by R. D. Cain
Nastos was still watching Carscadden to see how he was holding up. He seemed lost.
Madeleine interrupted his thought. “I wish you were here. This is giving me the creeps. When do I get to feel safe?” It was more of a statement than a question. Certainly nothing he could address without walking into a Madeleine Minefield. Marriage had taught him a thing or two. “Yeah, you’re right. I’m sorry.”
There was an awkward silence before he heard her make a sound, like she was sipping a drink. “Don’t get me wrong, Steve, I want her back. But there are cops out there looking for her. They get paid for this, they have guns.”
“That’s the point, the cops aren’t actively looking for her. All they did was put her name on a computer screen as missing. I phoned Jacques. She hasn’t used her credit cards; the phone trace failed. They aren’t going to find anything at Anthony’s house without probable cause to search it and they don’t have it. Not yet anyways. So the cops are out of this one for now.”
Madeleine countered, “Hasn’t it crossed your mind that if it could happen to her it could happen to me — or worse, Josie?”
It was something that Nastos hadn’t considered. Madeleine is so street smart. Then he reminded himself that Tara was too. “Don’t worry, we’ll find her and I’ll be back soon. Just keep the doors locked, the portable beside the bed. There’s nothing to worry about.”
She said, “Come home soon,” and hung up.
Nastos looked at his phone, not believing that the relationship had deteriorated to hang-ups. She should know more than anyone that it’s up to me and Carscadden. Besides, she’s got nothing to worry about. He slid the phone into his pocket.
Carscadden changed the radio station to the news. “She doesn’t like you doing this kind of work, does she?”
“It’s nothing personal. Hell, she loves Tara. It’s just the work. She learned the hard way what it can do to a person.”
Carscadden asked, “What do you mean?”
Nastos opened his window a crack for fresh air. “It comes down to one simple sentence. The whole time you’re out there, doing the job, the job is doing you. It starts by making you assume the worst about people. You begin to suspect that everyone has a dark side and any display of kindness is a façade, manufactured to deceive you, like you’re some kind of idiot. Then you resent them for thinking you’re an idiot.”
“Not all cops are as cynical as you are, Nastos.”
Nastos shrugged. “Here we are, stalking someone. I know he’s scum, but still, here we are hunting a person. I don’t know how you can hunt people and have it not change you for the worse. It can make you an asshole to live with.
“With the objectivity of time, I’d say I’ve done things in policing I’ve regretted. I’ve hurt people to a degree that wasn’t warranted, especially considering that the only people who care about justice are the victims — no one else cares. So we corrupt ourselves. We behave like the people we hunt.
“You’re away from your family,” Nastos continued. “You miss important moments in your child’s life. You’re tired and grumpy because when you do get to see her, it’s when you’ve sacrificed sleep. Invisible, odourless, no taste, no feel — whatever it is, it works its way into you like radiation. I didn’t understand until I got away from it. Now here I am coming back for more.”
Carscadden didn’t say anything. He reached into the back and pulled out another Coke Zero, maybe his fourth, and a five-hour energy drink that he gave to Nastos.
“I didn’t mean for it to come out that way. There’s nothing I’d rather be doing than helping you find Tara,” Nastos amended.
Carscadden asked, “I just wish we knew what we’re looking for.”
“We do. We’re looking for whatever jacks up our blood pressure when we see it.”
Carscadden opened his door. “I need to stretch my legs.”
Before Nastos could ask “Where the hell are you going to go?” Carscadden was out of the car. Leaning in through the half-closed door, he told Nastos, “Before the sun comes up, I’m going to check around his place. I might peek in a few windows to see what’s going on in there.”
Nastos shrugged. “Be my guest.”
“You’re not coming?”
Nastos couldn’t tell if Carscadden was disappointed or happy to be able to do something on his own. “I’m sure you can handle it, but if he sees you and offers you candy or beer or something, you’re going to have to go in there and play along with his demands or you’ll blow our cover.”
