22
The abduction of a little child by a complete and total stranger is any parents' worse nightmare, and Everett, in the midst of stalking six-year-old William 'Billy' Barreau understood this all too well. Statistically speaking, however, it was an unlikely occurrence.
Children were more at risk of harm and neglect and abuse from a family member or family friend behind closed doors, and while the outside world might seem threatening to them, the truth remained was, that most strangers, to the naked eye, at least, were decent people. But home could be the most dangerous place of all, oh, yes, something that Everett was all too familiar with growing up.
He moved, shrouded in the shadows of Echo Alley, the very same place where he had falsely framed Auror Nymphadora Tonks, as he followed the Muggle woman's kid brother on his route home from where the boy attended state primary school, maintaining a constant watch, or as Moody, the Auror he had attacked yesterday and had grown familiar with over the years would say, 'maintaining constant vigilance' on this last piece of the missing puzzle. His key to getting Renee Barreau out in the open.
Everett was no fool. He knew there was little chance of snatching the bitch while she was under Sirius Black's protection, but if he could lure her away, then she was his.
And he knew just the way to do it. Everett blinked and forced his attentions to return back to his newest target.
Renee's little brother, Billy Barreau, was walking slowly, at a snail's pace, blissfully unaware of the danger he was now in.
Occasionally, the boy kicked at the dusty, disgusting cobblestoned street beneath his Oxford shoes. Everett, who treaded far more carefully so as to not leave any evidence behind, could hear the scuff as the kid moved each time.
And Everett's movements were silent. Silent.
He made no sound at all. The sky above their heads was dull and grievous, cloudy, with the promise of a potential storm.
As Everett followed the boy, he knew that the children in this part of town, and even the adults, were warned by the local Muggle authorities against traversing down Echo Alley, but children had a habit of ignoring the advice of the adults, for the adults are often invisible to the young, such as he was now.
Everett knew more than he let out about Billy Barreau. He had studied Renee and her family quite carefully. Her younger brother performed remarkably poorly in school, academically and socially. Was something of a loner, not good at the whole 'making friends' bit, something that Everett found he related to.
Billy was well behind his peers in reading, writing, his math. His clothes were tattered hand-me-downs, and the flat that he and Renee lived in was little more than a tumbledown, decrepit place. In the manner he was currently exhibiting, Billy seemed perhaps a little bit too grown-up for his ripe age of six.
Displaying resentment and anger towards the rest of the world. In a few years, the boy would be perceived as a bully and a troublemaker, but for now, Billy was still young enough for folks on the streets and in his life to forgive his disruptive ways.
He doesn't mean it. It's not the boy's fault, they all said. Billy had not reached the point in his little life where he could be considered solely responsible for his actions, and as a consequence, Renee Elizabeth Barreau bore the brunt of it all.
They blamed her, as his older sister, for failing the boy. And oh, she would blame herself, once she learned he was missing.
Everett stood in the shadows, staring at the forlorn boy who had no idea that he was about to go missing and would never return home. It left him feeling with an amazing conflict, yes.
A brand new injury, a brand new humiliation, if you will. A part of him felt shattered the other day when he had taken the water cup from Renee Barreau, and he did not want to hurt the bitch, not really, but the carnal instinct older than man itself drove him to kill. But at the same time, he derived a feeling of satisfaction by using the Muggle way to take a life. Triumph.
It was not something that he could articulate, and his hands began to tremble with rage. He wanted to kill the girl. Again, and again, to berate his favorite girl at the Broken Spoon Café for daring to look at other men in what he believed were odious terms, yes.
He wanted to bash her skull to the floor, to hear her bones crack before finally taking pity on the girl and putting the young blonde restaurant manager out of her misery with a well-aimed Killing Curse. Nerves were beginning to tear his psyche.
Excitement budding in his chest, he could not really remember the last time he felt this way over stalking someone.
Plunk. A loud noise in an otherwise silent alleyway. The boy had picked up a stone and was chucking it along the brick wall.
Billy picked up a second rock and repeated the action, missing this time, though when he hefted back his arm and threw the pebble as far as he could, he succeeded in breaking a bottle.
