Splintered (17 page)

Emma had been a detective for seven years now, and had worked as a patrol cop for eleven years before that. For as far back as she could remember, she had wanted to be a cop. It had been her Halloween costume four years in a row—and she had only retired it because the high-watered pants eventually started to look more like capris. As a little kid, she rarely went anywhere without a pair of plastic handcuffs clipped through her belt loops.

She knew her dad’s influence had the most impact on her career choice. After fourteen years as a patrol cop he’d been involved in a bad car accident. He couldn’t handle being reassigned to a desk job, so he quit, opting to start his own commercial landscaping business instead. It kept him busy working outside, which made him happy, but there was always a yearning Emma could see in him—especially when the sirens of a squad car raced past.

Now she could empathize. She didn’t know what she’d do if her career was ever snatched away from her. The weight of her gun on her hip, the respect her badge brought her—these made her feel powerful, in control. Her job was important. She solved problems, brought closure to victims’ families. She liked being needed.

She knew her dad had felt the same way when he was on the job. Sometime during her childhood, at what age she didn’t remember, his bedtime stories had turned into cop-story time. Instead of a prince coming to save the princess, a police officer would rush in to save the day by stopping an armed robbery at a convenience store, rescuing a little girl from the clutches of a stranger, or busting an evil drug dealer in front of a school. Emma’s dad had countless stories to fuel her vivid imagination.

He’d felt it was his job to prepare her for life. That meant hunting, fishing, learning her way around the undercarriage of a car, and especially self-defense. While most girls spent their free time practicing their culinary skills with their moms or going to dance camp, Emma’s childhood was spent training in martial arts and competitive shooting. She didn’t mind adopting her dad’s preferences in regards to her extracurricular activities.

It was better than hanging out with Mother. Don’t go there, Emma. Get your mind back to the here and now.

She veered away from the familiar mental trap and instead focused on finding the crime scene’s apartment building. She finally found a match to the address she’d written down and pulled into a large complex. She turned right, following the circular drive around to the back, where she saw yellow crime-scene tape.

A teenage girl walked down the sidewalk and past her car, bringing Maddy to the forefront of Emma’s mind. She pulled out her cell phone and dialed her goddaughter’s number.

“Hi, Maddy. I was just thinking about you and hoped you’d pick up, but I guess you’re not there. Can you call me later? I’d like to chat. Okay, then . . . bye.”

Hopefully, this would be an open-and-shut case so Emma could stop by Lily’s house later that evening. Something serious must be going on with Maddy to make the girl constantly dodge her calls. Emma knew it was once again time to step up, to be the one person Maddy could count on.

“Hank? Hank? Wake up, Hank.”

Hank cracked one eye open, trying to focus on the numbers on the alarm clock. It read 9:28 am. “Give me a break, Daniel. I worked a seven to seven last night. I’ve been asleep for less than two hours.”

“But my Pokémon league is about to start.”

“Just take the van and go.”

“I can’t find the keys. Where’d you put them?”

“In the bowl on the kitchen counter, where they always are.”

“I looked there.” Daniel’s face was flushed, his eyes glassy. “And I looked in the van and in your jeans and in the couch. They’re not
anywhere
.” Daniel turned the last word into a high-pitched squeal.

Hank knew a meltdown was looming if he didn’t find the damn keys. He swore under his breath and forced his body to sit up. Daniel helped him the rest of the way out of bed by grabbing his arm and yanking him forward.

Most of the time, Daniel was a homebody. The only exception was for his Saturday morning Pokémon card game. Hank encouraged him to attend because it meant fewer games he had to play with him.

He used to haul Daniel over to the New Tampa library, but now he was comfortable letting him drive the back roads himself. Hank had spent weeks getting to know the people who regularly attended the meetings. He’d been worried the other players would make fun of his brother. As it turned out, he had nothing to worry about. They were one big group of outcasts. Sure, there were plenty of ten-year-old boys carrying armloads of photo books containing their Pokémon cards, safely protected by sheets of plastic, but there were just as many twenty-something guys simply looking for an outlet for their hobby. Anywhere else these older guys would have been teased and labeled nerds, so when they met together as a group they made it a point to help everyone who walked through the door feel welcome.

