“Missing? Taken?” He didn’t even know she had a son, she had always been alone in the service. “Do I know your son?”
“He’s in the nursery when I’m in the service, so you wouldn’t remember him. He’s four, he’s autistic and he’s gone! He must be so scared!” she sobbed and her hands closed in over her face.
He stood abruptly and came around to where she sat. Unsure of what to do, he sat in the chair next to her and pulled on her shoulders until she came into his arms.
“There, there. Why don’t you tell me what this is all about. I’m sure I can help.” He was also sure that this was just another domestic situation, another hotheaded, estranged husband with an ax to grind—using the kid as ammo.
“Oh, Pastor Cayce, I hope so! I don’t know who else I can go to.”
He handed her a tissue from the box on his desk and instructed her to blow. Then he reached behind him to the water cooler and filled a tiny cup for her. “Here, drink this and breathe slowly. Full breaths, that’s it. Now tell me about your son. Who took him, his father?”
She shook her head violently then told him about Joshua and how he’d been taken from his bedroom that morning while she was in the shower getting ready for work. How she’d found the ransom note propped on his night stand. She told him she had no place else to turn. Her husband had been killed in Iraq four years ago and her family and friends were all on the west coast. She had just relocated to the area for her job and knew practically no one. And she asked him to pray for her son and for her, and for what she was about to do.
Cayce closed his eyes tightly, for now, he knew without a doubt who had her son; the kidnappings were all over the television news and in every newspaper.
“Let me see the note.”
“He says he’ll kill Josh if I involve the police.”
“I’m not the police,” he said succinctly as he stood and went behind his desk to the credenza. He grabbed his reading glasses and went back to stand over her. He was holding out his hand and it was clear that he wasn’t going to let her leave until she gave it to him. “I can’t help if I don’t know everything.”
“It has awful things in it!”
“Awful things you have to do?” he asked softly.
“Yes,” she moaned and her hands wrapped around her waist as she doubled over and sobbed.
“Give me the note. Let’s see what has to be done,” he said as he put the studious-looking glasses low on the bridge of his nose. His voice was so tender and so soft that she thought for a minute that he could actually, possibly help. And he looked so smart, like he knew positively everything.
She dug in her purse for the crumpled letter and handed it to him, then dropped her head while he unfolded it and silently read.
He read for a minute, his brow furrowed, then he dropped heavily into the seat beside her.
When she looked up, he was staring at her with a tender expression and quiet, patient eyes. They were light brown and she wanted to swim into them and leave everything else behind.
He took her hand between his and rubbed it gently. “We don’t have a lot of time. We have to get the equipment we’ll need at Circuit City, take care of the pictures, and then get over to the beach before sunrise. We’d better get started.” He dropped her hand and went back to the other side of his desk.
She looked up at him in confusion. He was fishing in his drawer for something, after a few seconds, he pulled out car keys.
“Oh,” she said as she realized the help he was offering. “I couldn’t . . . I just wanted prayers. I couldn’t . . . we couldn’t . . . .”
“Yes, we can. Yes, you will. You have no choice, Paige. You have no choice. But I’ll help you. Together we’ll do this, we’ll get Joshua back.”
She started sobbing again, mortified by what they were talking about doing.
He tried to change the subject. “I don’t suppose you have any of the equipment we’ll need, a computer, printer, DSL, digital camera?”
“No,” she whispered. “I don’t even know how to use any of those.”
He fished in a different drawer and brought out a checkbook.
“We should take both cars. I’ll meet you there.”
He lifted his head and looked over at her. She had a stunned expression on her face, her eyes were wide and her jaw open.
“You did come here for help, did you not?”
“Well, yes . . . but I didn’t think . . . .”
“That I would help you?”
“Well, not in this way . . . .”
“What other choices do you have? For that matter what other choice do I have?”
She blinked, closed her mouth and stood. “I . . . I . . . don’t know. None I guess.”
“Then let’s just do what has to be done and get it over with. God will help us. He’s already helped you, by bringing you to me. You can trust Him to be there for both of us, and you can trust me to do what has to be done to get your son back.”
Pastor Cayce was legendary within his church family for going all-out to help his parishioners. He was devoted to his flock and had once even flown to Alaska to bring a runaway teenager home. It was a pledge he had made long ago, to make himself available to anyone who needed him. He was a shepherd in the truest sense. This was his calling, his ministry, to be there during a crisis in whatever capacity he was needed.
He pressed a series of numbers on the phone and picked up the receiver. When the person on the other line answered, he calmly informed the church secretary that he would be out of the office for the rest of the day. He told her something had just come up and he needed to handle it right away, and that if he was needed, they should track down the assistant pastor.
He took Paige by the elbow and led her out of the building and to her car. “Follow me, but in case I lose you meet me at the Circuit City on the north end of Market Street. Do you know where that is? It’s close to the IHOP.”
When she nodded, he reminded her to buckle up and then he shut the door. He sprinted to his SUV that was parked on the opposite side of the lot. He looked like he could run forever and never tire.
