Hush Little Baby

by Alex Gates

  Riley frowned. “Think something happened to her?”

  “They didn’t do a good job cleaning up the blood.”

  He swore. “Jesus. Didn’t you call it in?”

  I tapped the table. The folded flyer rested beside the rest of my research. Riley read the girl’s plea for help, his eyebrows rising.

  “How do you keep finding all this shit?” he asked.

  “Just lucky, I guess.”

  “Christ.”

  “If this note is true, there’s a lot more at stake than a would-be blood stain in Hannah’s room. I couldn’t go back with a warrant to check it out knowing those other girls might be in trouble. The man who hurt Amber and Hannah might bolt at the first siren.” I exhaled. “Or he might splatter more blood on the walls to keep the girls quiet. I can’t risk it. Not yet.”

  “So, more girls were abused?” he asked.

  “Look at those photos. Fifteen girls. Either ‘runaways’ or…”

  “Or?”

  “Or someone made them disappear.” I silenced Riley before he argued. “These girls are the perfect targets for some monster working at that facility. They’re young. They’re scared. They’re afraid they’ll lose their spot in a successful rehab program. And they’re all products of broken homes. No families. No support structure. Who would they tell if someone abused them? The administration? Hell, the program director lied to my face about Hannah. If they aren’t protected from the inside, who else in this world is going to care about a teenage junkie?”

  “Apparently you.”

  “Apparently me,” I agreed. “But here’s the weird thing. There are a couple commonalities between the girls. A pattern.”

  “Like?”

  I twisted the sharpie in my hand as I stared at the pictures. “They’re all white.”

  “Not your usual statistic.”

  I shrugged. “Judges tend to be more forgiving of young white girls.”

  “What judges?” Riley scanned the court dockets I’d stowed behind the girls’ pictures. “Seems like there’s only one.”

  Not as strange as it sounded. “Judge Edgar Reissing?”

  “Yeah. He got a hard-on for this place?”

  “There’s only a handful of family judges, and Reissing has always been a proponent of rehabilitation over incarceration.” I sighed. “I actually went to him a few months ago. Asked if he could sentence Hannah to a place like Grayson House instead of juvie. But that was before…before I knew what was happening there.”

  “Think he could help?”

  “I know he likes Grayson House,” I said. “Maybe he knows someone I can talk to there—someone we can trust. I’m not even sure who might be the abuser. A security guard. A tutor. An administrator. Hell, it could be the person the girls are supposed to trust to report these incidents.”

  “You paint a pretty bleak picture.”

  I flipped through the papers on the table, passing him the file on Grayson House. “It’s a private rehabilitation facility, not state run. It was built by Geralt Developers, a real estate development company headed by some mega-millionaire, Charles Geralt. He’s the biggest developer this side of the Allegheny Mountains. Commercial buildings. Office parks. The new casino. Hell, he’s single-handedly revitalizing Washington County and smaller towns outside of the city.”

  Riley asked the right question. “So why is he building kid jails?”

  “He built Grayson House in the late nineties. Some sort of new-millennium initiative to help the local youth.”

  “Sounds like a decent enough guy.”

  “Who knows? Geralt is political. Connected to everyone.” My eyebrows rose. “Might explain how he was able to build such a facility so quickly.”

  “Nothing greases the cogs of government like cold, hard cash.”

  “Most of his work is commercial, but he seems to take pride in Grayson House. If the director doesn’t answer my questions, I might have to give Geralt a call. Doubt he’d like his one charitable contribution to the city tarnished with claims of sexual abuse.”

  “If there is sexual abuse.”

  Pessimism was annoying enough. I hated doubt more. “I’m sure they were.”

  “But neither Amber nor Hannah named anyone.” He tapped on the flyer with the secret message. “And your friend wasn’t forthcoming with any details.”

  “They’re scared.”

