Chapter 28
From the sun dropping in the west, orange shafts streamed between chunky bruised clouds, most dashing over the Mercedes and igniting the foothills and gray clouds miles east in the Santa Ana Mountains.
Sharon turned back to Laif.
Fresh air crept in through the broken window, shivering her shoulders. She and Laif pulled the woolen blanket back over their heads. Remaining hidden was their only protection.
He said, “I think the mist is gone.”
“How can you tell?”
“I don’t know for sure. But it can’t last forever.”
Sharon stuck her head out again and relished the beauty in the sky. The sun was beginning to nestle underneath a blanket of its own making from condensed water in the atmosphere.
She really had not minded being underneath a blanket with Laif for two full hours. He had explained that the gardener only became belligerent after seeing them. She realized the male batterer didn’t attack her until he saw her, and the woman did not attack Laif until she saw him. The blond guy and his friends didn’t switch until they came close to the batterer and saw Laif’s face. Together, Sharon and Laif hypothesized that if a person couldn’t identify them, they couldn’t be targets. So he had taken a blanket out of the trunk for just this purpose.
Though the wool material had offered more than just cover. Under its safety, they were able to talk and laugh freely for a change. They were able to get to know each other.
Sharon felt a sly smile creep up her face. “Maybe we should wait another ten minutes just to be sure.” But she quickly regretted saying that. They needed to find the Brewsters.
To her surprise though, he agreed, “That’s a good idea. It’ll only be safe driving after dark.”
They would be no good to anyone if they were killed or incapacitated in a car crash, so she relaxed again. They both pulled the wool back over their heads. A faint, pleasant musky smell resided there.
She asked, “So how come it’s been eleven years since you’ve been in a long-term relationship?”
“Haven’t found anyone who wants to understand me.”
“Well, you have to be tactful. You can’t just spurt truth all the time. That would scare most anyone.”
“But I find it very hard to be something I’m not.”
“Yes, but you have to go slow when you’re just starting out. Let them discover your flaws and strengths. It makes it more interesting that way.”
“That makes sense.”
She paused. “I think it’s time you met someone.”
He was quiet under the blanket. She wondered what he was thinking and feeling. She relaxed her legs, and her left one gently pressed against his.
“I know a lot of single women in the social work field.” She tried to think of one who might be a match for him, but no one was coming to mind. In fact—it was the oddest thing—she couldn’t even think of their names right now. She knew at least seven single women at her office, and she talked with them everyday, but she couldn’t recall one.
“It has to be someone patient,” he said. “Someone special. Someone who could accept what I do and who I am.”
“What you do is exceptional moral work. And who you are isn’t that far from the average guy.”
Where their legs touched was hot, despite the material of their jeans in the way.
She cleared her throat. “You just have to find the right woman.”
“That’s what I’ve been telling myself.”
“She’ll come along.” Her throat was suddenly dry. She wondered if any of her female friends or acquaintances really could understand and accept him. They were attracted to the everyday, clean-cut, successful guy who would dote on them, wining, dining, and winning their love with extravagance, and then settling down to make a family with two-point-five children. Laif didn’t quite fit into those dreams. “You are a bit odd.”
He laughed. It was fine, clear, yet held bass. And she loved it. It reminded her of Johnny Cash, and it tickled her insides. Although she couldn’t see his face under the blanket, she could picture his cheeks dimpling and the curve of his smile.
“But,” she continued, “one woman is your match. I truly believe we all have a soul-mate somewhere in the world.”
“That sounds like a good thing to believe.”
“Just who are you, Laif?” she asked coyly. “I’m not even sure I know.”
“Just a man. An open man, but otherwise ordinary.”
“I doubt that.” She wondered about all the ill fates he had altered. All the children who would have been abducted, sexually assaulted, tortured or killed, now freed from these terrors because of one courageous man, because of him.
A single pedophile in a community can molest hundreds of children over the span of his demented life. The police and courts are quite imperfect at stopping these predators. Who else was going to help? She sighed and bit her lower lip. And how many women had been delivered from rape and murder because of Laif? It just didn’t seem fair that women haven’t seen this side of him.
