BoneMan's Daughters (20 page)

He felt himself guided by an innate need to know. To the foot of the ladder. Up the metal rungs, one step at a time.

His gut and his heart and his mind were all staging a fullscale revolt, demanding he get off the ladder, away from the vicinity
of the taking, to protect himself from the agonizing images that flooded his mind.

His daughter screaming into duct tape as her wide eyes searched for meaning.

Daddy!

Daddy, Daddy, please!

How he managed to hoist himself over the railing he wasn’t sure, because by the time he reached the top of the ladder, he
was a limp mess. He stood on the balcony facing drawn blinds, now regretting his decision to climb the ladder. He couldn’t
possibly go inside!

But he had to. He had to know what his daughter had felt and seen when BoneMan had come.

Pushing back a dreadful ache, he tried the door, found it open, and slid it wide. The room inside was a storage room, not
the bedroom. Bethany’s bed was in the next one over.

Her white sheets were tucked in at the bottom, otherwise strewn about as if ripped from her and left to lie half off the bed.
He could still see the indentation of her head in the pillow.

This was his first time in her room since his return, and he hated himself for it. If he could have even one day back, he
would deny every court authority known to man to make his love evident to his daughter.

He’d buy her a car. A room full of roses. He’d fly her to Dubai and put her up in a suite that cost four grand a night and
demand the staff bring her anything she wanted without the slightest thought of cost.

He would fall to his knees and beg her forgiveness and tell her how much he loved her.

Seven days, as of yesterday, when the message had been left. That left just over six days.

Ryan turned from the room, wiped his eyes, set his jaw, and walked downstairs.

They were in the living room; he could hear them before he saw them.

“Every hour you delay is one more he’s got.”

“We need more.”

“Then get more. You have Celine’s testimony, that’s enough to bring him in. For God’s sake, we don’t have time to sit around
on this.”

Ryan stopped in the doorway and looked at them. Burton Welsh, the man whom he’d attacked, tall, cleanly shaven. The smell
of aftershave had to be his.

Ricki Valentine, the FBI agent who’d interrogated him in the hotel two months earlier. The small woman with a big heart.

Celine, dressed in a green flowered dress, pacing, nursing a bandaged forefinger at the end of her slung arm.

He tried to say something but his voice suddenly felt inadequate. He didn’t belong here; he belonged out where BoneMan wanted
him, bartering for his daughter’s life.

“Ryan?”

Ricki Valentine had seen him. They all turned to look at him, and he wanted to run because he knew that even now the effects
of that empty bed upstairs were haunting his sanity.

But there was nothing to do. He couldn’t turn and run because that would only make him the object of their search rather than
BoneMan. He couldn’t say anything to them because there was nothing to say that made sense to him.

He could only stand there and return their stares.

“Well, speak of the devil,” the DA said. “What are you doing here?”

The FBI agent shot him an angry glare and closed half the distance between them. “I’m sorry, Captain, I’m sure this is very
upsetting.”

“Why didn’t anyone call me?” he asked.

“Get him out of here.” Celine glared at him like a wolf standing off a bear. “Get him out!”

“Celine?” Something was wrong. He’d come with news, but…

And then he understood. The DA had been talking about him when he’d walked up. Welsh wanted to bring him in for questioning.

Rage flared up his back. “What’s going on?” he demanded.

“For starters, you’re in violation of the court’s order,” Welsh snapped.

Ryan’s last restraint was severed. “My daughter has been kidnapped!” He thundered the last word, face flushed and hot. “And
no one even bothered to call me?”

“I’m sorry, Captain,” Ricki said. “I know these aren’t ideal circumstances for you, but we have to be careful.”

Celine had taken several steps backwards, where she stood against the couch, trembling. “What are you doing, Ryan?”

“Don’t stand there shaking as if I was the one who broke your finger. Our daughter’s out there!”

“Why didn’t you tell Agent Valentine the truth about your association with the BoneMan in Iraq, Captain?” Welsh asked, head
tilted down slightly.

“I… What association? It’s classified. I don’t see what that has to do with—”

“You just happen to come out of the desert spinning tales of your nightmares about the BoneMan and now he takes your daughter
as his next victim after a two-year absence? Forgive me if it doesn’t all seem just a bit much.”

