Those to be Forgiven

Published: 23 Nov 2017

Where do you want me to start?

Where do you think you should start?

Heh! That’s the thing isn’t it? I don’t know that it matters. You think I’m batshit crazy anyway.

I don’t think you’re… crazy.

You think I’m either insane or a liar. That’s the only reason you want me to go over everything again.

I want you to go over everything so that we can have a clear understanding of what happened… So that we can get to fully discern what brought you here today.

Really? For who? For you? For the the press? For the cops? I’ve been following this trail for what feels like forever, I’ve overturned more dirty little secrets than anyone thought was possible in the forty years after this case went cold and all it’s gotten me is a seat across the table from you… A table you invited me to sit at! You’ve seen my files, read my notes. The interviews I conducted and the reports I made. You already know as much as I do.

But I don’t do I? Your files are very interesting but they’re presented… plainly. And while they do reveal as much detail as I would expect from someone in your profession, they don’t actually reveal a great deal about yourself or what you were feeling during your involvement with the case.

You want that? You’re concerned about my feelings?

(…)

Fine. So again we’re back to where we were. Where do you want me start?

How about you start at the beginning?

David Copperfield style?

If you think it would serve your version of events.

My version of events? Yeah… my version of events… Mine are the only version of events. Everyone else is either dead or gone to ground. OK OK… How about the moment that the brother walked into my office? Shall we start there?

I was wrapping up yet another disability claim… Burroughs, Cooper and Mishima were the law firm that had me on retainer at the time, but you already knew that. One of their clients smacked into the back of some guys pick-up with his jeep and the plaintiff was trying to sue for serious injuries: Whiplash, neck strain, back pain brought about from damage to the spinal cord by displaced bone fragments… The claimant was also playing for emotional damage and loss of future earnings. Seriously by the time his shit show of a law firm tallied it up – the defendant was looking for a payout of sixty million. Even for the sorts of men and women that can afford to hire Burroughs, Cooper and Mishima – that ain’t exactly pocket change.

He was faking it by the way – the injuries I mean. I found the guy trying to pick up some girl who was young enough to be his daughter in a bar down town. No brace, no crutches. He was trying to dance with her – you know the way those guys operate. Total sleaze.

I say some girl but she worked for me. I’ve an eye for the type of cooze any guy will go for – and the minute I saw this jerk – even trussed up with his fake neck brace on – I knew that Janette would be the girl he’d risk it for. I wasn’t wrong. I don’t tend to be. Anyway – she recorded him talking about money that he was going to be coming into pretty soon – trying to impress her with wealth that wasn’t his yet. He had claimed it was on an investment that was gonna pay out. He’d been speaking to her for all of five minutes and already he’d invited her on a trip to The Bahamas with him in a month’s time. Guy’s are like that you know? Easily cunt struck by the right kind of girl paying the right kind of attention. Would he have gone for any of the others I have on regular stand-by? Mischa with her flowing black curls and that perfect pout? Beth, who looks like she breaks hearts with every corner she turns? Maybe. But like I said. I can pick them. I’ve an eye for the perfect Honeytrap.

The girls? They’re all respectable women that I find out of a temp agency. Wannabe actresses mostly who’ll happily play a role for a couple of hours to get me what I need. I pay them well and don’t ask them to go any further than the bar. I’m not a pimp.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah. So I’m putting the finishing touches on a few of these documents – signing this and that and there’s a knock at the door.

Yeah my office is like that. Real Sam Spade kinda stuff. I dig that you know? Always have. It’s why I do what I do. I’ve got the door with my name on the pane of frosted glass – the desk overflowing with papers – filing cabinets against the wall with little in, short of some old case files that I couldn’t quite piece together, and a bottle of malt whisky next to the Glock .22 in the top drawer of my desk. That desk even has a replica Bankers Desk Lamp over the laptop – you know the kind – brass stand and a green satin glass shade. Like I said – I dig the aesthetic. The laptop? Well I do own a typewriter but it sits in my office at home – an Underwood Golden Touch. It’s a beautiful piece of machinery but you’ve gotta move with the times and clients expect some sort of modernity.

So there’s a knock at my door and I look to the hands of the ticking clock on my wall. It’s out of office hours and I should have finished up thirty minutes before but it could have been any number of people and I was in no rush to get home. So I call out for the shadow on the other side of the glass to come in.

