by Lee Thompson
“That doesn’t mean anything,” Victor said.
“I think it does. What if that kid, Clint, is hurting some little kid right now and we don’t do anything about it?”
“I think you’re just looking for somewhere to direct your anger instead of yourself, which is good, but I also feel like you’re trying to manipulate me into sticking around down there with you. And maybe you even like seeing me get a little out of control sometimes when someone deserves to have their ticket punched.”
“You’re a good private investigator,” Jacob said, meaning it. “Santana was really proud of you for that, even if she hated your other job.”
“They go hand in hand,” Victor said, his stare blank, unreadable.
“Someone took a little girl from that park. And that cop’s kid likes young girls, I tried to warn Nina, but she thinks she’s smarter than she is.”
“Who doesn’t?”
“Do you think the cops are going to catch him if it’s a cop’s kid?”
“Probably not.”
“Right. So, we should talk to the boy. And you’re good at reading people.”
“Better than you,” Victor said, grinning.
“I need your help,” Jacob said. “You’re right. I need something to do, to feel like life is worth living again. But first I need you to show me where you guys lived so I can bury Santana’s ashes in the yard.”
Victor ordered a whiskey for himself and drank it slowly. When he finished he said, “Okay, I’m in. We’ll get a motel up here and drive back down there first thing in the morning because you stink and need a shower. Deal?”
Jacob smiled. “Deal.”
For the first time in two weeks it felt like there was hope on the horizon and closure within reach. It surprised Jacob. Victor squeezed his shoulder and said, “We get into trouble on our way out of here, just meet me at the car, all right?”
“Okay,” Jacob said, not sensing whatever it was that Victor had sensed, but he felt the skin tighten across his brow just the same, felt his shoulders rise and close in around his neck instinctively, as if his subconscious sensed an attack from behind, no matter how unwarranted his conscious mind believed such a suspicion to be. He was glad that Victor had listened to him, but realized as they walked outside that talking about your feelings in a bar like this probably marked you as a rube. His appearance hadn’t helped, and taking a second to reflect, he recalled nearly every man in the bar looking at the Omega watch Santana had bought him.
The air outside was different, purer, cooler, unaffected by the greasiness of the men and women who lived in the bar as if renting space until someone like Victor came along to send them toward greener pastures. The night sky was hidden by crappy lighting. His blood hummed. His senses tingled. Part of it was excitement that arose from knowing that in the morning he would be in the house his wife had grown up in.
They were half way to the Lincoln when Jacob heard feet in the gravel behind him, a rush of noise that all seemed disjointed, and sudden, and him, a grieving artist and a pacifist, unready for what his heart told him was about to happen.
A hand closed over his shoulder and jerked him around. The man had a wolfish face, an inked tear drop beneath his right eye, and he wore a black leather vest over his tanned, bare pigeon’s chest. Something glinted in his hand, and Jacob thought it would be a horrible way to die, there, in that place that smelled of urine and motor oil and stagnant water and garbage.
He opened his mouth and raised his hands in a sign of submission, but the man tried to stab him in the stomach. Jacob chopped at his arm without precision and completely driven by fear.
The knife hit the ground between them and he tried to push his attacker back, but the man punched him on the point of his chin and held his shirt as he went down, already rummaging for his wallet tucked away inside his soiled hoodie, his fingers closing over Santana’s ashes.
Jacob kicked out blindly, madly, as more gravel crunched around him and he heard someone to his right heave a horrible sigh and watched them, out of the corner of his eye, be lifted off their feet as Victor sank his fist into their stomach so deeply it appeared he was intending to shatter the man’s spine.
Jacob felt his attacker’s hand close around the Ziploc bag and begin to withdraw it.
He clawed at the man’s eyes, missed, but hooked a finger in his mouth. The man bit his finger and slapped him, and then pushed Jacob’s hands aside as Jacob tried to protect what he intended to bury tomorrow and plant Santana’s favorite flowers above.
He was on his back, coiled up tight, pressing his shoes into the man’s stomach when a loud snapping filled his ears and the man above him screamed. Victor’s massive foot bent the criminal’s knee backwards, the big man grabbing a handful of the stranger’s hair, jerking his head back and his thick, meaty hand a blur as he chopped full force into the man’s throat.
Still holding one of their attackers by his hair, Victor threw him back, away from Jacob, and offered his hand to him, saying a bit breathlessly, “I knew those cocksuckers were going to come out. Addicts, man.”
He shook his head and helped Jacob to his feet.
Jacob trembled and held his wounded finger to his chest.
Victor said, “He bit you?” And before Jacob could answer, he turned and walked over to the man, flipped him onto his stomach, ignoring his choking pleas, and stomped on the back of his neck until he ceased moving.
Jacob, unused to such aggression, having only seen it from the furthest distance in movies, hunched over, his hands gripping his knees, and threw up between his feet.
Victor was visibly shaking when he returned to Jacob’s side, saying, “You need to make sure he didn’t give you something that won’t go away.”
“You killed him.”
“So what? They would have killed you for five dollars. Get over it.”
