Sweet Child of Mine Ch. 04

Sweet Child 4

"Kyle, Kinsey's been kidnapped."

There was a little silence on the phone. "Kyle, you there?"

"Yeah. What did you say?"

"You need to get up here now. Kinsey had been kidnapped. I called the cops, and we caught them on security footage. We know the asshole that took her. I'm not waitin' on the cops, and I thought you might like to be with me when I run them to ground."

"I'll be right there."

He, Suzette, and their little girl showed up as quickly as I thought they would. Suzette immediately went into the house to comfort Allie while Kyle and I talked in the yard. I told him who took Kinsey, and he grunted.

"If you looked up idiot in the dictionary, his face would pop up. I wonder how much it's about her and how much it's about me and you?"

"Probably a combination. I've got eyes out, and he's a creature of habit, so I figure it won't be long until someone calls me. How do you want to handle it?"

"If we get to him first, I intend to make him realize what a horrible idea this was."

I nodded. "And I intend to make him realize he'd have been better off aborted."

Kyle looked sideways at me. "We don't know each other well, but I know that even if you're an engineer now, somewhere in your past, you were something else entirely. You're kind of like the berserker legends about the Vikings. Getting in front of you when you're pissed would be kin to suicide. Just don't kill him. Kinsey thinks a lot of you. So do I. As far as she's concerned, you're a big marshmallow. I'm sure Allie knows better, but none of us wants to visit you in prison."

"They'd have to find evidence of a crime. You'd be amazed how easy it is to disappear someone. Destroying the evidence and denying everything has stood me in good stead a time or two. Now, go in and talk to the detective. The big black patrolman you see is a friend and rides with me, and he knows me well enough to try to stop us; we need to make sure we don't make him make decisions he doesn't want to."

"I met him. Good guy. I'll go in and make nice, but just as soon as they're gone, we're going hunting."

Brain called me while he was inside. "They've been seen in Hooterville. My boys are going over there. They know not to put the kid in danger, but if they get a chance, there may not be much left of him when you get there. Most of my guys have a family."

"Hooterville" was a section of the nearest big town that was known for the sex trade. Hookers walked the street and there were ten strip joints in a five block radius along with seven adult bookstores. No one would think of looking for a kid there unless they thought she was in the trade, and even then, it was dangerous to let people see a kid that young. Kyle and I were on our bikes as soon as we hung up.

We rolled into a strip club parking lot and the hookers gravitated to us. They were careful to stay on the sidewalk because they knew they'd get the shit kicked out of them if they tried to ply their trade in the parking lot. Territorial disputes were frowned upon.

"Hi, honey? Looking for a girl?"

"We are, but not like you think. We'll give everyone a fifty if you talk to us."

A big blonde seemed to be the spokesperson for the five of them.

"You ain't cops, are you?"

"No. Not cops. We're fathers."

The blonde looked at Kyle, trying to figure out what he was talking about. He pulled out his phone and showed them a picture of Kinsey. "This child had been kidnapped and was last seen in this area this afternoon. I'll give five grand to the person who can tell me where she is and fifty even if you don't know a thing."

"Your kid?"

Kyle shocked the hell out of me with his answer. "She belongs to both of us. I'm her father, and he's her stepfather. Can you help us?"

They all looked. I know some did it just for the fifty, but some did it out of compassion. None had seen her, but all promised to keep a lookout and ask others in the trade to help. I think an early teen girl getting kidnapped may have hit a little close to home for a couple of them.

We were about to enter the club when six bikes rolled in and pretty much surrounded us. Four got off and ranged in front of us. I got a good look at their colors. They were Demons, a regional club known for being hard-nosed about their territory and businesses.

The leader looked us over. Kyle was big and probably tough, but he dismissed him at a glance and focused on me. Every leopard can see the spots of another. "Who are you?"

I shrugged. "I'm just a guy with no interest in you or your enterprises. We're only here because something that belonged to us was spotted nearby this afternoon. Something that means a great deal to us."

"He's looking for a kid, Shack. A girl who got grabbed. It's their daughter." Blondie was trying to keep things calm, an effort I appreciated.

"Why don't you give us the information and let us see what we can do?"

"Normally, that's exactly the thing we'd do, but the asshole who grabbed her ain't all there, and it's a little time sensitive. If you don't mind, we'll pass some pictures around and talk to anyone who will listen. The lady here can tell you about the reward we offered."

