Authors: J. A. Carlton
“Yeah… yeah,” he looked toward the bench and began to crawl.
11
Boomer drove Pete and Jase toward the Backer cabin, “How much longer?” Pete asked.
“Dave’s cabin is still a few miles up the road,” he glanced quickly between the two detectives. “You really think he might’ve taken her there?”
His foot lifted off the accelerator at the sight of a dark muscle car pitched cockeyed on the curb just ahead. It appeared to be running. The lights were on and the driver door was wide open. “What the hell?” Boomer frowned.
“It’s possible,” Jase answered his previous question as Pete pulled on the passenger seat, leaning forward. “Looks like it’s locked up on the curb.”
“Who’s car is that?” Pete asked.
“Eric Custon’s.”
Cautiously, all three men left the sheriff’s car, drew their guns and approached the Charger. Boomer approached the driver’s door. “Eric?” he called softly, turning to look into an empty vehicle.
“It’s empty,” Jase said from the passenger side.
Boomer’s eyes followed the path of the headlights. “Son of a bitch, come on!” he started up the slope.
“Where’re we goin’?” Jase asked, relieved when Pete lurched ahead, grabbed his wrist and dragged him up the path behind the sheriff.
“The Parker Barn, it’s a hotspot for kids to screw around; practically every kid in Glen Falls pops their cherry there.”
“You think he might’ve taken her there?”
“And you’re telling us this now?!” Jase demanded.
“Technically, it’s in Delbourne. Delbourne backs up to the rear of the Backer property.
“Son of a bitch,” Jase groaned, pulling his phone as they reached the edge of the tree line, the silhouette of the barn visible on top of the rise in front of them.
“You won’t get a signal out here,” Boomer shook his head.
Even from this distance they could see a slant of light from one of the windows.
Moving quickly and quietly toward the barn, the sound of the side door beating the far wall left them each wondering what exactly they may be walking into.
“Use the walkie, get us some backup,” Pete ordered tightly, when they were half way there.
Boomer turned, “Look, he gave you a list of possible sites, maybe he’s just checking it out. Do you want to pull resources from somewhere else without knowing for sure there’s something going on here?”
Jase leaned heavily on his partner, his breath wheezing tightly in his chest.
“You okay, man?” Boomer frowned at the barely recovered detective.
“He’s fine, let’s go.” Pete answered, helping the man along as he nodded.
All three of them felt it as they reached the rear wall, the tension creeping up from their shoulders into the base of their skulls, their senses sharpening, trying to take in and weigh every sound, scent and sight at the same time, isolating background noise and happenings from anything distinctive.
Boomer dashed through the door, sticking to the far wall, watching the gargantuan detective bodily holding back his smaller and barely-held-together partner while he turned to stand on the opposite side of the door. Jase followed quickly but carefully, all of his motor control not quite back up to snuff.
“…just lay still,” a whisper was almost drowned out by the wind.
Pete saw his partner’s face change, saw the unguarded hope that nearly knocked him down and made him lurch forward until the larger man grabbed him roughly, shaking his attention back to the reality of the situation.
Something came to rest on the ground on the far side of the barn, “Eric? T…t…talk t’me, please?” This time the voice held pitch and unmistakable timbre.
Jase gasped.
“Who’s there? S…someone there?” her voice trembled, “Help, please…” then a sob.
Jase slid from his partner’s grip, stumbling to the front of the beam where the voice came from.
“Oh God,” he breathed, “Pete!”
Once he dashed to Sam, Pete and Boomer had no choice but to make their presence known inside the barn. Pete took the center area while Boomer went deep into the shadows.
The boy who’d bared the shame of his upbringing to the two men lay on his stomach, his back barely rising.
Pete rolled him onto his back, off the puddle of blood beneath him.
“We’re clear,” Boomer called from somewhere off to the side.
“Jase? Are you really here?”
The sheriff knelt beside Jase’s partner, putting pressure on the young man’s stomach, “Go man,” then looked into the boy’s face, “Randy do this to you?”