The door’s got a real creak in the hinges – it’s heavy too so the that the bottom scuffs the floorboards. I keep meaning to get it fixed but in truth – I mostly don’t really notice much anymore. Yeah, that was him. That was the first time I saw the brother.

Thomas Baldwin was as handsome as a man can look in his condition. In his mid fifties his hair had turned a little gray and his eyes were a little heavy, he carried a spare tire around his waist that suggested too many late nights with beers and pizza – but considering what he was bringing me that wasn’t too much of a surprise. Carrying an Aspinal briefcase and wearing a dark gray Armani suit, I could see he had money – looking a little closer though the suit was off the rack and the briefcase: a few years old. Maybe he had money… or maybe he liked to create the illusion of it. It was the red tie that stood out more than anything – I immediately spotted a stain on it from a desk lunch: could have been soy sauce.

“Are you Ramsay Quaid?” he asked. He looked nervous. No. Not nervous. Shaken. A little defeated maybe. Eager to get over with what he had come to see me about.

“That’s the name on the door. Something I can help you with?” I flipped the manilla cover of the file and popped it into the bottom drawer of my desk before leaning back in my chair.

“I hope so. Can I sit down?”

I motioned for him to sit on the battered green leather chair across the desk from me. I’d picked it up out of a second hand furniture place on 3rd Avenue – it had a rip in the arm that someone had tried to cover with electrical tape and a few dinks and dents here and there. It worked with aesthetic of the office. Getting it up the stairs wasn’t easy…

“So what can I do for you Mr…”

“Baldwin. Thomas Baldwin.” he leant across the desk and offered me a faintly sweaty hand which I shook before leaning back in my chair. “I work at Burroughs Cooper and Mishima.”

“A lawyer?”

“Yeah. But not one of the big guys. Mostly taxes. My office is on five so I don’t really see the interesting stuff.”

“You want me to dig into someone’s spreadsheets? That’s not really my thing. I’m sure you have accountants on the payroll…”

“No. It’s… it’s not for the firm.” And there he was looking nervous again. Like he was going behind someone’s back. “I wanted to hire you… privately.”

“Well that’s a little more interesting.” I opened the top drawer of my desk and pulled out two crystal tumblers and the bottle of 12 year-old Strathisla. I poured myself a glass and motioned toward him. He nodded so I let the golden rye splash into the other tumbler and passed it over. “What have you got for me Mr. Baldwin?”

His hand shook as he took the glass and sipped at the honey coloured liquid. It’s a good whisky – the Strathisla. Not the best but you save the really good stuff for special occasions. This wasn’t that. Not that I could see anyway.

“I’m sorry to come at you like this Mr Quaid. But I’ve exhausted all other options. One of the guys I work with suggested you. He said that you’re the best independent Private Investigator that the firm uses.”

I took the compliment. “And you’re happy to employ me? Knowing that I do a significant amount of work for your bosses?”

“It’s a personal matter. It’s not work related I mean. You’re discreet?”

“I pride myself on it. Would’ve been out of a job by now if I wasn’t.”

“I take your point.” He downed his drink and put the tumbler on my desk letting the sound of the heavy glass hitting the desktop fill the silence.

“Have you heard of Donny Baldwin?”

I thought but nothing came to me; “No bells ringing. A relative?”

He reached into his wallet and pulled out a folded photograph. A boy – real handsome kid – blonde hair the colour of ripe corn, an upturned button of a freckle dappled nose and a smile that could light up a room. “My brother. He was abducted July 31st 1977.”

Suddenly something clicked. It had happened three years before I was born but news like that has a habit of hanging thick in the air over close knit communities: “Staten Island. I grew up not a few streets shy of where it happened.”

He nodded at me like he knew I was Shaolin born and raised before I mentioned it. I didn’t ask how he knew – everyone’s an amateur detective at heart.

“He was thirteen years-old when he went missing and the cops didn’t seem to do anything… they hadn’t organised a single search at first. I remember the neighbours having to coordinate civilian search parties… It seemed like, for a while atleast, that the whole of Staten Island was out looking for him. Truth is that the cops didn’t care. They just kept asking my mom if he’d ever run away from home before.”

“I remember seeing her on the news in… shit… must’ve been ‘87? Yeah, it was ten years and there was still no trace. Your mom and dad were still doing the rounds, still trying to find him. He had a friend didn’t he? Your brother? Saw him talking to someone by the roadside?”

