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 treats 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.”