White Hot

by Elise Noble

  She glanced down at the piece of paper. “Ethan?”

  I nodded.

  “I’ll do it as soon as I can, okay?”

  It was midafternoon when she handed me a memory stick. Her already pale face had turned ashen.

  “Holy fuck. No wonder he’s messed up. How much of this has he told you?”

  “I’m not sure, which is why I asked you to take a look. I want to know what I’m dealing with.”

  “Whatever help you guys need, just say the word. I’ll be there. We all will.”

  She leaned down and gave me a hug.

  “I know, and it means the world to me.”

  Hand on heart, I didn’t want to look at the files, but I had to. Navigating Ethan’s psyche still felt like tiptoeing across a minefield, and I needed all the assistance I could get. Like a PhD in psychology, Sigmund Freud as my sidekick, and a whole truckload of the lucky four-leaf clover charms Bradley had brought back from his trip to Ireland last year.

  The first article came from the Star Tribune. A scanned copy, a little yellowed around the edges. I squinted at the date. Eighteen years ago last month.

  There was drama in the Midtown neighbourhood yesterday as local carpenter Frank White was beaten to death in broad daylight just yards from the gates of the school attended by his girlfriend’s son, Ethan Briand.

  Unconfirmed reports suggest a gang of youths followed him along the road for several minutes beforehand, screaming and yelling, before the brutal assault took place. White died later in the hospital from internal bleeding after his liver ruptured.

  “There was a whole gang of them,” one eyewitness said. “Shouting and throwing things. All little boys. I recognised some of them. Nobody’s safe anymore.”

  Although both Frank and the gang members were reported to be white, several of the taunts were believed to concern the ethnicity of Ethan. Police are treating the crime as racially motivated and are appealing for any further witnesses.

  The photo below showed Frank on stage, a guitar slung over his shoulder, one hand working the frets and the other outstretched. He gazed at the audience with the kind of confidence those pint-sized shits had stolen from Ethan. A caption underneath said Frank had played lead guitar for a blues band, The Blue Mondays.

  I sat back in my chair, hollow. Little boys? Monsters more like. Further articles detailed Frank’s injuries, Ms. Briand’s grief, and the mayor’s denial that racism was a problem in his fine city.

  Then came another article in the Star Tribune.

  Police today confirmed that twelve minors have been charged in association with the horrific attack on local man Frank White last week. While no names have been released, it’s understood that the boys are aged between 13 and 16, and all attended the same school as Ethan Briand, a boy neighbours say Frank considered to be his son. According to Ethan’s mother, he was bullied at school, although the school denies this.

  We spoke to Janice Freeman, the school principal, who refuted the allegations, saying, “Recent news coverage has painted a false picture of Fillmore High. Our school may not be perfect, but there is certainly no bullying culture. We’re confident that pupils feel safe with us, and it’s a shame that some parents are trying to claim a wider problem rather than addressing issues with their own children.”

  However, one mother, whose son was in Ethan’s class, spoke on the condition of anonymity and told a different story. At least three times in the last month, she claims to have seen the young boy being physically assaulted on the way to the bus stop, but was too fearful of retaliation from other parents to intervene. Not only that, her son allegedly witnessed Ethan being dragged into the bathroom and having his head flushed down the toilet while teachers stood by and ignored his cries.

  What kind of world are our kids living in?

  The mother of one of the boys arrested said her son is a quiet child, just easily led. “It was the others that did it. My boy was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  Maybe so, but that will be of little comfort to Frank White and the family he left behind.

  A photo accompanied the article, taken at the funeral. Ethan’s mother was a sour-faced woman, thin as a rail, dressed in black and surrounded by a crowd in similar attire. A small boy stood at her side. It must have been Ethan, but even then he was staring at the ground, his face hidden.

  Two final articles gave details of the trial.

  Twelve young boys sat on raised seats in court this morning, sandwiched between social workers as the prosecution summed up their case. Individually, the accused boys all deny the manslaughter of Frank White, choosing to blame each other instead.

  The assistant DA claimed that the boys intended to kill Frank or cause him serious injury, that they acted jointly throughout the attack, and that they knew what they were doing was wrong. But throughout the trial, the defence argued that the tragedy was an ill-judged prank, a game with unintended but deadly consequences.

  The case has split the community, with one local mother saying, “Boys will be boys.”

  And two days later…

  It only took the jury nine hours to come to their decision in the Frank White case: guilty on all counts. Sentences varied from three months to two years, and many parents left the court in tears.

  Today marks the end of an ordeal, not just for Sarah and Ethan Briand, but for the whole neighbourhood. Racial tensions have been high, with several clashes outside the gates of Ethan’s former school. Now that the trial is over, Midtown can finally move on.

  Move on? For Ethan, the nightmare had only been beginning. The kids who killed his father got social workers, but Ethan got no help from anyone, least of all his mother. I’d spend the rest of my damn life making up for what other people had done to him.

  I clicked on the next folder and found Mack had managed to get the juvie records. They were supposed to be sealed, but she had her ways. Twelve cropped mug shots of twelve little boys. Ethan’s was the thirteenth life ruined on that heinous day.

