by Sylvie Kurtz
“They didn’t have nothing on me. I got railroaded.” Cicco lifted his foot and plopped it on the table. “Does that look like a nine and a half? It’s a freaking size twelve!”
“Back on the ground, Cicco,” the guard ordered.
Cicco flipped the guard the bird, but obeyed. “I deserve another trial, but I can’t afford no fancy lawyer.”
The police had combed the house for clues, but the kidnapper had left nothing behind, except a few blurred shoe prints from a pair of Nike basketball shoes. Could a moron like Cicco have left so little evidence behind?
The next morning, the police had found a blue baby blanket stained with blood in the woods behind the house along with the stub of the same brand of cigarette Cicco smoked. Nick’s blanket. Valentina’s blood. The pond was drained, but no body turned up.
“Where were you at the time of the kidnapping?” Valerie asked.
“I was hanging around my house, drinking beer. How was I supposed to know I’d need an alibi?”
“The police report said you and your friends had gone down to Lawrence earlier that afternoon to buy some crack.”
“I’ll tell you the same thing I told the cops. The real kidnapper threatened to hurt my family. My dad, he was sick, and that bastard said he was going to burn my dad’s house down with him in it.”
“You took a polygraph and failed.”
“I was being blackmailed. No surprise I failed when I was all twisted around.”
After Valentina was taken, Nick hadn’t known what to do with all the big feelings boxing inside him, so he’d taken them out on Rita and his mother. In spite of their own grief, they’d never blamed him for Valentina’s disappearance. For them, he’d worked hard to shape himself into a good man. He was a hard worker, a loving son, a loyal employee. He donated his time, skills and money to local causes to improve the lives of the less fortunate, just as Rita had taught him through her example.
He was a good man.
Yet the blood flowing in his veins had left a latent print he couldn’t seem to escape. Watching Cicco fold the truth and rearrange it, Nick tasted a pungent craving for vengeance on his tongue. He wanted to see this man hurt, see him twist in agony, see him dead.
But if Nick gave in to his baser instincts even once, could he stop? Or would the darkness take over and continue the cycle of violence for yet another generation?
He was a good man, wasn’t he?
“You were convicted of kidnapping on the strength of another inmate’s testimony,” Valerie continued, never once consulting her notes. That was some memory. How deeply had she studied Valentina’s life? Was it only for the story’s sake as she claimed? “He said you confessed to doing the crime.”
“I was lying. Stupid, but I was bragging. I was trying to be this punk, you know. Tough. You can’t say you’re not guilty in here and expect to be left alone. I said I’d done it for survival.”
Amazing how nobody ever did anything wrong, how every convict’s troubles were always someone else’s fault. How often had he heard that growing up? You made me do it.
Cicco’s gaze begged understanding, and Valerie gave a small nod that neither condemned nor approved. How could she remain so unaffected?
“I mean I told the guy other lies, too,” Cicco said, milking the poor-me victim act, “but those never came out. I said I’d popped a cop. I said I made drug runs for a high-volume dealer. All of it hogwash. But no, the cops and the lawyers, they just picked what they needed to cage me. That’s it. I mean, what would I do with a kid?”
Kill her, then torture her poor parents with a ransom note.
“What about your friends?” Valerie asked. “How come they didn’t get prosecuted along with you?”
A sneer twisted Cicco’s mouth. “The cops and the lawyers, they got what they wanted. They said there wasn’t enough evidence against Tim and Derrick, and they dropped the charges.”
“You were offered a plea bargain of twenty-five years if you’d plead guilty and testify against the others.”
“I’d be a free man if I’d taken the deal.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I ain’t no rat,” he said, as if that was obvious.
“What happened to your friends?” Valerie asked.
“Derrick’s serving four-to-ten for robbing a gas station clerk at knifepoint. Idiot. Tim’s dead. Drug overdose.”
Mike gestured to catch Valerie’s attention, then mouthed, “Low battery. No spare.”
“So the jewelry, that was for drugs?” Valerie spoke fast, trying to squeeze in a few more questions before the camera died.
