The Death of Life (The Little Things That Kill Series, #2)

by Pamela Crane

  “I can’t believe it. We almost had him.” I wanted to cry.

  “Get used to the chase,” Tristan sputtered between gulps of air. “It’s part of the job—which is why you shouldn’t let yourself get out of shape like me.”

  Hunched over, he looked up at me with sorrowful eyes. His face was a mangled mess of swollen bruises and gashes.

  “What do you expect from ex-military? Yikes, he really did a number on you.” Tristan winced when I gently touched his rapidly purpling eye socket.

  “We’ll have our chance to get back at him,” he said. “We just need to figure out where he went.”

  Where would a boy with no home go? Did he have friends from high school that he could turn to in an emergency? Or had he distanced himself from everyone? Clearly his mother had been harboring him since his return from the military, but I doubted she would give us any information we needed in order to find him. How the heck were we supposed to find a runaway suspect with nowhere to turn?

  “How do we do that?” I whined. “He could be anywhere.”

  Tristan rested his hand on my shoulder. “Hey, don’t worry, we’ll find him. We’ll put out a BOLO, check local shelters, and send a patrolman over to his grandmother Lillian Guffrey’s house,” Tristan said, jumping into solution autopilot. While all these worries buzzed through my head, my amazing detective boyfriend was already a step ahead of me. I had so much still to learn. “We’ll see if she’s seen him or knows where he might be. Helen Brannigan’s place too. They had a good relationship; he might feel safe turning to her. And we’ll put an alert out on social networks and the media to get his picture everywhere. We’ve put a face to our suspected killer now. Don’t worry. He won’t get far.”

  “You’re good, you.” I kissed his cheek, the only spot that hadn’t been beat to a pulp.

  “I know.” But his humble grin told me my validation certainly wouldn’t hurt.

  **

  Several hours later we were still empty-handed. With officers on the lookout at Candace’s place, he hadn’t returned. Kevin hadn’t stopped by Helen’s either, though her sincere concern for him was evident in her wet eyes as we told her why we were searching for him. “He was like a son to me,” she had said. “I can’t believe he’d do something like this.”

  The shock of Kevin’s secret other life seemed contagious. Poor Lillian Guffrey, hairdresser extraordinaire, had a breakdown when we showed up at her doorstep. Her first thought was that Kevin had died in combat—clearly she wasn’t aware that the local police weren’t the ones to deliver such news. Her second thought was that Kevin couldn’t possibly be behind Scott’s death, because he was “such a good boy. Such a sweet, smart, well-behaved young man.” We had it all wrong, according to Lillian, but she suggested we check Scott’s old house to see if it had been rented out yet.

  “If there was anyone Kevin would want to turn to right now, it’d be his father,” she added. “Sadly, Kevin never had any real friends but his dad. While they had their fair share of differences, Kevin adored Scott. Looked up to him, wanted to be like him. I think he’d want to be close to him in any way he could.”

  But Scott’s place had been leased last month, the new tenants already moved in and unpacked. I found it peculiar that Lillian felt so strongly about the bond between Scott and Kevin. If that was true, why would Kevin have murdered his own father? And that’s when a tiny thought began to coagulate.

  I had a hunch of where to find a boy who felt desperate, remorseful, and scared, a boy who just needed someone to talk to who wouldn’t talk back.

  **

  The graveyard was small and tidy, neatly trimmed aisles between the gravestones, May flowers popping up in a colorful array throughout the grounds. Blue cornflowers, purple delphinium, orange and red gerber daisies grew wild, accompanied by carefully laid bouquets of pink peonies and fuscia stargazer lilies. For a place where the dead dwelled and haunts hung in the tense air, it was quite beautiful. It reminded me of Carli.

  I had spotted Kevin across a large expanse of tombstones, sitting on the grass with his chin resting on his knees. I didn’t see a killer. I saw a sad, frightened, and confused boy who needed somebody to talk to. I crept up to him, not wanting to alarm him or set him off running again.

