She placed a hand to her mouth, tasting bile in her throat for the first time. Before it was her imagination that had flung nasty thoughts and images at her, but now, right here in front of her, was evidence that this was real.
But it wasn’t the only one. There was another photograph a few feet away leading into the dining room. This photograph didn’t feature her son, but rather another child her son’s age, taken at the same playground, possibly even at the same time. A pretty girl with dark hair in pigtails, a girl that Elizabeth thought she recognized, and it disturbed her to realize she didn’t feel the same disgust looking at this photograph as she had at the one of Matthew.
A few feet beyond this photograph was another, then a few feet past that one another. Like following a trail of breadcrumbs—because that’s what they were, she knew, that’s what they had to be—she moved as carefully as she could through the house, the tire iron gripped tightly beside her. Through the dining room, into the living room, then down a hallway where the photographs stopped in front of a door.
Lifting the tire iron above her head, she reached out with her other hand, gripped the knob, and quickly pulled open the door.
Stairs stretched out in front of her, leading down into the basement. Lights were already on down there. On every other step leading down were more photographs, each showing a child from the elementary school, captured while they were busy with their innocent play.
Elizabeth started down the stairs.
CHAPTER 7
THE BASEMENT, like the rest of the house, hadn’t been completely moved into yet. It was a finished basement, with carpet and fake wood paneling, and off in the corner around a partition were the washer and dryer. Cardboard boxes were stacked against the wall. On top of one of those boxes was an alarm clock, showing five o’clock instead of the correct time.
None of that interested Elizabeth, though. What interested her instead was the man tied to a chair in the middle of the basement, surrounded by hundreds of those black and white photographs. A man whose ankles were bound to the chair legs, whose hands were tied behind his back. A man who wore a strange sort of collar around his neck and who had his mouth taped shut by a large piece of duct tape.
He was conscious, his eyes going wide when he saw her, making a kind of mewling noise as he tried shouting through the tape.
She didn’t move. She just stared, surprised by the fact that this man—this Reginald Moore, this child molester, this monster—appeared quite handsome.
He looked to be in his mid-thirties, maybe a few years older than her, but he had a clean complexion, deep blue eyes, a healthy head of hair. He was dressed only in a pair of boxer shorts, and his legs were trim, his chest nicely toned, only a little gut around his middle. Had she seen him anywhere else—at the grocery store, at the gas station, even at the school—she would have acknowledged him with a quick smile, nothing more than that, maybe waited to see what would happen if he approached her.
She didn’t know what she had expected, exactly—some overweight pale man with thick glasses, a complete stereotype—but Reginald Moore looked almost normal.
His eyes still wide, still shouting through the tape, Reginald Moore started twisting his shoulders back and forth. She guessed his attempt was to tip the chair over, though she doubted it would work. The chair looked too solid, as if its legs had been bolted to the floor.
Elizabeth expected the phone in her pocket to start vibrating at any moment. She wanted to move forward, rip the tape off Moore’s mouth, ask him who had done this to him. If he could describe the person in any passing detail, maybe she could figure out who was doing this to her. Somebody from her past, obviously, from the life she had run away from. Somebody who had managed to track her down, abduct Matthew, and bring her to this house.
But why?
It took her seven strides before she reached him, conscious the entire time that she was trampling on photographs of children. As she approached he stopped twisting, watching her come up to him, then watching as she took one end of the duct tape and ripped it off.
He let out a pathetic cry, his voice hoarse from shouting, and said, “Please, please, untie me.”
She stepped back. That close she had been able to smell his sweat and fear and shampoo, all mixed together, and it had caused her stomach to churn. The tape stuck to her fingers and she had to flap her hand a few times before it came off and fell to the floor.
“Where’s my son?”
“Please, I’m begging you, untie me.”
“Where’s my son?”
The intensity at which she spoke, the shrillness of her voice, shocked even herself. Reginald Moore paused, his mouth open, his eyes widening at first in fear, then confusion.
“Listen,” he croaked, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. There’s nobody here.”
It occurred to her that he didn’t speak like a child molester, which was a strange thought because a child molester was just like a serial rapist or murderer—on the outside most of them appeared like normal human beings.
She looked down at the photographs spread out around him, tasting that bile once again in the back of her throat.
Noticing her noticing the photographs, Reginald Moore said, “Those aren’t mine.”
“Then whose are they?”
“The guy that did this to me.”
Her breath caught. “Who did this to you?”
“I don’t know. It was just some guy. I’d never seen him before.”
“Can you describe him?”
Before Reginald Moore could answer, the phone in her pocket began to vibrate.
She looked down at her jeans, looked back up at him, then pulled the phone from her pocket and answered it.
Cain said, “So what do you think?”
“Why did you bring me here?”
“He looks pathetic, doesn’t he? Certainly not like a man who molests children.”
Reginald Moore’s face had paled. He mouthed, Who is that?
Elizabeth said, “Give me back my son.”
“Not yet. First I want you to see something.”
“What?”
“Ask him why he did it. I know you took the tape off his mouth. I watched you do it. Ask him why he liked to touch children in their private parts.”
