Presumption of Guilt (28 page)
T
he party that Bill Brandon had insisted on having at the home was a first. He had never had one beforeâthough occasionally local churches had given them Christmas partiesâbut this afternoon, he'd told the children that he was throwing a birthday party to celebrate all of the birthdays that occurred throughout the year. Everyone would be the guest of honor. He had let Lisa out of the back room for the occasion. Though Stella had dressed her up in her newest dress, she was pale and drawn. Weak from the fear of further punishment, she sat in a corner as the festivities unfolded around her.
This was some kind of trick, she thought wearily. He had called the television stations, and cameras went around the room, filming the happy faces of the children as they ate cake or tore into their presentsârag dolls for the girls and plastic race cars for the boys. It was as if he was trying to make the world think that they always did this, that he cared about the children, that he wanted them to be happy. She wondered what the reporters and cameramen would think if they knew where she'd been for the last day and a half, or if they could see the injuries under Brad's clothes. He, too, sat very still against the wall, pale and quiet, as if the effort of speaking might cause too much pain.
She got up, holding her rag doll by one arm, and went to the cluster of boys talking near Brad. She wasn't welcome among them, she knew, especially since Jimmy wasn't here anymore, but she wanted to hear what they were saying.
“I heard Stella say he was expecting someone.”
“Someone like who?”
“Somebody from HRS, or cops, maybe. Probably what he warned us of the other day, after Jimmy got busted.”
The faces in the circle changed, and Lisa couldn't hold her silence anymore. “Are they gonna arrest us? Did we get caught?”
“Shhhh,” Brad ordered. “Are you crazy? Somebody could hear you.” “I told you she was too little to keep a secret.”
“I am not too little,” she returned. “I have kept the secret. But I don't want to go to jail.”
“That's where Jimmy is,” Kevin said.
“He is not! They don't have computers in jail!”
“Lisa, shut up!” Brad warned.
“Well, they don't!”
“What's that got to do with anything?” Kevin asked.
“Because Jimmy e-mailed meâ”
Brad grabbed her wrist and jerked her to shut her up, when the other boys' eyes widened to the size of quarters. “You heard from him?”
“I'm not saying nothing,” Brad said. “And neither is she. Are you, Lisa?” She didn't answer. “I can just tell you that Jimmy's not in jail.”
“Well, what if he snitched on us? What if that's why the cops are coming?”
“It might be why,” Brad said, looking back over the festive children and the cameras still going. “But I don't think so.”
The door opened, and Bill came in, all smiles and laughter. He tried to act as if he genuinely loved all of the children in the home, bending over them and hugging them, wishing them happy birthday for the sake of the cameras.
“Why would Bill want cameras here if the cops are coming?”
“Maybe to show the world that he's really a nice guy, and that we're all happy kids who love it here, so that whatever Jimmy told them won't seem true,” Keith said. “I wonder if he told them about my leg.”
“He should have,” Lisa whispered.
Brad hugged himself around the ribs that were probably broken. “I don't really care what he told them. I don't even care what happens to me. I just want them to get Bill. And I hope he tries to escape and they shoot him, just bad enough for him to hurt and see what it feels like. Then I hope he dies.”
The other children only gazed at him, caught up in the terrors they wished on their keeper.
W
eird,” Larry told Tony via cell phone. Tony had followed the judge home and was now watching the house.Larry had set up his equipment on the second floor of the hardware store across the street, a vantage point from which he could see most of the buildings on the campus of SCCH. “Brandon just made it back to the home, and it looks like there's a party going on here. Television vans, music . . . I can see into the game room through a window, and I see balloons and streamers. Not exactly what I would have expected from a man who's desperate and knows we're coming after him.”
“Sure it is. It's brilliant PR,” Tony said. “He's trying to make the press think he's a wonderful guy. Get them all psyched up, so that when they get the real story, they won't believe it. Either that, or he can use it in court. âWell, to be perfectly honest, Judge, I was just minding my own business giving a party for my beloved children, when the gestapo cops broke the doors down and arrested me in front of all of them. I only hope they're not traumatized for life.'”