  “I know what you’re going through,” I whispered behind him.

  He pivoted toward me and scrambled backward, his eyes wide with alarm. His hand reached into his pocket, whipping out a Swiss Army knife. Retracting the blade, he held it aimed at me. “Don’t make me kick your ass again. I’m not into beating up chicks.”

  “I’m just here to talk,” I said, palms up in surrender.

  “I don’t want to talk. I want to be left alone.”

  “You know I can’t do that. By now you have the military police and the entire Durham Police Department looking for you. It’s over.”

  “No, not until I say it’s over.” The beads of sweat on his forehead and tremble of his hand told me otherwise.

  “You have to be tired of running and hiding, aren’t you?”

  “And go to prison for life? I don’t think so.” He lunged a step back, knife still poised.

  “Prison can’t be much worse than what I went through as a kid.”

  His head tilted. “Like what?”

  “Like when my sister was murdered and my parents blamed me, tossed me into the foster system—group homes, abusive foster parents, constant loneliness ... On top of that I felt responsible for her death for years, so I know the guilt you’re feeling.” My words were barely above a whisper.

  Glancing down, Kevin spoke to the square tombstone with his father’s name chiseled across it. “I was just trying to make the world a better place. I didn’t plan for it to happen like this. I loved him, you know. My dad. But he was so sad, riddled with guilt that ate him alive. He begged me to end his suffering. I did it for him.”

  “I get it. And I understand Jackson too—the child porn. But why my father? Why attack Tina? I thought you targeted child predators. Tina’s just a child herself.”

  “Tina was about self-preservation. That was on you because I warned you. I was freaking out and needed to get you to back off.” His hand dropped to his side. For a moment he was quiet, except for the sigh of a balmy evening breeze that ruffled my hair. “Your dad, well, you’ve got to know about his past by now, Ari. I hate to break it to you, but your father is about as innocent as mine was.”

  “Scott and my dad were just chess pieces, Kevin. Used by others. Neither of them actually committed the acts themselves.”

  “Go ahead and tell yourself that if it helps you sleep at night. But you’re only lying to yourself and enabling them to keep abetting scumbags like George Battan. My father kidnapped a little girl, and whether he pulled the trigger or not, he still made a decision that directly put a girl into her grave. And then lied about it for two years. Your dad, well, his sins are a mile long. Abetting a known sex trafficker for decades, Ari. All your father had to do was tell the cops years ago what Battan was doing, and imagine all the lives that would have been spared. All the Marla Rivers who would be playing with dolls and running around the yard instead of rotting in unmarked graves.”

  “Battan would have killed my dad if he snitched,” I protested.

  “So? Do you realize how many soldiers go off to fight for their country knowing they might not return? They die willingly for the freedoms of others. Your father could have died nobly and with purpose. Instead he’ll die a coward because he was too selfish to put the lives of children ahead of his own.”

  I had underestimated the depth of this old soul. “I get it. But why’s the only punishment death? Why can’t justice be served behind bars?”

  “Prison’s too kind for monsters who victimize kids. I’m not saying it’s easy to willingly sacrifice yourself. I know I’m no hero—I fled the military when it got tough. And then I turned chickenshit when I was close to getting caught by you so I threatened innocent people. But to say our father
s didn’t deserve what they got is just fooling yourself.”

  I felt his eyes probing me. For a long moment we said nothing, then I said the only thing that I hoped would get him to turn himself in.

  “You preach justice. Sacrifice. You’ve taken two lives, three if my father doesn’t come out of his coma. What’s justice for you? Or doesn’t it apply to you?”

  The knife slipped from his fingers, a thud on the grass at his feet. Kissing two fingers, he knelt down and rested his fingertips on his father’s named etched across the stone. Standing tall, he stepped toward me.

  “Touché. I knew getting caught was inevitable. I’d hoped I’d stay ahead of you, but I can’t call myself a man if I can’t walk the talk.” Placing his rigid hand to the tip of his eyebrow, he saluted his father. “Love you, Dad. I’ll see you on the other side.”

