by Joseph Lewis
Laura hung up and said, “I told your dad that we’ll be home sometime tomorrow or the day after. We’ll see.”
Tim sniffed his armpit and said, “I have to shower.”
Gavin came in and said, “My mom said I can go, but she wants to talk to your mom.” He handed the phone to Laura, who said ‘hello’ and began talking as she turned away from the boys.
“Tim, I . . . we,” Kaid said.
“It’s okay. Hopefully it’s nothing, but damn . . . he’s been through so much.”
“Maybe we could skip the game,” Cal suggested.
Tim shook his head, “No, it’s okay. I’ll call you when I find out more.”
“Are you going to be okay?” Kaid asked.
“Yeah, Kaid. I’ll be fine. Promise.”
Tim noticed Kaid wiping his eyes.
“It’s okay, Kaid.”
Kaiden loved Tim. Tim was his friend, a kind of big brother and a hero all in one.
“Really, Kaid. It’s okay,” Tim reassured him.
Laura came back into the kitchen and said to Gavin, “Your mom wants you to get home and take a shower. We’ll pick you up in twenty minutes. And pack for two days, just in case.”
The brothers and Gavin left, and Tim ran up the stairs to shower and pack.
Laura went to the bedroom to throw some things in a suitcase, shaking her head.
So much for normalcy.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR
Fishers, Indiana
Pete splashed cold water on his face and then grabbed a white towel off the bathroom counter and dried off. He had been on caffeine non-stop. and his stomach had been yelling back at him. Sour and upset. Worse, the caffeine hadn’t worked in the least.
He went back to the desk and dialed four sets of numbers, asking each of the previous contacts to hold. When he finished with the last, he clicked the previous three, setting up a five-person conference call with Skip in Missouri, Jamie in Wisconsin, Chet at the townhouse Dominico had purchased under the name Dobbs, and Summer in D.C.
“I’m hoping someone has good news,” Pete began.
Chet said, “Dominico had a laptop, and I’ve been playing with it. I have his email downloaded. He has pictures and videos of Bobby and another boy who looks similar enough to be a cousin. Dominico organized from here. There are, or were, a total of six. Cochrane, Wright and Dominico are the three we know about. He sent an email to three others identified with only nicknames. One is Dodger. The other two are Scholar and Trump. Those are the three who responded to Dominico’s text when he asked for someone to go after George, Randy and Jeremy. I know it doesn’t help much.”
“Chet, can you locate them by cell GPS or IP address?” Summer asked.
“Morgan and I are working on it.”
“Any information on the names I gave Pete?” Jamie asked hopefully.
“Nothing,” Chet responded. “The only quirky thing we found is that the tennis coach works as a male escort for a legit service out of Milwaukee and makes pretty good money. The others are clean.”
“What about the goalie and soccer coach?” Jamie asked, suspecting he knew the answer.
“Clean,” Chet answered.
“Skip, how about you?” Pete asked.
“Wright had an ID in another name.”
“Send me what you have, and I’ll check him out,” Chet answered.
“His cell has porn taken yesterday afternoon. A blond boy about the same age as the others. I think it was taken in the boy’s bedroom, and I don’t think the pictures were taken willingly. I checked the contact list, texts and stuff, and I came up with the same names Chet did. He referred to Dominico as Dee, but that’s a guess. Cochrane was Griffin.”
“That’s the name for the Invisible Man,” Chet said.
Without commenting on Chet’s observation, Pete said, “Chet, sift through all the information on the men we can’t account for. There’s gotta be something on these three guys we missed.”
“Is there any way we can ID the boy on Wright’s phone?” Summer asked.
“If I show these to Patrick, he might know him.”
“No graphic shots,” Pete said. “Patrick was almost killed.”
“Skip, send them to me as a jpg. I’ll doctor them up and get them back to you,” Chet suggested.
“Anybody have anything else?” Summer asked.
“I got nothing. This morning, Mike went to a dentist and a doctor. He checked out fine, but he’s stuttering again,” Jamie said.
“I thought he was done with that,” Pete said with a frown.
