by Jon Mills
“Look, I don’t wish to take up much of your time, it’s just that I was told you witnessed the car tearing away. You had given the police a license plate number.”
“That’s right. And?”
“You think I could get that from you?”
Stephen looked him up and down. “Who are you again?”
“I’m working with the Carson family.”
“I realize that. I mean, what’s your name?”
“Logan Winchester.”
He sniffed. “You staying with the Carsons?”
“No, at a motel.”
Jack could tell he was just wasting his time with small talk. “Look, it seems obvious the two disappearances are related. Can I come in?”
“No.”
He closed the door ever so slightly. As much as Jack wanted to push his way in, he didn’t know how long he was going to be in town and the last thing he needed was the cops busting him. His approach to getting answers had changed since his time in New York. Back then he wouldn’t have thought twice about kicking a door in and holding a man’s face over a hot stove to get answers. Back then he didn’t have the luxury of time. He was paid to get a job done and at times make an example out of people.
“Look, I’ll write the license plate down for you but that’s it.”
He shut the door and left Jack waiting on the step. Jack could hear him puttering around inside. Jack peered through the window and saw him disappear down a hallway. He heard a door slam and he heard him mutter something. There was something very odd about him. A few seconds later he returned to the door, once again he cracked it open just slightly and slipped out a piece of paper with a plate number. When Jack glanced at it he immediately recognized it as the same one that he’d seen the night of the vigil. He couldn’t tell if the man he had followed was inside the car, or if someone else was driving but that was definitely the plate number.
“Now leave me be.”
With that said, Stephen closed his door. Jack turned and looked around at the windows of his neighbors. He stepped down off the porch and looked up the road. It was still early morning. A flock of birds broke from a cluster of trees and the sun beat down causing him to sweat. He walked back to his car and glanced at Stephen’s Ford truck. Whether it was because he had just been handed a plate number or curiosity, he looked down. It was sporting a plate from outside of Oregon. It was listed as Nevada. That could only mean one of two things. Either he had recently bought a vehicle from out of state and hadn’t got around to changing the plates or a friend, family member or acquaintance was staying with him.
Jack paused with his hand on the door of his car before he turned back towards Stephen’s home. He went around the side, under the carport and to the back door. He peered in through the window and saw the guy leaning over in front of his computer. Jack squinted to make out what he was looking at on the screen. Once he saw it, his nostrils flared. Jack took two steps back, raised his leg and forcefully brought it down against the handle. The door burst open sending wood splinters flying. The look on his face was utter horror as Jack rushed in. Stephen went for a baseball bat near his computer, but Jack grabbed a hold of him before he even had a chance to grab it. He tossed him back to the floor and scooped up the bat. Stephen crawled over to the sofa yanking at his pants in the process to cover an erection. Jack glanced at the computer and saw that he was watching a video of some young boy being assaulted.
“You sick fuck!” Jack said pointing the end of the bat near his face.
Stephen threw his hands up. “Where is he?” Jack yelled.
“I don’t know what you are on about.”
“Danny, Billy.”
“It wasn’t me.”
“Then tell me where they are?”
“Go to hell.”
Jack brought the bat down on the guy’s left knee and he cried out in agony.
“This license plate, I saw it last night. Now I want answers out of you.”
Jack went over and closed the back door. He peered outside the curtain to see if any of the neighbors had heard him scream. Seeing there was no one outside, he went back over to Stephen who was clutching a fucked-up knee. He aimed the bat at his head.
“Where is the boy? And don’t say you don’t know or I’ll take the second kneecap.”
He could barely talk from the tears coming down his face. Then, oddly enough his tears turned into laughter.
“You are in over your head.”
Jack brought his foot down on the knee he’d busted up and pressed down. “That wasn’t the answer. Now tell me, where is the boy?”
“They are going to fuck you up.”
This guy was a sucker for punishment. Jack turned back towards the computer and then in one smooth motion brought the bat down and took out his second kneecap. Stephen screamed but Jack grabbed a pair of socks he’d tossed on the floor beside the computer and jammed them into his mouth to mute the noise. He walked over to the computer and looked at the screen. It looked as if the video had been sent via a file-sharing website. He moved the mouse and fast-forwarded the clip hoping to spot anything that might reveal where the boy was. He was completely disgusted by what he was seeing. The boy wasn’t Billy and from the face released by the media, it wasn’t Danny Grant either.
“Who are they, Stephen?”
His muffled cries made him look back. Jack went over to him and took the socks out of his mouth. He placed a foot on one of his fucked-up knees and applied pressure.
“I’m going to ask you a series of questions. You give me the answers, I don’t inflict any more pain. You understand?”
“Fuck you.”
Jack closed his eyes, spun the bat around and drove it as hard as he could down into his nuts. He crouched down beside him and placed his hand over his mouth.
“This is not going to end well for you. That shit you are looking at online. Who’s it coming from? Where are they keeping the boys? Who took them?”
