Lucifer: More Than My Own Existence
Chapter 9
A Shot in the Dark
"Detectives," a uniform officer had walked up to them. Chloe was sitting on the bonnet of her car. Dan was beside her and Lucifer was off to the side talking on the phone. Most likely calling in all kinds of favors. "There is a lady here who believes she knows what this is about." He pointed towards the woman Chloe had seen earlier. The one Aly had rushed off too.
"I remember her," Chloe told Dan. "Two years ago,"
"That's right. Sara's foster mom, Mrs. Stock." Dan motioned for Chloe to stay, "I'll go talk to her, you stay here."
She shook her head and slid off the bonnet, "No, I want to know why Trixie was taken. I'm going with you."
The officer who had walked up to them interrupted, "Um… do you want Mr. Morningstar talking to her?"
Both Chloe and Dan turned towards Mrs. Stock. Lucifer was already there speaking with her animatedly. "No," came Dan's curt reply as he headed over towards the two of them. Chloe was right on his heels.
"Thank you so much, Mrs. Stock and I must say it is a real pleasure seeing you again. I just wish it were under better circumstances." Lucifer had taken her hand and kissed it and if Dan wasn't mistaken the woman looked about ready to pass out.
Without waiting for him to turn around, Dan grabbed Lucifer's arm and spun him around. "What do you think you're doing."
He jerked his arm back, "Locating your little urchin." He motioned behind him. "Turns out this little human's parents have been trying to take her back since she was taken from them." Mrs. Stock was nodding along. "The mother was arrested a month ago for assaulting an educator, and the child was transferred to this place. The father found out yesterday his offspring was at this school and today tried to get her back, but his little cronies grabbed the wrong child."
"So," Chloe started, not sure if she was relieved, "if Trixie was a mistake why haven't they released her yet? Just left her and Sara on the side of the road somewhere?"
Dan put it together a lot quicker than his ex. "They haven't realized they got the wrong kid."
Using Trixie's watch, they were able to keep track of how long they waited in that cold basement. An hour later they heard the door being unlocked and Sara pulled a shivering Trixie to her feet and tucked her tight to her side.
When the door opened blondie walked in with a bandage across his nose, followed by the man with jet black hair and another man Sara thought she recognized, but couldn't place. Blondie and black-haired guy took up stances on either side of the door, giving Sara the impression, they must have had some kind of military training, but it was obvious the unknown man was in charge.
He held out his hand, "Aly, you need to come with me."
Trixie shrunk behind her and Sara put her arm out to block him, "This isn't Aly. You dumb shits grabbed the wrong kid."
A look of concern passed between the door guards, but it was the man in front of them who answered. "Ms. Fenn, you need to stay out of this."
"Oh, good you know who I am." She tucked Trixie further behind her. "Even if this was Aly, which it isn't, I would never let her go with you."
"This is a family matter and you are not her family."
"I am more her family than those pieces of shit who have the balls to call themselves her parents. Do you even know what they did to her? Why she was taken from them?"
"I've spoken with her father. It was a misunderstanding that got out of hand."
"Misunderstanding!" she shrieked. "That sperm donor threw an empty beer bottle at her head, left her to wonder the streets with a busted, bleeding head! Before that, his cunt of a wife slammed her hand in the car door, just because Aly dropped her ice cream cone on the ground! Before that there was the curling iron to the backs of both her legs, and before that the kitchen knife thrown at her back! Do you want me to keep going?" Sara had seen each and every one of the scars left from these encounters.
"She. Is not. Aly!" Sara growled at them. "You idiots have kidnapped a cop's kid."
Now she had their attention.
"What do you mean a cop's kid?" It was the man with the black hair asking.
"You remember how there were two girls standing there?" She asked but didn't wait for an answer. "That second girl was Aly. This is Trixie. Her mom and dad are detectives with the LAPD."
There was another look of concern pass between the man with the black hair and blondie. "Luis, you said you were sure this was your niece."
Now Sara realized why Luis looked so familiar. "You're Kenneth's brother." It was a statement, not a question. "You're the reason he and that bitch didn't go to jail the first time Aly was taken from them. You said you and your family would take her in, but the second the Social Worker walked out the door, you turned your niece over to her abusers." Sara's hands were shaking.
Blondie turned to Luis. "Dude, is that true?"
"Allen, this bitch will say anything."
Sara crossed the room in two long strides. She gripped Luis's arms and glared into his eyes. "Tell me the Truth! Did you know what they were doing to Aly?"
There was a second where Luis tried to pull away. But as Sara had leaned two years ago, if she wanted the truth from someone and applied enough force of mind, they would always tell it to her.
"Of course, I knew they were hurting Aly. I lied to Allen and Roger to get them to help me take Aly back to my brother. She belongs to him, not the system."