“We have to get out of here.”
He held his bleeding finger and squeezed his eyes tightly shut.
Victor put an arm around him and said, “Don’t sweat the small stuff, or the sludge they leave on your shoes. Trust me, okay? Victor don’t steer his buddies wrong.”
16
Richard and Loretta paced their living room, both passing the other as if they didn’t exist until they bumped into each other and recognition settled like worn mahogany into their features and both anger and shame burst to life in their eyes.
Richard said, “I’m sorry,” stroking his wife’s arm.
She pulled away and wrapped her arms around herself.
He said, “We’ll get her back.”
“You don’t believe that,” she said. “I can see it in your face.”
And she could. And he did not want to believe that he’d given up hope so quickly, but he had. He’d thought that one of the three child sex offenders that he and Ted had approached would have been the man to have taken his daughter. He had expected to hear her cries from one of their basements when she’d heard his voice in the hall. But he hadn’t, and it felt as if the strand of hope he clung to had frayed and snapped beneath his fingers.
He couldn’t tell Loretta what trouble he and Ted had gotten into on their little venture either, although he wanted to, because he wanted her to know that he was doing all he could to find their baby girl. But she would tell him that he was a fool, more of a fool than she ever thought, because if he hurt one of those men badly and they hadn’t done anything, the police would lock Richard up, and what in the world was she left with then?
He shook his head, reaching for her, but she withdrew further.
He said, “I’m sorry, I am.”
“You should be.”
“What am I supposed to do? Beat myself up more? What do you think I’ve been doing the last two days?”
“You should have taken her with you!” Loretta said. She faced him at an angle, as if she couldn’t do so straight on, as if she barely recognized him. “You let her be taken and now…”
“She’s doomed,” he said.
“Say it. We’re not getting her back. Not in one piece.”
“You are a bastard.” She advanced on him so quickly that he barely had time to step back, his arms rising to protect himself as she beat against his shoulders and chest, one of her palms connecting with his face, and his cheek stinging, and Richard thinking: Yes, hit me, kill me if you have to, I have it coming because I know you’re right. I failed Robin as a father and I failed you as a husband…
And she, furious, and crying, beat on him for a minute more, her voice husky as she said, “You can’t give up on her, don’t give up! We have to be strong for Robin…” burying her head against his shoulder, her strikes growing weaker, and he took her in his arms and buried his lips against her scalp, and lied to her and himself, whispering, “She’s fine, our baby is fine…”
17
Nina could still hear the tinkle of the silver bell in the ringing tone of the phone she held to her ear, and her mother hadn’t answered like she’d hoped, and she did not want to walk home with both Anthony and Sebastian around, possibly one, or the other, or both, waiting for her to walk by some black slab of shadow beside a truck or painted between buildings.
“Pick up the damn phone,” she said, the desperation in her voice making her feel even worse. The other patrons in the Waffle House, of which there were only five, mostly bored and tired truckers talking at the bar-style counter, had largely forgotten her. The phone kept ringing. She placed it back on the receiver and inhaled slowly through her mouth. She could still smell the horrible scent that Sebastian had excreted; it burned her nostrils and made her nose itch and for a second, as she pulled her hand away from her face, she thought she saw blood dotting her palm.
When she blinked and looked again, her skin only appeared reddened from squeezing the phone so tightly.
The parking lot was very dark, at least from the inside looking out. The waitress had resigned herself to the familiarity of the truckers. She barely looked Nina’s way and Nina wished she, or someone else, would offer her a ride home though she didn’t have the courage to ask anyone outright.
She lingered around the cash register for another half hour, thinking that if anything she could outwait both Anthony and Sebastian if it came to it since the restaurant was open twenty-four hours and she knew that eventually, whether she had answered the phone or not, her mother would come looking for her.
Nina tried calling again but the answering machine picked up on the fifth ring so she hung up without leaving a message. Steeling herself for what might happen as she walked slowly to the exit, she pulled the pepper spray she had stolen and did her best to keep her imagination in check. The tube was cool in her palm. Her thumb lightly played over the button she would have to use as a trigger if either the boy or the psycho materialized from the darkness and scooped her up.
The interstate ran just north of the diner and there was very little traffic out. The moon hung like a fat pumpkin in the sky, and if she hadn’t been so unnerved by both Anthony’s bile and Sebastian’s riddles, she would have stared and smiled at it and made a wish.
Instead, she watched the shadows, a little mad at her mother for not picking up the phone when she knew that she was definitely not sleeping since she had worked second shift for years. More than likely her mother was spending time with Rick, which was all well and good, but Nina sometimes envied the attention and time her mother gave Nina’s stepfather, though she would not admit that to anyone, and seldom admitted it to herself.
Rick and her mother weren’t to blame; Nina knew that. They had to steal what time they could together since he worked first shift and she second. Nina thought about it, and her jealousy a moment longer, then inhaled slowly, released it slowly, said to herself, “Cut them some slack.”
