address was the Cedar Creek Burn Recovery Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he had received treatment over a decade ago. No other information for Landon Kearney existed.

  There was no address, employment history, financial accounts or any trace of him beyond that. He had managed to remain invisible for nearly twenty years. It wasn’t an impossible feat, Dobson knew, but to make oneself vanish in such a way did pose challenges. Landon Kearney wanted to disappear. Dobson believed him to be using an alias through the years, accompanied with his various disguises.

  He was living somehow, getting money and traveling from one location to the next, spreading mayhem in his path. How long had he been planning the chain letter murders? Why the twenty-five-year high school reunion? Why not sooner? Just what had Landon been waiting on all this time?

  Frustrated, Dobson rubbed his forehead at the realization that he had been unable to prevent a single murder in the case so far. Sterling was gone, captured by a deranged psychopath whose next move remained a mystery. Even if Landon was caught, what justice could he possibly receive? Such thoughts ran through Dobson’s mind as he circled his pencil around a diagram of the hotel floor of conference rooms where the reunion was taking place. He believed it would only be a matter of time until Landon struck again.

  “What’s it going to be, you sick bastard?” Dobson said under his breath as he drew Xs over the entrances and exits of each conference room.

  “You going to bomb the place? What if no one shows?”

  A thought suddenly occurred to him. The reunion was the next day. Nothing had been canceled yet. The organizers were given notice and several declining guests had been since replaced with undercover officers.

  These moves had been made quickly and in secret as to not blow their cover. They needed Landon to proceed with his plans. They needed him to feel safe. Then it began to make sense to Dobson. If he was planning to attack the reunion, he would do it as a guest. Landon Kearney’s hideout before the attack could very well be a room in the very hotel hosting the event.

  “That’s it,” Dobson said with an excited tone. He quickly jotted his theory down just as a knock came from the door.

  “Come in!” he said, raising his head.

  Harris opened the door and entered, looking busy and distracted.

  “Hey there, Jack,” Dobson said.

  Harris paused and looked around the cluttered office of photos, files, and boxes strewn across the floor and desk. “What’s going on, Mike?”

  Dobson pointed to the chair in front of the desk. “Just move that box and have a seat. We don’t have much time. Things are moving pretty damn fast.”

  Harris removed the box and set it on the floor. He sat and stared ahead as Dobson returned to his computer, typing wildly. “We’re on red alert, and you’re cooped up in this office digging through files.”

  “I’m aware of what’s going on,” Dobson said. “We need to talk about this.”

  Harris turned his head and looked at the standing bulletin board with its many pictures and notes tacked to the surface. He then faced Dobson with a chuckle. “Don’t think I’ve seen you this motivated in some time.”

  Dobson turned from his computer and looked Harris square in the eye. “I know who he is.”

  Harris stared back with slight skepticism. “You do?”

  “It wasn’t that hard,” Dobson continued. “In fact, I think he wanted us to figure it out.”

  Harris looked around and then leaned forward, fingers interlaced. “So, what are you waiting for? Tell the captain and let’s get Sterling.”

  Dobson shook his head. “This guy has been in hiding for at least ten years as far as records go. He’s counting on us to step up our search. That’s why he took Sterling.”

  Harris scoffed and held his hands out. “You’re being more cryptic than this damn serial killer. Just tell me what you want me to do.”

  Dobson pushed aside a file and folded his hands together. “I need your help, Jack. We’ll need to go off the radar for a bit. Operate in the shadows.”

  Harris shook rocked back in his chair with a sigh. “What’s his name? Can you tell me that?”

  “Name’s Landon Kearney, Summerville High, class of 1991.” Dobson grabbed the nearby yearbook reprint and flipped it open. “I don’t believe he graduated.”

  “Why him?” Harris asked, interest piqued.

  Dobson scanned the last few pages of the yearbook and then looked up at Harris. “It makes sense. I’ve just been trying my best to piece everything together.” Sleeves rolled up and tie hanging from his collar, he massaged his temples with both hands, gathering his thoughts together. He lowered his hands and then pointed past Harris toward the door. “I don’t like sitting here with Sterling missing. It’s eating me up. But we should do our research. He wanted us to find Gordon McDonnel murdered there at the plastics factory. Now, we have to ask why he took Sterling.”

