Blood Sport (12 page)

“Just don’t hug me
, okay?”

Laughing
, Finn agreed. “So where are you taking them?”

“To the local jail for now
. I’m going to interview Flint as soon as he’s had medical treatment. We can’t afford to waste any time.”

“Can I sit in?”

“How did I know you were going to ask that? You can observe. Best I can do.”

“Good enough.”

Thirty-Seven

Finn looked at his old high school teacher through the glass. Though physically it was clearly the same man, he seemed different. Whether it was the fact that Finn now knew what terrible secrets he had hidden, or whether it was because now that he was in custody he’d let his mask slip, he didn’t know.

“His lawyer’s here at last, now we can get started.” Callahan had been pacing back and forth for the last two hours waiting for him to arrive. Flint had
refused to say anything and had immediately lawyered up when they’d started to question him.

Finn watched as Callahan made his way into the room and sat down across the table from them.

“Mr Flint, you know what you’re here for. Do yourself a favour and tell us everything you know. We know there are a lot more of you, if you co-operate I’ll tell the judge and who knows, he might go easier on you.”

Flint smirked. “No comment.”

Callahan carried on “you know, these are very serious charges and we’re in a death penalty state. Your cooperation could be the difference between life in prison or the needle.”

Flint leaned over to talk to his lawyer before sitting back in his chair and crossing his arms. “Get the D.A. down here and if the deal is good enough, I may be able to help you.”

Suspending the interview, Callahan left the room. “Bastard lawyer” he spat as he joined Finn in the viewing room. “We need that information so I’ll have to speak to the D.A. and see what they can do.

They spent another restless hour drinking bad coffee from the machine in the corridor
waiting for the D.A. to arrive, and it took another two hours to come to a deal that Flint and his lawyer were happy with. Finn wasn’t happy about it, though. He wanted to see the bastard die for what he’d done, but if they wanted to know about the others involved and what had happened to the other kids, they’d had to agree to take the death penalty off the table.

Eventually
, though, he started talking and what he told them was worse than anything they’d imagined.

The network of fight clubs was at least fifty strong, and all of them were holding young boys captive. He seemed to get a thrill out of telling them that it spanned the whole of the U
nited States and had been in operation for decades. He’d told them about his black book containing details of all the clubs and it was immediately retrieved from his property. A massive operation would be mounted by the FBI in the coming days to raid all of the premises listed simultaneously. Thankfully, Flint’s pride had stopped him alerting the others to his failure.

The most shocking revelation though came when he was asked what had happened to all the kids he had kidnapped over the years that were no longer kept in his dungeon. He showed no emotion, no remorse, as he calmly told them that the ones that didn’t make it, or who weren’t considered good enough, were buried in one of the fields on his farm. Shockingly, he couldn’t remember the exact number
; they meant that little to him.

Thirty
-Eight

The weather suited the mood as they stood in the field two days later. The sky was gray and the rain had started again, soaking the ground and making puddles in the mud. “Why don’t you go home? I’ll call you with any news.”

Kat could see the concern on Finn’s
face but she had no intention of leaving. “No, I’m staying.” She was pleased he didn’t argue. She didn’t want to have to explain that she felt she needed to be here in this terrible place. Needed to be here for the boys. She’d left Daniel at home with Jamie; he was safe now but these boys, they had no one here to care for them so it felt right that she be here.

Callahan
had organized the activity now taking place in the field. There was a team who specialized in body recovery, a team of forensic anthropologists and several senior FBI officials. It was left to them now, and all they could do was watch and wait.

“I am sorry
, you know,” she said. “Sorrier than you’ll ever know.” She turned to look at him but he kept facing the field.

“I know.”

“Are we ever going to be able to move past this?” She needed to know. She’d waited long enough and after everything she’d been through over the past few days she didn’t want to wait any longer.

He turned to her then. “It hurt
, Kat. Not just what you did. I can understand that, I guess, though it would have been different if you’d just told me. No, what hurt the most was that for twenty years you stayed away and kept this from me.” He sighed “If you hadn’t come back for Jamie, would you ever have told me?”

“Probably not.” She knew she had to honest with him if she wanted any chance of salvaging any part of their relationship.