Carscadden closed the door without saying a word and started toward Anthony’s house. Nastos watched as he first skulked up the street under the city lights, going two houses past before turning back. He cut across the lawn to the side of Anthony’s garage, where he disappeared out of view.
Nastos decided he’d apologize again once Carscadden returned. His cell phone buzzed. It was a text from Carscadden. Too dark to see in the garage. Nastos sent back, Good, so come back.
He looked up to see Carscadden peek around the garage and give him the finger. Carscadden went back out of view, eventually resurfacing out of the trees closest to the car. He had gone all the way around the back of the house.
When he returned, Carscadden slumped into his seat with a red nose, rubbing his hands together.
“Anthony is in the house, playing solitaire. Real exciting.”
Carscadden’s cell phone rang and he answered it right away. “Yes, Viktor? Okay, right, thanks.” He hung up. “Viktor says he has to bail out. I guess I’ll walk back and take the van.”
Carscadden reached for the door, but stopped when Nastos grabbed his arm. He was beginning to tire of Nastos grabbing him instead of just talking, like he was part Neanderthal. He turned to see Anthony’s garage door opening. “How did Anthony get from playing solitaire to the garage so fast?”
Nastos realized that he still had a grip on Carscadden and let go. Slowly, a vehicle pulled out of the shadows: a 1980s Dodge Caravan, with decals dried up and peeling off the sides. Nastos squinted. The writing looked like it had once said Cuervo Perdido Carpentry. The van slowly turned out of the driveway. The side windows were tinted too dark to see the driver as he went by, but from the outline they could tell he was too big to be Anthony.
Carscadden pulled out his phone to call Viktor.
Nastos had craned his head back and was watching as the van drove down the street toward Bloor. “Call Viktor.”
Carscadden said, “I’m on it. Get driving.” As the phone rang he said to Nastos, “We can do a bump and dump like they do to tourists in Florida. Viktor gets in front, hits the brakes. When the driver gets out we take him down.” Carscadden shouted into the phone. “Jesus Christ, Viktor, we’ve got something. Pick up!”
Nastos said, “We’re going to follow him.” He pulled up the parking brake one notch to keep the headlights dark, then turned the car around and followed at a safe distance.
Carscadden cupped his phone. “He knows where Tara is. Let’s just beat it out of him.”
“It would be faster to just follow him. If we think he knows we’re following, we’ll go to plan B, don’t you worry about that.” Nastos hit the gas, closing the distance to the van.
Carscadden put his phone on speaker mode. Viktor finally answered. “Sorry, I didn’t notice the vibrating.”
Carscadden explained about the van. “Can you stay with us?”
“Of course.”
Nastos interjected. “Okay, we’re going to follow this guy smart. If we turn off and get back in behind him too many times, he might notice. This would be a lot easier with two more cars.”
Viktor cleared his throat. He sounded exhausted. “I’m ahead of him now. I’ll slowly let him pass, then I’ll stay behind.”
Nastos agreed. “Okay, then we’ll drop way back. If you get burned you can turn off and we’ll take the lead.”<
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“I have to call some associates of mine to tell them I can’t meet with them. Then I’ll call back and we can keep the line open.”
Carscadden said, “Sounds good” and ended the call.
Nastos said, “See my problem with Viktor? What associates do you think he’s dealing with at this hour?” He peered ahead through the windshield as Viktor slowed and let the unknown man pass.
25
They lay together, Lindsay with Hopkins and Taylor, touching, fingers interlocked, heads on each other’s shoulders, waiting for the Warden to return and do whatever he wanted. The moments of brief silence between the songs playing on the stereo upstairs offered no reprieve to Lindsay. It felt like the pause itself was filled with the hisses of a thousand invisible snakes wrapping around her head, writhing into her brain. The speakers would soon blast again, the sounds forcibly invading her. And no matter how deep she tried to retreat into herself, there was nowhere to hide, no matter how tired she was — not even into the comfort of another nightmare.