“And who are you, Sharon?”
“Me?”
“You.”
Her body felt suddenly rubbery and tropical underneath the wool blanket. She was unsure how to reply. Who was she? “You can’t really tell someone who you are in a sentence … or even a paragraph for that matter.” She hiccupped, and put her hand to her mouth. “I guess you’ll just have to find out yourself.”
“I already know you’re a good person.”
“Oh yeah?” To her embarrassment, she hiccupped louder. “How? What if I’ve been deceiving you, just playing good?”
“Not possible. You do have a slight shadow, but that’s not unlike every other good person.”
She felt vulnerable and naked that he could see so much of her. “What is it?” Two hiccups burst from her. She cleared her throat. “Sorry.” She smiled under the blanket. “What do you see?”
He hesitated. “I can’t tell you. You’d hate me for pointing it out. That’s something we must find on our own.”
“No,” she insisted, followed by three hiccups. “Tell me. I want to know.”
“It’ll make itself known. Trip you up at a bad moment, but you’ll grow stronger because of it. You’ll know yourself more and become a better person.”
“Would you stop talking and just tell me?”
“I can’t.”
“You won’t.” She felt another series of hiccups about to attack and swallowed to stop them, but instead, she created an odd, bubbly groan deep inside—really embarrassing. She hoped Laif didn’t hear it.
He lifted the blanket off.
He had heard it and now wanted to get as far away as possible. “I’m mad at you,” she said halfheartedly, really just trying to cover for the disgusting noise she had just made.
“You’d be madder if I told you.”
The sky had lost its luster. Laif reached into the center console and retrieved two pairs of dark sunglasses. Strangely, he put one on and gave the other to her.
She asked, “What am I supposed to do with this?”
“Put it on. It’ll make it harder to recognize you.”
She could see the image of herself reflected in the dark mirror lenses. She put them on. Headlights, taillights, and streetlights were most prominent; everything else was cast in shadows. “You can see?”
“If the dark mist remains, people won’t recognize us as easily with our eyes hidden.”
After he started the car and pulled out from the curb, she noticed his hands trembling on the wheel. It was a bit cold, so she turned up the car’s heat. Her hiccups were gone—thank God.
They were about thirty minutes from the Brewsters’ house, and they arrived safely, without incident from anyone on the road. They had decided this was the best place to visit next. Even if no one was home, they could at least find clues as to where the girls had been taken.
No lights were on inside the house.
His hands were still shaking. The car was warm enough, despite the broken window on her side. “What’s the matter?”
“It feels like rain.”
She looked to the storm clouds threatening in the west and billowing towards them. “Laif, why are you still cold?”
“I’m not.”
“What’s the matter?”
“I’m … afraid.”
“Of what?”
“Rain.”
Then she recalled the discussion of Laif’s phobia at Creo’s house, the sprinkler incident that sent him into a fit, and the splashes from the glass of water at her apartment. But she still didn’t understand. “How can someone be afraid of water?”
His eyes widened and twitched. “I wish … I knew.”
“How long have you had this phobia?”
“Since I was a boy. People used to make fun of me at school. Luckily I lived here in Southern California, so it didn’t rain often. But when it did, everyone laughed at me, including my dad.”
She took his trembling hand in hers. “It’s okay. We all have fears.”
“But mine is ridiculous.”
“Hey! Don’t talk like that. It’s important to you. You’re not afraid of things other people are afraid of, like snakes, rats, and murderers.”
“At least those are legitimate fears. What can rain do?”
“It doesn’t matter. Something about it hits a cord in your heart, and that’s reason enough.”
He averted his head from the blackening sky.
“Come on. Let’s get inside the house. I’ll bet you’ll feel better.”
It was seven in the evening, almost dark. Only two people were lumbering from their cars from a late day at work or evening errands. Sharon decided it was best to wear the blanket over them as they walked to the front door, appearing strange but at least unrecognizable.