He nodded, as if she was confirming something he already knew. “But I’ve learned over the past few days just how fleeting life is. So yes, Kat, we’ll get past this. It just may take a little time.”

She couldn’t ask for anything more
, so left it there and turned her attention back to the field.

***

It didn’t take long for the first body to be found and over the next few days, the whole field was probed until they were happy that they’d recovered all the bodies that had been buried there. It would take months to identify the remains and return them to their families, but at least they would be going home at last.

“
Coffee?” Finn asked, pouring out two cups.

“Sure, that would be good.” Callahan took
the offering and led the way into the chief’s office.

“So today was the last day out on the field?”

“Yep. All the kids on the list are accounted for except one. The forensic anthropologist was able to tell us that, although they’ve not been identified yet, none of the bodies recovered was female.”

“So what happens now?”

“Well, we’ve tried to question Flint some more but as soon as we mentioned the girl he clammed up. We won’t be getting any more out of him. We’re going to have to face the possibility that we’ll never find out what happened to her.”

Thirty
-Nine

“Okay, we’re off!” Jamie’s voice reached her in the kitchen.

“Hang on!”
Wiping her hands, which were wet from washing the breakfast dishes, she quickly went into the hall. Daniel, holding Jamie’s hand, was beaming, clearly excited.

“So you got everything?”
She counted the items off on her hand. “Sunscreen, hat, pocket money?”

“Yeesssss
! Can we go now?”

Kat laughed as she dropped to her knees and gave him a hug. “Sure
, honey. Have a great time and be good for Jamie, okay?” She was taking him to a fair that was taking place in the next town over. Kat had wanted to take him, but it was her turn to visit Jake so Jamie had insisted on ditching work and taking him herself.

“Any problems call me
, okay?” She directed this at Jamie.

“There won’t be any. Give Jake my love.”

Kat stood at the door, watching as they got in the car and then drove off, leaving her alone for the first time in days. She had an hour before she had to leave to make visiting time at the prison and she had a lot of stuff to catch up on. She hadn’t been into the office for days and she still had all the property records that she’d borrowed from the town council office. If she was quick, she could drop the files back into town and come back via the office and check in.

Humming to herself, she went into the office at the back of the house to collect the files that she’d left there before all hell had broken loose. She hadn’t even had chance to go through them and she clearly didn’t need to now but
curiosity, or just plain nosiness, got the best of her. Sitting down in the chair behind the desk, she went through the pile until she found the records for the farmhouse where she had been held.
That’s odd.
The farmhouse wasn’t in Flint’s name; it was in the name of a Jayne Flint. Changing her plans, she decided that she would hang on to the records for another day and have a closer look tonight when she got back from the visit.

Her thoughts turned to her nephew as she set off on the drive to the prison. She hadn’t really had any time to worry about what he’d said to Jami
e over the past few days but now that she was on her way to see him, her initial concern returned and she was determined to find out what he meant.

S
itting at the same screen where Jamie had sat the week previously, Kat was shocked when Jake finally came through the door on the other side. One of his arms was in a sling and was quite obviously causing him pain from the way he cradled it. But what was even more shocking was his face. As he sat down opposite her, Kat took in the swollen and bruised left eye socket and cheek and the nasty cut to his lip. “What on earth happened?” she asked him as soon as he picked up the handset.

He wouldn’t meet her eyes. “Something and nothing. No big deal.”

“Are you kidding me? Have you looked in a mirror today?”

“Honestly
, Kat, it’s nothing. Please, don’t push.”

She could hear the tone in his voice and it worried her. He really didn’t want her to push this
, but why? “Jake, what’s going on?” She kept her voice low. “What you said to your sister, about if anything happens to you, what did you mean?”

He looked up and met her eyes then and there was no disguising the fear in them. “Nothing. I meant nothing
, Kat. Please just leave it.” She watched as he glanced at the guard before turning back to her. “I’ve got to go. I’m sorry,” he said before quickly, hanging up the phone before she had the chance to reply and telling the guard he wanted to be taken back to his cell.

Stunned
, Kat just sat there for a moment before standing up and making her way outside.
What was that all about?

