At Risk

by Inc. Thriller Writers

  What if…?

  Joe had always said that her instincts were her best qualities as a cop, and he’d taught her to trust herself, but this time, she wasn’t so sure. If she was wrong, the error would be more than embarrassing. But dear God, if she were right…

  She had to see the child again, and she had to see the woman in the window up close.

  The first thing she did when she got home was make a phone call to Lilly Mack, the computer wizard Robert had recently hired. While the call went through, Mallory went through the file until she found what she was looking for.

  “Lilly, did you get all your new software programs installed?” Mallory asked.

  “Everything’s up and running. What do you need?”

  “Could you age-progress a photo for me?”

  “Is that all?” Lilly pretended to scoff. “Piece of cake.”

  “I’m scanning it to you right now.”

  “I’ll do my thing and send it back.”

  “Perfect. Thanks, Lilly.”

  “That’s what I’m here for.”

  While she waited, she called Charlie to bring him up to date and feel him out.

  “I’d say you’re reaching, Mal,” Charlie said. “Walk through what you actually saw.”

  “I saw the brother of a girl Karen was seen with close to the time she went missing. I saw a little girl who was a dead ringer for Karen Ralston at about the same age. I saw that the entire back of the Tripp property is enclosed by a tall stockade fence. I saw a little boy of maybe eight or nine over the top of the fence, and I saw a young woman peeking through the window curtains.”

  “So what do you really have?”

  “A gut reaction to a little girl who bears a striking resemblance to a missing child.” She sighed. “Technically, I got nothin’.”

  “So having nothing other than a wild suspicion, what are you planning to do?”

  “I sent a photo of Karen from the file to Lily to age-progress it.”

  “Then what? You don’t have anything to compare it with.”

  “Well, not now I don’t. But I was thinking, maybe if I went back out and knocked on the door, she’d open it and I’d see if…”

  “Mallory.” Charliespeak for, think about what you just said.

  “Yeah, I know. Long shot. But it’s bugging me. I have to see if it’s her. What if it’s her, Charlie?”

  “Surely other people have seen this woman before, Mal. You can’t hide someone for eleven years, babe.”

  “Two words, my love. Jaycee Dugard.”

  “The woman who’d been kidnapped in California when she was eleven and found eighteen years later,” he said thoughtfully.

  “Living in a compound in the backyard of a house that was in an actual neighborhood, and no one saw her all that time,” she reminded him. “The Tripp place isn’t even in a neighborhood, and the house is set way back off the road. You should see the fence. It has to be ten, twelve feet high, and it looks like it goes entirely around the property.”

  “You get this guy’s first name?”

  “No. I didn’t ask and he didn’t offer.”

  “Let me see what I can find out about him. Sit tight.”

  No sooner had the call disconnected when her phone rang again.

  “I just sent that photo,” Lilly told her. “Check your email.”

  “Thanks, Lilly. That was fast.”

  “Technology rocks. Let me know if you need anything else.”

  “Will do.” Mallory waited impatiently for Lilly’s email. When it finally arrived, she opened it and stared at the image, then printed it out quickly and tucked it into her purse.

  * * *

  It was almost five in the afternoon when Mallory drove slowly past the Tripp farm. She tried to look up the driveway, but there was a car behind her and she had to keep moving. She decided to park off the road that ran behind the house, then walk along the fence to get a little closer without being seen. There was a really good chance that she was ridiculously off base, in which case, being caught poking around—trespassing—could prove embarrassing.

  She studied the photo once more, then followed the fence around the property. She made her way as quietly as she could to the side of the house, where she stood directly under the window, and looked up.

  Startled to see the curtain pulled back, and the face of a young woman staring down at her, Mallory’s heart all but stopped beating. It was the face from Lilly’s age-progression.

  “Karen,” she said softly. “Karen Ralston.”

  The woman’s eyes grew large and round and her mouth fell open slightly.

  “Karen,” Mallory repeated. “We’ve been looking for you. Your mother has never stopped looking for you.”

  “My mother is dead. Go away,” the woman whispered through the screen and began to close the window.

  “She’s very much alive. I saw her this morning.”

  The woman turned sharply and looked over her shoulder.

  She turned back to Mallory and she mouthed the word, “Run” before dropping the curtain.

  Mallory ducked and pressed her body against the side of the house.

  From inside she heard a man’s voice. “What are you doing at the window? Someone out there?”

  Inside her pocket, Mallory’s phone vibrated. She opened it and read Charlie’s text message.

  Subject ID’d as Lonnie Tripp. History of violence. Charged as adult at 16 for assault/kidnapping/rape but charges dropped, victim recanted. No record of employment, no record of anyone living with him at that address. DO NOT APPROACH. Heading home, wait for me.

  Too late, Charlie.