At the front door, she rang the bell and waited. She tried the doorknob and found it locked. She waited for Laif to do something.
He just stood there.
“Aren’t you going to jimmy the lock or something?”
“How would I know how to do that?”
“It was your idea, breaking in. I thought you would know how.”
“Follow me.”
“Do I have a choice? We’re both under one blanket.”
They went around the side of the house and found a door to what looked like a laundry room with a window to the left. Due to trees and bushes obstructing the neighbors’ view, they were safe.
He removed the blanket and positioned it against the window. “Hand me that rock in the planter.” After she gave it to him, he slammed the stone into the blanket, and glass fell inward, shattering noisier than was comfortable.
She asked, “Was the blanket supposed to muffle the sound?”
“That was the intention.” He smiled and pulled back the blanket, shook off the remaining pieces of glass, sending them tinkling to the ground. He reached through the window and fumbled around for the door’s lock, while she turned the doorknob and discovered it already open.
“You’re not very practiced at breaking and entering, I take it.”
He laughed.
They took off their sunglasses and stepped inside.
He warned, “We have to watch for traps, like the one they set at the foster home. If you get caught in one, remember what I told you.”
“Yes, yes. I know. Old pain. Awareness.”
“Stay as close as you can.” She put her hands on his shoulders and followed him through the dark. Their footsteps crunched glass underneath.
“Where’s the light?” she asked.
“Just stay close.”
She heard a door creak open, a click, then saw bright fluorescent light that illuminated a kitchen with scratched, dry cabinets. A shabby refrigerator hummed irregularly in the corner. The smell of decaying meat made Sharon gag. On the wall was a plaque that read: Home Sweet Home.
“Look here.” He pointed at the linoleum floor in front of the door.
“I don’t see anything.”
“Step around it, exactly where I step and you’ll be fine.”
“Around what?”
“A pile of moldy dust.” He carefully stepped over what appeared to be an imaginary object in front of the door. Although she couldn’t see the dust, she followed his exact steps. They continued on through the kitchen. In the sink were spaghetti and rotting meat balls, looking more like worms and fat cockroaches. “Dinner from several nights ago.”
The kitchen bent left into a dining area. He flicked on the light. Papers and envelopes lay on a soiled lace tablecloth. Most of them looked like bills. She picked up a newsletter. It was titled Spanking and Beating as Tools of Teaching Discipline.
“This is nice. They have a social support system to justify what they do to Cindy.” She flipped through the newsletter. Inside were articles claiming to cite studies that have concluded whippings and beatings mold children into well behaved boys and girls who achieve excellence in school, predicting success in society.
On the back page were advertisements for paddles, whips, spoons, and spiked wooden instruments shaped to maximize sting during spankings. On the second to last page was an ad for Discipline-Camp. The description read: a support/educational group in the serene wilderness of the Santa Ana Mountains discussing benefits of spanking, such as sore bottoms for days to remind children of their lessons, the respect children acquire for their parents, the healthy fear of authority that all children need, the wellness of the family unit where everyone knows their roles, and the security and empowerment it offers parents so that they can provide a stable, secure environment for children.
Sharon threw down the newsletter. “Shit.” These ideas went against everything she had learned in graduate school, everything she had learned in years of experiences with children and as a human being. She couldn’t believe a society of child abusers organized and were communicating and gaining support from one another.
“What’s that?” he asked.
She couldn’t answer right away. Children were naturally eager to please their parents if their parents were happy. She had learned unhappy parents raised children who suffered. These children communicated this by acting out. The unhappy parents used physical punishment to discipline because nothing else worked as effectively for them.
People who shine—who have a loving energy, patience, provide appropriate discipline, and are giving people—don’t need to go to such extremes. A simple look was often enough to straighten up a child who is truly loved and treasured.
“It’s just idiotic trash,” she finally answered.
He picked up the newsletter.
“They have a camp to learn how to better beat sense into kids.” She pulled the papers in Laif’s hands to the second to last page and pointed to the ad.
