Buried (A Bone Secrets Novel 03) (12 page)

How they both had managed to escape was a mystery.

Their escape was a personal affront to him. A score he’d wanted to settle for a long time. No one else had ever humiliated him like that. Not since he was a teen.

He’d been visiting the boys about once a week before they vanished. His day job was a nine-to-five requirement, and sometimes he was simply too tired to make the long drive to visit the boys. Truth be told, just thinking about his captives in their prison was enough mental fantasy fuel to get him to the weekend. He’d kept people before. Adults. Both men and women. People he’d found on the streets of Portland or Salem who seemed like they wouldn’t be readily missed.

Disposable people.

Male or female didn’t matter to him too much. Both were useful. Both served the needs he had. He’d been surprised to find that almost-teen boys worked as well. The younger children he’d snatched were a waste of time. He’d disposed of them quickly. But the older boys…that had been different.

He closed his eyes. When he was younger, boys had been the enemy. They hit him, kicked him, spit on him, and called him names. Girls had simply looked the other way. When he was thirteen he’d fought back. Bruce had been one of the
worst bullies. He and his buddies had been taunting Gerald on the bus. It was his usual daily ride from hell. When they’d got off the bus, Bruce’s mouth hadn’t stopped. As they walked past the apartment garbage dumpsters, Gerald snapped. He remembered seeing red, feeling his anger bleed into rage. He’d dropped his backpack, grabbed the gate to the dumpsters, and swung it into Bruce’s face. Wailing, Bruce dropped to his knees, his hands covering the blood that dripped from his nose.

And Gerald felt the rush. The rush of pleasure and adrenaline and high that came from the dominance. He’d stood over the groveling boy, his heart pounding, and was instantly addicted.

It’d changed his life.

It’d awakened a bloodlust he’d never dreamed existed. The sight of the boy in pain from his action was energizing. And it proved that he had the ability to take control.

It was better to be the executor than the victim.

In the bunker, one of the kidnapped boys had fought back immediately. He couldn’t recall which one. But it’d been eye-opening. The rest of the children had cowered and annoyed him. But the older two boys had shown fight.

He’d kept the boys.

He would have never believed boys could do that for him as an adult if it hadn’t been for a phone call twenty years ago from the prosecutor.

He hadn’t seen the county prosecutor in two years. The prosecutor had dropped several of the charges pending against him when the police couldn’t produce key evidence. He’d sweated during the hearing, knowing full well the police had collected plenty of evidence that proved he’d been present at Sandra Edge’s murder. They didn’t have proof that his hands had
touched her, but they definitely had proof that he’d been in the room with her and his buddy, Lee.

But then the blood and trace evidence from the sheets and carpets went missing. Not just a little bit of evidence, a lot of it. All the important parts were completely gone.

The prosecutor scared him. He’d been a sharp, intense, and intelligent man. Gerald had firmly believed he was going to prison for a very long time. Instead, he served a few months on a much lesser charge.

He’d gotten away with accessory to murder.

Lee ended up getting the murder rap. Which he’d deserved. He’d been the one who’d actually finished strangling Sandra, and he was stupid enough to admit it.

For two years, Gerald had stressed, waiting to hear that the evidence had turned up in a dark corner of a storage room somewhere. Instead, when the phone call came, the message and the person who made the call were unexpected.

Yes, the evidence was still in existence. No, it hadn’t been lost. Yes, the evidence would stay away from the courts if Gerald would do him a favor.

“What kind of favor?” he’d asked.

“I need a kid taken care of.”

A kid?

The former prosecutor had gone on to say he was fully aware of Gerald’s role in Sandra’s murder.

“Why me?”

“Because I know what you’re capable of. And if you don’t, you’ll be in prison for the rest of your life.”

“And after I take care of this for you?”

There’d been a long pause on the phone. “I might have a permanent job for you.”

Gerald had been interested in the job. He’d done it well for over two decades now and wasn’t about to let his employer down again. He knew when he’d kept the boys that his employer wasn’t going to be happy, so he didn’t tell him. His boss had been royally pissed that so many children had been affected when only one needed attention.

Gerald had shrugged. “I handled it the way I saw best. You needed fast action and you got it. No witnesses to anything. Plus, it confuses the motive. With so many kids gone, who was the primary target? Or was there a mass target? It’ll keep the police scratching their heads for years.”

After that his boss had no complaints about his job. He’d been impressed for two years when no evidence of the missing children had been found. No sign of the bus or the driver anywhere. His boss had never asked for details about how he’d accomplished the feat.

Then Chris Jacobs had walked out of the woods. Half dead, no memory, and miles from the underground bunker.

His boss had nearly blown a gasket. But when he learned of the boy’s brain damage, he relaxed a bit. At that point, he grilled Gerald on the fates of the other children and then relaxed a bit more.

Gerald had been crazy to hang on to the two boys for as long as he did, but they’d fueled his soul in a way that adults never did.

Now Jamie Jacobs was proving to be a challenge.

He watched the line of vehicles snaking through the drive-through, reliving the events of that morning. Jamie was the type of woman who made men turn around and watch as she walked by. He hadn’t been with a woman in over a month now, and he could still feel the silkiness of her skin from this morning. He shifted in his seat.

He needed to get laid.

He had a list of phone numbers of women who weren’t too expensive.
Damn it.
Every woman on that list belonged in Walmart, and he was craving Saks Fifth Avenue.

Gerald’s phone vibrated in his car console. He popped it open and scowled at the screen.
Already? He’s asking for an update already? Shit.
He hit the green button.

“Yeah.”

“What the fuck happened this morning? What did you do? There are cops crawling all over the Jacobs house.”

