Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

I t was nearly ten at night by the time they reached the motel. Almost seven hours since Kyle's disappearance. Every minute of his absence was like a ticking clock in Carlos's ears. Tick, tick, tick… Kyle, Kyle, Kyle…

The motel was surrounded by various fast food joints, an auto repair garage, a pharmacy, and three gas stations. This was good, because it gave them cover to drive their borrowed motorcycles closer to the motel. Unfortunately, the more congested the area, the more potential witnesses. Carlos did not want their apprehension of Trapper to be on the local news or some social media reel.

They pulled into the parking lot to the left of the motel building. There was a patch of grass and a sidewalk separating the two lots. Owen and Carlos parked with their front tires facing the motel but did not dismount or turn off their engines. The rumble would help drown out their voices.

Carlos's eyes scanned the parking lot of the motel. "Red truck, two o'clock."

Owen pulled his phone out. "Delta-Tango-Sierra-Niner-Six-Two," he read and then looked up. "That's our boy. He's registered under one of his work aliases."

"Which room?"

"Ten-sixteen," Owen answered. "We need to get eyes inside."

"There's only two windows and they're in front. I don't see any bathroom windows. If we peek in through the front window, even if the shades are pulled, he'll see us."

"Gotta think outside the box, Sheriff." Owen looked at him over his left shoulder. "Motels, hotels, they all have one major weakness when it comes to privacy."

Small-town sheriff or not, Carlos had a feeling he knew where Owen was going with this. "The vents?"

Owen nodded, his unique amber eyes showing his approval. He reached into the front pocket of his jacket and pulled out a black box. At first impression, Carlos thought it was an old Gameboy video game, but then he saw the endoscope camera wrapped around the middle under Owen's hand.

"You just happen to carry that around with you?"

Owen shrugged. "You have your utility belt and I have mine."

Carlos's utility belt was currently sitting on the desk in the diner's back office. He also hadn't thought that through. Hopefully Ghost or Ranger had grabbed it and his uniform jacket.

"I'm going to see which rooms around his are empty," Owen said as he turned off his bike. "Go flatten the tires on his truck."

As Carlos pocketed Ranger's keys, he had the oddest notion that his friend Sophia would be proud of him for what he was about to go do.

They were in the room next to Trapper's. The television was loud enough from the other room that they couldn't hear Trapper or Kyle. As Owen threaded the camera through the shared vent while standing on the dresser, Carlos leaned his ass against the edge. He had his arms crossed over his chest as he tried not to picture the suitcase Owen had claimed Trapper had been carrying with him.

It scared the piss out of him that the chances were high that Kyle had been, and might still be, in that case.

He could feel his phone vibrating in his pocket but once again ignored it.

"Why didn't he scream?"

Owen glanced down at Carlos from his place on the desk. He had the camera box in his left hand and the cord in his right. "What?"

"In the grocery store, why didn't Kyle scream?" Carlos looked up at Owen. "I stepped away to help Mrs. Guthrie with her groceries. Zoe had Kyle in the cart. How did Trapper get Kyle out of the cart so quietly that no one in the store heard anything?"

"If your small-town grocer had invested in security cameras, maybe we'd have an answer to that."

Carlos could hear the disdain in Owen's voice and glared at the other man. "Mount Grove is a small and peaceful town. It is completely reasonable that we don't need the entire town under surveillance."

"And yet, in the past two years, you've had a teenage kidnapping, a town official tortured, a murder, a molested teenager dumped on your main drag, a dogfighting ring, and now a kidnapping all within the borders of your ‘small and peaceful' town." Owen's eyes remained focused on the camera screen. "I think you need to reconsider your security policies, Sheriff."

Carlos felt his hackles rise, but the fact that the murder Owen had mentioned had been his own twin's, kept him from rebutting harshly. "Hannigan brought almost all of that to our town." Then he added, "I am sorry about Conner. I didn't know him well, but he seemed like a good man."

"Far better than me," Owen muttered. Without waiting for Carlos to answer, he turned the camera around for Carlos to see. "Suitcase is empty but I can't see Trapper or Kyle."

The screen showed a dark picture of the motel room with its queen bed. The one they were in held two double beds, but otherwise looked the same. The rolling suitcase was open on the mattress and, as Owen stated, completely empty. No clothing, toiletries, or belongings in sight.

It was also larger than what was necessary to hold a four-year-old boy. Kyle could have stood up in the bag instead of being forced into the fetal position.

Carlos's eyes narrowed. "What's next to the bag? There's something there on the bed. Can you zoom in?"

Owen turned the screen around and fiddled with the controls. He swallowed hard. "It's a luggage lock."

The monster churned in his soul. Kyle had been locked in the suitcase.

