The Replacements Page 16

  Jonas’ car door opened and closed. The engine started, the car backed up, tearing out sage and shrub, and then drove away in a cloud of dust.

  The night’s darkness slammed down upon us. I couldn’t see, and a bit of claustrophobia snatched at my breath. You couldn’t defend in darkness; control reverted to those who lurked.

  “That guy’s an asshole,” Drago said.

  “I told you. I told you not to get involved. You gave me your word.”

  He put his head back and closed his eyes. “I didn’t get involved. I just shot out his headlight. No big deal. Gave him something to think about. Let him know he wasn’t dealing with a couple of pansy-ass pussies.”

  “I’m glad he took a shot at that asshole,” said Marie. “If I had a gun, I would’ve done the same.”

  “What’s the matter with you two?” I said. “He’s holding the kids. You can’t shoot at him until we have the kids. Then have at it. But not until we have the kids.”

  Fatigue was turning my mind to mush, and I wasn’t entirely sure they’d been wrong. I should’ve known for sure, but nothing seemed black and white anymore. Everything disappeared in obscured shades of gray, with the truth hiding off in the distance. I needed to sleep. Before we did anything else, I needed at least four hours. “Come on. Get in and let’s go.”

  Far out ahead, Jonas’ single headlight bounced and jutted this way and that as he drove to the paved road. I was pretty sure the taillight pattern on the car was from a Toyota, but millions of Toyotas drove the streets of Southern California. We followed far behind. My vision blurred with fatigue, thoughts came and went unbidden. I slowed. “I can’t drive. Honey, can you take over please?”

  “Sure. Can you get us to the road first? It’s not much farther and…Oh, my God, Bruno, stop. Stop.”

  My head whipped forward to see this new apparition, a hallucination. I slammed on the brakes. In the dirt path walked a small child, five or six years old. Tears streaked his dusty face, his eyes wide in terror.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Marie slid open the side door and jumped out before the van came to a complete stop. She stumbled in the headlights and almost went down, righted, and made it to the child. She slowed and stopped, cooing, talking low to him, her words barely audible over the van’s engine.

  “It’s okay, baby, it’s okay, honey. No one’s going to hurt you.”

  Drago muttered, “That son of a bitch, leaving a kid out here like that. Next time I won’t be aiming at his headlight.”

  I couldn’t deny him that. I wanted to do the same.

  “Out here in the dark like this, we coulda run him over,” Drago said. “The kid coulda wandered off. How’d he know we’d come across him? Kid’s gotta be scared outta his wits. What a son of a bitch.” Drago’s rapid language acted as a cover for his fear and inadequacy. I recognized it in myself.

  Drago got out on wobbly legs, stuck his arm in the van’s open side door, and scooped all the refuse from the van’s floor out onto the ground. He went around back, opened the doors, and did the same again. He closed the back doors and came around in time to help Marie and the child mount the van. I don’t know where Drago found his reserve strength. These actions had to be beyond taxing. I should’ve gotten out to help but could hardly muster the energy to keep my eyes open. Adrenaline no longer worked.

  Drago slid the side door shut, climbed back in, and closed his door.

  Marie perched on the five-gallon bucket, the boy on her lap. She let go of him, put her arms over the strap one at a time, so the strap went across her chest to stabilize them, and then took hold of the boy.

  “Drive, Bruno.” Her tone left no room for debate. “Drago, hold this flashlight.”

  I started the van moving and checked the rearview. Eddie Crane, who looked about five and small for his age, had sandy-brown hair that hung down in his hazel eyes. He wore denim pants and a long-sleeve shirt.

  “It’s okay, little man, no one’s going to hurt you,” said Marie. “You’re okay now. You understand? You’re okay now.” To me, she said, “Bruno, watch where you’re going.”

  I looked back just as the right side of the van veered off the narrow track into the sage. The van bumped and bounced in the air as I muscled us back into the rough track. How long had it been since I slept? Three days? Three and a half? I’d slept the night before I worked the cabana bar at The Margarite, the day all this had started. I tried to count the days and couldn’t count past two. A bad sign. I focused everything I had on the task at hand, keeping the van on the road and my eyes open.