As he got into his truck and started it, he reflected on Paige. She looked like she was in shock, and he wondered if he should have sought medical treatment for her. But it couldn’t be helped, she probably was in shock; but it was probably the inaction and the worry more than anything that was making her look so fragile. He thought about her as he drove, trying to keep her in sight in his rearview mirror. Hell of a time to travel the length of Market, he thought as he glanced at his watch. Three-thirty. They really didn’t have a lot of time. What the hell had she been doing all day? He took out the note he had stuffed into his sport coat pocket and unfolded it. At the stoplights he reread it.
Paige Lawson: I have Joshua. If you want him back, don’t go to the cops, they’re as useless as tits on a bull anyway. By now you should know the drill. Do what I ask—you’ll get your son back. Don’t and you won’t.
First: Send me five digital pictures of you naked in jpeg attachments to: [email protected] The poses you send must be as follows: 1. Full frontal, with your hands folded behind your head making your titties stick out like a pinup girl. 2. Back view with your hair up and wearing high heels a la Betty Grable, don’t forget to look over your shoulder and put one hand on your hip and smile. 3. Sit at the edge of a chair and spread your knees as wide as you can get them, then put your arms behind your head, elbows as far back as you can get them, and arch your back so your titties are high on your chest. 4. Same as three but slide forward until your butt’s almost off the chair, I want to see both of your sweet little holes in this one. 5. Lay on a table, bring your knees up to your chest, then spread them as wide as possible. Use your fingers to spread your cunt lips. Make this one a close
up. I want to see into your little rosy hole.
Second: Bring a man to Wrightsville Beach Saturday at 6:00 A.M. Use the access closest to the pier. Find an orange marker staked at the dune line on the northern side, attached will be a string. Walk it down to the water and where the string ends, go down on him. Have him face northeast. Surprise! You’ll be in the path of the Weather Cam. I know you don’t know any men locally, so whomever you manage to find will certainly be a stranger. Let’s make this fun. As I know you’re quite shy, kiss him first to break the ice before you suck him dry and swallow his cum.
Third: Print a hundred copies of picture number five mentioned above. Put them under the windshields of the cars in your church parking lot this Sunday morning during the late service. Print your name across the top so everyone will know whose pussy they’re looking at when they come out.
Do all three and your boy will be home in time for Sunday dinner.
Forget something? Forget him!
The Voyeur
Cayce shook his head and wondered about the evilness of this man. How could anyone have a heart so black and a mind so wicked? In rereading the demands, he picked up on the fact that the man was quite educated. The words were all spelled correctly, the punctuation proper, the wording almost impeccable. How many people knew how to use whomever in a sentence? And he bet even fewer knew how to abbreviate ante meridiem properly, that is was considered proper to capitalize the A and the M? He envisioned a sleazy academic or a well-rounded businessman. That was the trouble with porn, it pervaded through to every segment of the population. Rich, poor, young, old. If you could pay for the book, you could lower yourself and degrade women at the same time.
He folded the note, replaced it in his pocket, and took a moment to say a prayer for both him and Paige. The next few hours were going to be awful for both of them and he hoped and prayed that Paige could get through them without falling apart.
He tried to think from a woman’s perspective for a moment and couldn’t imagine anything much worse, other than possibly the loss of her child. Or her husband. And she had already experienced that one. He prayed hard that in the end, she wouldn’t be experiencing all three—the denigration of her body, the passing of her husband, and her son’s murder. She was going to have to at least deal with two of those scenarios, and he hoped fervently that she was a strong woman. Though from what he’d seen so far, he had his doubts. The Voyeur knew she was shy, how did he know that? And how did he know she knew no one locally, at least no man well enough to perform oral sex on him?
He put his turn signal on and pulled into the parking lot for Circuit City. Then he sat and pondered the logistics for a minute. He had a computer hooked to DSL, a printer, and he also had a digital camera. If they went to his townhouse instead of to her place, what exactly would they need? She pulled up alongside him and he managed to smile over at her. Then he picked up his checkbook from the seat, got out of his truck, and went to open her door.
“Let’s take a minute to regroup,” he said and leaned back against her vehicle. “If we go to my place,” he looked up just in time to see her cringe, “we can save some money and some time. Plus I’m pretty sure we couldn’t get a DSL up and running fast enough. By the way, what have you been doing all day? When did you find out Joshua had been taken?”
“I was getting ready for work. I was going in late today. It was my turn to work the ten to seven shift. When I read the note, I just fell apart. I tried to remember every person I’ve met since coming to Wilmington. I thought since he knew so much about me, that surely I must know him.”
“I gather that didn’t do any good?”
“No, I can’t think of who it could possibly be, but I know I wasted a lot of time trying to figure it out.”
“You thought someone you’d met was capable of this?” he gestured to the note.
“I don’t know. I just didn’t know what to do. At first, I decided to go to the police. It would have been so much easier to just let them find him.”
“What changed your mind?”
“He’s all I’ve got. I just couldn’t take the chance.”
