Black Jack: A nail biting, hair-raising thriller (Jack Ryder Book 4) (10 page)

M
ay
2016

“Tell me we’ll find him.”

It was late at night back at the house. Shannon was sitting in the darkness looking out at the square lit up by the streetlamps. We had been looking all night in the parking lot and the restaurant. The kids and Shannon had been send home first, before the police came because we wouldn’t risk her being seen once the reporters arrived when they heard of the missing baby. Meanwhile an Amber Alert had been sent out.

I walked into the bedroom looking for her at one am. I was exhausted. We still hadn’t seen any trace of Tyler anywhere. Leaving the place was the hardest I had to do, but Bellini told me to go home and take care of my family, that she and her colleagues would keep looking all night.

I sat next to her in the wide windowsill. I felt awful. I rubbed my eyes. “We’ll find him,” I said my voice hoarse from calling the boy’s name even if I knew he wouldn’t answer.

“Why does these things keep happening to me?” Shannon asked. “First it was Angela, now Tyler?”

The burden of guilt fell heavy on my shoulders. “I am afraid it has to do with me,” I said heavyhearted. This was exactly why so many in my line of work got divorced. “Remember last year what happened to Austin? It’s my work. I am an easy target. I am so sorry, Shannon. It’s my fault.”

Shannon finally looked at me. “You think Tyler was kidnapped?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know how else to explain his sudden disappearance.”

She crept closer, leaned over and kissed me. The kiss startled me. I thought she would be upset with me. That she would be ready to leave me.

“I can’t believe you never even once asked me if I had been drinking,” she said. “Most men would have asked that as the first thing, given my story.”

“It never occurred to me,” I said.

“That’s why I am marrying you. You always think the best of people. You bring out the best in me.”

I swallowed hard. Could this really be? Could she really love me despite my work? “We
will
find him,” I said this time more convincing than the first.

Shannon nodded, tears springing to her eyes. “You think this is related to Betsy Sue, don’t you?”

“It is a very strange coincidence if it wasn’t.”

“True,” Shannon said. She paused. We sat in silence for a little while before she spoke again.

“So you think it was kind of a way of punishing us for taking Betsy Sue back to her real parents? Tit for tat or an eye for an eye?”

I sighed. “Something like that, I am not quite sure. Is it too crazy? I am too tired to think. You wanna lay down with me for a little while?”

Shannon nodded. We both walked to the bed and lay our heads on a pillow. I held her in my arms while she cried.

“I miss him so much,” she whispered through tears.

“Me too. Try and get some sleep. Tomorrow is a new day,” I said.

Shannon closed her eyes but she didn’t fall asleep. Neither did I. I stared out the window at the streetlamp outside making my plan for how to get our boy back.

M
ay
2016

They had put up two officers from the Savannah Police Department to guard the gate. The mansion behind them seemed to be twice the size of the house I was building back home in Cocoa Beach for me and my family.
Maybe even bigger than that
, I thought as I approached it. It was located in the historic downtown and in walking distance to the place we were renting for the week.

“I’m sorry, sir. No visitors today,” the officer told me as I parked the car and walked up to the gate.

“I know them,” I said. “I want to talk to them.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but the family has requested peace and quiet.”

“I understand that, but could you just press that buzzer and tell them I am here. My name is Jack Ryder,” I said.

“Sorry, sir. I can’t do that.”

I pulled out my badge and showed it to him. He shook his head. “I am sorry,
detective
, but I have my orders.”

I groaned. I was so tired after not sleeping all night. As I was about to turn around and leave, a car drove up to the gate. Mr. Hawthorne poked his head out. “Detective Ryder?”

I turned around.

“You can let this man in,” Mr. Hawthorne said to the officers.

He pushed the buttons and opened the gate. He drove in and I followed him on foot. He approached me as I reached the front door.

“Hello again, detective Ryder,” he said and shook my hand. “I am so sorry about the guards at the gate, but the press has been all over us since Adelaide… since
Betsy Sue
came home and I can’t be too careful. They still haven’t caught the guy and you never know if he is lurking out there trying to steal her back. Come on in. I am sure Heather will be very excited to see you again. We feel like we owe you everything.”

I was quite baffled to be greeted like this. I followed Mr. Hawthorne inside where his wife, Heather was waiting in the living room.

“Oh Ron. I’m glad you’re home,” she said.

When she saw my face she seemed everything but as excited as her husband had said she would be.

“Hello, there…detective,” she said cautiously approaching me.