  “They’re kids. Kids in trouble with the law. Kids who have never felt in control of their own lives until they said the right words and accused the right person and, suddenly, they gained all the attention and respect they’d lost with the needle.”

  No.

  No, that wasn’t the case. Not with Amber. Certainly not with Hannah. Maybe they didn’t have the courage to name their attacker, but that didn’t mean it hadn’t happened.

  And I was going to help them.

  A second knock rattled the door. Falconi stuck his head in, tossing a fun-sized bag of chips at his partner.

  “Hey, London.” He whistled at the photo array. “Hot Friday night planned?”

  I frowned. “Go ogle your own case.”

  “Damn…” He crunched on a handful of chips and gestured to the photos. “Can I order anything from the menu?”

  “Sure,” I said. “It’ll just cost you ten to fifteen years in jail. They’re underage, idiot.”

  “VICE girls?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Could have fooled me. Coat ‘em with hairspray, slather them with lipstick, and toss them out on the South Side, and they’d blend right in.”

  Oh, God no.

  He was right.

  I slid off the table before my bones turned to cement. The answer had been right there, staring at me. Beautiful eyes, high cheekbones, pouty lips.

  I couldn’t answer, not with my heart escaping through my throat. “They’re all pretty.”

  Falconi agreed. “Yeah. Not a bad assortment.”

  “Every one of them.” I breathed the words. “Pretty. Young. White. And utterly alone…”

  Riley shrugged. “What about it?”

  “I’m looking in the wrong place. I shouldn’t be talking to homicide. Falconi’s right.”

  “Right about what?” Falconi asked.

  “I should be talking to VICE.” The implication sickened me. “Hannah told me she couldn’t do it anymore. I thought she was talking about her sobriety.”

  Riley cast a wary glance to his partner. “What did she mean?”

  “This.” I gestured at the helpless girls. Mug shot after mug shot taken on what they thought was the worst day of their life. But they were wrong. That day was the beginning of their new hell. “What if they weren’t being molested by one man? What if there are more?”

  So much more.

  Too many. Too awful to even consider.

  “What are you talking about, McKenna?” Riley asked.

  “What if Grayson House forced these girls into prostitution?”

  10

  “What does respect do for a man?

  Most are just addicted to power.”

  -Him

  The Honorable Judge Edgar Reissing was a veteran of the bench. Sixty-three years old and serving the beginning of his third term. Some called him a workhorse. Others a mule. Most of his defendants preferred jackass.

  Didn’t matter. As far as the city was concerned, he did what was necessary—ruling over delinquents and addicts, wayward teens and criminals who stood in front of the court at too young an age.

  Not that Reissing didn’t have compassion. I’d trusted him when I last stood outside his office, braving a knock on a door that would—to some—represent a breach of professionalism and ethics.

  Judges might have heard pleas for leniency from the defendants and their families, but not often from the detective who made the arrest.

  I’d thought I did the right thing by Hannah. Now? I didn’t know where she was, who she was with, or if she was even alive. One wrong turn, one prick of the need
le, and not even God could save her.

  Judge Reissing’s secretary answered a call at her desk. She gave a taciturn mm-hmm and waved me into his office.

  Reissing greeted me from behind a perfectly neat and clutter-free executive desk. If that wasn’t amazing, the secondary door leading to a private bathroom was sure to impress first-time visitors to his chamber. Every inch of his office was spartan clean. Nothing out of place, nothing messy. Reissing projected professionalism and authority, and it began in his chambers.

  His assistants must have been busy—returning books to their proper places, filing every decision and note meticulously in the wall-to-wall filing cabinets. But organization meant good logic, and that heightened sense served a judge well, especially after twenty some years in his position.

  “Detective McKenna.” Reissing was the type of man who took great pains to remember names, dates, and trivia about his acquaintances. His sixties hadn’t slowed him down, but the double bypass sure did. Now thirty pounds trimmer and less a chin, Reissing exuded a new energy. “How are you, sweetheart? I didn’t think I was presiding over one your cases.”