The man was accusing him? “He… Serial killers! He was comparing us to serial killers. I said BoneMan for effect. Why
did you tell the media about my claims? That’s how he found me!”

“Is that right?” Clearly the man didn’t believe a word he said.

Ryan turned to the Ricki. “What about you?”

She shrugged. “There are a lot of questions that need answering.”

Ryan turned on Celine, furious and unable to hide his anger. “How could you think this?”

But her eyes were fired with fear and he knew that something very definite had convinced her that he might present a danger
to her.

“You just, what, left the alarm off so that he could walk in here and take my daughter!?”

“I’m waiting for your full file, Ryan,” Welsh said. “But I really don’t need to see it to know that the BoneMan killings just
happen to line up with the dates you were between tours.”

“Don’t be asinine! That’s pure coincidence.”

“Is it? And when you broke Celine’s finger, you told her to tell me it was payback. Is that what all of this is, Captain?
Payback for your own bitterness?”

A uniformed police officer had presented himself in the doorway leading to the kitchen, blocking any escape. Surely they didn’t
really think he was the BoneMan!

“If you’ve read my file, then you know I was a victim of torture, not the torturer. You’re wasting time while he’s out there
with my daughter.”

“It must have been hard, watching all those children die,” Welsh said. “I can understand why you snapped.”

“That is irrelevant!” He was breathing hard. “We only have six days to find him—”

Ricki’s right eyebrow arched. “Six days? Care to elaborate?”

“He called me. He said that it took the father seven days to create her and now he was going to give me seven days to save
her.”

“Really?” Welsh smirked. “He just
happened
to call you?”

So that was it, then. Between Celine’s harrowing experience the night of the kidnapping during which BoneMan had broken her
finger and Ryan’s experience in the desert, the DA was ready to pin the abduction on him.

A jealous father suffering from PTSD, caving in to his true nature by taking his own daughter.

He looked at Ricki. “You buy this?”

“Like I said, there’re some questions that need answering. Do you mind telling us where you were two nights ago?”

“Home. Asleep.”

“Alone?”

Something else occurred to him. BoneMan had issued him a personal challenge. Bethany’s life hung in the balance of
his
choices now. And looking in the DA’s eyes, there was little doubt that the man had no intention of letting Ryan walk from
this room a free man to make any choice at all.

He stared at Welsh and saw him for what he was, an obstacle to saving his daughter’s life.

“Alone? No, actually, I was with some good friends who stayed over after a night of poker. I’m sure they wouldn’t mind if
you called them.”

“We will. Father Hortense tells me you’ve been pretty much a hermit these last two months. Hard to imagine you having a whole
passel of close friends.”

Both doors were now blocked. Where the second cop had come from, Ryan didn’t know, but he was hemmed in.

“None of this should be that difficult to settle,” Ricki said. “You say he called you?”

“Yes.” Ryan nodded and eased closer to the kitchen entryway. “He left me a message.”

“Where’s the message?”

Erased
, he almost said.

“At home.”

The urge to panic was now fully grown and biting its way out of his chest. He had to get out!

Follow me where the crows fly alone
. As in, where the crow flies by itself.

Or was it
Follow me where the crows fly, alone?
As in, come by yourself.

Either way, he had to get out and he had to get out now!

“Then you don’t mind going with me to get it,” the agent said.

“It’s… I live in Waco now.”

“Then we should get started.”

The DA stepped forward. “I’m sorry, Agent Valentine, I can’t allow you to take this man out of my custody.” He nodded at the
cop behind Ryan. “He’ll have to tell you where it is. I’m sure you can appreciate my concern, but—”

Ryan threw himself backwards into the cop. His back was met by a startled shove, precisely the reaction he’d hoped for. He
ducked and spun while the cop’s hands were still up, blocking his charge.

The forty-five semiauto slid out of the man’s holster like butter. And then Ryan was by the wall, gun up, trained on the cop
who guarded the front door.

“Gun on the floor, gun on the floor, now! You too, Agent Valentine!”