  I scanned the screen, taking in their features, looking for commonality. What made a person lust for blood? Why did they join the pack, ready to prey on the innocent? The kids were all white, but that was the only feature they shared. Chubby, gaunt, blue eyes, brown eyes, blond hair, brown hair—it didn’t matter.

  Then one face made me pause.

  The eyes. It was the eyes that caught my attention, but the name bore a similarity as well.

  I hurried to open the other files Mack had sent, searching for another photo, something, anything that would prove I was right.

  Two minutes later, I found it in another prison mug shot, this one dated a year later. A handwritten note at the bottom said he’d been transferred to another holding facility.

  In this picture, one cheek was bruised, and his pale blue eyes, which a year earlier had been smug and arrogant, were now filled with an anger so cold I wanted to turn my screen off. But that wasn’t what got my pulse racing.

  Lower down in the photo, where he held the board with his name and number, the forefinger on his right hand sported a bandage. The end was stained with blood, and that finger was obviously an inch shorter than it should have been.

  An accident in the kitchen, my ass.

  His nose looked different now, narrower, and he’d lost the buck teeth, but both of those things were easy enough to change with an application of money. It was the same guy.

  I hit the conference button on my phone, calling Emmy then Mack. “I’ve got him. The prime suspect’s name is Richard Carr, but when Ethan first met him, he was called Ricky Carter. I want him brought in, and I don’t care how we do it.”

  “The property developer?” Mack asked.

  “Yes, the lying shit.”

  We’d worked together for so long that neither of them questioned me.

  “I’ll get a team together. Half an hour,” Emmy said. “You can brief us on the way.”

  “Mack, can you get us more details on the house?”


  “I’ll get whatever I can.”

  Half an hour might not seem like long, but Emmy and her team had spent years training for every eventuality. They could have launched a coup in a small country with that much time to spare. While she assembled weapons and manpower, I pored over the documents Mack fired at my inbox.

  Ricky Carter, now thirty-four years old, had gotten two years in juvie and seemed to have treated it as a learning experience rather than a punishment. He’d lost the finger in a knife fight. His opponent lost an eye. While he was locked up, his mother had married an ageing poker player who died the year after Ricky walked free. It seemed that was where Richard Carr got the seed money for his property business.

  He’d hidden his dark side under a veneer of respectability and a cloak of money, but once a bloodthirsty freak, always a bloodthirsty freak. If he’d killed Christina, and I very much suspected he had, we were up against Satan’s protégé.

  Emmy materialised beside me, Ana trailing behind. For once, I was glad she was coming.

  “Ready to go?”

  “Just let me grab my gun.”

  Ana snicked open the tanto blade on her Emerson CQC-7, closed it again, and stowed it on her belt. “Perhaps a knife would be more appropriate.”

  “Be my guest.”

  Twelve of us packed into the back of a specially modified truck, painted to look like a furniture delivery van from the outside. Carr’s gates had been open last time, and if that was the case again, our driver would pull up in front of the garage and ring the front doorbell. That distraction would allow us to sneak out the far side of the truck and surround the house.

  If the gates were shut, we’d just park outside and go in over the walls. Simple, dirty, and quick. According to Mack’s research, the family to the left were in Hawaii for three weeks, and the neighbour to the right worked all day while his wife played hide-the-salami with her golf instructor.

  Far from looking like a SWAT team, we wore civilian clothes and our weapons were concealed. Ana still channelled her inner bitch, but Emmy could be mistaken for a soccer mom with her perky ponytail and designer sportswear. I’d brought a few religious pamphlets with me as cover. Knock knock. Do you believe in the afterlife?

  Even if a neighbour noticed us and called the cops, we’d be gone before they arrived. Mack would keep an ear out on the police band and warn us if we got spotted. We’d pulled this stunt at least a dozen times before, no problem.

  Except today, things didn’t quite go according to plan.

  “Gates are open,” our driver informed us over the radio.

  So far, so good.

  “But there’s no car in the drive.”

  “Maybe it’s in the garage?” I said, hoping.

  “Place looks deserted. I’ll try the door.”

  We spread out, but five minutes later, there were still no signs of life from the house.

  “Do we want to wait? Come back?” Ana asked.

  “No, we don’t. We could be waiting forever,” I said.

  I had a horrible feeling my visit had scared Carr off.

  Emmy agreed. “Let’s see what’s in the house.”

  “Look but don’t touch,” I reminded everyone. “The cops are gonna need this place for evidence at some point, and we don’t want to jeopardise any prosecution.”

  There were murmurs of agreement while I picked the lock on the back door and Emmy did the honours at the front.

  Inside, the still air and signs of a hasty departure told me we were too late. Clothes were strewn across the bed in the master suite, and half the toiletries were missing from the bathroom. A hideous watercolour print hung askew over a concealed safe. The door was locked, but I’d bet my Camaro the safe was empty. Carr had gone.

  “Rest of the place is tidy,” Emmy said, opening and closing drawers with gloved hands. “The bastard even loaded the dishwasher. He’ll certainly get his security deposit back if the landlord can find him.”