“Yeah, for drugs.” Cicco smiled sheepishly. “I’d seen a pile of cash in the office upstairs when I went to fix a light. I went back for that, and she’d left a tray of jewelry out. I figured she wouldn’t miss ‘em, and if she did, she could always buy herself more.” He drummed the fingertips of both hands against the tabletop once, then stared at his palsied fingers. “It’s a disease, you know, the drugs.”
“I know. Valentina was still in her room when you left?”
“Never saw the kid.”
Mike sliced a finger across his throat, signifying the battery had died.
“Thank you for your time.”
“Ain’t like I got anything better to do.” Cicco rose. The guard approached. “Hey, you think you could look into that lawyer thing for me? I cooperated.”
“I’m not sure there’s anything I can do, Mr. Cicco.”
He spat at the floor, then gave her the evil eye. “Yeah, figures.”
The guard shuffled the prisoner out, and Nick kept staring after him. He’d hoped this visit would calm his fears, show him that danger was behind bars where it couldn’t hurt anyone again.
Even though a six-year-old’s fear fogged his memory, and even though all adults appeared like giants in a kid’s eyes, some part of him understood the monster that haunted him had grown in size over the years.
Cicco wasn’t the man who’d stolen Valentina.
But he’d suspected as much since he’d read the trial transcripts, hadn’t he?
“How could you forget a spare battery?” Valerie chided Mike as he dismantled his equipment.
“My mind was fogged by lack of food.”
Valerie gathered her file while Mike hiked his equipment to his shoulder. “Let’s get out of here.”
Morning had bled into afternoon, stippling the asphalt with dislocating shadows and turning the prison windows into white squares of fire. The biting odor of dying autumn leaves sharpened the crisp air and cut right through Nick’s jacket. His muscles were tight and he couldn’t quite breathe right, wouldn’t until they left the prison grounds and the building was just a dot in the rearview mirror.
Somewhere outside these walls, evil was watching, waiting to strike. Nick couldn’t shake the certainty that it would storm Moongate again. Maybe already had. That, this time, he would lose more than his only true friend.
He couldn’t wait to hit the soccer field tonight. Kicking a ball around always cleared his head, made him see things more clearly.
“You okay?” Valerie asked as he helped Mike stow his equipment in the trunk of the Jag.
“Never better. You?”
She shrugged, but couldn’t quite hide that the evil inside the prison had touched her. “I’m good.”
“If you’re planning on doing hard-hitting news, you’re going to have to grow a thicker skin.”
“My skin’s just fine, thanks.”
He’d noticed. And he very much wanted to touch it, taste it, lose himself in the warm sweetness of it until he forgot all about the darkness inside him, waiting to erupt and destroy him.
But seeking solace there would put him straight into enemy arms. The one place he needed to avoid if he was going to get to the truth.
BY FOUR IN THE AFTERNOON, Mount Monadnock already shadowed Moonhill into dusk. Violet and orange veined the horizon. The ball of sun burned like a weak candle, pale yellow an
d diffuse against the mountain’s summit. And the charcoal blanket of night unfurled along its eastern slope.
They’d stopped for a late lunch, and Valerie had hoped the greasy food she’d forced down would camouflage the vile scent of prison that clung to her clothes like stale cigarette smoke. Even the take-out French vanilla coffee she held under her nose as Nick drove up Windemere Drive didn’t help. She’d need a long, hot shower and soap, lots of soap.
And she’d need to talk to Higgins.
“We’ll have to stay,” she said to no one in particular, already drawing up a mental to-do list.
“Hey, no can do,” Mike piped in from the back. “I’ve got a date on Saturday. Can’t break it.”
When you worked ten-hour-plus days, the pool of potential mates was pretty much limited to coworkers who worked the same crazy hours, and Valerie had seen Mike hang around the new intern. “She’ll understand.”
Valerie’s mother would have a fit, though. So would Holly, who hadn’t wanted them to stay there in the first place.
