“I doubt I’ll get one. But I’d like to hear what he says about it.”
Evan ended the call, made some quick notes, and sent an email to request a phone call with Jerry Chiavo.
Then he bought the potato chips.
34
The day after we hid the Ford, Liam took me to a house in town late in the evening.
That night didn’t go as planned.
It was to be a reconnaissance mission, he said. Simply study the lay of the land around a certain home, but a drunken man showed up and broke a window. I heard the drunk call a woman a whore and yell that she would pay for how she’d ruined him. His words slurred as he stumbled around the outside of the house, shouting that she didn’t deserve the boy.
I waited in the street near the truck but heard him clearly. The garage started to open, and I got in the truck and turned it on, ready to leave. Liam sprinted across the street a moment later, breathing heavily and saying we needed to leave now.
He said the drunk man put a wrench in things because the woman would now be on alert for anything strange near her home.
He said he might have to come up with a different plan.
Liam never tells me details, so I didn’t care if he had to make a new plan. On the ride home he was angry the other man caused a problem, and he ranted about it for hours.
I didn’t know why we were there. But now I think I know.
The boy.
The drunk man had shouted about a boy.
In the truck on the way home from hiding the Ford, Liam had said we needed someone young to train.
He had been outside that house to make a plan to take the boy.
Another boy.
And he expected me to go along with it.
The same way he went along when Jerry took young children.
Victims for their extreme cruelty. To humiliate. To hurt.
Maybe to kill.
And now Liam wants to start the cycle again.
I can’t treat another person the way he treated me. I don’t care if they put me in prison, I won’t torture someone. I try not to think of his threats to kill my family.
I need to figure out how to get away from him, but it’s not easy. He is always with me. If he’s not with me, I’m usually in the box. I’ve thought about escaping at night. I know how to get to the main road from here, but he’s said an alarm will go off if I open the door or windows at night.
He might have lied about that too.
I’ve considered leaving while we work at a residential job. That might be easiest. If he sends me to the truck to get a tool, I’ll keep on going.
I know the computer could probably tell me where my family is, but I’ve never been allowed to touch it. He has a phone that could probably find them too, but it has a password. And I don’t know how to use it. He never lets me look at it.
I’ve stayed for a long time because I had nowhere else to go. But now I do. My family won’t turn me away, even though they haven’t seen me in . . . I don’t know how many years it’s been. He says I’m in my thirties, but I don’t trust him. I don’t feel thirty.
I tried to leave once before. It didn’t go well.
35
Rowan couldn’t believe it, and she scanned Evan’s eyes, hoping it was a joke. “Are you sure?” she asked. He had asked her to stop by his office.
Evan was grim. “Positive. Adam was processed and then released. The jail is already overcrowded, and all Adam did was break a window.”
“You just interviewed him this morning at the hospital, and he’s out already? He threatened Ivy!”
“I know. Believe me, I know what a shit he is. They know he violated the restraining order, but—”
“A piece of paper isn’t going to stop bullets,” snapped Rowan. “Last time he threatened her, he said he had a gun. And who knows what he wants with West. He’ll take him away just to upset Ivy.”
“I don’t think he’ll hurt his son.”
Rage ran through Rowan. “Angry parents kill their children. We’ve both seen it happen. And someone always admits, ‘I didn’t think he’d really do it.’ Has Ivy been notified?”
“Yes.”
“I should call her.”
“Tell her to check into a hotel for a while. At least until I get a security system installed on her home.”
“She’s a working mom,” Rowan exclaimed. “It is not fair that she must spend money on a hotel to avoid the man who is making her life hell. She’s done everything right—the restraining order and trying to live her own life. He’s the one causing problems, and I know he’ll continue. He tried to get into Ivy’s house last night and do who knows what and walked away scot-free.”