“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?”