Worth Any Price
Page 24
“Should we do that now?”
“It’s safe now. Josh has probably already been set free, it’s been well over an hour since you met his last demand. He may even be home when you get there. Call me.” He bent and kissed her by her ear. “I love you Paige,” he whispered into her hair. “I won’t ask you to reciprocate my feelings right now, because I know you have other things on your mind, but someday, I will ask you to love me Paige, someday soon.”
He turned her toward the door leading to the parking lot and squeezed her shoulder. “Call me when you get home. I’ll be waiting here for your call.”
“What about the police?” she asked over her shoulder when she had reached the door.
“I’ll call them from here. Just go. I’ll take care of it.”
He watched her go out the door, and as it slowly closed behind her, Cayce asked himself if he’d just seen her for the last time. When all this became public in a few short hours, would she forget all about him and go hide? Would she need to put this so far from her mind that she’d force herself to forget him, too? He rubbed the back of his neck while he walked back to his office. He stared at his desk and the seat she had taken just a day ago when she’d come to ask for his help. Had it really been less than twenty-four hours ago since he first looked into her face and saw an angel? An angel in distress. His angel, his beautiful, brave, lonely angel.
Chapter Twenty-five
Detective Kel Vain could not believe that yet another man had stepped in to be a gallant knight to a damsel in distress. And this one, no less, was a pastor!
As he read the ransom note over again, he looked over at Caison Braxton, Pastor of New Assemblies of Christ.
He was standing in the hallway outside one of the examining rooms at New Hanover Hospital. They were waiting for the crime scene officers to finish with Joshua Lawson. The door was open and he could see the doctor and two technicians trying to hold the boy still while his mother paced at the foot of the table. They were trying to remove the tape and had been for quite some time.
Kel looked up from reading the note a fourth time and focused on both the pastor and the mother. He was trying to read the signals he felt arcing between the two of them. If they’d followed the directions in the note, then they had just recently been through a helluva lot together, and he was curious how they had been affected by it all.
When Kel turned from watching Paige cringe at each shriek from her child, he met Cayce’s ardent gaze. With unflinching piercing eyes he dared Kel to further upset Paige, so he could prove his protective stance. She was oblivious to the fierce looks Cayce was shooting him as she moved to cuddle and coo her simpering child.
Kel motioned for Cayce to follow him into the hallway. “How’s she handling knowing this picture’s circulating?” he was pointing down to the third section of the note. This was a worse demand than Laura had been subjected to. And his stomach clenched from the thought that if things had gone differently that men, lots of men would be looking at Laura in her most intimate places, leering at blown up photos and jacking off while they stared at her. The Voyeur was escalating his demands, exacting a more onerous toll from his victims—his lust was getting worse, and probably harder to satisfy. The man standing in front of him now had this horrible nightmare to deal with. He didn’t know how any man with feelings for a woman would deal with this kind of thing.
“It isn’t circulating. I managed to convince my congregation to return all the pictures without looking at them. We got all but one back. We think he has that one. It was just a short time later that I found Joshua in the nursery playground at the bottom of the slide. As far as I know, all the pictures have been burned, all but that one.” He didn’t bother to tell Kel that there’d almost been two. But he wasn’t going to tell this defender of the law that he’d thought about keeping one for himself. It sickened him to think about it now, how he’d been sorely tempted for a moment to possess her image this way. He had wanted to look at her one more time, in the privacy of his bedroom. He hated himself and the dark, sensual side of man. More so since Paige had told him she trusted him. But he hadn’t kept one, he had seen they had all been destroyed.
After asking a few more questions, Kel left to go to his friend, Mark Twiller’s house. It was late on a Sunday afternoon, but he needed the expertise of a computer wizard right away if they were going to have any chance of checking out the e-mail address on the latest ransom note.
He was amazed when he saw it and even exclaimed in triumph that that was “a really stupid screw up!” But it turned out that it really wasn’t. The address was no longer viable; it led to a computer in a coffee house on 17th Street. The manager of the shop said that no less than fifty people a day had used the computer since the time the pictures were downloaded.
Kel held the handwritten note that had been pinned to Joshua’s shirt when he’d been found in the playground.
Paige, you are a worthy mother. I enjoyed your pictures very much. Your pastor is smart and you were crafty to choose him. He certainly earned his blowjob with that sermon. And you’ve earned your son back.
The other notes had always been computer-generated. Kel smiled. Paige and Cayce must have taken him by surprise and The Voyeur had felt that he had to acknowledge that. The note was written on the back of a prayer card. According to Cayce they were only available in the pews. The Voyeur had attended church today.
Chapter Twenty-six
Harold Satterfield sat in a back corner of the booth at the McDonald’s at Longleaf Mall. With his hands carefully shielding the picture against any prying eyes coming from the restrooms, he stared at his lovely Paige.
Paige as he had wanted to view her for months, Paige more lovely than he could have imagined. Even without benefit of his blue pills, he was getting hard. This was how a woman should display herself to the man she loved, how she should welcome him to view and explore her body. And Paige had done this for him. She had posed for him this way, knowing he would soon be feasting his eyes on her naked body. He wished the quality of the print had been better, he should have specified picture-quality photos, and larger. Yes, full page would have been very nice.
