by D. K. Hood
“My dad is a lawyer. He says bad men go to jail.” Keeping her brown eyes firmly on Kane, she opened the bottle and drank thirstily.
“Oh, don’t worry, they’ll go to jail. Move away from the door and I’ll get you out.” Kane’s expression turned to one of determination as he slid a crowbar between the door hinges.
The metal creaked and groaned but moments later the door clattered to the floor. Jenna offered her hand. “Come with me.”
The young girl shrank back, her eyes filled with fear. Jenna held up a hand to keep Kane away. “I think she has had her fill of men. Leave her to me. We’ll take her to the hospital. Call ahead and arrange for a female doctor, will you?” She frowned. “The dog will have to come with us too. We can drop it at the animal shelter.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Kane’s brow creased into a frown. “I noticed a laptop in one of the bedrooms. I’ll bag it then do a quick search while you’re getting her ready.”
“Sure, grab what you can but Zoe is our priority.” She waited for Kane to leave then helped the girl to her feet. “I’m taking you to the hospital. The doctors will check you then you can take a shower.”
“I’m hungry. I haven’t had lunch.”
Jenna placed one arm under the girl’s arm and helped her climb the stairs. “I have energy bars in my car and orange juice. I’d rather not touch anything here.”
“I like energy bars.” Zoe seemed to brighten. “I’m glad you found me.”
“So am I.” Jenna led her into the kitchen. “Sit down for a minute and sip the water. We’ll have you out of here soon.”
“Can you feed the dog?” Zoe’s lip quivered. “Amos was watching him starve to death. He thought it was funny. I’m glad he’s dead.”
Right now, so am I. “He wasn’t a nice man, was he? We’ll feed the dog, don’t worry.” She glanced down the hallway as Kane came out of a room with a laptop, a couple of external hard drives, and a number of DVDs in a large evidence bag. “Did you find any dog food?”
“Not yet.”
Jenna frowned. “He must have something we can give the poor thing. Check the freezer.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Kane stood beside Jenna, despair etched his face. “Zoe, I promise we’ll catch the men who did this to you.” He pulled open a freezer, grabbed a couple of steaks, and threw them into the microwave to defrost.
Zoe leaned into Jenna and her big eyes moved over Kane’s face as if assessing a threat. “Maybe you should just shoot them dead.”
7
With difficulty, Kane tried to force down the rage bubbling inside him. He needed to portray a calm, professional persona in front of the girl. Any show of aggression would make her even more terrified of him. He ground his back teeth so hard his jaw ached. The sight of the girl’s bruised face made his blood boil. Amos Price might be dead but three lowlife animals walked the Earth, and right now, he wanted to tear them apart with his bare hands. What kind of a man does this to a child?
He waited for the old dog to finish eating and loaded him into the back of his SUV. Jenna had Zoe wrapped up and sitting inside the vehicle munching on energy bars. He slid into the driver’s seat and noticed the way Zoe flinched at his closeness. No one ever recovered from what she had endured, and she would suffer repercussions for years. After reading so many case histories of psychopathic killers, abuse as a child was a trigger no psychologist should ignore. He glanced at Zoe. She appeared to be communicating reasonably well, which was unusual after continuous trauma. He had seen kids shut down completely and not speak for years. The ones who blocked out trauma usually crashed and burned.
“Before we leave, get Wolfe and Rowley up here to go over the place. We need to find out who else is involved and tell them we have identified the girl in the photograph.”
“Okay.”
He contacted Wolfe, brought him up to date with the investigation and arranged for him to lead up a forensics team to sweep the cabin. As Zoe had implicated other men in her ordeal, they needed evidence. If the men had left a trace of DNA, Wolfe would find it. He would work hand in hand with the doctors at the hospital and confirm the findings by using his own lab to process the results.
“I’ll contact her parents.” Jenna flicked him a worried glance then turned in her seat. “Zoe, do you remember your phone number?”
“I know my dad’s number.” Zoe rubbed a dirty finger over her nose as if thinking then gave the number. “I think that’s right. My head feels strange.”
