“Sometimes, he plays with himself,” said another girl.
This was developing into an all-together nastier picture than he’d had in mind.
“Have any of you been molested by him more directly than that?”
No one answered. A very blonde girl who appeared to be one of the oldest said, “I think he likes to be looked at, you know? He’s an exhibitionist. It’s how he gets his rocks off.”
“Yeah,” said the guitar player. “He’s got himself the perfect little setup here. None of us dare say anything, ’cause it would just get us in more trouble than we already are, if that’s possible. And who would believe us anyway?”
“I see.” He stared at their plain, hopeless faces. Having nothing and no one had led to their being sent here, where they were just being exploited all over again. He was getting pretty ticked off at old Lloyd.
“Anyone happen to notice a young woman drive in, oh, about an hour ago?”
The thin girl nodded. “I saw her. She was real pretty. She asked for Lloyd and went in to his office. They were there for about ten or fifteen minutes, then they came out, got in her car and drove away.”
“Any idea where they went?”
Heads shook all around.
“Any other staff around right now?” Garrett asked.
“Greta and Keegan went into town for supplies,” said the blonde. “The woman who cleans is somewhere up in the cabins and there’s a couple of others out in the gardens. But things generally slow down around here when Lloyd’s gone.”
He looked longingly at the house. There would never be a better opportunity. “Do you mind if I wait for Lloyd in his office?”
“Suit yourself,” said the guitar player, and he began to strum softly.
That, as far as Garrett was concerned, was a legal invitation. He listened to the musician for a couple of minutes, then got up easily and went inside. It was the first time he’d been in the building. A hallway with several doors off it led to a central staircase. He poked his head in two of the doors before finding one that was clearly an office.
Alone, he began a hasty search. The room was big. Lloyd had clearly taken the best for himself. There were two large windows looking out on the garden at the side of the house and a fireplace with a polished mahogany mantel. One whole wall was taken up with shelves filled with various bric-a-brac, largely pictures of Lloyd himself.
He spent some time going through a file cabinet but it was pretty straightforward, records of the kids who passed through the program. In a chest of drawers by one of the windows, he found a digital camera. The viewscreen showed a variety of pictures of the kids, mostly working in the garden and many of them obviously taken through the window of the office. Several pictures showed girls looking straight at the window with wide eyes. He would have bet the farm they were staring at a nude Lloyd who wanted pictures of their reactions to seeing him in all his glory.
The desk was messy, covered with papers and forms. In the center drawer on top of other papers was an address book. He only recognized one entry: Madame L, with a Halifax exchange number.
There was nothing else. He’d gleaned little more than an increased dislike for the man in charge. Yet he couldn’t quite believe this entire enterprise was all simply about Lloyd’s need to expose himself to kids. He had a perversion for sure. But Garrett continued to feel he was part of something bigger and more sinister.
He was looking out the window when Kitty Wells’s car came up the driveway. He glanced quickly about the room to make sure there was no sign of his presence and went back out onto the porch. He had little worry that any of the kids would tell Lloyd where he’d been. He didn’t get the impression they told their resident exhibitionist anything at all voluntarily. But he did notice that all signs of the drinks had miraculously disappeared and even the guitar player’s instrument was nowhere to be seen. These kids had developed a well-greased cover-up operation. Everything was hidden in just the ten seconds it took from the time the car became visible to Lloyd’s climbing onto the porch.
Before he saw Garrett, Lloyd said, “What’s going on here? You kids are supposed to be doing garden work. Get cracking.”
The crowd of youngsters moved slowly off the porch, leaving Lloyd staring suddenly at Garrett. Kitty had also come onto the deck.
“What are you doing here?” Lloyd asked. “I didn’t give permission to talk to my kids. You already took Lila. Now you’re after more of them? I’m going to report this to your boss. These kids are here for a reason, you know. To turn their lives around. Your interference is not going to do them any good.”
Obviously, the pleasant facade of their previous meeting had evaporated following their little contretemps over Lila. Lloyd glanced at the departing kids and Garrett took the moment to meet Kitty’s eyes and shake his head. There was no reason for Lloyd to know they were acquainted. He went over to her.
