Chapter VI
I wandered through hundreds of shelves stacked with boots, hats by the handfuls and western wear suitable for rodeos and two-stepping.
The hats ranged from 4X to 20X Black Gold, felts and straws and the store had a man who could shape them for you.
I tried on a black George Strait crease and felt foolish. “Guess I’m more the baseball cap type,” I muttered. I picked out a navy blue with gold trim.
“You should have said something. I could have given you a FBI cap.”
“That would be cool,” I admitted but I bought another, anyway. We came out a different entrance, on the far side of the Mall and walked around the parking lot looking for his car.
“Section J-orange,” I told him.
“I know. I wanted to leave a different way in case your itchy feeling was waiting for us.”
His eyes were never still, scanning the lot, parked cars and individuals who passed us coming and going although he let no one sneak up behind us. I breathed a sigh of relief when his car came in sight yet he restrained me from bolting to what I considered safe territory.
First, he perused the vehicles on both sides, observing that neither was a van, then he bent low and checked underneath to see if anyone was hidden below. Once satisfied no one was loitering or lying in wait, he checked inside the car and only then, unlocked it, letting me get in, locking the doors. When the knock came on the window, both of us jumped but he opened it when he saw the young woman’s face. She was in tears.
“Can you help me?” she sobbed. “My little girl is gone! I turned round and she was just gone!”
“Did you call 911?” he asked, pushing the door open. “Cale, stay here. Lock the doors,” he turned and told me. I pulled my legs back in and nodded.
I scanned her; her terror was genuine, her story true, because I had attracted the attention of a pedophile, he had been frustrated and taken another victim.
“She’s alive,” I murmured, pushing open the door, listening to my inner voices.
“It’s dark where I’m at. I can’t see over the top of these big gray boxes. They hum, with red stickers. Mommy says be careful of red and white stickers, says DANGER. Will hurt me. The ugly man says he’ll hurt me, he likes to hurt things. He’s mad cuz he likes boys better. Mommy! Mommy!”
The woman fell to the ground screaming as I did and Deleon hugged my shoulders.
“Cale!” he yelled. “Stop! You’re scaring her! Where is she?” He shook me until I no longer felt what the little girl felt, sat up on my haunches and rocked while tears streamed down my face. When I could, I looked up, not at the Mall but at the building of low gray cinder-block that sat in the parking lot and housed the massive electrical transformers that powered the Mall.
“Stay here,” Jed told the woman and parked her in his front seat. “Tell the officers when they get here where we are.”
I ran that way before he could tell me to stop and he followed, cursing, drawing out his weapon from the back of his trousers.
The door was huge, blue painted metal with a padlock that looked locked yet when I jiggled it, the hasp revolved completely away from the jamb and the door swung open. I heard his faint order to stop but the compulsion was too strong and I twisted my way through the hundreds of feet of pipe and conduit in which an all pervasive humming drilled into your bones and vibrated in your teeth.
The air grew chillier; the floor of concrete sloped downwards and became a sub-basement where water mains came in from the lake to feed the massive pipes into the mall.
There was lighting down here, fluorescent bulbs of the energy saver type; their illumination was feeble and they hissed and sputtered with electricity different from the rest I sensed.
I could see fields of energy crackling all around with a small purple blob that pulsed strongly just out of reach and throbbed like the beating of a frightened rabbit. Or a terrified child.
“I’m coming, Penny,” I whispered and she heard me, calling out my name.
She was lying on the floor behind a sub-transformer, without clothes; a little girl no more than five years old with blood on her thighs, semen spewed on her stomach and bluish blotches on her skinny arms and legs where hands had gripped her. Red fingerprints darkened on her neck and there was blood on her mouth.
I knelt down, carefully picked her up and tucked her into my chest. “Help is coming, Penny,” I told her and she hugged me tightly.
“Bit him. Bit him bad,” she said and let go. Her eyes rolled up and her mouth sagged open. I could feel the reassuring thump of her heart against mine and knew she was only unconscious.
When the hand reached my shoulder, I was on the way up, staggering under the slight weight of the little girl. I turned round, expecting to see Jed and saw instead, the face of a young man in his early thirties. He was dressed in brown shorts and shirt like a Fed X driver but the cloth in his hand reeking of chemical was not part of the uniform. As I opened my mouth to scream, he slapped it over my teeth and I bit cold cloth. I tried to struggle but I did not want to drop Penny.