He was crying uncontrollably. “They will kill me.”
“They are the least of your troubles right now.”
Jack went back over to the window and glanced out. He was certain one of the neighbors was going to hear this pussy’s cries and call the cops. He hadn’t been looking out the window a few seconds when he heard a sound that made him twist fast.
“You coward,” Jack muttered.
Stephen had sliced right across his neck from ear to ear. Blood was squirting out of his jugular all over the place. Somehow, he’d managed to get his hands on a small pocket knife. Jack hadn’t seen it. He didn’t even attempt to save him. There was no saving him from a cut like that. He’d bleed out in a matter of minutes. He gurgled, spluttered and his eyes went wide and then he stopped moving.
Chapter Eight
After wiping off the bat to make sure he didn’t leave any of his prints behind, he looked outside again, and then went over to the computer. He planned on leaving it open so police would have at least some lead in the case. There was no way he was going to let them know that he’d been there so he made a mental note to clean off the keys and mouse before exiting. Stephen had several applications open. His Internet browser for a file server, a private chat room and his e-mail. The first thing he checked was the chat room that was called Early Learners. He jotted down the website URL on a scrap of paper, pocketed it and made a mental note to do a check on the IP later. He scrolled up through his history and saw a conversation he’d been having with someone going by the name of “TheWickerman.” The conversation was general. No words had been used to give anyone any sense that they were discussing the distribution of child pornography. The video was hosted on a private file-sharing server. Jack could see that whoever had sent the link was still online. He took advantage of the moment and sent them a message.
“Any chance I can meet in person?”
He waited for a reply. On the chat window, a small bit of dialogue came up to let him know that the user was typing. It would start, and then stop. Severa
l minutes passed and nothing. In that time, Jack had checked the window several times. He couldn’t stay long. The longer he lingered the more chance of him being spotted. If anyone had seen his vehicle, or heard Stephen’s cries, it wouldn’t take them long to trace it back to him. Even though he had given his false name, and shown false ID that he had managed to get from an old friend who was a dab hand at creating fake IDs, he didn’t want to risk it.
Eventually a response appeared.
“Enter your code.”
“Code?” Shit! he thought, looking around the table, hoping that he might have jotted it down but there was nothing. A minute or two passed and they replied again with the same request. When he didn’t respond, the user went offline.
“Damn it.”
Whoever it was wasn’t taking any chances. No matter what role Stephen had played in the abductions they didn’t trust anyone. Jack clicked the link again to the video, hoping to see something in the background that might indicate where it had been recorded. When he clicked it for the second time, the file was gone. It was no longer on the server. His mind ran amok at the thought of what they were doing. They were covering their asses. Allowing clients to view videos through a live stream, or giving them a way to stream it online but only if the file existed. Jack tried a different link listed in the chat history and this time the server asked him to enter his code.
Right then he noticed a green light blink on the monitor. He looked at it and then realized what they were doing. They had control of his computer and had turned on the camera. Whoever Stephen had been in communication with was now looking directly at him. It was too late to hide his face. It made sense. If one of their clients decided to rat on their network, they would have already recorded their face. No doubt they had more dirt on Stephen than he knew. Jack wondered if they could hear him. The green light blinked then went dark again. Suddenly multiple windows started flipping up and files started to disappear. They were trying to remotely wipe his computer. Jack immediately responded by leaning down and reaching for the power cable. He pulled it and the whole system powered off.
“Try wiping it now, assholes.”
Whoever he was dealing with wasn’t stupid. Yet no matter how devious or smart they thought they were, they, like many others before them, would eventually make a mistake. Theirs just so happened to be dealing with him.
Jack tilted his head from side to side and the bones in his neck made a cracking noise. He got up from the table and remembered the truck out front. He went through the small corridor, his eyes scanning as he went. The place was a dump. Regardless, he checked the rooms in the chance that Stephen had been lying and he was the one that had taken the boys. Ten minutes later, nothing. There was no sign of Billy or Danny.
He went outside to the truck and opened the driver’s side. He slipped in and looked inside the glove compartment. There was a .45 handgun in there, a map of Oregon and a bunch of receipts. Jack pulled it out, looked at the map. There was a red circle around an area in Albany that seemed to coincide with Stephen’s residence. At the top of the map was a phone number. Jack tore it off and pocketed it. He glanced at the receipts; some of them were from places in Nevada.
Jack pulled the sun visor down on the passenger side, there was nothing. He did the same on the driver’s side and a registration and insurance documentation fell on his lap. He glanced at the name. It was a man named Miguel Guadalupe. He pocketed them and got out of the truck and went back into the house. As he continued searching around for anything that might be of use to him, he heard the muffled sound of a phone ringing. He glanced around unable to find it at first.
Jack went over and used a cloth to pick up a cellphone stuck between the cushions of the couch. He hit answer and waited. Was it Miguel? Someone local or the Wickerman?
