BoneMan's Daughters

by Ted Dekker

  “Or they were jealous,” he said.

  She lifted her hand, saw that it was shaking, and lowered it. “Could I touch it?”

  It took him a moment to decide. “Yes. Yes, I want you to touch it.”

  “My hands are shaking. I’m not used to this. I’m nervous.”

  “It’s better that way.”

  She reached out her trembling hand and touched the flesh above his right nipple. It was cold, and when she traced the tips of her fingers over the skin, she was surprised by how smooth it felt.

  For a dizzying moment Bethany felt more wonder than fear. She told herself that it was because she wasn’t thinking clearly after being trapped down here for so long. That the sudden comfort she felt by touching his skin was because her mind had been broken by him.

  That he broke bones, but more than bones. He broke minds and he’d already started on hers.

  But she didn’t resist his pull.

  “What kind of lotion did you say you use?”

  “Noxzema,” he said.

  There was a connection between them, she thought. He’d chosen her and now in her own way she was choosing him. The seven girls before her had not responded this way.

  She ran her fingers over his skin, distracted by the thought that she wasn’t repulsed by the feeling. This man had the power to give her life or take it and for the moment she set her mind and emotions on his power to save her.

  She lifted her other hand, responding to a strong desire to slide her arms around his large chest and pull him to herself. To beg for his mercy. To vow her companionship.

  The emotions were all mixed up and she hated herself for feeling even the slightest attraction but she also knew that her life was at stake.

  So she placed both hands on his chest and drew them slowly down his sides.

  “Your mother must have known what she was talking about.”

  He didn’t immediately respond, perhaps surprised by her boldness.

  “She had very beautiful skin,” he said. “I killed her.”

  Bethany felt a jolt of alarm course through her veins. Of course, that was it. Alvin Finch was jealous of his mother and her skin. She made him feel bad about his failing. Unable to make himself look like her, he even killed her and was killing his mother with each girl he killed.

  That’s why he called himself Satan. Alvin was Satan, who’d fallen from the grace of the one who’d given him life.

  And in her, he’d found someone who understood that betrayal, surely not to the degree that had pushed him to such rage.

  “Does your father deserve to die?” he asked.

  Bethany looked up into his eyes and let the darkness behind them pull at her.

  “He’s already dead to me.”

  “And does he deserve to be dead to you?”

  “He was never there. When I was young I used to call out and he was never there to hear me. He’s been dead to me for a long time.”

  “Then would you break his bones?”

  She didn’t like the direction he was taking her, but she felt powerless to resist. And here with BoneMan, having touched his flesh and understood his rage, she felt she could be brutally honest.

  “I try not to think of him.”

  “Why? Because he angers you?”

  “Yes, that’s part of it. I don’t like the thoughts I have when I think about him.”

  “What thoughts?”

  She shrugged. “Sadness.”

  “Anger?”

  “Yes, some anger.”

  “Because he abandoned you.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then would you break his bones?”

  She wanted him to stop these questions so she said what he wanted her to say.

  “Yes.”

  “Then you know how I feel.”

  She was surprised to see a tear snake down his right cheek. There was a bond between them. Surely he hadn’t done this with the other girls.

  Encouraged and even a little hopeful, Bethany slowly slid her hands over his sides toward his back, aware of the gooseflesh that now covered his skin.

  “What do you want from me, Alvin?” she asked softly.

  He was breathing heavily and his flesh was quivering under her fingertips.

  “What will make you happy?” she asked.

  He lifted his hands, gripped her wrists in a steel-like vise grip, and pulled them off his body. He stared at her wrist, the back of her right wrist where she’d cut herself.

  “What is this? You… you cut yourself?”

  His sudden anger terrified her.

  “You filthy whore, you cut yourself?”

  “No…”

  “How could you do such a thing?”

  “I… .” What could she say? She felt a fresh tear slip down her cheek.

  Alvin stared at her and slowly his face softened. “I would never let this happen to you. I would never leave you alone to feel that kind of pain.”

  He breathed steadily, easing his grip on her wrists.

  “If you ever do that again, I will break every bone in your body.”

  “I won’t.”

  He was trembling.

  “I would like you to be my daughter.”

  Then Alvin Finch turned, left the room, and locked the door behind him, leaving his neatly folded shirt on the floor.

  Bethany walked to the bed, sank slowly to the thin mattress, and began to cry.

  30

  THERE WERE TWO reasons why Ryan didn’t finally break down and tell Ricki Valentine that BoneMan was waiting for him to show at the Crow’s Nest Ranch in western Texas. The first was that he knew that for all their good intentions, the FBI could not save Bethany.

  The second was that he knew there was a chance he could. However small the possibility, as long as he could wrap his mind around it he would keep his mind, his body, everything that was within him singularly focused on giving that possibility room to grow.

  He’d learned that he couldn’t break an innocent man’s bones to save his daughter, but he would break every bone in his own body to save her.

  Under any other circumstance he would never look at iron shackles and think of them as a possibility, but he’d put his mind to just this possibility from the moment they moved him into the holding cell in the downtown precinct and locked the restraints around his wrists.

