Tell My Dad (20 page)

H
arrison maintained
a reasonable distance and followed the Escalade, which appeared more like a miniature elephant. He crossed the Peninsula Avenue intersection and watched the Escalade take a right turn at Bayswater Street. He moved further, turned right, and saw the Escalade stopped in the middle of the road. He parked on the right shoulder and waited for anyone to get out of the vehicle.

A few seconds later, the Escalade suddenly jerked and sped toward the stop sign. It then quickly took a right turn.

Harrison felt the tickling in his heart. He quickly moved to his left, ignored the honk from behind, drove straight, and turned right without stopping at the stop sign. He felt the sweat on his forehead and ignored it. The Escalade was one among many vehicles waiting to enter the freeway ramp. It took a slight left and climbed onto the Route 101 South freeway ramp. He followed it four cars behind.

The Escalade passed two exits on the freeway and took a right turn onto Route 92 West, leading to Half Moon Bay. Harrison quickly changed lanes and entered the Route 92 West ramp.

Originally called Spanishtown, the small town had been renamed Half Moon Bay in 1874. The town rested on the Pacific coast between forested hills and some of the most beautiful coastline in California.

The Escalade took a quick exit from 92 West and sped onto the Route 280 South freeway. He reached to his left and flipped a switch located just below the cruise control button. Police radio communication streamed through the Bose speakers. He switched between the California Highway Patrol and the San Mateo County law enforcement channels. There was no sign of any missing girls,
yet
.

After crossing the Canada Road exit, he jumped two lanes to the right. The Escalade was going at a steady speed on his left side now. The windows were heavily tinted. There was no sign of anyone.

The image of the innocent young girl yelling through the Escalade’s window flashed through his mind.

Then, he remembered April.

Tell my dad.

He wiped the tears away and focused on the road ahead.

* * *

H
arrison slowed
down after watching the Escalade flashing the right indicator and taking the Route 84 exit leading to Woodside. He followed the vehicle, keeping a reasonable distance and making sure not to give away his intent. That strategy worked for about seven minutes until the road became a single-lane road. Now, he was directly behind the Escalade. He maneuvered the vehicle to make space for some bicyclists who were heading toward the trail near Woodside Creek. Then, he watched the Escalade slowing down at the stop sign and turning right onto an unnamed, unpaved road.

Flat farmland covered both sides of the road. Poles carried aged electric wires above. Three minutes later, he passed the cattle farms on the right. The ranch house was visible in the distance. A big, faded sign on the cattle farm said, “Welcome to Erskine Ranch.”

A few seconds later, the Escalade took a sharp right onto a narrow road leading to the ranch house. A medium-sized sign warned, “Private entrance—no through street. Dogs running freely.”

Harrison drove straight without stopping. He adjusted the right-side mirror to watch the Black Escalade, which had entered the ranch house area surrounded by walnut trees.

A giant sign on some dry farmland to his left screamed, “No Water, No Jobs.” He slowed down the Honda Odyssey and parked it under a redwood tree on his right.

He grabbed the binoculars, jumped out of the vehicle, and checked his surroundings—farmland, cattle farms, sagging electrical wires, and redwood trees. Big Basin Redwood Mountain was visible in the distance.

He adjusted the binocular strap around his neck and focused on the wooded complex. The strong odor of manure was in the air. Cows roamed around walnut and western juniper trees. He had a partial view of the house inside the compound.

He looked around. There was no other house in the vicinity, just the cattle farms and trees.

He grabbed his backpack and started walking toward the house.

The road was quiet other than the noise his shoes were making crunching the dry leaves on the side of the road. He stopped behind a walnut tree, gently pressed the binoculars to his eyes, and surveyed the area.

The Escalade was parked closer to the entrance of the house. A rusted boat trailer had been abandoned near where the Escalade was. Eight brown pillars held the front porch steady. The single-floor house could easily be forty-eight feet wide and sixty feet long. A big dish antenna protruded from the center of the saddle roof, which was decorated with Spanish-inspired brownish-red tiles. Down below, Mediterranean-style arched windows added beauty to the side wall, which was painted ivory.

He held the binoculars steady and focused on the wooden structure behind the house—a horse barn. The barn was big enough to accommodate at least ten horses.

He shifted his focus to the fenced area in front of the house. The fence enclosed a green garden and a big redwood tree, which spread its branches twenty feet wide. There was a paved driveway around the fence.

As he turned his gaze back to the house, Harrison noticed a tall old man coming out of it. He was at least six foot two with a long face and a flat nose. His eyes were deep and were showing signs of fatigue. Harrison figured he was around seventy years old. He had no facial hair and a clean-shaved head.

