Part two of the sequel. Once again, I don't own anything, warnings for violence and the mention of violence etc etc! Thanks for the reviews for the last few chapters, keep them coming, I love them I really do!
Once again, dedicated to missing children, and to my big sis Nieve on whom Detective De Rossi is based!
Oh and Danny's comments on the death penalty are based on somethingI actually said to a spokespersson for Pro Lifers at my school, just so you know what side of the fence I'm on.
The sandy haired boy, the third person on Danny's list, sat opposite Danny in the interview room. Danny handed the boy a Styrofoam mug of hot chocolate, passing a coffee to the kid's father.
"Sorry about the surroundings" Danny wrinkled his nose as he sat down "We would use the lounge but there's so many people here giving information that all the …pleasant looking rooms are taken" he half shrugged as if to say 'what are you gonna do' .
"It's no problem" the man smiled, rubbing the boys head affectionately.
"What happened to you?" the boy asked suddenly, staring pointedly at the scar that ran along Danny's hairline and under the hair, another reminder of what had happened to him six weeks ago. It was still a noticeable scar, bright pink against Danny's fair skin.
He had also removed his jacket and the dark splint and taped fingers where visible, along with the fading bruising that was a stark contrast to his white and beige clothes.
"Peter!" the dad hissed, nudging his son gently but firmly.
"It's no problem Mr Armstrong. I got beat up by some bad people who had hurt somebody" Danny told Peter.
"Looks like you got your ass kicked" the eight year old kid stated.
Danny laughed and nodded "Well, yeah, I guess I did. But you know what? I won" Danny raised an eyebrow "and the guy who did it is dead"
"Did you kill him?" the boy asked, apparently nonplussed by the talk of a dead man.
"No, but I smacked him real good with a baseball bat" Danny explained.
"Was he gonna kill you?" Peter wrapped his hands around his hot chocolate.
"Yeah he was" Danny was amazed at how calm his own voice was.
"Why?"
"Well, that's a very long story" Danny said "and I think if I tell you it and you get nightmares, your dads gonna kick my ass!" Danny glanced at Peter's father who was frowning apologetically back.
"I wont have nightmares, tell him dad, I never have nightmares" the kid nodded as he spoke.
"Maybe another time. What I really wanna talk about now, or rather, who, is Lily Carter" Danny picked up his pen in his left hand, his wrong hand. His notes where illegible to everyone except himself, but since no one else needed to read them, it was okay.
"Do you remember seeing Lily last Saturday?" Danny asked.
"Yeah" Peter answered "She was with Christina, I like Christina she's a lot of fun" Peter smiled.
"Did you play with Lily?" Danny asked.
"A little bit, but she's younger than me you know, I was playing with more people my age" Peter sipped his hot chocolate.
"When you played with her, what did you play?"
"Well she had been playing with her dolls before, but then we where playing pirates, that's when we went on the climbing frame. She didn't want to be the princess, she wanted to be a pirate, even though she was dressed like a princess, but she makes a real good pirate so I said she could be one, and we where just playin"the kid shrugged.
Danny nodded "Was the slide in your game?" he asked.
"Yeah, it was, um…it was the way to get in to the treasure cave" Peter explained.
"Where was the treasure cave?"
"When you go down the slide, right up ahead of you there's the tunnel, you crawl through there and when you come out you're near the fence, and…"the boy trailed off, staring down at his hands and glancing at his father warily.
"What's the matter?" Mr Armstrong leaned forward, pulling his son into a one armed hug.
"You'll be mad" Peter said quietly.
"Mad about what?" Armstrong asked softly as pulled his son onto his lap, raising the boys head to look into his eyes.
"Well, remember when I was little and I got lost through the hole in the fence and all the parents paid to have the hole fixed up so no one could get in or out through it?" Peters started chewing a nail. "Well, we mighta kinda pushed the hole open and we might sometimes go through there and Lily and some other kids mighta went through on Saturday" Peter stared at the floor "We never told em to, Lily had just never been through before and wanted to see the cave!" he whined, starting to cry.
"What cave?" Danny asked.
"There's…a clearing in the tree's past the fence, and a little rock formation that looks like a treasure cave" Armstrong explained "But we had it all fixed years ago after Peter got through, he was lost for three hours before he got cold and just wandered back to the playground. All the parents made a fuss and we raised the money to have the whole park re fenced, to be safe you know? God if we'd known they where going back through…" he trailed off.
"Peter, did you see Lily come back into the park from the hole in the fence?" Danny kept his voice soft, his tone friendly.
"I don't know if she came back, we went home right after" Peter told Danny.
"What other kids went through?" Danny asked, his strong accent making the word through come out 'tru'.
He turned to a fresh page in his note book and slid it across the table to Peter, handing the boy his pen "Write their names down for me okay?"
As Peter wrote, Danny spoke the Armstrong. "How busy has the park been since Saturday?" he asked the older man.
"Not very, people have been too afraid…why?" Armstrong asked.
"No body told us about this break in the fence…it's likely that he clearing is where Lily disappeared from. I just wanna be sure how compromised the scene might be" Danny explained.
"I go by there everyday, there hasn't been more than one or two people there, a couple of nannies who kept their kids within arms reach at all times"
Danny nodded as Armstrong spoke. Peter pushed the pad back.