“That’s just fine. I’ll keep trying until I contact him.” Jenna lifted both eyebrows at Kane in a meaningful stare and called the number. “Let’s get out of here.”
He drove down the mountainside, bumping along the pitted, uneven roads, relieved when they finally reached the highway. Then, lights flashing, he sped down the blacktop in the direction of Black Rock Falls General Hospital.
Jenna had said little to Mr. Channing other than his daughter was alive and she was taking her to the hospital. When she disconnected, Kane turned to her. “It will take him some time to get here from Helena.”
“He is going to arrange a ride in a helicopter. He is heading home now to collect his wife.” Jenna leaned back in the seat, her face pale. “When we arrive, I’ll inform the hospital he will be landing on their helipad.” Her brow wrinkled into a frown. “She has been missing for six months.”
Jesus. Kane cleared his throat. “As she is talking to you, maybe you should ask about the other people she mentioned. The hospital will sedate her the moment we arrive.”
“Yeah, okay.” Jenna’s mouth turned down. She pulled out her notepad and pen then turned in her seat. “Zoe, what’s the dog’s name?”
“Stupid but I don’t think it is his real name.” Zoe chewed on her bottom lip and shrugged.
“Oh, I see. Was he here when you arrived?”
“No, Amos said he came from the animal shelter ’bout three weeks ago.” Zoe sipped the orange juice and sighed. “He isn’t stupid. I like him. When Amos locked him in the cellar, he would sit with me and listen to me talking. I think he knows what I told him because he didn’t like Amos and growled at him.” She rubbed the tip of her pink nose. “You won’t take him back to the animal shelter, will you? I don’t think he likes it there.”
A pang of pity wrenched at Kane’s heart. “Nope.” He glanced at Jenna and shrugged. “I’m going to look after him. We’ll find out his real name. The animal shelter will have a record of him.”
“Dogs and horses?” Jenna shot him a worried glance. “What next, cattle?”
Kane shrugged. “I’m not sure. I’ll have to ask my landlady but I think she’ll be a pushover when I tell her about the dog.”
Stanton Forest bordered the highway; tall and dappled green, the pines stood like sentries guarding the way to the falls. He looked behind him at the incredible mountainside bathed in sunshine, saddened the majestic beauty had hidden such atrocities. “Not long now.”
Jenna gave him a knowing look. “Zoe, do you remember the names of the others who came to visit you?”
“No.” Zoe stuffed another energy bar into her mouth and chewed.
“Okay.” Jenna’s tone was light and conversational. “How many men did you see? Was it always the same amount?”
“Yes. Three and Amos, like I said before.”
Unable to keep quiet a moment longer, Kane took a deep breath. “Do you remember what they looked like?”
Zoe’s brown gaze narrowed. “I don’t want to talk to you.”
“Okay, he won’t say another word.” Jenna gave him a look good enough to freeze Black Rock Falls Lake then smiled at Zoe. “What color hair did they have?”
“I don’t know what they looked like. They wore masks.” She scratched her dirty, tear-tracked cheek. “One came by yesterday morning real early. He kept asking me where Amos had gone. He didn’t let me out but he did leave me a pile of food.”
Interesting. Kane glanced at Jenna. “He might live close by. Well, let’s say in a fi
ve-mile radius, I guess, looking at how the cabins are spread out up here.”
“Yeah, it will be a huge undertaking to search the mountain.” Jenna’s attention moved back to the girl and she smiled at her. “Is there anything else you remember about them? Scars or tattoos?”
“One had a spider with a red back on his hand. He was mean.” Zoe’s bottom lip trembled. “One had a scar on his belly, low on the right side. I don’t want to talk about them anymore.”
Jenna gave the girl a bright smile. “I am so proud of you, telling me all those things. Just rest now, we’ll be at the hospital soon and your parents are on their way.”
“Will they be mad at me for running away?”
“No.” Jenna handed her another bottle of water. “I spoke to your dad and he is very happy you are okay.”