“Mikey O’Hare.” he nodded.

“Black kid with an Irish name.” I remember seeing him on the news and thinking about how names fit faces… or don’t.

“He saw a car. A silver Ford LTD. It circled the block and passed him and Donny a couple of times. It stopped on the corner after the two of them split to deliver their papers to different areas of the neighbourhood. Donny was doing his paper route. We shared a room… I remember him getting dressed that morning and waking me when he knocked over a tower of wooden bricks I’d built… Jesus Christ! I was so mad at him.” The brother caught himself before he could really choke up but the waterworks were there just under the surface. “In ‘87 they did Sally Jesse Raphael and a few other tabloid talk shows. Talked about police incompetence and how they knew he was still alive.”

“So what’s this then? You want me to investigate a missing persons case from 40 years ago? I’m good, Mr Baldwin, but forty years is forty years.”

“After ten years I had given up hope. Didn’t think we’d see him again. The stress that something like that… A missing child… puts on a relationship… eventually my parents split. Dad tried to move on but only found comfort in the bottom of a bottle. Colon cancer got him about five years ago. Mom kept trying: she was a regular at the police station trying to get them to chase new leads but she died last year… You move on Mister Quaid. I’ve a family of my own now. A wife, a daughter who just turned thirteen last month…” He reached into his wallet to show me another photograph but I waved it away without looking.

“Why are you picking at old scars now Mister Baldwin?”

I watched, as with shaking hands he pulled his briefcase onto his lap and popped the latches – poured him another glass of the Strathisla to see if that wouldn’t help his nerves.

“Last week I got these in the mail.” he handed me an A4 manilla envelope – clean and unmarked aside from his name: Thomas Baldwin written in thick black felt tip on the front. “They came in that envelope in your hands. Nothing else. Just what you have there. They arrived at my home Mr Quaid. My wife… my daughter could have seen them.” Thomas grabbed the freshly poured glass of whisky and downed half of it.

I reached in and pulled out sheets of thick photo paper. Three of them. Three recently printed photos of his brother Donny. He was still thirteen in the pictures. He didn’t look any older than in the wallet photo that Thomas had handed me.

“This is him?” I asked despite knowing the answer.

Thomas Baldwin just nodded and took another drink.

In each photo, thirteen year-old Donny Baldwin was lying on a bed – a mop of unruly blonde hair, looking freshly washed but a little dishevelled,covering the tops of his ears – the freckles that dappled his nose had relatives across his shoulders. In each photo the young boy was in a state of undress: One had the boy in white briefs and socks – a pale blue vest covering his chest and stomach, in the other two he was just in the briefs. In each photo Donny Baldwin, a thirteen year-old kid with a bronze tan, was bound and gagged. His hands behind his back – his ankles raised behind his legs. In his mouth a white piece of cloth.

“Shit!”

Thomas was still shaking when I looked up from the photos.

The pictures were clearly taken around the time of the boy’s disappearance. The little information that was in each shot gave away a small amount of background period detail; the wallpaper – a garish pattern of orange yellow and brown, the bedside lamp – wooden with a red plastic shade… Even the bed spread – a patterned depiction of green elephants against cream coloured linen screamed the nineteen seventies sacrifice to taste and style. By the bed a stack of vinyl in disarray and an orange portable Brandt Electronique record player. The photos themselves were slightly out of focus and clearly copies of the originals – scans rather than printed from the negative.

“Did you take these to the police?”

“I tried. I stood outside the station for forty-five minutes. All I could think about was how they were when he was reported missing: they weren’t interested. After an initial search they just kept telling my folks that he was another runaway. Forty-five minutes Mr Quaid. Forty-Five minutes of being so shit scared…”

Donny didn’t look distressed in the photos and appeared to be sleeping in each of them. Although how comfortable a sleep he was getting is another matter.

“Why were the police not interested? You showed them the photos right?”

“No. I couldn’t go in. I couldn’t risk that they wouldn’t even look at them. That they’d just say that Donny went missing forty years ago. That he was a runaway and that their investigation at the time had concluded that no crime that had been committed for them to investigate. My Mom believed they were connected somehow. The police I mean. Like they knew what was going on… that they… that they had a hand in it somehow.”

The idea that the cops were involved in the abduction of a thirteen year old white boy from Staten Island was a stretch. But something rang true about a certain level of disinterest. However, even by the laissez-faire attitude of the average 1970’s cop, that seemed cold.