  The boy had yet to make any sound at all.

  Marie said, “There’s a note pinned to his shirt pocket.” Paper rattled. I focused on the road.

  Marie read:

  “My name is Eddie Crane. If found, return me to Deputy Bruno Johnson, California Rehabilitation Center, Chino. Ha, Ha.

  PS. I didn’t do that to his back. His new parents did. The boy won’t talk, won’t say a word. He’s broken.”

  Over the van’s engine, Marie’s voice caught. I checked the mirror again, her sorrowful expression filled with tears. Checking the mirror proved one task too many for my fatigue-laden brain. I again veered and corrected.

  “Bruno, please pay attention.”

  “It’s okay, honey,” she said to Eddie. “I’m a doctor. Let me look at your back.”

  Drago held the bouncing flashlight and, after a couple seconds, his tone came in a low whisper, “Oh my God. That son of a bitch. That cocksucker.”

  A large dose of adrenaline kicked in. I pulled over. “What?” I spun in the seat.

  Marie wept openly and hugged Eddie, one hand on his bottom, one on his head, nestling it into her shoulder, her hands avoiding his back, as she whispered, “It’s okay. It’s okay now. No one’s going to hurt you ever again.” His back, crisscrossed with open wounds both scabbed and festering, indicated multiple events of abuse. I’d seen this too many times in the past while answering calls as a patrol deputy. Eddie Crane had been beaten with an electrical cord.

  I woke in a strange bed. My whole body ached from the deep, coma-like sleep. With the curtains pulled, the motel room retained its innocence, concealing a fleabag appearance. The dimness, though, wasn’t able to mask the smell, musty with a hint of sour and of the destitute. As my eyes adjusted, a small lump materialized in the twin bed next to mine. Then I remembered. Eddie Crane.

  Where had Marie gone?

  I swung my legs around and sat up. On the nightstand sat a carton of chocolate milk and a package of Sno Balls. My stomach growled. I guess, when away from home, junk food became an approved staple. I tore open the package and went to it. She hadn’t been gone too long; the chocolate milk carton dripped with cold condensation. The rush of sugar woke me even more, and I groaned with pleasure at the combined luscious flavors.

  Eddie’s head came up out of the covers like a prairie dog, his eyes telegraphing fear.

  “It’s okay, Ed, I’m a friend. You don’t have to worry about me. You want some of this?”

  He shook his head “no.” I held up a Sno Ball. “These are real good. You don’t know what you’re missing.” I eased over and set one on the edge of his bed. He didn’t take his eyes off me. His delicate emotional state would take lots of love and tenderness to get him back on the road to trust.

  The door opened. Bright light burst in and stole my vision. Marie closed the door. “Ah, Rip Van Winkle has awakened.” She came over. “Hey, mister garbage disposal, those aren’t for you.”

  “Oh, sorry.”

  She leaned down toward her wounded charge. “Hi, Eddie, how are you feeling?” He looked up, half a smile snuck out. Marie knew how to work wonders with at-risk children. She picked up the lone Sno Ball on the bed’s edge. “Here, it’s okay, you can have this.” He snatched it from her hand and took a large bite. She smiled. Her happiness made me smile, and my face flushed warm.

  “It’s okay, little boy,” she said to me, “you can have your tr
eats too. I have more. How are you feeling?”

  “Alive again.”

  “You were a walking zombie last night.”

  “Where’d you go?” I asked.

  “The room next door. I changed Drago’s bandage.”

  I wish she hadn’t done that without me. The image of the zookeeper going into the lion’s cage without an assistant holding a bazooka leapt out at me. “How’s he doing?”

  “I don’t know why the man doesn’t have an infection. I think it’s because he’s not fully evolved and his relatives are direct descendants of Cro-Magnon man. He’s really bouncing back fast.”