  The front door slammed, and heavy footsteps started toward the corner of the house. Mallory took off for the fence, hoping that maybe Lonnie Tripp would think she’d ducked into the hedge of evergreens and would waste time enough to permit her to make it back to her car. She ran as quickly as she could along the fence line and rounded the back corner, where she ran face-first into Lonnie’s chest.

  Without a word, he spun her around, and pinning her arms tightly behind her, forced her through a gate into the backyard.

  “Some people,” he whispered in her ear, “just don’t know when to leave things alone.”

  “Listen, Lonnie…”

  “Shut. Up.” He latched the gate behind them.

  Mallory did her best to take in as much as she could as they crossed the yard in the direction of the barn. Along the far side of the fence stood a row of stark white crosses. Around each one, flowering vines had been draped. A chill went up Mallory’s spine. Graves of the last curious visitors?

  The back door slammed and the woman Mallory now knew was Karen Ralston came down the steps.

  “What are you going to do?” Karen asked.

  “Get back into the house and stay there.”

  “She said my mother was alive.”

  “She’s a liar. You know where your mother is.” Lonnie jerked his head in the direction of the makeshift graveyard.

  “She said she saw my mother this morning.”

  “And I said she’s lying.” Lonnie stopped abruptly.

  “In that picture, the one you said my mother showed you, what was I wearing?” Karen called to Mallory.

  “A yellow dress with a big green collar,” Mallory called back. “You were holding a stuffed green frog.”

  “My mother always carried that picture with her,” Karen told Lonnie.

 
“Then she saw it someplace else.” Lonnie pushed Mallory forward.

  “If Donna Ralston isn’t in that grave back there, then who is?” Mallory asked loudly enough for Karen to hear.

  He shoved her toward the front gate.

  “Who else is buried back there, Karen?” Mallory called to her.

  “My babies,” Karen told her. “All the ones that died.”

  Lonnie opened the gate and dragged Mallory through, then across the dirt driveway where he shoved her into his truck.

  Pick your moment, she told herself. You may only get one shot at him.

  He’d just begun to bind her hands behind her with a length of rope when she landed a kick to his gut, but a second kick bounced off his knee. He grabbed her by the throat, cutting off her air.

  “You saw that little girl this morning? You keep it up and she’ll be joining the others out back underneath the crosses. Understand?”

  Mallory’s eyes widened and she nodded, her stomach twisting with fear and frustration as he bound her wrists tightly. In a clean fight, she could probably take him down. With her arms tied behind her back and the well-being of a child at stake, she wasn’t sure the risk would be worth it. Damn. She should have called Charlie when she first got here.

  Lonnie released the pressure and she slumped back on the seat, gulping for air while he tied her legs together at the ankles. He reached under her seat and pulled out a handgun wrapped in a dirty rag. He shoved the disgusting rag into Mallory’s mouth and pushed the gun back under the seat. She gagged, and he laughed all the way around the front of the truck.

  Lonnie climbed into the cab and jammed the key into the ignition.

  “Stupid goddamned people can’t mind their own business. Gotta poke around and poke around…”

  He slammed the truck into Reverse and backed halfway across the yard before shifting into Drive, hitting the gas and flinging stones and dirt in his wake. He got as far as the end of the lane when three black-and-whites pulled in to block his exit.

  “Goddamn,” he muttered as he hit the brakes. The truck fishtailed and came to a stop. He reached for his gun just as the driver’s side door opened and an arm reached in and yanked him out.

  “Don’t even think about moving. I am not a very happy man right now.”

  Charlie shoved Lonnie up against the side panel of the truck.

  “He’s all yours.” Charlie handed Lonnie over to the uniforms who’d followed him.

  Seconds later, Mallory’s door opened.

  “You okay?” Charlie’s face appeared before her.

  “Errrrrrrr,” she replied, rolling her eyes.

  “Oh. Right.” He carefully removed the rag from her mouth.

  “Thank you.” She grimaced. “That was disgusting and smelled like…you don’t want to know what it smelled like.”

  While he untied her hands and feet, she asked, “How’d you know I was here?”

  “Please. You insult me.” He lifted her from the cab.

  “Karen Ralston is in there with two kids. Well, two that I know of.”

  She started off toward the fence.

  “I think you’d better let us take it from here.” Charlie grabbed her by the arm. “This whole place is a crime scene now, and I don’t want there to be any questions later on.”

  She got it. She was not only the fiancée of the investigating detective, but she was also an intended victim of the suspect.

  Mallory backed off.

  Charlie waved over one of the other officers. “Take Mallory’s statement, then make sure she gets home.”

  “Be really easy with her, Charlie,” Mallory told him. “Lonnie had her convinced that her mother was dead and buried in the yard. Karen said her babies were buried there, too.”

  “If they’re there, we’ll find them,” he promised.

  * * *

  “Tell me everything,” Mallory demanded when Charlie finally got home late that night. She’d been sitting on the sofa watching the door for what had seemed like an eternity. “Don’t leave a thing out.”