“Something happened that set him back. His parents said it’s worse than ever.”
“You said Mike checked out fine?” Skip asked.
“Yeah, nothing. Same as what the doc in Chicago found with the other guys.”
Puzzled at the odd question, Pete asked, “Skip, why did you ask that . . . if Mike checked out fine?”
“I’ve been thinking. Doesn’t it seem odd? I mean, Tim was raped, sodomized, forced to do God knows what, and checks out fine except for the stitches he needed?”
“What are you saying?” Summer asked.
As if he had not heard Summer’s question, Skip continued, “Same with Brett. Other than the gunshot, he’s fine. The kids in Chicago are fine. The kids in Long Beach are fine. These kids get examined at a hospital, have blood tests, and they’re healthy as can be.”
Jamie sat up straighter. Pete drummed his pen on his little notebook. Summer frowned, and Chet folded his arms and sat back.
“These kids didn’t have herpes, or syphilis, or HIV. Given the number of sexual partners, the shitty diet, the lack of water and their living conditions, the only kid who’s sick is Johnny, but that’s from pneumonia complicated by dehydration. Doesn’t any of that seem strange to you?” Skip asked.
“The kids we found . . . the ones who were dead, most had at least one disease,” Chet said.
Pete stood up. Pieces were falling into place.
“The kids were given Viagra and a prescription med to control them,” Summer said.
“They had to get meds from somewhere,” Chet said.
“Not somewhere, someone. They had to get meds from someone,” Summer said.
“And for the boys to be in such good shape, medically speaking, physically speaking,” Pete started.
“They were taken care of,” Jamie finished for him.
“Doctors,” Pete said. “Chet, get us the names and pictures of all of the doctors that were picked up. I want eight by tens sent to Jamie, Summer, Skip and me. Jamie, get in touch with the PD in West Bend and show those pictures to Tim. Chet, you and I’ll show them to Brett. Skip, show them to Patrick along with the picture of that boy on Wright’s phone. I want to know what these doctors did with these kids other than what we know about.”
“My God! How organized were they?” Summer said.
“Very. They didn’t leave anything to chance,” Pete said.
“I’m wondering if Mike’s check-up was a trigger of some kind,” Skip said.
Pete shook his head.
“No, he was barely in Chicago one, two nights. I doubt there was time.”
“But, if the doctor performs a physical, a full physical, it could have reminded him of what he went through,” Jamie said.
But even as he said it, he doubted it. If a physical was a trigger, why didn’t the other boys have a similar reaction? At least, some reaction. None of them did. In the hospital, Mike had a physical and was checked out at the hospital, but was happy, smiling, and normal except for the stutter. By all accounts, Mike’s stuttering had pretty much disappeared.
Now his parents said Mike is a basket case. Nervous, jumpy, afraid.
What’s the tie-in? What were they missing?
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE
Waukesha, Wisconsin
Laura Pruitt pulled her silver Honda Accord into the driveway, and Tim and Gavin got out. Mike ran to Tim and burst into tears and held him in a bear hug. Tim
held Mike’s head gently and rubbed his back, resting his cheek on the smaller boy’s brown hair.
“T-T-Tim.”
“Shhh . . . it’s okay, Mike,” Tim answered.
Mike sobbed. Tim struggled to stay in control. Though he didn’t know him, Stephen took hold of Gavin’s arm with both of his. Gavin watched Tim and Mike and hardly noticed Stephen holding him.
“T-T-Tim,” Mike sobbed.
“Shhh . . . it’s okay, Mike,” Tim repeated.
Eventually Mike settled down enough to say, “S-s-s-sorry I’m s-such a w-w-wuss.”
Tim kissed Mike’s forehead, rubbed his back and said, “Mike, you and Brett and George are the toughest guys I know. You’re not a wuss.”
Mike shook his head, but Tim said, “You’re not, Mike. You’re strong.”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX
Fishers, Indiana
Brett sat at the kitchen table with Pete, Chet, Bobby and Victoria and shuffled through the pictures. Since the night of the shooting, Thomas had moved to a hotel, and that bothered Bobby more than it did Brett. Neither boy could tell how his mom felt.