“Don’t believe we’ve met,” he said. “Garrett Barkhouse, RCMP.”
She had the presence of mind to play along, giving him her hand. “Nice to meet you, officer.” She smiled seductively.
Lloyd observed the interaction with distaste. He’d clearly been enjoying having Kitty all to himself. He stepped forward and took her arm.
“Miss Wells has asked me for an interview,” he said, directing her toward the door. “You’re not welcome here, Barkhouse.”
Kitty winked at Garrett as they disappeared inside, her expression clearly saying, “See? I’m making progress already.”
He decided to clear out before Lloyd could see anything that might suggest his office had been ransacked, though Garrett suspected his attentions would be altogether focused on Kitty for however long their ‘interview’ took. He wondered just how far Kitty would go for information and suspected Lloyd was wondering the same thing.
19
R
OLAND SAT IN HIS KITCHEN
and stared out at the house on the bay below. He was home alone for the first time in more than a year. Rose had been taken to the hospital for shortness of breath and they had decided to keep her overnight for observation.
He listened to the quiet of the house. Usually, he could hear his mother’s wheezing lungs and grunts of exertion whenever she moved. It had become background noise he didn’t hear most of the time, like the slap of the waves against the dock or the thrum of his bait cooler.
The shutting down of the cooler had infuriated him and left him trying to think of other ways he might aggravate his neighbors. Damn that Garrett. First trying to bribe him to cooperate by offering money for the roofing job. It was so obvious what he was doing. His old high school classmate had always been smooth and, Roland thought, condescending. How would he like it, he wondered, if he had to live next door to a house full of wild, immoral artists from the city? Grace was nothing but a big tease. Still, he couldn’t get over the sight of her staring at him as Ingrid had waggled her breasts on the deck. Like she could read his mind and knew it was her body he wanted to see rather than Ingrid’s.
He uncoiled his beanpole frame from the chair, climbed the stairs, and limped down the long, dark hall to his room in the back. He glanced out to see if any lights were on in the back of the women’s house. It was dark as usual. They almost never spent any time in that part of the house, much to his anger.
He sat in front of his computer and began to search for information on his neighbors. He’d been crunching websites, Google, Twitter, Facebook, and anything else he could think of for information about them.
It wasn’t hard. They all had Facebook accounts and he’d learned how to hack into them. Mostly, they chatted with their web friends about the city and various art functions and shows they planned to attend. The stuff was so boring it practically put him to sleep. But he particularly enjoyed looking at the photos they posted. Grace had a picture of herself sitting on her deck in a bikini, and he spent lots of time looking at that. It felt sort of like he owned her, having that picture, though he would have given anything for an even more revealing shot.
He’d been planning to get one on his own. Pick a sunny day and climb the forested hill on the other side of the inlet until he could see their deck that faced the ocean. There were a couple of spots he’d already scouted where he could look out through the trees. With luck, he might catch Grace in the altogether. He’d even purchased a camera with a zoom lens for the purpose.
The problem was Rose. Her chair faced the window that looked out on the hill. She’d want to know at once why he was going up there with his camera. Even if he hid the camera, there was no real good explanation for him going up the hill. He never went anywhere that required any excessive amount of exercise. So today would have been the perfect time, except it was overcast and cool and no way Grace would be out in anything other than jacket and jeans. He swore. What rotten luck.
He copied the Facebook photo of Grace and printed it out. The quality was pretty good. He decided to take it with him next time he went to the city and have a poster-size copy made to pin on his wall. He could sneak it upstairs when Rose wasn’t looking, and of course, she never went upstairs.
Roland had never had a girlfriend. Not one. He knew he’d missed out on a major part of life. He simply didn’t know how to go about it, what the proper procedure was to approach someone. And of course, he wasn’t exactly a prize catch. The only women he’d had sex with were prostitutes, and he didn’t give a damn what they thought. That his cousin Hank actually had a wife and family had always grated on him. So he’d fixated on Grace. She was beautiful in a way the professional girls never could be, and she was handy. Right next door.