"Five grand, Shack. Five grand if we can find her. I asked. It will be cash. Come on, man, it's a kid." Blondie seemed more moved by us than anyone there.

Shack looked us over, and I continued talking. "If she's been seen, it's only a matter of time before someone tells the cops. Then they'll be down here in force poking around. We find her, and we never see each other again."

Shack was thinking about it when two more bikes pulled up. They were flying colors from a national organization not known for their retiring ways. Most clubs avoided each other's territories out of mutual respect, so this was unusual.

They hopped off and pulled their helmets. It was Brain and Leroy. It was my first time seeing Brian in his club gear.

Brain must have known Shack at least by reputation. "Be cool, Shack. These are good people, and all they want is their kid. You help them out and I'll consider it a favor."

That put a whole new spin on things. A favor from an outfit like Brain's was like money in the bank. Pretty soon, the bikers fanned out. We hit every strip club, talked to all the hookers and street people, every adult bookshop and bar in the area. Nobody had seen Kinsey, but they said they would keep an eye out. Five grand was a fortune to some of these people.

Kyle was silent for a while when we got back. Suzette was still with Allie, and Doc had ridden over to check on her. He gave her a mild, pregnancy-friendly sedative, and she finally went to sleep, still crying.

We grabbed coffee and sat on the porch for a while. It was almost daybreak, and we watched the sun come up. When he got up to get some sleep, he looked at me. "Who are you? You don't need to tell me, but I saw how those biker guys treated you. You were one of them once, and they recognized it."

"That's a story for another day. Right now, we need to grab a few hours of sleep. I want to be functioning if any news comes in."

I snuggled down beside Allie and laid my hand on her stomach. She spooned to me instantly, which helped me get to sleep.

They woke us at eleven, telling us the police were in the living room. We got ourselves together and went out to meet them. The detective was pretty pissed.

"I got a call from a detective in Walden. Two guys on bikes were seen in the red light district talking to even more bikers. Bikers who flew colors from two serious organizations. When Angels and Demons seem friendly, it makes law enforcement very nervous. Word is all over the street about the reward. One of your friends tripled whatever you offered. Every hooker and bum out there is looking under rocks."

I didn't back down. "When faced with a hard problem at work, I use every tool and resource available to solve it. I may have access to people you wouldn't necessarily talk to and wouldn't cooperate with you, even if they knew something. That's all I'm going to say about that."

"Well, let me tell you what we've been doing. We identified the other man in the video, a low-rent biker with a sheet about a mile long. Of the two, he's the most dangerous. It would be best not to alarm them too much before we find them. We found the van in an abandoned warehouse near Hooterville. It was stolen, and a witness said he saw a newer black van pulling out. We didn't get plates, but it matched the description of one stolen two days ago. The APB is out, and every law enforcement officer from town constables to the State Troopers is looking. The FBI will be here soon, and you need to cooperate with them. The Amber Alert went out yesterday with pictures of your daughter and the men in the video. The local media is using the footage in heavy rotation. And since you've been asleep, the reward has grown to 50,000. It seems you two have a lot of friends."

I got the details later. Brain had kicked in ten grand, and Leroy added five. Some of Kyle's friends and business associates had added another 7500. It seems Kinsey went to work with them occasionally and often attended family-friendly social functions, so they knew who she was. Kyle kicked in ten grand, so I added another five. Wanda had never had children, and she was fond of Kinsey, so she added five thousand, and my friends in the club and the bar came up with 3500. It was still growing, and we knew it would be considerably higher before this was over. I'd owe these people for the rest of my life, and I'd make sure any time anyone needed anything, they knew to ask me first.

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The call was supposed to come in at 2:00, but by then, the FBI team had arrived and had everything set up to record when it did.

The FBI had a profiler come in, and once she had all the information she could get, she talked to us. "Theodore Beltski is below average in intelligence and was raised by abusive parents. He's got delusions of grandeur and an inflated sense of his self-worth. That being said, while he's been into a lot of stuff, he's never been overtly violent. He is probably doing this more for revenge than anything else. You two have a history with him, and he's never fared well with either of you. Ultimately, he's a weak man who always looks for the easy way out. He's been gambling, and it seems he's not good at it. He's in pretty deep with a bookie in Hooterville. Arm or leg breaking deep if he doesn't come up with some money soon. Desperation is pushing him."

