Chapter 4: Rescue
"What happened from there, Mrs. Scott?" Zack said who was obviously intrigued.
"Did you go over there right away?" Jason asked.
"Not yet," Connie said as she stopped trying to make the photo albums and talk at the same time. "In order for Jean, Cindy and I to catch Nancy and Frank Burke in the act, we need to document what was happening and what we were hearing." Just then the doorbell rang. "Jason, get that."
"Right, Mom," Jason said. He got up and opened the door. "Kim! What's up?"
"Not much, Jason," Kim said as she hugged him. "We are just visiting. What are you up to?"
"Helping my mom before summer break is over. I have one more year before I graduate."
"I just wish that Trini was coming back with us. It was sad that she died in that car crash last year."
"Come in," Connie said to Kimberly. "Don't dwell on Trini. She wouldn't want that. We were just talking about why we moved away from our old neighborhood. Well, I almost had a heart attack after what you all did."
"Ok, I talked to Officer Ron," Connie said to Cindy and Jean. All of the parents of the future Rangers were having a meeting at the Scotts' home in their living room two weeks after Jason's shocking discovery. "We need one more incident in order to turn the Burkes in. From there, they will be answering to the law."
"That's great," Jean said. "What they are doing to poor Amber and Nick is horrible."
"That's not so great either," Cindy said. "We are just waiting for them to do it again and either Amber and/or Nick is going to suffer as a result."
"I know," Mark said. "Those poor children. What is James's role in all this?"
"From what I can see when I would come home," Darrel, Zack's father, said, "James is their real child and the boy is a spoiled brat. He does nothing, but play with the children down the street. I don't think that those children know anything because he can't bring anyone inside either. No one is allowed in that house."
"I have often seen Frank come home with big boxes almost everyday," Thuy Kwan, Trini's mother, said.
"I ponder if he is endeavoring to falsify his objectives," Mitchell said. He was obviously Billy's father.
"What?" Darrel asked.
"He means that he might be hiding something," Thuy said.
"We need to do something, quick," Connie said. "They might be dead the next time." Unbeknownst to the parents, Jason and the other Rangers were listening in.
"Nick might get into real trouble next time if our parents don't do something," Jason said.
"We need to do something," Trini said. "What?"
"How about when our parents go to sleep tonight we sneak over and get into the house to take a look?" Zack said.
"That would be great, but how do we get in, genius?" Kimberly said. "They probably lock their doors and windows when they go to sleep."
"Wait," Jason said. "Their house is like all of ours, right?" The other Rangers nodded. "Then they have a basement that we can sneak into. From there, we can go inside and get Nick out ourselves."
"Great," the other six-year-old Rangers said and the six of them waited until their parents ended their meeting. They all went home and when to bed right away. At around midnight, Jason woke up to the sound of tapping. Billy was tapping on Jason's window.
"Jason, wake up!" Zack said quietly. Jason went up to the window and opened it. "Come on! This was your idea."
Jason crawled out the window quietly and went to the gate of the Burke's house. They quietly opened it and went into the back yard. They found that there were no toys on the ground, no swing set, no kiddy pool, no fun things. All that they saw was that the grass was so green that you could tell it was in the dark.
"Man, I haven't seen a lawn that green before," Trini said obviously amazed. Billy went up to the lawn and started to fell the texture of the lawn. Zack, Kimberly and Jason tried to find the big wooden doors that lead to the basement. Meanwhile, Billy examined the grass.
"Temperately omitted in condensation," Billy said as he picked up some of the grass. He rubbed it between his fingers and then sniffed it. "Too much botanical supplement and...a curious smell?" Billy didn't recognize the unfamiliar odor. "It does have a rather interesting effect!" He shook his head to shake off the feeling.
"Guys, I found it, but..." Kimberly said. They all went up to the doors; all but Billy gave a crushed look. There was a lock on the door.
"Darn!" Trini said. "We can't get in now."
