First Night of Summer (17 page)

He found Mindy running pell-mell with a group of kids, an energetic game of freeze tag in session. He watched her play, certain to keep busy with his service duties and avoid notice. Every so often, he fidgeted with a trash receptacle, not actually doing anything to it, picked up a stray cup, and never ventured far from the public bathroom facilities. All little kids had to pee after playing. It was only a matter of time until Mindy had to go. Time passed in slow motion, but finally the words came.

“Mom,” Mindy shouted toward Karen lying in the middle of the huge lawn. “I have to go the bathroom.”

Karen didn’t even look. She simply raised an arm off the blanket and waved in acknowledgement. The only people in the neighborhood park were local residents. In their secluded little village, there had never been a threat of insecurity. And that was exactly why Ricky had come.

That’s it, Momma. Don’t even look. Just keep on cookin’ in that sunshine
.

The restrooms were forty to fifty yards away, positioned at the edge of the grass, mere steps from the trailhead entrance. Ricky was closer and beat Mindy there. The ladies’ room had no door, only a cinderblock wall that doubled back to create a privacy barrier.

He peeked his head in. “Cleaning crew.” He paused for an answer. “Anyone in here?”

The room returned silence in answer.

He stepped behind the bend and flattened himself against the interior wall. Five seconds later, Mindy screeched around the corner and never had time to scream before a set of arms wrapped around her. A wet cloth pressed tightly against her face stifled any cries for help. She squirmed, but to no avail. Her eyelids fell shut seconds later, and her knees buckled.

Ricky snatched the partly filled liner out of the rolling trash container and immediately slung Mindy over the edge. She plunked to the barrel bottom, and the black liner went right back on top of her limp body. If anyone were to look inside the bin, all they would see was a bag full of garbage. The whole process took less than twenty-five seconds.

He came out of the bathroom, wheeling the trashcan out in front as he walked. Everything seemed just as it had been a moment ago. A basketball bounced. The pitter-patter of feet running across a drawbridge echoed. Laughter and sounds of nature filled the air. He dared a quick glance toward Karen. She had not budged.

At the back of his inconspicuous white van, he opened the rear doors and lifted the tub inside without a hitch. Just then, another mother-and-daughter pair walked behind him and entered the park.

As he turned to leave, the little girl tugged on her mom’s arm. “Are they here yet? Is Mindy here?”

Chapter Thirty-Six

R
icky made his way home with Mindy still drugged in the bottom of the trash can. The back of the van would not host the events he had in store. She was going inside his house, the guest of honor at their private party.

The idea of sharing his real bed excited him beyond measure. Never before had he brought a lover home. But the monotony of his previous two episodes grated on his personal satisfaction. Bailey and Lindsay were had in similar fashion, submission by force, not choice. This time, he wanted to mix it up and change the pace.

Like a good conservationist, Ricky tried not to overhunt his local area. Wary prey and suspicious eyes were not conducive to his actions. Instead, he ventured far and wide, taking victims from scattered locations, and leaving no pattern or links for the authorities to connect until now. Now he actually took the time to fess up to the abductions through letters to Josephine Snow. There was an undeniable thrill to pushing the envelope, but he also needed to be more cautious than ever. Police and citizens alike would be on the lookout for Mindy as soon as the Amber Alert hit the waves. And this time, Ricky’s whereabouts were directly inside the soon-to-be search radius.

He steered the van around a curve and saw his plain, galvanized mailbox on the roadside up ahead. His pulse quickened as he drove down the twisting, spruce-lined driveway, and backed into the garage. Despite an undeniable relief, his cheeks flushed with heat. No matter how many times he did it, stealing a kid made him feel vulnerable, alive.

This was it. Time for gratification had come again. He opened the back doors and hauled the trash can onto the cold, cement floor. It thumped on impact, and a groan came from inside. His hands slipped under Mindy’s armpits, pulling her up and out. Her head rested on his shoulder, like a father carrying his sleeping child.