He pulled his Glock-22 from the small of his back. It held fifteen rounds and he had no spare magazines. But he wouldn't be needing them. Despite that he'd never had to shoot to kill in the decade he'd been on the job, Carlos was a very good shot. He and Bulldog frequented the gun range often.

It would only take one bullet to end Trapper's life.

Carlos chambered a round and flipped the safety off.

Owen hopped off the desk next to him. "The bathroom door is closed. Most likely he's keeping Kyle in the bathtub."

Watching as Owen readied his own weapon, Carlos had to wonder how many situations like this Owen had been in for him to be so calm. Carlos was a cop and he felt like he was flying by the seat of his pants.

Owen pulled what Carlos originally thought was a wallet out of his back pocket. It wasn't; it was a lockpick set. He knelt next to the adjoining door. "He put a chair in front of the front door, but this one was clear. Most likely this way was his escape plan, anticipating law enforcement to come in through the front." Standing, Owen put away the lockpick set. "Ready to get your boy back, Sheriff?"

Your boy… Kyle wasn't his . Not yet anyway. But there was still a sense of possession and kinship with him. Carlos wanted the privilege of one day calling Kyle his son.

Carlos nodded once.

Owen carefully and quietly opened the door. It let out the smallest of protesting squeaks. Using his weapon, he cleared the room first. Carlos followed behind him, the barrel of his Glock facing downward.

Hand flat, Owen chopped it in the direction of the bathroom. Carlos raised his gun and slowly crept forward, the carpet eating up the sound of his work boots as he drew nearer.

The smaller of the two doors was obviously a closet. His training told him to clear there too, though his heart demanded he break down the bathroom door with all haste.

Training won out and Carlos opened the linen closet. It was empty but for the bolted safe and a folded luggage rack. A part of him acknowledged the disappointment that Kyle was not hiding inside.

The other part, the bigger, more monstrous part, turned his attention towards the bathroom door.

Carlos put his ear to the door. He heard the faint sounds of splashing and dripping water over the bathroom vent fan. A glance behind him told him that Owen heard the sounds too. The man was frowning, like he was wondering if they were about to walk in on Trapper innocently taking a bath.

Then a low gravelly voice that showed signs of years of smoking said, "Just tell me what I want to know, kid, and all of this will be over. Where is she?"

Carlos didn't hesitate. He took a single step back and then kicked the door open with all his might. The cheap, hollow wood splintered at the contact. Carlos rushed into the small room with his gun raised.

Out of habit, "Police! Don't move!" came shouting from his mouth.

But it was Carlos who froze where he stood at the horrible sight before him.

Trapper looked just as he expected from the diner's week-old surveillance video. He was a tall man in his late forties with a rounded figure and beefy arms. The gray shirt he was wearing had a hole in one of the armpits and was sticking to his body from the water splashed onto it. His jeans rode too low on his waist, revealing the whiteish band of his underwear along with his hairy ass crack.

He was standing over the motel room's bathtub. In the porcelain was not a terrified four-year-old boy, but a lean, feminine body covered in jean shorts and a tank top. Carlos was unable to determine age or features due to the wet towel over her face. She was hogtied with her bound hands tied tight to her bound legs. Her spine was twisted so her head was forced under the tub's faucet as water was poured on top of the cloth.

Trapper stood, reaching for his weapon on the counter. The bathroom was so small that he could reach the sink from where he stood over the tub.

Carlos snapped, "Don't move!"

Trapper froze. His eyes glanced between Carlos and the woman or girl in the tub, water still falling over her covered face.

"Turn off the water," Carlos ordered. "Slowly."

Carlos edged carefully into the bathroom, his boots crushing the door's splinters. As Trapper reached for the faucet knobs, Carlos reached for the man's gun. Using his left hand, he handed it blindly behind him. Owen took the weapon.

"Remove the cloth."

Trapper let out a low growl as he slowly bent and took the towel off the woman's face. And it was a woman.

As she splattered and spat water, coughing for air, Carlos took in her Native American features. Her thick obsidian hair was in a braid and was as soaked as the rest of her.

There was no doubting her beauty, flustered though she was. But there was one thing that she wasn't—and that was a four-year-old boy.

"Where's Kyle?" Carlos demanded of Trapper.

The man's eyes glanced down at the woman in the tub. "Who?"

"Kyle," Carlos snapped again. "Four years old. You took him from Mount Grove earlier this evening."

Over the woman's gasps and vomiting up water behind him, Trapper shook his head. "No, I didn't."

Frustration rose, overshadowing his confusion. "Yes, you did! I saw you on the surveillance camera! You were in Mount Grove last week!"

Trapper nodded slowly, his hands still raised in surrender. "Last week, yeah. Stopped in for dinner. But not today."

