But she didn’t stay awake all night. Her head hit the pillow and within minutes she was asleep. And she didn’t dream at all.
CHAPTER 15
Getting the girl into his third-floor apartment unseen was simple. The back of the old tenement’s ground floor had at one time—a century ago or more—housed some sort of business enterprise. Perhaps a bakery, or maybe a small shoe repair shop. A service entrance had been built on the back corner with a narrow hallway running behind the first-floor apartments to a seldom-used secondary staircase providing access to the second and third floors.
The service entrance had of course been locked up years ago, but those locks had been removed at the same time, and with as little difficulty as the locks on the front door. With access in the front of the building, there was no reason for any of the itinerants and vagrants using the location as a flophouse to bother traipsing down the trash-littered alley on the north side, risking being mugged for their booze or drugs, just to enter from the rear when they would end up in exactly the same place.
By the time the schoolgirl—“My name is Rae Ann,” she told Milo in a frightened voice—discovered what Milo knew she had suspected all along, that he was not your typical horny man anxious for a quickie, it was much too late. She had followed him down the sidewalk and around a corner, where she quickly learned the ugly truth: there was no car. There was also no streetlight—he had conveniently smashed it out—and the area was deserted.
Milo pulled a freshly sharpened carving knife out of his pocket, the stainless steel blade dripping water in the steady drizzle. Rae Ann had backed up a step or two in fear and confusion and he covered that distance before she could react further, wrapping an arm around her waist like some arduous suitor. He placed the tip of the wicked-looking knife lightly against her throat, just under her jawline.
“I—I don’t have any money on me,” she stammered. “Big Daddy—he’s my pimp—he took it just before you saw me. If I had any cash, I would give it to you, all of it, I promise, but I don’t have any.”
Milo smiled. The dangerous part was over and he was in his element now, completely at ease and under control. “I’m not after money. If it was money I wanted, I wouldn’t have chosen the newest girl on the block to play with. I would have grabbed someone with more experience.” He was excited, aroused as always by the prospect of impending humiliation and torture, and he pressed his crotch against her butt.
“Is it sex, then? I’ll give you a freebie if you want. I’m not supposed to, Big Daddy will kick my ass if he finds out, but I’ll do it for you. What do you like, baby?”
“Right now I’d like you to shut your mouth and come with me. We’re going to take a short walk and if you scream or cry or make so much as one second’s eye contact with anyone, anyone at all, the last thing you will ever feel will be me cutting open your chest and ripping your heart out with my bare hands. Do you understand me?” Despite the fact that Milo was whispering—or maybe because of it—the implied menace inherent in his words was real and terrifying.
They walked the seven blocks to Milo’s building in silence. He draped his right arm casually around her shoulders like a possessive boyfriend, the knife held in his left hand, pressed against the leg of his jeans. Rae Ann walked with her head down, subservient. Milo knew she was afraid even to look around for fear her kidnapper would misinterpret the action and begin stabbing and slicing her. He could feel her shivering and shaking under his arm, the terror building inside her but the fear transparent to anyone besides the man causing it.
They shuffled along slowly, Milo in no hurry. At last they reached his block. Through various rounds of urban redevelopment conducted over the last half-century, this neighborhood had been unaffected, steadfastly ignored by politicians and do-gooders alike. It resembled a war zone, a United States version of Baghdad after a suicide bombing. Burned-out apartment houses stood empty and silent, graffiti covering every square inch, dandelions fighting grimly for life, growing through gaping holes in the sidewalk, the cement smashed and gutted and crumbling.
Activity was virtually nonexistent, due in part to the lateness of the hour, but also to the fact that this was one of the most dangerous places in the city. The few people moving about were, like Milo himself, ghosts, wraiths skittering through the shadows, invisible and unnoticed by the rest of society.
Milo turned off the sidewalk, pulling his terrified young victim across a tiny weed-infested yard, the original lawn long dead, random tufts of crabgrass sticking up crazily in all directions, trash covering the ground. A rusted chain-link fence lurched at an angle, pulled partway to the ground by vandals before being abandoned as not worth the effort.
He released his prize just long enough to reach out with his right hand and pull a length of fencing toward them. The metal links had been cut away from the post, and Milo indicated to Rae Ann with a flourish that she should proceed through the opening.
She bent down and squeezed through the small space, and for maybe two seconds was actually free of her captor. Had she known exactly what was coming, and exactly when she would be pushed through, she might have been able to make a break for it, to sprint away across the desolate yard in a headlong dash to freedom.
But Milo knew she wouldn’t run and she didn’t. She was terrified and in shock, and long experience had taught him that by the time his victim recognized the possibility of escape, it would be too late.
He was right. He squeezed through the opening right behind her and then once again grabbed her possessively.
They turned down an alley, skirting a tenement similar in style and condition to his own, and within seconds were on the back side of the block, invisible to the other occupants of his building. At this hour, any witnesses would likely be so drunk or so wasted on meth or crack or LSD or bath salts that they wouldn’t even notice, much less remember, him bringing the girl into the building, but Milo wasn’t about to take any unnecessary chances. He had gone to a lot of trouble and risk to secure this playmate; he wasn’t going to let her slip though his grasp before he had had an opportunity to fully enjoy her.
