BoneMan's Daughters

by Ted Dekker

  Or what if…

  A scrape outside stopped her thoughts. Her heart thumped harder in her chest. Could have been a rodent, or the wind, or her imagination.

  But then the sound came again. Soft footfalls on a concrete hall.

  She stood and stared at the door. Then quickly sat back down. Maybe she should lie down. What would please him, to find her standing and alert, sitting and patient, or curled up on the bed, exhausted?

  She instinctively wiped her face, thinking it was probably dirty. She should have made an attempt to at least look presentable.

  Presentable? What was she thinking?

  Bethany sat down, folded her hands in her lap, and waited for BoneMan to open the door.

  28

  THEY STOOD AROUND the room, glaring and pacing, refusing to entertain that anything Ryan had to say could be something as simple as the truth. The interrogation room was outfitted with a single white table, six lightweight folding chairs set haphazardly about the table, and a large one-way window that allowed authorities to watch undetected from the adjacent room. A black television stared at him from a cart along the far wall.

  The only other fixtures in the room were the people, who’d come and gone over the past hour. At the moment they consisted of one uniformed officer who stood in the corner; Ricki Valentine, the FBI agent whom Father Hortense had called; her boss, a man named Mort Kracker. And the district attorney, Burton Welsh, who’d just been released from the hospital and paced on the far end like a bull who saw only red. They’d told him he had no business being here less than twelve hours after suffering a broken arm, but angered bulls apparently didn’t listen to doctors.

  The DA had held a news conference in which he’d come off like a war hero who’d broken out of a prison camp and single-handedly ended the war by delivering to justice the tyrant who’d terrorized them all.

  Ryan knew that he was facing impossible odds, that besides the DA’s arm nothing had broken his way, that even his frantic pleading and explaining now worked against him.

  Within minutes of the FBI’s entrance into the storeroom, he’d made his case abundantly clear through pleas for understanding. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t kill an innocent man, no matter what was at stake. And that was a problem, see, because Bethany was at stake! They had to stop BoneMan.

  But his urgency had fallen on deaf ears and he’d shut down, mind set on the hope, however thin, that he could still get to BoneMan by making his appointment.

  His choices were limited. He could either go quietly behind bars and wait for an attorney to make his case while Bethany paid the price for his failure to meet BoneMan’s demands.

  Or he could make someone in this room believe and look for a way out.

  “I don’t think you understand how implausible this sounds,” Kracker said, eyeing him with an arched brow. He tapped his cheek with a thoughtful finger. “If you’ve done all of this at the demand of this so-called other BoneMan, why would you jeopardize your daughter’s life by calling Father Hortense? I would think you’d do exactly what he required you to do.”

  “Have you ever tried to break a man’s bones, sir?”

  “Okay, so you had trouble going through with it. But why call Father Hortense?”

  “Isn’t that the question I should be asking you?” Ryan demanded. “Why would I? Aren’t you listening to a word I’m saying here? I have until morning to get to him. You have me trapped here while the real monster is out there with my daughter.”

  “The only reason we didn’t put a bullet between your eyes when we had the chance was because you’re the only one who knows where Bethany is,” the DA spat through an ugly frown. “Don’t press your luck.”

  Ryan slammed his handcuffed hands on the table. “I… am not… BoneMan!”

  The DA was around the table and had his good hand on Ryan’s collar before anyone could react. He jerked his face close so that Ryan could feel his breath. “I should break your neck right now, you slimy worm. I was there, remember?”

  Ricki stepped up and pulled the man to one side. “Back off, Mr. Welsh.”

  He whirled on her like a wounded bear.

  But she didn’t back down. “We didn’t put a bullet between his eyes because that would make us the killer, now wouldn’t it?” she said. “He hasn’t been convicted yet, no need to throw the switch.”

  “Convicted?” The DA released his collar. “This man took me from my home, knocked me out, broke my wrist, took a sledgehammer to my arm, and would have broken every bone in my body if he hadn’t been stopped.”

  “But he was stopped, sir,” she snapped. “And we’re here to try to understand why he was stopped. Why he called the priest. Why he didn’t just finish the job as BoneMan would have two years ago.”

  “Because he was stopped!” the man shouted. “Or is that too much for your small head to comprehend?”

  “You’re hurt,” she said, challenging his fierce stare with her own. “But please don’t use it as an excuse to sound small. I’m not excusing what the suspect did, I’m only pointing out that he may not be the same man who killed the seven victims we found two years ago. We don’t have enough evidence to determine if he’s an original or simply copying BoneMan due to his ordeal in the desert. Or, for that matter, a wounded father who’s doing exactly what he claims he’s doing.”

  Welsh took a step toward the FBI agent. “I was there. I looked into his eyes. There is no doubt in my mind who he is, and I assure you, when I’m done with a jury, there’ll be no doubt in their minds. Do not try to stand in my way.”

  “Enough!” Kracker said. “We’re on the same side here. Just step back, Burt.”

  The DA looked at the FBI boss, then reluctantly stepped away. “All I care about at this moment is saving that girl.” He shoved a thick finger back at Ryan. “And he knows where she is.”