She stopped to draw a breath. "His partner is another matter altogether. Harrison Beech has been convicted of strong-arm robbery, assault four times, aggravated assault twice, manslaughter, grand theft auto, and forgery in a counterfeit money scheme. From the time he was fourteen, he's spent more than two-thirds of his life in custody, juvie first and then the real deal when he turned eighteen. He's currently wanted for probation violations, and he knows if he's found, he'll go back to jail for another fourteen years. He's got a high IQ and can be logic-driven when it suits him. He's probably the planner of the two. His partner didn't give him any clue of who he was kidnapping or your connections to high and low friends. He's probably watched the news by now, and we're hoping his logical side kicks in and he runs before it gets any worse. He has no motivation to kill her, but he knows that besides the fourteen he owes, kidnapping is a federal crime, and that's an automatic seven years without other charges. He's the one we need to be most careful with. When the call comes, behave and agree to anything. We'll handle it."

When the call came, they were ready. You could hear the arrogance in his voice when he spoke. "Got the money together?"

"We do. You know you'll never get away with it, right, Theodore? The cops know who you are. They know who your partner is. How long do you think fifty grand is gonna last, especially split two ways? Let her go, Ted. Let her go, and I won't come after you."

"Fuck you Grant. You behave, or maybe we'll have a little fun with her before we let her go. She looks much like her mother, and we know how hot she is."

I wonder if he heard the sound of death in my voice. "You're not that stupid. You touch her, and you'll die a slow, miserable, excruciating death, even if you go to prison. You think about that."

The tech was grinning and gave his boss a thumbs up. They had located the signal and knew where he was. I kept him on as long as possible to help out. "I got the money, Ted. Tell me where you want me to drop it."

"I don't want you to drop it. I want your bitch to do it."

"Never gonna happen, Teddy boy. She's seven and a half months pregnant and not in the greatest emotional state. You get me, or you don't get the money."

"Fuck you. I'll...."

You could hear a struggle, and then a new voice came on. "He's not too smart, now is he? I found out how much you and her daddy are worth, so the price is going up. Two hundred grand and we'll text you a bank account number in a day or so. I'm sure the feds are listening, and you know a little about me. Don't get cute. Just wire the money and I'll let the kid go without a hair out of place. You don't, and I'll make sure she dies."

He disconnected, and I stared at the phone for a minute. The Profiler smiled at me. "We got them. They're forty-five minutes away, and we have four cars coming from different directions, all running silent."

The teams were ten minutes out when the phone started moving. They split up, half going to the location and the other half following the signal.

The location turned out to be an old boathouse in a closed-down area. No one was there. The other team was following the signal, but it seemed erratic and not confined to a highway. Then it went dead. They found an upside-down canoe below a set of rapids with the phone taped to it.

The feds looked at us. "Can you raise that kind of money?"

Kyle answered before I could speak. "We can. I'll put up half and Grant puts up the other. I can have mine tomorrow."

"I'll have mine by then." I was suddenly glad my house was paid for and worth considerably more than I needed to borrow. One of the guys in my group was an investment banker, and I called him. He knew what was going on and said he'd handle it.

"It'll take too long to set up a mortgage. Show up with your deed and we'll give you a personal loan with the house as collateral. I'll have my buddies start the paperwork now."

Kyle was on his phone, doing the same thing, only using his business assets as collateral. The feds cautioned us. "If things go wrong, you may not get the money back, and we may not catch them."

We agreed we could live with that if we got Kinsey back. I also made a promise to myself that I would hunt them down if it took decades, and they would die horrible deaths when I did.

I didn't realize I was morphing back into my biker persona. My club name had gone from Sarge to Grinder because, as one put it, "when you get done with a beatdown, it looks like their faces went through a meat grinder."

I made it a point to avoid civilians, but if another club or maybe a drug dealer tried to take a piece of what was ours, I was often sent to resolve the problem. In the end, my mind was starting to twist a little, and if I hadn't come out when I did, I may have gone over. As it was, a few people in this world were missing fingers or an eye due to me. Others walked with a limp the rest of their lives. Some didn't walk at all. There was only one instance where gunplay was involved, and when the smoke cleared, there were three bad guys who would never bother anybody again.