"Peter you've been really, really helpful, I just got a couple more questions okay?" Danny smiled at the boy.
"Okay" Peter nodded, smiling back.
"Did you go through the gap in the fence?" Danny asked.
"Nope,I was gonna but then my dad yelled for me."
"Did you see anybody, maybe with funny lookin' brown hair hangin' out by the park, maybe watchin' you guys while you was playin'?"
Peter frowned while he thought about it. "You mean like a stranger?"
"Yeah, somebody you hadn't seen before, or you knew didn't have kids?"
" I saw people I do know who have brown hair, peoples moms and dads, but no stranger" Peter answered earnestly.
"What about any body new? Was there some one there who maybe, had been there a couple of times before but wasn't an old timer like you and your dad?"
Peter shook his head again. "Okay Peter, um , do any older kids or grownups ever go to the cave?" Danny tried.
"Sometimes some ninth graders do" Peter answered.
"You know em?"
"Sure" Peter smiled again.
"You wanna write down their names for me? Are any of em out in the lounge?" Danny asked.
"Two of em are, I don't know about the rest" Peter told him as he wrote.
"They're all the people I've ever seen there, if there are more, you'll have to ask them" Peter pointed at the names.
"Peter can you do me a favour?" Danny asked the boy.
"What favour?" Peter replied.
"Never go through that gap in the fence again? And tell all of your friends not to? Because I can see just by lookin that your dad is gonna get that hole fixed again but that didn't stop you guys the last time huh? So you gotta be like a deputy cop and make sure everyone knows that it's out of bounds for keeps, yeah?" Danny winked at the kid as if he was letting him in on some big secret.
Peter grinned and nodded at Danny, then around at his dad who smiled at him
"I'm real proud of you Pete, you been a really big help today" Danny said as he moved toward the door , the lists of names in his hand "If you was my kid, I'd buy you like, ten ice creams" Danny shrugged, looking sidelong at Peter who grinned knowingly, evilly, and looked up at his dad.
"Fine, we'll go for ice cream, but you're not getting ten!" Armstrong picked his son up.
"We'll call you if we need either of you to come back in" Danny said as he walked with the man back to the lounge area "But I doubt we'll need to, this has been a great help"
"Call me if you need any kind of help detective. Lily was a sweet little kid, I want to help catch this bastard before he hurts another baby" Armstrong turned to Danny,
They shook hands, carefully, considering the state of Danny's hands, and Armstrong left.
"Anything good?" Nicole asked as she waved good bye to a bespectacled six year old and her parents.
" Actually, I might have found out how Lily disappeared " Danny told her, explaining quickly about the fence.
"Why didn't we hear about this before!" Nicole asked.
"From the sounds of it, the parents didn't know it existed, they did a couple years ago but they got it fixed. The kids just picked their way through. It would explain how she seemed to vanish into thin air, and how she was removed from the park. It makes me wonder if the guy was waiting for anyone to come along or if he specifically wanted Lily and lucked out. Damn, the more questions we answer-"
"The more we start asking" Nicole finished for him "Worry about motive later Danny, for now get all the information we can and we'll put it all together when we have it" She smiled at him again and he nodded.
"Lois Adams?" she called out, reading off her own list and a frizzy haired, stressed looking woman walked toward her, five little boys in tow. As Nicole moved away, Danny looked at the list Mac had given him and the list Peter had made.
He followed the new leads and held up Peters list "Any ninth graders step forward please?" he yelled.
A pair of fourteen year olds slunk toward him, moving away from their parents and younger siblings. "What are your names?" he asked them.
"I'm Zach Marsh, this is Katy Li" The boy spoke.
"Well I'll talk to you two together then" Danny ticked their names off Peters list.
"Don't you need like, our parents permission or what ever?" Zach asked, scratching his head boredly.
"You both fourteen?" Danny looked at them.
"Yeah"
"Then no I don't need your parents permission, especially since I'm not arresting you , I'm just askin you some questions real quick okay?" Danny smiled grimly. He led the pair back to the interview room that had become his personal base of operations and sat down opposite them at the table.
Zach was staring at the scar on Danny's head, his mouth hanging open dumbly.
Katy was sighing as if just being in the room was some massive effort and Danny fought the urge to yell at them.
"So you go to the clearing by the park?" he asked them out right.
"Yeah, sometimes" Zach answered.
"What do you do there?"
Like, stuff, you know?" Zach replied in that same idiot drawl.
Danny banged his good hand hard on the table, making both the teenagers jump and stare at him wide eyed.
"Now that I've got your attention I'll start again" Danny snapped "Do you go to that clearing?"
"Yes!" Zach answered.
"What do you do there?"
"We just hang out, we talk, we drink, we smoke sometimes…it's a good make out spot too. Plus the tree's are real tight over it, so the weather doesn't screw it up" Zach explained.
"Where you there on Saturday?" Danny wrote down Zach's answers.
"When Lily disappeared? I was for like, a half hour, but then my mom paged me to go pick up some groceries so I bailed" Zach said.
"Did you see any of the kids from the park in the clearing before you left?" Danny asked, calmer now that he was actually getting answers.
