“I don’t really know,” Alice admitted. “Ginny said he wanted you out on the streets, but I don’t know. Dan called earlier; he said we have to get down to the station because there’s a message for you there. We should get the kids settled in here before we go. They won’t stay unless you ask them to. I’ll talk to the officer across the street while you discuss things with them.”
She left without waiting for me to answer, and I looked at Paul and the others. “What happened?”
“They grabbed Erin and Sam because they were closest,” Paul said. “I would have fought them, but they had guns and threatened to shoot them.” He sounded disgusted with himself but I shook my head.
“You did right. If you had fought them, they could have taken you along with Erin and Sam. I’m glad you’re okay.”
Paul looked relieved, as if he had thought I’d be mad at him for letting something happen. “Once they knew that we wouldn’t fight them, they told us to tell you that Mason wanted you to come out and play. I don’t think he knows where you are yet. You should stay here until you’re recovered, Jason. Let the police clean up their own mess,” he spat angrily.
I shook my head, understanding the anger, but also knowing I couldn’t follow his wishes. “I can’t do that. Mason will kill them if he doesn’t think I’m following his demands. Besides, he knows about my abilities. He could make life extremely dangerous for all of us until he’s off the street.”
Paul shook his head, and the other two stood and listened intently to our exchange. “You shouldn’t have to—”
I cut him off. “I don’t want to live in fear, Paul. I can help lock him up, and I can help find Erin and Sam. I need to go with Alice. It's my decision, so please don’t blame her. She wants to keep us safe. You need to stay here with Jeff and Ginny. There will be a guard across the street, but I want you to keep your eyes open. If anything happens, call Alice. I’ll have her leave her cell number and work number by the phone so you can call.”
“Okay,” Paul agreed, still sounding reluctant, but he would follow what I wanted. Paul was loyal to a fault, and was constantly seeking my approval. I was only about three years older than him, but he looked up to me. “Be careful, Jase,” he pleaded. “I can’t watch out for them on my own.”
I knew he would try. “Let’s get into the house. You guys can shower while you’re here, and maybe even get haircuts. Try to enjoy it.”
Paul nodded, and the three kids followed me into Alice’s house. Alice had already finished her conversation with the officer across the street and gone into the house. “There are some sweatpants and T-shirts you guys can use if you feel like showering and changing into something clean. We can wash your clothes when Jason and I get back.” She looked at me. “We should go,” she said urgently.
We left the kids to figure out where things were, and I reluctantly climbed into Alice’s car. What message had Mason left me, and why did Alice now seem so urgent when before she’d seemed less concerned? “Did you hear something else?” I asked hesitantly.
She looked at me, eyes full of sympathy and sorrow. Her normally smooth voice was hesitant as she answered. “Dan called while I was across the street. They found Erin.”
FOURTEEN
Alice
The news had devastated Jason. When I’d said we’d found Erin, my voice had made it clear to him that she was already gone. His face had gone white and he was swallowing convulsively, trying to hold himself together. Any anger he felt was at the moment drowned out by his sorrow, and I dreaded the need for him to formally ID Erin’s body. She had been under his protection, and he would think he’d failed her. In truth, it was my fault the children hadn’t been protected. He had been too out of it last night to figure out they might be in danger, but I hadn’t been.
Jason didn’t say a word as we drove to the crime scene. He wouldn’t be officially consulting on Erin’s case, but he might be able to feel echoes, or whatever it was his powers allowed him to do. It could be that he would be able to feel the vibrations of someone he had previously encountered and would at least point me in the right direction. Hopefully whatever evidence was collected at the scene would correspond to what Jason could potentially find.
“Jason?” I kept my voice low and gentle. He didn’t respond just stared out the window, tears flowing silently down his pale cheeks. “Jason,” I tried again, “I’m so sorry.”
I stared at my hands holding the steering wheel as I stumbled over words I didn’t want to say. “We need you to ID her,” I finally got out.