"Negative, we possess the capability and the means," Billy said and took out three paper clips and a pocketknife. "We just need to align the tumblers in the closure and - ah, objective obtained." Billy had picked the lock.
"Man, you'll be handy if we ever get locked out of the house," Zack said and he and Jason very carefully and quietly opened the basement.
The five continued to go down into the basement and noticed that there were crates and packages all over the floor. A few of the packages were spilled over and there was white powder and pebbles spilled onto the floor.
"What is that stuff?" Kimberly said. "Flour?"
"I don't know," Jason said. "Billy? Do you know what this stuff is?"
"Forget that stuff," Zack said. "Let's go!" The little Rangers walked up the stairs and as quietly as they could, opened the door and went into the Burke's kitchen.
"Man!" Jason said softly. "Their kitchen is clean! Spotless! God, my mom would be so proud."
"Jason, let's not divert our thoughts from our prevalent destination," Billy said just as quietly as Jason did.
"What!" Zack said. Jason, Trini, Kim and Billy gave panicky faces and movements telling Zack to keep it down.
"Do you want us to get caught?" Kimberly said in a whispering voice.
"Sorry." The five made their way across the living room and the TV area. Jason was in awe on how clean it looked compared to his house, which was always messy because he and his older brother lived there. They came up to a hallway where there were two doors. Jason knew that one went to Amber's room because the layout of the house was the same as Jason's house and that Amber was staying in what would be his brother's room. The other room which would have been his room had to be Nick's. The room that was near Nancy and Frank's room was James', which was on the other side of the house.
"Here," Jason said pointing to the room. The others nodded and Jason opened the door. To Jason and the other Rangers surprise, Nick's room was not like the rest of the house, which was full of expensive things and clean as a whistle. Nick's room had only a dirty mattress in it stashed in the corner and three broken toys next to it. The floor looked like it hadn't been cleaned at all and the windows had cobwebs all over it. The walls had nothing on them. Nothing suggested in this room that a little six year-old boy slept here. On the old heap of a mattress was Nick with a blanket that Jason knew wasn't keeping him warm. Nick was in a fetal position and was shivering.
"My goodness!" Trini said astonished. "Where are all of the fun things that he likes? No posters or anything."
"Don't know," Zack said. "How can Nick live like this?"
"Affirmative," Billy said who was also surprised.
"Come on, guys," Jason said. They went up to Nick who was huddled up in the blanket facing the wall. Kimberly turned Nick over to try and wake him up. When his face was in plain view, Kimberly screamed with shock.
"He isn't breathing!" Kimberly said. "His face is purple."
"Negative, Kim," Billy said. "These are severe contusions inflicted on the cheekbone and much of the face."
"What?" Kimberly asked.
"He has bruises, Kim," Trini said, "and bad ones at that. These are horrible. Who did these? Amber? James?"
"I doubt it," Billy said. "No one can establish abrasions of this magnitude unless it was an grown individual."
"A grown up?" Jason asked.
"Precisely, Jason."
"So, you are saying that either Nick's mom or dad did this to him?" Kimberly asked with a look of shock on her face. Billy nodded. The Rangers looked at Nick with a look of sadness. They didn't understand why this was happening to him.
"Are our parents upset because Nick's parents do this to him?" Zack asked.
"Let's get him out of here," Jason said and walked up to Nick to wake him up. At Jason's house however, Connie and Mark were looking at papers that the other neighbors given them about what they saw the Burkes doing. At that moment, Connie looked up out the window and toward the Burke's to where Nick's room was. When she looked again after a brief second, she saw five little silhouettes of children in Nick's room. She recognized one of them, her son.
"Mark, what is Jason doing at the Burke's house?" Connie said horrified.
"WHAT?" Mark yelled and looked to where Connie was looking. They did indeed see Jason's silhouettes outlined on the closed blinds of Nick's window.
"Oh my lord! Jason is in deep trouble when he gets home! What is he doing over there?"
"I don't know honey! He is in big...Oh no!" Mark and Connie's faces went pale. They saw someone else approaching the door of Nick's room.