"Not while I was there. I heard them coming through though, laughing and talking, but I left before they actually reached the clearin'" Zach told him.
"How about you, Katy?"Danny looked at the Asian girl.
"I was there in the afternoon, way after the police got called" She told him.
"Did you see anything there?"
Katy looked up at him, really looking at him. She smiled dazzlingly, leaning over on the table and fluttering her eyelids flirtatiously. "Are you really a cop?" she asked.
"Yes I am" Danny said through gritted teeth.
"You're way too cute to be a cop" she said, reaching forward as if to take his hand. Danny leaned back in his chair, glaring at the girl "What are you doin?" he asked angrily.
"I just wanna talk" she grinned.
"How old are you? You're a baby, don't debase yourself" Danny stated.
"What? You can't say that to me?" she sat back, her face flushing red with shame.
"Oh, I think I can. What are you doin throwin yourself at a guy like me? Do you know what happened to Lily Carter?" he snapped.
"Somebody kidnapped her" the girl shrugged as if to say 'so what'.
"Someone molested and murdered her" Danny corrected "And you're sittin there flirtin with somebody twice your age like nothing's happened" He shook his head, disgusted and disappointed. "You know that behaviour like that makes you a target for the wrong kind of people" he said, his voice softer.
"What? Nu uh, short eyes only go for little kids, I'm too old to have to worry about that stuff!" she said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"Holy shit you really believe that?" Danny stood up, pacing the room.
After a few minutes he sat back down again, staring at the kids as if to try and see if they where joking. "Do you realise, that every police force in the country has a department that hires women who look fourteen so that we can catch out paedophiles in the act? We set up meetings between guys who claim to be fifteen or sixteen, and when we arrest em, they're always thirty or older. Being fourteen doesn't make you safe! Paedophiles, sometimes they prefer someone who's fourteen because what they desire, what does it for them, is that in between phase teenagers go through, when you guys are starting to look like young adults but you still look like little kids. Exactly like you look right now!" the anger had drained out of him leaving him tired and, he thought about it…really tired.
"I didn't know that" Katy said softly "But I'm not stupid enough to go with some stranger" she said, growing angry again.
"I'm gonna have one of our councillors call you at home, to give you all the information on this, because right now I just wanna know what happened to Lily." Danny said wearily. "You where there after the police had been called…did you see anything?" he asked.
"No, I didn't stay long, I was supposed to be meeting my friend but she lives in the same building that Lily did and her mom didn't want her to go out. She called me and I went over to her place. I was only there, maybe ten minutes" her voice was almost apologetic.
"While either of you where there did you see anyone older? An adult maybe? Wearing a brown wig? We think he would have been a big guy maybe?" Danny rubbed at his eyes again.
There was a pause, and thinking they wheren't going to answer, he shrugged and stood as if to leave "Some times older kids go there, to hang out, but not on Saturday. But I think I saw somebody like what you said" Zach spoke up. "When I was leaving, the woods beyond the clearing open out right onto the footpath… there was a guy sitting on a bench, reading a book or a magazine. I only noticed him cos the magazine looked like a skin mag you know? Porno or something" he explained "I didn't see his face but he had brown hair, kinda…big, weird lookin"
Danny wrote it down quickly looked to Katy.
"Anything you wanna add?" he asked her.
She shook her head.
"Fine" he walked them out to the lounge.
Four hours later all of the families had left and Danny, Aiden, and Nicole and Mike where driving out to the park to take a look at the clearing. Mike was driving with Nicole in the passenger seat and the two CSI's in the back. Danny was half dozing, nursing a hot coffee which he occasionally sipped. "So the kids who where with Lily said that she stayed behind in that clearing on her own, they didn't see anything or anyone" Danny murmured.
"You know I was almost grabbed once" Aiden said conversationally.
"How did that happen?" Nicole asked, turning in her seat.
"I was walking along with a friend of mine, when I was like, six, and this car pulled up by the curb and the dude opened his door. We knew no to talk to strangers but this guy seemed like he was askin for directions you know? He wasn't offering us sweets or nothing, so we stopped. And he was talking real quiet, I know now it was on purpose, so I kept stepping closer and closer to the car to hear him, not thinking about it, and I got close enough and he just reached out and grabbed my wrist" she told them.
"What did you do!" Nicole stared at her.
"I screamed, I whacked him with my bag, but he wouldn't let go, but, luckily, a group of guys, like eighteen or nineteen years old, from my building, they came around the corner and saw me screaming bloody murder and my friend pulling on me to try and get me away and they came running over to help and the guy just let go and drove away" Aiden shrugged. "We told the police but he had kept his face hidden and they found the car dumped a couple of days later, it had been stolen so…"
"Oh wow" Nicole breathed "Wheren't you…scared, traumatised?" She asked.
Aiden shrugged, reaching up to pull her dark hair back into a ponytail "At first yeah, but then my brothers started escorting me everywhere and I got over it, I just learned a really important lesson" she shrugged again.