He gave a slight nod, but remained silent. I could see his fists clenched at his sides and his jaw was set. It appeared as though anger was about to rise to the forefront of his emotional roller coaster ride. “What do I tell the others?” he questioned softly, turning to look at me for the first time since I’d told him. “I’ll have to call her so-called mother too, I suppose,” he added bitterly.
“I—” I stopped and looked at him in surprise. “You know how to contact her mother? How?”
He shrugged. “All the kids told me about their homes and how to contact their parents. They figured if something happened, their parents might be interested to know. From what they’ve told me, most of them wouldn’t care. But I guess I need to tell her that her daughter is de— gone.” His voice cracked, not allowing him to say what he knew was true. “That part should be easy enough. Her mother kicked her out. But how do I tell the people who actually care about her?”
The look on his face morphed from disgust at how Erin’s mother treated her to such a profound sadness that I almost broke down for him.
How would he tell them? Ginny and Jeff looked up to Erin like an older sister, and she worked directly with Paul to keep the younger kids happy whenever Jason wasn’t around.
“I don’t know,” I admitted, choosing not to comment on the situation with Erin’s mother. Once again, Jason did not respond. I assumed he hadn’t really been looking for me to have the answer, but that didn’t stop me from feeling guilty. I couldn’t help him. It was not a feeling I enjoyed.
We arrived at the scene and Jason’s face lost any remaining color, becoming nearly as white as the gauze covering his wound. There were two police cars, an ambulance, and the medical examiner’s truck already on site. Dan’s car was there as well, and I saw him standing by the M.E. as the man examined the body. Jason and I both got out of the car and Jason bolted toward the girl. Two of the police officers restrained him as he nearly collapsed sobbing when he realized it really was Erin’s body lying there, beaten and bloody.
Dan’s face was full of sympathy and regret. I knew mine was the same. We both felt there should have been something done to protect the kids, but we had no idea Mason was going to strike this quickly. Jason gave up struggling against the officers and sagged to the ground. He suddenly began to pound the dirt with his fists and the ground began to shudder under the power of his sorrow. “Jason, stop!” I ran to him and pulled his hands away from the ground before he ripped them apart.
Everyone had stopped what they were doing when the ground began to shake, hopefully not connecting the event with Jason’s pounding. “Now isn’t the time,” I told him gently.
“You’re right,” he said clearly, his voice devoid of the sorrow that had plagued him only seconds earlier. He knelt again and I started to reach for him as he once again placed his hands in the dirt. This time, however, he did not pound them in anguish, but dug them in gently. He sat for a moment, staring with glazed eyes at nothing, as he—I assumed—accessed his abilities, then rose and walked toward the car. He didn’t give Erin another glance.
The other officers and the M.E. were staring after him, only mildly surprised by his extreme shift in mood. All were experienced enough to know that each person reacted differently in the face of tragedy. Dan was looking at Jason’s retreating form thoughtfully, and I wondered if my partner was making some connections Jason wouldn’t want him making. It seemed unlikely that Dan would figure out t
hat Jason could control the earth, but Dan was a good detective and could potentially make the correlation between Jason’s extreme reaction and the earth shaking around him. The ripped up floor from the warehouse had not yet been explained to anyone either.
“Is he okay?” Dan asked as he came over to join me.
I shrugged helplessly. “I can’t really say,” I admitted, watching Jason climb back into my car. I needed to talk to him to find out if he had felt anything as he’d knelt in the dirt, but I needed to find out what had happened. “He’s obviously going to take some time to recover, but I can’t say how he’ll react short-term. I doubt he’ll sit around waiting for us to find Mason.” Dan simply nodded his agreement and followed as I walked to Erin’s body.
“How was she killed?” I asked, hoping for her sake that it had been quick. Her hair fanned around her head in a halo of blonde, her blue eyes stared sightlessly at the sunny sky, and she was fully clothed. The clothes were covered in blood, and she had a gaping wound on her neck.
