UNSEEN

by John Michael Hileman

  "Calm down, Holly. It's okay. These guys are careful. You told them Gabe was taken. They know what that means. They’re probably covering their tracks as we speak."

  "You think they knew about the tap?"

  "I don’t know what they know, but since the feds are in town, they’re probably being extra careful."

  "You're right, Jake. Now that I think of it, some of them did sound weird, like they were being careful what they said." Her exhale of relief was noticeable.

  "So you're okay, Holly. Just hold tight and don't make any more phone calls."

  "I wouldn't say I’m okay. They may be able to cover their tracks, but they’re still not going to be happy about it."

  "Yeah I know. It's an ugly mess. But just stay low until I get there. I won't be long."

  "Okay. I'll stay off the phone, but hurry."

  "I will, Holly."

  He pressed the cancel button and slid the phone back into his pocket with more emphasis than usual. As far back as he could remember, his sister had always had a way of making every situation worse. The only reason either of them still had a relationship at all was because Jake continued to forgive her. It wasn't always immediate, as was the case now. Sometimes he allowed himself a brief moment of bitterness, but that was all. As quickly as the fire rose up inside his heart, the waters of forgiveness were already beating it down.

  Jake came to a stop at the bottom of the stairs. In the distant echo of the staircase, he heard the muffled cry of a baby. He froze and listened. The crying persisted. Slowly he climbed the stairs, listening intently. The sound was growing louder as he went, it was definitely inside the stairwell.

  He rounded the turn to the last flight and looked up, expecting to see a mother with her baby, but there was no one. Where was the sound coming from? It was very loud now, filling every square inch of space at the top of the stairwell. He continued climbing, and, as his eyes crested the top of the last stair, he saw it, a baby, lying on the floor, wrapped in a blanket. As he approached, the baby's cries dwindled to a coo. It's large round eyes locked onto his face, and remained fixed.

  "Hey, little—guy?" Jake said, checking to see if the child was hurt. "How did you get here?"

  The baby stared through the droplets still clinging to his lashes. Jake decided it was a he. The male traits were distinct in his face, and he was wearing blue.

  "Where's your mommy? We need to find your mommy."

  Jake heard a noise beyond the stairwell door. When he got to his feet to check it out, the baby began crying again.

  "It's okay. I'm not going anywhere, buddy. I'm just looking for your mommy."

  This did not appease the baby in the slightest, and he let Jake know by taking a deep breath and letting loose a howl.

  Jake opened the door and looked down the hallway just in time to see a woman reach the elevator. There was no possible reason why she could not hear the baby’s crying, yet she ignored it and pressed the button. Jake started to call out, but when she turned sideways, he froze. Judging by the size of her belly, the woman in the hallway was at least eight months pregnant. How could she be the mother of the child in the stairwell? But still, even if she wasn't the child's mother, why was she ignoring his cries? She stepped on the elevator.

  Jake called out, "Hey!"

  He took two steps forward and looked back at the door closing behind him. When it sealed, he could still hear the baby clearly. This solidified his assumption. The woman on the elevator may not have been the baby’s mother, but she had to have heard him crying. He started running for the elevator. He thought to call out again, but if she was ignoring him, he didn't want to give her warning that he was coming. He heard the ding and saw the doors beginning to close. Five more feet! If he could just get his hand into the door, he could prevent it from closing. His feet slapped against the rug as he slowed himself down. His hand reached out for the crack that had almost sealed, but there was no way to reach the rubber bumper inside.

  "Hey!" he screamed, slapping on the elevator door. "Hey!"

  He jogged back toward the stairwell. There was no way he would make it to the bottom floor in time. What was he going to do with a baby? He had to get back over to his sister's apartment. He had to find Gabe. He didn't have time to track down this baby's mother.

  As he approached the stairwell door, he noticed the baby had stopped crying. He creaked it open.

  The baby, and the blanket, were gone.