“Ignorance often breeds evil.” He put the paper down and picked up an envelope addressed to Joe Brewster. She shuffled closer to Laif to read it. Inside was a check from Pastel Securities. “He works.” A phone number was on the check. He wrote it on a corner of the envelope and tore it off. “Come on. Let’s not spend too long here. A neighbor may see the lights and investigate.”
She followed him into the foyer, and he pointed to the front door and warned, “Another pile of dust.”
They walked into the living room. A television and green couches filled the small room—the most well-kept place in the house so far.
A cat meowed from above.
She looked up at a birdcage hanging from a hook on the ceiling. With hardly enough room to move, a brown and white cat sat on cardboard placed on the bottom of the wire cage.
It meowed again.
“What kind of sick bastards are these people?” she asked. She unhooked the cage, placed it on the floor, unlatched the door and opened it, allowing the cat freedom.
It bolted underneath one of the couches.
Laif urged her on. They walked down the hallway and opened the closet. A large metal container was inside, the size of a toy-box, but there were no toys. She wondered what this was used for.
Two bedrooms were left.
Cindy’s room had a single bed and one nightstand, no other furniture, no pictures, no toys, just bare carpeted floor. The four-foot long closet was only half filled with clothing. The poor girl had to live in such a barren room, no dolls or stuffed animals, no pink wallpaper with daisies. The walls were dark brown, carpet was gray and spotted, curtains by the window were white with yellow stains, linen on the bed was dirty blue. She wondered what Cindy endured at this moment, where she slept, if she was allowed toys, if she was allowed friends, and what she was fed.
Although it was the county social worker’s job, Sharon felt guilty for being unaware Cindy would be placed back into this atrocity.
In the master bedroom, soiled underwear were strewn across the floor, and the bed sheets were rumpled. A small desk with a laptop computer was positioned in the left corner.
Laif sat in the desk chair and touched a key. The computer screen immediately lit up. He began moving and clicking the mouse and turned his head to tell her, “Pick up a used undergarment and keep it.”
“What did you say?”
“We may need it later.”
“What on earth for?”
“Just do it.”
“You’re joking, right?”
He didn’t laugh.
She walked around the room kicking dirty underwear to clear a path. The stirred air yielded a stench so disgusting that she had to hold her nose. All the garments were streaked with yellow and brown stains. She didn’t want to touch any of them. She opened the bedroom closet and found handcuffs, leather straps, whips, and chains.
“Did you get an undergarment?”
She huffed. If he wanted one so badly, why didn’t he get it? But she didn’t say anything because he was busy at the computer, and she wanted to do something to help out, if this was helpful at all!
She looked for a clean shirt in the closet. Pulling one off a hangar, she wrapped it around her right hand and used it as a protective glove. She closed her eyes, held her breath, and picked up one of the underpants. Quickly pushing it into her right jacket pocket, she allowed herself a breath. Then she buttoned the pocket closed. She walked back to the desk, feeling sick for having the dirty clothing so close to her.
Laif had entered a picture browser on the computer and was calling up pictures the Brewsters had stored on their hard drive.
He gasped. Sharon’s eyes widened.
On the screen, images flashed by of dead children being sexually violated by adult males and females. The adults’ faces were digitally blackened for anonymity. The children’s faces were gray to pale white. Some had dark circles around their eyes. The photography appeared to be real, not doctored. Some children had bloated stomachs, and most had bruised rings around their necks, as though strangled.
Lightning flashed outside—
Laif startled and almost clashed heads with her. He gathered his shaking bones and moved to the Queen sized bed. She sat beside him and held his hand.
“It’s horrible. It’s real. I don’t just see the pictures. I feel the Brewsters squeezing their tiny necks. I … hear the dying cries. I feel the weight of adults on these children. They were killed expressly for the purpose of necrophilia.”