“Ryder,” I said. “You can call me Jack.”

“All right…Jack.” She looked nervously at her husband and rubbed her hands together. “Can I get you anything? Water? Coffee?”

“You don’t have to trouble yourself on my behalf,” I said. “Mr. Hawthorne was so kind to let me inside.”

“Call me Ron,” he said from the other end of the living room where he was already pouring bourbon into two glasses. It was barely ten in the morning and way too early for me to be drinking that kind of strong alcohol.

“Forget the water and coffee,” he said and handed me the bourbon. “The boys need something stronger, don’t they?” He laughed and lifted his glass for me to salute him. I did and barely sipped my bourbon while he emptied his. Heather stood behind him rubbing her hands together anxiously.

“So what brings you here, detective…Jack.”

I cleared my throat. “I wanted to check in on Betsy Sue. See how she was doing. Has she been talking?”

Heather drew in a deep breath, then shook her head, her eyes hitting the floor as she spoke. “No. We can’t get her to speak at all.”

I nodded and looked at the glass in my hand wondering if it would be impolite to put it down now. I held on to it for a little longer. “I thought so,” I said.

I stared at them wondering if I should tell them about Tyler but something told me not to. I don’t exactly know why, but I decided to not do it, at least not yet. They wouldn’t be able to help me anyway. I hoped their daughter could.

“Could I see her?”

Heather shook her head. “No. Today is not good.”

Ron poured himself another bourbon and let his wife answer for him. “Why not? I asked. “Is she not feeling well?”

“No. No. She’s fine. It’s just…well we’re trying to get her to forget everything from her past and you play a big part of it. Seeing you might rip up in some memories that…” Heather stopped talking and I sensed something behind me. As I turned I saw Betsy Sue. She was standing right behind me, her blue eyes staring up at me from her still very pale face.

“My god, you scared me,” I said and put a hand to my chest. My heart was pounding behind it.

“I have told her to not sneak up on people like that,” Heather said. “ She does it all the time. Scares me half to death every time.”

I kneeled in front of her and wiped a lock of hair away from her face. “How have you been, pretty girl?” I asked.

She didn’t answer.

“It’s no use,” Heather said. “She refuses to talk to anyone. The police, the psychiatrist, us, anyone.”

“Except she did talk to me,” I said.

Heather paused. I could tell she was curious as to how I got the girl to talk to me. I needed that curiosity. I needed them to want me to talk to her.

“She told me a lot of things when I was alone with her. Could I get some time alone with her today? I think I could get her to talk again. Maybe I would be able to get her to open up a little.”

I looked up at Heather who seemed very uncomfortable with the situation. “I don’t think that’s a very good idea. Right now she needs peace and quiet. She needs to forget everything that has happened…”

“I don’t see any harm in him talking to her,” Ron said and put a hand on his wife’s shoulder.

It made her back off. I got the feeling that he was used to get the last word around here.

Heather nodded. “Well then…go ahead.”

“Thank you,” I said heartfelt.

Right now Betsy Sue was my only connection to the man who might have taken my son. I had to get her to tell me more about this strange doctor and where she had been held the past five years in order to find him and hopefully my son as well. I knew it was a long shot, I knew it was going to take a lot of effort given how little she had talked about her time in captivity so far. But it was worth a try. It was all I had right now. And time was not on my side.

I turned and looked at Betsy Sue again. “So…could you maybe show me your room? I would love to see it.”

M
ay
2016

The room was sparsely decorated and not at all for a child. A bed, a dresser, a walk-in closet, a row of shelves with many books, all thrillers and mysteries or biographies. None of them for children. On the bed lied a deck of cards.

Betsy Sue walked to the bed and sat down. I closed the door behind us. “Was this your room when you were younger?” I asked.

She didn’t answer. I wondered if the Hawthornes had simply removed everything that reminded them of their daughter when she disappeared. Would I do that myself once I was forced to realize my child wasn’t coming back?

I wasn’t sure. But then again, life has to go on at some point, right?

“So do you have any of your toys from back then? Maybe a teddy bear?”

Betsy Sue looked at me, and then shook her head. I walked to her and sat down on the bed.

“You like cards?”

Betsy Sue looked up at me with a smile.

“Do you want to play Black JACK?”

She almost yelled my name and it startled me since it was a lot of sound coming from a girl who hadn’t said anything at all while I was there.