When he had been just fourteen, his friend’s sister, Cindy, had entertained a group of boys every afternoon after school in their basement before their parents came home from work. For fifty cents each boy got to see her tits, for a dollar she raised her skirt and dropped her panties, for five dollars, she sat on a chair and spread her thighs wide. Cindy never charged him and she had always given him the full show, sometimes in private. He had always believed that she was compelled to show him her charms for free because he was not only very appreciative, but girls just found him to be very deserving. It was as if they read his mind and he managed to convey to them that he was entitled to see them. When he said, “Show me your pussy,” invariably they did. They loved showing off to him because they loved his praise, and they loved to be adored by him. And he loved adoring them, worshipping the area between their thighs for as long as they would let him drink in the view. One night at the local drive in, his date had sat topless and bottomless with her back against the passenger door, spread wide for all the world to see for over an hour. He had just sat back, smoked cigarettes and guzzled beer as he ogled her. Then he called a few friends over from the next car to share the cock-stiffening sight. Of course, that girl had been a bit drunk at the time, and was really out of it. She hadn’t even flinched when he’d switched on the glaring overhead light. Funny, he could recall every curve of her body, but not her name. He had always wondered what became of Cindy and the brother who loved to show her off and pimp for her. He wondered if she had ever married. One thing was for sure, if he had married her, she would never have been allowed to cover those gorgeous, huge tits.
Looking at Paige brought back wonderful memories of his teen years, he had been miserable at home, bu
t the girls of New Park Haven High had kept him quite entertained until he had gone on to state college and met Gloria. Ah Gloria, if only things had stayed the same for them. If only she hadn’t found out about his hobby.
He carefully folded the paper and tucked it into his shirt pocket, then he let his head fall back and he smiled. He was remembering Gloria and all the times he had photographed her and all the times he had climbed on top of her and found her willing and ready for him. Paige was ready for him now, so was Laura, Meggie, too. But he didn’t want Meggie the way he wanted the others. Oh, he had loved looking at her on the beach, and watching her leave the Sears parking lot in her birthday suit, but Meggie had never really appealed to him like the others had, she was too bold, too brassy, too sure of herself. He liked his women to have more of an innocent appeal, always had. Meggie had been a means to an end, a way to put her cocky, arrogant, stupid ass of an ex-husband in his place. Every time he’d gone to the country club to clean, Thomas Ryan had looked down his nose at him. Thought he was God’s gift. Man, he wished he’d known that the swing camera was broken, he had really wanted to see that jerk when he discovered his tennis bud pokin’ his little doll baby of a wife. Wasn’t to be though, but it was enough just knowing he had made that stupid prick miserable with jealousy.
Paige and Laura were his favorites. They had done what he had asked, blatantly displayed themselves and allowed him to feast his eyes on their sex, smiling like they were welcoming him. He wanted one of them. He wanted to possess one of his girls, to enter her body and take her, to show her the man he was. He wanted total submission and he knew that either one would be happy to have him between their thighs, once he showed them how masterful he could be. How proficient he was once he was in the saddle. He imagined himself thrusting, and holding, thrusting and holding, then exploding with his climax. But coming into which one? Which cunt would it be that he graced with his rock-hard cock? Laura, yes, Laura, it had to be Laura. She was so beautiful, so sweet, she would want him to pleasure her. His audible groan jerked him out of his dream world. He opened his eyes and saw that he had drawn the eyes of several diners. He slid awkwardly off the bench and made his way to the men’s room.
Chapter Twenty-seven
It figured that it would be raining. There was no way to make pulling a child’s body out of the murky waters under the Snow’s Cut Bridge any worse than this—except by adding dismal weather to the event. It was raining in solid sheets, so heavy that you couldn’t keep your eyes open against it. There was a heavy wind churning the water and making the current run fast. To the divers it was a relief to go underwater.
Before the storm, a boater had seen the body drifting, but before he could get to it, it had been swept away. So the Coast Guard had been called as well as the local fire department. The Carolina Beach Fire Department consisted of men who doubled as police officers, so it wasn’t long before word got to Kel, and now he was standing along with thirty others waiting for the body to be brought ashore. They had just been notified that the divers had brought it up.
Ten minutes later, when the boat docked at the marina and the body was lifted out of the boat, Kel’s heart sank. The girl child had duct tape over her mouth and eyes, as well as around her wrists and ankles. She had curly red hair and wore red shorts and a blue T-shirt. He couldn’t stand to look at her. He closed his eyes hard, tilted his head back, and let the rain beat on his eyelids. It was painful, but he felt as if he deserved it.