"There was a guy, when I was growin up, this old timer who lived on his own" Danny sat up in his seat "He was friendly, a widower I think, I remember he had a bad heart so he was always wheezing…but he had been in the war, and he used to tell all us kids all these stories about the missions he had been on…we would all go over to his place and he would always have cookies and candy…I guess he was lonely and enjoyed the company…I used to go over a lot on my own, cos I didn't always wanna hang out with the Tanglewoods, and I couldn't always be at home cos my dad would get violent when he drank, so I would go listen to him tell these stories…I tell ya, I aced every world war two based history exam I ever had! But one day, all of a sudden, every body turned on this guy. I never found out what triggered it but all of a sudden nobodies parents would let them go over…I guess some one musta said something but we got so angry about it…we would sneak over there to talk to him and he would be so scared, he'd be throwing us out, beggin us not to come back…someone must have threatened him, spooked him real bad" Danny pulled the lid off his coffee.
"Had he done anything?" Mike asked, glancing at Danny in the rear view.
"We never found out. The…I guess, freeze out for lack of a better term, lasted for a month then the poor old S.O.B died. I don't think anything bad ever happened. Like I say I was over there a lot on my own and he never…tried anything ya know? And no girls ever went over there…it was cruel, the whole adult population of the neighbourhood just turned on him and they would never tell us why" he shook his head slowly, sadly.
"We had a guy like that, back in Liverpool, who everyone thought was really nice…we didn't go around to his house but we would talk to him when we saw him…when he died, because he lived alone no one realised he hadn't been around for a while and the police had to break in…he had fallen down the stairs carrying a box full of videos's and magazines…all kiddie porn" Nicole shook her head in amazement.
"Jesus!" Danny breathed.
"I know…we all used to think we had like…a radar, for people like that, that we could just tell when someone was a bit…creepy, but he fooled everyone"
"I knew a kid got took" Mike spoke up "A kid I went to school with, got nabbed on his way to the store when he was about eight…he turned up a day or so later, he'd been…raped, abused. When he was eighteen he tried to grab a little boy outside of school…he didn't, cos the parents stopped him, so he went home, and he killed himself."
"Fucking paedophiles. We should bring back burnin" Danny sneered "No trial, no jury, just let cops carry flame throwers and light the bastards up" he swallowed the last of his coffee.
Nicole nodded in agreement. "Hell Yeah" she said softly.
Aiden shrugged "I don't know, sendin em to prison where all the other inmates know what they did is kinda fun too" she mused.
"You know I was talking to this pro lifer once, at some conference we had, and, see I'm all for the death penalty, for the right guys you, know, there's some scum that just needs to be wiped off the face of the earth and she, the pro lifer, had just given this speech about how responding to crime with death, or an eye for an eye or what ever, wasn't moral, didn't help anything, yadda yadda yadda, and she asked if we had any questions, so I stood up, and I said ' so you're saying that if some guy raped and killed dozens of little girls, and was on death row for it, you would campaign for him to be kept alive, even knowing what he had done?' and she tells me 'yeah, because wouldn't it be worse for him to be alive, knowing what horrible things he had done?'
And I said 'no, because he doesn't think of them as terrible things, otherwise he wouldn't have done them, he'll sit there enjoying his memories for the rest of his life and you're comfortable with that?'" he crumpled the Styrofoam cup in his hands "She didn't know what to say to that…hopefully I made a convert" he smiled, but it was forced.
They had reached the park and climbed out, wrapping respective coats and scarves around themselves. The rain was almost torrential, falling from the sky in painful sheets, as if the gods themselves where mourning for Lily.
"Will there be any thing left to collect?" Mike asked the CSI's as they made there way toward the park. The guard who was normally on duty sat under a wide umbrella, with a uniform cop who had been assigned to the park.
The four detective's joined them under the umbrella while they explained why they where there. The guard and cop nodded grimly, cursing the weather.
"The eighth graders told me that this clearing has natural cover from the tree's…hopefully he was right" Danny told them as they reached the spot on the gate. They climbed over the fence and pushed through a thin layer of shrubs. There was a small worn path way behind the shrubs and they followed it until they reached the clearing. Amazingly enough, it was relatively dry. There where a few muddy patched where rain had gotten in, but the thick leaves mostly created a kind of roof over the clearing, filling the air with the sound of the rain hitting the leaves. It was dark in the clearing.
Three teenagers sat in the clearing, huddled around a tiny campfire. They where passing a joint around and didn't notice the four detective's arrival.
"Hey, knuckleheads!" Mike snapped.
The kids looked around at them lazily, too high to do anything else.
"Who are you?" one of them asked slowly.
"We're cops genius" Mike stepped over, stamping the fire out and dragging the kid to his feet "This better be oregano" he snatched the joint from the kids hands.
"Hey, wait" the kid tried to protest.
"You come here often?" Mike asked the boy, who was maybe seventeen as his companions slowly, dazedly stood up.
"You hittin on me?" The kid squinted at Mike.
His friends started laughin as Mike smacked the kid upside the head, "No you jackass, we're investigatin a murder" he told him.
"Lily Carter right?" One of the kids asked, "She was friends with my little sister" the African American teen stepped over "That's a damn shame what happened to her" he nodded.
He didn't seem as stoned as his friends so Danny and Aiden moved toward him.
"What's you name kid?" Aiden asked as Nicole approached the third stoner and began questioning him.
