Twisted Fate (20 page)

“I don’t know anything about this,” I said. “If you have some information the police need maybe you could just give it to them yourself. You can explain that you were working on this documentary. You just give them what you have. I don’t think they would take it away from you.”

He looked like he was thinking about it. “I’m afraid,” he said.

“Don’t be afraid. People know you don’t mean any harm. You could be a hero.” I watched a wave of relief pass over his face.

“I don’t know how I got to have you in my life,” he said. And then he held me and kissed me. He laid the blanket down in the dewy leaf-strewn grass and then we lay down together beside the burbling fountain. He put his hands inside my sweatshirt and I held his head and kissed him.

Being beside him, and taking care of him that way,
made my heart race and when he pressed himself against me I did not say no. I did not push him away. I held him tight and felt our hearts beating in unison. Felt our hearts beating as one. And I knew then I would protect him. Just like I had always protected Syd.

When I slipped back into my room at three a.m. she was awake. Sitting up in bed with her arms folded.

“Where were you?”

“I went for a walk,” I said. Already feeling like this was some kind of weird role reversal.

“A walk into Graham’s backyard?”

I could feel my face flushing. She took Sparkle Pig from her bed and threw it at me. “What the hell are you doing, Ally? What is going on?”

“Graham’s worried you and your friends are going to report him to the police.”

“Don’t you ever wonder why he is so freaked-out about the police?”

“No,” I said. “Lots of people are freaked-out by the police. You and your pothead friends are freaked-out by the police.”

“Don’t you wonder why he goes to school only when he feels like it and he’s always hanging around with his cameras and he acts so spaced-out?”

“We both know the answers to those questions,” I said simply. I was not going to get into her hysterical immature
way of being. And frankly I didn’t care. It might have been one of the most special nights of my life and I wasn’t going to let her ruin it with her negative way of thinking.

“Ally,” she said. “I’m worried about you. Graham has made a bunch of weird movies and he doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with them or with selling them to strangers online. He made one of Brian and he made one of Becky and God knows who else. We watched some of them yesterday and thinking that anyone could get ahold of these is really scary.”

“It’s no different than Facebook,” I said. “It’s the same as having a Tumblr account.” Which were things I had heard Graham say before.

“It’s very different from Facebook,” Syd said.

“Listen,” I said. “He knows what the right thing to do is and he’ll do it. It’s not up to us to go to the police or mess with his life.”

“Oh my God, Ally! It’s totally up to us. If we have information and we do nothing about it and something happens to Brian, it will be our fault too. We will have helped the person who took him.”

“That’s assuming the person who took him had any knowledge of Graham’s movies, which they probably didn’t.”

“But even if there is only the slightest chance they did, it should be reported.”

“He’s going to go to the police himself.”

“What? How do you know?” Syd asked.

“Because I asked him to,” I said simply. “Because he knows it’s the right thing to do. You can’t blame him for being scared. After the way his whole life was turned upside down.”

“How was his whole life turned upside down?” she asked. “I don’t think anyone has any clue what happened in Virginia.”

“I have a clue,” I said quietly

“What?” she whispered fiercely. “Ally, tell me.”

“He and Eric made some movies and they got in trouble for it. The same kind of thing I guess where they were young and Eric’s family thought the movies were really offensive. Also they were filming and not paying attention and they crashed the Austin. I think actually they may have crashed the Austin on purpose because of how it would look on film and then that’s where all the trouble started. After that they found all the other movies and Eric’s family made a big deal of it and sued Graham’s family and they haven’t seen each other since even though they were friends since they were three. Can you imagine not being able to talk to Becky ever again?”

“Yes, okay, I get that some weird shit happened, but what were the movies? Do you think they were . . . Do you think they were like porn or something?” Even as she said it, I could see it interested her more than disgusted her.

“No,” I said. “I don’t. He’s too shy, you don’t know him like I do. I think they were probably something as silly as
Becky smoking or Brian talking about X-Men. Just nothing. He said they thought they were making something that expressed how beautiful life was, but people twisted it the wrong way. He said he has only one copy of the movie left that no one knows about and he’s going to make it part of a bigger movie and then sell it—maybe get an art agent or a gallery interested in his stuff. But he’s had to hide all these things and if he had to go to the police, it would ruin everything he’s worked for and get him in more trouble and probably make his parents take his camera away.”

She was very quiet, thinking. I came over and lay on her bed next to her. She wasn’t really mad. We were both exhausted and I was flushed with the joy of being with Graham; I could still feel the amazing warmth of his skin against mine. I sighed and she ran her fingers through my hair.

“Ally,” she said. “He didn’t make one of those movies of you, did he?”

“It doesn’t matter,” I whispered, exasperated at her questions. “It doesn’t matter if he did. They’re just movies. They’re art. They’re documenting our lives. Everybody with a Twitter account does the same thing.”

I looked up at her and saw her concerned face. Neither of us had the energy for another fight. She was quiet, lost in thought. But when she spoke again she only said, “I’m sorry I threw Sparkle Pig.”

I said, “That’s okay. It’s better than when you stabbed
him with the sewing scissors.”

“He needed surgery,” she said, starting to laugh a little. “He needed weight-loss surgery.”

And then I don’t know why but I just threw my arms around her and squeezed her tight. I said, “I love you, Syd.”

“Oh God,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Hey, what’s this about? Why are you all sentimental? Are you getting your period?” Then she looked down into my face. “Oh . . . my . . . God,” she said slowly. “Did you and Graham . . . ? Did you?”