  “Karen came home with Lizzie one day after school. Lonnie said he waited until his sister went into the house for something and left Karen alone. He told her to come into the barn to see their kittens. Then he grabbed her, tied her up, gagged her, hid her in the hayloft.”

  “What did he tell his sister?”

  “He told her that Karen had to leave to get home and that she’d see her around. Then he says he put something in Lizzie’s food to make her sick so she couldn’t go to school the next day and hear about Karen missing because he didn’t want her telling anyone that Karen had been at their house. Says he must have put too much in by accident because she started breathing funny, then she just stopped.”

  “He killed his sister?”

  “He said it was an accident,” Charlie said dryly.

  “What did he do with her body? And where were their parents during all this?”

  “The mother died when Lizzie was five, and the father was a long-haul trucker. He was in a bad crash ten years ago and has been in a nursing home ever since. Lizzie’s buried in the backyard. When the school called to ask about his sister, he said he was their father, and that he was taking Lizzie to stay with her grandparents in Maine because she was so upset about Karen’s disappearance.”

  Mallory frowned, remembering all the other crosses. “What about all those other graves where Karen said her babies were buried?”

  “They’re all empty,” he told her, “but it explains where Lonnie’s money was coming from.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Karen had a child almost every other year since she’s been captive. Lonnie told her they all died and he buried them in the backyard so she wouldn’t have to see them.”

  “Oh, my God.” Mallory’s jaw dropped. “Were they all stillborn?”

  “Nope. They were all nice healthy babies. Lonnie sold them. After she fell asleep, he’d take the baby to a contact he had in Reading and handed it over for cash. Healthy white newborns are worth their weight in gold. Literally.”

  “I can’t believe this.” Mallory’s mind was a jumble of questions. “Why didn’t she leave? Why didn’t she run away?”

  “He’d already told her he’d killed her mother, said he’d kill her, too. He’d let her keep two of the babies because she’d gotten so depressed, but he told her if she tried to run away or tried to alert anyone, one of those babies would join the others in the backyard.”

  “But what about the babies that he sold? Can Karen get them back?” She thought about the parents—the children themselves—whose lives would be turned inside out.

  “So far he’s refused to give any information about that, but we’ll keep working on him.”

  “Has Karen seen her mother?”

  Charlie nodded. “Donna was at the hospital with Karen and the kids.”

  “I wonder how her kids are going to cope. I’m guessing they’ve never been to school.”

  “They’ll work it out.” Charlie sat next to her and rested her against his chest, her head on his shoulder. “I stopped in the hospital to see Joe. He said to tell you he’s really proud of you for not letting your instincts get rusty since you left the force.” Charlie paused. “So am I. And I’m sorry I doubted you.”

  “You’ll pay later for your lapse in judgment.”

  “I can hardly wait.” Charlie smiled and reached into his pocket for his phone. “So what’s it go
ing to be tonight? Chinese or Italian?”

  Mallory turned slightly to snuggle into the crook of his arm.

  “Surprise me.”

  * * * * *

  EVEN STEVEN

  D.P. Lyle

  Putting a heart-wrenching spin on the vigilante theme, Lyle strains and sustains the tension to the last paragraph, last sentence, last word.~SB

  “I can still smell him.” Martha Foster inhaled deeply and closed her eyes.

  Tim stood just inside the doorway and looked down at his wife. She sat on the edge of their son’s bed, eyes moist, chin trembling, as were the fingers that clutched the navy blue Tommy Hilfiger sweatshirt to her chest.

  Behind her, a dozen photos of Steven lay scattered across the blue comforter. A proud Steven in his first baseball uniform. A seven-year-old Steven, grinning, upper left front tooth missing, soft freckles over his nose, buzz-cut hair, a blue swimming ribbon dangling around his neck. A playful Steven, sitting next to Martha at the backyard picnic table, face screwed into a goofy expression, smoke from the Weber BBQ rising behind them. Tim remembered the day he snapped the picture. Labor Day weekend. Just six months before…that day. He squeezed back his own tears and swallowed hard.

  Martha shifted her weight and twisted toward the photos. She reached out and lightly touched an image of Steven’s face. The trembling of her delicate fingers increased. She said nothing for a moment and then, “I’m taking these.”

  Tim knelt and pulled her to him, her cheek nestling against his chest, her tears soaking through his shirt. He kissed the top of her head.

  “He’s gone,” Martha said. “Everything’s gone. Or will be.”

  Tim smoothed her hair as details from a room frozen in time raced toward him. A Derek Jeter poster, a photo of Steven’s Little League team, and his Student-of-the-Month certificate hung on the wall above his small desk. A crooked-neck lamp spotlighted a history text, opened to the stern face of Thomas Jefferson. His baseball uniform draped over the chair back, sneakers haphazard on the floor. Exactly as it had been the day their lives jumped the track.