They approached the ancient service entrance, the wooden dormer constructed over the door mostly rotted away by time and neglect. Rae Ann sobbed steadily, great silent heaves wracking her shoulders. Milo knew she was afraid that once she entered this building, she would never leave it alive.
He had to give her credit. She was a perceptive young lady.
He lifted his knife and pressed it against her throat in the identical spot he had used before. He placed just enough pressure on the razor-sharp tip to draw blood. A drop welled up like a tiny black marble and then rolled down her neck, disappearing under the collar of her sweater. “Do you remember what I said about screaming?” he whispered, his mouth caressing her ear like a wanton lover.
Rae Ann nodded, still sobbing but indicating she had not forgotten. “Good,” he said, removing the knife from her throat and licking her blood, his tongue caressing the bulge of her collarbone and up toward her ear. She shivered in fear but stood still.
He smiled. He couldn’t help it. He was just about there. Once inside his little den of iniquity, this sweet thing would be all his to enjoy in any way he wanted. Keeping her quiet while he played his games could be a problem, but Milo Cain was nothing if not creative. He would be able to handle that issue with no trouble at all.
He pushed open the service entrance door and the bizarre-looking couple disappeared into the darkness of the condemned building. The pitch-black darkness of the narrow hallway was all-encompassing, but it didn’t matter. Milo knew exactly where he was going.
CHAPTER 16
The alley behind the condemned tenement was uncomfortable, garbage-strewn and rat-infested, but it had one thing going for it—it was secluded. And seclusion was exactly what Franklin Marchand was looking for when it came to sleeping off a bender.
Never one to keep a tight grip on his wallet even in the best of times, the last economic downtur
n had seen Franklin lose everything—his job, his self-respect and, perhaps inevitably, his family. Anna had called him a drunken, shiftless bum during their final blowout, then concluded the festivities by kicking him out of their home and screaming “And don’t ever come back!” through the closed front door.
Franklin had never gone back.
But even though he had forfeited most of his self-respect, Franklin had no desire to advertise to the rest of the world the depths to which he had plummeted, transitioning from successful banker to out-of-work banker to homeless, drunken ex-banker in just a few short months. So Franklin’s routine was to panhandle enough cash to buy a cheap bottle, get trashed in this nice, secluded alley he had found, and then pass out and sleep off his buzz on a pile of moth-eaten wool blankets he had stolen from another drunken bum a few blocks away while that guy was passed out cold.
Every once in a while that strange dude from the third floor of the tenement across the alley would pass by in the middle of the night, unaware of Franklin huddled behind the wooden latticework falling off a rusting iron fire escape in the darkest corner of the alley. When he did, often it was with a young girl in tow. A different young girl every time.
There was something wrong with the dude, Franklin could deduce that much even in his near-constant state of bleary-eyed drunkenness. The man carried a weapon—a knife—and almost always displayed it conspicuously for his female companion’s benefit while they shuffled past, causing Franklin to reach the obvious conclusion that this parade of reluctant young women was not accompanying the strange dude voluntarily.
And that bothered Franklin.
He was no prude, and certainly no shining beacon of righteousness. Franklin Marchand had done plenty of things he was not proud of, some of them before his fall from grace, while still making a living in the banking industry, and some after, as witnessed by the blanket thievery of recent vintage.
But Franklin was no rapist. He had a daughter of his own, pretty close to the approximate ages of the girls Strange Dude liked to parade past him at knifepoint. Granted, he hadn’t seen his daughter in a while—she’d sided with Anna in their parting of the ways and hadn’t even spoken to him since—but nevertheless she was still his child. His flesh and blood. And the thought of his little girl potentially falling prey to Strange Dude or someone like him gnawed at Franklin.
What else could the guy be but a rapist? Franklin had never actually seen Strange Dude rape anyone, had never heard a scream or a cry of protest floating through the thin walls of the dilapidated building across the alleyway, but, really, what else could the guy be doing in there but raping the girls? A man goes out at night and returns under cover of darkness, sneaking a reluctant companion into his condemned building via the seldom-used service entrance in the rear, and always with the aid of a knife to provide proper motivation.
Even worse, Franklin had never seen any of the girls leave the building afterward. It was a fact he had not given much thought to until recently, because Strange Dude invariably brought the girls into the building in the middle of the night, three a.m. or later, and by that time Franklin had usually finished guzzling his nightly bottle of Mad Dog and was ready to pass out on his stolen wool blankets. So it stood to reason he wouldn’t be conscious by the time the girls exited the tenement.
But then another thought occurred to Franklin. A terrifying thought. Why would Strange Dude run the risk of using his own place to rape the girls? Wouldn’t he be concerned that he might eventually grab one who possessed enough self-respect to go to the police afterward? And if she did, wouldn’t she then know exactly where to lead them?
Of course she would.
Unless, of course, the victims never left Strange Dude’s pad. Unless, of course, he kidnapped them and raped them and then, holy shit, killed them.
Was that really possible? Could the strange man living on the third floor of the building across the alley really be not just a rapist but a murderer as well? Franklin decided he had to find out. Because if that was the case, and Franklin didn’t do something about it, he knew he couldn’t live with himself.