Forty

“Did you ha
ve a good time?” Kat asked as Daniel came barreling in and threw his arms around her neck. The change in him was incredible. As soon as he’d been told that Flint was in jail, it had been as if a switch had been flipped inside him and he felt safe enough to be a kid again.

“It was the best! Look what I got!”

Kat acted suitably impressed by the goldfish in a bag that he was holding out for her inspection. “Well, you’d better go to the kitchen and see if you can’t find a bowl to put him in, then.” She smiled as she watched him go, talking to the fish.

“He’s a great kid
, Kat, truly a great kid,” Jamie said, also watching him go.

Once Kat was happy he was out of earshot
, she turned to her. “You were right. Something’s going on with Jake.”

“I knew it. Did he say anything else today?”

“No, but something’s obviously happened.” She filled her in on what she’d seen.

“So
, what do we do?”

“I’m g
oing to talk to Finn and see what he suggests. Something is telling me that I shouldn’t talk to the prison directly, but I don’t know how else to approach this.”

She had another reason to talk to Finn. Something was bothering her. It was probably nothing
, but she had the feeling they were missing something.

“I’ll go and talk to him tomorrow. I’ve got to head into town in the morning anyway
, so I may as well pop in while I’m there.”

The conversation ended there as Daniel returned with the goldfish, the bag and a small desert bowl. “Will this one be ok
ay?”

Looking at each other Kat and Jamie both laughed. “I think he might need a bit more room than that. Come on, we’ll help you look.

Forty-One

Leaving Daniel at home with Jamie, Kat put the land records in the back seat of her car and headed into town.

After dropping the files off and thanking the property records clerk
, she walked to the police station where Sandy told her to go in to the squad room. She could see Finn sitting behind the chief’s old desk in the office, talking to Callahan, and made her way over.

“Hi, sorry to interrupt
,” she said as she knocked on the open door.

Finn waved her in. “You didn’t. We were just g
oing over some last stuff about the case. Tying up a few loose ends.”

“Well, that’s one of the things that I wanted to see you about. I don’t know how I’d forgotten it before, but something happened when I was held at the farmhouse.”

“What, Kat?”

“Well
, at one point he had me upstairs, trying to find out information about the investigation.”

“
Yep, you told us that.”

“Yes, but what I forgot to tell you was that while I was there he took a phone call and from what I could tell at my end someone was giving him information on what the police were doing.”

She watched as they exchanged a look. “What? What’s going on?”

“Well
, we figured he was getting his information from somewhere because that’s the only way he could possibly have known we were coming and have gotten out of there so fast.”

“
Do you know where he was getting it from?”

Callahan shook his head. “No, that’s the bit where we’re stumped.”

“He won’t tell us,” Finn chimed in, “and whoever it was was using an untraceable cell phone so we can’t get it from his phone records.

“Well
, maybe this will help. I looked at the land records before I took them back and there was a woman’s name listed on the title.”

“Really? Can you remember what it was
, Kat?” Finn sat up straighter in his chair.

“
Jayne Flint.”

“
What? I didn’t think he had any family? He’s never been married that I know of and he doesn’t have any kids.” Finn looked confused.

“
I don’t know but maybe he does have family that we just don’t know about?”

“
Well, it’s certainly something we need to look into. Thanks, Kat. I’m not sure how we missed this.”

“You didn’t
. You had no way of knowing.” She cleared her throat. “Anyway, that’s not why I came to see you. I wanted to talk to you about Jake.”

“Would you like me to give you some privacy?” Callahan asked
, preparing to stand.

“No, not at all.” Kat reassured him.

“How’s he coping?” Finn had known Jake all his life and although they hadn’t been close, they’d been friends.

“Not well.” Kat told him about Jamie’s visit and then her own. “Something’s going on but he won’t tell us what.” She paused. “I think it has something to do with one of the guards but I’m not sure, that’s why I don’t want to go to the prison direct
ly.”

“Do you want me to go and talk to him?” Finn offered.

“Yes, please, Finn. Thank you, that would be great. Are you sure you don’t’ mind?”

“Not at all
. Once this case is all wrapped up, I’ll get it organized.”

“Great!
Okay, I’d better head back.” Feeling happier about the Jake situation, Kat left. She was looking forward to spending a peaceful afternoon at home with Jamie and Daniel now that this was all over. For them at least.