Having a conversation was difficult because of the noise; they had to shout for everyone to hear so they spent most of the time lost in their own thoughts. It had been a long time since there had been any food or sleep.
Lindsay thought back to when the man had captured her. It was so muddy — she could remember what had happened less now than she could before. All she had to rely on was the way she had told it to herself, and she had to admit she could not trust herself to be accurate about anything.
Dust stirred in the air and she was again reminded that she was slowly being buried alive — if not literally, then certainly in the minds of her parents, who would be losing hope daily. Maybe he killed me when he first grabbed me and this is actually hell. This is where you go after you die, to a place like this where there is no god, no hope, nothing but pain. You get raped, killed and sent someplace even worse. And it just repeats, death after death, rape after rape, forever. She still felt the people next to her, but that didn’t mean that they weren’t all dead and this was just the way it goes.
She was nearly powerless, but she could have a small impact in her time in this place. She was all too aware that she had been here for twenty-nine days and that one way or the other she would be dead in less than twenty-four hours. The last thing she wanted was to have her friends have to sit and watch as she was murdered in front of them. With only one day left to live, in this place, there was one way to show the ultimate defiance to their jailor. She could kill herself and take some control back.
What if I did do it? What could he do to retaliate? He might leave me here to rot. That would be awful for Tara and Taylor. It has to be all or nothing. There was a pause in the music — the CD had hit the end of the track and needed to be manually restarted. Taylor was clearly the most likely to be suicidal; Lindsay decided to lock him down first.
In the welcome pause in the noise, Lindsay signalled that she wanted up and they unlocked from each other. She moved in front of them and made sure they were both paying attention. “It’s just a matter of time before he kills us. You know that, right?”
Taylor shrugged. That was easy. Now it was just Hopkins. She had watched two rapes now. Maybe it was enough.
“If one of us commits suicide, it leaves a mess for the rest. If two of us do it, he’ll take it out on whoever stays. It’ll be brutal — you’ll wish you had died.”
Hopkins shook her head. “My boyfriend knows where I went; his best friend is an ex-cop. We were sent to find you and bring you back, Lindsay. They’re close. They might be driving here right now.”
Lindsay shook her head. It was actually a shame to see Hopkins so naïve — a woman her age believing in fairy tales like hope. What kind of world does she think this is? Things only get better so they can get worse again.
Hopkins looked away from Lindsay, over to Taylor. She said, “If you’re a woman and haven’t been sexually assaulted by the time you’re thirty, don’t worry. You still have your eighties to look forward to, when you’re in the nursing home, helpless and not considered credible. You can get past this, Taylor. Sexual assaults happen to men too — it doesn’t make someone less of a man. There is always someone stronger than us out there; that’s all this asshole has, strength from steroids. Trust me, when my friends get here, they’ll let you put the bullet in his head yourself.”
Taylor looked both skeptical and hopeful. “No they won’t — you said he’s an ex-cop.”
Hopkins smiled. “The way he’s going to treat this bag of shit, you’ll know why he’s an ex-cop.”
Lindsay asked, “What do you know about being raped?”
“I’ve been a teenager, Lindsay. Lots of women are pressured into unwanted sex, whether it’s by a boyfriend, a male friend, or a drunk who forgot what ‘no’ means. Taylor’s strong. He can overcome this.”
Lindsay only half heard what she said. She was thinking about when Jessica had found her on Facebook. It had started out well, with Jessica just offering stories about her mother, her childhood and things about the extended family she never knew. Soon after Lindsay had revealed that she lived in the Bridle Path, Jessica first suggested that they should meet up. That should have been a red flag. In retrospect, Jessica had groomed her slowly, becoming a friend, offering pot and alcohol — it was a long time before she started talking about how tight things were with money. The whole time, she had been trying to drive a wedge between Lindsay and her dad.
Watch the way he looks at you; that’s how it starts. Does he take you shopping for clothes, watch you try them on?