" Marcel" the kid told her nodding again, "My little sister is Dessie, you guys had her down at the station today with my moms and the nanny, askin what happened right?" he asked. He kept on nodding and Danny shot Aiden a look. She raised an eye brow in response and they turned back to Marcel.
"So you know all about what happened?" Danny asked.
"Yeah, they closed down the school, sent e'erbody home early, said we should be sending flowers to Miss Carter, like that's gonna help her now" he sucked his teeth "Hey is my baby sister safe? Is this fucker gonna come back, cos if I think anybody might hurt Dessie I'm gonna kill his ass no questions asked" He said.
"Where were you on Saturday, when you found out a kid was missin? We know a lot of people pitched in to help look for her…" Danny looked up at the kid who had at least five inches on him.
"Yeah I helped. I was in my room, on the computer and Keisha, she's Dessie's sitter, she came runnin in said Lily had disappeared from the play ground, said people was goin out to look. I grabbed a flashlight and went out too, Keisha stayed in with Dessie and I called some my friends and we all joined in lookin but she was long gone" Marcel told them, his voice sad. " I didn't even think to look in here. I didn't think the little kids knew about this place" he told them "I ever catch Dessie comin in here and I'm telling my grandma. My moms'll yell at her but nana? She'll scare the crap out of her, make sure she don't ever wanna come in here again" he tutted.
"Well we think that this is where Lily disappeared from, so we're gonna need you to hang around…you might have picked up some of our evidence without even meaning to" Aiden told him.
"Sure, you need me to go to the station house with you? Cuz I will if I gotta, I want this guy caught too, before another little baby gets hurt" he grinned at them.
"I aint goin with no cops!" The teen Mike had been talking to called over.
"Shut up" Mike smacked him again "You are goin with us because if you don't, I'm gonna arrest you for obstructing a police investigation" Mike explained.
"We goin Larry, this is bout that little girl got killed, Dessie's friend" Marcel told his companion.
"Aw man, we didn't to nothing to her!" Larry stepped back "I didn't hurt no kids!" he exclaimed.
"We know ya didn't ya fuckin lemon head, but this clearing might be where she was taken from, so by bein here you mighta compromised the evidence. We need to examine your clothes for anything you might have picked up" Mike said.
"Do…do I need a lawyer?" the wasted teen asked.
"Not if you volunteer to help us. Which you are going to do, aren't you" it wasn't a question.
"Aw man!" Larry said again.
"This one would probably dance if we asked him to" Nicole pointed at the third, truly hammered teen.
"Damn" Aiden cursed " Can we get em some coffee or something, try and sober em up" she said " and could somebody go to the jeep and get us some big collection bags and some blankets, we'll have to take their jackets, shoes and pants…anything that might have touched the floor or tree's" She set down her kit.
Mike pulled a radio form his pocket and hit the send button, telling the uniform on the gate what they needed.
While they waited, Nicole and Mike took down the teens' personal information as Danny and Aiden began photographing everything. They identified dozens of footprints, but managed to find enough separate samples for identification. Next they moved onto litter, going on the theory that the perp had used drugged candy to lure and subdue Lily. They found and bagged dozens of pieces of litter, chip packets, candy wrappers, even an abundance of condom wrappers. "I was gonna suggest running the UV light over this scene, but I think we're talking cheap motel levels of sex goin on in here" Danny told Aiden as he picked up yet another silver wrapper.
Aiden wrinkled her nose in disgust "You think it's all that romantic out here at night?" she asked.
Danny cast a look around the dim, damp clearing "Maybe in the summer?" he suggested.
The uniform arrived with the blankets and a tray of coffee's, enough for the kids and the detectives to each have one. "I'll get the clothes" Aiden said and moved off.
Danny nodded, shining his flash light into the tiny 'cave' that was the source of so much amusement for the kids. It wasn't deep, but it was unnaturally dark, more so than it should have been even in the dying light. Danny shuddered involuntarily.
"Scared of monsters?" Nicole said in his ear, making him jump.
"Hell yeah, I'd be stupid not to be" he admitted. "How can little kids think this place is cool?" he asked, moving further into the cave, debating whether or not it was worth going back to the jeep for the brighter spot lights.
"How do you mean?" Nicole asked, turning her own flash light on and shining it into the darkness. It didn't help much.
"About me bein scared or about little kids" Danny asked her, shaking his flash light as the beam flickered "Damn batteries" he murmured.
"The scared thing"
"Well, where I grew up, if you wheren't scared you where stupid and if you where stupid you where dead" Danny explained.
"What about monsters? Did you believe in the boogey man?" She asked, and there was something in her voice that made him look at her.
"Why?" he asked.
"It just fascinates me…in the UK, we don't have this whole…boogey man thing that Americans do…you guys have like, this whole psychology based around the boogey man, hundreds of children get terrified by this thing, have nightmares…you even have these night terror things…I don't know a single British child who has ever been afraid of the boogey man or anything like that" Nicole explained.
"Really?" Danny banged his torch on his hand and the beam flickered back to life. "Like not ever?"
"No…I mean they have nightmares and get scared of things obviously, but I've personally never met a British child who thought the boogey man was trying to get them, or lived in the cupboard" She shifted on her feet, trying to let more light into the cave "Just go in there!" she jokingly pushed him.