  Chapter 14

  Holly's head pounded, and her tongue felt like a foreign object in her mouth. She watched Dan with weary eyes as he brought a tray of food for her. She hadn't really seen him in over two years. He was more muscular than she remembered, and his boyish face now had a growth of thick dark hair on it. Was this the nerd she remembered from high school, the gangly class clown who sat in the back corner of the room reading comic books? His eyes looked darker, and his brows thicker.

  A news break came on, and Holly's attention shifted to the television. A horrible picture of her was being shown in a tiny box above the newscaster's left shoulder. He spouted off details of the kidnapping as one might list items they need at the grocery store. As usual, there was nothing helpful to glean from it. It was the same story repeated for those who had missed it the first ten times.

  There was a knock at the door and Jake pushed through with Dan’s laptop tucked under his arm. "What'd I miss?" he said.

  Holly looked at the tray Dan had brought; sandwich, chips... She reached for the Pepsi. "We haven't heard anything."

  "How's the mob out there?" Dan asked.

  "There's a lot more of them, it’s kinda creepy. They're just milling around chatting. I expected more drama." He handed the computer to Dan. "Let's get this set up."

  Dan took it into the kitchen and set it on the table. Jake and Holly followed.

  Holly leaned against the wall, even though she needed to sit. Her legs felt like they were going to buckle, but she didn't want to miss anything on the computer screen. "Dan said you went to get this so we could look at some websites? Figure some things out?"

  Dan gave Jake a weird look. It was so brief, she wondered if it had happened at all.

  "Yeah," said Jake. "We want to look up information on this serial killer, maybe see something the FBI missed."

  Dan sat down, plugged the laptop into his phone, and clicked some buttons in rapid succession. The desktop appeared on the screen. "Let's start with a search and see what we get for hits." He brought something else up and searched for "Cape murderer.”

  "The top hit," said Dan, "looks like a site dedicated to serial killers."

  Jake leaned in. "Let's see what they have on this guy."

  Dan clicked some things and scrolled down a few pages. "This is perfect. There are articles and photos from dozens of serial killer cases in here." He scrolled down another page. "Here we go. The Cape murderer."

  Jake looked at Holly. "You sure you want to see this?"

  She was caught off guard by the question. A hidden barrier had gone up inside her, protecting her, shielding her from thinking about Gabe directly, but this question chipped away at that barrier. If she viewed these pictures, she would be forced to remember that her son could already be dead like these children. She would be forced to remember that horrible emotionless white mask, those dead evil eyes. Did she have the strength to see the possible end her son may yet face?

  She gripped the cold soda can. "I have to, Jake. I have to know if there is anything here that will save my son."

  "All right, Holly, but you tell us if you need to stop." He looked down at Dan. "Go ahead."

  Dan clicked through dozens of pictures before Jake stopped him. "Which one is this?"

  Dan read from the description of the photo. "Carmen Thomas, victim number three."

  "She's the chubby blond one?"

  Holly noticed the look again. It was as if Dan wanted to ask her brother a question, but stopped himself. She might have missed it if she was watching the computer scr
een with them, but she could only bear a few quick glances at a time.

  Jake squinted at the screen. "Are there better pictures of the children? Like home photos?"

  "Why?" asked Holly. "Why are you so interested in what the children look like?"

  Jake looked up at her, and there was a fraction of a pause. "Just curious. Why?"

  "Curious," she parroted. He was hiding something. She didn't know what, but the two of them knew something and were keeping it from her. She wasn't blind. She could see their non-verbal communication. She could see Dan's hesitation and Jake's reassuring hand moving to rest on his shoulder.

  Jake spoke in an even tone. "Let's take a peek at the children and see if there are any physical similarities."

  Holly squinted at him. He’d said that before during the meeting with Agent Grant. Did he have a lead? If he did, why would he hide it? She folded her arms. "Okay, what are you two up to?"

  Jake masked a guilty look. He was such a terrible liar. "We're just looking for clues. If you have a better idea, I'm all ears."