“…didn’t mean it,” Eric wobbled his head weakly.
“Get some wire cutters!” Jase called from the beam, blinking away the tears in his eyes. “Yeah, baby, I’m here.”
“Jase?” Sam gasped and groaned again as stars coursed across her field of vision.
At first, she thought she was dreaming when he stepped into her line of sight,
best hallucination ever,
until the searing, tearing pains started to make themselves known.
“Jase, Randy’s gone. He stabbed Eric.” She sniffed and groaned with tears sliding down her cheeks. “I hurt.”
Her tiny declaration fractured his heart as Pete pressed a pair of wire cutters into his hand, then let himself really take note of the comparatively tiny woman and the entirety of her state.
“Hey, Pete,” she greeted, almost conversationally, “Help me down?”
He swallowed hard, nodding, then elbowed his partner, “Start at the bottom, I’ll hold her.” He stepped forward, ready to support her scant weight as soon as Jase started cutting.
Her abdomen was torn open at least a half-inch wide in a horizontal line, down to the muscle thanks to the layers of wire around her; and there was a wicked horizontal slice above that that looked like the handiwork of a blade, complete with the edges of the skin curling away from the incision. The bottoms of her pants were shoved partway down her pelvis where he saw a large bruise beginning to blossom at the base of her abdomen. He gulped and fingered a tiny cut along her cheek.
“The team is on the way with an ambulance. I told them to cover the hospital in case he shows up there.” Boomer advised from his position, then turned back to the young man struggling for consciousness on the floor. “Eric, you did good son, you got him to leave, didn’t you? You got us here. You did real good kid, just hang in there.”
Each of the wires sang a sharp ‘ping’ as it was cut. First to go were the ones around her ankles.
“Do the arms next, Jase, I got her,” said Pete.
Looking around quickly, he spotted a rickety looking stool on the far side of the barn.
“Okay, get a good grip,” he climbed onto the shaky thing, steadying himself against the beam.
It took a few snips to get through each braid of the rope Randy had woven through the wire, but finally, with his shoulders and forearms burning, Sam’s weight sagged with near freedom and her arms flopped over Pete’s shoulders.
Pete drew in a sharp breath as barbs stabbed him in the back. “Fuck,” and got an equally sharp look from his partner, “that smarts.”
“Sorry,” Jase muttered, sliding off the stool and examining the bindings around her middle. He made note of the stick and how it’d been turned to tighten the three layers of wire and frowned.
“Sammy?”
“Mmm?”
“When I tell you to, you’re gonna hafta hold your tummy still.” He looked up at Pete, “You’re gonna hafta make sure the wires don’t drag as I cut ‘em.”
“I’m a little occupied here. Turn the stick back once, then cut ‘em bilaterally,” he suggested. “That’ll eliminate a lot of potential drag.”
Tracing the wires with his gaze, Jase noted which order to cut them in and grasped the stick, “Hold still, Sam,” he gave a sharp counterclockwise turn to the piece of wood, far too aware of the squeaks chirping in the back of her throat.
Back and forth, one by one, he cut the three strips as close to her skin as possible, knowing full well he wasn’t the one to pull them out.
“I got her,” Pete breathed, feeling the burn in his shoulders and arms as Jase quickly helped his partner lay her down on the floor mere moments before EMT’s stormed their way into the barn, leading a pack of county troops and the K-9 units.
--
In the back of his mind, Pete was surprised at how much strength his partner had as he tried to push through the detective, cursing furiously at Sandy Custon, who stood half behind her eldest son at the entryway to the ER.
“…the fuck’s the matter with you! What the hell’d you do to those kids, you sick bitch? I’m gonna put your ass so far away so fast it’ll be like you NEVER FUCKING EXISTED!”
Pete wrapped his arms around his partner, “Stay calm, man,” he warned.
“FUCK calm! That son of a bitch,” he motioned toward the bay where two different teams were hard at work, one on Sam, and the other on Eric. “Did you
see
what he did to her?! What he did to his own
brother?!
