Torn Apart (7 page)

He began gasping and choking, drawing much needed oxygen into his lungs as he was dragged up and backward.

“You okay, kid? That was some big wind, wasn’t it?” Newt asked, as he began brushing dirt and dust off Bobby’s clothes.

Bobby nodded, but something about the way the man kept touching him as he brushed off the dirt set off warning bells. He kept hearing his mama and daddy’s warnings: Never talk to a stranger. Never let a stranger touch you in private places.

Wary, he took a couple of steps backward, just out of reach.

Newt was wise to the ruse and followed, until he had Bobby pinned against the wall.

Bobby panicked. He’d been right. The monster was going to hurt him. He knew strangers weren’t supposed to do this, but the man was rubbing his chest. Instinctively, he felt threatened and pushed at the thick, fat fingers.

“You’re a stranger, so you’re not supposed to touch me,” Bobby said.

Newt smiled. He’d heard that before.

“But I’m not a stranger. I’m Mr. Newt…. I fix the buses at your school. Surely you’ve seen me there.”

Bobby frowned. He’d seen the man before, but not at school. He’d seen him outside his window.

“I don’t ride the bus,” he whispered.

Newt patted him on the shoulder. “I know that. You live two blocks from Pinky’s Get and Go. There’s a big dog in the neighbor’s yard behind your house named Old Sounder.”

Bobby’s panic began to recede, just as Newt had known it would. It had been a calculated move on his part. Repeating familiar names made him seem less of a stranger.

“Are you gonna take me home now?” Bobby asked.

Newt frowned. “Not now, kid. That big tree fell down behind the truck, remember? I can’t move it until the tree gets cut up. How about I fix you something to eat, okay?”

Tears welled and spilled, silently running down Bobby’s cheeks.

“Oh…hey, hey. None of that,” Newt said, and took a step backward. He wanted this to work the easy way. He didn’t want to have to force him. Everything was better when he taught them how to play. He pointed to the cuts on Bobby’s hands and arms, obviously from the fight they’d had trying to get inside the trailer.

“Let’s get the blood all washed off and see if I can find some Band-Aids, okay?”

It wasn’t okay, but Bobby didn’t know what to do about it.

“Mama can doctor me when you take me home,” he said.

“Not now,” Newt said. “Not now.”

He had taken Bobby firmly by the arm and started toward the bathroom when suddenly he heard footsteps running up the porch, and then a loud knocking on the door. He saw relief roll across Bobby Earle’s face and knew he had only moments to silence the boy before he gave them away.

“Don’t!” he growled, as he grabbed the kid up in his arms and pressed a hand across his mouth.

“Hey, Newt! It’s me, Sam! Are you okay?”

Newt rolled his eyes. It was his landlord, Sam Walker. He couldn’t get the bastard to fix a damn thing on this piece-of-shit trailer, but now he came knocking?

“Yeah. I’m okay!” he yelled.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. I was in the middle of a bath when the storm hit. I’m not dressed.”

Bobby was kicking and squirming in his arms. All of a sudden Newt felt pain in the palm of his hand and realized the kid had just bitten him. He yanked him hard up against his chest, then whispered hot, angry words into his ear.

“You little bastard! Do that again and you’re gonna be sorry!”

Just then Sam yelled again. “Get dressed and get out here on the double! Bordelaise took a direct hit from a tornado. They’re gonna need every able-bodied man for rescue.”

Newt cursed silently. Just once, why couldn’t things go his way?

“Yeah, sure…give me a few minutes to get dressed and I’ll be out.”

“We’re gathering down at the office. When you’re dressed, come on over. You’ll have to ride with me. Your truck is blocked in by debris.”

“Yeah, okay!” Newt yelled. “Be there in a few!”

He listened to Sam’s receding footsteps. When he was certain they were alone again, he stomped toward the bedroom with Bobby still in his arms, then threw him down on the bed and pointed a finger right in the kid’s face.

“Don’t move, or I swear to God, you’ll be sorry.”

Bobby shrank against the headboard, then pulled his knees up beneath his chin, ducked his head and began to sob.

Ignoring the sound, Newt went into his closet and started digging through clothes and boxes until he found a small coil of nylon rope and a roll of duct tape.