“The M.E. says the cut on her throat was post-mortem. There wasn’t enough blood to indicate that she was alive when it happened. She has several lacerations on her torso, but he says he’ll have to get her back to autopsy to find out for certain what cause of death was.” Dan spoke matter-of-factly, but his face still showed his sympathy both for the young girl and for Jason.
“All right,” I said. “I have to get Jason back to my house, but I’ll meet you at the morgue later to hear what the M.E. finds out.”
Dan agreed and glanced at my car. “Hey,” he said in surprise, “where’s Jason?”
“Wh—?” I turned and looked at the car. The passenger seat was empty.
FIFTEEN
Jason
The drive out to the park where Erin had been dumped was both too long and too short. I knew I had to see for myself, but I dreaded every second of it. I knew Alice would never tell me one of my kids was… hurt without it being true, but I still couldn’t believe it without seeing it. Our conversation seemed surreal, and when we reached her I fell apart. I couldn’t control my sadness and it allowed the power to escape once again. I couldn’t bring myself to care about the possibility of exposure until Alice grabbed my hands and told me to stop.
Alice was pale and her eyes had filled with tears, but I couldn’t feel sympathy for anyone else. Erin was my world at the moment and I stared at her unseeing eyes. What was the last thing she’d seen? Had Mason killed her, or had he made one of his goons do it? I sank to my knees again; dimly aware of Alice’s aborted attempt to stop me in case I lost control for a second time. I sank my hands into the dirt and sent streams of power in every direction as far as I could reach to search for echoes of whoever had dumped Erin here like garbage.
The Bulldog—Mason’s goon; he’d been the one to dump her. There were other echoes there from the same time period so I knew he hadn’t been alone, but he was the only familiar one. I rose and walked back to the car, hoping they would assume I needed some time to myself to gather my thoughts. In fact, I would be leaving shortly. I watched Alice and Dan in my peripheral vision as they moved over to the body and began to talk. When I was sure they were completely occupied, I exited the car. I closed the door as quietly as possible to avoid drawing attention and began to follow the echoes.
If I was lucky, the footsteps would lead me to Sam, or at least to someone who knew where Sam was being kept. My thoughts drifted to the other kids for a moment, but I shook my head. I needed to focus. Sam was my priority. Erin was already gone and the others were safe. They would understand what I needed to do. Trevor Mason was too much of a threat. I needed to get rid of him, so he could no longer hurt the people I cared about.
My head was aching, but I ignored it. I had to follow the echoes before they faded away to nothing or were overtaken by fresher footsteps. I vaguely considered how strange it was that they had walked in order to dump a body instead of using a vehicle, but that concern also dimmed as my anger grew.
Mason had struck at me where I was weakest. The children were under my protection and I had failed to see the danger they would be in. I should have insisted that Alice bring them to her house right away instead of believing that he would bide his time and allow me a chance to recover. He had killed Erin. I knelt in a patch of dirt outside someone’s house and felt once more for the footsteps. They were nearly gone, but I felt where they stopped.
I looked around for a minute, finally taking time to figure out where I was. It was a residential district, and there were people out working in their yards and playing with their kids. Some had stopped to stare at me, and I realized I must look awful. I kept walking, trying not to frighten people enough to have them call the police. Some of the parents took their children into their houses as I passed them.
“Hey, are you okay?” a kindly, older man asked me as I walked past his yard. “You look like you could use some help.” I saw his eyes dart up to the bandage and down to the dirt staining my clothes.
“Thanks,” I said hoarsely. “I’m fine.” I tried to keep walking but the man stayed with me. I looked him in the eye and began to walk faster.
“You’re not fine,” he insisted, grabbing my arm as I tried to move away. “Your head is bleeding and your eyes are all out of focus. I think you have a concussion.” The Good Samaritan’s blue eyes showed his concern, and his brow was furrowed as he frowned at me.