  “Came to borrow a minute from you, if you have one to spare.”

  “For Pittsburgh’s newest hero?” He removed his black robe from over his suit. “I’ll give you two.”

  The robe meant a great deal to the man. He methodically folded and hung the material on the bare coat rack in the corner behind his desk, careful to ensure he didn’t obscure a rather ornate frame and photograph of himself…

  In Africa. Kneeling beside the head of a dead elephant. Judging by the rifle at his side, he wasn’t attempting to resuscitate the beast.

  I must have stared. He glanced at the photo and chuckled.

  “Oh. That. Yes.” He took his chair, a wing-back monstrosity that battled the huge, wall-length bookcases for the focal point of the room. “I agree. It does look rather gruesome, especially for someone…” He arched a pair of wooly, silver eyebrows. “Vegetarian, aren’t you?”

  “Not many people remember that.”

  “I do my best to learn what I can about the community. Of course…it makes sense that you’d avoid meat…given your history.”

  Right. Two weeks in captivity with a man who sliced, fried, and consumed my flesh was reason enough to change my dietary habits. “I prefer a good salad now.”

  “As do I, actually. No red meat—doctor’s orders.” He patted his chest. “But that photo…that was taken just a few months ago. I finally had the opportunity to take an African safari. Simply breathtaking country. And the wildlife? Majestic. You’ve never seen such a diverse environment.”

  When he wasn’t shooting it. “I didn’t know you were such an avid…sportsman.”

  “Don’t worry. I didn’t sneak off into the savannah to shoot an elephant. There are programs in place to thin the herds and eliminate the older, ornery animals.” He jerked a thumb toward the photo. “Keeps the republicans in line though.”

  “I bet.”

  “Eh, everyone says the same thing. How could I?” He nodded. “Well, every dollar I gave went right back to the conservation program. They’re saving elephants with that money.”

  I couldn’t even imagine the cost. Thousands upon thousands of dollars to travel on the safari—and it wasn’t a one-day affair. He’d probably spent the better part of a month with a trained guide just stalking that one elephant.

  “Sounds exciting,” I said. “I don’t even like hunting spiders in my bathroom.”

  “I’d say it’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience, but I think I’ll be returning this June. Much more exciting than Vegas.”

  He adjusted his cufflinks, glinting gold cufflinks.

  Dice?

  Well, the rumors were true then. People talked, and the whispers claimed Reissing was a regular at the Rivers Casino in Pittsburgh—even throwing his re-election parties there. Made sense that he’d be a regular to a Vegas Casino. The good casinos too, if his suit was any indication. Why drop a couple grand on a vacation fit for a king when he could simply dress like one? Designer suit. Expertly tailored.

  Reissing enjoyed the finer things in life…a lot of finer things. The photo of his family on his desk was taken outside a stylish ocean front property.

  “So, Detective.” He folded his palms, the gold rings on both hands clinking against each other. “What’s on your mind? What’s a hero like you doing in some stuffy courthouse discussing vacation plans? Shouldn’t you be donning a cape and leaping the PPG building in a single bound?”

  I snorted. “I doubt that.”

  “We’ve been hearing a lot about you, London. First rescuing those children from that cult? And now saving newborn babies from would-be abandonment and fires and kidnappings.”

  “It wasn’t that spectacular.”

  “That Baby Hope case…it’s strange, isn’t it?”

  “Stranger than you realize.”

  “What has the mother said?” He shook his head with disgust. “Surely there must be a reason she abandoned the child only to turn around and kidnap her again. Have you found a father yet?”

  “No.”

  “Interesting. Is she keeping his identity a secret?”

  A twisting dread pitted in my stomach—an abundance of caution that knotted everything inside of me. I didn’t want to answer his question, not directly.

  “I believe Amber Reynolds was sexually assaulted and became pregnant.” I paused. “And I think it happened at Grayson House.”