You’re wrong, Jessica, he’s not like that.
Lindsay, he could have adopted anyone, but he picked beautiful you. It won’t be long before he’s done with that dried-up, too-posh-to-fuck religious zealot of his.
And wasn’t it true that she had been afraid to tell her mom about what was going on? Jessica had connected her with confidential therapy classes, not Claire. Jessica had been able to see the truth she had buried — not pure, loving Claire who might reject her if she knew the baggage she carried inside.
Lindsay said, “A friend of mine tried to convince me of the same thing.”
Hopkins asked, “Pardon?”
“Jessica,” Lindsay said. “She tried to convince me that all men were like that; they’re not. I lived with my birth mom until I was seven. Her boyfriend used to touch me.” It had taken three months of therapy to get to the point where she could say it. This was only the second time her life that she had done so. To a degree it felt more re-victimizing than empowering. “My dad has done nothing but love me. He would never do anything like that to anyone, especially me. He’d kill anyone who ever touched me.”
She turned her attention to Taylor. “There’s a point when you’ve been through something like this, that you will yourself to remember it all. I’ve remembered everything that happened to me, and now I have it all straight in my mind. Now that I’ve done that, I can finally put a name on it and put it away. The name is Darius Miner, and I hope he suffers for what he did to me.”
Taylor asked, “What’s this guy’s name — Satan?”
Lindsay leaned into Taylor, her hand finding his beneath the blanket. “I don’t believe in God, but I think I’m beginning to believe in the devil.”
Hopkins and Taylor both moved closer, pressing against her; it was not a claustrophobic feeling. Hot, thick tears poured down her face. Moisture she didn’t think she possessed. Taylor’s hands were strong. She had never noticed how beautiful he was. Gentle, she told herself — although the monster had never showed any interest in any of the girls, Taylor took the brunt of the physical abuse, and for that, in the next world she hoped to remember him as a hero.
She had gone to the therapy classes on her own, and had felt like she was getting somewhere. Like maybe she could have gotten better — and then this happened. Hope was dangerous. It opened you up to the
most intimate pain.
The touch of Taylor’s hands reminded her of what life could have held for her. Now only death offered the bliss that love used to — a complete escape from any uncomfortable feeling. She could return to the source of everything, leave this earth and embrace eternity. Her mom had killed herself, and in a way, like any good parent, she had lit the path to the ultimate salvation.
She saw that Hopkins and Taylor were not going to act. That was fine; she would just do it herself. She began looking around at the options. It had to be something that the other two couldn’t stop, which meant she would have to hide it from them. She looked down at her filthy feet and the plan came. She peeled off her socks and rubbed her feet, putting the socks up near where she generally lay her head down. With the music loud, no one would know. Under the blanket, she would stuff them down her throat and choke to death. It would only be uncomfortable for sixty seconds; then she’d be gone. A moment later, the music began again; only this time, instead of terrorizing, it was welcome.
Nastos would have preferred that Carscadden drive. Dealing with traffic might keep his mind from other things — like the fact that they were driving to wherever this man did what he did to the girls before they were found carved up and dead. He tried another approach, to get him busy on the phone. “Why don’t you call Dennehy and see if he can come with us?”
Carscadden said, “This is day twenty-nine for Lindsay. He could be about to kill her now.”
Nastos shrugged.
Carscadden continued, “Hopkins wasn’t part of the plan. He might have killed her yesterday.”
Nastos said nothing, not wanting any part of the conversation. Carscadden continued, “If she’s dead, he’s dead.”
Nastos gulped. “It might not be easy to make it happen that way. If Lindsay is there, we’ll need whoever this asshole is to bring it all back to Anthony. I don’t want him getting away with anything.”
The bug in Carscadden’s ear about calling Dennehy finally worked. Carscadden reluctantly tried calling Dennehy’s cell phone, but he wasn’t answering so he phoned the Police Communications Centre, which would both record and log their call. Nastos listened on speaker phone.