The man glanced at the DA, then slowly complied.

Ricki eyed him. “This is no way to save your daughter, Ryan.”

“You, Agent, know nothing about me or my daughter. Put your gun on the floor and kick it over to me. Now!”

She slipped a nine-millimeter out of her shoulder holster, slowly set it on the floor, and kicked it over.

Ryan grabbed the gun and stuffed it behind his belt. He motioned to both cops and nodded at the wall. “Against the wall. All
of you.”

Welsh cursed bitterly.

“Get. Against. The wall!” Ryan shouted.

The man reluctantly stepped up to the wall next to Celine, who was whimpering. They stood five abreast now, facing the wall.

“On your knees.”

Ricki began to protest, but Ryan told her to save her breath.

The room quieted while Ryan spun through his options. Beyond this point he hadn’t considered any elaborate plans. He knew
that he had to find Bethany, he knew that he would do anything and everything in his power for even one chance to stop BoneMan.
If need be he would gladly sacrifice his or any of these five lives for Bethany’s life.

The thought stopped him behind them. Would he?

But he couldn’t think straight enough to answer the question. He backed to the front door.

“Stay there,” he said. “Just stay there.”

Then he slipped out and ran for his car.

THE EARTH FILLED her nostrils, a damp, cool smell that might mean she was in a pit or a grave or a root cellar somewhere.
But Bethany couldn’t see. A blindfold prevented the light from reaching her eyes, assuming there was light.

She was alone, she was pretty sure of that. Tied to the metal post behind her so she could only slump over for rest with some
pain to her shoulders and back. He’d come and gone several times, but mostly he was gone. And when he was with her, he said
nothing aloud.

He’d whispered in her ear several times, telling her that she was beautiful and the perfect lamb to take away the sin of the
world.

He untied her once and led her to a commode to do her business.

Bethany wasn’t sure how much time had passed, a day at least, enough time so that the initial terror of her abduction had
passed, replaced by a dull anguish, a certainty of the inevitable pain awaiting her.

She’d been taken by the BoneMan. Her mother’s new lover had brought BoneMan upon them and it was only a matter of time before
he began to break her bones.

A slight medicinal odor lingered from BoneMan’s last visit, hours earlier. He’d wiped lotion on her face and neck and quietly
rubbed it in. She couldn’t shake the thought of a butcher marinating his choice cut before lowering it over the flame.

But she’d held her tongue and he whispered something in her ear then that gave her the first narrow thread of hope she’d been
able to grasp since he’d taken her.

“You’re much braver than the rest.”

It was the tone of his voice more than the words that made her think he had just shown a weakness. He respected her courage.
Even seemed taken back by it.

And true, the images from horror movies of victims trembling in their own waste did not fit here, not with her, at least not
now that she was thinking clearly again.

Bethany remembered opening her eyes in her bedroom the moment before the dark figure over her shoved the needle into her neck.
Twisting to stare into the eyes of a tall stranger with a strong, fleshy, pale face and blue eyes. The drug had immobilized
her almost immediately and the next time she dragged herself into a conscious state she’d found herself bound up and gagged
on the floor of a pickup truck.

She’d panicked and thrashed about, screaming raw through the gag, and a boot or a bat had silenced her with a single hard
blow to her temple.

The next time she’d come to she was here, sitting on this concrete floor strapped to the pipe behind her. The gag had been
removed and she’d screamed for help for an hour before finally concluding that anyone as meticulous and accomplished as the
BoneMan had surely thought of that.

She leaned back and rubbed her head against the pipe, attempting to dislodge the blindfold again, to no avail. Her neck ached,
as if it had been broken, which she knew was an impossibility.

A shudder passed through her bones. The truth was, fear had stalked her like a lion and no matter how strong she pretended
to be, it was eating her raw.

The argument she’d had with Celine about moving to New York sat at the edge of her mind, a ridiculous little lump of history
that felt so distant now, she couldn’t be sure it had really happened. The very idea of modeling in New York now struck her
as an obscene joke. However irrational it might seem, she put the blame for BoneMan on Ryan as much as on Burt. Both men,
both lousy father figures, both offering a false sense of security.