“Stephen. It’s done.” It was a male voice on the other end of the line. His accent was Mexican. When Jack didn’t answer, he repeated himself one more time before he hung up. Jack scrolled through the contacts for a few seconds but instead of wasting more time he pocketed it and continued searching. He hadn’t been searching more than ten minutes when he heard the faint sound of a siren. Jack rushed to the window. Coming up the road, heading towards the cul-de-sac was a cruiser with its lights lit up. He didn’t wait another second, he turned and burst out the back door. There was no time to escape in the car. He sprinted into the forest behind the home and didn’t stop running until he made it across a flat field to Lochner Road on the southeast. Shit! Shit! He berated himself. The police would pull the details on the rental and find it was issued to a Logan Winchester. He’d paid using a debit card that was linked to an online payment processing system, which he had already filled with cash in advance. No matter how they attempted to trace it, it would lead to a dead end but still, it meant he no longer had a vehicle.
None of his real information was out there and that’s the way he liked it.
After escaping the FBI in Florida, he’d immediately got in contact with the old friend in New York who was able to provide him with false ID. Now, he would remain one step ahead. While he continued to use his last name, he would change the first as and when needed.
Jack took off his bloodstained jacket, tossed it into the bushes and put his thumb out to hitch a ride back to his motel. Had Miguel called the cops, or the user online? Either way, he knew he was up against professionals. This wasn’t some small-time serial killer who was looking to get his kicks out of abducting young kids, killing them and then disposing of their bodies. If the Nevada plates were anything to go on, this had to be a large pedophile ring that operated inside and outside of the state.
A car full of four teens pulled over and asked Jack where he wanted to go. He told them and they let him hop in the back. He squeezed in beside a guy and girl. They peeled away listening to music set to a volume that would make anyone’s ears bleed.
Jack thanked them after being dropped off and tossed them ten dollars. They looked pleased and he watched them do a donut in the parking lot before blazing out into traffic. He shook his head. Young and dumb.
Sweating from running, he stripped off and took a hot shower. When he came out with his towel wrapped around him he looked out the window. He wasn’t paranoid but he knew he wouldn’t be able to stay there beyond that evening. He had used the same name and ID to book the hotel as he had to book the rental. The car rental would have a photocopy of his false photo ID, so they would have his face. It wouldn’t take the police long to put two and two together, and phone around to lodgings.
He went over to the mini bar and pulled out a small bottle of bourbon. He twisted the cap and downed it in one go to settle his nerves. It didn’t matter how many times he had run-ins with the law, he always felt the same way. The thought of going back to jail forever hung over his head. That’s why the idea of contacting Special Agent Baker might have seemed absurd but right now he could use her expertise and connections. The question was how would she respond to a call from the man she had been obsessively tracking?
He stared down at his phone. On one hand, he was taking a risk if he phoned her. He would be giving her the opportunity to change her mind about what she had done. Then again, the very fact that she had let him go meant she had risked her entire career. Why? Why do that? It had bothered him ever since the day he slipped out of that bureau.
Jack pulled out his laptop and pulled up the contact details for the Florida FBI branch. He took a deep breath and dialed the number. While it was ringing, he went over to the mini bar and pulled out a bottle of vodka and broke the seal on the cap.
“Federal Bureau of Investigation, how may I direct your call?”
“Special Agent Baker.”
There was about ten seconds before the call was answered. The moment he heard her voice all the memories of their last encounter came rushing back in.
“Hello Isabel.”
“Who is this?”
“A fan of your work.”
There was no answer on th
e end of the line. She cleared her throat.
“One moment.”
He heard a seat screech back, she must have placed a hand over the mic as background noise was muffled. He then heard someone tell her that they were going for a bite to eat and did she want to go with them. She responded that she had some work to finish up but would catch up later. After a few more minutes he heard a door slam, and the sound of a flush. She had taken the phone in the washroom.
“Are you out of your mind?” Those were the first words that came next.
“Actually I thought I would be the first to call this time.”
“Do you know how much shit I will be in if anyone finds out that I am speaking to you?”
“I wouldn’t be calling unless I didn’t need your help.”
“My help?” She almost bellowed but then brought her voice down to a whisper.
“There are two kids that have gone missing in Oregon. I think a large pedophile ring is behind it.”
“Well, phone in the details to the police.”
“I would if they were actually taking it seriously.”
“What do you mean?”
“They are treating one of the cases as nothing more than a runaway.”
“And?”
“Both of the boys delivered papers for a local newspaper here in the town. The man in charge of distribution was somehow linked to it. It’s the only way they could have known those boys were going to be alone.”
She sighed. “Look, this is not a good time. This. Whatever you have got yourself involved in. I can’t do this. I’ve already risked my career releasing you.”
“I know. Why?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Of course it does. Someone doesn’t track a person down for months on end just to let them go, and don’t tell me you felt obliged to help me because I saved your life.”