“It’s the order,” Peak broke the silence. “The numbers signify the order of the abductions. Number One was first. Nine is last.”
“Or so we think,” Rachel said, feeling crushing dread. “There could be more. We need to talk to them.”
Peak gave her a look.
“You know what I mean,” Rachel hissed.
Her teeth chattered, not because of the cold, but out of righteous fury. Whoever did this to these children needed to be stopped.
Sick of doing nothing, Rachel headed for the door.
Peak mumbled, calling himself an idiot.
As Rachel twisted the door handle, she turned back to him. “There’s no way we could’ve known.”
“We should’ve accounted for it,” Peak said, not taking his eyes off the girls.
“The driver shot at us first,” Rachel said. “We had to disable the vehicle.”
“I know,” Peak said through his teeth.
“We may have bruised the girls, but we saved their lives,” Rachel replied, sounding like she was justifying the circumstance in her own mind rather than soothing her partner’s.
Peak locked eyes with her. “We didn’t save their lives. Injured or no, these girls will never function normally in society.”
“Have a little faith, Peak. People are stronger than you think,” Rachel said firmly.
“There are some things you can’t come back from,” Peak said, sounding like he was speaking from experience.
“Circumstance may not change, but how we choose to react to them… that’s up to us.” Rachel headed out the door.
Peak hammered his fist on the window and followed.
The doctor in charge of the girls was a woman. She had dark blonde hair cut short and touched by grey. Apart from her eyeliner, she had no makeup. Her cheeks were scarred from picking at her acne during her school days, her expression was stone, and her eyes were pale blue like two chips of dirty ice. She held a clipboard and wore a white doctor’s coat over sky-blue scrubs reminiscent of her nursing days. Dr. Louise Nordin, PhD was her name.
“May we see them?” Rachel asked as Dr. Nordin stepped out of the girls’ room.
“They won’t be very responsive,” Nordin replied.
“We’re going to try anyway,” Rachel said with tenacity.
Dr. Nordin bounced her gaze between the detectives and opened the door for them to enter.
The only room more depressing than the observation room was the room where the girls lay. Though heat pumped through the vents across the ceiling, the room felt cold and dry. The walls were white and lifeless, and a chemical smell lingered in the air, just like in the morgue.
“Despite their reluctance, we’ve bathed them,” Nordin explained as they approached Number Nine. “They are covered with bed sores and rashes around their waistband. They all had lice. Scabbing on their crowns indicated that they’ve had it for weeks, if not months.”
Rachel took note of the caps covering the girls’ heads. Number Nine had an oval face and thin lips. She looked more like a boy than a girl.
“Wake her up,” Rachel said.
“I must warn you. These children are feral,” Dr. Nordin said as she shook the child’s shoulder.
Number Nine’s eyes began to flutter open in a confused state.
“Can you hear me?” Rachel asked.
Number Nine became fully conscious and stared at Rachel in utter horror. She thrashed in her binds and screamed loudly at the sight of Peak. He held his ground.
“They do not like men,” Nordin said over the screams. “Adult women seem to perplex them, like they’ve rarely seen them before.”
“Are the binds necessary?” Rachel asked.
“Yes,” Nordin said coldly. “We’ve had to sedate this one twice for attempting to claw out my assistant’s eyes.”
Number Nine’s screaming awoke Number Four, prompting her to start howling and fighting against her bindings.
“Putting them all in the same room was a brilliant idea,” Peak said with sarcasm.
“The girls were far worse when separated,” the doctor explained. “I believe this is their first interaction with the outside world in a very long time. Their only anchor is one another. Keeping them together would be better for their morale. Also, I would like to see how they communicate, being completely illiterate and without tongues.”
The comment made Rachel’s heart sink. She approached Number Nine. The six-year-old snapped her teeth at Rachel like a wild animal.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Rachel said, kneeling down beside the bed. “Father is gone now.”