A raspy, feminine voice added, "He was kidnapping me this morning. He was nowhere near wherever you're from."

Carlos wanted to look back at Owen, but he couldn't risk taking his eyes off of Trapper. The bathroom was too small and Trapper was a big guy. If he charged Carlos while Carlos was distracted, he wouldn't have time to defend himself.

"Owen, get the chair. We need to get some answers."

Using the rope that had once bound the woman, Trapper was lashed to the chair that had once blocked the door. Neither Owen nor Carlos put their guns away though. The chair was flimsy at best and could easily be broken. The only reason Trapper went into the chair so docilely was because Owen had threatened to shoot off the man's kneecaps if he didn't. There must have been something in Owen's eyes that told him he wasn't bluffing.

While Owen started questioning Trapper, Carlos helped the woman. She was soaked, shivering, and kept hacking up great amounts of water.

"What's your name?" he asked. He was standing in the doorway of the bathroom without entering it.

She had her long, black hair out of its braid and was using a towel to dry it and herself off. Bent over by the sink counter, the woman looked at him under her right arm. "What's yours, oh noble white man?"

Feeling a little awkward, Carlos cleared his throat. "Carlos." He nodded his chin towards the bedroom area. "That's Owen."

"Zitkala."

Carlos wasn't sure if she was saying a word in her native language or if that was her name. "What?"

"Zitkala," she repeated. She then made a wrap with the towel and flipped her hair up over her head. "My name, white man."

"Oh," he felt his cheeks redden at having to have her clarify. While he was familiar with the Amish who resided near Mount Grove, there weren't any legal reservations in or around Pennsylvania. He'd had little to no contact with the Native American culture. "You haven't seen a little boy?"

Zitkala shook her head. "Like I said, he took me this morning. We've been on the road since."

"Where is he taking you? Why did he take you?"

Her eyes narrowed slightly. "That's my business and none of yours, white man." Softer, she said, "I'm sorry for the missing boy. Are you his father?"

Not knowing how else to answer without a long, drawn out story, Carlos nodded. "He was taken from the grocery store in our town. I recognized Trapper from the diner last week. Infamous bounty hunter seemed like the logical choice for his kidnapping."

Zitkala raised an eyebrow. "Your son goes missing and you assume a bounty hunter took him? Did he rob a toy store?"

"That's my business," he threw back at her.

To his surprise, she wasn't angry he'd repeated her words. The woman smiled. "Where are we, by the way?"

"About an hour east of Philadelphia."

She cursed under her breath. "I need to go."

Carlos put a hand out to stop her. She froze, and he saw fear enter her eyes. He regretted that, dropping his hand. "Sorry. Not holding you against your will. It's just…you don't have shoes," he indicated to her bare feet, "and I'm guessing you don't have any money on you. I just wanted to offer our help getting you back to where you need to go."

Zitkala raised her chin slightly, but he saw the fear leave her body. "I guess that would depend on where you're going and if it's in the same direction as me."

"I need to get back to Mount Grove." If Trapper didn't have, and had never had, Kyle then Carlos had just wasted the entire evening tracking him down and chasing after him. His phone was starting to feel unusually heavy in his pocket. He needed to contact Mount Grove. He hadn't checked his phone since departing with Owen, his sole focus on finding and retrieving Kyle.

Pulling out his phone now, he saw he had a bunch of missed calls and texts, especially from his brother. He cursed under his breath.

Zitkala spoke, "As long as it's in the opposite direction of Philadelphia, I'll take the lift. Thank you, white man."

"Carlos," he stressed without looking up from his phone. He clicked on his brother's name. Putting the ringing phone to his ear, Carlos glanced up.

Zitkala was smiling at him, one that could only be classified as mischievous. "That's what I said."

Bulldog didn't pick up the phone. Carlos cursed and returned his phone to his pocket.

Together, they exited the bathroom. Trapper's face was a bloody mess. The television was still turned up high, drowning out or disguising the sounds of Owen's punches.

"We need to get back," Carlos told him. "What did you learn?"

Owen's face darkened. "Only that this piece of scum has nothing to do with Kyle's disappearance."

"It really was just a coincidence?" Pain stabbed his chest at the knowledge that he'd allowed the monster to control his actions—and had led him down the wrong path.

Owen nodded gravely. "I've contacted my people. We'll schedule a pickup for him." His eyes went to Zitkala. "Who are you?"

"I am the sun and the moon and the earth beneath your feet," she said in a mystical voice. Owen just stared at her, unimpressed. She rolled her eyes. "My name is Zitkala." She pointed towards Trapper. "May I?"

Owen stepped aside.

Zitkala walked up to Trapper. Without hesitation or remorse, she lifted her bare foot and kicked the man in the groin.