by Peter Cry
Staying late for a couple of hours each evening, after making sure that he was completely alone, he would turn off the light. With only the faint light of dusk from outside getting through the windows, he would take out the laptop trying to understand himself and what was happening to him, and run through the videos and photos hidden in the folder named “Jason”. Each time, almost the same happened to him. He began to feel sick, and his head split apart. Yet he was aroused and would experience erections, which disgusted him. He felt more love and compassion for the children than lust. At the same time, he feared more for himself and his future than for the fate of the abducted children.
After some time, the federal agent no longer paid attention to the faces of the children, for none of them were from North West Central School. He stared at the photographs and videos, studying the walls, and the floor, covered with black cellophane, the simple striped pattern of the mattress, the habits, and movements of two cold-blooded rapists. Alfred could foresee every episode, every new frame. It was if by some unnatural instinct he knew the script of the events. Moreover, every detail seemed familiar to him. It was as if he had once been in that place and witnessed the tears and suffering.
Alfred was no longer sure how to continue, or if to continue at all. He still felt some of the commitment to the parents of the missing children, but not as strongly. Now, he was worried primarily about what he was discovering about himself and where it would end.
After watching the last creepy video which ended at the point where a young man with a perfect body took a knife from his black leather bag and then approached a sobbing raped boy, Alfred closed the window and locked the laptop.
As he was putting it into the bottom drawer of his desk, Rita came in. Smartly dressed as always, with a beige-brown coat over her shoulders, she came up to his table and sat on the edge.
“Aren't you going home?” she asked softly.
“Your place or mine?”
Rita smiled sadly.
“Unfortunately, you’re going to yours, and I’m going to mine.”
Alfred wearily leaned back in his chair.
“Yes, I’m just about to leave.”
“I thought... I was hoping that everything would be different,” she continued. “Yes, I assumed it would not be easy with our tempers, but I couldn’t even imagine it would be so hard. It’s as if a heavy concrete slab is crushing me, causing me incredible pain every day.”
Alfred lowered his eyes.
“Such a vivid image. I don’t know what to say. I'm sorry.”
“You’ve changed a lot in the last few days.”
“Maybe, just a little.”
“No,” Rita protested quietly. “During that heavenly weekend you weren’t a man, but a dream. Now you’ve switched off and become unsociable and closed. From the side you seem even darker than me. As if the darkness is oozing out of you. It’s as if someone replaced you after Chicago, and your evil twin brother came back from there.”
“Thank you,” Alfred smiled coldly. “You’re so supportive.”
“I don’t know what’s going on,” Rita sighed. “Every time I ask, you give the same line – nothing special happened, and you will explain everything shortly.”
“Rita,” he replied, growing exasperated. “I'm working on it. I need more time.”
“For what? To finally write the report you have promised me a few days ago?”
Alfred shrugged and continued to look coldly at Rita.
“As your, apparently, former lover,” she stood up, zipping her raincoat, “I just want to tell you that you’ve caused me unbearable pain and torn my heart. I fell in love with you, and this love is still there, somewhere, deep inside. It’s not dead yet.” Her voice was trembling. “And as your boss, I should warn you – if you know something about the case which will shed light on it and could help solve it, but you are hiding information for some reason, you’re risking a lot, Alfred.
If that’s the case, you’ll be in deep shit. I’ll have problems too, but yours will be much more serious, right up to the trial.”
With that Rita stormed out. Alfred watched her go, torn by pain that he had never experienced before. Threats coming from a mouth he had only recently kissed. Yet he knew it was his behavior that had made Rita react that way. But he couldn’t do anything about it. Although he was still confident that it was only his injured mind playing tricks on him, he did not want to dig deeper into himself to find an answer that might be unpleasant. He did not want somebody else to look inside of him too closely either.
After sitting for several hours in the dark, quiet room, he made a difficult decision which was necessary to help keep his mind free from fear.
Alfred found the phone number in the contact list of his smartphone and pressed the call button. A male voice answered.
“Yes,” came a sleepy voice. “Alfred, why aren’t you sleeping at this time? Do you have something urgent?”
“I’m sorry, sir,” Alfred got up and started to pace between the tables in the dark. “I didn’t want to wake you up, but the matter can’t wait.”
“Go ahead. I’m listening.”
“Mr. Blake,” sighed Alfred, “I’ve made the decision to return to Seattle.”
“Why?” the FBI chief was surprised. “Just recently, Rita told me you get along very well, and you’re doing a great job. Honestly, when the case is closed, I even thought of leaving you on the staff, bringing you to Washington.”
“I’m not coping, sir,” Alfred continued, feeling ashamed for lying. “Like those who have resigned before me, I haven’t been able to deal with the stress and complexity associated with this case. I know I'm letting you down, but you don’t need me here. The costs are unnecessary for the agency. Tomorrow night I’m going to fly home.”
There was silence for a moment on the other side.
“As you wish,” Director Blake said with displeasure. “You will never have a second chance such as this. So, think again carefully before you board the plane. If Rita tells me tomorrow that you’ve resigned, I’ll know a fool has left the FBI. If you stay, I will know that I’ve found a strong professional who could wade through all the hardships to retirement…
Alfred had let everybody down, including himself. He went to his desk and retrieved the laptop. As he left the place where he’d always felt a stranger, he muttered angrily – “Go to hell, all of you.”