I couldn’t help it; I started laughing. It seemed so ridiculous to me. I had been shot in the head, what… about two days ago? and now this guy was saying he thought I might have a concussion. The man stared at me, his frown deepening as he showed more concern than before at my outburst. I realized I must seem a bit crazy.
“Sorry,” I said as I finally stopped laughing. “If you only knew…” I trailed off, fighting dark emotions, my laughing fit forgotten.
It wasn’t funny. Not in the least. I felt my eyes well with tears before I shook my head once to clear my mind. He was still watching me carefully, but I couldn’t continue to waste time. I needed to find Sam. That was my priority. Nothing else mattered. My own health had to be of secondary concern until he was safe.
“You haven’t by chance seen a big guy with a face like a bulldog around here anywhere, have you?” I asked, knowing a man like that would stand out in this neighborhood.
“Yeah, I have,” he answered, looking at me with some trepidation now. “He seems like bad news, kid. I wouldn’t recommend you get involved with him.” I couldn’t figure out why this stranger—who was obviously well off with his expensive clothes, gold watch and wedding band—would even care. His salt-and-pepper hair was kept long enough to brush it into a neat part in the middle. All in all, he was not the type to get involved with a messed-up guy like me.
“You have no idea,” I said with a humorless laugh. “Did he have a kid with him at all? The kid would have curly brown hair and he’s eleven years old.”
“Sorry, no.” The man ran his hand through his salt-and-pepper hair. “Are you sure you don’t need the police? Did this guy take a kid?”
I hesitated, looking at the ground. I had already talked to this guy more than I’d talked to anyone but Alice or the kids, and I wasn’t sure how much more to tell him. “The Bulldog, he’s in the house there?” I asked pointing down the block at a two-story home with tall hedges around it. The yard was kept cut and the hedges trimmed, but they were still tall enough to block most of the first floor windows.
He looked like he wanted to say something else, but he simply answered, “Yes.”
“I’m going there now,” I said calmly. I made my next request only because this man seemed to want to do something to help. If he could in some way, I would be foolish to turn him away. “If I don’t come out, or if I come out with other men, please call Officer Alice Farrow. She’ll want to know what happened.”
My new ally agreed, and I gave him Alice’s number knowing from his look that as soon as I left him he would call it. “Thank you,” I said.
He nodded and I left, finally able to continue walking steadily toward the well-kept house. I heard a door open and close behind me and figured the guy had gone in to call Alice.
I snuck around the back of the house after checking to see that no one was watching me and hid in some bushes near a window. I stuck my hand on the ground, hoping I’d be able to feel if there were people moving around inside the house.
To my surprise I was able to feel several people moving around from the basement and both floors. My eyes narrowed in confusion. Had I just managed to find one of Mason’s businesses? It seemed like too nice of a neighborhood for something like that to happen without being caught. My hunch was confirmed when I sent more power into the ground and managed to feel several footsteps that came from much smaller feet than the others.
My anger grew, but I was able to leash my power before it got away from me again. I would save it for a little demolition job once I got the kids safely out of the house. Although, perhaps a small shake would get the adults to leave the house? Surely they wouldn’t care enough to grab the kids before getting out of a collapsing building. Or to risk getting caught if they took the time to try to take anyone away before the authorities showed up.
I unleashed my power and sent it coursing into the ground beneath the house, causing it to shake and rumble. I could only hope I’d be able to control it enough to allow myself time to get in once the adults ran out. I could hear the people yelling from inside as they realized the house was losing its stability. They did as I’d hoped and ran out, leaving the kids to fend for themselves.
While I waited for them to get into their cars or walk away—I knew they wouldn’t want to be around when the cops showed up once people realized a house was collapsing— I noticed a broken window I could use to access the house as soon as it was clear. It took only a couple minutes for the adults to depart, so I cleared the broken glass out of the basement window and carefully slid into the house.
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