“That’s good and if you speak to him again tell him I was silly to run away because he flushed my dead fish down the toilet. I guess burying them in the garden was a stupid idea.”
Jenna gave Kane a tragic stare and he could see her eyes filling with tears. She cleared her throat and her voice cracked a little. “I’ll tell him.”
8
Ely Dorsey’s day could not get any worse. His friend was missing and had been for three days. After visiting his house and seeing his truck gone, he had let himself in using the key under the flowerpot by the door. The girl told him he had not been there since Tuesday. Concerned about his friend’s absence, he fed the girl and left. After calling Amos’s cellphone from a public phone and getting no response, he went home, not sure what to do.
He waited until late afternoon then decided to drive past the house where Amos planned to meet the new girl. He discovered his truck parked some ways from the house, and to his horror, crime scene tape barred the front door.
Immediately, he headed back to his friend’s house to grab the girl. He took the alternative route, parking his vehicle along an old logging road and hiking the half-mile down the mountain to Amos’s cabin, glad he had taken the extra precautions when he found it infested with deputies. Amos wasn’t the smartest so he might have guessed his friend would mess up.
He rested his binoculars on the edge of the rock and peered down at the cabin. The deputies’ vehicles had been outside the house for hours but there was no sight of Amos or the girl. An anxious gripping rolled his stomach. If the new girl’s parents had come home early and caught Amos in the house, the cops would have arrested him, and searching his house would have been normal procedure.
He rubbed his chin and rolled back on his heels to think. The deputies moved in and out of the house carrying plastic bags and it did not take a genius to know they were collecting DNA and fingerprints. He sighed in relief. They’ll find nothing. He and his friends had been very careful and not one of them entered Amos’s house without wearing gloves. They laundered the sheets on the bed after each session and washed the plastic sheeting covering the bed with bleach. After the last scare, they took no chances. Amos might live like a pig but every weekend when he and the boys left the love nest, the cellar was spotless. They even incinerated the paper bag from the vacuum cleaner; they left nothing to chance.
The girl locked in Amos’s cellar would not be able to identify them either. Living in fear after one of Bobby-Joe’s girls had escaped they had been extra careful, worn gloves and clown masks. The deputies would get nothing out of her. She was as scared as a rabbit, and frightened they would kill her family if she ever told.
It was getting late and he made his way back along the trail to the road leading to his secluded cabin, tucked under an overhang and hidden by trees. He climbed into his SUV and arrived home in time for dinner. Missy clanked around the kitchen, dishing up his meal. At eighteen, she was getting too old for him now but she served her purpose. She cooked and cleaned without complaint. In fact, she told him she enjoyed caring for him, but he kept the chain attached to a well-padded metal cuff around her leg just in case she decided to escape.
He stared at her thin face and sighed. His heart sank. All week he had expected to find a new girl waiting for him at Amos’s house. Now it looked like he would have to go to the trouble of finding one. He pushed down the urge to call Bobby-Joe or Chris—they’d all agreed to only communicate face to face or via a public phone. At any time, the cops might arrest one of them just like Amos, and they made sure they did not leave a trail for the cops to follow.
After eating his dinner, he headed into his man cave and opened his laptop. The new wireless tower on the top of the mountain gave him high-speed access to the internet. Confident he could find a suitable replacement in one of the online teens social groups or the many games chat rooms, he signed into one of the sites. After scrolling through the requests, he found an interesting post. A young girl was complaining her date had failed to arrive and left her disappointed. At fourteen years old, she sounded perfect. He responded and to his delight, she replied.
From the conversation, he realized with a jolt this had to be the girl Amos had been grooming for weeks. Knowing what she wanted to hear, he told her lies. One of the many things he had perfected over the years was persuasion. He offered her the world then told her she would be safe with him because he was such a nice kid. He gave her the number of his burner phone and waited with anticipation for her to call.
The ringtone pealed out and he took a deep breath. “Hello.”