“He knows we can't touch him tonight. Not until Judge Wyatt gives us the warrant, and you and I both know he won't do it.”
“Well, I've been thinking. What if we went to the judge and told him what we know?”
“Like blackmail, Tony?”
“More like cutting a deal. We tell him that we saw him talking to Brandon, then he gives us that warrant, hoping we'll forget what we saw.”
“No way,” Larry said. “He's going down with Brandon. No deals.”
Tony got quiet for a moment, thinking. “Then call the captain at home,” he said. “Tell him about Wyatt's meeting with Brandon. Then try to get him to go to the prosecutor for two warrants tonightâfor both of them.”
“All right,” Larry said. “But I don't want to leave for a while yet. I want to see how this party pans out. It could get interesting.”
“At least the kids are safe while the cameras are there.”
“Yeah. It's after they leave that I'm worried about. Any word on Jimmy?”
“Not yet. Lynda and Jake are basket cases. They've been out looking for him since he left.”
“I hope that kid's all right,” Larry said. “I just wonder what he's got up his sleeve.”
“I'm just hoping he left of his own free will, and didn't get abducted without anyone knowing it.”
“Well, we know Brandon and Wyatt didn't get him. I'd say he's just out there hiding somewhere, trying to figure out who he can trust.”
“Let's hope it's not the wrong person.”
L
arry's car was the first thing Jimmy saw when he approached the children's home from the woods behind the hardware store. Larry must be in there, watching Bill. The fact that they'd put so much effort into watching himâyet couldn't arrest himâonly reinforced the idea that Bill would get off scot-free. Nothing ever happened to Bill Brandon.
Jimmy stayed back in the shadows of the trees, trying to figure out how to get close to the cottages without Larry seeing him.He peered through the trees at the activity building. Something was going on at the home. It looked like a party. And television vans were outside.
He crossed the street a block down the road, then stole through the woods, staying in the shadows so Larry wouldn't see him. He came up on the other side of the building, out of Larry's sight, and peered through the window of the activities building.
He saw Stella being interviewed by a local reporter, and across the room, Bill and some of the other employees of SCCH were also talking to reporters, smiling, laughing, gesturing at the balloons, the crepe paper, the happy children.
But not all the children were happy. Jimmy saw his sister Lisa sitting alone, holding a Raggedy Ann doll that she didn't seem interested in. She didn't look good. Near her, Brad sat hugging himself with a pallid, pained expression. Some of the guys around Brad whispered among themselves.
Jimmy turned from the window and looked across the lawn toward the cottages. The lights were all turned off. Maybe if he went in now and hid in the cottage where Lisa stayed, he could get her out tonight before anyone realized he was around. Brad had said he'd leave Stella's window open. He hoped he hadn't forgotten.
Stealing through the trees, he came up on the back door of Cottage B. He went to Stella's room and tried the window. It slid open easily. Quietly, he climbed in, shut the window behind him, and headed farther into the house. A strange mixture of sensations overwhelmed him as he walked through the building he had lived in for so longâhomesickness and fear, familiarity and terror. Had any of this been worth it? Maybe everyone would have been better off if he had just found a way to get out of that attic and back to Bill . . .
No, that wasn't right. Eventually, Bill would have used Lisa in his little schemes, anyway. Eventually, Jimmy would not have been able to protect her. Eventually, Bill would have gone too far and killed one of the children. Eventually, they would have been caught. No, he had done the right thing. And what he was about to do was even more rightâhe had to save Lisa from Bill Brandon.
He went into the bedroom where he and Brad and Keith had slept, along with five other boys, in the bunk beds lined against the walls. Going to the bed that used to be his, he looked under it for the box of his belongings. They were gone; now another boy's shoes were there. Had Bill already replaced him? A sinking feeling began to pull him under. The feeling surprised him. He didn't live here anymoreâdidn't want to. But he didn't want to be forgotten, either.