He seemed to like this little game that he was playing, Everett noticed. And he, as a licensed counselor, could understand why. This casual destruction he was currently exhibiting was very much like the increasing aggression Billy Barreau was showing in his classes, to his mates and his teacher.
It was his pitiful attempt to make his own mark on the world, his own impact on a world that otherwise remained blissfully (and purposefully) unaware of his mundane existence.
This mood the young Barreau boy was in stemmed from a desire to be seen. To be noticed to be loved. Everett should know.
He himself and his own son when Bryce had grown up exhibited the same behaviors, once. Because that was what any child wanted, deep in the recesses of their hearts, to be loved.
Everett felt his heart thrum against his chest, beating more quickly than before, and it ached at the thought of this one reminded him of his own son, which made what he had to do in order to get his point across that Renee Barreau was now his, not Sirius's, hurt even worse, and just for a second, a pang of remorse tugged at his heartstrings, causing his stomach to give a lurch.
Silent, he stepped out from behind the corner he had ducked behind, and then he whispered the boy's name into the shell of his ear. He snatched the boy up and Disapparated with him before Billy Barreau even had a moment to turn his head and scream.
Well over a few miles away, right at the moment that six-year-old Billy Barreau was being killed and no one knew it yet, several miles into her journey following her early release from Azkaban Prison for good behavior, twenty-six-year-old Cate Greengrass decided to give up her former life and start fresh and new. At least, that's what she told herself.
She furrowed her delicately shaped eyebrows in a frown, wondering just how easy it would be for her to get a good job in Diagon Alley, with her record, if anybody would hire a convict like her.
The young witch made her choice as she huddled against the bitter cold of the downtown bustling streets of London, England, her hands shoved into the pockets of her jeans, her wand safely stowed in her back pants pocket, regulations of elementary wand safety be Merlin-damned, and her little black purse that admittedly wasn't very big but just small enough to suit Cate's minimalistic needs slung over her arm.
She had dressed this morning in a pair of black flared fit trousers and a short-sleeved pale pink velvet pleated neck top, black sneakers with no laces—clothing she had last worn almost a year ago now, clothing that had fit her last September when Kingsley Shacklebolt had arrested her in Knockturn Alley for her potions in the middle of a sale with none other than Mundungus Fletcher, the git, though admittedly, one of her better clients.
This morning, however, her shirt practically hung off her and the waistband of her pants hung loose, rendering the released prisoner of Azkaban wishing she'd thought to wear a belt at the time of her incarceration. It took Cate Greengrass a moment to realize it was not weight she'd lost during the last several months, but rather, her pride, especially around him. Everett.
Just the man's name plastered under her skin as a quiet vibration and made her skin crawl. She couldn't believe it.
A cold chill wafted down her spine as Cate recollected all of the times that she had spent in the man's office one-on-one with the handsome man, where he could have done any number of things to her.
Or to Tonks, she thought, furrowing her brows in a frown. The fact that the old Auror, Moody, one she recognized and had seen in the Warden's office shortly before Everett had murdered her, hadn't been able to subdue him, was disconcerting, to say the very least.
The grizzled old scarred Auror who was more scar and prosthetic limbs than flesh these days was supposed to be one of the very best, and if he hadn't been able to stop the creep escaping… then no one could. They were royally screwed.
"Darling," a man's voice called out, gruff, baritone, and authoritative. Whoever he was sounded on the verge of impatience, and Cate quickened her pace down the sidewalk.
She glanced over her shoulder, seeing no one else behind her. Whoever they were, they must be talking to someone else.
"Greengrass, wait a moment. I know you have nowhere to be, so a moment of your time, if you so kindly please, darlin'," a man's voice called out, smoother than silk and languid, rendering Cate's blood to ice in her veins, and she knew the chill that wafted down her back had nothing to do with the freezing cold as she clutched herself, wishing she had a jacket.
Cate didn't please, as it happened, but she could not very well start screaming at the top of her lungs at the very man who could, with just a quick Patronus, have her back in front of the Wizengamot for sentencing to turn around and go back to prison.