Then he backed out and paused, as if assessing the situation.

As if sensing the man’s gaze on him, Bobby Earle lifted his head.

Newt shrugged. “I’m sorry, kid, but I’m gonna have to tie you up until I get back. It’s for your own good. Can’t have you running around outside with all the storm debris. You might get hurt.”

“I want to go home. Mama is looking for me.”

The kid’s voice was shaking and there were tears on his face, which was just the way Newt liked it. Right now his dick was so hard it hurt. Damn Sam Walker to hell and back for messing up his plans.

“If I see her, I’ll tell her where you are,” Newt muttered, and kept working without looking down, tying the child’s arms and legs to the bedposts until he was spread-eagled in the middle of the bed.

Then he grabbed the duct tape, tore off a strip and plastered it across the kid’s mouth. Now, if any more busybodies came by, at least he couldn’t cry out.

“I’ll be back,” Newt said. “You just take yourself a nap. I’ll fix us some food when I get back.”

He pocketed his house keys and headed out of the trailer on the run, taking care to lock the door behind him.

Bobby flinched at the sound of the slamming door and then began struggling against the ropes, trying to pull himself free. He pulled and bucked until he could no longer stand the pain of the nylon cord cutting into his flesh.

Tears were running down his face. His heart was pounding so hard it was difficult to breathe. He knew his wrists were bleeding from the ropes, and from the way his ankles felt, they must be, too.

He moaned helplessly as he looked up at the ceiling. A cockroach was crawling out of the light fixture. Others were crawling on the walls. The whole place smelled like the bathroom at Pinky’s Get and Go. Outside, he could hear people talking and cars honking, and somewhere far off in the distance, sirens were sounding.

At that point he closed his eyes and thought of Daddy. Daddy would come and find him, and find Mama, too, and then everything would be all right. But just in case, he thought he might better ask God for help.

God, it’s me. Bobby Earle. Make the bad man go away. Help my mama and daddy find me. Amen.

Oddly enough, the silent prayer seemed to calm him, and as time passed, Bobby began to relax. Despite his discomfort and pain, he finally fell asleep.

Four

B
ordelaise was in chaos. Downtown had taken a direct hit. The department store was a ruin, a florist shop decimated, the barber shop leveled. The back of the jail, as well as part of the roof, was gone, as were the four prisoners who had been incarcerated. The only positive aspect was that it happened on Sunday morning.

Because of that, every downtown business had been closed, and most of the residents had either been at home, out of town or in church. The siren had given all of them enough warning to take cover. Less than an hour earlier, police chief Hershel Porter had learned that Frank and Maggie North and their grown daughter, Carolina, who lived outside of Bordelaise, had all perished as a result of the storm. Besides an elderly man who had died from a heart attack during the evacuation from the damaged nursing home, those were the only known fatalities. There were some injuries, but few were severe. The worst of the disaster was to the community itself. Already people who owned chain saws, pickups and dump trucks were gathering in preparation for a citywide recovery effort.

He had just asked one of his deputies to put together a couple of search parties for the missing prisoners, while leaning toward the likelihood that they were most likely dead. With the electric and phone lines down, the police and rescue workers were having to use old-fashioned, handheld radios, and distance was a deterrent to communication.

But the place was in shambles, and he needed all the help he could get. For the past hour he’d been on his two-way, calling for Lee Tullius, one of his deputies. But no matter how many times he paged him, Lee had yet to answer. Frustrated, the chief scanned the crowd and spotted Carter, another deputy, near an ambulance.

“Carter! Have you seen Lee?”

Carter shook his head, then suddenly pointed.

Hershel turned around just as Lee pulled up. He headed toward him at a lope. “Where the hell have you been? I’ve been calling for you on the handheld for nearly an hour!” Hershel yelled.

Lee got out of the cruiser, then stopped and leaned against the fender without answering. His face was pale and his chin was trembling, as if he was struggling not to give way to emotion.

It didn’t take Hershel long to realize something bad had happened. There were tears in Lee’s eyes, which was something Hershel couldn’t ever remember seeing. He put a hand on Lee’s shoulder.

“Sorry I yelled, son. Talk to me.”

“I took Katie Earle to the hospital.”

Hershel sighed. “Damn. Is she hurt bad?”