"What? No way, you go in there, you're the one who doesn't believe in the boogey man. If you don't believe in him, he can't get you, so…you go in there" Danny pushed her back.
"Oh you're just like my knight in shining armour aren't you" Nicole shot him a quick grin.
Danny held his light close to the ground. He saw a strange mark in the mud, like something had been dragged. He pulled his camera around and made sure the flash was on before he took a dozen photographs of the drag marks, crawling further into the cave. Keeping his flash light close to the ground, he snapped off more photo's even though he wasn't sure how they would come out. He moved the camera back out of his own way and shined the light around again. He used his tweezers to pick up more candy and condom wrappers. As he reached the back of the little cave, his light made something sparkle and he picked up what looked like a tiny gem stone. It was the same colour as the purple part of Lily's dress. "Do me a favour and phone Stella, ask her if she found any gem stones on Lily's dress, or a gap where they might have fallen off" Danny called to Nicole as he picked up the gem.
Nicole stepped away from the cave entrance as Danny gently rooted through the dirt. He turned up two more gems, but no more. As he shuffled out of the cave and stood up, pushing his chest out to arch his back, Nicole walked over to him. Danny felt his vertebrae pop and crack and sighed with relief as the dull ache that had been growing at the base of his spine began to fade.
"Stella said that the dress didn't have any gems on, nor did it have any places for them to go" Nicole told him.
"But I found-" Danny started to say.
"So, she checked on the Princess Mia website, and the same dress should have six little purple gems sewed onto the front" she drew her finger across the front of her chest, under her breasts "Where the seam would be on the dress. She had another look, the gems aren't there. But there where tiny holes where they should have been sewed on, and she thinks some of them might have been pulled off, but the rest cut"
"Three right?" Danny asked.
"Yeah, how did you know?" She frowned at him.
He held up the three little gems he had found as Aiden walked over carrying three big paper bags. "I think she hid" Danny told them.
"There are drag marks in that cave, and these gems where back there. I think Lily curled up in there to hide and he dragged her out. Or maybe…maybe he gave her the stuff that put her asleep and she came in here, either way she was in here and she was dragged out, and these gems came off've her dress. I really think he drugged her here cos otherwise she woulda screamed" Danny explained.
"I'm gonna go check out the proper footpath" Danny nodded in the direction of the path.
"Well I'll get these guys and their clothes back to the labs, then we can see if this guy left anything behind. And I'll check in with Jane to see if she got anything off that hair." Aiden told him.
"Cool" Danny nodded.
"I'll go back with you" Nicole told Aiden "I'll follow up on that list of cars- uh, I'll send a car back to get you guys"
"All right" Aiden nodded. They walked away, leaving Danny with Mike.
The two men edged along the concealed pathway, Danny using his torch to light the way. They emerged onto rain soaked public pathway having found nothing new. As they stood in the rain, looking around, Mike squinted at the bench that Zach had mentioned.
"That it?" He pointed.
"Gotta be" Danny shrugged as they headed over to the bench.
Danny crouched to look under the painted green bench, leaning over to see if there was anything worth collecting. "Too much rain, too late in the case" He told Mike as he stood.
Mike nodded raising the collar of his jacket around his neck as he glanced up at the darkened sky. There was a sudden resonant bang and both men instinctively reached for their guns, looking around for what they thought was a gun shot. The air flashed silvery blue and the rain got stronger. "Damn" Mike stared right up at the sky "Just what we need"
"I don't know, bad weather, less kids out on the street, less chances for this guy to repeat" Danny looked over at the darker haired man " You keep lookin up like that you're gonna drown" he shuddered against the cold.
Mike looked at him "Hey aren't you supposed to avoid getting sick or something?" he asked, remembering Danny's recent close call
"Isn't everybody?" Danny shot back, smiling.
He turned to look down the path in opposite direction as lightning flashed, and he froze. Raising his torch he clicked it on and took a half step forward.
"What is it?" Mike stepped thunder boomed and lightning flashed again.
In the undergrowth behind and to the left of the bench, something reflected the light oddly. Danny stepped forward moving the leaves aside with the tip of his shoe. He crouched down and gently pulled the leaves away from what he revealed to be a magazine cover. He photographed it, pulling it out onto the path way carefully, as it was soaked through. There was a naked woman on the cover, posing provocatively as she eyed the camera. "Zach said he saw a guy reading a porno magazine when he left the park, a guy with brown hair…we found brown hairs from a wig on Lily…and here we have porn…I doubt this is a coincidence" he said as he examined the cover. "But it's only the cover…" he said.
"Maybe the rest… ever pick up a heavy magazine just by the cover?" Mike asked.
"Yup, the rest of it just tears right off" Danny nodded. "So who ever dropped this, he musta been in a hurry to get out of here, cos check out the price tag on this thing 'Wet and Wild'" Danny pointed to the $18 dollar label as he read the title of the nagazine aloud.
"That's not exactly retail, a skin mag that pricey is special order…but I don't get it, it just looks like your basic porno" Mike frowned. He stood, moving away as his cell phone rang.
Danny saw the opportunity to crack a joke but let it slide. He bagged the magazine and they cut back through the clearing and out into the park, relieved to see one of their jeeps idling, waiting for them to approach.
