Chapter 15

Chapter 15

Mattie

Ican’t help but worry about Rigs as I sit picking at my turkey sandwich and fries. The server refills my drink and give a faint smile. I can’t help but wonder if she thinks I’ve been dumped by my date. It would explain the pity looks she keeps giving me after Rigs ran off. “Can I get you some pie or cake?”

“No thanks. I can barely hold this,” I tell her.

“Let me know if you need anything else, honey,” she says brightly as she lays down the check.

I pick up a fry and nibble on the end, feeling dread pooling in the pit of my stomach. I pull out my phone to see if I have any messages from Rigs yet. While I’m looking at the screen, my phone jingles. It’s an unknown caller. Thinking that maybe he’s calling me from the bar phone, I quickly take the call.” “Hello, Rigs is that you?”

“No ma’am. My name is Charlie Boyles. I got a call last night from Mr. Strawn, I’m Evan White’s former case worker. I have a lead for you.”

“Great,” I say enthusiastically. “What do you have?”

“Not over the phone. Can you meet me over in Bolder?”

I know where Bolder is. It’s about ten minutes away from Las Salinas, that’s if I had my car. “I don’t have transport at the moment. Maybe we can meet up later tonight.”

“No, it has to be now. I’m going out of town.”

“Alright. I’ll call someone to pick me up.”

“No. I’ll only talk to you. I only trust other people in our field. We have a license to protect, so I know you’ll hear me out and deal honestly with me.”

“Okay, let me think for a minute. I’m at Murphy’s Bar and Grill right now.”

“I’m actually five minutes away. I’ll pick you up. We can talk while I drive, and I’ll drop you off anywhere you want afterwards.”

Memories of Rigs warning me to stay put rise in my mind. We had Zen pull up pictures of him and Alvin Clarke, the man at the facility who’d signed for Evan. They definitely weren’t the same person, while I had never seen Clarke before, I vaguely recalled Boyles. He had worked in another department at CPS and there was nothing suspicious found on him. Unfortunately, Boyles is about to leave the area, God knows for how long. And he has a tip on Evan White. He sounds about as paranoid as a person would be if Evan’s disappearance was related to the syndicate in any way, maybe they got to him too and he’s running away like Robert did. Rob was my former colleague who was the first to realize something was up and had started to investigate the missing kids. Everyone had thought had gone rogue when he disappeared with Mina, the girl whose case worker he was, along with her mother.

I reluctantly make the decision to just go with it. “Alright, I’ll pay my bill and be waiting for you outside. What will you be driving?”

“A red Ford Focus. I’ll pull pup at the curve.”

I dash off a quick message to Rigs letting him know what’s happening. Minutes later I watch a red Focus pull up to the curb. I’m not totally lacking in common sense, so I’ve already decided that if there is anyone with him, I’m just going to nope out. I’m a fairly good judge of character, so I’ll go with my gut.

When he pulls up, I do recognize him. I remember meeting him in passing at the annual Christmas party. I’m still a bit unsure as to why he’s reached out now, but relief surges in my chest when I realize this clearly isn’t some sort of trap.

He reaches over and flips the handle on the passenger side door as he glances around anxiously. I pull the door open, slide into the seat and shut the door. Placing my purse on the floor, I tell him, “Thanks for coming to meet me today.”

He motions to the seat belt and mumbles, “It’s okay. When Strawn called last night and gave me an earful, it got me thinking. If there’s anything I can do to help find Evan White, I would feel guilty not doing it. I still have my old contacts from CPS, that’s how I got your number.”

“If you don’t mind, I want to ask you a few questions.”

Pulling out of the parking lot and on to the highway, he adds, “I’m sure you do. This whole situation is screwed completely up.”

“I read in Evan’s file you dropped him off at a long-term care facility, one that specialized in treating aggressive youth.”

“I did what I was instructed to do by my supervisor. Margo Cummings arranged the placement. I was just the one tasked with taking him there.”

“Would you happen to know why the facility is now saying they never had him, even though someone there responded to our questions when we placed the thirty-day-review call?”

“Margo said he escaped doing some kind of therapeutic outing, six weeks after arriving. She resigned a couple of months later. To be honest I thought they had found him. Then Strawn called me, saying that Evan was missing. It freaked me out, so I started going through it all in my mind trying to unpack what happened.”

I know you’re heading out of town. I’m grateful that you care enough to help us try to figure out what went wrong. Maybe we need to contact the local police near the facility he escaped from, it could be they picked him up and something went wrong in the processing?”

Charlie nods his head thoughtfully, “After hearing that you were about to close Evan’s case I got to thinking. There was a place he liked to go down by the river. Evan was never into fishing or anything like that, but he told me he would go there, sit on the bank, watch the river flow and just think about his problems. I decided to go out and have a look at the site myself. You know just make sure he wasn’t camping out there or something.”

“That makes sense.” Charlie was a social worker. Naturally, this would be his thought process.