  "Agent Grant said there were no physical similarities between the children. Why are you still on this? Do you know something?"

  He grimaced. "What do you mean? Why would I hide anything from you?"

  "Jake, you can't lie to save your life. You've always been bad at it. You two know something and you're keeping it from me."

  Dan twisted around now to add his look of indignation to the pile.

  "Fine," she snapped. "Keep your secrets." She leaned back against the counter and let them know, with no uncertain body language, that she was not happy with whatever game they were playing.

  Jake and Dan gave each other a look, as if they were wondering what her problem was, then promptly returned to scanning the webpage. With each image of the children, Jake’s face grew more and more perplexed.

  "I'm guessing you didn't find what you were looking for," said Holly.

  Jake put his hands on his hips. "Agent Grant was right. There’s no similarity."

  "Now what?" said Dan.

  Jake slumped down into a chair. "I don't know."

  Holly fumed. "That was your plan? Look at pictures of the other victims and then give up? Don't they have bios or something? Let's find out where they lived, who their parents were, where they went to school. There has to be some connection between them."

  "The FBI would have already done that."

  "Well let's do it again! Maybe they missed something!"

  Dan clicked through more pages and read what he found. All the children had a single mom who collected welfare. The kids were all between two and six, which they already knew, and the author noted that each of the mothers had sought counseling from their local women’s clinic.

  Holly remembered the haunting accusations of the killer, and how they centered on the choice she had made to keep Gabe. He assumed she had made the choice out of weakness, but it wasn't. It was the hardest thing she had ever done. It would have been so easy to make the problem go away. She was told by the State-funded clinic that it would be quick and discreet.

  No one would ever know—not even her mother. Anyone above the age of thirteen was considered, in this circumstance, to be an adult; no parent signature was needed. Her mother didn't need to know. Her boyfriend didn't need to know. Her friends didn't need to know. Her reputation would have remained unscathed by the scandal of a teen pregnancy. But she’d made the hard choice and gave up everything to have Gabe.

  How odd it seemed to her now that the sweet middle-aged woman at the clinic and this cold-blooded killer would share the same ideology. The woman at the clinic never once suggested that she should keep her baby. Instead, she took every opportunity to reinforce Holly's doubts about herself. She wasn't ready to have a child. What kind of life would she give a baby? What kind of mother would she be? Sure, she said it in a sweet gentle voice and with great compassion, but they were the words of a killer.

  "Are you okay, Holly?" Jake had noticed her mood change.

  "I think there is a connection with the clinic. I don't know how, but I think there is."

  "What are you thinking?"

  "I don't know. It's just a weird feeling I have about that place. The killer obviously has a real problem with mothers who aren't ready to be mothers. You should have heard him. It was like he was angry at me for choosing to have Gabe, like his life with me was so horrible it wasn’t worth living—just because I was his mom. He said it was better to kill him than let him live the life I chose for him."

  "Don't let him get in your head, Holly. He's a whack job."

  "He knew exactly what to say."

  "Have you shared those thoughts with anyone? A boyfriend maybe?"

  She shrugged.

  "You must have said something to someone."

  "I didn't even know I had those thoughts until he started accusing me."

  "What men have had contact with Gabe in the past year? Has anyone new come into his life? Anyone who might be connected to the clinic?"

  "I don't know, Jake. I know a lot of guys. But I don’t believe any of them are capable of something like this. Sure, they're a bunch of losers, but they're good guys."

  Jake remained diplomatically silent.

  "I know you don't approve of my friends, Jake, but they're good people."

  "I'm not saying they aren't."

  "But you're not saying they are, either."

  "Let's not get into this again, okay? Gabe is out there somewhere in the hands of a very bad man, and we need to figure out who this guy is."

  She wanted to be angry; she needed someone to lash out at. It hurt to keep the emotion inside. But Jake was right. She had to get hold of herself and concentrate on finding her son.