She could feel bile coming up her throat and swallowed it back down. The pictures, this room, and the stench were all making her ill. The Brewsters were more evil than she had ever imagined. And no one—not even Laif—had to convince her that killing kids and raping their dead bodies was evil. That was a line no one on earth should ever cross.
Lightning flashed brightly outside, startling him again. He was trembling badly now, and she understood it wasn’t simply from the pictures.
Although she accepted his phobia, it still seemed ironic that a muscular, tall man would be afraid of something as simple as rain. She wanted him to be strong, like one of those macho guys who ski vertically down mountainsides, tumble in huge surf, burst through a line of football players. Adriana and Cindy needed help, and Sharon needed him to be strong.
But she stopped herself. This was no ordinary man. He was a sensitive, compassionate man with feelings, some strong and some weak. This in itself was strength. “It’s going to be all right. We’re going to get through this together.”
Thunder groaned, then stomped through the house, shaking the walls angrily, rattling windows. Laif almost fell over. He was crying silently. He wouldn’t meet her eyes. She put her other arm around his shoulder and brought him closer. She became aware of a pitter patter on the roof. It rapidly grew to hundreds of iron nails hammering into the shingles.
He breathed fast. He was looking around the room agitated. He released her hand and began to reach for things--the bed sheets, the mattress, the frame--as he fell to the floor. “We never should have come here. Now we’re … trapped.”
“It’s okay.”
“I can’t go out there, Sharon.”
“We’ll wait it out. I doubt the Brewsters are coming anytime soon.”
“We’re wasting time though, because of me.”
“Because of you, many people have been saved. Because of you, we’ll save the girls.”
A few minutes of silence passed with him in her arms, contentment and peace leaking from her into him. Then he reasoned, “We should turn off the lights. If a neighbor knows the Brewsters are gone, the lights will draw suspicion.”
She ran through the house, beginning in the kitchen, flicking off the lights as she went. She was careful to avoid the places where Laif had pointed out traps. As she passed the dinette table, she picked up the newsletter, Spanking and Beating as Tools of Teaching Discipline, and folded it into her jeans’ front pocket. She wanted to have it for a latter date to report it to the police or the FBI. It had to be illegal. She hoped it was illegal.
As she passed Cindy’s barren room for the second time, pain in her heart crusted and cracked for the girl.
Just before reaching the master bedroom, as she was about to flick off the hall lights, she noticed a door they hadn’t checked before. It was exceptionally small, about two feet high and two feet wide. The doorknob was as big as her thumb. She squatted down, pinched the handle between her fingers and opened it.
It was rather dark inside and had a slight musty draft. She leaned closer. It smelled a little like rotten eggs. Her head felt light. She recalled a similar smell and feeling when she was at Adriana’s foster home and got exposed to the dust trap. She decided not to investigate this tiny doorway any further.
She stood, flicked off the lights, and entered the master bedroom.
Laif was sitting on the floor where she had left him. He was holding his knees against his chest. She left the bedroom lights on, not wanting to add to his stress, but drew the shades closed. “Let’s sit up on the bed. It’s more comfortable.”
She tried helping him up but he just shook his head. His face glistened with sweat. “I can’t breathe.”
She sat on the floor beside him. “Of course you can. Just breathe slowly.”
Out of the corner of her eye, something moved by the doorway. She turned her head. A couple of large tarantulas crawled from the hallway through the bedroom doorway. Each of them was the size of two adult hands. From behind the door frame, five more crawled. It looked like they were coming from the small two-foot door Sharon had opened earlier. She tried to remember if she had closed it or not.
She turned to Laif and shook him. “Get on the bed.”
He just looked at her.
“Come on! Laif, this is serious.” She crawled up onto the mattress. “Get up here. If you stay on the floor, the spiders will get you.” She pulled on his arm.
He turned to her. Something was wrong with his face. It was bent, twisted and blurred, as though someone held an uneven lens over it and was contorting his features. He said, “Thaw rea godin?”
“What?”
The first of the spiders was already at his feet. It hesitated there, but then scuttled lightning quick up his leg. It was too big, thank God, to squeeze underneath his jeans’ cuff.