“I want you to find my brother Mister Quaid. Or at least. Find out what happened to him. Someone sent me those photos. Someone knows something and they decided that forty years later I should see them. I can’t go to the police. I can’t…”

I didn’t know then what sort of sick fuck would do this. Not just to the boy but to the family after so much time. The pieces still don’t really fit together. Not all of them. There are whole sections of the puzzle missing. But I’m convinced that I put it together as well as I could given the information that I had to work with. I’m convinced that I did everything I could for Thomas Baldwin… For Donny…

“There was something else.” He reached back into his briefcase. “This morning, this arrived at work.” He handed me a small envelope – his name in the same handwriting as was on the first – in the same black felt tip. “Dwayne… from the mail room dropped it at my desk with the rest of my mail. I haven’t opened it. I knew it was from the person who sent me those photos. I… I didn’t want look at anymore.”

I opened the sealed envelope and let a small black USB drive fall out onto my desk.

“Help me Mr Quaid? Please?”

“I charge fifty dollars an hour to your firm Mr Baldwin, plus the retainer.” I watched the last of the colour run from his face. “I’m not a bleeding heart and discounts are usually hard to come by. But how about we say two hundred dollars a day for every day I’m working… plus expenses.” I held the USB drive up to the lamp and turned it in my fingers.

“Thank you. I can… that won’t be a problem. I have savings.”

After I had insisted on a down payment of a grand in cash my suspicions about him were proven right when he handed me an envelope with that exact amount from his briefcase. I took his contact details and promised to call him at the end of the week or when I found something – whichever came first.

We shook hands again and he left my office visibly lighter than when he came in – the weight of the photos in his briefcase was more than physical. I poured myself another Strathisla and sipped at it while looking at the pictures of the boy, bound gagged and practically naked on the bed. There was nothing in them that gave anything away other than the decade that they were taken in. I Googled Donny Baldwin – found an image of the boy sitting on the porch of his parents home. He was an exceptionally good looking kid – the kind that Disney grows in vats beneath the Cinderella Castle to fill out the casts of their TV shows. An all American boy with blonde hair and blue eyes. His smile in the photo was broad and filled with warmth. The kid in the photos that Thomas Baldwin had received was definitely the same kid that sat on the porch with a lemonade in hand. From the look of the kid they must only have been taken a few days after he was abducted.

Picking up the USB I plugged it into the side of the laptop and opened the partitioned section of the hard drive. I checked the contents – two more images named one and two and an .avi file, 300MB in size, marked only with an ellipsis. I scanned it and it came out clean – no viruses or spyware.

The screen flickered for a moment and I was about to shut the whole thing down when a window popped up in the bottom right corner of the screen.

“Threat Blocked!” the female voice on the security program called out.

I clicked the option to rerun the scan and the offending malware was separated and placed into a temporary folder. The original scan should have picked it up. I won’t deny I was a little weary of opening the file after that. The security on my devices is top notch, Darnell Cooper had designed the system and installed it on everything I used for work… but we’ll get to Darnell later. After another drink I let my fingers hover over the touchpad while I debated whether it was worth risking my files… Everything was backed up anyway and I was suddenly very curious. So after finally convincing myself that the stick was clean I opened the first image:

Donny again. Still in only his white briefs he lay back on the bed. The image taken to show as much of his young body as it could. His eyes were open and the crystal blue sparkle from the earlier family photo was somewhat faded. I opened the second image and the boy was laying on his stomach – his briefs were pulled down to his thighs and his ass was on display. The tan line from below his waist somehow made those peachy looking cheeks seem obscene. The boy’s head was turned on the pillow and he was looking directly into the camera – his mouth slightly open – a thin trail of drool dripping from his parted pink lips. The kid was drugged.

OK! So I admit it. I looked at that image of the boy a little longer than was necessary. I admired the boys form and his adolescent musculature. The tone of his smooth skin and the dusty pale soles of his soft feet. I looked at the kid’s ass – it was exceptional – the proportion of fat and muscle – the way that the buxom white globes contrasted against his tan thighs and back.

It took me a moment to realise that I was lingering unnecessarily. I don’t deny that. None of us are any different. When presented with an image of youth and beauty we’ll look… and we’ll wonder… As soon as I had caught myself I closed the photo and took another drink. I swear to you, my hands were shaking.