I looked into her eyes while wondering what to answer. I hadn’t played Black Jack for many years, not since I was in my early twenties. It had been a problem for me back then. I became addicted to it. I couldn’t stop. Not till my parents interfered. By then I owed a lot of money. They paid everything and took me home to live with them till I got back on my feet. Cost them a huge part of their savings. I hadn’t held a card in my hand since then.

But I couldn’t tell Betsy Sue that and this was her way of reaching out to me. This was an opening; she was actually speaking and communicating with me. How could I say no to that? What harm would one game do?

“Sure.”

The girl picked up the cards and started shuffling them in the same way I remembered the dealers do at the casinos. I stared at her completely baffled at her way of handling the cards so professionally.

“I take it you have played before?” I asked.

She didn’t answer and started dealing. I looked at my cards. A five and an eight. “Hit me,” I said. She turned a card. The queen of hearts. “Argh.”

“Bust. House wins.” She collected the cards.

She dealt new cards. I asked for another hit. “Who taught you to play this?” I asked.

“The doctor,” she said.

“Would the doctor play with you?”

“Sometimes.”

“Who else would you play with?” I asked while she gave me another card. “Hit me again.”

She put down another card leaving me on twenty.

“I stand,” I said.

She shrugged and gave herself another card making her hit precisely twenty-one. “Sometimes I could convince Miss Muffit to play, but she always lost.”

“Miss Muffit liked to play too? Who else liked to play?”

“All the girls liked to play,” she said. “It could get really boring at the house sometimes.” Betsy Sue looked at me. “House won again.”

“You’re good,” I said making a mental note that there had been several girls, more than just Miss Muffit. It made my heart throb thinking that this doctor apparently had kidnapped many girls and kept them hidden.

“One more please.”

“So who would you say you liked the best of the girl at the house? Who was your best friend?”

“Millie. She was fun to play with.”

“Millie, huh? Why was she fun to play with?”

Betsy Sue shrugged, then dealt another round. I asked for a hit again.

“Who else was there with you?” I asked.

“You ask a lot of questions, don’t you?” The girl said.

“I’m curious. Did you like it there at the house?”

“I guess. It was my home. It was all I knew. I was born there.”

I wrinkled my forehead. “You were what?”

“You need to get those ears checked,” she said. “You always ask me to repeat things.”

“Okay, you’re right. I heard you the first time, I just found it hard to believe. I mean your parents say you were born at a hospital and that you lived with them the first five years. Did the doctor tell you that you were born at the house?”

Betsy Sue shook her head. “No. Rachel told me she took care of me when I was a baby.”

“Aha. Rachel. Is that one of the other girls at the doctor’s house?”

Betsy Sue laughed. “No, silly. She used to live there.”

“What do you mean? She escaped like you did?”

Betsy Sue shook her head. “No. She can’t leave the house.”

“So what do you mean that she used to live there?” I asked annoyed. This was making no sense at all.

“Are you playing cards or what?” Betsy Sue asked.

“Of course, sorry, hit me again.” I looked at the card but didn’t really pay attention and asked for another hit. “So what did you mean when you said she
used
to live there?” I repeated.

“She lived in the house till her dad killed her.”

Again with the ghost stories! I need answers! Damn it. I need to find my son.

I fought the urge to get mad at Betsy Sue, but held it back. I had to remember what she had been through. Of course she had a hard time dividing reality from her fantasy. This doctor had held her hostage for five years. It was vital that I kept her talking now. She was the only one who could lead me to this doctor.

“So tell me more about the doctor,” I said. “What did he look like?”

Betsy Sue shrugged again. “House wins,” she said and gathered the cards before she added. “Again.”

She dealt us new cards and I realized she wasn’t going to answer my question.

“What can you tell me about the house you stayed in? Was it a big house?”

Betsy Sue nodded.

“How many did you live in the house? How many girls were you when going to sleep at night?”

Betsy Sue started counting on her fingers. “Thirteen,” she said.

I almost dropped my jaw. Thirteen? Thirteen girls? Could they all have been kidnapped? It was almost too much to believe.

“Is that counting the ghosts as well?” I asked.

“No silly. Ghosts don’t sleep. They don’t have to.”

“Of course not. Hit me again.”

She turned a card and I folded. “Bust again. House wins.”

“Do you miss it there?” I asked as she shuffled the cards again. “Do you miss being at the doctor’s place?”

“I guess,” she said.

“So why did you run away?”

“I told you I wanted to see the ocean.”

“But why now? And why didn’t you just go back after you had seen the ocean?”

She shrugged and looked at the cards.

“I didn’t want to become a ghost myself.”