“Once a month, a doctor would come in and give us checkups. Blood pressure, look at our throat, ears, eyes, our . . . stuff. We’d get a shot, maybe two shots, some pills. They never told us what the shots were for.”
“You received pills each morning when you showered,” Pete asked.
Brett shook his head and said, “The morning pills were to keep our dicks hard . . .” He glanced at his mom and said, “Sorry, Mom.” Then to Pete, he said, “Like Viagra or something. The other pill was to control us. It made us kinda loopy.”
“The pills the doctors gave you were different?” Pete asked.
“Johnny and Tim figured they might be to keep us healthy. Vitamins maybe. Same with the shots. Maybe Penicillin or something.”
“Honey, do you remember any names that might have been on them? Maybe their shape or color?” Victoria asked.
“Not really, Mom. If a guy was really sick, he wouldn’t get a shot. They’d eventually take him away and then a new kid would show up.”
Brett frowned as he went through the pictures again.
“What?” Pete said.
“There’s a guy missing . . . one of the doctors.”
“You sure?”
“Positive. A blond guy with a kind of fox face and weird blue eyes.”
Pete squinted at him, “What do you mean ‘weird blue eyes’?”
“His eyes were real blue . . . like ice. We called him Frenchy because he liked to French kiss and play with us . . . you know . . . for a long time before he did anything else.”
“You’re sure,” Chet said.
Brett sorted the pictures into groups and said, “These six I’ve never seen. Ever. These three liked me and Patrick and Ben because we had brown hair. These four liked the younger guys. These two liked the older guys. The blond guy is missing. He liked guys with blond hair, like Tim and Ian and Cory. Sometimes Tim and me together. Frenchy probably would’ve liked Stephen ‘cause he has blond hair.”
Pete frowned. It made sense that Brett wouldn’t know six of them because they were located on or near the West Coast.
His eyes went wide and he stood up slowly.
“What?” Chet asked.
Brett, Bobby and Victoria watched curiously.
He needed to get a hold of Jamie.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN
Waukesha, Wisconsin
Parents staked out their territory with lawn chairs starting at the half-line and spread down the sideline across from their respective teams’ benches. Some parents stood in groups of two or three. Mike’s dad couldn’t sit or stand in one spot, so he roamed the sideline. Tim and Gavin sat away from the parents and watched Stephen’s and Mike’s team warm up.
Stephen jogged over to the sideline and said, “The guys on my team think you’re Cole Sprouse,” and laughed. “Cool, huh?” Then he ran back to his team still laughing.
Tim said, “Who?”
Gavin laughed and said, “Suite Life On Deck. The smart twin.”
Tim shook his head.
Every now and then the other boys would turn around and stare at him, and when Gavin noticed, he’d laugh.
Tim pulled out his cell, did a Google search, and said, “I don’t look like him!”
“Yeah, you do,” Gavin said with a laugh.
“Bull!”
A sandy brown-haired boy about the same size as Gavin sat down on the grass a short distance from Tim and Gavin.
Tim watched him for a bit and then asked, “Are you the one who called the Amber Alert?”
The boy glanced at him and then looked away, blushed, and then nodded.
“Stephen hoped you’d come. Sit with us,” Tim said.
The boy hesitated, glanced at Tim one more time and then got up, walked over and sat down next to him.
Tim looked around to make sure no one was listening and said, “What’s your name?”
“Garrett.” He said it quietly, almost in a whisper.
“You saved our lives,” Tim said holding his hand out to him. “I’m Tim. I was in Chicago with them. You got us out of that shit hole.”
Garrett blushed an even deeper red and shook Tim’s hand.
“This is Gavin,” Tim said, leaning back so the two boys could see each other.
“Hey,” Gavin leaning forward.
Garrett nodded at him.
“I’m glad you came,” Tim said. “Stephen and Mike will be happy to see you.”
After finishing warm-ups, Stephen and Mike ran over to them.