  The cell was one of five used to hold prisoners in transit, not the kind he’d seen on television with a bunk bed, a toilet, and a sink. Steel bars ran along the hall wall and white concrete completed the ten-by-ten room. A single bed sat in the far corner and a chain shackled to the prisoner’s wrist kept them from being able to reach the bars.

  “Why the chain?” he’d asked the two guards who’d accompanied him to the cell.

  “To keep you from running home to mommy,” one said with a grin.

  The other was more directed by protocol. “Prisoners stay chained at all times in the cage. You need to use the bathroom, you let us know. You stand facing the wall, we come in, secure you with handcuffs, take off the chains, lead you to the toilets, and return you.” He dropped a bucket on the floor. “Need to piss, use that—we’re not orderlies.”

  The guards had shoved him roughly into the room and attached the chain to his left wrist using an inch-wide strap of steel that locked into place with a keyed latch.

  A new facility that gave each prisoner his own toilet was near completion. In the meantime they had the system down to a science that Ryan tested within ten minutes of his arrival.

  “What is it?”

  “I have to use the bathroom.”

  “You just got here. Why didn’t you go while we had you out? Now you want me to drag you to the latrine and wait for you to mess yourself?”

  “Unless you want me to do it here.”

  The guard, a short balding man who liked to walk with his hand draped over the forty-five on his waist, swore.

  “Palms on the wall.”

  Ryan faced the wall and placed both
hands on it while the man opened the cell door.

  “Hands behind your back, one at a time.”

  He complied. Handcuffs were quickly latched to his wrists and the shackle unlocked. It fell to the floor with a loud clang.

  “Turn around.”

  He was marched to the latrine, where he faced another set of procedures, but his mind was back on the cell. Back on the shackles.

  Five minutes later he was secured by them once again.

  As long as he was fixed to the chain, there was no way out of the cell. Once out of the shackle the guard took other precautions that would make a struggle a losing proposition.

  He sat on the bunk, stared at the thick band of steel that ran around his wrist, and let BoneMan’s drawing fill his mind. On the drawing had been one bone that supported the thumb, the ball at the base of his thumb, the trapezium. He rubbed it, feeling the faint outline beneath his flesh.

  If he could break the trapezium, his whole hand would collapse a full inch. The drawing on the wall had made as much clear. He might also need to collapse one of his metacarpals to squeeze his hand through the shackle.

  But if he could stomach the pain, he stood a better than even chance of surprising the guard and taking his weapon.

  A strange notion occurred to him as he sat on the bed, lost in the prospect of breaking his own bones. His daughter had suffered nothing less at the hand of BoneMan. In a way his own pain in breaking the bones in his left hand so that he might have at least some hope of going to her felt justified.

  It was the least he could do. And he knew how to do it. Right here using the leverage provided by the bed, the shackle itself, and his full body weight, he might be able to break his bones.

  The idea swallowed him.

  “I DON’T LIKE it.” Ricki lifted the bottle of Corona as if to take a drink. Instead she waved it to punctuate her point. “This feels like the Phil Switzer takedown to me. Right circumstances, right motive, right everything, but wrong man.”

  Mark Resner shook his head. “He may not be BoneMan, but he’s guilty, isn’t he? And I agree with Kracker, this town needs a guilty man behind bars right now, even if he isn’t the one who we were after two years ago.”

  They sat in the Tattle Tale, a Fourth Street pub in downtown Austin that would be standing room only on weekends thanks to live music and college students from the nearby University of Texas. Tonight, a lone piano serenaded a sparse, more mature crowd.

  To their right the hour hand on a three-foot antique clock had nearly completed its climb to the midnight mark. Even on weeknights, Austin, Texas, live music capital of the world, did not sleep. She and Mark, on the other hand, did, and they’d agreed to call it quits at twelve.

  “You know the DA’s gonna do everything in his power to pin it all on him. And while we’re at it, you know he was the one who did this the last time.”

  “Did what? Plant the blood evidence?”

  She took a drink and set the bottle down without bothering to respond. “Problem is, nothing eliminates Evans. I’ve been through the evidence we have on BoneMan a hundred times—the times, the places, the forensics—none of it clears Evans. Not even the phone we found in the quarry. The calls came from another cell phone in the same area. He could have called himself.”

  “But?”

  “But you look in his eyes and you tell me.”

  A wry smile slowly spread over Mark’s face. “You like this guy?”

  “Please. Like you said, he’s guilty.” She lifted her bottle again, turning it in her hands, peeling back the corner of the label. She felt… respect. Nothing romantic in the least.

  Mark leaned back. “You gotta admit though, there’s something pretty compelling about a father who’s so desperate to save his daughter.”

  “Assuming that’s what he’s doing,” she said.

  “Isn’t that what you’re saying?”

  She sighed and leaned back to match his posture. “There was a look in his eyes when I interviewed him two months ago in his hotel room, before all this went down. He’d just laid out the DA, which I can’t say disturbed me too much, and his marriage was on the ropes. He had a hundred reasons to be furious. But he just sobbed. It broke my heart.”

  “Like I said, you do think he’s telling the truth.”