  His expression didn’t change, but he answered abruptly. “Nonsense. Grayson House is a fine establishment. Perfectly safe for every resident. They would never allow something so vile to happen inside those walls.”

  And I’d wanted to believe that too. “The investigation is leading me there.”

  “Did she lodge a complaint? Go to the administration? The authorities?”

  “No, she didn’t.”

  “Did she tell anyone she’d been assaulted?”

  “No one has come forward,” I said.

  Reissing relaxed against his chair. “Then there you have it. The story is fabricated. Grayson House has a stellar reputation for helping troubled youth. I’ve trusted them for twenty years now.”

  “I trusted them too…but I can see the signs of sexual assault, and the timeline fits, from her sentencing and placement at the facility to the day she absconded. She was raped at Grayson House.”

  I recognized his smile—the same patronizing nod people had given when I changed my major from psychology to criminal justice after my captivity.

  He fiddled again with his cufflinks. “Let me tell you a little about the types of boys and girls who go to Grayson House.”

  “I know what you’re going to say—”

  His hand flicked up, a universal demand for silence practiced after so many years on the bench.

  “We want to see the best in these children. We want to think that if we give them another chance, they’ll succeed. But that’s not the case. That’s why spaces like Grayson House exist. Believe me, it is not a happy place. It teaches military discipline—life skills which foster a strong work ethic from sunrise to sunset. There’s tutoring, mandatory counselling, and a rigorous demand for perfection and good behavior that is simply foreign to most of these kids. If they don’t want to improve and recover from their addiction, then they won’t. Plain and simple. For every child set on the right path, two fail. That’s just the world, and there’s nothing you can do to change a person’s mind if they don’t want to be changed.”

  “I understand that. I do.”

  “Then understand this. Amber Reynolds abandoned her newborn and disregarded the safety of others by committing arson in an intensive care unit for infants. That is not a cry for help, Detective. That is sociopathy. She might not seem cunning, but you must understand that even children are capable of deception and cruelty.” His chair creaked, and he gestured with a lazy hand as he spoke. “She was not assaulted at Grayson House. Most l
ikely, she ran away, met a boy, and conceived her child in a drunken, drug-fueled haze. Then she panicked. Grayson House is her second chance, and she feared she’d get no further sympathy from the court without concocting this story.”

  “Judge Reissing, I understand, but I can’t agree with you. I’ve uncovered something disturbing about the facility.”

  He didn’t frown, but his lips thinned. “Oh?”

  “I’m chasing a new lead,” I said. “Fifteen former Grayson House girls are missing.”

  “Missing?”

  “Gone. Absconded from the facility with no notice, note, or indication of where they went. The administrators are silent about it, and the other residents don’t speak of it.”

  “And why would they?” he asked. “Any child who chooses hedonism and addiction over sobriety and responsibility would not be a suitable candidate for Grayson House. The residents are battling their own personal evils. They can’t be responsible for their friends’ burdens as well.”

  Exactly what Patricia had said. And it worried me. That was why the kids went missing. The girls were abused, and they couldn’t fight their attackers alone. They had no help, so they ran. What choice did they have?

  “You’re probably right,” I said, the words sickening me. “I’m sure the missing girls are the ones who couldn’t cope with the stringent demands of the program. But, just in case…I need to ask some questions. Do you know anyone at the facility who would be amenable to a conversation?”

  “No one, Detective.”

  “No one?”

  He heaved a deep sigh. “I understand your concerns, but Grayson House is a private foundation. The staff work tirelessly to help the kids who don’t know how to help themselves. You know social work is a thankless job. If you start asking these sorts of questions, start interrogating the few male workers at the facility, you’ll look…hysterical.”

  “Hysterical?”

  “A female detective, untrusting of the few men who actually enter social work? London, you already have a reputation.”

  “What reputation?”

  “Your history? The kidnapping? It’s not just the police who understand you must be treated…delicately.”