“Hurry, Hank! I’m gonna be late. I finally found a Zekrom EX card, and I want to see Bobby’s face when I play it on his Gyarados card.”

Hank scanned the bedroom, but didn’t see his set of keys on the nightstand or dresser. He trudged into the living room with Daniel on his heels. Hank picked the newspaper up off the table, searched under the couch cushions, and even bent over to look under the couch, but he didn’t find any keys.

He could feel Daniel breathing down his neck as the boy followed him from place to place. Hank knew he was about to lose his temper, so he took a couple of deep breaths, turned to Daniel, and asked, “Did you eat breakfast yet?”

“Haaaaank!”

Again with that whiny voice. I’m going to lose it if I have to hear that noise one more time.

“I can’t. Especially since it’s—” Daniel looked down at his watch. With a sharp intake of air, he barely managed to say the time. “Nine thirty-one.”

“Well, at least grab some OJ while I’m looking around. You know how you get when you’re hungry, Small Fry. It’s going to hit you like a Mack truck in about an hour.”

Daniel sighed heavily, displaying his real mental age. He was a boy trapped in a man’s body. He stomped over to the refrigerator and opened the door. A second later, a squealing Daniel turned around, jumping in the air with jangling keys swinging from his finger. “I found them!”

He ran over to Hank and gave him a bear hug. “You’re a genius, Hank.”

Huh. I must have laid them down in the fridge when I grabbed that slice of pizza this morning.

He patted his brother on the back and watched him rush out the door. Daniel’s books of cards were loaded in his arms, the orange juice forgotten.

Hank took a pit stop and then headed back to the sanctuary of his covers. With Daniel out of the house, he hoped to get a good chunk of uninterrupted sleep. He tried to block out the sound of Daniel’s whining bouncing through his mind like a manic pinball. It was the same tone of voice his mother had used when an argument went south with his dad. Hank figured Daniel had heard the sound enough times growing up that he’d unconsciously adopted it. The boy’s whines grated on Hank almost as much as his mother’s had.

That bitch deserved everything she got just for making that horrible noise.

Trying to find sleep, his mind wandered back to his mom’s last day on earth. He’d heeded his dad’s warning and stayed away from the caged girl. For three days, at least. Like Daniel was drawn to their dad’s guitar, Hank was drawn to the sight of exposed flesh.

With a plan in mind, he’d faked an illness after his dad left for the fields one morning. His mom had bought the act and tucked him in before heading to the produce stand to sell the spring’s crops. When Hank heard the backfire of their old truck in the distance, he knew it was safe to get up.

He gathered his supplies and walked outside to the barn. A heavy padlock held the door handles together. The lock was covered with rust, but Hank already knew that age hadn’t weakened it any. He also knew his dad kept the key hidden in a tiny, hollowed-out knot in an oak tree near the house’s back door. Two nights ago, Hank’s mother had asked him to get his dad for supper. Before Hank could open the back door, he saw his dad come out of the barn and lock up for the night. Instead of coming straight to the house, though, he’d detoured to the backyard, stopping at the largest oak. Hank snuck out to see what he was up to. Earl Fry had looked over his shoulder, but it was a second too late—his oldest boy had already dropped to the ground out of sight. It wasn’t until the next morning, before school, that Hank found the key hidden in the tree.

With the open lock left dangling on one of the barn door handles, Hank grabbed his full basket off the ground and headed inside. When he closed the door, the sun that had followed him in disappeared. He knew he should have been scared shitless, that he should be paying heed to the adrenaline coursing through his body. It was a warning sign telling him he should turn back—but Hank wasn’t afraid of getting caught. In fact, his dad was the furthest thing from his mind. When he walked into the darkness of the barn, he felt invincible. He knew his way around, didn’t even need the scant amount of light that seeped through the warped boards of the walls.