  I nodded toward our latest charge devouring a Sno Ball, bits of confection cake and pink coconut falling to the rumpled bed sheets. “Have you thought about what we’re going to do with him?”

  She came over and sat next to me. “What do you think we’re going to do with him?”

  “Yeah, I thought you were going to say something like that.” I took another bite of Sno Ball and guzzled the chocolate milk before she changed her mind and returned us all back to the dreaded health food mode.

  “Do you disagree?” she asked.

  Like dropping everything in Costa Rica, coming back to the States to chase down Jonas and the kids Jonas took had left us no choice. The same applied to Eddie Crane. He was out of options, as well. I shook my head “no.”

  She reached into a Walmart bag on the floor at our feet and took out a new burner phone. “Here, you need to call, tell them to quit looking for him. I don’t want them wasting precious resources that they can divert back to searching for those two little girls.”

  “Can I at least get a shower first?”

  She smiled, got up from Eddie’s bed, leaned down, and kissed my forehead. “No.”

  I took the phone and dialed Mack’s number. Barbara Wicks answered. “Bruno?”

  “How did you know it was me?”

  “Educated guess. It’s a number John’s phone didn’t recognize, and I’ve been waiting for you to call.”

  “You answer John’s phone a lot, do you?”

  Neither of us said anything more in an uncomfortable, pregnant pause.

  I finally said, “Last night, we got proof of life.”

  “What? That’s great, Bruno.” She paused again, then said, “But we’re dead in the water here. You’re communicating with him without our trace capability, without the manpower to run down the cell tower leads as they come in. Do you know what you’re doing? Are you going to be able to live with yourself when this thing goes south on you?”

  “I’m sorry you feel that way. I think this is the best chance we have to get the little girls back.”

  She didn’t want to comment on my evaluation of the situation. “We’ve confirmed it, Eddie is number three.”

  “Barbara, we have Eddie. We got him back from Jonas last night.”

  “What! You’re kidding. Bruno, that’s fantastic. What’s his status? Can you at least drop him at a fire station or clinic?”

  I stood and walked into the bathroom and closed the door. “He can’t go back to his adoptive parents.”

  Her tone changed from happy to stern and challenging. “Why?”

  “They beat him with an electrical cord, one of the worst cases I have ever seen.” The image from last night returned. My knees went weak, and I had to sit down on the toilet seat. She didn’t say anything for a long moment. “How do we know Jonas didn’t do it?”

  “That’s one reason why I’m calling. Jonas said that he did his research, and all three children were being abused by their adoptive parents.”

  “And you believe him?”

  “Yes. He doesn’t have any reason to lie. And with Eddie, the injuries are several days old, definitely before he was taken.”

  “Drop the child off, Bruno. Go to an ER somewhere, anywhere, go in and drop him off.”

  “Can you guarantee he won’t go back to his adoptive parents?”

  Silence. Of course she couldn’t. In fact, she knew just like I did that, in all likelihood, Eddie would be placed back with the same abusive parents. That was the way social services worked. The judge would insist the father or mother, whoever had done the horrific abuse, attend a few weeks of therapy. Only a few weeks were never nearly enough to correct a sick mind, one who’d beat a helpless child bloody.

  I had also put Barbara in an untenable situation. She couldn’t tell anyone we had recovered Eddie, not without explaining how she had communicated with me, a wanted fugitive who was now thought to be complicit in the taking of all three children.

  “What are you going to do with him?” she asked. Being so close to Mack, Barbara had to know about the children we took to South America.

  “We’re going to take care of him while we explore our options. What you can do is put a team on researching the background of the kids. Jonas says he knew about the abuse. He got the information somewhere, somehow. He didn’t do the due diligence himself. He’s too memorable in his appearance. His partner in all this must have. You find the partner and you might get a good lead on the other two kids.”

  “Bruno, Jesus. Bruno, you can’t save the world. You know that, don’t you? You’re going to have to leave something for the system to handle. I know it’s broken, but there’s going to come a point when you’ll reach a maximum saturation level and sink to the bottom of the ocean, taking with you all those you’re trying to help. You understand what I’m saying?”