“This is Needy Girl. As you are going to be my first boyfriend, I would really like to know your real name. Just your first name will do.”
Struck by her soft girly voice, he did not think of the consequences and blurted out, “Ely.”
“Oh, that’s a nice name.” She giggled. “See you soon.”
9
Friday
Depressed, Jenna stared out her office window in an effort to lift her spirits. The town came alive during the carnivals with the townsfolk throwing themselves into events with gusto. The Fall Festival was underway and being Friday there would be an art show in the community hall, a parade down the main street and the usual displays of arts and crafts, home baking, and the like filling tables along the sidewalk.
Wishing she could be anywhere but inside, and facing the terrible fact a group of child molesters had moved into her town or, worse, had been operating under her nose for years, Jenna dragged both hands down her face and moaned.
Her life as sheriff had been complicated and difficult. It was not the cozy neighborhood disputes and parking tickets she expected when she agreed to move to this backwoods town. After leaving her life as an undercover DEA agent and living in witness protection with a new face and name, life should have been sweet; instead, the sleepy town of Black Rock Falls hid more secrets than the Labyrinth of Egypt. It would seem that lowlifes, murderers, and criminals regularly haunted the picturesque streets.
The current horrific crimes made her appreciate her senior deputies’ efficiency, although at first it had been a fight of wills. Both highly qualified men, she had utilized their skills and now they worked seamlessly as a team. New deputies would be arriving soon, and although the lightening of her workload would be a relief, she really did not want the hassle.
Voices outside her door reminded her the staff meeting was due to start and she would have to put on a good front to hide her anxiety from Kane. They had become close friends over the last year and his incredible profiling skills worked on every level including reading her like a book. She straightened at the knock on her door. “Yes, come in.”
The deputies filed in and took seats, with the exception of Walters; she had him on duty all day at the nurses’ station at the local hospital. Although Zoe was on a special floor reserved by the sheriff’s department for injured victims or prisoners, she wanted the added security. Worried the other men in the pedophile ring would realize Zoe was missing by now, she wasn’t sure what they would do to stop her from identifying them.
Jenna flicked a gaze over her deputies and folded her hands on the desk. “I called the sherif
f in Helena about Zoe’s case. He told me he had called in the FBI Child Abduction Rapid Deployment Team when she was reported missing. They found no trace of her and he said it was as if she had vanished. He is sending the files and notifying them, so they will be contacting me soon for our case files. As Zoe will be returning to Helena as soon as she is cleared by the hospital, I suggested the agents on her case speak to her then rather than coming here and distressing her further.”
“I don’t think they’ll have any relevant information regarding Price’s murder.” Kane shrugged.
She nodded in agreement.
“Deputy Wolfe, do you have anything to report?”
“Well, yes and no.” Wolfe’s eyes brightened. “I’ve mentioned the strong smell of tobacco coming from Mr. Price’s stomach contents and I had a hunch, so I ran a test specifically for nicotine sulfate and it came back positive.”
Interested, Jenna leaned forward and scribbled a note in her book. “Can you explain its significance?”
“It’s a clear liquid and used as a pesticide amongst other things. It is a highly toxic substance and results in a nasty death. It is not something anyone would ingest on purpose. Due to this finding, I am ruling his death as a homicide.” Wolfe sighed. “How he drank the substance is a mystery. It was not present in the bottle of bourbon he had with him. We found no glass or empty can of cola to indicate he drank the poison at the house, but if he had taken the poison earlier, he wouldn’t have made it to the location.”
“Apart from being a great receptionist, Maggie is great for doing research. I’ll ask her to find out if it is available anywhere in town. If it’s unusual, the storekeeper might recall selling a bottle to someone local.” She cleared her throat. “Do we have a time of death?”
“Not conclusive. The heat inside the house increases the speed of decomposition so using the usual body temperature of the victim as a guide was redundant. It’s obvious the killer turned up the thermostat to confuse the time of death. We can only go on the time frame between Mr. Davis’ inspection and Miss Saunders’ visits to the house.”