Franklin slammed down the last of the MD and belched as it crash-landed in his belly. He felt good about himself, better than he had in a long time. He would figure out just exactly what was going on in Strange Dude’s third-floor love nest. And if the situation was as he feared, he would goddamn well go to the cops. Not in person, of course, Franklin hated the cops almost as much as he hated himself, but via anonymous phone tip, which would work just as well and represent less personal risk.
And that’s exactly what he would do.
Tomorrow.
Because tonight Franklin was so fucking drunk he doubted he could stand up, and he knew he couldn’t punch the numbers on a phone with any degree of accuracy. What Franklin needed to do tonight was sleep. He rolled the empty bottle along the pavement of the trash-littered alley and watched as it skittered and bounced, eventually coming to rest against the side of Strange Dude’s building.
Then Franklin stretched out on his blankets, determined to take action, proud he was still capable of doing some good in this world. In a matter of seconds, Franklin Marchand was fast asleep.
CHAPTER 17
“What do you suppose the chances are that my mother will actually agree to see us?” Cait clutched the taxi’s worn vinyl door handle with one hand and held tightly to Kevin’s forearm with the other. They had just left the hotel for the cab ride to the address Arlen Hirschberg had supplied for Virginia Ayers, and the driver seemed intent on performing the same vehicular ballet as last night’s cabbie, changing lanes frequently and shooting in and out of gaps in the heavy traffic that seemed too small for a motorcycle, much less a full-sized sedan.
Kevin seemed unruffled and grinned, enjoying her obvious discomfort. He pried her index finger off his forearm and she chuckled uneasily. “Sorry about the death grip,” she whispered. “Do you think any of these guys actually, you know, have a real driver’s license?”
“Think of this as a little bonus. Along with a scenic trip through Boston we get a free amusement park thrill ride.”
“Free?” she said. “Obviously you don’t have a clear view of the meter.”
“Okay, maybe not free, but you get my point. Relax and enjoy the roller-coaster ride. This cabbie’s gotta be at least fifty, which means he’s been driving for close to thirty-five years and hasn’t been killed yet. How likely is it that this will be the exact moment he suffers his fatal accident?”
Cait punched her boyfriend in the arm and he laughed. The driver glowered at them through the rearview mirror and said nothing. “Anyway,” Kevin continued, “to answer your first question, I think it’s a toss-up. This woman”—he glanced at a small wire-ring notebook containing the information given to them by Arlen Hirschberg—“Virginia Ayers, turned Hirschberg down flat when he requested an interview, so it seems unlikely she will have changed her mind in the last twenty-four hours. I think our only realistic chance is to get her face-to-face and somehow convince her to share a few minutes of her time. Hopefully once she catches sight of you, once she gets an actual view of her long-lost child, she’ll have second thoughts about her refusal.
“So I don’t know, babe,” he said again, giving her hand a squeeze. “I wouldn’t give it any better than fifty-fifty, and even that might be a pipe dream.”
The ride continued in silence. Cait tried to push last night’s horrific Flicker to the back of her mind. She stared out the window and watched the cityscape roll by, the cab moving past tall steel and glass skyscrapers, past men and women in business suits carrying briefcases and walking briskly between buildings, through narrow one-way streets, some barely wider than alleyways, past restaurants and bars and universities and apartments, block after block of four-hundred-year-old city.
Finally the taxi left the skyscrapers of Boston behind, entering the smaller city of Everett. They drove a few minutes, the traffic still nearly as heavy, and eventually made a ri
ght turn at a weathered sign reading, “Riverfront Acres.” The driver cruised into a small neighborhood consisting of a half-dozen tiny cape-style homes huddled in a cluster around a narrow cul-de-sac. The pavement was cracked, desperately in need of repair, and the taxi bounced along crazily. All of the homes looked nearly identical except for their paint color. Cait couldn’t see any water and wondered where the river advertised on the sign might be.
The cab rolled slowly into a driveway barely long enough to accommodate its length. Cait and Kevin exited and while Kevin paid the cabbie, Cait examined the outside of her mother’s house, doing her best to ignore the nervous tension building inside her. At one time it appeared the house had been painted a deep ocean blue, but that had been years ago. Decades of New England weather and salty Atlantic Ocean air had rendered the siding a dull monochromatic gray, and the once-white trim had long since given way to encroaching mold and mildew.
In the picture window the curtains had been drawn against the morning sun, and it was impossible to tell whether anyone was even home. The place felt still, abandoned, and Cait supposed the same could be said for the entire neighborhood. No children played in any of the fenced-in front yards, no barking dogs marked their arrival. Nothing moved.
The cab backed out of the driveway and accelerated slowly down the street toward Everett and the land of the living. Cait grabbed Kevin’s hand and held on for dear life. “Am I making a mistake?” she asked in a small voice as they approached the front steps.
“Ever since I met you, you’ve had questions about your past,” Kevin said. “Now you finally have an opportunity to get some of those questions answered. Of course you’re not making a mistake. You’re just nervous. Settle down and let’s see what happens.”
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