"Merlin's left nutsack," she swore underneath her breath, slowly turning at the waist, feeling what little color was left drain in her face as she turned to look at the newfound arrival in the eye, and immediately wished she hadn't, already knowing it was him. "Mr. Moody, sir, what can I do for you?" Cate grumbled darkly, feeling her pink-painted fingernails curl tightly over the strap of her little black purse, her wand hand lingering on the handle of her wand, hoping he wouldn't start spouting nonsense about elementary wand safety. Cate inwardly groaned at that.
Cate lifted her chin to meet Alastor 'Broody Moody's' gaze and was trying hard not to stare at his scarred nose (what was left of it, that is) but she kept finding her eyes had diverted to it.
Chunks of flesh were missing, and to say nothing of the Auror's blue magical swiveling eye that, for some strange reason, had gone still and was staring straight ahead, boring into her.
Cate flinched, though dared not avert her gaze first, though she was beginning to feel a bit perturbed by the Auror's silence.
Not to mention, his unnecessary staring of her.
If there was something that Tonks's coworker wanted of her, then, why did he not just come outright and say it? Sensing her unease, he let out a haggard sigh and carded his fingers through his tuft of gnarled, matted hair, congealed with dried blood from the attack. Clearly, he hadn't valued cleaning up before seeking her out, it seemed.
"Information," Alastor Moody barked hoarsely by way of response. "You know the Morning Killer. Who he is. He was your own damned counselor, for god's sake! I want to know more. Where you think he might go. I know for a fact you've studied his movements. Thanks to your bogus potions that taste like goblin piss, you have connections on the streets of both Diagon Alley and Knockturn Alley. Much as I hate to admit it, but Auror Tonks and I need your help. I won't have my protégé risking her life on the line again to bring this pervert to justice. She just got out of prison, as you very well know, and I would see her spend this time at home with her husband and newborn baby and take the rest of her maternity leave. Which leaves me with no other choice but to come to you. You're the best link our office has at nabbing him and any information, no matter how minuscule would help us out. Prior to her untimely death, Miranda told me you knew him best."
Cate blinked, hardly daring to believe what she was hearing from the grizzled old Auror, who was proceeding to stare at her in a melancholic manner, or at least, his one good blue eye was.
To say it creeped her out was a gross understatement, and it did not stop her from furrowing her brows in puzzlement and a slight suspicion. "Why are you suggesting this to me specifically?"
There just had to be another reason. Out of all of those in Everett's life who knew him best, she was not one of them, no.
No, there was more to it than that, Cate sensed, but whatever his reasons were, Alastor Moody was choosing to keep mum about them, his scarred lips, what was left of them, remained tight-lipped and he did not seem to be in a mood to divulge any more information, for he merely glowered at Cate.
"Because this is the only other damned way, Merlin damn it. I know of no one else to ask and more to the point besides, I can think of no one better suited to help Shacklebolt and I bring this man to justice to answer for the people he's killed, the lives he's taken and countless others destroyed. I won't have Tonks putting herself at risk, not with her new baby to care for, and you…"
He hesitated, biting down on his bottom lip.
"You're a pretty face, Miss Greengrass." Ignoring Cate's look of flustered outrage, the grizzled Auror pressed onward, continuing to speak as though his quip against Cate's beauty had not angered the young witch. "You've said it yourself, Everett is reportedly fond of pretty faces, and I've not forgotten the allegations against him for the attack against Rena Lestrange, though Andromeda's cousin was never able to prove it," he sighed, pinching at the bridge of his scarred nose with his thumb and forefinger. "Whereas other girls would never manage to get a foot near him should you happen to encounter him, I think you might be able to do it. I was told that the man likes you well enough. To the best of my knowledge, the man does not know that you are aware of his other identity," Mad-Eye Moody grumbled darkly under his breath. "You would be reporting to me should you see him, but of course, this all comes at a price. I'm sure you don't need me to tell you that, Miss Greengrass. You're of age. Surely, you understand the risks."
That she did. More so than Moody understood. She did not mistake the steel in the man's voice. He did not want any tricks or acts of deceit coming from a recently released inmate of Azkaban.
Cate hesitated, pondering her options. What Moody was asking of her was incredibly dangerous, not to mention stupid.
Everett was a smart man. Surely, he would be privy to the fact that the Auror Office was now actively searching for him, now that they knew his true name, but… he had killed so many innocent lives, and unless the Auror Office could stop him, the endless cycle of bloodshed and violence would continue onward.