Gerald’s chest tightened.
An adult bully.
Gerald overlooked it because he knew it meant his boss was sweating a bit. And he liked the pleasure from putting his boss in that situation.

He had control. Not his boss.

“I was looking for a lead on her brother. You knew that. I didn’t expect her to come home so fast. She might have got a bit banged up on my way out.”

He wasn’t about to mention that the woman had neatly handed his ass to him.

“What’d you find?”

“I’ve got a stack of paperwork and mail to look through. A couple of address books, too.” He lied.

“I got something that’ll work a bit faster for you.”

“Like what?”

“Michael Brody, a reporter, is showing an unnatural interest in Jamie Jacobs.”

“I figured he was watching the story pretty close because of his brother, but you mean a personal interest in the woman?” Gerald’s gut twisted in an odd way. Something about Brody and Jamie together didn’t sit right with him.

“Exactly.
A personal interest.
And I know this guy. When he’s got his nose deep in a story, nothing gets in his way. He’s gonna dig until he unearths Chris Jacobs.”

“You want me to wait and follow him?”

“See? You’re smart. That’s why I hired you. Other than the one big fuck-up way back, you usually pull things through.”

Gerald swallowed the bitter words he wanted to hurl at the man. “You know me best, boss.”

“Damn right. And don’t ever forget I own your ass.”

Ditto.

“You want to explain to me what you’re doing in the damned bull’s-eye of this case?”

“Not my fault,” Michael said into his phone. Detective Mason Callahan could bitch all he wanted, but Michael knew the man held a grudging respect for him. And vice versa.

“I could swear I told you to stay away from the Jacobs woman.”

Michael ignored him. “They told you he beat her up pretty good?”

“Yeah, she okay?”

“She will be.” Michael leaned against the fender of his truck, twisting to catch sight of Jamie. She still sat on her lawn, the Mylar blanket next to her on the grass, trying to recall the tats she’d seen. A cop handed her a bottled water and squatted beside her as she sketched, studying her drawing.

“I was told the attacker wanted to know the whereabouts of Chris Jacobs. And that he told her he’d made the scars on her brother’s face.”

“That’s right,” said Michael. “And threatened to do the same to her.”

“Doesn’t mean he’s the one who actually made the marks on her brother. It was even in newspaper articles back then that the boy had been burned with cigarettes,” Callahan stated.

Michael didn’t have an answer for that.

“What reason could he have to want her brother if it’s not because Chris might get some of his memory back and identify him?” Michael argued.

“Maybe he owes him money,” Callahan quipped.

“Fuck you.”

Callahan laughed. “I’ll interview Jamie. Hear what she has to say.”

Michael wasn’t done. “She thinks he was in his late forties, maybe early fifties. That’d put him at the right age to pull that shit twenty years ago.”

“I’m not saying he didn’t. Christ, Brody. I’ll follow up. Right now I’ve got a stack of children’s autopsy reports on my desk. I take a break from reading them every fifteen minutes to go punch the wall, I get so pissed. After I get through those reports, I have a smaller stack from the pit with the adult remains. I’ll make you a deal. I’ll swap jobs with you. You read, and I’ll drive around town in the sun, getting a tan and sticking my nose into other people’s business.”

“I get it, Callahan.”

The detective’s voice lowered. “I’ll get to her, Brody. I want the bastard as bad as you do.”

“Impossible,” Michael muttered.

“Too bad he’s so average looking. Nothing really stands out visually.”

“What?” Michael stood straighter. “Didn’t they mention the tattoos?”

“Tattoos?” Callahan asked sharply.

“Tats on the backs of his wrists. Jamie got the impression they went a lot farther up his arms.”

Callahan’s swearing made Michael pull the phone away from his ear.

“What?” Michael said when Callahan stopped to catch a breath. “What the fuck is up with the tats?”

“We’ve got pictures.”

“Pictures? Pictures from what?”

Callahan had turned away from his phone and was urgently talking to someone in the background.

“Callahan. What pictures?” Michael spoke through clenched teeth.

“Lusco’s pulling them up. Fucking pervert.”

“Lusco?” Michael could hear the other detective’s voice in the background now.

“No, Jamie’s attacker.”

Michael was ready to strangle the detective. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

Callahan cleared his throat. “We found pictures in the bunker. Old Polaroids. Sick Polaroids. They weren’t even hidden. They were just left on one of the shelves for anyone to find.”

Michael’s stomach turned to pure acid.
Daniel?

“The creep took some nasty pics of those kids. His hands, or someone’s hands, show in some of them. There’re tats on the wrists.”

“His wrists?”

“Yeah, they don’t look like they go up his arms. Forearms are clear. It’s just a few Asian characters on the backs of the wrists. Pretty big, though. About an inch and a half in diameter.”

“You can’t see his face?” Michael asked. His head suddenly felt weightless. He leaned on his elbows on his hood, head down.

“Not of him. Just the kids. Nothing else shows of the adult.”

Michael didn’t want to know any more. No details. His brain was supplying too many details of its own.

“What’d Jamie say the tattoos looked like?” Callahan asked.

“She didn’t say. She’s working on some sketches with the cops. I don’t know if she saw specifics. She said there were a lot of them.”

“He could have added to them.”

“Hang on, Callahan.” Michael strode over to the lawn where Jamie sat. “Hey, princess, you come up with any images yet?”

Jamie gave him a weak smile. “Don’t call me princess, please.” She looked down at her paper. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I can’t picture them.”

“I told her to start with just colors,” the cop next to her said. “Then add stark lines or shapes.”

“Let me see.” Michael held his hand out for the paper.

It appeared she’d traced her own hands and wrists for the outlines. She’d made muted multicolored swirls that started at mid-forearm and spread nearly to the knuckles. The colors intensified on the backs of the hands. Blues, reds, greens.