Morton grumbled. "Kill him, yeah, right," he said as he hung up the telephone. He didn't care who Seth thought he was. Seth was making a big mistake here.
"Wakey, wakey," he taunted Jake, running his fingers across Jake's skin. The boy looked so peaceful when he was sleeping. He frowned. The kid's fever was hot, way too damn hot. "Great," he muttered, getting a wet rag on Jake's forehead.
"Seth, you're crazy," he muttered. He called Seth back. "Hey, Seth? We have a problem."
"What?" Seth snapped. He didn't want to say anything because he knew talking to long could be used against him.
"It's my kid."
He exploded. That was pretty much the reaction that Morton was hoping of getting. "What the heck? It's your kid?"
"You know that picture I showed you once? Remember how I said not to touch the kid, because he was mine? Why is he tied up in the safe house shed?"
"No firkin way. Why the hell did you have to let your sex life destroy the operation? And why didn't you say something sooner? I would have grabbed the other kid." Yeah, right, Seth thought to himself.
Morton sighed. "We can't kill him, dude… We just can't."
"What can we do? We can't keep him forever. That'd screw up our plans."
"Or not. Listen, he's good friends with David's kid."
"Oh, lordlier," Seth cursed.
"What?"
"This just got a whole lot more complicated… But I think we still will have to kill him."
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Tom glared at Kate as she sat there in the kitchen. The other Bakers, besides Charlie, were at Nora's house. "I can't believe you, Kate! This is your entire fault. That man probably took him. If you wouldn't have fucked this up," he said, pausing to take a breath, "we wouldn't be here right now. This is all your fault. You just had to screw up, and have Jake! Now we're probably being investigated, for child abuse and god knows what else!"
Charlie winced when he heard his father's words. He knew he probably didn't mean it, but… wait a second… "Dad, what the heck is going on here?"
Tom turned to Charlie. "We agreed not to tell anyone his, Kate, but I think we'll have too."
Kate choked back tears. "I never thought… He seemed so gentle…" She started crying all over again when the cop approached her.
"Is something the matter?" He asked gently, staring at both Tom and Kate. Kate was so glad Nora had taken the other children.
"My son is missing, what do you think is the matter, officer?" She burst into tears.
Tom sighed and hugged Kate. "We think we may have a lead on who took him, officer. Who's the man in charge on this case?"
"Officer David." David stuck his head in the door. He had requested to handle Jake's case specifically. Normally he worked homicides, but he threw in missing person cases whenever he could.
"What seems to be the matter?" David asked.
"We think we know who took Jake."
"Why don't you come down to the station," David suggested.
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Tyler watched his younger brother secretly. He was staring at Seth's house through binoculars. "Damn-it, we did get to close," he muttered softly, "I'll bet that asshole took Jake."
"Who?" Tyler said, stepping forward. "What's going on?"
Connor dropped the binoculars. "Tyler! Oh my god."
"What didn't you tell me?" Tyler demanded. He knew that Connor most likely hadn't told him the whole truth.
"N-nothing."
"Bullshit!" Tyler said. "Sit. And you're not leaving that bed until you tell me everything."
"I can't tell you! What if he hurts you, too?" Connor demanded, crossing his arms.
Tyler sighed. "And what if he takes you, huh? What am I supposed to tell Dad?"
"Okay, okay!" Connor said. He sighed as he looked out the window. "Jake got the chicken pox, okay? He was looking out at Seth's house, because he was bored. You know, innocent fun. He said he saw a murder – or at least he thought he had a murder. Anyway, he told me he couldn't really check it out because he got the chicken pox, so I helped him investigate."
"Why didn't you tell Dad?"
"Like he would have believed me. Anyway, then we started digging on Seth. I went through his garbage, and found a knife. And then," Connor said, taking a breath, "it w-went downhill from there."
"What happened next, Connor?"
Connor sighed as he glanced at the ground and mumbled something. "Iwentintohisgaragetoseeifhehidthebody."
"You WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?"
"I went into his garage to see if he hid the body there."
"That's against the law, dude! He could've had you arrested!"
"And implicate himself? I snapped a photo. Dude, there was a hell of a lot of blood in there. And the garage was partly open."
"And I suppose that Jake suggested that," Tyler said dryly.
"Like Jake's gonna murder somebody!"
"That's not what I said! Dude, you have to tell dad."
"No!" Connor said. "I can't, Tyler! He won't believe me, and he'll ground me, and…. well, yeah, he'll tell Seth, and then I'll be killed or something!"
"But what if he's hurting Jake?"
"I can't!"
"What if he's torturing Jake? Killing Jake? Huh?"
Suddenly the telephone rang, causing them both to jump.
Tyler answered it. "Say anything, the boy dies." Then the telephone was disconnected.
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David looked at Tom intently. The man was frustrated. "Okay, Kate. It's time."
Kate dried her tears and looked strait at David. "About eleven years ago, I had an affair with a Morton Jennings."
David resisted the urge to let out a long whistle. That man had a criminal record up to his arms – theft, petty theft, and grand theft auto…
"We… did… it…. a… few… times…" Kate said, "and then I realized that I was pregnant. With Jake. I though it was Tom's. We were both very happy. But then afterwards, I secretly got the baby DNA tested, and I cried." She stopped for a moment to compose herself. "And… it was his baby. I called him to tell him, and he said that if I sued for full custody, he'd come after the baby. And I got full custody. And… he made an attempt once or twice, when Jake was seven and eight…" She stopped again. "But he never was able to successfully kidnap him."
"Alright, well, we'll get Jennings over here, and we'll be sure to question him. Thank you. You may have saved your son's life."
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Morton swore as his cell phone rang. "Aww… dimwit," he muttered. He sighed and looked at Jake, wondering if he'd be safe here for a while. He heard from inside sources at the police station that they were trying to implicate him for Jake's kidnapping. Knowing the consequences could be devastating of what happened, he sighed and looked at his son. The boy was so peaceful… So unaware of any care he might have.
Injecting another drug into the boy's system, he decided to ditch Seth for a while. He moved the boy to the trunk and started to drive towards another safe house. He needed to be very careful. He had an alibi for last night, thank God.
"Seth, you really screwed it up this time," he muttered.