“You don’t understand,” Mike whined. “This is serious. And she’s not in the business.”
“This could be big, Mike. That man didn’t kidnap Valentina.”
Valerie had come away from the prison visit with the certainty that though Kirby Cicco probably did belong in jail for a long list of reasons, kidnapping Valentina wasn’t one of them. His profession of innocence wasn’t what convinced her. It was more the narrow scope of his focus. His history of crime ran along petty lines. Nothing to say he couldn’t escalate, just that she didn’t think he had the fortitude to carry out such a complex plan. The night he’d crept back to Moongate, he’d wanted a quick fix, not a big payoff.
And she’d bet a week’s worth of coffee that Nick had come away with the same conclusion, and that was why he was so gloomy and silent.
But if Kirby Cicco hadn’t taken Valentina, then Valentina’s kidnapper could still be running free. And if she could unearth new evidence, then maybe Valentina could finally come home and give Rita some peace. Not to mention that Valerie could get the break she needed to launch her career to the next level.
“Just how did you jump to that conclusion?” Nick asked. His profile cut sharp edges in the car’s dim interior. Why were the lines of his face so familiar? Why did her hands want to reach for him, her head to lean against his shoulder?
“Same way you did,” Valerie said. “I looked into his eyes.”
“No wonder they keep you doing fluff pieces.”
Nick stopped at the iron gates to the mansion and pressed the gate opener. The gates swung open, allowing them through. Long claws of shade crawled along the road, turning it black.
Nick picked up speed on the driveway.
“I’ll have you know—”
Something jumped out from behind the trees.
“What was that?” Valerie asked.
“Holy moly,” Mike said.
Nick stomped on the brakes, but he couldn’t stop in time and the tires bumped over the dark shape.
“Oh, my God!” Valerie crammed her coffee cup in a cup holder and reached for the door handle with both hands. “You hit an animal or something. Stop the car!”
She jumped out and ran to the rear of the car. She crouched by the lump, a macabre hue of purple in the brake light’s red glow. Gingerly she moved the edges of the baby blanket. Dead blue eyes looked up at her. “Oh, jeez. It’s a kid.”
Chapter Seven
A kid? He’d hit a kid? No, that was impossible. How would a kid get onto the property? The locked gate. The high walls. The all-seeing cameras. Chomp, who patrolled the grounds.
For an instant, the cold night air seemed to gel the blood in his veins, rousing all his sleeping fears. He was six, paralyzed and staring at those dead blue eyes.
Frozen in time, they triggered a howl inside him.
Valentina, her pale face hanging over dark shoulders. Blood pouring down her face, into her moonlight hair, dripping onto the floor. Her arms, poking out of the blue blanket, reaching for him, then limp and loose against her captor’s back. And her eyes, half-closed, dead, staring after him, pleading, accusing.
Then the silence, oh, the silence. That silence would haunt him until the day he died.
He scrubbed a hand over his face, rubbing out that long-ago horror and bringing this night back into focus. The eyes. They weren’t right. Dead, yes, but one-dimensional. The panic receded, leaving the jittery remnants of adrenaline shaking through his system.
He handed his cell phone to Valerie. “Call 911.”
Crouching by the broken body, he took in the scene analytically. Not a child’s eyes. A dummy’s. Closer inspection revealed a child-size mannequin—the kind used in mall department stores. One someone had dressed in pink flannel pajamas with wooly lambs and fuzzy pink socks—like Valentina’s on the night she disappeared.
Who had done this? And why? What in hell had they hoped to gain by the stunt?
“When the cops get here, tell them what happened.” Without waiting for an answer, Nick took off into the woods in the direction from which someone had thrown the dummy into his car’s path. The intruder would be long gone, but Nick had to do something. He couldn’t just stay there and watch and wait.
“Where are you going?” Valerie called after him. But he didn’t answer. The ache inside him went on and on and he needed to race ahead of the remembered weakness that had cost him his best friend. He needed to find the culprit who’d preyed on that weakness and pin him down. He needed answers.