It was self-defense because they started shooting first. My handlers had digital recording devices that were so small they could be disguised as anything. I wore a skull and crossbones pin on my vest, which was a high-resolution camera. It would record and upload instantly, and the feds got a birdseye view of how it went down, how I had yanked on a shotgun, twisting it around until the sawed-off barrel was in his stomach. It showed the guy seemed to balloon backwards, a red mass where his stomach used to be. It showed the.45 I carried as I downed two more in the classic two-handed shooter's grip. I hit the panic button, one of my earrings, dropped it where they could find it, and rode away.

The cops showed up to tape the scene off, and the feds were waiting for them. It got written up in the papers as a suspected drug deal gone wrong, but there were no witnesses or video, so the case went cold quickly.

I'd lived a quiet life for years, keeping Grinder buried deep inside me. Now I could feel him trying to claw his way back out and had to admit I wasn't trying very hard to stop him.

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The call came at five the following afternoon. Allie was climbing the walls, and it was all Suzette could do to keep Kyle together. I didn't show my emotions in front of others, but another mask slipped over my face when I was alone. Brain and Wanda had come by, and Wanda went to the girls while he talked to us. "I don't think they're close anymore. Someone would have found something by now. They probably ran until they felt safe and went to ground. Be strong, my brother. Kinsey is smart and'll find a way to let you know where she is if she can."

It was words meant to comfort, and they helped a little. All the women of our club and many from the bar, my job, and her old job were coming in and out, sitting with Allie, cooking, and keeping an eye on us. Every one of them sought me out and told me not to do anything stupid, but if I did, to make it count and make it very painful.

Finally, the text came. "Got the money?

We assured them we did.

They sent an account number and routing instructions.

We texted back immediately: " I need proof of life. She needs to speak to one of us."

"No."

"Then no money. Not negotiable. You got ten minutes."

It took eight minutes, but the call came. I could hear one in the background telling her to say she was all right and then hanging up. When she was given the phone, she screamed. "Docks at Madison!" before the phone was snatched away. We heard the slap and her cry before Beech spoke.

"Clever little bitch. Send the money in the next five minutes, or we'll text you where to find the body. When we get confirmation, we'll cut her loose."

We had no choice but to send the money. Thirty minutes later, we received confirmation from the Madison police that she had been found at a fast food place, dirty but unhurt. An hour later, she was escorted to the local station. There must have been two hundred people waiting for her, and cheers erupted as she stepped from the car.

She ran to Allie first. The reunion was joyful and emotional. The local television stations were there, and the film went national. The cops apologized but said they needed to interview her quickly before her memories faded. She agreed right away and sat in the interview between Kyle and me, her hands holding each of ours. She was articulate and had retained a lot. She was dropped off by motorcycle and described both. T had a ratty old Triumph that was mostly rust and faded black. The other had a Harley low rider in bright red and with ape hanger handlebars.

They'd had her blindfolded, but she snatched it off as soon as they stopped and got a partial plate on the Harley. We kept her front up until we got into the car. She sat between us and would cry on one shoulder for a while before switching. Doc had checked her out at the station, but other than being sleep-deprived and a little dehydrated, she was fine.

We had to put her in therapy, and she went for two years before she stopped. By then, she was a confident sixteen-year-old. Kyle and I got together and gave her a car. Both wives were jealous of it.

Leroy found it for us and called me one day, the excitement plain in his voice. "I found something you might be interested in for the Kid. You need to come now."

He gave me the GPS, and it took me to an old farm out in the country. Inside was a '66 Mustang convertible. The rag top was gone, the engine hadn't been turned over in twenty-six years, and the interior was shot, but the body was in perfect condition. The price was really reasonable because of the condition, and I bought it on the spot.

Leroy was doing a lot of work for Kyle now. The guy he'd been using finally retired to Arizona, and the first time Leroy saw his warehouse, he drooled. I called Kyle, told him what I'd bought, and asked if he thought that would be a suitable birthday present for Kinsey. Since I footed the purchase, he paid for most of the restoration work. When we were done, it looked and ran like it had just come off the showroom floor.

Kinsey cried and then tried to run the wheels off it. We didn't have to take her back and forth between houses anymore, and she would spend one night there, two nights home, then their weekend would come up. It also seemed there was a crowd of girls and sometimes boys, no matter where she was. It got to where we couldn't remember where she was supposed to be. For a while, she wouldn't drive alone at night. Kyle and I worked with her to build confidence. Kyle bought her a stun gun. I bought her an ASP and taught her how to use it. It would be terrible for the first boy who tried to draw attention.