“Other than a few cuts, no.”

He frowned. “Then what—”

“Her little boy, Bobby. He was out on the church playground when the tornado hit. Somehow they missed getting him inside, and they’re assuming the tornado got him. I found her on the block where her house used to be and—”

Lee stopped in midsentence and looked down at his boots, trying to regain some emotional control.

Hershel waited. He couldn’t bring himself to talk for fear his own voice would break. He could handle dead prisoners, even the whole North family, but not a kid. Please, God, not a kid.

Lee cleared his throat, then looked up. “And she was screaming. She kept screaming and screaming and…Lord have mercy, Chief, but I’ll hear that sound for the rest of my life.”

Hershel was suddenly sick to his stomach, and his vision blurred. He yanked his hat off his head and shoved a hand through his hair.

“Damn it! Poor Katie. Katrina took her parents, now a hurricane-spawned tornado takes her boy? What kind of karma is that? Damn, damn, damn.” At that point, it occurred to him that the Earle family was separated. “What about J.R.! Has anybody notified J.R.?”

Lee shrugged. “I don’t know. Penny Bates is with Katie at the hospital, but when I left, Katie wasn’t talking. No idea if anyone called J.R.”

“All right. I’ll look into it, and again…really sorry I snapped.”

“No problem, Chief. It’s been a hell of a day.”

“Yeah, and it ain’t over yet,” Hershel said. “Go help Carter. I’ve got him organizing a search. You grew up in the bayou. Maybe you can give them some pointers on places to avoid. I don’t want any of my people winding up gator food just looking for dead prisoners.”

“Yes, sir,” Lee said, and headed across the square, dodging debris as he went.

Hershel’s hands were shaking as he turned around and surveyed the scene before him. His house and his family had been spared, which was more than a lot of the citizens of Bordelaise could claim. He just wanted to go home and hug his wife, but he didn’t have the luxury. With the power out, the phone system down and the local hospital overwhelmed with storm-related injuries, he might not be going home for days. He took a deep breath, jammed his hat a little tighter on his head and waved down an approaching ambulance.

Newt had a cut on his arm and a blister on his hands, and his belly had been growling for hours. Even though the downtown businesses had been closed when the tornado hit, the rescue crew he was working with had been ordered to go from building to building, making sure no one was inside. They’d worked their way up one side of the street and then down the other without finding any victims before they were sent to Chambers Lumberyard.

The owner had donated all the nails, hammers, plywood and lumber it would take to board up broken windows in the town, and they needed helpers to load up the trucks.

It was getting late, and he hadn’t eaten since his candy bar and Pepsi that morning, but his hunger for food took second place to the other hunger he had yet to feed. He kept thinking of the boy tied spread-eagle in his bed, planning what they would do together and how they would do it, and getting excited all over again. He was shoving a stack of two-by-fours onto the flatbed of a truck when someone yelled at him.

“Hey, Newt! I need you for a minute. Would you and Warren come here and give us a hand?”

Warren Boyd was president of the local bank. Newt had smirked to himself several times during the day at how inept Warren was at physical labor. When Newt heard the request, he groaned. Once again, he was going to wind up carrying more than his share of the load.

Preoccupied with his thoughts of Bobby, Newt stepped without looking where he was going and bumped into a jumble of overturned shelves. Caught off guard, he began to stumble and, before he could catch himself, did a belly flop into a huge puddle that had gathered beneath the shelving.

“Son of a bitch!” He groaned, wrinkling his nose at the smell as he pushed himself up onto his hands and knees.

“You okay, buddy?” Warren asked, as he grabbed Newt’s arms and hauled him to his feet.

“Other than the smell of whatever this is, I think so,” Newt said.

But he’d spoken too soon. Within seconds, his face began to burn, and then his hands, and finally the skin beneath his clothes. Too his horror, his skin was rapidly turning a fiery red.

“What’s wrong?” Warren asked.

Newt was pulling at his shirt and scrubbing his hands across his chest.

“What did I fall in? I’m burning!” Newt cried, and began shedding his clothes in an effort to get the saturated fabric away from his skin.

Warren looked back at the puddle, then at the shattered plastic jugs nearby. He picked one up, quickly scanning the label, then gasped.