He unfolded the note and scanned it quickly. He explained what would be needed using computer language she didn’t understand. But every time he mentioned putting pictures on smart cards, downloading pictures to his computer, sending jpeg attachments of pictures, and photocopying pictures, she not only cringed, she reddened. He was talking about pictures of her. Naked pictures of her.
It was dawning on them how they were going to spend the evening and it wasn’t a comfortable feeling for either of them.
They would need a smart reader card and a reader to connect and convey the images to his computer, some ink, and possibly a tripod. He already had lots of paper. Not photo quality paper, but then they didn’t want clear, sharp images now, did they?
“Paige,” he said as he grabbed both her forearms and forced her to look into his eyes. God, she was so beautiful, so . . . pure looking. His mind instantly flitted and he saw her in some of the prescribed poses. He shook his head to force out the images that were beginning to crowd in. “Paige, with my camera, I believe there is a way I can set it up for you on a timer and you can be in the room alone for each shot. It’ll require a tripod. Is that what you want? Would that make it better for you?”
She closed her eyes and simply nodded.
“Okay. Let’s see if we can find one here. If not we’ll go to a camera store.” He wiped tears from her cheek with the back of his hand, then he took her hand in his and led her into the store. “Do you have any high heels like he described?”
When with a worried frown, she shook her head, he said, “Not to worry. We’ll pass several consignment shops on the way to my house. One will have some vintage high heels, I’m sure of it. It won’t matter if they fit or not.”
At the register, she offered to pay, but he could see she was counting her cash very carefully, so he forced her to take the bills back. “Except for the tripod, I’ve been meaning to get this stuff anyway.” He wrote a check and she noted that it was on his personal account.
As Paige watched him write the check out, she had the worst sensation in the pit of her stomach. He was treating her, almost like a man buying dinner before taking his date home, to his place, for the entertainment part of the evening. It sickened her to be thinking this way about Pastor Cayce. He was only being thoughtful, chivalrous in a very weird way. Her eyes followed his hand as he wrote out the check and she noticed the light sprinkling of hairs on his knuckles, the back of his hand, and his wrists. His skin was dark against the crisp white of the shirtsleeve that peeked out from his camel-colored sport coat. He was fair skinned, but tanned.
He was tall and had an athletic build, and she wondered what he did to stay in shape.
She had noticed a wet suit in the back of his SUV and wondered if he surfed. She’d heard that surfing was a really popular sport here at the beach. It would certainly account for the flat stomach and the sun-bronzed color of his skin. Her eyes swept up to his face and she couldn’t help but smile at his grim expression. His full lips were stretched thin and his firm jaw was set. While the cashier approved his check, he ran his long fingers through his sandy blonde hair. It was a bit long, renegade long, as though it were a statement. He wasn’t your typical pastor, and maybe that was why she liked going to his services. Maybe that was why he had come to mind when she was at her wit’s end. He was the only person she had been able to think of who might be able to help her, and now, she was glad she’d decided to go to him for help.
They left the store, stopped at two thrift shops, then she followed him to his townhouse off of South College. It was everything she thought a bachelor’s place should be, and nothing like she thought a bachelor’s place would be. The furnishings were exquisite, top of the line and formal, not contempora
ry, as she would have thought. Heavy, dark woods with thick bolsters and cushions, designed for comfort, not typical of what was normally found in a beach town. The decorator touches were everywhere, and she suddenly wondered about her pastor. What did they pay pastors in this town?
He saw her looking around and smiled. “My mother’s touch. She has a hand in everything I do. We had some powerful arguments about some of the pieces, but in the interest of family harmony, I acquiesced. But I did finally manage to take her key away and send her back home to Asheville. When she showed up here with a crystal chandelier, I knew it was time to cut the apron strings.” He smiled broadly and she was touched by the warm thoughts he was apparently thinking about his mother. Her own mother had died the year after her husband had, and her father was making the rounds working in the stockyards of Kansas.
Cayce placed his keys on the counter and walked into the kitchen. It was an open floor plan, every room on this level was visible except the master bedroom, the laundry room, the powder room, and the study. She’d looked at renting something similar to this, but it wasn’t in her price range.
“Would you like something to drink, maybe even something to eat?”
“Some water please, if you don’t mind. I don’t think I can eat. I just want to get this over. I want Josh back,” she said on a sob.
He took her hand, walked her over to the massive sofa, and sat her down. Then he sat beside her and held her close to his side while she cried. Then she slept.
Ten minutes later, he gently eased her off him, laid her on the cushions, and went into his study to get everything ready.
Paige woke with a start and tried to remember where she was. The rich texture of the fabric on the sofa against her cheek wasn’t familiar. The soft light coming from an elegant, tall, sculpted torchiere was somehow regal, yet inviting. She pushed herself up on her arms and stared around the room, and then she remembered where she was and why. A small sob escaped her. Instantly, Cayce appeared in the doorway, concern and caring on his face. He had taken off his sport coat and was in a white dress shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. The soft, pleated chinos he was wearing, as well as his tasseled loafers, made him look preppy and younger than she knew him to be.
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