Fearing the worst I steeled myself before finishing the whisky and hitting the .avi file – the media player opened: A forty-five second video clip. Donny wasn’t alone in it. There were two other boys – a brunette with tired brown eyes that I’d aged at about sixteen or seventeen, a faded brown scar on his left cheek that ran from the corner on his mouth up to his cheek bone – the other was another blonde – same age as Donny – maybe a little younger. The boys were sitting naked by the side of a pool – their feet dangling in the water – behind them a wall patterned in mosaic with pieces of glass and tile – and a small patch of grass. Donny and the other blonde had their hands covering their privates – the older boy let his fat young cut cock rest semi-hard against his silken thigh. The video was scratchy and had no sound – I had guessed it was filmed on 8mm. The boys looked up to the camera – all feigning smiles and blinking against the harsh light of the sun. It was when the older brunette put his arm around Donny’s shoulder and after nodding at the camera, no doubt responding to some offscreen instruction, that he leant in to kiss the boy. Before their lips could touch the video cut out and the media player went to a blank screen.

I hit play again and watched the video one more time. Donny looked healthy if subdued. The tired brunette looked a little worse for ware. I could just make out bruises on his muscled biceps – if I could’ve blown up the image and not had a degradation in quality I would have seen finger marks there. There was nothing about the yard that gave any indication to the location. It could easily have been anyone’s back garden in any period in any state south of Montana – the only thing giving anything away was the presence of the boys with their seventies haircuts.

I watched a third time – pausing just before the end as the older boy went in for a kiss. Donny was looking straight into the camera. His eyes: open questions emitting discomfort.

Closing the file, I checked the properties but it came out empty. The file name showed the ellipses but nearly everything else had been wiped clean; date taken, copyright, dimensions… The only thing listed other than the title was was the author field. It read: TiCK ToCK. I’m not terrible with tech stuff but I’m not a wizard either. That’s why I keep in contact with Darnell. But again, we’ll get to him later.

I didn’t know then what I know now. I couldn’t make anything from the file name or the author field… If I had I would’ve burned those pictures, deleted the file and wiped and drilled a hole into the hard drive of the laptop before throwing it into the Hudson along with a million other dirty little secrets. If I’d have known then what I know now… I wouldn’t have taken the case.

I looked again at the photographs that Thomas Baldwin had been sent – the ones of his young brother bound and gagged. I don’t know how long I sat staring at them.

It was only the sharp bell of the office phone ringing that brought me back into the room. I answered like I always do – a grumble of my name and a reminder about office hours. I think it’s because the phone hardly ever rings. Most work comes in through email or through the front door.

“You need to be more polite. You’ll scare off clients.” It was my husband David.

“Hey honey. Sorry. I was off somewhere?”

“In your mind palace?”

I laughed: “You wish I was Sherlock Holmes.”

“You’re fine as you are. Cumberbatch is still my free pass though.”

“Yeah and you won’t let me forget it. He is married you know?”

“So am I.”

“To a woman.”

He harrumphed the way he does when painted into a corner: “I don’t think that that would matter that much once he met me.”

“If anyone could turn him, baby, it would be you.”

“You always say the sweetest things.” I could feel him beaming down the phone. “When are you coming home? I’m hungry. I’ll order Thai food.”

I was only half listening. My eyes had been drawn back to the photos. In the stack of albums by the bed was something that looked familiar.

“Ramsay? Ramsay?”

“Oh! Sorry, just distracted by work stuff. Yeah, Thai food sounds good.” I looked at the ticking clock on the wall. I’ll be back home in half an hour to forty five minutes.”

“Make sure you are… Or I’ll start without you. Love you.”

“Love you too baby boy.” I hung up the phone and reached into my desk – pulling out a magnifying glass that I very rarely used. I held it over the stack of albums. I couldn’t be positive – the shot was soft focus and the albums were blurry but the top sleeve looked to be showing a young Michael Jackson – handsome in his youth – a black tuxedo and a red brick wall. I stuffed the photos and my laptop into my briefcase and after turning the lights out and locking up for the night, I walked home.

When I got back to our apartment David wrapped his arms around me and kissed me softly on the lips as soon as I had gotten in the door. I responded in kind and held on to him a little longer than usual – my hands drifting to the small of his back and pulling him in closer.End of Book 3

“You’ve been drinking. How was your day?” he whispered while leaning into my ear.

“I had a drink with a client. I’ve got a new case. How was yours?”

