Unspeakable Things(67)

“Your dad send you over?” he asked. His voice sounded like it’d spent the night in a rock tumbler. “He say I called?”

“I came by myself.” I backed up all the way to my bike.

“You know, that stuff we do at your place, it’s totally legal. Grown-up stuff, that’s all.” He was slurring his words. “No need to tell anyone about that.”

“I know.” I was aware of every hair on my body.

“Even if you told anyone, they wouldn’t believe you, not since you stole that Cawl girl’s lipstick. No one trusts a thief.”

I nodded. I was panting.

“Your dad tell you about Gabriel, yeah?” He rubbed his protruding belly. His shabby button-front shirt was completely open. “They’ve brought in the big boys now. Gonna take over my town, rip it apart piece by piece now that it’s a rich kid who’s been taken. Ride in on their high horses and tell us everything we’re doing wrong.”

I cleared my throat. “I need to tell you something, Sergeant Bauer.”

I pitched my voice loud enough to carry across the driveway even though my heart was beating so rapid-fire that I thought it’d turn into a hummingbird and fly out of my mouth. “All three boys who were attacked ride my bus. Clam, Teddy, and now Gabriel. Plus some of the other Hollow boys who were molested but didn’t tell anyone. They all ride bus twenty-four.”

Sergeant Bauer covered his eyes, almost like he wanted to play hide-and-seek, and then ran his hand over the top of his head. “I know.”

The floor fell out of my stomach. “What’re you gonna do about it?”

“I’m gonna do my goddamned job, that’s what I’m gonna do, as long as that’s okay with you, Ms. Priss.” He abruptly raised his hand and stamped his foot like he was shooing a mangy mutt out of his yard. The motion pulled out the dog tags from the open front of his shirt, and they clicked against each other. “Now git, you little lipstick-stealing thief!”

The sound of his dog tags made me so scared I saw stars.

Because I suddenly knew who was attacking the boys and why he’d gotten away with it for so long, just as sure as I knew that Bauer hadn’t told anyone about all the victims riding bus twenty-four.

Ricky had good as told me when he described the sound Chester the Molester made when he was attacking: a clicking like an old clock while he’s touching you, the sound just about worse than what he’s doing with his hands.

Click. Click. Click.





CHAPTER 44

I lunged for my handlebar grips, righted my bike, and sped down the driveway, my head full of swarming bees. I didn’t look behind me as I biked away. I wouldn’t give Bauer the satisfaction. I cruised past Goblin’s, sticking to the north side rather than heading toward my house. Goblin’s dog was still nowhere in sight. I thought it likely my dad had murdered him.

I didn’t have a destination in mind.

I was killing time to give Bauer a chance to leave.

Because I now knew he was the one molesting boys, had known it the second his dog tags had escaped his open shirt and made their metal noise at me.

Last night, Ricky’s words had itched something in the back of my head, but I knew what it was for sure now that I’d heard that sound on Bauer. It was the same sound I’d heard when I caught him thrusting over Kristi at Dad’s party.

His dog tags.

Click click, click click, as he did his bad thing.

I waited ten minutes before turning around to bike back to Bauer’s. I’d hide in the ditch if I saw him coming out, but I didn’t need to worry. The police car was gone from his yard. He couldn’t have gone into work in the condition he was in. Could he? I wanted to peek in his windows but was too scared. His house seemed to be watching me, all except for the basement windows, which had been blindfolded by something that resembled tinfoil.

The sun began to crisp the back of my neck, so I pedaled toward a drainage ditch. I tipped my bike on the gravel road and slid down the embankment to sit on the metal mouth of the drainage tube, dipping my feet into the tepid water. Pin-legged water bugs skated across the surface. A mud turtle sunned itself in a mossy spot. When I judged it to be near twelve, I stood, scaring the turtle plop into the water.

Gabriel had been kidnapped.

The sweetest boy I’d ever met.

I tried not to feed that idea even though it was blobby and starving. Gabriel must be so scared. He was probably crying for his mom, and no one could hear him. I knew I would be. I climbed back to the road and took off on my bike toward Lilydale.

I was a mile out when I spotted my first army truck, followed by state police vehicles. When I hit town, I saw a poster stapled to the electric pole near the Mobil gas station. Gabriel’s face smiled at me. MISSING. I turned away. A second one appeared just up the street in front of the Ben Franklin. MISSING.

The Farmers and Suppliers State Bank sign blinked its message:

BRING GABRIEL HOME. CANDLELIT VIGIL TONIGHT AT 7:00 P.M.

I braked in front of that sign. I’d tried to keep moving, but I couldn’t escape the despair any longer. It landed on my shoulders like a strong-clawed buzzard. That’s when I noticed there were no kids on the street, only adults shuffling like zombies. I needed to find Mr. Connelly and tell him about Bauer. No one else would believe me, but Connelly might.

I spotted the picketers before I ever saw his house.