At the mention of the word Father, the six-year-old’s expression shifted to terror, and she stopped screaming and biting. She scarcely moved at all, apart from her big brown eyes that studied Rachel keenly.
“Father’s not here,” Rachel elaborated, seeing the progress. “You’re safe now.”
The little girl glanced up at Peak and trembled.
“Peak, could you step back?” Rachel asked, without looking away from the little girl.
Silently, Peak obliged and left Nine’s line of sight but stayed in the room. Nine directed her attention back to Rachel.
“My name is Rachel. I’m the woman who rescued you. I work with the police department. Do you know who the police are?”
The little girl nodded slowly.
Rachel took a deep breath. “Good. Can you draw?”
The little girl nodded again.
Rachel pulled out a pencil and her notepad. She flipped to a page that didn’t have a bloodied Orphan and turned back to Dr. Nordin. “I need you to unbind her.”
“I will not allow you to give that child a sharpened pencil.”
Rachel heard Peak exit the room.
Rachel continued. “I don’t think you understand the stakes here, doctor. There could be more children. Every second we waste is an extra second they have to spend with their abductor.”
“I’m warning you for your safety. Giving this child any sharp object is a danger to you and herself.”
Peak returned, winded from a sprint, and tossed Rachel a crayon. “Got it from the lobby. I don’t think she can harm anyone with this.”
Nordin hesitated, called in her assistant, and approached the bindings. Slowly, she loosened them. The girl slid out of her binds and rolled her wrists.
“Give me space,” Rachel told Nordin.
The doctor begrudgingly listened.
Rachel handed the little girl the crayon and notepad. “Draw Father for me.”
The girl clenched both the crayon and notepad. Rachel’s heart pounded as she waited to see how the girl would react. Please don’t do anything stupid.
The child studied the crayon before coiling it in her tiny fists. With harsh strokes, she started drawing on the page. The crayon made a stick figure on the page with big round head, angry eyebrows, and a circle around his frown, signifying facial hair.
“Very good,” Rachel said. “Now draw your home.”
The girl drew a house with twin peaks. The lodge. That won’t help.
“Where are you staying at now?”
The girl didn’t seem to understand.
“Tell me what you do for fun.”
The little girl smiled, baring her crooked, yellow teeth. She drew the lodge’s back porch and a series of lines connecting to various small stick figures as they moved about a tree-enclosed area. Rachel studied it for a moment before the revelation hit her. The lines were chains. Rachel’s eyes watered as she tore out the page, handed it to Nordin, who handed it to Peak, who was still out of sight.
Rachel noticed the faint scarring around the child’s throat.
The child kept drawing, showing artwork of Father punching her, making her eat from a bowl, and more unimaginable horrors.
At the sight of the fourth horrid drawing, Peak marched out of the room.
“You’re very brave,” Rachel said to the little girl, gave Nordin a look to signify she was finished,
and then hurried after Peak.
Rachel followed a trail of closing doors until she found Peak outside of the emergency exit. An unlit cigarette dangled from his thin lips. His skinny finger flicked a lighter dial but failed to produce a flame. He kept working harder until his face turned to cherry red and he dashed the lighter against the asphalt. He sank down the set of stairs leading up to the door behind him. Rachel sat down beside him, glancing up at the overcast sky. A day had passed since the car chase, though it felt like it had happened minutes ago.
Unlit cigarette still in his lips, Peak rested his forearms on his knees and looked across the parking lot, parked ambulances, and the hazy mountains in the distance. His nearly black eyes glossed over.
“When I look at those girls, I see her,” he sniffled. “Clove.”
“I can’t even imagine,” Rachel admitted. She didn’t have children. If it hurt this bad to look at strangers in such a sorry state, to see your own offspring...
Rachel put her arm around Peak’s shoulder as he broke. He buried his face in his hands and propped his head against Rachel.
They sat like that for a while.
Peak grabbed Rachel’s arm and removed it from his shoulder. He stood, brushed himself off, and collected his lighter.