An hour later he sat in his office and stared at the meager first reports. They hadn’t made an identification yet. The body was with the coroner. He slumped dejectedly in his chair letting his head fall onto his chest then let out one of the biggest sighs of his life. He felt like a failure, as useless as a derelict. The City of Wilmington was paying a perfectly good salary for nothing. This sucked! He grabbed his raincoat and headed for his personal car that he often kept in the station parking garage, a vintage 1970 Oldsmobile 442. The rain would do it good—it was awfully dusty. He didn’t know where he was going, but he needed a long drive and some time away from everything that involved death.
It should have surprised him, but it didn’t when he pulled into the driveway of his old house. The one he had grown up in, in Benton. It was raining here too, but not quite as hard. A steady drizzle pinged off the roof of his car making it sound tinny. The dampness had intensified the musty, moldy smell of the old interior and he wondered why he kept the damn thing. God, what a mood he was in!
He sat in the car and looked at the old house. He had painted those shutters gray at least six times. And that porch railing every summer for as long as he could remember. He’d learned how to rake leaves when he was five and mow the lawn when he was eight. And they had both seemed like never- ending chores at the time. He had some fond memories of the house inside, but not so many of the outside. He fished in the console for his mother’s old keys and opened the car door to a big gust of wind. He had to finish going through her things and make some decisions about the house. Now was as good a time as any as he was already depressed, and he figured, why waste a sunny day?
The box of photo albums he had left on the hearth was exactly where he’d left it, dusty and collapsing from the weight of sixty-odd years of pictures. He went into the kitchen thinking he would start a pot of coffee before remembering that he’d had the power shut off months ago. He’d have to be out of here by dark, although it already was dark and gloomy throughout the house. He sat cross-legged on the living room carpet because he had already donated all the furniture he’d had no use for in his own house.
There was a slight chill even though it was late spring. Yesterday it had been in the mid seventies, but today it probably wasn’t more than sixty.
He sorted through the photo albums and loose photos working his way to the bottom of the box, anxious to get this over with while bemoaning what he was going to do with this pile of junk and memorabilia. In one scrapbook there was an odd collection of postcards from all over the country, most from the fifties and sixties. Flipping some over, he saw that they were cards sent from his aunts and uncles over the years. It seemed that back then, no one went away on vacation without sending postcards back home. There were cards from the Grand Canyon, Carlsbad Caverns, Las Vegas, and Yellowstone Park, and apparently a very popular one back then was a man standing in a tunnel hollowed out from the trunk of a giant redwood. There were three of the same card, all sent by different people. He wondered idly if the man in the photo had given his permission for his image to be sent into strangers’ houses all over the country. But people didn’t think that way back then, he mused. Now, it was almost a given that the man would sue if he hadn’t signed a release.
An hour into the box, he finally made his way to the bottom where he found a handmade journal. It looked like his mother had taken a composition book and wrapped the cover with contact paper. Centered and written in her perfect penmanship it was titled: Catherine’s Musings. He opened it and started reading her entries.
It was getting too dark to read when he came to the last entry, written only a few months ago. He remembered that she’d always kept a flashlight in the laundry room, so taking the book with him he went to find it. Sitting on the dryer he read the final words she had written. A letter to her husband, his father, the low-life bastard.
I just can’t do it anymore. I’ve tried. They’re all smarmy. They pick their teeth at the table, pluck food from my plate as if it’s community property, and they snicker and wink when one of their friends stops at our table, as if I’m a sure thing since I’m a widow. It’s not that I enjoy living alone, but I’d much rather be home alone with my memories of you and our wonderful life together. I love to relive our beautiful moments, I treasure each event like a brilliant jewel. I close my eyes and I take them out one by one and watch them shine all over again in my mind. How can another man possibly compete with that? We had the best there
could be between a man and a woman, how could I ever hope to recreate that? I understand this, I only wish that Kel could. Anyway, it’s too much work getting up for these so-called dates. Tonight was my last one. I get nothing out of them but indigestion. I was only doing it for Kel. But I have decided not to waste my time or give him hope anymore. It is only you that I want and if I can’t have you, I am quite content to live with just our memories. We had twenty-six wonderful years together and I wouldn’t give up one day for anything this world has to offer. I wish with all my heart that Kel could stop worrying about me and see that I am not living with the pain of losing you when he sees me so quiet and thoughtful, but that I am reveling in the love that we share, even now though we are apart. Had I known that I would spend the last decade of my life without you, I wouldn’t have changed a thing. Well, maybe I would have gone to fewer women’s club meetings and spent those evenings going bowling with you instead.
She had never mentioned his infidelity, never written anything about his father’s last year. Never said anything about the other woman who had ruined everything, including Kel’s views on marriage. That’s because in her last years she’d lost all her short-term memory. The only things she remembered were the memories from long ago. A blessing in disguise, he thought. But he remembered! He was sure that he’d never forget.
He closed the book with a snap, hopped down off the dryer, and flashed the light around. Then he went from room to room remembering: in the kitchen he remembered the times he and his mother had made cookies together; in his bedroom, he remembered all the stories she’d read to him; in the main bathroom he remembered the time the two of them made their first and last attempt at wallpapering. He knew that he was purposely blocking out the memories he had of his dad, because he was still fighting mad at him for what he’d done to his mother.