Walking those quiet nighttime streets, alert again for the sound of sudden movement in the shadows—a quick shuffle of feet on pavement; a pale hand reaching out from the darkness at the edge of the sidewalk; the horrible and panic-inducing sound of someone’s breath close to her ear where only a moment before had been nothing but the moon high above her shoulder—she moved to the center of the road instinctively, and realized once she was positioned there, walking forward cautiously, that it offered her more of a cushion should someone charge her.
At the same time it made things worse because she was trapped beneath the street lights and the darkness outside them only seemed to grow in density.
Her footfalls were loud and the town itself suddenly empty.
There were lights on in houses lining both sides of the street, but not a soul moved behind the windows. Her heart thumping, she thought: Is this how Robin Stark feels right now? Like somebody is coming back for her, to take something from her against her will, just because they can and she can’t defend herself? Or does she feel nothing anymore but the shallow ravine where her broken body lies, scratched from where her murderer threw her from his moving car?
And Nina could picture the six-year-old girl hidden among the kudzu, only the tips of her fingers visible in the pale wan light of the moon…
Usually her imagination did not lose itself, or even approach, the morbid, though she wasn’t a fool—naïve in many ways, yes; gullible in other ways to a fault, and sadly, it felt as if those parts of her, her hopefulness and innocence, were being chipped away with every step she took.
She thought: She’s dead, and I’m going to die, and I don’t want Robin Stark to be dead, and I don’t want to die either…
But, as she neared her street, she realized that every step was, albeit slowly, bringing her closer to home. And when she got there she was going to call Caitlain Reno and tell her: I know who has been taking little girls and discarding them like used tissue for the last decade. His name is—
“Sebastian?” a man said.
She stopped, turned, her limbs numb and her breath locked deep inside the cage of her chest. Birds, she assumed, made racket in the old trees; a horrid, frantic sound among the dark branches, high above the sidewalk, which to Nina, seemed miles away. She didn’t want to head for it and walk right into his arms. He hadn’t spoken again and she couldn’t decipher where he was hiding.
The moon had taken on an ugly cast and seemed to wobble in the firmament.
Nina shook her head, forced her breath loose of her chest and inhaled another. She really didn’t want to know where he was hiding. In a way, there was a small part of her that believed if Sebastian meant her serious harm she would prefer to not see it coming, and with luck it would be over quickly, and the last experience she would ever endure would, she hoped, be relatively painless due to the killer’s efficiency and the brevity of the killing strike.
But that was a child’s dream, an infant hope that quickly wilted inside her even as it was forming, because as she turned again, searching the street and the houses and the shrubbery, she expected him to rush toward her, to seal her scream inside her mouth with one of his hands…
And she knew he wouldn’t kill her there…
And he wouldn’t kill her quickly either.
Accepting that made her so angry she said, “Come on, you coward!”
The intensity and loudness of her voice startled her and she jumped a little. She was normally so quiet; at least she thought she was, but like many of the people she watched, she really didn’t know herself half as well as she believed.
“Well?” Nina said.
The street remained caught in somber isolation.
She felt her shoulders sag, the anger ebbing away, and she desperately wanted to cling to it because it helped her not care, for the moment at least, what happened to her. Yet the stillness unsettled her, and so did her memory. She couldn’t even recall what Sebastian had looked like: there was only the smell of him—burnt, oily, corrupted, and decaying—barbed to her sense of him.
It, the lack of putting a face to the man, disturbed her worse than the smell of him, and she could smell him out there.
She said against her better judgment, “What the hel
l is your problem?”
A soft breeze stirred the leaves and the birds in the branches above fidgeted, then watched her. She squinted at them, unnerved.
She said, “What are you looking at?”
And for a second she feared that one of them might answer her.
What do you want? She thought. Just spit it out…
She held the pepper spray squarely in her palm. It added a layer of security that her bare hands could never have offered. Yet she knew against this man, this deviant who prayed on the young and the helpless, it would be of little use. Men like him, predators, planned for every contingency. They didn’t kill little girls for ten years and avoid incarceration because they were impulsive or stupid. They were not boys like Clint who ran around, proudly sporting his erection; they didn’t share the parts of them the world would judge.
No.
They survived by remaining invisible…
Thinking of when and how such creatures—for she could not think of them as human—shed their invisibility, Nina thought again of Robin Stark, she thought of the child witnessing that transformation from the ordinary to the perverse, and she hated the whine in her voice as she said, “Just let her go. She didn’t do anything…”
But again, no one answered. And she had almost wanted him to; to hear why he did what he did, knowing that she would never understand his reasoning, but it seemed that maybe nobody had ever tried to.
A moment’s more consideration passed, and she decided that she really didn’t want to try either, maybe with someone else, maybe with anyone else, but not with him.
“Show yourself, you sick son of a bitch,” she said, realizing that she still had the stolen silver bell in her pocket and it was cold and hard beneath her fingers. She blushed instantly, and she would repent later, believing that her own surrender to such intense hatred would cause all that was to come. And she had never known hate before, not really. It felt like she imagined Sebastian must feel inside, all the time, and it made her pity him for a second, because she almost felt more powerless in its grip than she had felt with anything else in her short amount of years.