  Ryan sat back and spoke slowly, enunciating his words as if they contained the brittle truth. “You’re about as dense as they come, Mr. Welsh. BoneMan called you the father of lies, and he wants you dead because he believes everything about you is a lie, beginning with your supposed love for Bethany. ”

  Ricki blinked. “He told you that?”

  He had to step lightly here. “Not all of it.”

  “He is him!” Welsh said. The DA swore. He placed a painkiller into his mouth and swallowed without water. He eased into one of the chairs at the end of the table.

  “He wants you dead,” Ryan said. “And he’s out there. You willing to gamble your life on the certainty that I’m BoneMan?”

  No one took him up on the challenge and he pressed while he had them listening, focusing in on Ricki, who seemed to be the closest thing to an advocate in the room.

  “You have to let me go.”

  Hearing it himself he knew this was wasted breath. He’d failed to comply with BoneMan’s demands and now Bethany would pay the price. His chest began to tighten, restricting his breathing, but he was able to close his eyes and ease the beginnings of panic.

  “He’s expecting me.” Ryan opened his eyes and looked at Ricki. “I can still save her.”

  “Where?”

  “I…” He couldn’t tell them, because any hint of police involvement would only end any hope he had of saving Bethany. They would go to the Crow’s Nest, and BoneMan would know he’d talked, and then they would find his daughter’s broken body.

  “I can’t tell you. He’ll kill her, you know that. You can put a trace on me or find some other way to track me. But you have to let me go and meet him—he was very clear about that.”

  “If you think we’re stupid enough to actually release you…” Welsh appeared too flabbergasted to finish his thought.

  The door opened, but Ryan kept his eye locked on the DA. “You steal my wife. You steal my daughter. And now you’re just going to stand by while that freak murders her?”

  “I’m trying to save your daughter,” Welsh said. “From you.”

  “Where have you put her?” It
took Ryan a fraction of a second to make the switch from the DA to Celine’s voice.

  He turned his head. She stood in the doorway, dressed in a lime green skirt, a white silk blouse with a wide black belt, and black heels. Her stare was dark and flashed like a steel blade, giving her the appearance of hawk intent on its prey.

  But she was his wife and Ryan hadn’t fully accepted, much less understood, their divorce. Seeing her standing with her arms crossed, glaring at him, he felt momentarily overwhelmed by both his own sense of belonging and outright rejection.

  This was the woman he’d wed over eighteen years ago. They’d moved into a half-dozen homes and raised a child together. He’d devoted himself to providing for his wife and child, and she’d devoted herself to mothering, and although they’d both failed a thousand times, they still belonged on the same journey they’d sworn to take together eighteen years ago.

  But this was also Celine, the woman who had betrayed him not just once or twice or even a hundred times, but as a matter of practice. This was Celine, the woman who had allowed the predator to his right into their family, like a wolf.

  This was Celine who hated him and very likely everyone who didn’t love her the way she wanted to be loved, including Bethany, though she would never admit it.

  She lowered her crossed arms and walked up to the table. “Where did you put my daughter, you pig?”

  Her voice was cold and low and it cut through his chest so that he found he couldn’t respond.

  “Tell me!” she screamed. “Tell me where you have her!”

  “I don’t have her!” How could his wife accuse him of such a thing?

  They said that absence makes the heart grow fonder. In Ryan’s case, two years of absence culminating in a brutal encounter in the desert and the discovery too late that another man had stolen all that was precious to him had gilded his memories of Celine. She was at once a witch and a goddess.

  But backed into his corner Ryan forgave her all her wickedness and embraced what hope the mother of his daughter could offer.

  The realization that his own wife believed that he had the capacity to turn against their own daughter shut his mind completely off for a moment.

  He couldn’t think. So he just yelled what he’d already said.

  “I didn’t take our daughter!”

  “Stop it!” she cried, on the verge of tears now. She waved the bandaged hand that BoneMan had broken. “Stop all of this lying! Don’t you have any feelings at all? How can you be so cold?”

  “I… I’m trying to save her.”

  “Trying to save her? You left her fifteen years ago! You think anyone actually believes this? That you would come in to save your daughter after being gone her entire life? That suddenly you would become the perfect father and move mountains to save her? You abandoned her!”

  He couldn’t stand to hear the accusations because he knew that some of them were true. He’d left Bethany…

  If only he could relive the last fifteen years he would stay close and watch over her like an eagle. He’d sleep outside her door at night, he would set the table and feed her a feast before she left for school.

  He would meet her for lunch whenever she wanted and talk to her teachers and invite her friends over every afternoon just so that he could be near her.

  He would go without clothes to afford the best fashions that would tell everyone who passed her on the street, There goes the daughter of Ryan Evans who loves her more than he loves his own life.

  He would attend all of the football games and cheer along with her at the top of his lungs, and he’d go get her a hot dog at halftime so she could stay at the side of the field with the other cheerleaders.

  If only he could live his life again…

  But he couldn’t. He could only live his life now, and right now his daughter wasn’t sleeping in bed or waking for breakfast in the morning or walking through the halls of her school while the boys watched.

  Right now Bethany was in the hands of a monster and he would die before he allowed that monster to touch one hair on her head.