He turned the computer off finally and went and got two Extra Strength Tylenol for his arthritis. Then he sat in his chair in front of the window. They were all home. He could see their cars in the driveway and a couple of extra ones to boot. Probably had some of their druggy friends over. He fingered the binoculars with one hand and stared, brooding, at the dark windows that faced his side of the house.
20
G
ARRETT HAD BEEN AWAKE FOR
thirty-six hours and could barely keep his eyes open long enough to drive home. He stripped off his pants and shirt, threw the sleeping bag across his legs, and lay listening to the wind whistle through the eaves for maybe two minutes before he was gone.
It seemed he had only been asleep for five minutes when he began to dream he was a carpenter building a new house. Maybe it was a replacement for this old wreck. He hammered and pounded away for a long time trying to get one particularly stubborn nail into place before his addled brain came far enough out of the fog to realize that someone was banging on the door.
He stumbled up the hillside that was his living room floor to the kitchen and opened the door. Sarah stood there in a rain slicker, her hair blowing about her face.
“Gar—thank God! I was beginning to think you weren’t here in spite of your car.”
“What’s wrong?” He was fast coming out of his grogginess. He’d grown used to being woken from a dead sleep. It was an occupational hazard.
“The girls are gone,” she said.
“What do you mean? Gone where?”
“I don’t know. I waited a long time and when they didn’t come back from the grocery, I went to look for them. Mr. Marshed said they’d bought ice cream sandwiches and were going to walk back. He was pretty angry at me and wanted to know who Lila was. Said he hadn’t given Ayesha permission to be with another girl. Jesus, it was like she wasn’t even allowed to talk to another human being. Anyway, I told him they probably were just down on the beach and I’d let him know as soon as I found them. But, Garrett—I can’t!”
“All right.” He put his arms around her. “We’ll find them. Where could they go?” He sat her in a chair. “Wait a minute while I get some clothes on.”
They drove down to the pebble beach by Sarah’s and walked a mile each way, calling for them. No luck. A few drops of rain spattered, but despite the dark clouds, things seemed to be holding off. When they got back to the wharf the second time, Tom was waiting for them.
“Heard you calling half an hour ago, but I couldn’t figure out which way you’d gone,” he said. “We’ve got a job.”
“I’m a little busy, Tom.” Garrett said. “What’s going on?”
“We got our tip. Sounds like a good one—possible transit of illegals offshore. Probably beyond Snow’s Island. We need to get the kayaks and head out.”
Snow’s Island was way out, beyond Rupert’s Island where the dead girls had been found. They’d planned to use the boats the next time a hot lead came along. It couldn’t have come at a more inconvenient time.
“Garrett,” Sarah pleaded. “We’ve got to find them.”
Tom looked at them. “Find who? What’s going on here?”
“Lila and Ayesha are missing,” said Garrett. “We’ve been looking for them.”
“What do they look like?”
Sarah described them and what they were wearing.
“I saw them,” Tom said after a moment. “But you’re not going to like where.”
“Tell us,” said Sarah.
“I passed two girls fitting that description probably two or three miles up the road toward Halifax. They were hitchhiking. I would have stopped them but I was in a hurry to find Garrett.”
Garrett swore.
“What do you think they’re doing?” Sarah asked.
“I’d lay odds that Lila’s talked Ayesha into going to Halifax with her. Come on, maybe they’re still there.”
But Tom put a hand on his arm. “Hold it, Garrett. We’ve got another job to attend to. Besides, I saw a car pick them up in my rear mirror. That was …” He looked at his watch. “Almost an hour ago. If they got a ride all the way, they’re halfway to Halifax by now.”
“Damn!” Garrett looked back and forth from one of them to the other. They both needed him and God knew he wanted to stay with Sarah. But she surprised him.
“Garrett—you’ve got to go with Tom. The lives of who knows how many girls may be at risk. Lila and Ayesha aren’t in any immediate danger. I … I’ll go look for them in the city,” she said helplessly.