He walked around the Escalade and opened the passenger-side door. He reached inside and emerged with a girl over his shoulder.

The girl appeared to be sleeping. But her hands hung lifeless and her neck was rigid. The tall man could very well be her grandfather. But he did not act like a grandpa. He was very mechanical in the way he carried the girl inside. He carried her as if he were carrying a birch log and disappeared into the house.

Harrison shoved the binoculars into his backpack and inched forward to the side of the house. As he moved forward, he used his left hand to adjust the steel belt wrapped over the robe around his waist.

Now, he stood in the corner of the farmhouse and looked around before taking quick strides to reach the driver’s-side door of the Escalade. He peeked through the window. No one was inside. There was no child seat, no booster seat, no candy wrappers, and no cereal scattered inside of the vehicle. Instead, the back seats were occupied by kitchen bags, plastic gasoline cans, a cordless drill, and a portable saw.

The mission-style arched front door of the house was visible through the vehicle’s tinted window. Two small arched windows were on the both sides of the front door. The front door was left open, but there was no sign of the old man or the girl.

He moved between the trailer and the Escalade, crouched, and quickly ran toward the side of the house. He crouched again to avoid the arched windows on the side wall before briskly walking toward the back of the house. He stopped and slowly poked his head around the corner to study the situation behind the house. No one was in the vicinity. The back of the house had similar architecture to the front.

The place was quiet except for the calming sound of the wind and the occasional dripping of water from the red-tiled roof.

Then, the heart-chilling scream of a young girl came from inside the barn. “Go away! Leave me alone!”

Harrison felt a thousand small needles poking his temple. He was ready to storm into the barn but stopped when the barn’s wooden door was violently opened as if someone had kicked it from the inside.

A bald, bulky man on a motorized wheelchair emerged out of the barn. The man wore thick glasses, a torn T-shirt, and khaki shorts. He closed the barn door, turned around in his wheelchair, and drove straight into the main house through the back door, which was symmetrically aligned with the barn door.

Harrison waited for a minute and then quickly ran to the right side of the barn. It was a typical horse barn with four small square-shaped glass windows on each side. He peeked through the first window on his right. It was dark. He waited for a few seconds to get his eyes accustomed to the darkness. No horses were inside the stall and there was no smell of hay, animals, or grain.

Then, he heard sobbing coming from his left. He moved to the next window.

He gasped when he saw two girls lying on the floor, inside the stall, with their legs chained. The tail end of the rusted chain was attached to the small steel structure in the corner of the stall.

He looked closely. A thin black cloth was wrapped around the girls’ eyes. The stall was about six by four, with cracked boards. Two feed buckets were placed in the corner.

He gently knocked on the window to see if the girls would respond. Silence. Nothing happened.

He slowly moved to the next window and peeked inside. There was another stall with a split door. No one was inside.
Wait.
A girl, may be seven years old, wearing a pink gown, had curled herself up tight in the right corner. Her legs were chained; a moistened black ribbon covered her eyes. She placed her head between her knees, sobbing and panting.

He gently knocked on the window. The girl looked up.

Before he could say a word to the girl, he felt an intense pain in his peroneus longus, the muscle area just below the knee. He jerked off from the window to face the eyes of an enraged pit bull, which grabbed his right leg with its sharp teeth. He quickly pulled his right leg inward and then extended it rapidly up in the air, throwing the nasty-looking dog on its head on the rocky ground.

The pit bull squealed.

He looked down and saw the bleeding muscle and torn robe. The pain was irritating but bearable.

He looked up when he heard the barking and prepared himself for the onslaught of another pit bull, which emerged from the back door of the house and charged like a cheetah. It covered twelve feet in three seconds and tried to land on his stomach with a vengeance. He quickly positioned himself for the frontal assault. He tilted his left foot sideways and threw a kick.

The dog went up in the air and landed on the back wall of the house. It did not give up. The tenacious dog got up, barked loudly, and came straight at his face this time.

Harrison lifted his left heel, pulled a tiny blade from the back of the shoe, and aimed it at the neck of the charging pit bull. The cyanide-soaked blade’s tip took the life of the pit bull in about five seconds.

“Who the hell are you?” The tall man stood near the rear entrance of the house with a shotgun in hand. He looked at the dogs lying on the ground. “What did you do to my boys?”

Harrison stood silent.

“Who the hell are you?” Bob McFarlane repeated the question.