”
“You know I did, just keep your cool or nothing’s gonna stick, you dig?” Pete hissed into his ear, relieved at the tremor that went through the distraught man as common sense finally sunk in.
“Excuse me?” a nurse from the team working on Sam approached the group. “Whichever one of you is Jase,” she looked pointedly at the distressed detective, “come with me, please.”
At the side of the gurney, he leaned over, wrapping his hand around Sam’s. A quick glance brought a grimace to his face as a resident peeled the third strand of barbed wire from her belly, strings of flesh, fat and half coagulated blood hanging from the rusted clipping.
He swallowed before cocking half a smile, truly grateful just to have her alive, “Hey.”
“Carl’s in the hospital,” she smiled loosely, obviously sedated as her hand came up to stroke his cheek, “Eric said so. Randy might try to see his dad. Jase,” she tried not to cry, “he said he’s not done with me yet, hasn’t even started,” she drew a shaky breath.
“We’re not gonna let him get to you, Sammy,” he assured her, far more calmly than he felt.
She nodded, “How’s Eric? He tried to get him to stop.” She looked up, “My God, the things she did to him, to them both.”
He leaned forward to whisper, “Sammy, honey? Do they, did he, do they need to do a rape kit on you?”
She shook her head loosely. “I’d be dead if he’d got that far. He told me things; he’s gonna kill her. Every woman he kills, in his mind it’s her over and over and over again, but he,” she shook her head, “he hasn’t ‘cause Eric wouldn’t want him to.” She squeezed his hand while tears poured out of her eyes, down the side of her head, “What she did to him, it was inhuman.”
Jase nodded, “I know sweetie, I know,” he stroked her hair away from her face.
“No,” she shook her head, “listen, he’s trying to keep you safe. Sandy screwed around, town slut, y’know? Everyone knew it, but it’s part of what drives him. He said something,
‘it’s in the blood’
. She molested them both, Randy and Eric.”
He nodded.
“She broke his heart with her affairs, with everything. He thinks he’s protecting you by killing me.”
“He’s not gonna get you, I promise.”
“No one’s gonna be safe ‘til he’s caught. He loves
him,
though,” she nodded toward Eric. “Blames me for having to stab him, told him don’t move, begged him to stay alive.” She looked at the resident, “Is he gonna be okay?”
“His small intestine was perforated. As soon as he’s stable they’re taking him to emergency surgery. He’s young and strong, he should be fine in no time.” He assured her.
“Good,” she sniffed. “This shouldn’t have happened to him, it’s my fault,” she tried to fight the sob.
“No, baby, no, it’s not. None of this is your fault, it’ll be okay, we’ll get him, I promise.”
“Help him if you can,” she pleaded.
He nodded, though all he wanted to do was to kill the man with his bare hands.
“Edwards!” Captain Zegler called from the far side of the bay, saving Jase from having to lie to her.
“Cap’s here. I’ll be right over there, okay?” He leaned forward, kissing her temple, and reluctantly left her to join the growing group.
“How’s she doing?” Cap asked.
“She’s got her game face on. She says because of some of the things Randy said while he, some of the things he said, that
she’s
likely to be targeted, too,” he nodded toward Sandy, his face twisted in a snarl of distaste. “She oughtta be stuck in a hole so deep she’ll never get out for what she did to those kids!” he started to rage again, barely able to contain the furious beast inside as she ducked behind her eldest again.
His eyes flicked up to Mike’s; he wanted to ask
this
son if he’d been part of her sickness, but didn’t need to. The defeat written all over the young man’s face was all the evidence he needed to see that the eldest Custon child was still in shock.
“Alright, that’s enough,” Cap caught Jase’s attention again, then looked pointedly at Pete. “I’ll take Mrs. Custon and Mike up to the surgical waiting room. You guys wait down here until they get her in a room.”
“Right,” Pete nodded, guiding Jase to the side of the bay where they could watch what was going on without getting in the way.