As Danny put his kit into the back of the jeep, he held the clear plastic bag containing the magazine cover up to the light. In one corner, partially obscured by mud, he could see a white stick on label, printed with an address.
"Hey Mike?" he called, and the detective stepped around beside him. "You see that?" he pointed to the address.
"That's not too far away from here" Mike said.
"Yeah. It's like, what, a ten minute drive? It's gonna take us a half hour to get back to the lab" Danny stated, his voice carefully empty.
"We should probably swing by this guys place…he might have seen something" Mike shrugged." Oh by the way, that was Mac, Dr Hawkes got back to him, there have been four cases before this one with the same M.O, the same bruising pattern on the victims, same sedative in their blood. This guy even has a preference, five to six years old, blonde hair, blue eyes. His preferred…hunting ground…is public playgrounds like this one, crowded out doors places where people aren't gonna notice a kid missing right away" he told the CSI "this guys readin' porno magazines thirty yards away from a kids play ground? We definitely should pay him a visit"
"Yeah, I mean this guy could be a material witness too scared to come forward" Danny nodded.
"Yeah" Mike agreed.
"Wait a second" Danny frowned, holding the cover closer to the light. He pinched it between his thumb and fore finger, sliding his fingers so the cover wrinkled.
"Hey, careful!" Mike exclaimed, almost reaching for the cover.
Danny put the bag down and pulled on a pair of gloves, opening the bag and taking the cover out. He pulled a switch blade out of his pocket and opened it with a flick of his wrist. Mike watched him, his gaze switching from Danny's face to the cover, back and forth between the two.
Danny put the tip of his knife against the edge of the cover and slowly pushed it forward. It slid under the cover and Danny moved the knife the way you would a letter opener, separating what Mike realised was two separate covers. There was something tacky, glue that had lost its grip after being in the rain. Danny put down his knife and pulled the covers apart. He set them down side by side. On the right was the 'Wet and Wild' cover. On the left, the newly revealed cover, still tacky in places from the glue, showed a smiling little girl waving at the camera. She was nude, and even though it was a photograph, the detectives could see that the girls eyes where glazed, that her grin was the fixed smile of the heavily sedated. A printed title read 'Little Secrets'.
"Motherfucking son of a bitch asshole" Mike growled, his voice dropping so low it was imperceptible.
Danny quickly bagged and stored the new cover, avoiding looking at it while he put it away. "We goin?" he pointed to the address on the first cover.
"Wild horses couldn't stop me"
The uniform stayed in the car, guarding the evidence that had already been collected and waiting for the back up as Mike and Danny walked up the steps of the apartment building. A woman was walking out as they walked in and they flashed their badges at her as she made to push the door closed behind her.
Stepping out of the rain into the foyer of the building, Mike snatched the collar of a boy walking past then, a kid no older than twelve.
"You know Mr M. Booth?" He asked the boy, holding his badge up for the kid to see.
"Melvin? Sure I know him, he's hard to miss, real big, stupid red hair" The boy shrugged, pulling his collar out of Mike's hand.
"What apartment is he in?" Danny asked.
"Why?" the kid sneered "He do something?"
"He's a short eye, you know what that is?" Danny snapped at the boy.
"I knew it, he's such a fuckin creep!" the kid gasped "He's in eleven, next floor up, at the end of the corridor" the kid pointed to the elevators "He's usually in around now but he's been coming and goin a lot lately" he told them.
"Thanks kid, get outta here" Mike jerked his chin in the direction of the doors, reaching for his radio to tell the uniform which floor to send the backup too.
"You gonna kill him?" the boy asked, sounding both horrified and excited at the prospect.
"Go" Mike said quietly, and something in his voice made the kid turn and run.
As they rode up in the elevator, Mike rolled his neck as if he was loosening up. "Can we legally do this?" he asked, rubbing a hand through his still damp hair.
"Sure. The evidence was in plain sight in a public park, and the nature of the crime suggests that Melvin is a risk to others, to children no less" Danny unfastened the buttons on his jacket. He didn't draw his gun but he had made it a whole lot easier to reach for.
Mike's jacket was already unfastened and as the elevator pinged and the doors slid open, he placed a hand on the hilt of his gun, popping open the thin leather band that held it in place. Danny mimicked him as they stepped forward and looked around.
"Number eleven" Mike pointed. At the far end of the dimly lit, dismally painted corridor, the apartment door looked like the entrance way to hell. Which, Danny thought, for Melvin's victims it probably was.
"Creepy door" he whispered, and Mike nodded in agreement.
"We goin into this as cops or mercenaries?" Mike asked as they neared the door, and Danny pulled up short.
"If we knock it could warn him, but if we don't knock and something happens, it's gonna look like we just came here to kill him" Danny thought out loud. "Screw it, we'll knock…if he runs we get to shoot him" Danny grinned cruelly.
They stepped up to the door. Danny rapped hard on the wooden door, resisting the urge to kick it.
There was a moment of silence, then a muffled voice called out "Who is it?"
"Mr Booth? This is the police" Mike replied, his voice calm and almost friendly. "We're investigating a case and we have reason to believe you may have witnessed something" Mike said.
"Uh…I don't know what you mean, I haven't seen anything" Came the response, and Danny rolled his eyes.