“It’s okay,” he reassured in a whisper and patted her back. The other hand slid under her bottom to support her weight. “I’ve got you. We’re going inside.” He patted again. “You’re okay.”

He laid Mindy’s limp body on a couch in the surprisingly cozy—for a child abductor, murderer, and rapist—living room. On his bed in the master suite, he stripped the linens and spread a plastic tarp over the mattress, then put the sheets and comforter back on. If this turned out to be another blood bath, like Lindsay, he wanted to be prepared. He smoothed the cotton fabric with soft-skinned hands and made sure they were straight. Everything needed to look nice for the pictures. The back of the van was not conducive to elaborate photography, but here at the house, he could take his time and get as creative and imaginative as possible. This being a new way of doing things, he wanted to make sure and document it extensively.

With the bed prepared, he brought Mindy in. His little lover looked so sweet, soft, and tantalizing. In the comfort of his own home, Ricky’s mind began to play tricks. He started to believe that she might feel the same way about him as he did her.
Somebody out there cares about me
.

Giddiness fell in with hatred, twisted love, anxiety, lust, and the other quagmire of warped feelings he harbored in his hardened heart and blackened mind.

He prepared the camera, video, and audio equipment, his mood further brightening as Mindy opened her eyes. Her brow furrowed in confusion, and her eyes squinted to filter the brightly lit room. He watched as she ran through her senses—smell, sight, and sound—to detect anything familiar.

He sat on the bedside and leaned over her as he had with so many before. “Welcome back.” The words came out softly, genuinely.

She was only seven, confused and unable to remember how she had gotten there. She tried to speak, but her dry throat stuck.

“Would you like some water?”

She nodded.

Ricky handed her a glass of water from the nightstand. He kept his hand cupped underneath while she sipped. Intentions of violence were far from his mind. After a few swallows, she looked at him expectantly, searching for an explanation.

“I’m not going to hurt you, baby.” He put the glass down and stroked a loose strand of hair over her delicate ear. “I need you to trust me. Can you do that? Will you trust me?”

A willingness to cooperate from his victims was new to Ricky. Not that he hadn’t coaxed cooperation from them before, just not without threats or punishment. If he could keep Mindy operating of her own free will, fantasies he had conjured up over the years were finally within reach.
Easy, Ricky. Play nice
.

He scooted her toward the headboard, sat her up, and favored her with a charming smile. “You really don’t have to be scared.” His hand gently squeezed hers, and she didn’t pull away. Instead, she looked around, trying to make sense of it all.

“I need you to do a favor for me.” From a small, pink sack, he pulled out a size double zero lacy outfit. “It may be a tiny bit big,” he said and held it up. “But I bet you’ll look beautiful. I got it for the fun pictures we’re going to take.”

Mindy scrutinized the outfit. While she didn’t understand that it had deeper meaning than just being pretty, she had seen similar pieces before, mostly on her parents’ bedroom floor. She was an only child. At her young age, the “birds and bees” were simply that, birds and bees. Her mom and dad could be somewhat careless with their love life and still get away with it.

“Tell you what, gorgeous. I’ll turn around, and you can change. Okay?”

Ricky left the lingerie on the bed and took a couple steps away. He turned his back. “Go ahead.” He waited.

He heard her shirt slip from over her head, and then the snap button on her shorts popped loose. When Mindy slid the zipper down, the sound carried to Ricky’s ears. He gave her a minute until he could wait no longer.

When he turned, she sat with her legs hanging over the side, head looking down at a pair of dangling feet. Her arms were wrapped around her body, chill bumps covering her skin. She looked like a child playing dress-up in her mother’s clothes.

“You … look … stunning!” He continued to dote with each step toward her. His pointer finger ran down her arm. The hand that was capable of killing so coldly felt warm to the touch.

Mindy did not flinch; nor did she look up. She just sat there, devoid of reaction. Ricky convinced himself that her lack of enthusiasm came from nerves, not disapproval.
She loves me and wants me
.

