Heads Will Roll – Chapter Eight

NOT EDITED

“Any chance you’d let me take you out for a drink or two tonight?”

Bridget lifted her head, expecting to meet Jeff’s gaze. Instead, she found him toying with the lid of Bo’s centrifuge. “What’s your girlfriend going to think?”

“We truly are off again. I’m not a cheater.”

“She moves fast.”

Jeff chuckled softly. “Yeah, her feelings are, uh… fickle and very conditional. You piss her off, and the conditions for care have vanished.”

“Brutal,” Bridget said. “I’d like to take you up on your offer, but I’m going to make sure Bo’s okay with it first.”

Finally, Jeff looked over at her, one eyebrow raised. “Are you guys, like, a thing?”

Bridget shook her head. “I’m here for him. To make sure he’s comfortable and feels safe and is integrating okay. I just want to make sure he’s okay with me not being at the hotel with him tonight. But after that, I’ll let you know, as long as you remember to give me your number before the day’s done. Ball’s in your court, Biggs.”

“I’ll see you at the end of shift for an exchange of numbers then.”

One corner of her mouth lifted. “Deal.”

Jeff simply watched her straighten out Bo’s equipment for a moment before clearing his throat. “In your Californian expertise…”

“Yeah?”

“You think there’s any chance at all that she’s a runaway?” he asked.

“I never say never, y’know? But I think the chance that she’s a runaway is so minimal that it’s not even worth digging into any leads that are for that particular half of the investigation.”

“Yeah,” Jeff whispered. “There’s a part of my brain that still hopes she is, a part that keeps trying to find any glimmer of an excuse that she is. But it’s just… Even in Ellepath, that doesn’t really seem possible anymore.”

“It’s hard. Any case involving kids is hard. And for you guys here, you throw in the fact that you know all the kids and all the parents, and that makes it a million times harder. For me, y’know, the vast majority of the time I work a case, I don’t know any of the people involved. I don’t know the victim, I don’t know their family, and I don’t know the killer or the kidnapper or the burglar. For you guys here, the chance you know all of the above is pretty high, and that makes it all so much harder. I can’t blame you for still clinging to the hope of a runaway case. I’d do the same thing if I were in your shoes.”

“You would?”

“Of course. I think it’s human nature to hope that a kid’s not in serious danger. Even more so when it’s a kid you know.”

After a moment, Jeff nodded. “Yeah, I suppose it is.” He sighed. “She’s a good kid. I feel terrible for suggesting to her mom that she was a runaway.”

“It’s what you were hoping for. No one can blame you for that. Hell, I’m sure her mom was hoping for it too. She just… knew it wasn’t possible, even if she wanted it to be. And bringing her daughter home safely? That’ll be the best apology there is.”

Jeff nodded, though when she turned to look at him again, he was looking at his phone. “Rick wants me to make a list of abandoned buildings and empty houses, wooded areas… anywhere someone could hide her in and around town.” He lifted his head, one eyebrow raised. “Screw the list. You done here?”

“Yeah, everything’s good to go.”

“Great. You wanna come search some scary places with me, hope like hell we find an alive teenager?” Jeff asked.

“Let’s do it. Lead the way.”

***

He wasn’t surprised at how quickly the people in this podunk little down had realized Bonnie Young was missing the day before. What did surprise him was the shutdown of the school and the presence of the little blonde analyst. Bo? That sounded right. He couldn’t help but wonder if that meant Rick had already put some of the pieces of the puzzle together, or if it was a complete coincidence that he had called Pitman for a favor.

He didn’t think he had given anywhere near enough clues for Rick to have begun putting anything together just yet, and it wasn’t like Rick was some kind of super genius, so coincidence seemed more likely.

After watching Rick and the blonde leave the school, he made his way back home. With Bonnie’s car tucked away in his garage, he left his own in the driveway and headed inside. It was unlikely Ricky-boy would be able to get a warrant for garage searching anytime soon, but he still planned on getting the damn thing out of there as soon as possible. The less time it spent in his garage, leaving potential clues for the blonde to find, the better. He’d been wearing gloves when he’d nabbed Bonnie in it, but he wanted to do a good wipe-down of everything and a sweep, just to be safe. He wouldn’t be in the system, but the DNA that was would give Rick and Bo more of a clue than he was ready to give them.

Better to be safe than sorry.

***

Bonnie’s eyes shot open at the sound of a door opening upstairs. He was back. He’d left hours ago, shortly before the sun had come up, based on the light she’d seen shining through the small windows near the basement ceiling. What he had left to do, she hadn’t the foggiest idea. She hadn’t seen him since the night before, when he’d told her this was all some grand lesson he needed to teach Rick Downs.

There wasn’t a world Bonnie could even begin to imagine where someone like Rick would need some elaborate, violent lesson taught to them. But even if there was a world where that was possible, she couldn’t understand how kidnapping her was meant to teach Rick a lesson. Teach him a lesson by… upsetting his son? His daughter? What kind of lesson was that supposed to teach him? Don’t let your children have friends? Don’t let them date? Did her kidapper even know what the ‘lesson’ was? Or how she related to it all?

Who the hell knew.

Bonnie lifted her head as the door at the top of the stairs opened. “I left for two reasons today,” he said as soon as her eyes met his. He was still wearing a mask to cover the lower half of his face, but his eyes felt so damn familiar, even with his body blocking most of the light behind him. “The first was to check out the school, which was closed. They’re going all out for you, Bonnie. Even brought in a forensics guy from California. See how special you are? Why I chose you?”

Bonnie swallowed rather than responding.

“The second was a test. One that you failed. I told you that you could scream as loud as you wanted, but that I couldn’t promise how I would react.” A chill ran down Bonnie’s spine, burning tears jumping to her eyes. Wherever this was going was not good. “You screamed for help when I left, Bonnie. I waited to see if you would, and you did. Most people, see, they mind their business. They don’t want to get involved. But Miss Jameson across the street, well… You know how nosey the elderly can be.”

He tossed something down the stairs. It wasn’t until it landed at Bonnie’s feet that her brain truly registered what she was seeing.

She screamed, scurrying back and away as much as the handcuffs would allow. From a few inches away, Miss Jameson’s dead-eyed gaze glared up at her.

“She wasn’t exactly the first person in this town I planned to behead, but… sometimes, you just have to go with the flow of things. Change your plans to better suit the situation. It gets across a certain message, don’t you think?”

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