“Are you . . .?” Stephen asked.
The boy looked up and nodded.
“This is Garrett,” Tim volunteered.
Stephen squatted down in front of him, and said, “We played you, right?”
“Yeah,” Garrett said quietly. “Mercy ruled us.”
“S-s-sorry ab-b-bout that,” Mike said with a smile, holding out his hand.
Garrett shook it but didn’t make much eye contact.
“Garrett, wait for us after the game so we can we talk. Okay?” Stephen asked.
“Okay.”
“Great. Come on, Mike.”
“Th-th-thanks f-f-for c-comin’, G-G-Garrett,” Mike said.
Garrett smiled shyly.
As they ran back to their sideline, Tim said, “If you wouldn’t have made that phone call, Mike would have been dead by now.”
Garrett looked at him doubtfully, and Tim said, “Believe it!”
Mike flew over the field stealing passes, stopping runs, and had four slide tackles controlling three of them while sending the other harmlessly out of bounds. The only time Stephen touched the ball was when his defenders dropped the ball back to him. With less than ten minutes to go, Spring City had a three-nothing lead.
“Hey, Foreskin, give any blowjobs lately?”
Three boys sat on bikes ten yards away. A dark-haired boy with thick lips and big ears made the comment. His two wingmen laughed.
Garrett didn’t look at them but hunched his shoulders and stared across the field. Tim glanced sideways at him, while Gavin turned around to see who the talker was, then turned back, glanced at Garrett and Tim, but otherwise watched the game.
“Foreskin, I might be in the mood.”
Gavin stood up and faced them. Tim stood up along with him. Garrett stood up last.
“Foreskin, I’m talking to you,” the talker said.
“He’s not interested in talking to you, Murphy.”
Two boys, one slightly built with broad shoulders and with long, curly black, shoulder-length hair, juggled a soccer ball on his right foot, bouncing it nimbly from toe to heel and back again. He stood directly in front of Garrett and slightly in front of Tim. He was about the same size and age as Tim.
A smaller dark-haired boy with dark eyes juggled a soccer ball from foot to knee and walked up and stood alongside the long curly-haired boy in front of Gavin.
; “I wasn’t talking to you, Denalli,” Murphy answered.
“Then I guess no one’s talkin’ to anyone, so let us finish watching Erickson and Bailey kick butt,” the smaller boy said.
“Mind your own business, Girici. Go back to the UN,” Murphy said.
“Funny! Like we haven’t heard that one before, have we Cem?”
“Murphy, why don’t you and your pet monkeys go ride your bikes home or off a cliff and let us watch the game,” the smaller boy said.
“It’s more interesting than talking to someone with shit for brains like you,” Denalli said.
All this took place as Denalli and Girici juggled their soccer balls without stopping. Right foot and right knee for Girici, switching to left foot and left knee, while Denalli juggled with his right heel and toe, then with his left heel and toe. Nonstop, without break.
“I was talkin’ to Foreskin. You two think you’re so tough. You’re parents are probab-“
He never finished the sentence. Denalli sent his soccer ball in a line shot at Murphy, hitting him in the face, knocking him off his bike.
Tim hadn’t seen Denalli wind up. It was one fluid motion: heel, toe, Murphy’s face. It was the hardest, fastest and most accurate kick Tim had ever seen. Murphy slowly got to his hands and knees, blood dripping from his nose.
“Denalli, you’re a-“ the boy on the bike nearest Tim and the others never finished.
Girici sent his ball into the side of the boy’s head, knocking him off his bike and on top of Murphy and then Girici casually walked over and picked up their two soccer balls.
“Go away and leave Garrett alone,” Cem said as he turned away.
The three boys got on their bikes and left. Blood still dripped from Murphy’s nose.
“So, pretty good game, huh?” Cem asked with a smile as he walked back to the other boys.
Tim and Gavin looked at him, mouths open and said nothing.
“Garrett, Cem and I have your back. Just want you to know that,” Denalli said.
Embarrassed, Garrett stared at the ground and nodded. Denalli turned to Tim and Gavin and looked them over.