The basement had begun to spin. She closed her eyes.
“No,” she whispered.
“Yes, Elizabeth. If you ever want to see little Matthew again—or should we call him Thomas?—you will ask Mr. Moore that question.”
She opened her eyes again. The basement hadn’t stopped spinning but it was slowing down.
She said to Reginald Moore, her voice dry and monotone, “Why did you like to touch children in their private parts?”
The man reacted as if her words had slapped him across the face. He actually flinched, looked embarrassed, glanced away from her as he murmured, “I don’t know.”
Cain said, “Make him repeat it.”
“Say that again,” Elizabeth said, her gaze darting surreptitiously around the basement in search of the hidden camera.
“I don’t know,” Reginald Moore nearly sobbed, fighting back tears. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“He’s lying,” the dark robotic voice of Cain said.
Elizabeth said, without knowing why, “You’re lying.”
“I am not!” Clearly sobbing now, tears running down his face. “Please, I’m ... I’m ... I’m troubled. I know that. I’ve been taking medicine, seeing doctors. I’m trying to be normal!”
Cain said, “Tell him he now has five minutes.”
“What?” Elizabeth asked, frowning now, but immediately she knew what he meant. She turned toward the stack of boxes against the wall, to the alarm clock resting on top. It still read five o’clock.
Until it suddenly began to count down.
CHAPTER 8
“WHAT IS IT?” Reginald Moore asked. “What’s wrong?”
Elizabeth stood motionless, tr
ansfixed by the bright red numbers that had quickly begun to count down on the alarm clock.
4:57 ... 4:56 ... 4:55 ...
In her ear, Cain said, “In less than five minutes Reginald Moore will die. There’s no changing that. The collar he’s wearing is filled with C-4. Do you know what C-4 is, Elizabeth?”
She had been gripping the tire iron tightly, but now her fingers relaxed and the makeshift weapon fell to the floor. Her gaze shifted back to Reginald Moore. She just stood there, completely frozen, watching him as he bucked in the chair, jerking his head back and forth as if that might release the collar around his neck.
“Elizabeth, do you know what C-4 is?”
“It’s a bomb.”
Her voice hardly sounded like her own, too hollow and small.
Cain seemed to chuckle. “A simple way of saying it, but yes, it’s a bomb. Wrapped around inside that collar is enough plastic explosive to kill both of you right now.”
She glanced back at the clock: 4:26 ... 4:25 ... 4:24 ...
“I know what you’re thinking, Elizabeth. You’re wondering if it’s possible to take the collar off him without bringing harm to either of you. It’s a noble thought, but the answer is no.”
A tear fell from her eye, sloped down her nose, over her cheek, held in place on the end of her chin for an instant before falling to the floor.
She whispered, “Why are you doing this?”
4:01 ... 4:00 ... 3:59 ...
“To give you an example.”
“An example?”
“Yes. Of what’s to come.”
Despite his efforts, Reginald Moore could not move the chair even an inch. Apparently it had in fact been bolted down, Cain keeping in mind the animalistic way humans will react when faced with death. Only Moore wasn’t faced with death so much as embraced around the neck by it.
“Please,” he whimpered, his face covered in tears. A wet spot suddenly appeared on the front of his boxer shorts. “Please, help me. Just don’t stand there. Help me!”
Cain said, “He is a disgusting creature, isn’t he? Any man or woman that molests children should be killed outright.”
Elizabeth had that strange sense of being outside her own body. Floating on the edge of existence, watching it all from a safe and secure distance. Close enough to smell Moore’s urine and sweat and fear, but at the same time so far away that none of it fazed her.
“What about you?” she whispered. “If he’s a disgusting creature, what does that make you?”
“And what am I?”
“I don’t know. You tell me.”
3:34 ... 3:33 ... 3:32 ...
“What about your husband, Elizabeth? What about Edward Piccioni? Is he a disgusting creature?”
She still saw herself from a distance, just standing there only feet away from Reginald Moore who continued to sob and scream and buck in the chair. Trying to do whatever he could to free himself, knowing in his heart and soul and mind that nothing he did would work.
“Do you know why I call myself Cain? It’s because we’re not descendants of Adam and Eve. Each and every one of us are children of Cain, all of us with the dark desire in our hearts to watch things die. You know you feel the same thing, too. That’s why you haven’t left the basement yet. Though, I must warn you, if you don’t leave in three minutes, you too will die. And if you die, your son dies.”
Unconsciously she started backward, one slow step after another. “That’s not my name.”
“What?”
“My name isn’t Elizabeth. It’s Sarah.”
“Please, I thought we were done playing those silly games. You must realize by now I know everything there is to know about you. Why deny it?”
3:01 ... 3:00 ... 2:59 ...
“Ask him one more time. Ask him why he molested children. Maybe now that he knows he’s going to die he’ll be truthful.”
But she couldn’t ask the man anything, not now that he was so close to death, bawling like a baby, begging to her to please please please help him, that he was sorry for what he’d done, that he was a bad person but please he didn’t deserve this.
