Buried (Bone Secrets, #3)(25)

No f*cking way was he telling his boss that she’d seen him.

And he still didn’t know where Chris Jacobs was. He’d found nothing in the house. No addresses, no mail, no pictures. Nothing that indicated she had a brother.

If she hadn’t said she didn’t know where Chris was living, he’d almost think the guy was dead. People don’t vanish. There’s always a record, somewhere.

Now what?

Angry pale jade eyes filled his brain. She’d been scared, but determination had also shone from those eyes. Jamie Jacobs was quite a specimen. She was tall and lean and fit. No spare fat on that woman’s body. He could still feel her muscles under his fingertips. And her long, glossy dark hair. She reminded him of her brother a little bit. Chris Jacobs had been tall and lanky. Well, he’d grown tall and lanky during his two years. To start with, he’d been kind of a pudgy kid. At the end, both boys had been incredibly thin. Gerald had found it was easier to control them if they didn’t have much energy. He kept their calorie intake at a minimum.

How they both had managed to escape was a mystery.

Their escape was a personal affront to him. A score he’d wanted to settle for a long time. No one else had ever humiliated him like that. Not since he was a teen.

He’d been visiting the boys about once a week before they vanished. His day job was a nine-to-five requirement, and sometimes he was simply too tired to make the long drive to visit the boys. Truth be told, just thinking about his captives in their prison was enough mental fantasy fuel to get him to the weekend. He’d kept people before. Adults. Both men and women. People he’d found on the streets of Portland or Salem who seemed like they wouldn’t be readily missed.

Disposable people.

Male or female didn’t matter to him too much. Both were useful. Both served the needs he had. He’d been surprised to find that almost-teen boys worked as well. The younger children he’d snatched were a waste of time. He’d disposed of them quickly. But the older boys…that had been different.

He closed his eyes. When he was younger, boys had been the enemy. They hit him, kicked him, spit on him, and called him names. Girls had simply looked the other way. When he was thirteen he’d fought back. Bruce had been one of the worst bullies. He and his buddies had been taunting Gerald on the bus. It was his usual daily ride from hell. When they’d got off the bus, Bruce’s mouth hadn’t stopped. As they walked past the apartment garbage dumpsters, Gerald snapped. He remembered seeing red, feeling his anger bleed into rage. He’d dropped his backpack, grabbed the gate to the dumpsters, and swung it into Bruce’s face. Wailing, Bruce dropped to his knees, his hands covering the blood that dripped from his nose.

And Gerald felt the rush. The rush of pleasure and adrenaline and high that came from the dominance. He’d stood over the groveling boy, his heart pounding, and was instantly addicted.

It’d changed his life.

It’d awakened a bloodlust he’d never dreamed existed. The sight of the boy in pain from his action was energizing. And it proved that he had the ability to take control.

It was better to be the executor than the victim.

In the bunker, one of the kidnapped boys had fought back immediately. He couldn’t recall which one. But it’d been eye-opening. The rest of the children had cowered and annoyed him. But the older two boys had shown fight.

He’d kept the boys.

He would have never believed boys could do that for him as an adult if it hadn’t been for a phone call twenty years ago from the prosecutor.

He hadn’t seen the county prosecutor in two years. The prosecutor had dropped several of the charges pending against him when the police couldn’t produce key evidence. He’d sweated during the hearing, knowing full well the police had collected plenty of evidence that proved he’d been present at Sandra Edge’s murder. They didn’t have proof that his hands had touched her, but they definitely had proof that he’d been in the room with her and his buddy, Lee.

But then the blood and trace evidence from the sheets and carpets went missing. Not just a little bit of evidence, a lot of it. All the important parts were completely gone.

The prosecutor scared him. He’d been a sharp, intense, and intelligent man. Gerald had firmly believed he was going to prison for a very long time. Instead, he served a few months on a much lesser charge.

He’d gotten away with accessory to murder.

Lee ended up getting the murder rap. Which he’d deserved. He’d been the one who’d actually finished strangling Sandra, and he was stupid enough to admit it.

For two years, Gerald had stressed, waiting to hear that the evidence had turned up in a dark corner of a storage room somewhere. Instead, when the phone call came, the message and the person who made the call were unexpected.

Yes, the evidence was still in existence. No, it hadn’t been lost. Yes, the evidence would stay away from the courts if Gerald would do him a favor.

“What kind of favor?” he’d asked.

“I need a kid taken care of.”

A kid?

The former prosecutor had gone on to say he was fully aware of Gerald’s role in Sandra’s murder.

“Why me?”

“Because I know what you’re capable of. And if you don’t, you’ll be in prison for the rest of your life.”

“And after I take care of this for you?”