And it had to stop, and it might as well start with her.
"I'll help, but…" Cate trailed off, running her tongue along the top wall of her cheek as she looked towards Moody with curiosity brimming in her eyes. "What's in it for me? I help you nab Everett, he's off the streets, but what do I get for risking my own neck for your office when you couldn't even nab him the last six months?!" she asked, feeling her temper surge to the surface.
A fair enough question and Cate Greengrass could tell the Auror had anticipated the young witch would ask such a thing.
He rolled his eyes, both of them, as he dipped into the pocket of his tattered brown trench coat and tossed a bag of what felt like several thousand Galleons to her, much to her surprise.
Cate blinked owlishly down at the pouch of coins in her hands, shifting her weight before unzipping the little black purse that she had enchanted with an Extension Charm and plunking it into her bag. Moody snorted and shook his head in mock disappointment, as though he had expected more from Cate.
"Enough gold to start a new life for yourself. Make some changes. Settle down somewhere kinda quiet, forget about things you aren't too proud of," Moody muttered in a voice that seeped with experience, and Cate found herself curious despite her initial disinterest, wanting nothing to do with the Ministry of Magic.
Alastor Moody fixed Cate Greengrass with a quizzical little stare that Cate was not entirely sure what to make of and nodded.
"The Muggles have a saying. That the grass is greener on the other side," he barked, ignoring the flinch Cate gave at the man's jab on her surname. "It isn't too late for you, Miss Greengrass. You help us, and I can ensure you leave your old life behind. Wipe your ledger clean of all the people you've wronged. Start over."
Cate nodded numbly, feeling her shoulders slump in defeat.
That was good enough for her. "I'll help," she muttered in a soft voice, lifting her gaze, and jutting out her chin slightly defiantly as she looked at Mad-Eye Moody, as though silently challenging the brooding man to question why she was helping.
The corners of Auror Moody's scarred mouth twitched, and Cate couldn't quite be sure, but she swore the man almost smiled.
Almost. Though Cate had no time to ponder it as he spoke.
"Good. Well, let's go if we're goin'." Moody paused, his magical eye swiveling wildly in its artificial socket as his gaze lingered upon Cate's shivering form in her clothes and her peaky, thin appearance. He shook his head in disgust. "C'mon. Follow me. I'll take you to The Leaky Cauldron, buy you a drink, get you something to eat. You look like you haven't eaten a good square meal in months. If you're helping us, the least I can do is buy you lunch and you can tell me what you know of the man over a meal."
"Wait!" Cate cried, flinging out her arm and her fingers curling around the sleeve of the Auror's brown trench coat as the grizzled old Auror had been about to turn on the heel of his boots and Disapparate to Diagon Alley towards The Leaky Cauldron.
The desperation and urgency in Miss Greengrass's tone gave Moody pause, and he slowly swiveled his head back around to his left to regard the young witch who had been Nymphadora's cellmate. "Not there, he won't be there, you'd be wasting time," she explained, sounding suddenly out of breath as her eyes widened as Moody's expression darkened as he looked at her.
Moody stared, his expression remaining mostly impassive, though Cate could have sworn she saw the briefest flickers of admiration at her keen intelligence and insight dart through his one good eye as he regarded Greengrass in silence where he stood.
Cate swallowed down hard past the lump in her throat.
"I know a place. I know where he'll go," she whispered, holding out her arm for the aging old man to take. "Follow me."
If Moody was at all surprised by the sudden shift in Cate's countenance, the veteran Auror was quite good at hiding it.
"Lead the way then, Greengrass," he barked gruffly by way of response and latched onto Cate's arm. Cate silently nodded, signaling she caught his silent glance and understood the risks.
Cate slowly closed her eyes and exhaled slow and soft through her flaring nostrils as the visions of Everett's favorite café flitted to the front of her mind. She'd been there once or twice prior to her arrest, it was a quaint little Muggle joint near their Muggle train stations and had the best coffee in all of London.
The young witch as the pair Disapparated from their spot on the sidewalk did not even have to think about where they were heading. She knew. He would be there, Cate was certain of this.
They were going to the Broken Spoon Café.