  I thought about her words while she remained silent. She was right. But how could I possibly walk away? Not without guilt that I could have done something positive when I had the chance.

  After a long moment, she said, “I shouldn’t tell you anything about what we have going on at this end, not after what you’ve done. You really stabbed me in the back here, Bruno. And I don’t care so much about me, but you hurt John’s feelings, and when you hurt John—well, don’t do it again, don’t put me in that position.”

  I waited for her to tell me what she was leading up to. How many times could I say I was sorry? “Barbara, you know if there was any other way—”

  She ignored my entreaty. “We think we know who’s helping Jonas.”

  I waited. Guilt wouldn’t let me ask.

  “It’s Bella, Bruno, it’s Bella Mabry. She’s out on parole.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  “No way, she can’t be out,” I said. “She got LWOP—Life Without the Possibility of Parole—for killing Betsy and Sally Mabry and for almost killing Jonas.”

  “She applied and received compassionate leave,” Barbara said. “The California State Parole Board let her out.”

  “I’ll ask it again, why?”

  “She’s dying of breast cancer.”

  I didn’t like myself for thinking it, but she should have been left in prison to die. “Then she’s the key to all of this. She’s the catalyst that set off Jonas.”

  “That’s what I figure. I separated from the FBI task force. They don’t agree with me. They’re still focusing on the kids. They think searching for Bella Mabry is senseless, without any productive value.”

  I gripped the phone tighter. “Why?”

  “They have a report from the California State Parole that gives her state of health as grave, not likely to survive two weeks.”

  “They’re fools.”

  “Yes, that’s what I thought. I have all the personnel under my authority that I can divert looking for Bella.”

  “That hangs your career out a country mile. If the FBI succeeds and you don’t—”

  “Hang the career. At the end of the day I have to do what’s right, or I can’t look myself in the mirror.”

  I wanted to remind her that’s exactly what I was doing but held my tongue.

  “What you’re doing’s not the same,” Barbara said. “You’re not making the right choices.”

  She’d read my mind. I took a moment to reexamine the path I’d chosen and, with a refreshed thought process, I still came up
with the same conclusion. “I know, and I’m sorry you feel that way.”

  Silence. Then she half-covered the phone and yelled, “Just a minute, John, I’ll be right out.”

  “The reason I have John’s phone is that he wants to throw in with you. He just doesn’t know how to come down off his high horse to ask you. He won’t beg.”

  “What I have planned, he doesn’t want any part of.”

  “That’s just it. He knows this is a renegade op you’re planning, and he doesn’t care. He’s your friend and wants in. He doesn’t want something to go wrong, something that, if he’d been a part of, he could have helped prevent. He wants in more than anything he’s ever wanted. He’s made the decision; he’s willing to risk everything. He’s really a bonehead for thinking this way. Don’t let him, Bruno. If you care about him at all, if you care about me, don’t you let him in.”

  “It’s not only his career we’re talking here, it’s jail time,” I said. “If this job goes bad, and it could very easily, it will be that other-side-of-forever kind of prison time.”

  Her voice caught. She was trying to stifle her tears. “He’s aware of that, Bruno Johnson. He’s not a fool. Don’t you dare make him out to be a fool.”

  “I could never take on that kind of responsibility.” A lump rose in my throat thinking about the sacrifice my friend, John, was prepared to make.

  “Good,” she said. “I knew that, I just had to hear it from you. You two are one and the same. That’s why I have his phone without him knowing. That’s why I was hoping you’d call.” Her voice caught as she let her pent-up emotions go.

  “Thanks for the information,” I said. “I promise to keep you posted on the money exchange with the children.” I hung up.

  I sat on the toilet, mulling, working and reworking the logistics. No scenario now worked, not with the added burden of Eddie’s care and safety. Someone had to stay with him. We couldn’t hire a babysitter. The risk the sitter would find his injuries and call the police was too great.

  Marie knocked lightly on the door. “You okay in there?”

  “Yeah, can you gimme a minute, please?”