And There He Kept Her (Ben Packard #1)(54)

“Five days max,” Gary said. “That dog wants to go home with someone who will love him. Just like the rest of us.”

“I understand. I’ll be back.”

Packard stood and headed for the door, Gary a step behind. “Some other time I want to hear the story of how you went from small-town boy to male prostitute to retired truck driver. But not tonight.”

“You forgot the part where I starred in a series of all-male cinematic features of dubious artistic integrity.”

It took Packard a second to figure out what Gary was talking about. He paused with his hand on the doorknob. “Porn?”

“Yes, porn, if you want to be crude about it. I was a full-on porn star, honey. Then a high-priced call girl. Then a truck driver.”

“Come on, Gary.”

“Johnny Hardwood. Phoenix Films. Google it. And you won’t hear a word of that story until you share your own. What brought Ben Packard to Sandy Lake out of the blue?”

“That story’s not nearly as interesting as yours,” Packard said. He let the screen door slap behind him and started down the wheelchair ramp.

“Any connection to the Packard boy who went missing back in the ’90s?”

Packard kept walking. “Another time, Gary,” he said. He didn’t know why Gary asking about Nick made his heart feel like it was frozen in his chest. He really did have no secrets in this town. At least not from Gary.

Gary blew smoke through the screen door and watched him walk to the truck. “Remember what I said,” he called out. “We all want out of our cages. We all want to be taken home and loved. Even you, Deputy Packard.”





Chapter Eighteen


Emmett sat in his recliner with the oxygen cannula under his nose as he watched the story about the missing teens on the nine o’clock news. The news anchor was a woman in her fifties with pale skin and a brownish gash of lipstick the same color as her hair. Side-by-side school photos of the boy and the girl showed on the screen as she read the story. Emmett got his first good look at the boy. It had been dark when he shot him in the face on the stairs.

The news anchor said, “Sandy Lake area police are asking for the public’s help locating two missing teens. Jennifer Wheeler and Jesse Crawford have been missing since Wednesday. They are thought to be driving a maroon 1996 Pontiac Grand Am. Jennifer has type 1 diabetes. Anyone with information should contact the Sandy Lake Sheriff’s Department.”

She then went on to talk about the start of Minnesota’s other season, road construction season, and a major project that was going to slow down traffic in the area for months to come.

Emmett stopped listening. He’d had a hard time breathing since arguing with the girl and climbing the stairs in the afternoon. The oxygen machine puffed cool, dry air for him to breathe but did nothing to ease the feeling that he was trying to push a weight off his chest. He closed his eyes. If he spent too much time thinking about how hard it was to breathe or tried to time his breaths with the puffs from the machine, he’d start hyperventilating.

He peeled apart the cellophane wrapper on an oatmeal cookie and ate half of it in one bite. The oxygen machine went pff…pff…pff.

Part of what made it hard to calm his breathing was remembering what the girl had said.

Am I supposed to let you fuck me? Or give you a blow job?

She was sixteen according to the news, but she looked like a child. Emmett knew he was a lot of things that most people despised—a pervert and a kidnapper to name only two—but he was no fucking pedophile. He didn’t touch kids.

Last night he’d sat in the dark except for the blue light from the television and stared at the curling smoke from his cigarette and dredged up his old fantasies. The genie who wanted to make all his wishes come true. His harem of women who lounged on silk pillows and waited to please him. His fantasies were as worn out as his broken body. Building the pink room to live out the things he’d only dreamed about seemed like someone else’s bad idea. He had no interest in the girl like that. She was no genie. No sex goddess. He needed a sex goddess now like he needed a caged elephant.

The girl was a problem and nothing but a problem. She was never going to live willingly in a cage in his basement. Never feel affection for him. Not if they lived together for a hundred years. She would run the first chance she got.

Wouldn’t she?

Of course she would.

Headlights lit up the sliding door as someone came down the drive. Carl driving Frankenstein, from the sound of the exhaust.

Emmett pushed the rest of the cookie in his mouth, peeled the cannula off, and mashed the power button on the oxygen machine. Carl showing up unannounced was bad news. It meant only one thing.

He’d come for the girl.

***

Yesterday, she had given him the name Sam Gherlick when he asked who sent her and the boy to steal his pills. The name didn’t mean anything to Emmett at first. The Gherlick family owned the building and supply business. He’d had a passing acquaintance with the old man, Jack, going back decades. Jack was dead now; his kids ran the business.

So who the hell was Sam Gherlick?

Carl was at the garage when Emmett called to ask if he knew the name. When Emmett had first met Carl, his business operated in a small commercial building with a single drive-in bay not far from the detached two-car garage where Emmett was running his welding business. Now Carl’s Auto & Body Repair was in a long aluminum building right off the highway. The building had four bays, a parts store, and a business office.