Redemption (30 page)

Okay, Jane thought, Lou is here. She carefully walked around the trash bins and turned into the front yard. The dead grass lay matted against the soaked earth, drowning in deep puddles of rainwater. Jane briefly considered knocking on the front door and being forthright. But she always preferred to silently case a house first before confronting a possible suspect. Jane gingerly slogged through the mud as she headed for the right side of the old house. Coming up to the first drapeless window, she peered into the room. It was a mudroom with stacks of loose boxes piled to the ceiling. Moving a few steps farther, Jane looked into the second window. The large main room lay stark in front of her. Across the thrashed wooden floor were several rolls of duct tape. A tangle of rope sat in the corner. The only other item in the room was a full-length mirror, propped up against the wall. Jane’s heart started beating faster. Duct tape, rope, and a mirror. These were three of the items Sawyer said Lou had purchased prior to kidnapping Ashlee. Jane leaned in closer to the window when she heard a young girl’s scream coming from the back of the property.

Instinctively, she reached for her Glock and turned toward the sound. The scream echoed into the wet morning air, lingered for a
few seconds, and then quiet descended once again. Jane kept her right hand on the Glock and flattened her back against the house, cautiously moving toward the back of the property.

“Don’t!”
the girl screamed.

Jane’s entire body stiffened. Quickly, she checked her cell phone. There was a shaky bar of coverage—not enough for clear transmission of a phone call. “Shit!” Jane whispered under her breath. She continued her methodical approach. The mud under her boots made a pronounced sucking sound with each step.

“That’s gonna hurt!” the girl yelped.

Jane’s mind raced as she picked up speed and finally hugged the corner of the house. She stealthily bent her head around the corner of the house just enough to get a clear view of the scene. A large, high-backed wicker chair stood in the middle of the muddy yard with its back to Jane. A young, preteen girl sat in the chair. The brief movement of another person could be seen sitting in front of the girl. From this angle, the whole scene looked depraved to Jane. She decided to make her move. Emerging from her safe cover, she kept one hand on the Glock and stood with her feet firmly planted on the wet ground. “Charlotte?” Jane yelled with authority.

The sound of a girl screaming in fright pierced the air, and was soon joined by a second screaming girl. An auburn-haired girl in her early teens leaped from in front of the chair. The younger girl, who looked to be around ten, jumped out of the wicker chair and stood next to the older girl. They stared at Jane in a state of confusion for a few long seconds. Jane noticed that the younger child held a frog in her hand. She released her grip on the Glock and quickly covered the gun with her jacket.

“Who are you?” the older girl asked.

“I’m—”

“What’s going on here?” a booming voice yelled, coming at Jane from around the front of the house. Jane spun around. A large, mountain of a man in his early forties strode toward her
with angry purpose. “Who the hell are you?” the man asked with impunity.

“Perry!” Jane said in an automatic response.

“Perry who?” the man asked, sneaking a quick glance to the girls and then looking back at Jane.

“Perry Grey.” It was the first word that came to her mind as she looked at the drab sky.

“What can I do for you, Ms. Grey?”

“I’m looking for Lou Peters.”

“I don’t know anybody named Lou Peters,” the man said, his voice calming down a few notches. “We’re new in town. Just moved into the place two weeks ago.”

“Not much furniture,” Jane said, more as a leading question. She couldn’t help it.

“Yeah, well, my wife’s showing up in a few days with all our stuff. Good thing, too. This place was a mess. Had to rip up carpeting and pull all the trash—” The two girls gradually drifted toward Jane, interested in what she was saying. The man addressed them. “Hey! Aren’t you two supposed to be cleaning out the back rooms? What in the hell have you got in your hand?”

The youngest held up the frog. “We saw him moving across the yard, Dad. He was limping. We were trying to make him feel better.”

“Put him back where you found him, and hop to!” He clapped his hands together as added emphasis. “This place is not gonna clean itself!”

The girls dutifully returned the frog to the wet ground and went about their chores. The older girl, however, made a point of lingering close by.

“You gotta stay on ’em 24/7, you know?”

“Yeah,” Jane replied. “So, you moved here two weeks ago?”