  Above us the clouds promenaded by. He followed me to my car, holding himself with military bearing.

  “You’re not gonna kick my ass again and flee, are ya?” I said, breaking the tension.

  He managed a wan smile. “No, ma’am.”

  That evening, Kevin, without preamble, answered every question, confessed to every crime, and steeled himself for the justice to come. I didn’t sit in during the interrogation. I didn’t read the written testimony. I had done my part, and now there was somewhere else more important I had to be.

  Chapter 37 Ari

  “How come when I make pancakes they don’t taste like this?” Tina asked across the booth from me.

  We’d just finished an IHOP breakfast of all-you-can-eat pancakes, on me. My way of preemptively apologizing for not telling her about Giana sooner. I just hoped I’d buttered her up enough, figuratively speaking, to convince her to hear me out once I started explaining ... and begging for her to forgive me for my omissions.

  “Because you don’t use any of the ingredients that you’re supposed to. Flavored coffee creamer isn’t the same as milk, by the way. And there’s a reason they sell measuring cups.”

  “Whatev. It’s easier to just eat out than to cook anyway.”

  “And more expensive, too.”

  I wondered if Tina could taste the anxiety in the air like I could. I had been dreading this opening line for days. But it was now time, as Tina pushed a last bite of pancake around her plate, making circles in the syrup.

  “Tina, I have some news for you.”

  She looked up at me, hope flickering in her eyes. “Giana?”

  “Yeah, I found her.”

  Leaping up from the table, she hugged me awkwardly across the white Formica tabletop. Her arm knocked over a tiny vase holding a single red carnation. I hastily righted it as she withdrew.

  “Thank you, Ari! I knew you could find her. My baby—I’m going to see my baby again!”

  “There’s more.” I hated what I had to say next. “I don’t think you should try to get her back.”

  “What? Why not? She’s my baby, Ari. Mine. I gave birth to her!”

  I could feel the eyes of fellow patrons turning in our direction as Tina’s voice crescendoed.

  “Tina, she’s happy. She’s with a good family. A great family that loves her. She’s even got a little sister now. Somebody that looks up to her.”

  “Big effing deal. I would be a great mom to her.”

  “Really? What kind of family life could you give her? Home-cooked meals, helping her with homework, enrolling her in gymnastics, taking her to the park, arranging play dates? Do you really see yourself doing all that’s needed to raise a child? Do you even know how to raise a child?”

  “It’s on-the-job training, Ari. I can learn as I go. That’s what all first-time parents do.”

  “But you don’t even have a job!”

  “I’ll get another one. I always do.”

  Tina could be so infuriating sometimes. What more could I expect from an eighteen-year-old?

  “This is exactly my point. Tina, I love you, you know I do, but I’m trying to be a real friend to you here, a friend who’s looking out for you and Giana. You want to just rip her away from what she already has—security, attention, stability? For what? You haven’t even started your own life. You’re always between jobs. You haven’t finished high school. You’re still finding out who you are.”

  “Oh, so I’m not good enough to be a mother?”

  “I’m not saying that. You’ve been enslaved for the past decade, Tina! Have you forgotten that? Do you really want to drag a little girl through all that crap while you figure out who you are and what you want to do with your life? Especially when she’s loved and treated so well by parents who give her everything she needs?”

  Certainly Tina hadn’t forgotten what it was like growing up imprisoned, thrown into a cycle of uncertainty, punishing starvation, and perpetual fear. And the abuse—what she endured I could never identify with. But she needed her own soul to heal before she could carry the burden of being responsible for another tiny budding life. I knew this because I was broken but mending too. It was my damaged life. It was her damaged life. It would be Giana’s damaged life if Tina took her back. Removing Giana from her perfect family would be the death of life, the ruin of both their lives before they had even begun.

  Tina raised her hand to block my face, to stop my words, to halt my appeal. I watched her oily pupils swallow the brown irises.

  “I can’t believe you’re doing this to me, after all I’ve already lost.” Her accusation was waspish, cruel.