  She looked at him for a moment. Not so long ago she might have retreated into his arms for comfort on a night like this. Now she was alone, not so unlike Ryan.

  Ricki shifted her eyes away from Mark and watched the piano player. “If I had to pick a side? Yes. I think he’s telling the truth. I think he took Welsh because he was told that if he didn’t, his daughter would die.”

  “And we’re making a mistake by not taking him up on his offer.”

  Eyes back on him. “If I’m right, yes.”

  “Well, we’ll know soon enough, won’t we?”

  “How so?”

  “When we find the girl’s body, the coroner will tell us if her bones were broken before or after we took Evans into custody. With any luck, you’ll be able to safely conclude that she was killed after Evans was taken into custody and clear him of at least that much. You still have the DA to contend with.”

  It was an ugly prospect but true. The fact that they were sitting here with their feet up while Bethany was still out there was enough to make Ricki swear off this cursed line of work for the last time.

  “If he’s not BoneMan, a jury will excuse him for what he did to the DA. After what he’s been through—probation, maybe a short sentence, but no one’s going to lock up a tormented father for too long, not after so many fathers have lost their daughters to BoneMan. He’ll be public hero number one when this is all over.”

  “That’s a big if.”

  “What is?”

  “If he’s not the BoneMan.”

  She set the half-empty bottle down and checked her phone in case she’d somehow missed a call in the ruckus.

  “No call?”

  “No. But he claims the killer gave him until daybreak. We can be anywhere in the state in matter of a couple hours. He’s got till three or four in the morning before he runs out of time.”

  “What could possibly change between now and three in the morning? Why not just tell us now, assuming he’s going to tell us anything at all?”

  “We could change,” she said. “We could change our minds. The DA could have second thoughts. After leaving Evans, I laid out all of the reasons for letting Evans take this last shot, wearing a location transmitter, and Kracker promised to pitch my reasoning to Welsh one more time.”

  “Not a chance, not after his dog and pony show with the press this afternoon. Welsh already has his mind on the next election.”

  However depressing, neither of them could argue.

  Ricki dug out a five-dollar tip and set it on the table. “Then let’s hope we get a call from Evans before four this morning. I have to get some sleep.”

  “You talk to anyone down at the station lately? He awake?”

  “Half an hour ago, just before I got here, and yes, he’s awake. Just sitting there. You coming?”

  “Go ahead, I’m going to finish my drink. Call me if you hear anything.”

  Ricki walked down Fourth Street toward the Trulucks, where she’d valet parked her car. She handed the attendant her ticket and called the station while she waited. Johnson, one of the guards on night shift, answered and agreed to take a quick look.

  He returned thirty seconds later and confirmed that Evans was still awake, lying down now, but he wasn’t going to sleep any time soon.

  “How’s that?”

  “He just don’t have that look,” Johnson said. “He staring up at the ceiling like he’s expecting it to cave in at any minute. Sweating up a storm.”

  “Sweating?”

  “His whole shirt is wet.”

  She frowned. Good. He was sweating it out, literally. Maybe he would change his mind.

  Ricki reached her apartment at twelve-forty in the mornin
g, called Kracker one last time on the chance he would pick up, and sat down in front of the television to let off some steam when he didn’t.

  She checked her TiVo and watched a bit of Letterman, then kicked off her shoes, lay down in the corner of the couch, and let exhaustion push her slowly toward sleep. They would call; she’d given them all her numbers.

  If there was any change at all, they would call.

  LETTERMAN STILL GRINNED on the monitor when Ricki jerked upright out of a dead sleep half an hour later. Two AM. She grabbed her cell phone on the coffee table.

  “Yes?”

  “Agent Valentine?”

  “He’s talking?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Evans! Evans is talking.”

  “Um, no… no ma’am, no. I’m calling for Assistant Director Kracker. Can you hold the line?”

  “Kracker? Sure.”

  Kracker? At two in the morning. The DA had agreed then. If so, they had to hurry. She kept the phone to her ear and pulled on her boots.

  Dropped the phone. Picked it up off the carpet and lifted it to her ear. “Hello?” Nothing.

  Then Kracker’s familiar low voice filled her ear. “Ricki?”

  And she know immediately that something was wrong. She stood.

  “What is it?”

  “Ricki, I’m at Burt Welsh’s house. God help me, I don’t know how we let this happen.”

  “What?”

  “He’s dead. It looks like the work of BoneMan.”

  Her heart hit hard and seemed to stop, then kicked in steady. “Dead?”

  “He was found a few minutes ago after an anonymous call reported a murder at his house.”

  “Found how? How do you know this was BoneMan?”

  “He was found on his bed, tied off to the posts, naked. All of the bones in his extremities are broken. God, he looks like. …” Kracker’s thick voice failed him.

  “No blood?”

  “No. No bleeding except from his head where he was hit, hard enough to put him out. I hope he was out.”

  The revelation made her legs feel like rubber. “Ryan told us this would happen.”

  Silence.

  “He warned us that BoneMan wanted Welsh dead. The father of lies. Right? When Ryan failed to meet his demands he went after Welsh himself and then he made the call because he wanted us to find him. He doesn’t want us pinning his work on Ryan.”