“I am a tourist. I am lost.” Harrison adjusted his hat and looked at the tall man’s prodding eyes. “I am from Texas. I stay in Woodside, at my friend’s place. I lost my GPS. My phone battery is gone. I got a flat tire. So many bad things in one day! I saw this house and came here to see if I could borrow your phone to make a call,” he continued with a sorrowful face, “I am really sorry for the dog.”

Bob waved his gun and signaled Harrison to come closer. Harrison lifted his arms in surrender and moved slowly as he kept an eye on Bob’s hand movements.

Bob stopped Harrison at a safe distance and spoke in croaky voice. “Don’t lie to me. Who are you? Monk? What are you doing here?”

Harrison kept his arms up, shrugged his shoulders to adjust the weight of the backpack, and quickly lifted his left leg to land a blow on Bob’s groin.

The next second, he felt the pain in his left leg and fell on the floor. He looked up to his right to see the man in the wheelchair with a baseball bat in his hands. The man quickly sent another blow, this time to Harrison’s right leg.

Bob rushed forward and placed the shotgun to Harrison’s forehead.

“Uncle Bob, just kill him already. He killed Roger!” Thomas shouted in a high-pitched voice.

“Roger is dead?” Bob kept the gun steady.

“Yes. Roger is dead. Now, drag this guy inside. He is no tourist.”

Bob signaled Harrison and watched him get up. He smirked when Harrison struggled to get up. He pushed the bayonet to Harrison’s shoulder.

“Go in. You will never come out of this house. I will bury you next to Roger.”

H
arrison felt more irritated
by the howling of the man in the wheelchair than the bayonet pushing into his neck. As he was forced into the house through the back door, the first thing he spotted was the young girl wearing a blue-green shirt and blue skirt, tied up to a midcentury amaranth-red chair, next to the leather couch in the center of the living room.
Same girl.

Bob pushed the bayonet into Harrison’s neck and shouted, “Keep moving.”

Harrison tolerated the discordant sound reverberating in his ears and looked over his right shoulder. The tall man was furious. Behind him, the man in the wheelchair stared at him with rage and fear. His eyes twitched constantly. Mucus flowed down from his nose. His fingers played a virtual piano to control his anxiety.

“What the hell are you looking at? Keep moving!” Bob kicked Harrison’s bleeding leg from behind.

Harrison quickly lifted his left hand to slide the bayonet down to his backpack. Once the bayonet was off his neck, he quickly folded his fist and launched his left palm forcibly under Bob’s chin. The surprise blow made Bob lose his balance. Harrison used the small window of opportunity to quickly strike between Bob’s legs.

Harrison jumped off the floor and used both his legs at the same time to kick Bob just below his knees. That made Bob’s legs fly sideways out from under him.

Bob fired a shot aimlessly as he fell down along with the gun.

Harrison quickly retreated and came to a standing position, staring at the man, who sat holding his groin on the floor. The man’s face showed the crushing pain he was suffering because of the impact of his nuts striking the floor so hard.

The girl screamed. Harrison turned around and put his finger to his mouth to signal her to keep quiet. She screamed again.

Harrison turned around, looked out the back door, and searched for the wheelchair. It was not there.

Harrison moved closer to the old man and pushed the shotgun away to his left. The gun bumped into the oven door and made a
clunk
sound.

He quickly scanned the area. There was a large kitchen on his left with a small bar table and a large-sized mahogany dining table on his right with six royal leather chairs. He counted three rooms behind the large couch in the living room. A giant-sized television hung on the wall on the other side of the living room. Between the couch and the television, the girl was tied to a chair with nylon ropes. One rope tied her hands and stomach to the upper part of the chair. Another rope tied both her legs to the chair’s front legs. The girl was still screaming. He realized there was no point in asking her to be calm. He had to focus on the old man clutching his nuts on the floor. He also had to find the man in the wheelchair.

Bob gathered himself from the floor and inched his butt backward toward the wall. When he looked up, he met the avalanche of blades emerging from Harrison’s hand and felt the blood coming out of his neck and left arm. He pushed his right palm to the ground, got up quickly, charged forward, and stopped when his right leg was cut off below the knee. He fell down in a pool of blood, just below the glass window facing the barn.

The six sharp steel blades in the weapon clinked with each other and produced a rhythmic jingling sound as Harrison stood still near the bar stool and pulled the weapon back toward him.

Bob looked up. “What did you do to me? Who are you?” He spat blood onto the marble floor.

“Someone who has been hurt by evils like you.”

“I am no evil. I am a grateful man. Thomas is like my son. I wouldn’t be alive today if not for his grandpa, Mr. Erskine.” He caught his breath and pointed at the life-size portrait of an old man in his seventies wearing a charcoal suit riding an Arabian horse, which hung on the wall right behind the dining table.