  “Please just consider an alternative. What if we talked to the parents about just letting you get to know Giana—but not seeking any kind of rights? You’d get to see her, be a part of her life, while she’d get to stay in a really good home environment. Kind of like an open adoption. Just think about it.”

  Tina turned away from me, the teenager in her showing itself as she silently pitched a bitch. There was no convincing her if her mind was set. This was the intersection where love and sacrifice met, but she would never see it that way. I knew this because we were cut from the same cloth, a cookie-cutter pattern of stubbornness. She was my reflection looking right back at me, after years of mulishly holding on to resentment toward my own parents. The silence between us couldn’t be crossed. Space, that’s what she needed. Hopefully to consider my offer, but more likely to fume against me.

  I stood and grabbed my purse, placing a handful of one-dollar bills on the table for the tip.

  “I love you, Tina. And I want what’s best for you. I want you to live your life for yourself. But if raising Giana is what you want, fine, I’ll help you do it. Because I love and support you, even when I think you’re making a terrible mistake.”

  Even though it went against what I thought was right, I would do anything for Tina. For the one who saved me when I needed it. Now she was the one needing to be saved.

  I headed down the aisle between the row of booths and tables, turning the corner to leave. As I exited the glass doors, through the window I caught a glimpse of the child that Tina still harbored—folded into the corner of our red leather booth, pouting and furious that she wasn’t getting her way.

  I had done everything I could to make my point, failing in the end. I really needed a smoke. Checking my emergency stash in my purse, I found one cigarette left and lit up. Two puffs in I felt guilty about it; I had promised Tristan no stress smoking and I’d been so good lately. Bad habits could be hard to kick, but I smothered the damn thing against the garbage can lid and tossed it inside, resenting that I had ever wanted to quit. Though maybe Tristan was right; I was stronger than I thought.

  As I pressed the button to unlock my car, I heard my name.

  “Ari!”

  I turned around to see Tina chasing me down, her cheeks wet and her mascara running. By the time she caught up to me she was out of breath and heaving. “You’re right. All I ever wanted was for Giana to be happy. If she’s happy, then I’ve done my best for her. Sometimes we have to let those we love go if it’s what’s best for them ...”


  The softness of her words fluttered down around me, and I knew it was a message for me. A message about protecting our loved ones no matter the cost—the way I was protecting my father from his wrongs catching up with him.

  It was time to stop protecting Burt and let the house of cards fall as they may.

  **

  Marla Rivers Laid to Rest, Killer Brought to Justice

  Durham, North Carolina

  After three long years, Bill and Justine Rivers finally received justice Monday as George Battan was sentenced for child sex trafficking and the murder of their ten-year-old daughter, Marla Rivers. In addition, Norman Bledsoe, long-time associate of Battan’s, faces life in prison for multiple counts of murder and child abduction.

  The ten-year-old girl went missing on December 6, 2013, disappearing from her bus stop. A witness testimony confirmed Marla spent two years enslaved in Battan’s sex-trafficking ring. It wasn’t until June 8, 2015, when a patron of a local park accidentally discovered her skeletal remains, later positively identified by authorities.

  After an anonymous tip connected Battan to the murder, East Coast Bank manager Burt Wilburn was brought in for questioning. Shortly thereafter Wilburn was brutally attacked and lay comatose in Duke Hospital for several days. Upon regaining consciousness, he was held in protective custody based on evidence that linked him to Battan. While Battan was incarcerated for unrelated charges, Wilburn testified to working for Battan, corroborating details of Marla Rivers’ abduction and abuse after being forced into a sex-trafficking ring led by Battan.

  Battan faces twenty-five years in prison on multiple counts of sex trafficking of minors by force and conspiracy to commit murder. Burt Wilburn’s trial is still pending. Bledsoe is awaiting trial and is currently being held without bond.

  A memorial will be held for Marla Rivers. Marla’s parents are currently establishing a nonprofit organization in their daughter’s memory to aid victims of sex trafficking.