***
The next morning Alfred returned to the office. He had a small cardboard box into which he intended to put the few things that had remained at his workspace. For some reason, almost all the others were already there. Only Kate Duncan was missing, and he had not seen her for a few days.
Feeling the burning gaze of his work colleagues, the failed agent went to his desk. There was something very arrogant and unpleasant in their silence.
As Alfred began collecting his things, Rita stormed in. Dressed in black, she headed straight for her subordinate. Everyone watched to see what form the volcanic eruption would take.
“When were you going to tell me?” Rita began, staring at the bewildered Alfred with hostility.
“Didn’t we discuss everything yesterday?” he replied, continuing to put his stuff into the box.
“Once again, when were you going to tell me that you were leaving?” Rita thundered, not paying attention to the others.
“Don't make a scene,” he whispered, looking into her eyes. “Remember, it can hurt the career you're so focused on.”
“I expect you gone in 10 minutes, Agent Hope. Leave your badge, ID, and weapon on the desk. You were not worthy of the title of an FBI agent. You were just a brief and highly incompetent episode in the history of the Bureau.”
Smiling sadly, Alfred looked into Rita's angry, but still beautiful, amber eyes.
“As you say, boss. I’ll leave the office in 5 minutes.”
Vexed by his aloofness, Director Coleman continued the public flogging.
“Have you finished your report
?”
“No,” he said indifferently, opening the top drawer of his desk.
“Before you leave the office, you must finish it, print it and pass it to me through one of the agents.”
“No,” Alfred said coldly.
Those present in the room were amazed. It was the first time they’d seen someone respond in such a way to their stern boss.
“What do you mean, no?”
“I haven’t done anything, ma'am, therefore I have nothing to report.”
“But what about your trip to Chicago?”
Alfred's eyes turned pale cold and empty.
“I flew there on personal business. I don’t care, you can deduct one day from my salary.”
Rita looked at the very cruel, strange person disarming her with indifference. It was not her beloved gentle and strong, vulnerable, and discreet, Alf.
“But that's not true!” Anxious, she looked at her subordinate in bewilderment.
Alfred stopped what he was doing, came up to his boss, and hissed quietly into her ear: “So, prove it. Who will believe a boss who was fucking her subordinate?”
Tears sparkled in Rita’s eyes. She restrained herself with all the strength she had. Looking awkwardly at those around her, she helplessly backed away and left the room to disappear from Alfred Hope's life forever.
Having packed his things, Alfred, sat down and opened his laptop to get rid of the letters sent from the mail of Damien Brannon. Suddenly, distracted for a moment from the screen, he caught the gaze of Agent Polaski.
“You're such an asshole, Hope,” he said softly, so that the others wouldn't hear him. “It’s a pity that she fired Kate because of you.”
“Rita fired her?” Alfred asked. “Why?”
“Because she was jealous, you fool.”
Gripped by guilt and unease, Alfred dreamed of only one thing – to escape from Indianapolis. Two suitcases, which he had not even fully unpacked, lay in the trunk of his car. His one-way air ticket was in the glove compartment. Soon he would be home, on his own beat, where he’d probably be welcome.
While he deleted things from his computer, the sky clouded over. The heavy clouds seemed to touch the upper floors of the buildings. It grew darker and darker. The heavy rain began to fall.
Alfred, noticing how the other agents began to disappear one by one, glanced at his watch. It was only 11:23, and the office was almost empty. Only Polaski was left.
“Today is the B. day,” Polaski said, gazing at him as he began putting on his gray jacket.
“And what’s that?” Alfred asked coldly.
“Well, if you don’t leave the building before 12:00, you’ll find out.”
“I'll wait till the rain is over.”
“Please yourself,” Polaski chuckled, and left.
Alfred felt terrible. He was trying to rush forward like a blinkered horse, without paying attention to those around him. Only Rita mattered. Her heart was so dear to him, and he had crushed it. That’s what hurt him most.
At first, everything had seemed different in this new city. A new job, a beloved woman – he thought he had broken out of the lethargy that had plagued him. God only knew how he still wanted to fix everything by asking Rita for forgiveness, by getting rid of the pictures with raped children that were haunting him. Had it not been for that stupid trip to Chicago, and his ever-present gut-intuition, everything would have been fine! Agent Hope would still be a good guy. But what’s done is done, and Alfred needed to escape from the madness that had deprived him of normal life.
Before finishing with the emails, he clicked on the spam folder. It contained hundreds of unread messages, some important, and many not, addressed, apparently, to the agents who had worked on the laptop before him. Much of the stuff was garbage – conspiracy theories, denunciations of neighbors, delusional talk.
But suddenly Alfred came across a heading in capital letters: “URGENT! FROM POLICE OFFICER, HELEN ESCAMILLA, HAMPTON, IOWA.” The message was already one-and-a-half-years-old.
Curiosity got the better of him and he decided to open it. Perhaps it was his subconscious reaction as a cop to the words “urgent” and “police officer”.