From the time he was a little boy, he had just needed someone to care, but no one did. At least not in the right way. He didn’t need more spending allowance. He didn’t need more free time, video games, or satellite channels to be a happy kid. He simply needed attention from the people who gave it to him least. He needed quality time with his busy parents.

Ricky knew Mindy had never been involved with a man before. He made up his mind to show her how love worked. He would make her feel pretty, wanted, and special. He would do that for her, and she would love him in return.

First, he made her pose in numerous positions on the bed. He snapped and clicked with a digital camera, each shot striving to capture the sensual nature of her body, the kind only a creep can find in a child. He instructed her on how to make seductive faces and where to put her hands, saying that was what big girls did. With a smile and kind words, Ricky squeezed every ounce of modesty from her.

No matter what she did, though, her purity remained unmarred. She felt nothing of a sexual nature in any of it. Even his best efforts could not spoil her innocence. Children have places even the vilest of monsters cannot touch, not even in the personal porno he forced her to star in.

A message on the camera screen stopped him. “I have to get another memory card.”
Damn
. “Don’t you move now. I’ll be right back.”

He stepped from the bedroom, through the living room, and into the kitchen. Extra camera supplies were in the top drawer below the bar.

He fumbled through the cords, disks, and flash drives and found a new memory card. He removed the full one from the camera, labeled it with a post-it note, and put it in a plastic baggie. Already, he couldn’t wait to download it and look through the pictures. The new card inserted flawlessly, and he checked the settings to make sure they were the way he liked. All set, he hurried to get back to the main event in the bedroom.

A door from the kitchen entered the cushy living space. What he found there shattered his world of imagination and sent him back into the reality where he was a violent kidnapper and Mindy was the kid. The fantasy he had dreamed of for so long popped like a soap bubble in the sun.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

M
indy stood on a cushion, the black, lace teddy sagging on her tiny body. She was in the foyer off the living room with one arm stretched as high as she could reach. The safety chain at the top of the front door jingled against her fingertips. She had already unlocked the deadbolt. It took every ounce of her concentration and nerve to do it quietly and overcome her quivering hands. Just ten more seconds was all she needed to slide the chain free and open the door. She could almost hear freedom knocking on the other side of the knotted pine barrier.

While taking pictures on the bed, she had managed to hold her tears at bay and fight the paralysis of fear. There were things her mom had told her to do if anyone ever took her.

“If somebody grabs you, scream as loud as you can. Don’t stop screaming until you get help.” But it was too late to scream. There was no one to hear.

“If you can’t get help,” her mom went on, “do exactly what they tell you to do. Make them be nice to you. Just keep doing whatever they want. And if you get the chance, you run. You run as far as you can and don’t stop. Find a house, a store, a town, someplace with people. Use a phone to call nine one one and tell them what happened.”

That was exactly what she tried to do. The man went away and gave her an opening to escape. There was no phone in sight. Instead, she found the door and undid the lock, but she had to tiptoe because the safety chain was too high. She tried once, twice, three times. It was still too high. She only needed an inch more to reach it. Heavy furniture was all she could see in the room to stand on. There was no time to move it to the door, and besides, it would make too much noise. No, she needed something quiet and used a throw pillow from the couch. If only the latch were lower, she could be out the door and free. Without something to stand on, though, it was impossible. She set the pillow down and stretched with fingers touching the chain. That was when she heard it. Footsteps came into the living room and stopped.

Ricky froze in his tracks, utterly shocked. He had hoped that Mindy wanted to be there with him, alone together. Ultimately, whether she did or not, the outcome would be the same. He was the butcher, and she was the lamb he meant to slaughter. The walls of insecurity, denial, and rage crumbled.

The look on his face spoke volumes. She was in big trouble. Like a scolded child, she ran back into the bedroom, evidence of terror and panic in her quivering wails.

Ricky came into the master suite and found her back on the bed. She had drawn into the pillows at the headboard, one pulled tightly to her chest. Before, he acted kind and gentle. Now, his consensual fantasy over, he made no show of happiness or kindness. The shift in his mood must have been palpable because terror filled Mindy’s cries.