I nodded and she smiled a confused smile at me and shook her head and then she kissed me on top of my head. “I love you too, Ally, and I know you’re in love.” She was silent for a time, and then she said, “But please. Don’t let him come between us.”

H
e came in at about seven thirty in the morning, looking restless and unwashed, but dressed like some kind of movie star. Like he could buy the whole town. And he didn’t act like any kid his age. He was distant and confident. Someone used to telling people what to do—or at least getting what he asked for.

He had a laptop computer with him and he said he had something to show me. Something that might help people find Brian Phillips.

I knew about this kid. I got a buddy in Virginia sent me a juvenile file on him. And I know he had been in some serious trouble. I guess you’d call it serious trouble. It was either trouble or tragedy—so I was ready for something screwy the minute he opened his mouth.

I had him come into the interrogation room, fully expecting him to confess to something I did not want to hear. In
a case like a missing child you have no time to spare. You get answers as fast as you can and you make sure you get the details. He wasn’t with his parents or a lawyer, so I was pretty sure we could get him talking. We’d had two days of dead ends and hell looking for Brian, and his mother’s worry was weighing on everyone. Heartbreaking.

He opened the little computer and then clicked on a file and a movie of Brian came up.

“What the hell is this?” I asked.

“I’m making a documentary about the town and I have footage of Brian talking. I posted this online and I think someone may have seen it and used it to kidnap him.”

The words were like a punch to the gut. I was infuriated with this rich little prick, and at the same time I knew this was the strongest lead we had on the case.

“Do you know who’s seen it?” I asked.

“A lot of people,” he said. “I have these names, but I don’t know if they’re the people’s real names or not.” He handed me a piece of paper with a list of names on them.

And I straightaway handed it to Evans. “Check these names against the sex offender registry,” I told him. And I could see the kid cringe even as I said it.

“I didn’t mean any harm,” he said. I looked at him. I don’t know if I believed him or not. I’d read his file and I knew what he’d said to the judge back in Virginia and I saw how his parents’ money and connections made that case just disappear quietly. But he was still a kid. He
thought like a kid—no sense of any consequences.

I said, “Graham, I’m going to need to see the website where you’ve got this stuff posted.”

“Of course,” he said. He called it up on his computer and he also wrote down the web address.

Just as I was bending down to look at it, Evans yelled, “We got a hit!”

Everyone in the office stood as if they were shocked into motion.

I told Evans, “Get me a location on that right away.” And I told Graham, “You sit tight for a minute, you might be able to help us out. Was there a credit card used to buy the movie? Or a phone number? If there is, we can track him.”

“Not that I could see,” he said. “He got the movie in exchange for buying me something on my Amazon wish list as a gift—so I couldn’t see any of his information except the name. He wrote his name and then just the word
thanks
. Once the Amazon sale is shipped the movie uploads. I set it all up automatically and I almost never see a name or real information.”

I shook my head, disgusted at the way kids lived today. What ever happened to playing ball in the park or getting a job after school?

“What did he buy you?” I asked, assuming it would be some books or music.

When he told me, my jaw dropped. It was a six-hundred-dollar camera with an optical zoom lens. I don’t need to tell
you how much trouble a kid could be in for selling a movie to a registered pedophile, who in turn bought him a sophisticated surveillance camera.

“Graham,” I said. “I think you should wait right here and we’ll call your parents.” As I was picking up the phone to call them, Evans shouted, “We got a location!”

We didn’t have enough men on staff to babysit rich boy while we tried to take down the scumbag that kidnapped Brian Phillips. The fact that he’d bought the movie and that he was on the registry was enough for a search warrant. Talking to Graham would have to wait. Rockland was a small force and we had no excuse to hold a kid who had just brought us this information voluntarily.

“Go!” I shouted. “Get moving.” I grabbed my jacket and headed out to the lot with the unmarked cars. “Graham, you go home and stay home. We’ll contact you later to ask you some questions.”

He looked astonished. “Did you find him? You found him already?” He laughed a little to himself.

I ushered him out the door. And ducked into the car. “We don’t know if we’ve found him or not. We’ll call you,” I said. We sped out and left him standing there.

I was, of course, terrified that we would be too late. It had been two days and the name we had was of a man who had already served time for taking a little girl down in Portland on a ten-day drive. Usually people like this feel they got nothing to lose if they’re going to do it again.

The house was way out by Chickawaukie Pond, near Achorn Cemetery, and I had to stop myself from thinking the worst. From thinking that little boy was already in the pond or dumped in Glen Cove.

We surrounded the house with the full force and backup from Waldoboro. I could feel him standing on the other side of the door when we rang the bell. I could feel him waiting, thinking we’d go away if he waited. He was trapped.

We pounded again and he opened the door. The place was neat and orderly—too orderly, like a hotel room.

I said, “We’d like to ask you a few questions about Brian Phillips, the boy who disappeared in Rockland last week. We understand you bought a movie that was made of him.”

His eyes darted just briefly toward a door off the kitchen when I said Brian’s name, and I motioned to Evans to check it out.

He took two uniforms with him, tramping down a flight of stairs while I questioned the scumbag about where he’d been the last four days. And soon I heard them calling up to us, telling us to call in an ambulance. Then they came rushing upstairs, Evans carrying Brian. He was unconscious and his hands and feet were tied.

I had the uniforms handcuff the scumbag and take him out to the car. I wanted to kick the living shit out of him right there but I knew he’d be getting plenty of that in prison.