“I’m going to take a walk,” he said softly before traveling across the lot.
Rachel felt envious of her partner. Rachel couldn’t remember the last time she cried. Truly cried. Part of her wondered if she could still. Her life was one murder after another. After a while, fear and sorrow lessened and, with them, many other emotions. Rachel forced herself up and headed back inside. There was work she needed to throw herself at.
She returned to the girls. Seven and Nine slept. Not wanting to disturb them, Rachel went to Number Four. The thirteen-year-old girl had an angular face, pale skin, and lengthy body. With an unbreakable gaze, she studied the wall.
Rachel pulled up a chair next to her.
The tall girl ignored her.
The Sense pulled at Rachel. She glanced at Yogi. The twenty-seven-year-old man in rags studied the girl with his bug eyes interrupted by long hair.
“I know Number One,” Rachel told Number Four.
That got the teenager’s attention.
“Were you there when he tried to run away?”
Four didn’t reply.
“I imagine you treated the other captives like brothers and sisters. If you want to save the rest of them from Father, we need to help one another.”
Four opened her mouth to speak but quickly shut it, remembering her lack of tongue. She gestured for a writing utensil. Rachel leaned back, checking for Dr. Nordin. It was just Rachel. She pulled out the crayon and notepad. “I’m taking a risk removing your binds. Don’t make me regret it.”
Rachel freed the teen’s hand. Four took the crayon and paper. By her writing posture, she had some literacy. She waited for Rachel to tell her what to draw.
“How did he take you?”
Four drew a schoolhouse, a white truck, and a stick figure of Father holding a napkin over the mouth of a smaller stick figure in a dress and with long hair.
“How old were you?” Rachel asked.
The girl shrugged. She started drawing another picture. It showed a mixture of boys and girls. They all had different hair lengths and heights, but all wore the same frowny face. Yogi shoved his finger against the tallest one. He turned his finger back to himself. He pointed at the tallest female and then held up two fingers. He went to the third one. A male. Yogi showed three fingers. With a matter of moments, he named and labeled all eleven of Father’s children.
The pictures of the scarred backs plastered the corkboard in the Highlands PD’s briefing room. The carved numbers Four, Seven, and Nine forever engraved their bearers. Alone, Rachel studied the photograph under the tube ceiling lights. She tacked up Four’s crayon picture in the lineup. By the looks of it, there were three boys and the rest were girls. Number One is dead. Nine, Seven, and Four are free. There’s still seven more I need to save.
Rachel returned to her desk in the bullpen. Most desks were empty. A few cops chatted quietly near the coffeemaker. In the desk in front of hers, Peak hunched over his keyboard and typed away.
Rachel checked her digital work inbox. The results of the box’s truck license plate came back. It belonged to Baxter Queens. He was a traveling salesman from Ohio who vanished along with his vehicle in 1989. Unmarried with no living family and a freelancer by trade, no one went looking for him. Rubbing her brow, Rachel recalled what she found inside of the box truck, which was nothing. Either Father took the title, insurance, and the rest of the documents when he ran, or he never had it to start with it. Either way, the lead was a bust.
Peak had contacted the various local mechanics that could’ve possibly sold Father the new back latch for his box truck, but nothing panned out. Either one of the mechanics was lying or Father had a spare.
Without helicopter support, the ground team searched the woods after the chase but couldn’t find Father’s trail. The K-9 unit got a few hits, but the dark and treacherous cold worked against the dogs and the team had to turn back. They tried again in the morning, finding a scent on a nearby back road. Perhaps a kind soul up picked Father, or even scarier, he had a partner. Lieutenant McConnell made a statement on the local news to report any suspicious characters. So far, the department had received four phone calls. Two were old ladies complaining about their neighbors, one was a teenage boy making a prank call, and the last was a local woman who somehow had a tip for every high priority case Highlands PD ever had. Needless to say, it wasn’t going well.