  Harris thought to himself, finger to his chin. “You mean, why he didn’t kill her?”

  “A diversion,” Dobson said. “That’s what he’s going for.”

  Harris nodded along understandably and then cleared his throat. “Maybe so, but he’s just a killer, Mike. Not some criminal mastermind. He… He’s just gotten lucky so far.”

  Dobson grabbed his legal pad of notes and flipped to the middle. “I’m sure you’re familiar the background of that plastics factory. The fire that killed four people twenty-five years ago.”

  Harris nodded again, hands out. “Yeah. Sure.”

  “Landon Kearney was there. He was seventeen years old. Worked for his parents. It was a family business.” Dobson paused and took a breath as though he was recounting an urban legend.

  “Landon was the only survivor that evening. Suffered from third degree burns that rendered him paralyzed and in a coma for years. Liability insurance wasn’t enough to cover the lawsuits that followed from the victim’s families. The Kearneys had several investments throughout town, including a bakery. Between the lawsuits and financial costs of Landon’s recovery, they lost it all. Simply put, the fire ruined them.”

  Harris looked at a loss of words. “Did you talk to them? Maybe they can tell us where their psycho son is at.”

  Dobson shook his head. “Would love to, but they’re deceased.”

  Harris balked. “You’re not saying that he—”

  “No,” Dobson said. “He didn’t kill his parents. Melissa passed away nearly ten years ago from ovarian cancer. Mark committed suicide soon after. I don’t know if they had any real contact with their son or not after he was released from the burn center.”

  “That’s pretty damn sad,” Harris said loudly. “Only child?”

  “Yep,” Dobson said with a nod.

  “So, both parents are dead. What’s next?”

  “An investigation deemed the fire as accidental. A faulty circuit breaker in one of the machines. They later discovered a lack of safety precautions at the factory. Malfunctioning sprinkler system. Outdated fire extinguishers. Things like that.”

  “Well, he certainly blames someone for all of this,” Harris said.

  Dobson tapped a finger on the yearbook and then opened it to the middle. He then held it up, displaying a page of a high school clique—all of whom were dead. “We need to talk to every person we can from this senior class and find out what happened back then between Landon and his victims.”

  “Starting with who?” Harris asked. “The remaining twenty guests who just canceled their high school reunion plans because?”

  “I don’t know,” Dobson said. “Let’s start with anyone local.”

  Harris turned and glanced at the wall clock above. “You do know that the captain wants a meeting in five, right?”

  Dobson ignored the question and jotted into his notebook just a
s his office line range. He glanced at the ID screen and saw that it was Rachel calling. “Pardon me for a moment,” he said, taking the receiver.

  “Hey. What’s up?” he said in a tone meant to rush her off the phone.

  “Are you coming home soon?” she asked.

  He turned from Harris and spoke quietly with the wind already leaving his sails. “We’re in the middle of something right now.”

  “It’s Penny. I think we need to take her to see Dr. Layish right away.”

  “What’s wrong?” he asked as Harris scrolled through his cell phone.

  “It’s her breathing. It’s worse than ever.”

  Dobson ran a hand down his face. “Okay. Just calm down and call an ambulance if necessary.”

  “I really think you should be here,” she said back.

  “I told you. I’m in the middle of something,” he snapped. Silence then followed as he attempted to regain his composure. “You still there?” he asked. “I’m sorry. It’s just, Sterling—”

  “There’s more, Mike. I don’t know if it means anything, but it’s what made Penny so upset in the first place.”

  Dobson leaned forward, gripping the phone. “What? What is it?”

  “A chain letter. The same one that they’re talking about on the news. It came in the mail today.” Rachel suddenly paused with a stifled sob. “Penny opened it and could barely breathe. I put her on the couch, but I’m worried.”

  Dobson shot out of his chair in disbelief. “What do you mean, a chain letter? Who was it addressed to?”

  “Me, of course,” Rachel said. “That’s my high school graduation tomorrow. Not that I planned on going. But what does this letter mean?”

  “Stay right there,” Dobson said. “Lock all the windows and doors. I’m coming right over.” He hung up the phone and rushed to the door with his coat in hand.

  “What happened?” Harris said, standing up. “What did she say?”

  “Come on,” Dobson said, swinging the door open. His hear raced as he gripped the door, feeling dizzy. “I can’t believe I never asked her.”