He held me against his chest until I had to breathe and my head exploded into a kaleidoscope of colors and sensations. I felt myself sagging with Penny slowly sliding out of my grasp; don’t remember hitting the ground, warning the FBI agent or anything. I woke several times, sick to my stomach with a blinding headache. Each time, the man pulled my eyelids open and stared at my eyes, ran his hands over my body despite my feeble protests. Each awakening was in a different vehicle.
I was aware enough to know I was in a car, in the front seat, belted in with a lap harness and tied hand and foot with flex ties. He had pulled off my shirt and had my jeans down around my ankles.
I tried to scream and found that he had wrapped duct tape around my mouth, below my nose and pinned my ears to my head. I needed to vomit, and knew if I did, I would probably suffocate. I was sitting in piss, I’d wet myself in terror and the smell was awful. I couldn’t kick him, bite him or fight in any way; it was obvious that he’d done this before and had it down to an art. I wailed behind the tape and he laughed at my futile attempts.
“I took you right out from under the FBI’s nose, Mr. Cale Snowdon. They’re tearing apart the place looking for you. Of course, you’re now in Arkansas.”
He reached for my underwear, stuck his hand in and fondled me. I screamed, twisted and went somewhere else in my head where I could pretend nothing happened.
*******
My eyes were open and I was hanging upside down. Blood dripped a slow rhythm over my head, splattered on my face from another source that wasn’t mine.
I was in a car that hung upside down and the driver was halfway in, half out, stuck on the window and pinned under. The smell of gasoline was strong and I could hear the ticking of the engine as it cooled.
Gurgling noises came from the man, he was still alive although I doubted for long from the massive amount of blood he was losing on me.
Screeching brakes sounded, then the pounding of feet on pavement. The first face peering in the window was a State Trooper with his flat topped straw and his face reflected shock as he took in my nearly naked, and tied form.
“Jesus Christ!” he burst out he ripped the tape off my mouth. I could not stop screaming and he spoke into his shoulder mike calling for an ambulance, tow truck, paramedics and life flight. “Are you hurt, son?” he checked what he could but did not move me.
Either they had a highly efficient emergency service unit or we were close to one for the spot where the car had flipped was surrounded in five minutes by a parade of men and machines.
Carefully, they cut me out of the car, placed me on a backboard and gurney as they checked me over. I could not respond to their questions until finally, one of the EMTs gave me a shot that wound me down and I lay limp and quiet while they rolled me, looking for signs of sexual trauma and injury.
“Your name? Can you tell me your name?”
“There’s another in the wheel well,” I heard another cop say. “Little girl. She’s dead. Throat cut.”
I could not stand it. I shut down, went away where nothing could reach me, touch me, or hurt me. Voices spoke over my head and seeped into my consciousness. I understood them but did not recognize any of them.
“He was delivering him? We found a list in the car with orders---twelve year old, blonde with green eyes. Anything with violet eyes---standing orders. Seems like this guy was the delivery driver for Special Orders for pedophiles. There are directions to a rendezvous and set prices. This boy was worth $50K. There are photos of him and others.”
“Do you know his name?”
“We took fingerprints, are checking the BOLOs. He’s only been here about an hour and they’re burning up the internet checking on him.”
“He’s under police guard?”
“One’s outside in the waiting room, right outside the ER.”
“Hey! We just found out who he is!”
“And?”
“Some kid from Texas. Named Cale Snowdon. He was snatched right out of FBI custody. They’re sending senior agents over here on a Lear jet. He’s to be kept guarded 24/7, line of sight. Seems like someone wants him bad enough to pay big bucks for him.”
“Cale? Cale Snowdon? Open your eyes,” the voice was female and sweet.
“I’m Dr. Trish Brown, Cale. Can you open your eyes and talk to me?”
“Go ‘way,” I mumbled, reached up my hands to push the figures away. She caught hold of me and restrained my movement.
“Easy, Cale. You have IVs in you. Your name is Cale? Cale Snowdon?”
“Penny,” I moaned and cried. “He killed her! He killed her!”
“Easy, Cale. Let’s worry about you,” she soothed and I shuddered. I felt myself; I was dressed in something light and covered with warm blankets.
I spread my eyes wide and the lights burned, made halos around everything in colors like the rainbow. Moon faces loomed over me, doctors, nurses and uniformed cops. I could not help it; I shrank back from them and batted at anyone who tried to touch me. I cried inconsolably for the little girl I had not managed to save.