Harrison stayed alert and let him continue talking.

“I was orphaned when I was fifteen. You have no idea what I went through. Mr. Erskine gave me a life. But…his entire family is gone except Thomas, poor boy.” He sniffled. “Poor boy, he lost his parents when he was very young. Just like me.” He stared at the portrait on the wall for a second before looking at Harrison. “You know what? All I ever wanted was to give a good life to Thomas.”

Harrison arched his brows. “How? By locking up all those girls in that barn?” His blood pressure spiked as he spat the words.

Bob stared at the portrait again. “Just before Mr. Erskine died, he told me to do whatever was necessary to make Thomas happy. The boy wanted the girls to marry. He calls them
princess
. All I did was get them for him.” He gazed at the portrait as if he were worshipping the man in it.

Harrison shook his head in disbelief. “Are you insane?”

“Thomas is still a boy. He wants to marry these girls,
all of them
, as a matter of fact. It’s his legacy. It’s my responsibility to help him. I owe it to this family.”

Legacy.

“You are retarded. Did you ever think about these kids’ parents? They are enduring an unbelievable hell on earth. Do you fucking realize that?”

Bob looked at Harrison’s red eyes and smirked. “I don’t even know who those people are. They can always have another child, you know.” He shrugged. “If they are able to reproduce!”

Harrison was appalled to see the man had no remorse for what he had done. He sat on his left knee and placed his right knee on Bob’s bleeding stomach.

“You have two seconds to live. Think of all the lives you have shattered.” Then, Harrison quickly reached to the side of his robe, pulled out a small but sharp knife, pushed his left palm in a cup motion on Bob’s chin, and sliced through the carotid artery in his neck.

Bob died a painful death. The house was quiet except for the sound of bubbling blood. He stared at Bob’s dead eyes for a second, quickly got up, scanned the living room, and looked through the windows to watch for any signs of the other man. None.

The girl stopped screaming. Instead, she cocked her head sideways and silently watched him moving from the dining area to each room on her right.

Harrison checked the small room behind the dining area. There was a twin-size bed on the left and small desk near the window. Metal chains, nylon ropes, an aluminum ladder, and shovels were scattered on the floor. The walls were decorated with black-and-white portraits of the older Erskines. There was no sign of the wheelchair. He came out of the room and moved to his left as he kept scanning the living room for any danger.

He entered the next room. He felt like he had just entered a ToysRUs showroom. The marble floor was littered with toys—Barbie dolls, yellow Minion creatures, a pink-colored bird cage, and a giant doll of Queen Elsa. A pink-colored wall was covered by small stickers of Power Puff Girls, Barbies, and butterflies. There was no furniture. He saw no closets. Sunlight coming through the small window illuminated part of the room. There was no sign of the man or the wheelchair. He quickly got out.

When he entered the next room, which was much bigger than the other two rooms, he was shocked by what he saw.

A girl, in her early teens, leaned against the bed frame with a small pillow to support her head. Her left hand was chained to the steel frame. She was dressed like Rapunzel, a character in a German fairy tale—Rapunzel with a bruised face and innocent eyes that had lost all hope.

“Who are you?” she asked in a brittle voice.

He scanned the room without saying a word. He looked behind the door and checked the closets. There was a giant bed in the middle of the room with a helpless girl on top of it. The walls were decorated with cartoon characters—Mickey Mouse, Pinocchio, Ariel, and of course, Rapunzel.

A large wooden almirah, an ancient one, was on his left, right next to the bed. He quickly walked over and opened the door, hoping to find the man hiding in there. Instead, he found colorful costumes ranging from clown attire to a superman suit. He closed the door and looked at the girl, who was staring at him with fear.

“What is your name?”

“Teresa Goldberg.” The girl’s eyes moved in despair. “Are you going to hurt me too?”

He immediately remembered the Amber Alert he had seen a few weeks ago. “
Teresa
…I am sure your father will be so happy to see you!” he said in a low voice. “I will get you out of here. Don’t worry. I am looking for the man in the wheelchair. Did he come here?”

She shook her head.

“Okay, just stay here. I will be back soon.” He walked over to the door and turned back to look at her. “Don’t worry, Teresa. You will be home soon. I promise.”

He emerged from the master bedroom and scanned the living room, front door, back door, and the arched glass windows on both sides of the house. Without thinking much, he took quick strides across the living room to reach the girl, who gazed at him with eyes wide open in fear. He smiled a little and said, “Don’t worry,” before cutting the nylon ropes using the sharp knife he had pulled from the side of his robe.

Maya sat still and looked straight at him. Her eyes searched for answers.