The sender had found the email address on the official website of the FBI, where it provided instructions on where to send any useful information related to the abduction of children from the North West Central School in Indianapolis. Officer Escamilla had decided to share her suspicions in an unemotive, factual, manner. Her message was two pages long and had several photographs attached. It was about the tire tread print left near the school bus during the abduction, and that the same tires were found on the burned-out “Silverado”, which she pursued shortly after the abduction had been committed. The owner of the car was a person named Jason Frost.
Alfred sighed nervously. Each time he heard that name, a sickening feeling would grip him. But he read on. Officer Escamilla explained that the previous winter she thought she heard something resembling a child’s scream coming from the residence of this Frost and that she would try to get into it in the hope of finding the five abducted children there. At the very end, she had provided the exact address.
“What have you done, Helen...” Alfred uttered.
Her decision seemed stupid and unreasonable to him. Moreover, for some reason it angered him.
Before deleting the message, he looked at the photographs of the tire tread print from the abduction site and the photo of a burnt black tire of the vehicle found in a dense wood in Minnesota. They coincided. Another picture was attached to the letter. It was a photo of a girl abducted several years ago in the town where officer Escamilla lived. Her name was Lily Stodge.
Alfred was hit by shock. He closed his eyes and his heart sank. It was a picture of the extremely cute bald girl whom he had seen in numerous videos on the laptop, and who gave him his erections.
The names Jason Frost, Lily Stodge, the town of Hampton, the sight of the wrecked burnt vehicle, were all part of a terrible, nauseating echo, which triggered flashbacks from Alfred's memory. They were melting the thick layer of ice in his amnesia. Those damn trees, visible in the background of the photo with the burned-out car! They were just like the ones that Alfred saw when he became fully aware of himself, wandering bloodied among tall sequoias, pines, and ferns. He felt a huge monster was about to devour him – he wanted to cry and scream simultaneously.
After recovering a bit, Alfred deleted all trace of the message and its attachments. Turning off the laptop, he grabbed his half-empty box with his stuff and rushed downstairs. He had only one thought – to escape from the fear of the unknown truth which was persecuting him.
It was pouring outside, and Alfred paused at the transparent doors. The security guy was reading a magazine attentively and ignored him.
“All the best, Sean,” Alfred said, hoping for at least a touch of friendliness from the people he had worked with.
But the guard quickly gave the former agent a dismissive look and returned to his magazine.
Alfred hurried through the cold rain to his car. The streets were empty. But on the corner of the intersection opposite the building, Alfred noticed someone. Some crazy person was not hiding from the downpour. He reached his car soaked and angry, and got in.
But he was curious. He noticed that the stranger in the rain was a woman in a dark shirt and a loose long skirt. Shuddering from the cold, she was pressing something to her chest. She was staring at the building that he had just come out of. Observing her, Alfred concluded she was crazy and maybe needed help. Feeling himself a cop again, compassion got the better of him. Though he cursed himself for not driving off, he got out of the car. Stepping thought the puddles, he approached her. She was a young, pretty, thin woman who seemed to have begun aging prematurely.
“Hey, are you okay?” he asked
The stranger, drenched to the bone, did not pay any attention to him, and kept watching the building.
“Ma'am, can you hear me?”
She, j
erking her head, turned it abruptly and gave Alfred a crazed look.
“Yes, what do you want?”
“Are you okay?” he repeated, peering at the delicate features and deep wrinkles on her young skin. The woman looked remotely familiar to Alfred.
“I don’t know,” she said in a trembling voice from the cold. “Look at me. Would you say I’m okay?”
“Perhaps it would be better to get of the rain for a while. You could get sick,” Alfred said gently, moving closer.
“I might,” the stranger smiled painfully. “But a cold does not frighten a patient with a sick mind, and it’s the best spot. From here I can see them better.”
“Who are you talking about?” Alfred asked.
“FBI agents. I'm waiting for them here.”
Looking at the mad woman, Alfred remembered how his colleagues had left early and the warning the slippery bastard Polaski had given him. So, this was the “the B. day”. Apparently, she was the irritant that bothered his ex-colleagues so much.
Turning around slowly, he decided to return to his car.
“I’ve noticed that you came out of there,” the woman stopped him. “But you’re not one of them. I’ve never seen you before.”
Alfred turned back to face her.
“Not anymore, ma'am. This morning I quit. Please excuse me, I'm in a hurry, I have to catch a flight.”
“I'm Andrew's mom,” she suddenly introduced herself. “Andrew Mitchell. Today is his birthday, the B. day, and I, like a crazy fool, came here again. It seems to me that you’re the only thread that connects me with him.”
Mrs. Mitchell retreated into her shell for a moment and then lit up again. “Why have you quit. Is everything really so bad and there’s no hope of seeing at least Andrew’s corpse?”
Alfred suddenly remembered the eyes of all the fathers and mothers whom he had seen, with whom he had communicated during his tough four-week investigation. He remembered the promises he made, and the hope that he lit up in their eyes. Facing a mother destroyed by fate, he did not want to repeat the mistake.