  "What else is on that website?" she said.

  Dan turned back to the screen and scanned through more articles and more photos. Some of the images were from the crime scenes. Holly had to turn away twice to recompose herself. It was desperately hard to look at the dead bodies of the other children. One shot in the head. One found in a dumpster wrapped in plastic. But she forced her eyes to return to the screen each time, if only for the briefest of moments.

  "Wait!" She pointed. "Go back to that last picture." She came in and gripped Dan by the shoulders. "I don't believe it!"

  Jake scanned the photo on the screen. It was a police barricade with one of the victims, a little boy, lying on the ground. Professional men stood around the body as bystanders watched with intense expressions.

  "What do you see, Holly?"

  She stabbed at the screen. "There! The man in the yellow shirt. I know him. That's my roommate’s boyfriend!"

  Chapter 15

  Angela Grant stood when the detective came out of the interrogation room. He set his coffee mug on one desk and his butt on another.

  The edges of his mouth disappeared into his bushy mustache. "If this is the guy, he is the best actor I've ever seen, and the most nerved up basket-case I've ever seen. He's already confessed to three crimes unrelated to this case, and I'm sure if I pressed him, he'd confess to a dozen more, even if he didn’t do them."

  "So what’d he do?"

  "Well, he thought you were after him for driving migrant workers up from Boston."

  "He's helping illegals? That's why he ran?"

  "Yup, and he confessed to possession of marijuana."

  "So he’s not the guy."

  "Not unless your killer is a nervous spaz with a trust fund and entitlement issues."

  Perez came in from the break room. "This isn't the guy?" he said in his husky voice.

  She pursed her lips. "Nope. He ran for other reasons."

  "So what's next?"

  "Did you talk with Holly's roommate Amber yet?"

  "Yeah. She didn't have much to say. Her job with the airline keeps her away most of the time, and when she is here she’s usually in Dedham with her grandmother."

  "Has she brought anyone home in the last year?"

  "She couldn't rem
ember bringing anyone back to the apartment except a guy named Gary Carter. She’s been dating him for a little over a year. He's lived in Sunbury for twelve years at an apartment complex called The Schoolhouse. So unless the serial killer has come home to roost, he's not our guy."

  "Talk to him anyway."

  "We're already on it."

  "How about that list of Holly's friends, how far have we gotten with that?"

  "It's like shining a flashlight into a sewer. The rats don't like the light."

  "O-kay. Well, we have a lot of ground to cover, and a lot of people to talk to, so let's get on it." She looked at the detective. "Thank you for your assistance."

  "Anytime. You have the complete cooperation of the Sunbury police department. Let us know if we can be of any further help."

  She gave him a salutatory nod and left out the door with Agent Perez.

  Chapter 16

  The blurry man in the photo wore sunglasses and a baseball cap, and his body was hidden from the chest down. His expression looked neutral, but Jake didn't know for sure because of the harsh lighting and the poor quality of the photo. It could have been anyone with a mustache, beard, and baseball cap.

  Jake pulled himself away from the screen. "Are you sure?"

  "It's him," she said.

  "It's kinda blurry."

  "It's definitely him. I've even seen him wear that cap."

  Jake looked again. "A lot of people have a Yankees cap."

  "Jake. He's been here a dozen times. That's him. Same beard, same round face, same sloping shoulders. That's Amber's boyfriend, Gary. I'm sure of it."

  "Then we need to call Agent Grant."

  Holly stepped back, crossed her arms, and bit her lip. Jake knew his sister well enough to pick up on her nervous ticks. She was clearly unhappy about the FBI coming back.

  "It's all right, Holly."

  Her eyebrows shot up. "What?"

  He didn't bother to pursue it. Half the time he was either flat out wrong about how she was feeling, or she twisted things to make him think he was wrong. He shrugged it off. "I'll call Agent Grant and let her know what we found." He pulled out the card the Agent had given him. It was a switchboard number, but they transferred him to her cell phone.