“There’s some kind of fisherman’s shack that looked like it had been built in the seventies. It was pretty dilapidated, but I found what could be some of Evan’s possessions inside.”

“This is the first hard lead we’ve had.” I say excitedly. Maybe it was true, and Evan did run away?

“I’d like to take you there for a quick look. Are you willing to let me show you what I found? It’s only about fifteen minutes away.”

“Absolutely. If there is any way we can figure out what happened, I want to jump right on it.”

“That’s great. I know he had a lot of problems, but I believe that deep down inside he was a good kid.”

I make a mental note that he said ‘was’ instead of ‘is’. “Do you have some reason to believe that Evan might not have survived?”

He shoots me a nervous glance. “God no. Why would you ask something like that?”

“It was because you just refer to him in the past tense.”

Charlie flinches slightly. “Yeah, that’s just me miss-speaking because I’m nervous about getting involved in all this again. Strawn said you were asking a bunch of questions about who picked Evan up, and I never showed an ID. I just want to be clear to everyone at this point, I followed the directions of my supervisor, kept strictly to departmental protocols, dropped the kid off where I was supposed to drop him off. I even got their signature as the receiver and added it to his file.”

“Yeah, I read your note. Everything seemed to be in order on your end.”

Charlie’s shoulders relaxed a little. It hit me that this whole situation was less about him wanting to help find Evan, and more about him wanting to cover his own ass.

“Do you mind if I ask what you’ve been doing with yourself since you left the agency?”

“To be quite honest working for CPS was getting overwhelming, I left to work with an intellectually disabled adult male. I’ve worked in that field before, and it’s much less stressful than trying to get children back with their asshole parents.”

His shitty description of family reunification really rubs me the wrong way. As a licensed professional he was supposed to understand the value of keeping families together. Lots of the parents we worked with desperately needed the kind of support our agency gave in order to keep their families together. It bothered me that this man clearly wasn’t batting for team CPS, or even the families he was tasked with helping.

I think long and hard about asking him to stop the car so I can get out. But in the end, I just can’t do it. Evan is out there somewhere. If there’s any chance at all I can find him, I’m going to take it.

I let that settle into the dark recesses of my mind as Charlie pulls off onto secondary road which soon turns into a dirt road. Now we’re in the middle of nowhere, he seems less concerned with conversation, and despite my earlier trust I can’t help thinking I made a bad decision to come here. After another five or so minutes driving, a river came into view, it had lazy rolling waters and if I wasn’t feeling so anxious, I might have found it pretty.

I look out my side window and started picking landmark, in case I need to walk out of here at some point. With any luck if I can make it to the highway, I just might be able to catch a ride back to town.

Within moments I see the shack Charlie mentioned earlier. It’s much smaller than I anticipated, and far shoddier. I hate it to think of Evan being forced to live in such a hovel. No one deserves to live this way, least of all an innocent fourteen-year-old child.

Charlie parks the car and opens the door, “If you follow me, I’ll show you what I found.”

Unlike when I first got into Charlie’s car, I have the worst gut feeling ever. But I’m already alone in the middle of nowhere, so I have nothing to lose. “Sure I’m eager to see if there’s anything that belongs to him and try to make an educated guess about how recently he was last here.”

When we get to the shack, Charlie says, “It’s unlocked, so we should be able to just go on in.”

That carries a note of finality I don’t like and the moment he pushes the door open and shoves me through roughly, I realize I should have listened to my gut. Evan is sitting on the splintered wooden floor, with a shackle around his ankle, looking much worse for wear. His hair is greasy, and he looks like he hasn’t had a bath in weeks. His eyes have a listless quality that worries me. The whole place smells strongly of urine and it’s clear he’s been here for weeks if not months.

Forgetting all about Charlie, I rush across the room and sit down in front of Evan. Putting my hand to his forehead I can tell that he’s burning with fever. I shove his hair out of his face with both hands. “Evan White. My name is Mattie and I’m with Child Protective Services. Can you speak to me?”

He croaks out the words, “Behind you. Move.”

I dodge to the side, narrowly missing a huge rusty shovel Charlie was swinging toward my head. Turning, I push myself up from the floor. “What the hell is wrong with you? Did you know Evan was here this whole time?”

“Of fucking course I knew he was here. Who do you think brought him here?”

“But why? What did he ever do to you?”

“Nothing, sometimes people just need to disappear. I’m the man that makes that happen.”

“I’m guessing this is a good paying gig for you.”

“You got that right. I make a year’s salary with one job, during the shit nobody else wants to do.”

“Why did you target me? I don’t understand?”

“That’s too damn bad because sharing time is over, bitch. You can either clamp the other shackle around your ankle or I can knock you the fuck out and do it myself.”

“Fine,” I say through gritted teeth.