He went to Lisa's room. He found his box hidden under her bed, and felt relieved that his sister had protected his things.
She
hadn't forgotten him.
He sat down on her bed, feeling so helpless, so dismal, so confused.
“It's not fair,” he whispered to the darkness. “It's just not fair.” He had done little to deserve all of this: the risks, the danger, the sadness. And Lisa had done even less. He closed his eyes and wished he had been able to protect her from the past few days. She was tiny, helplessâjust the way Bill liked them.
Jimmy hoped he was getting to her in time. He knew she would expect him to rescue her, to make all the evil go away, to set everything right. She had always thought he was some kind of superkid, and he hadn't minded it. She'd looked up to him like he was her father. But he wasn'tâand didn't have any more idea of how a father acted than she did.
He thought of the few men he knew that he admired. He admired Nickâthe way he had gotten Beth out of the fire after her explosion and taken care of her. Nick had rescued Jimmy's mother, tooâalthough part of Jimmy wished she had died. But then Nick was also the one who had placed him and Lisa in this home.
Tears came to Jimmy's eyes, and he wiped them away. Maybe Nick wasn't the one he wanted to be like. Maybe someone else.Someone like . . .
Jake Stevens. The name came to him with a warmth that burned in his heart. Jake was someone he could look up to. What would Jake do in this situation? How would he get Lisa out?
Lynda had told him how Jake had saved her from some murderer while he was still in his wheelchair. Even that hadn't stopped Jake. And Jimmy didn't plan to let anything stop him, either.
He heard car doors closing outside, and he peered through the window. The television crews were loading up, and Bill was standing outside with them, giving one last interview before they packed their equipment and disappeared. The children were still inside the rec room, and Jimmy guessed that Bill had them all doing cleanup detail before they could return to the cottages.
Just in case someone came back early, he slipped into the closet. He sat down in the corner and closed the door in front of him. It was stifling in there. There was no ventilation, and the hot Florida air was sweltering there where the air conditioner failed to blow. He reached into the waist of his jeans and felt for the pistol.It was there. If he needed it, he would use it. He wouldn't hesitate.
Across the street, Larry watched inconspicuously as the party broke up. Bill seemed to be trying to delay the television crew's departure. It was his last-ditch effort to appear to be a pillar of the community. He wanted to make friends with these people who, tomorrow, would have to condemn him on the news. He was running scared, Larry thought with satisfaction. He only wished he could walk up there right now, while the cameras were rolling, and slap some cuffs on the man's wrists. He wished he could expose him as a murderer, thief, and child abuser, and drag him away in front of all the children. Now
that
would be a party they could appreciate.
He picked up the phone and dialed Tony's car. Tony picked up. “Yeah?”
“The party's breaking up,” Larry said. “Camera crews are going home. Has the judge moved?”
“Not an inch. He's tucked safely into his house. Doesn't look like he's going anywhere else tonight.”
“Don't take your eyes off him, anyway,” Larry said.
“I won't. I'm still trying to track the captain down. Call me if anything happens.”
J
ake pulled his old car into the driveway at Lynda's house, hoping to see Jimmy sitting beside the door, waiting to be let in. They hadn't found him, and their only hope now was that he had decided to come back home.
“He's not here,” Lynda said, defeated.
“Maybe he came in through a back door or something. It's possible. He went out one.”
Lynda's dull expression didn't change. “He couldn't trust us anymore. I can't believe we let this happen.”
“We didn't
let
anything happen, Lynda,” Jake said. “It just did. It couldn't be helped.”
In the house, Lynda searched every room, hoping, praying that he was there, sitting in the dark, brooding. But he wasn't.
“Where could he be?” she asked, fighting tears. “Oh, Jake, he could be in real trouble.”
She saw the glow from the computer screen still on in the darkened living room, and went in to shut it off. “If he had just said somethingâ” She realized the computer was still on-line, so she moved the mouse to exit the game. “We could have taken him ourselves, helped him if he needed it . . .”