She dropped his arm and stepped back, putting herself between them and Trixie. He blinked a couple times, not sure what he had just admitted to. Sara looked at the men behind him. "Your friend lied to you. He's made you accomplices to kidnapping. Let us go and we'll say it was all him." There was a moment she was sure they were about to agree with her when another voice could be heard booming from the next room.
"WHERE'S MY DAUGHTER!"
"What I don't understand," Lucifer mused, "how Sara fits into all this. She isn't Aly's real sister, yet she was willing to tackle a man three times her size to try and protect not only her but Trixie as well."
Mrs. Stock puffed a little bit. "Sara is more Aly's sister than anyone. After you arrested her mother's killer, it was hard for her. She didn't trust anybody. Then we got Aly." She put an arm around said girls' shoulder. "She was more withdrawn than Sara had been, but when she was with Sara, they brought out the best of each other. Then Aly's parents tried to take Aly from us and Sara…,"
"She beat them up," Aly chirped in. "I was scared Mrs. Stock would send me away after that, but Sara said she would fight anyone who tried to take me away from them."
"Sara will always protect those who can't protect themselves. It doesn't matter if she has known them a year of a few moments." She looked at Chloe, "If your daughter is with Sara, Sara will do everything she can to keep your daughter safe."
"What the Hell Is Going On In Here!" The words were clipped and even before Kenneth Browning was in the room, Sara could smell booze on him.
Sure enough, when he walked into the room, he had a beer bottle in his left hand. He looked worse than she remembered. What little hair he had was turning grey and looked as if he hadn't washed sine the last time, she had seen him. Of course, the last time she had seen him this close, was in the front yard of Woody Ranch. She took a deep breath, ready to protect Trixie at all cost.
Kenneth looked up and recognition spread across his face. "I know you." He took a step closer to her. "You're the little bitch who kept me from my daughter."
Sara kept herself between this gutter rat and Trixie. "Yeah, and you're the piece of shit who likes to beat on little girls." His smell alone was enough to make her sick.
Kenneth was incredible slow, Sara could see him pull back right arm, but she didn't have to stop him. Allen had stepped up and grabbed Kenneth's arm. "Dude, we need to talk to you and your brother." Using the grip, he still had on his arm, he pulled Kenneth out the door, while the guy with black hair motioned for Luis to follow.
Sara heard the door lock from the other side, they hadn't taken Trixie, so she breathed a sigh of relief. However, this in no way meant they were out of the woods. Just because they knew they had the wrong kid didn't mean they would just let the two them go. She and Trixie could clearly identify all of them.
"Sara," Trixie stated, now clinging to Sara's leg, "will the let us go now?"
She smiled down at the girl, "I'm sure they will now." It was a bold face lie but she didn't want to scare her. "I'm going to try and hear what they are saying"
Once the door was closed the cold was starting to come back, but Sara pushed it out of her mind as she put her ear up to the ice-cold door. She could make out Kenneth's voice the best because she knew it better than the others, but she was starting to pick up the other three voices the longer she listened.
"Luis, you said the cops were blowing a simple slap out of proportion. Now your saying you knew your niece was being abused by your brother and not only were you going to hand her over to him, but you just made Roger and I accomplices to kidnapping, and a cop's kid at that!" Allen sounded pissed.
"I have no idea why I said that." Luis sound confused as to why he confessed. "Aly belongs to Kenneth and his wife; the state had no right to take her away from them."
"No right?! He was abusing his own kid."
"Look me in the eye and tell me everything she said they did was a lie." This voice was new and hard to make out, must have been Roger.
"She's My Kid! I have the right to do whatever I want!"
"LIKE HELL YOU DO!" Yep, defiantly Roger and he sound madder than Allen. "You threw a beer bottle at your kid and then left her to bleed. What the hell is wrong with you!"
"What I do with MY kid is nobody's business!"
"It is when what you're doing is hurting her! Besides, that girl in there isn't your kid. She's a cop's kid and we are letting them go."
Sara heard the lock being fiddled with. "NO!" was shouted on the other side of the door and seconds later a gunshot went off.
Sara bolted away from the door and back to Trixie, who looked just as shocked as she did.
"Thank you," Chole said after hearing Mrs. Stock's praise of Sara. "But how do we find them?"
Lucifer seemed to finally find the conversation interesting, "Well Maze, of course. The second I heard the urchin was taken I called Maze. She's been on the trial since before I even got here. Now that she has a name…"
"How did Maze get Kenneth's name already? We just found out."
"I texted it to her while you and the Detective were talking to Mrs. Stock." His phone dinged and he looked at it. "Oh, look at that," he tapped his phone, putting Maze on speaker. "Hello Maze, have you found the little human?"
"I'm on his trail. I talked with an employer and Kenneth works at Leo Carrillo Campgrounds, as a grounds keeper. It's about an hour away and is currently close due to fire damage. I should be there in thirty."
"Maze, you need to wait for us," Dan said as he reached for the phone, but Lucifer stopped him.