His eyes adjusted to the deepening darkness and he plunged into the shadows of the woods. His dress shoes slipped on the rotting leaves. Branches caught on his jacket, dead fingers trying to hold him back. He didn’t know where he was going, what path he was following, but he let the crawl of evil guide him.
Body running with sweat, he pushed himself harder, faster. Just as he had since the day he’d decided he’d never let weakness best him again. He’d thrown himself into lifting weights, learning self-defense, building his endurance. Soccer provided him with a way to hone mental and physical strategies. School became a proving ground for his mind until numbers, money and business no longer held any secrets.
He was strong, sharp, fast.
He would never again be helpless.
When he realized where his blind run was taking him, clammy dizziness fogged his brain. The pond. Through the trees, moonlight silvered the water, roped the ripples in black, making the surface appear to have swallowed a giant beast. His foot caught on something soft like flesh.
As he stumbled, he flung out an arm and stayed his fall against a tree trunk, but not before he smacked one knee into its ragged bark. Pain pulsing into his kneecap, he forced himself to turn around and look at the cause of his trip.
His chest cracked and seemed to open as if cleaved by an ax, leaving him raw and exposed. A small bubble of sound, half cry, half howl tore out of him.
Valentina.
No, no body. They’d never found her body.
But there, on the exact spot where the police had found the blanket soaked with Valentina’s blood, lay Chomp’s still body.
Nick’s knee buckled as he tried to crouch, and he plopped on the ground beside Chomp. He cradled the Doberman in his lap. The slow beat of the dog’s heart bumped against his thigh, and Nick mopped a hand over his face as relief sagged through him. “It’s okay, Chomp. You’ll be okay.”
The night shook with wind, muttering through the naked tree limbs like witches conjuring a spell.
“Do you think there are witches in the woods, Nick?”
“Can’t you hear them? Listen. They love to eat little girls.”
“What about boys?”
“Well, girls are made of sugar and spice and everything nice.”
“But witches like snails and puppy dog tails.
Everybody knows that.”
A branch broke nearby, the crack of it like the clash of blades in a duel. Cautious st
eps approached, then a dark form hovered close, uncertain.
“Nick?” Valerie asked. She sucked in a breath when she noticed the dog in his lap. Her hands clamped the shirt around her heart. “Oh, no, he’s not…dead…is he?”
A cold waft, like a ghost, passed through his center. Echoes of Valentina existed in Valerie’s countless quirks of posture and movement, and he hated her for stirring all the feelings he’d worked so hard to bury. Words caught in his throat and finally climbed their way up the pinched ladder of his throat. “He’s alive. He needs a vet.”
“The cops are here. They want to talk to you.”
“We’d better get back then.”
He rose, hefting the dog in his arms and his bruised left knee threatened to give again.
Valerie grabbed his elbow to steady him and her touch sparked with static. “Are you okay?”
“I cracked my knee on a tree.” Seeking to lighten the loaded night, he let out a rough bark of laughter. “That’s what I get for running through the woods in dress shoes instead of soccer cleats.”
“Soccer, huh? Must be how you stay in such good shape.”
That she’d noticed shouldn’t warm him. It shouldn’t matter. But it did. He limped his way through the familiar path around the pond toward the back entrance of the house. How many times had Valentina trailed him like that, full of questions and endless chatter. “You made good time out here.”
“I run every day.”
“You don’t look like the runner type.”
“Oh, yeah? And what’s that?”
He ignored her question, needing to keep her talking to anchor his thoughts in the present. “Why running? I imagine you in ballet classes.”
Her shrug hitched along his arm, and he sidestepped to inch more room between them. “When I was a teenager, running was the only acceptable excuse to leave home for half an hour without some sort of chaperone hanging around. Even then, I had to leave behind the precise course I’d take.”
“Your parents were strict?”
She snorted. “A Navy commander at the height of maneuvers has nothing on my mother.”
Beside him, her blue eyes were alive with a dynamic energy that connected with a vital part of him and somehow made his darkest emotions melt away.