One backward step after another, she said, keeping her voice calm, “What have you done with my son?”
“He’s safe. And he’ll remain that way as long as you continue to do what I tell you.”
2:41 ... 2:40 ... 2:39 ...
“Now ask him. Ask him why he did what he did.”
Before she knew it she disconnected the call, sprinted forward, placed a hand on Reginald Moore’s shaking shoulder. “Reginald,” she said, then shouted, “Reginald!” and smacked him with her open palm across the face.
He went still, stunned, and slowly looked up at her. He whispered, “I don’t want to die.”
“I know,” she said, and despite all the terrible things she knew about this man and what he had done she felt true sympathy for him, wishing she could do anything to free him from this awful mess. “But I’m sorry, there’s nothing I can do.”
“Please”—his voice cracking as he started sobbing again—“please, I said I was sorry. I did my time in jail. I’ve ... I’ve ... I’ve changed!”
2:07 ... 2:06 ... 2:05 ...
The phone in her hand started vibrating.
She said, “Describe the man who did this to you. His height, his hair color, anything you can remember.”
Shaking even harder now, his face scrunched up, Reginald Moore sobbed, “I’m so sorry, I’m so, so, so sorry.”
The phone vibrated a second time.
“Reginald, please, tell me anything you can.”
“My parents hate me. They ... they ... they think I did what I did to spite them. But I didn’t. I ... I ... I ...”
The phone vibrated a third time.
She slapped his face again, much harder this time, shouting, “Reginald, goddamn it, tell me!”
But it was clear he wouldn’t, that he couldn’t, and before the phone vibrated a fourth time she pressed the TALK button.
Cain said, “Never fucking hang up on me again.”
She looked at the alarm clock.
1:36 ... 1:35 ... 1:34 ...
“Elizabeth, I’m not sure if it’s obvious to you yet or not, but I can detonate that collar whenever I wish.”
“Please, please, please,” sobbed Moore.
“All I have to do is press a button here on this remote switch and ... well, I’m sure you get the picture.”
Moore, rocking back and forth, staring up at her with tears in his eyes, begging, “Please, just help me, you’ve gotta help me ...”
Cain whispering in her ear with that dark robotic voice, “Elizabeth, you do get the picture, don’t you? Because I’m about to press the button right now.”
Elizabeth, holding the phone to her ear, slowly backing away from Reginald Moore, back toward the stairs.
“Ten seconds, Elizabeth.”
1:08 ... 1:07 ... 1:06 ...
“Seven seconds.”
“Please,” Moore sobbed, “please!”
No, she wanted to say, no it’s not fair, none of it’s fair, but then she heard Cain’s voice once again in her ear—“Five seconds”—and she turned her back on Reginald Moore and fled for the stairs.
CHAPTER 9
SHE REACHED THE top of the stairs, slammed through the door, and ran only four paces before the collar exploded.
The house shook, a mini-earthquake, enough to knock her to the floor. She hit her chin against the carpet, bit her tongue, instantly tasted blood. She scrambled to her feet, her stomach churning even more, that bile in the back of her throat fighting to make an exit.
Down the hallway, through the living room, the dining room, the kitchen, and then out the back door and she jumped over the two steps, went sprawling into the backyard just as the bile forced its way out. At first the stream of vomit was healthy but then it dissipated and all Elizabeth could do was dry-heave.
How long she lay there in the grass and fallen leaves, tears in her eyes, vomit r
inged around her mouth, she didn’t know. Ever since she had been young, the sight—even the thought—of blood had nauseated her. Her mother had worked as a dental assistant, and sometimes she would come home and there would be spots of blood on her uniform and little Elizabeth would become lightheaded. A few times she had even fainted. Once when she was twelve she had scraped her knees badly on the playground and had gotten blood on her hands and had screamed and screamed until she passed out.
She hadn’t seen any blood, but she could imagine it. Even now, lying here in the grass, she could still see Reginald Moore twisting and turning and bucking to get out of the chair, the bright red digits on the alarm clock counting down, nothing either he or she could do to stop them.
It’s not fair, she had thought there in the last few seconds of Reginald Moore’s life, and it was true. According to the clock, he should have been given another minute before the C-4 detonated. But no, Cain had decided to prove just how powerful he was, accelerating the man’s death even if it was just by sixty seconds.
Still, she wondered what might have happened in those sixty seconds. Would Reginald Moore have come to some kind of understanding for the life he’d led? Would he have made his peace with God if he hadn’t already?
She didn’t realize she was still holding her cell phone until it started vibrating again.
Elizabeth picked her head up off the grass, squinting at the phone in her hand. She hated the thing. She’d gotten it because it made no sense paying for a landline and now here it was, a device linking her to this madman.
Climbing to her feet, she answered the phone, listening for Cain’s voice but hearing a distortion instead.
“What?” she asked.
Then it hit her. The explosion—it had been loud enough to cause her ears to ring, only she hadn’t realized it at the time, not with the taste of blood in her mouth and the bile rising and her need to get outside.
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