There was a sharp laugh, "No can-do Dan. It would take you forty-five minutes to even catch up with me. Plus, he might not be there. Not to mention that if you are insisting on joining the hunt, I know Decker will as well."
Chloe snapped her mouth shut, because she had been about to insist on coming as well.
"Yeah, I'll let you know when I find Trixie." There was a short pause and Maze's voice softened, "Chloe, I promise I'll bring her home."
Maze ended the call and Lucifer slid his phone int his inside pocket.
Dan looked from Chloe to Lucifer, feeling utterly helpless. He needed to be doing something. "I'm going to talk to other witnesses. If it turns out Kenneth isn't there, we'll need another lead." He moved off to where another group of officers where speaking to a small group of teachers.
"So, shall we go?" Lucifer asked as he motioned towards his car.
"Go where?" Chloe asked a little perplexed. He couldn't believe she would leave Dan to do the leg work while she went for a joy ride with him.
"To the campgrounds of course," he replied as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
"You heard Maze, it would take us to long to catch up with her. Besides Trixie might not even be there."
"If Daniel were driving then yes." He took her arm and lead he towards his car. "But you'll be riding shotgun with the devil and I can get us there about the same time as Maze. And don't bother asking Daniel if he wants to join, unless you think he'll enjoy the boot."
He was right of course, his sleek black convertible, while beautiful to look at, would never fit more than two people. Without turning towards Dan Chloe slid into the passenger side. "Let's go get my daughter."
Lucifer grinned as he got behind the wheel, "And punish the bastards who took her."
Sara immediately knelt down to Trixie, taking her face in her hands, needing to get her eyes off the door where all the commotion was going on. "Trixie, look at me." She waited for the girls frightened eyes to focus on her. "Good girl. Now no matter who comes through that door, you stay back. You got it?" She nodded franticly. "Good." She stood up and took another look around the cabin's basement. While the few scarce pieces of wood looked like they would crumble if she touched them, they were also the only thing she could see as any kind of weapon. Maybe if she was lucky, she could get a piece strong enough to use as a shive.
She moved Trixie to the far back wall, "Stay here." Then went to the discarded wood. Using the tip of her shoe she kicked a few of the longer looking pieces and to her relief one of them didn't fall apart. She picked it up, it was about half the size of a broom handle and when she swung it, it didn't disintegrate in her hands, but did leave a few large slinters.
She returned to Trixie, "Listen closely. Whoever comes through that door first I am going to hit three times with this. After that I will grab your hand and we will run. I figure we are in a basement so I am sure there will be some stairs." She needed Trixie to be on the same page as her. This way there would be no surprises. "If we do get separated or I have to tell you to run a head of me, find a way out of this place. Once outside you go to the right, find a place to hide and you wait for me to come to you. Got it?" Again, Trixie nodded. "Good." She motioned for Trixie to stay back against the wall, while she flattened herself against the wall beside the door. She took a few deep breaths and waited for the first person to walk through the door, quite sure she knew who it would be.
There was still a lot of yelling on the other side of the door, but when she heard the sound of glass breaking, she gripped the would be handle tighter, forcing more wood slinters into her hands.
Silence
It seemed to last forever, then whoever was still there unlocked the door.
Sara took a long deep breath and let it out slowly. Stepping into the light the open door allowed in, she started to swing, aiming high.
"WAIT!" It was the dark-haired man, Roger. His lip was split, and his right hand was pressed to his stomach and there was blood oozing between his fingers. "You need to run." He stepped aside and Sara could see into the other room. It appeared as if the basement was divided into two rooms, although this new one was more of a foyer. Luis was on the ground a small pool of blood circling his head. Allen and Kenneth were nowhere to been seen. "I managed to knock out Luis and Kenneth shot me, Allen ran, and I guess Kenneth thought I was dead and chased after him. The man is crazy, and you need to get out of here."
He sagged to the floor and Sara dropped the make-shift weapon and went over to him. "You need help, please tell me you have a phone." She started to search him but stopped when he shook his head.
"Luis told us not to bring them, they could be tracked." He hissed when Sara pushed hard on the wound. She knew what it was like to feel this kind of pain. He looked over her shoulder, towards Trixie. "I'm so sorry kiddo."
Sara looked behind her and saw Trixie standing there looking stunned but not scared.
Roger retuned his focus to Sara, "Listen, Kenneth maybe a drunk bastard, but that just makes him more dangerous. I hope you weren't lying about her being a cop's kid."
Shaking her head Sara stood up. There was nothing she could do for this man. Not if she wanted to keep Trixie and herself safe. "I wasn't."
"We're about an hour from LA. There are woods out towards the back, if you and the girl can make it to them, you might be able to lose him. If you continue southwest through the woods, you'll hit the bluffs. Do not stop moving."
Sara nodded, "Thank you." She took Trixie's hand and lead the way out.