Everyone on the case knew that Father must have some other hideaway, and most likely was he transferring Four, Seven, and Nine to his second base or out of state. Rachel traced the route that Father was traveling before he caught onto Peak. It seemed he was going to the south of Highlands, but then he turned north. There was no way of knowing the exact moment he spotted Peak, but that change in direction seemed to be the most accurate point. If he used the mountainous road for the sole purpose of escaping Rachel and Peak, then he must know the area, meaning that he was either a local or someone who frequented the area.
Number Nine’s drawing showed Father having a goatee of sorts, but that profile matched a large portion of Appalachian males. At this point, Rachel didn’t know Father’s ethnicity, height, or build. She had a few officers contacting local gas stations to see if they saw the box truck. None of them remembered anything. Still, they provided their video footage. However, that was a few days’ worth of video from half a dozen gas stations. It would be a long time before Rachel heard back from the two officers McConnell had allotted to review the footage. If Highlands was a bigger town, perhaps they’d have more resources to spend on such a lead. However, one couldn’t expect fast results from the police station in a town with only two bars.
Using a drafting compass from the Christmas present Peak gave her, Rachel drew a circle around the local town map encompassing the area of Father’s lodge, where Yogi’s body was fished from a pond, and the road where the car chase occurred. She marked each of these locations and used a ruler and pencil to draw connecting lines between them. The triangle formed at the two bottom corners of the town and the one upper. Rachel could assume he came from the south side of town, so that was something. She made a request for McConnell to put an extra patrolling squad car in that area. He obliged, but his expression did little to hide his doubt. Not knowing what the man’s appearance or the appearance of Father’s backup vehicle--if he even had a second truck--was not a great launching point.
“Harroway,” Officer Jones said.
Rachel lifted her face out of her palms and faced the blond cop with a mustache.
“Your father is here to see you,” he said.
Rachel mouthed, “thank you.”
She slung on her dirty leather jacket and headed to the front of the bullpen. Liam stood at the threshold with his hands in his p
ockets and a heavy winter jacket over his two-tone bowling shirt. His face lit up at the sight of Rachel and he gave her a strong hug.
“You look exhausted,” he said empathetically.
“I am,” Rachel replied. “What’s up?”
“Wanting to take my daughter to go on a late lunch with me, that’s what.”
Rachel pinched the bridge of her nose. “I don’t know, Dad. There’s a lot of work to do.”
“You were in a high-stakes shootout twenty-four hours ago. I think you can spare an hour to eat with your dear old dad.”
McConnell had already offered her a day off. Rachel refused. Though she couldn’t talk her boss out of mandatory counseling next week. Perhaps it was Rachel’s stubbornness, but she had no interest sharing her inner feelings with a shrink, even after a shootout. She always told them what they wanted to hear anyway, seeing how they would institutionalize her if she told them about Orphans and the Gift.
“Well?” Liam asked with an awkward smile.
Sighing, Rachel said. “Only if we go to Chan’s.”
Liam chuckled at the ridiculousness of Rachel’s comment. “Where else would we go?”
Traditional Chinese music played from the soft speakers mounted in the upper corners of Rachel and Liam’s favorite cheap Chinese restaurant. The place was largely vacant at 4:23pm. It was only Rachel, Liam, and the owner’s family. An elderly Chinese lady, her eight-year-old granddaughter, and the cute college-age waitress.
The news played on TV nearby. The anchors were talking about Father’s children, of course.
Liam read the closed caption as he stuffed his face with Lo Mein.
Rachel had shown little interest. She grimaced as she chewed General Tso’s chicken. Her tongue was still scarred and tender; the spices did not help.
“It’s hard to see how something like this could happen right in our backyard. Or anywhere,” Liam said as pictures of the children appeared on screen.
“It’s a crazy world out there,” Rachel said.
The Lost Orphans Omnibus: A Riveting Mystery Page 8