“We took ownership of the place then. We’ve been back and forth to Idaho several times during that period.”

“Did it just come up vacant?”

“No. It’s been empty at least a month. I know because I was out here around Thanksgiving to check out the place.”

“I see....” Jane’s mind temporarily drifted.

“Who’s this Peters guy?”

“He’s...bounced some checks around town. I’m from the collection agency. This was his last known address.”

“They track you down in
person
now?”

“When you’ve bounced as many checks as Peters has, you get special treatment.”

“I’m sorry I can’t help you.”

“Well, thanks for your time,” Jane said as she sloshed through the muck and headed back to her car. The man went into the house, closing the door behind him. Jane was outside the front yard when she heard the sound of muddy footsteps behind her.

“Hey!” the voice said in a half whisper.

Jane turned to find the older girl running to catch up with her. The kid looked back at the house and then motioned for Jane to move farther down the road to move out of sight. When the girl felt she was at a safe distance, she stopped walking and turned to Jane in a friendly manner.

“So, his name is
Lou
?” The girl’s hazel eyes danced with excitement.

“Yeah,” Jane replied warily. “You know him?”

“
Weeelllll,
” the girl said with a coquettish tilt of her head, “I can’t say I
know
him. But I met him. I just didn’t know his name.
Lou
, huh?” It was obvious she was in love.

The girl melted into a flirtatious vixen. She spun her auburn hair around her index finger and used every ounce of charm to draw Jane into her confidence. Jane, however, was impervious to the kid’s scheme. “How’d you meet him?”

“He stopped by a few days after we got here. I mean, I’m assuming it’s the same guy. He picked up a box that he left. Said it was church stuff. But I didn’t believe it.”

“Why not?”

“He didn’t exactly look like your typical Bible-thumper, if you know what I mean.” The girl’s hazel eyes twinkled with a mischievous sparkle.

“No, actually, I don’t know what you mean,” Jane asked, keeping her stoic persona engaged.

“He was absolutely drop-dead gorgeous! Blue eyes, brown hair that’s all tangled by the breeze....” Her mind sensually remembered the face. “And a
really
cute ass,” she added with a friendly cadence. “It didn’t hurt that he had a motorcycle to go with his cute little body.
Tons
nicer than my dad’s worthless piece of shit motorcycle. It was baby blue with this cool sticker of a white dove on the back. I mean, it just shows you how sensitive he is, ya know?
A dove!
”

“Uh-huh,” Jane said, unimpressed.

The girl was getting irked that her playfulness was not working. Her tone became slightly forceful. “Well, it just doesn’t make sense that a guy
that
good looking and
that
sensitive is bouncing checks all over town! Hey, like, people make mistakes, right? We’re all human!”

Jane couldn’t believe how desperate the girl was to apply as many worn-out clichés as she could muster to create the glowing image she wanted for Lou. In an instant, Jane understood the powerful effect Lou Peters still had on young girls. “Where was your dad when Lou came over here?”

The girl’s face quickly changed into a pissed frown as she rolled her eyes with an overly dramatic flare. “He’d gone into town. It was like the
only
time he didn’t have us in eyesight! God! It’s like, I need a life, ya know? It’s bad enough that he moves us to this shithole town so I can rot my life away! Like I’m supposed to... what? Do whatever he tells me, be a good girl, get good grades... blah, blah, blah.
Puhleeeeease
, spare me!”

“So, you only saw Lou once?”

“Yeah. To talk to him.” The girl obviously had more to offer. As was her tried-and-true routine, she waited, arching her eyebrow in a provocative manner in hopes of eliciting more interest
out of the adult. When Jane’s steely eyes didn’t give in to the kid’s method, the girl quickly offered the information. “He drove by on his cool bike the next day. But my dad was in the front yard and yelling at us to rake the leaves. Lou just kept going down the road. Never saw him again. Thank you,
Daddy
!”

Like Jane said, the perpetrator always chooses the perfect victim. The only problem here was that
this
kid had a father who was big, loud, intrusive, and overprotective. “This all happened two weeks ago?” Jane asked, calculating the days. The girl nodded. “Okay,” Jane said satisfied. She took a step closer to the girl. “How old are you?”