" Sir it's possible you didn't realise that what you saw was significant, we really need to explain the full situation to you to help jog your memory" Danny yelled.
"Well go on then"
"Sir we'd prefer it if we could do this inside?" Mike asked.
"Um, I'm not really prepared for visitors right now" Melvin called back " I'm not really dressed"
"We don't mind" Mike told him.
"I'd really prefer it if we could do this another time, maybe you could come back?" Melvin asked.
"No, sir, this is really a case of time, we don't have enough of it and we really need to get this done now. Open the door" Mike called, the friendly tone disappearing from his voice.
Danny drew his gun and Mike followed suit as Melvin called back " I don't appreciate this harassment, I want you to leave"
"Open the door Melvin" Danny said.
"Go away!" Melvin's voice was fearful but angry.
"Damn it, open the door!" Mike snapped.
"No, you can't make me!" Melvin cried back.
"We have a kiddie porn magazine with your name on it Mel, literally, we know it was you who took Lily Carter, open the fucking door!" Danny yelled.
There was a thump and a squeak and Mike and Danny wordlessly stepped back and simultaneously kicked the door as hard as they could. Melvin had at least half a dozen locks on the door but the wood of the door and the surrounding frame was soft and gave way under the kicks.
Danny and Mike, guns raised, entered the apartment quickly but cautiously. They split up, Danny heading right, down the small corridor that led to the bedrooms.
Mike went left, toward the kitchen and living room. Danny pressed his back to the wall as he edged along, heading for the first room. He peered inside, seeing a bed, a tv, a chest of drawers. He pushed the door all the way open, making sure no one was hiding behind it and stepped far enough into the room that he could see it was empty of Melvin.
He ducked back out, heading for the next room, which was also empty. The third door was the bathroom, and while Danny doubted that Melvin was hiding in the small room, he edged in any way. He pulled back the shower curtain revealing an empty bath and lowered his gun as his arms began to twitch from holding the weapon up for so long. He turned in the small room, stepping back out into the corridor. There was a tiny linen closet and Danny raised his gun in his right hand, ignoring the pain from his fingers and wrist, and stepped toward the closet, feeling slightly foolish for doing so. He doubted even he himself could have fit in the closet, but he'd rather be sure than dead. Danny grabbed the handle and swung the door open quickly, stepping back out of reach. The closet was empty of people, containing only towels and sheets and Danny turned to head back toward Mike when something smashed against the back of his head. He hit the deck, shards of whatever he had been hit with falling along with him and tried to turn onto his back to raise his gun. A heavy foot stomped down twice on his right wrist and hand and for a second Danny forgot how to breathe as the barely healed bones snapped under the boot.
Then he remembered and screamed, pulling his hand in close to is body as he was kicked, the tip of a boot catching him in the solar plexus.
He saw spots as his attacker, Melvin, ran away. Danny heard a shout and another thump, then a crash as something broke. He rolled onto his back, bunching his stomach muscles to pull himself into a sitting position. Groaning, he used his left hand to climb to his feet, leaning heavily against the wall as he picked up his gun and the world swam. He could feel blood on his head as he walked, and his right arm throbbed with pain with every step he took. Mike was on his hands and knee's by the door, coughing hard as he tried to breath. There was a bloody shard of glass near the door, and Mike's left hand was covered in blood.
Danny slid down the wall so he was sitting as Mike got his breath back and leaned back against the door frame, holding his wounded hand up in front of him.
"You okay?" Danny asked, feeling ill as his arm throbbed again.
"Bastard came at me with a pipe or something then kicked me all in the ribs. So I smacked him with a bowl" Mike slowly moved the fingers on his wounded hand.
Danny thought about trying to move his fingers and felt sick again, so didn't try it.
" He musta gone out of the window in the bathroom or something, cos I checked those rooms and they where empty, then next thing he's hittin me from behind" Danny groaned. "My doctor gets pissy if I get hit in the head. He might actually ground me for this"
"Ugh, God, Nicole's gonna love this. Ever since I met her I've gotten hurt three times on a case, and all three times she wasn't there…she has a theory that she's my lucky charm or something. Ow. She's just gonna milk this to death" Mike grabbed his wrist and squeezed.
"You get hurt and she milks it?" Danny asked as the elevator pinged and Don Flack and Mac Taylor stepped onto the corridor.
"Yeah" Mike nodded. He looked at Danny. "Shut up"
"I didn't say a word" Danny held up his good hand as Don and Mac reached them.
"What happened!" Mac asked crouching between the detectives.
"Well, we found the guy, but we lost him again" Mike told him. "And he kicked our asses one after the other"
"You guys might wanna see this" Flack called from somewhere within Melvin's apartment.
Mac helped Danny and Mike to their feet, and they walked to where Flack stood, looking into the living room. There where magazines, more copies of 'Little Secrets', video's with carefully chosen titles that made them seem like home video's, and on the coffee table, sitting on top of a photo album, there was a picture of Lily, sitting in the back of a car, her hands tied in front of her, her dress cleaner than it had been when her body was found.
She stared up at the camera, her eyes wide but angry. There was a time code on the picture.
"Four hours after this was taken" Danny spoke, breaking the silence that had settled over the room "She was dead"