“Same old same old. The office was quiet so I knocked off a little early. I got cornered by Mrs Bonelli downstairs on my way in. She wants us to take her to church on Sunday.”

“I hope you said we were busy.”

“I would have… but she gave me a tin of Bombolonas that she had made this afternoon.”

“You’re too easily bribed.” I kissed him again and smiled into his warm brown eyes.

“There’s a message on the answering machine from Pickman.” He broke off from our embrace and took my coat – hanging it up on the cost stand by the front door while I checked my cell: six missed calls.

“Shit! I had my phone on silent.”

When I reached for the house phone David slapped my hand away from it and looked at me: “You can deal with him after we’ve eaten.”

“Sure thing baby.” I kissed his lips again and he smiled.

“I don’t know why you gave him the house number anyway.”

“I didn’t. But he resourceful. Part of the reason I keep him around.”

“He’s a creep.”

“He’s… yeah OK, he’s a creep.” We smiled at each other again and he leant in for another kiss.

“Tell me about your new case?”

“Maybe after we’ve eaten.”

On cue the doorbell rang and David took our food from the cute college age delivery boy – flirting outrageously with the poor kid.

“Wonder why you ordered from the Thai Lemongrass…” I said smiling at David as he closed the door.

“He’s cute isn’t he? I think he’s a son or a nephew or something.”

We ate in front of the television – as we often do when I get home late. Mostly we talked through the shows that were on – sitcoms and game shows. Neither of us really pay much attention to that black mirror that sits in the corner of our living room – except for the news in the mornings – maybe The Late Show if there’s a guest on that we’re interested in. Mostly it’s there to provide background noise while we go about our business.

After taking our plates into the kitchen David washed up while I dried. It was after drying his hands and running his fingers through his blond hair that he asked me again about the client that I’d taken on.

“You remember that Donny Baldwin kid who went missing from the borough in the seventies?” I knew that he did. We’d grown up not two blocks away from each other. David was two years older and like me, born after Donny went missing – but like I said – shit sticks to the air in small communities.

“Oh shit! Really? You’ve got a proper case?”

“They’re all proper cases.” I knew what he meant. How many times had I lamented to him in my moments of doubt that I wanted cases like I’d read about in Raymond Chandler novels. Truth of the matter though is that ninety percent of my work is through Burroughs, Cooper and Mishima and the other ten percent is bored housewives looking to see if their husbands are screwing around with their secretaries.

I know what you wanna ask just by looking at your face. Yeah, most of them are.

We talked about the kid – what we remembered from our childhoods. Stories of Donny from the past and the threads people tried to tie between that case and the kids Andre Rand had taken over the course of the 80’s. Many of the kids on Shaolin were terrified by the idea of Rand… terrified by the name that had been attributed to him: Cropsey – and for a while, certainly among the older kids, Donny’s disappearance was put down to that particular urban legend. But again – that was another story put to bed by the arrest of Rand.

Every town has their own Urban Legends – some share some common themes and motifs; a hook handed maniac behind the bushes on Lovers Lane, a witch house at the end of the street, the clown in the white van parked outside a schoolyard… The Evil with a capital E that was Rand and Cropsey… that was ours. People would rather believe the fiction than the fact and Cropsey and Rand are still separate entities in the minds of some Shaolin locals. The myth of Cropsey (our name for the boogeyman) is easier to bear than facing the fact that someone you knew, maybe shook hands with, maybe shared a drink with in some bar or stood behind in a queue at the market has that kind of darkness in them.

I told David about the brother – the photos and the video file he’d received. He loved hearing stuff like that. My husband lapped up True Crime books and documentaries like they were lemon ice. I didn’t want him to see any of this stuff though. There has to be some way of divorcing him from the nastier sides of my work.

Protecting him? Maybe there’s an element of that to it. But he’s a big strong boy. I think it was more for my own sake than his. Over the last fifteen years of being a PI I’ve only ever brought files home a handful of times. While I was happy to work from our shared office in the apartment I tried to keep the bulk of it away from the homestead.

David went to bed early that night while I stayed up in front of the TV I don’t watch – letting game shows flicker passed my eyes in the corner of the room. Meanwhile I kept thinking about Donny and Thomas – I kept thinking about the photos and the USB drive with the forty-five second video clip of the boys by the pool in front of the mosaic decorated wall. I kept thinking about the only lead so far being the name of the file’s author: TiCK ToCK.

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