The tight proximity of Jane’s body intimidated the kid. “Sixteen.”

Jane heard her voice inflection rise up, signaling a lie. “If you’re sixteen, I’m twenty-one.” Jane put on her cop bravado and muscled her frame toward the kid in the most daunting pose she could muster. “I’m asking you again.
How old are you?
”

The girl was clearly nervous. “Fourteen,” she managed to get out.

“You wanna see fifteen?”

The kid’s eyes grew as big as two hazel saucers. “Yeah,” she stuttered.

“Then stop trying to race the clock. Be fourteen. Do stuff that fourteen-year-olds do. Then be fifteen and do things that fifteenyear-olds do. If you don’t fuck up your life, you’ll make it to eighteen and you can leave this shithole town and strike out for greener pastures. And by the time you get to be twenty-five and the world’s kicked you in the teeth, you can cry yourself to sleep at night, wishing you were fourteen again.”

The girl stood in stunned silence. A hard pitter-patter of raindrops tapped against her face as she regarded Jane with bewilderment.

“Hey, where’s your sister?” her father’s voice rang out in the distance.

The girl rapidly turned toward the house. “I’m out here. The lady....” she hesitated, not sure what to say.

“Needed directions to the post office,” Jane whispered, coaching her.

“Needed directions to the post office!” the kid yelled.

“Okay, make it quick!” her father yelled back.

“Go on,” Jane said, turning around and heading to the Mustang.

The girl started back into her front yard, then stopped. “Hey, wait!” Jane reluctantly turned around. “You yelled out the name Charlotte when you saw us in the backyard. Isn’t that the name of the missing girl in town?”

Jane considered the question before speaking. “Don’t keep your dad waiting.”

It’s what wasn’t spoken that sent the girl rushing back into the arms of her father.

 

 

Jane retraced the rural route back to the main road as the rain turned into a steady downpour. Buckets of water fell so fast that the Mustang’s windshield wipers labored. The question rang in Jane’s head: If Lou wasn’t living where he was supposed to be living—where he was registered in the national database—where had he gone? Based upon what the father told her, the house had been vacant for at least one month. Lou’s past MO, from what Kit told her, demonstrated that he dutifully checked in with his bondsman and probably the sheriff when he had a change of address. So how long did it take for the database to display that information? Furthermore, there was a missing kid in this town. That meant that every registered sexual predator had to be contacted by the sheriff’s office and eliminated as a suspect as their alibis proved true. Law enforcement knew where Lou Peters lived. Somehow, the database had not reflected the address change. There were
driver’s license records, Jane thought to herself. She had access via a subscription service to all DMV records.

Jane’s cell phone rang. Preoccupied with navigating the raging rainstorm, Jane flipped open the phone and answered with an aggravated clip. “Yeah! Hello!” Silence.
“Hello?”
Jane stressed. A distant click was heard.

Jane pulled the Mustang to the side of the road and checked the incoming number. All it read was RESTRICTED. Perhaps the call was dropped as Jane wound around the corners of the rural road in the rain. Or perhaps the storm caused her cell to not retrieve the data. These were the possibilities that quickly buzzed through Jane’s mind just as the phone rang again. She checked the cell screen and this time a phone number registered. It was a “541” area code. If memory served, it was Charles Sawyer.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Jane. Charles Sawyer here. Did I catch you at a bad time?”

“No.... I’m good. Hey, did you just call me a second ago?”

“I’m sorry? We’ve got a dicey connection. What’d you say?”

“Did you just call me?”

“You’re breaking up,” Sawyer replied.

Jane pulled onto the road and crept toward the main highway in search of better cell coverage. “Never mind. What’s up?”

“I don’t want you to think I’m stealing your thunder, but you got my juices flowing after we talked. I did a little digging. Hope you don’t mind.”

“No, not at all. What’d you find out?”

“I still have some buddies from the job. I never mentioned your name when I made the calls, so they don’t know the connection. Anyway, I found out the name of the lab where they’re doing the DNA work on the condom they pulled from Ashlee’s crime scene. It’s all part of the groundwork for Lou’s trial next year.”