  But even that was only an idea, because in reality, far more than one hair on her head had been touched.

  Ryan’s mind switched between the accusations being leveled at him by the eyes in this room and a nearly uncontrollable urge to break his chains, plow over whoever stood in his way, and run to where he knew he could find his daughter.

  It occurred to him that they were all waiting for his response. Ricki Valentine paced silently, watching him with gentle eyes. Welsh fixed him with a defiant stare. The FBI boss, Kracker, stood brooding.

  Celine’s mouth was parted in utter contempt. She looked like she’d been forced to swallow a spoonful of mud.

  Ryan took a deep breath and clasped his hands under the table. He had to straighten them out. He had to get them on his side. For Bethany’s sake.

  He looked at Celine and swallowed so that he could speak. “You’re right. I haven’t always understood what it means to be a father. But that changed in the desert.” His voice felt as though it would fail him with each word.

  “I saw that I’d abandoned you and Bethany and I vowed to change it all. When they tie you to a chair and force you to watch as they break the bones of innocent children because that’s what we’re doing to their children. They chose to use BoneMan because he was a high-profile case and they feel like his victims. And so do I. So do we all.”

  He felt dizzy but forced himself to continue speaking. “But I can’t do what they did. That’s not me any longer. I could hurt myself to save her, I could hurt BoneMan, but that’s it. I’m finally the father I was meant to be, can’t you see that?”

  “By breaking my finger?” She stabbed that white-wrapped finger at Welsh. “By kidnapping the man I love at gunpoint, stripping him down, and taking a sledgehammer to his arm? Of course. It makes perfect sense now. How could I have been so blind? Just being a good father.”

  It was too much for Ryan. He bolted to his feet, knocking the table hard as he did so. “I owe her my life!” he cried.

  “Your life, Ryan, not Burt’s life,” she snapped back. “You’re not God.”

  He hesitated. “I know that now. So let me go, let me get her. I’m not BoneMan.”

  They stared at him.

  He continued, speaking in a rush while he had their full attention. “Think about it. I learn that Bethany has been taken twenty-four hours after it’s happened and you haven’t bothered to tell me. Instead, the killer’s left me a message demanding that I find him. I admit, I lost control. Then I find out I’m a suspect. But he’s waiting for me.” Ryan jabbed at the wall. “He’s thrown down the gauntlet and I have no choice but to accept his challenge because I can’t come to those sworn to protect and serve—no, because you all think I’m him, of all things! So I go after him myself.”

  He looked at Ricki. “How many times do I have to explain this before it starts to make sense to someone in this room?”

  “I think the problem is that your explanation is only one of several that could make sense,” she said. “And twelve hours ago we found you in a bunker with a hammer in your hands.”

  “But I’m here, look in my eyes, tell me I’m not telling you the truth. I took the DA only because I was under direct orders to take him, return him to the quarry, and break his bones by daybreak. And I have until morning to let him find me or this is all over. For Bethany’s sake, you have to let me go. Then take me, prosecute me, do whatever you like. But give me this one chance.” He was talking to Celine now even though she had no authority.

  “I’m begging you.”

  Celine took another step forward, lifted her hand, and slapped his face hard with her good hand.

  “You’re a sick man twisted by jealousy,” she said. “Who do you think you are to violate the man I love? I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure you fry in the electric chair. You hear me? You’re dead to me.”

  She stomped for the door, leaving in her
perfumed wake the stunning statement that in her mind, this was all more about her and her new lover than it was about her own daughter.

  “Then so is your daughter,” Ryan said. “I’m her only hope. You walk away from me and you’re walking away from Bethany.”

  But he knew that her mind was so fogged that she couldn’t possibly consider turning back. She exited without another word and was gone.

  Ryan sank to his seat, crushed by the weight of the inevitable outcome facing them all. Bethany, his only daughter, whom he loved more than life itself, was going to die a terrible death.

  “Get something out of this man or I will,” Welsh said, following Celine. “He’s scheduled for arraignment first thing in the morning. I trust you can keep him under lock and key until then.”

  He delivered the scathing indictment and closed the door.

  Ryan put his arms up on the table and saw that they were shaking as they did when his emotions overtook his capacity for control. The handcuffs were vibrating. Something about the clasp around his wrist struck a chord deep in his mind.

  Perhaps because it symbolized his limitations. A father could only do so much. Or maybe it reminded him of the shackles of humanity, bound by inevitable tragedy that ultimately ended in death.

  He was not God. He could not rend the heavens and sweep aside his enemies to save the lost child who cried out for help. He was a suspect in an interrogation room, shackled by…

  His mind suddenly filled with one of BoneMan’s drawings on the storage room walls. A broken hand.

  “Tell me, Ryan,” Ricki Valentine said, pulling out a chair opposite him. “Where do the crows fly?”

  He looked up. “Sorry?”

  “Where did you meet him?”

  “You should know, you found me.”

  “You spent three days in the quarry?”

  “Yes.” It was a lie, but he couldn’t reveal the location of the Crow’s Nest yet. Not until or unless he was absolutely sure that there was no other alternative. “What else was I supposed to do? I had to wait for him.”