“There’s a spider,” she cautioned, pointing to it.
He looked down at his legs then at her. “Ahsron, reeth rea on derspis. Moce no wond.”
“What’re you talking? It sounds gibberish.” She scooted back on the bed away from him. His face was scaring her. It wouldn’t stop moving and blurring. One moment the right ear would be two inches further out than it should, the next moment it was caved into his skull. One moment his left eye would be sunken back into his forehead, the next moment it would travel down and out, jutting a couple of inches out from his nose. “Laif, what is going on? What’s happening?”
He reached out to her, the spider scampering up his thigh to his stomach.
She backed up further. This couldn’t be happening. And she thought of the rotten-egg smell again, and considered it being another dust trap, a different kind. Laif had told her to be aware of her old hurt if she was exposed to a dust trap.
He began climbing onto the bed. “Ahsron, veerygingth si noigg ot eb latrigh. Tsuj evig em oyur nahd.”
Chills crawled her back. She put her hands up. “Please don’t come any closer. Something’s very wrong.”
As difficult as it was, she closed her eyes and recalled how deeply hurt she had been from her mother’s alcoholism, her father’s addictions, their subsequent divorce, and her sister…. She couldn’t go there … not now … not yet. Something seemed to unhinge inside her, and her chest felt empty. She dared to open her wet eyes.
But it had been enough. Laif’s face was back to normal. The spiders had vanished. She touched his cheek. It was soft and warm. He said, “Sorry you had to feel that, but you did good.”
“You mean all that wasn’t real?”
“Of course not. There weren’t any spiders, and I don’t talk gibberish.”
Lightening flashed, making him cringe.
“It felt so real,” she said, looking at his pants to make sure no spiders were crawling.
“The lie seeps into your senses, your thought, your sight ...,” he explained, pausing to catch his breath, “your intuition, your sense of smell, everything.” His lungs were expanding and contracting rapidly. “Where did you go ... that was different ... than we went?”
“A small door in the hall. I opened it and it smelled funny.”
“Smelled funny? Must have been ... a dust trap. Don’t do that again.” He swayed as though faint. She helped support him. Thunder roared through the house, and he dropped to the bed, lying there, shaking badly.
“Don’t worry about me,” she assured, kneeling beside him. “Did something bad happen to you in the rain once?”
“No. Nothing,” he said too quickly. “I’m just afraid.”
The rain pummeled the roof, sounding as though it were going to tear it apart, shingle by shingle.
“There’s got to be a reason for the fear. Think, Laif. Is there anything it reminds you of?”
“I don’t know.”
“I wish I had your powers.” She put her hand close to his forehead. “Just a flash of pretty light and wham! You’re better.”
“My gift isn’t used ... to help good people. It’s used to fight evil. It’s a dangerous tool ... to use on good people.”
She hugged him. “Maybe you should broaden its scope.”
He paused and blinked. “I caught a glimpse of the light when Creo shined. I saw something … something that didn’t make sense.”
“What was it?”
He sat up. “I should have shielded my eyes.”
“What did you see?”
“It was … my father beating my mother when I was four, but it couldn’t be true. She left right after I was born.”
“This could mean something.”
“It’s impossible because my mother—”
“What if she came back?”
“Came back?” Laif turned ghost white.
“Yes.”
He sat there; his eyes appeared to sink into his head as he thought. “Came back … it’s possible, but I don’t remember. Besides, what does that have to do with water?”
“Was it raining that day?”
“No.”
“Can you remember anything that might have been related to water?”
He just sat there shaking like a tired, cold child. What was it about water? Rain was refreshing to Sharon. She always liked the way it cleansed the air, washed the streets, fed the plants, nurtured the earth. Warm or cold, it was welcome. She snuggled in her apartment on stormy days and curled up with a good book, mesmerized by the patter on the roof and puddles. She enjoyed looking out her window in awe of the millions of drops falling all at once, being pulled one way then another by winds. What did he see in water that made it different for him?<