He watched breathlessly as I click the shackle into place. Then his chin comes up in gesture of defiance. “I have to admit it gives me no small amount of satisfaction to see the woman who’s so used to giving orders following them for once.”

“Is that all this is to you, some crazy power trip. You don’t scare me Charlie. You can hurt me or kill me even. But I’ll die with a clear conscience, and I’ll come back to haunt you every damn step. When your room suddenly gets cold late at night, that’ll be me breathing the breath of death right in your face.”

He backed up quickly like he had been struck in the face. “Damn, you’re a creepy bitch.”

“So what’s the plan? Clearly whoever you work for wants us alive.” I nod in Evan’s direction. “They’re probably not going to be too happy to hear hostage number one is sick. He needs medical attention.”

“They don’t pay me to pamper the animals.”

“I’ve got money in my purse. Use it to get food and medicine for Evan. This is your opportunity to do the right thing and it won’t cost you a dime.”

“I might do that.” He grabs my purse, rummages through it for a few moments and pulls out my work phone and stuffs it in his pocket. “I’ll just go ahead and take this. You’re not going to need it.”

As he goes back to rifling through my purse, I think my lucky stars that he doesn’t know my personal cell phone is still in my back pocket, I can only hope Rigs doesn’t call right now. Eventually he pulls out my wallet, stuffs the cash in his pocket and begins picking through my credit cards. I doubt I would be lucky enough for him to use one of my credit cards, though that might be enough for Rigs to zero in on our location once to realizes I’m missing.

“Don’t move. I’ll be right back,” he says.

The minute he’s out the door, I check on Evan. His head is hanging to one side and he’s barely awake. I shake him. “Evan, you’ve got to stay awake. We’re going to be rescued soon.”

His eyes lift to mine. “Who are you again?”

“I’m a supervisor at CPS. I know it doesn’t seem like it but I’m here to rescue you.”

“Be careful. The walls have ears.”

I swallow thickly and nod. He’s telling me the place is bugged. “Try and stay awake Evan, hang in there.”

“I’ll…I’ll try,” he mumbles as his eyes drift closed again.

Holy shit. I ease out my cell phone and turn toward the wall to use it. Since I can’t risk a conversation. I turn the volume all the way down, but not on vibrate. Then I start a text message.

Me: I need your help.

Rigs: Anything you need.

Me: I got kidnapped by Evan’s old social worker, Charlie.

Rigs: Are you okay? Did he hurt you?

Me: No. Fine. No time. He’ll be back soon.

Rigs: Where are you?

Me: Run down shack by the river. I’m sending you my location.

Rigs: We’re on our way.

Me: Bring a van. Found Evan. He’s sick and needs to go to the hospital.

Rigs: Got it. Hang on. We’re coming.

Me: Hurry. Don’t know what he’ll do when he returns.

Rigs: Stay calm. Looks like you’re ten minutes away.

Me: Hurry. Please hurry.

I hear someone outside and I put the phone away and turn back to Evan, just as Charlie stumbles through the door with several bags from one of the local gas stations. When he dumps the bags out on the floor in front of us and I see the acetaminophen, I grab the box and take out two of the capsules, placing them in Evan’s mouth and help him wash them down with some blue Gatorade.

I quickly glance over at our captor. He has a strange, confused look on his face but I don’t comment on it. Instead, I just say, “Thank you Charlie. I appreciate you helping me keep him alive.”

“Regardless of what you think, I’m not a fucking monster. The syndicate contact thinks I killed Evan and buried him at the city dump. He knows stuff they don’t want anyone finding out.”

Shock roils through my gut. I wonder why Charlie has disobeyed Pope’s direct orders and has been keeping Evan alive—does this mean he’s on our side or theirs? I want to ask, but now isn’t the best time. “Don’t tell me they want me dead as well.”

He shrugs. “The verdict still out on that. It was the same with Evan. They had me hold on to him and then told me to kill him three weeks later. They don’t know about this shack.” Making a disgruntled noise in the back of his throat, Charlie shakes his head. “Look, I don’t even know why I fucking told you all that. Just know this, if the syndicate wants you dead, you’re better off here than any other place.”

“Got it. For what it’s worth, thanks for not killing Evan.”

“Yeah, I’m not wild about killing kids, especially when they’re useful. Bossy supervisors are a whole different ball game though.”

I stare up into his face, trying my best to figure this guy out. “Except, I was never your supervisor, much less a bossy one.”

He just frowns. “Look, I’ve got to go. You should have enough food and drinks to hold you over for a day or two. I’ll get back out here as soon as I can.”

“Alright,” I say. “Just drive carefully. If anything happens to you, Evan and I are out of luck.”

Charlie barks a laugh. “I never really thought about it that way. Don’t worry about me, though. I’m like a cat who always lands on his feet.”

Watching him walk out the door, I don’t doubt that for a single minute. I can’t quite make him out, it’s clear he’s syndicate through and through, but why keep me and Evan here rather than following their orders to kill.