Sometimes Kinsey would pile her little brother and sister from her Dad, and our twins, into Allie's van and take them for ice cream. Allie would fuss about how dirty it got her vehicle, but she sometimes went and it came back just as messy.

Kinsey was pushing us both to get her a dirt bike. We were for it, but the wives were not so much. They were too afraid she'd turn into a daredevil, but she promised and begged until we found her a little Kawasaki 125. Kyle would send me pictures of her tearing up one of his pastures. I sent him a photo of her airbourne, flying over a hump that had miraculously appeared on her trail one day.

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So what happened to the money? Did the assholes get away with it?

No.

The feds had a system that automatically hacked any routing number sent. The software would take over and give the blackmailer confirmation of the transfer, while it never left the bank. They could keep up the pretense for 30 to 40 minutes, which was usually enough time to locate them. So T and Beech got away but broke.

Ted turned up three weeks later beaten to shit. He'd been tossed out of a van in front of the police station, and the van never stopped. They looked at the film and estimated the van was going between 25 and 30 miles per hour when he was tossed. Besides the beatdown he had been given, the cops found evidence of other trauma, including a badly set left leg and jaw. When he came to in the hospital, they thought he was delusional because he kept ranting about Demons and an Angel. Brain kept a straight face when he told me about it, twenty minutes before T was kicked out of the van.

The mighty T Rex did not have a pleasant stay in prison. It seems there were bikers or friends of bikers in every prison he was sent to. They moved him twice to stop the beatdowns before they gave up. A lot of canteen accounts were funded to the max the whole time that whoever beat him was in jail.

He was convicted of kidnapping, assault on a minor, and attempted wire fraud. His sentence called for him to serve fourteen years, but he got out in nine. When he got out he was heavily tattooed with bitch tags from the different gangs he'd serviced at his various prisons, walked with a limp, and was missing an eye. I made it a point to drop by his halfway house, sitting across the street, when he left for his minimum wage job.

He pissed his pants when he saw me. I just grinned and rode off.

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Mr. Beech fared better or worse, depending on your perception. He went underground for three years before he was found by friends in low places. I told Kyle, and he was all for calling the cops, but I talked him into waiting. He was two states over living under an assumed name. He still rode, a pretty decent-looking ride. At least he took pride in something.

I watched him for a week before making my plan. He had to ride over a long bridge on the way to work, and he worked the night shift, so it was always dark. There was very little traffic on the road, and I made my plan. The next night, he was going over the bridge when a bike roared up beside him. He glanced over because the motorcycle was crowding him, and I'd bet his eyes went wide when he saw the muzzle flash. Three shots rang out in quick succession, and the bike sped off. Beech rammed into the guard rail at fifty miles an hour, and both went cartwheeling over it and falling an estimated fifty feet. Three days later, Fishermen found him after seeing his bike's front wheel in about two feet of water. It seems he was stuck on it when the motorcycle hit the mud. The autopsy showed the gunshots would have probably killed him, but he drowned first.

One of the peculiarities of getting hit with shotgun pellets, no matter how big, is that there is no way to do a forensic analysis. They surmrised he pissed someone off and they lay in wait beside the bridge with a shotgun. He was hit at least twice, judging by the number of shots in him, leading investigators to think it was a double-barreled weapon that did him in, because the shot was so concentrated, going from his stomach to his upper thigh.

It never made the local news, but I saw it online. There were no witnesses, no leads, and the police talked to the local criminal element about his habits, but nothing came of it, and it went into the cold case files.

I watched as I cleaned my newest weapon, the Heritage version of the Judge. I liked it because it held six rounds instead of five and could shoot.410 shells, although not the 3-inch magnums because of the cylinder size. Mine was kept loaded with a Winchester shell that held three discs and a dozen shots just slightly larger than a BB.

I bought it for Allie as a house gun. You didn't have to be dead on when you popped off with that thing, just somewhere close. She didn't like shooting it, but she said she could get over it in an emergency. I habitually named all my weapons, and this one was known as Grinder.

Kyle finally asked me one day, and I told him that before the cops could get to him, he had reached an untimely demise--probably from pissing the wrong guy off. He grinned and never brought it up again.

The police notified us he had been found when they ran his fingerprints at the morgue, and he was identified as a victim of foul play. I saw Kinsey looking at me a few times when she thought I wasn't, and she'd have a little half-grin on her face. It seems it's not always genetics; sometimes it's the environment.