Hank could hear the heavy breaths of the frightened girl off to his right. He grabbed a hanging light from a hook and continued over toward the cage. He dropped the basket on the ground. The girl sneezed, a cute little
achoo
sound that made him smile. Hank attached the light to an empty hook bolted into the wall above the cage. When he turned it on, the bright beam caused the girl to cover her eyes with the crook of her arm.

Hank stood over the cage for a few moments. Through the squares of wire, he could see the girl’s naked flesh. His eyes followed the curve of her neck where it extended into her shoulder, continued on over the hill of her breasts, down her stomach, and stopped at the hands clenched in her lap. He yearned to see what was between those closed legs, wondered whether she would have hair yet.

The basket contained all the tools he’d need for the day’s adventure. His dad had taught him the lesson of preparation well. Hank took a lone piece of bread out and handed it to Rosalina. When she warily glanced back and forth from the bread to him, Hank smiled and nodded. He rolled the bread up into a ball and stuck it through one of the holes. Rosalina snatched the food away from him. With a few quick bites, she devoured it. Hank knew she was starving. His dad wasn’t real big on caring for the sustenance of his captives.

He took out the Spanish-English dictionary he’d borrowed from the school library. The look on Ms. Reedy’s face had been priceless. In the two years he’d attended Plant City High School, she’d never seen him check out anything other than graphic novels.

“Bueno?” Hank said. Saying the Spanish word in his slight southern drawl sounded funny even to him, but he figured using Rosalina’s native language would put her more at ease.

“Sí,” she said, though it was a croak of a sound. “Agua, por favor.”

Hank cocked his head, not understanding what she’d said.

“Agua,” Rosalina repeated, pointing at the book in Hank’s hand.

“Oh, right.” Hank thumbed through the dictionary to discover that
agua
meant water.

He knew the bread had made her thirsty, even more so than she must have already been. Hank had counted on that. He pulled a tall, clear glass of water out of the basket. It was only a fourth of the way full, to ensure it didn’t spill during the journey to the barn. Rosalina’s eyes never left it.

Hank held up a finger, the international sign for “wait a minute.” Rosalina licked her lips. He couldn’t risk letting her out of the cage. A cornered animal would attack if it thought it’d found a way out. He was strong, built muscularly even as a teenager, but worried that if he couldn’t subdue her, she might get away. If that happened, he wouldn’t live to see the next day. He knew he had to have his fun while she was still caged.

“Toque chocha,” Hank said. He had done his homework and consulted his dictionary earlier to find the word for “touch.” The word for “pussy” had been harder to come by. He’d had to ask a guy at school for that one.

Rosalina wrinkled her brow.

Did I pronounce the words wrong, or did that asshole kid pull one over on me? For all I know, maybe I just told the girl to touch a goat.

Tossing the dictionary aside, he decided charades would work better than words. He sat on the ground facing the cage and bent his knees in a
V
before him. He spread his legs open wide and touched his dick, rubbing it and groaning. Then he pointed to her crotch, back at the water, and then to her again.

As understanding dawned, Rosalina puckered up her face like she’d eaten a lemon. The thought that the boy who could have been her savior was really just a boy trying to use her had probably left a sour taste in her mouth.

Hank shrugged, then slowly tipped his hand until the water in the glass lapped against the edge. Another second, and it would trickle to the ground.

“No!”

Hank smiled, righting the glass and placing it safely on the ground next to him.

Rosalina tentatively opened her legs. She stared at the glass of water while she moved her fingers, following Hank’s previous directions. Hank unzipped his pants and started beating off. Just as he reached orgasm, he heard a gasp. He had been so involved in acting out his fantasy, he hadn’t heard the barn door open. Afraid his dad had caught him, Hank yanked his shirt down, trying to cover himself. When he turned his head, he saw his mother standing five feet away, her hands over her mouth, her eyes large and trying to digest the scene in front of her.

Hank shoved himself back in his pants and stood up, wiping his hand on his jeans.

“How could you?” Patricia Fry finally managed to squeak out.

“No . . . it’s not what it looks like . . . Dad.”

He watched as the realization of the situation sunk in on his mom’s face. She shook her head like she was trying to unhear what her son had just said. Covering her ears with her hands, she ran out of the barn, wailing.