  I cursed myself for allowing him to escape. “Why didn’t I think to put a surveillance team on him after my visit?”

  “You didn’t know, honey. He hid his true colours well.”

  “But…”

  “Stop it. We’ll get him. It might just take a bit more time than we hoped.”

  The worst part of the day was having to explain things to Ethan. He’d tried so hard to bury his past, so finding out it was alive and kicking back big time would undoubtedly hurt.

  Not only that, I’d have to admit I’d been snooping on him, and I didn’t imagine he’d be too happy about that, either.

  I’d planned to down a stiff drink, change into an outfit that didn’t make me look like a door-to-door saleswoman, and maybe wallop a punchbag a few times before I fessed up. But today was jinxed in its entirety, and Ethan was waiting in the hallway at Riverley when I walked in. He paced up and down on the tiled floor while Stefanie watched him from one of the high-backed couches at the edge of the room.

  As soon as I crossed the threshold, he grabbed me and kissed me. “Nobody would tell me what was going on. Are you okay?”

  Well, that was a “welcome home” I’d never had before. “I’m fine. What makes you think otherwise?”

  “I called the office, and your assistant said you were in a meeting with Emmy.”

  “I was.” Sort of.

  “But Bradley called Emmy’s other assistant, and she said Emmy had gone out to pick up a package.”

  Also true. “She did.”

  “Oh. I didn’t know what to believe. So nothing happened today?”

  Might as well get this over with. “Some stuff happened. But it all went so quickly, and I wanted to explain in person rather than over the phone.”

  “Did you find him?”

  “We think so.”

  Stefanie stepped forward. “Oh my goodness, who?”

  “Ethan, it’s someone from your childhood.”

  He went rigid, then paled so much I led him over to the seat Stef had just vacated and pressed him down onto it. She perched beside him and put an arm around his shoulders while I crouched in front.

  “You know him as Richard Carr. The property developer. But back then he was called Ricky Carter.”

  Ethan started shaking, and I added my arm to Stefanie’s.

  “But I met him,” Ethan said. “How did I not recognise him? Ricky Carter was the worst of all the kids. I knocked his glasses off by accident once, and from that moment on, he was out to get me. One time, he got the others to hold me down while he poured a can of white paint over my face.”

  Red hot anger flooded through me, and I forced myself to unclench my teeth before I needed dental work.

  “He doesn’t wear glasses now, and he looks very different. Cosmetic surgery, I think. I only knew for certain it was the same guy because the end of his finger was missing. He lost it in juvie.”

  Now Stephanie turned ashen. “Which finger was missing?”

  “The tip of his right forefinger.”

  “Do you have a picture of him? Do you?”

  I pulled up his driver’s licence photo on my phone and showed her. With hindsight, that was a bad idea because she crumpled over sideways. Ethan sat her up, and I pushed her head between her knees.

  As soon as she came around, she said, “I’m gonna be sick,” and retched all over the floor.

  Fuck.

  “What’s going on?” Oliver asked, walking into the hallway.

  “I’m not sure yet, but we’re gonna need a bucket, tissues, and disinfectant.”

  “I’m on it.”

  “Stef, what’s wrong?” I asked her.

  “I slept with him,” she whispered, looking more like a ghost than Ethan ever had. “He was a client.”

  Holy shit. “When?”

  “Over a year ago. He wanted to do things I didn’t do, but I knew Chrissie did, so I suggested he give her a try. Oh, hell, this is all my fault.”

  She burst into big, messy tears.

  Well, I guess we’d est
ablished a connection between Carr and Christina, although in the worst possible way.

  Oliver came back with supplies, and I transferred Stef to him while I cleaned up. He looked a little worried, and I couldn’t exactly blame him. He didn’t sign up for hysterical females when he took on the case.

  I was still on my hands and knees when Emmy walked in. “What did I miss?”

  CHAPTER 49

  I FEARED AFTER my confession that I’d been researching his past, I might get angry Ethan, but what I got was sad Ethan. Come to think of it, I hadn’t yet seen him lash out at anybody. He just walked away instead. All his hate seemed to be directed at himself, which was something we’d need to work on.

  That night, he made love to me with a care bordering on reverence, and I treasured every touch and every caress. He made me feel with every nerve ending. I could have spent the rest of my life never moving from his bed, and I’d have spent it happy.

  They say love is found in the most unlikely places, but I can honestly say a super-max prison wasn’t one I’d considered. Until it happened.

  My sweet little jailbird, just waiting to be set free.

  After a shower the next morning, which took longer than it should have because Ethan joined me, I was eager to get on with the search for Carr, but I couldn’t, not straight away. I had to stop by the police precinct first to give an extended statement on the shooting outside the courthouse, which was something I didn’t look forward to re-hashing.

  Still, at least it would be over with. Ethan had already made the same trip with Oliver yesterday morning. Just a formality, they said.

  Oliver was waiting downstairs for me, looking rough around the edges, which was unusual for him.

  “Sorry about yesterday,” I said. “I mean, I kind of foisted Stef on you.”

  “Don’t worry about it. This house sees more drama than a courtroom, so it was only a matter of time before I got sucked in. You ready to go?”