“Are you a good man or a bad man?” she asked.

The innocence in her voice brought a smile to Harrison’s face in spite of the burning pain in his dog-bitten leg. “It depends.”

“You silly, I am not very good at solving puzzles, okay? Please tell me.” She cocked her head slightly to her left. “Are you a good man or bad man?”

You silly
.

“I am a good guy. My name is Harrison. What is yours?”

“Maya. I want to go home.” She looked sideways as if to see if someone was there.

“Don’t worry, Maya. Are you scared?” He continued to scan the front and back doors.

“My mom told me to be brave all the time. I am brave.” She paused before adding, “Little scared though. Are you scared too?” Maya gazed at the long blade he was holding.

Harrison nodded as he coiled the long blade into a belt. “Yes, I am scared too. Don’t worry. I will get you out of this place. If both of us are brave, we can save the other girls locked up in a barn behind this house.”

“Other girls?” Maya’s eyes widened.

“I will explain later.” Harrison extended his left arm to help Maya get up.

“What about the man with the glasses?” Maya tried to balance herself as she got up. Her legs were numb.

“I don’t know. He may be waiting near that door.” He pointed at the back door, slightly turning to his right. “Or—”

He quickly turned left at the sound of broken glass and felt the pain in his stomach. He spotted the broken window and glass pieces scattered below as he fell down onto the floor a few inches away from the leather couch.

Maya screamed.

Thomas rode his wheelchair through the front door. His left hand operated the wheelchair and his right hand pointed a Glock 9mm at Harrison. Excessive sweat dripped down from his forehead through his eyelashes and down to his neck. His windpipe narrowed and gave a whistling sound as he breathed hard. The only thing he wanted now was to empty the Glock chamber into the guy lying down on the floor.

In a fraction of a second, Harrison bent his knees toward his stomach, lifted himself off the floor, and whirled the long steel blade weapon at Thomas. As the blade came back to him after slashing Thomas’s face and shoulder, he got up and stood straight.

Thomas panicked and fired. The shot missed the target by a few inches and hit Harrison’s naval.

Harrison whirled the blade again at Thomas’s right wrist. The 9mm fell onto the floor. Thomas ignored the burning sensation in his right hand and drove the wheelchair straight at Harrison in an effort to knock him down.

Harrison moved to his left and wrapped his right arm around Thomas’s neck as the wheelchair passed by on his right. He snapped his neck in a blink.

The wheelchair holding the dead man hit the wall and whirred.

Maya screamed. “He shot you! He shot you—” She ran toward him.

“It’s okay. You are safe now.” He looked down at his bleeding stomach. There were multiple shots in his abdomen. He felt an excruciating burning sensation in his stomach and hip.
Not looking good.

Harrison felt dizzy as he slowly walked toward the couch. Maya held his hands and helped him to sit down. “How do we stop this blood? How do we stop it? Are you going to die? Please don’t die.”

Harrison smiled at Maya, who kept talking.

“What should I do? How can you smile? Are you not feeling the pain?” Maya held his hand and looked around in fear and confusion.

“I smile because you are safe now. No one can hurt you.”

Tears formed in her eyes as she noticed the blood coming out of his nose. “We need to go to the hospital. Do you have a phone? We need to call the ambulance.”

He nodded, reached under his robe, and retrieved the phone. “Don’t worry about me. Listen…Be brave, okay?” He looked into Maya’s eyes. Then, he dialed 911.

“My name is Harrison. I found the guys who kidnapped many girls in the Bay Area. Send the cops to Erskine Ranch in Woodside.” He paused for a moment. “One more thing…call the FBI and let special agent Theaker know. It’s important.”

He sighed as he clicked the end button. He turned to his right and smiled at Maya, who leaned her head against his right shoulder. She looked up and stared into his eyes. Her tears trickled down her cheek.

“Don’t worry. You will be fine. The cops are on their way.”

“I’m not worried about me. I’m worried about
you
. I’m scared. Are you going to die? Who are you?”

“I am a father to a brilliant girl like you.”

Maya sat up straight. “You have a daughter? What’s her name?”

“April,” Harrison said as he took out the heart-shaped pendant wrapped around his neck and clicked open the latch to reveal the picture. “Here she is!”

“She looks beautiful.” Maya smiled. Her tear-filled eyes lit up.

“Yeah, she is.” The burning sensation spread from his stomach to his chest. He sighed. “When the cops come in, make sure you tell them everything that happened here. Ask them to search the barn. Can you do that, please?”

Maya nodded. She hugged him. “Thank you. You are a good man!” Her teary eyes twinkled, and a tiny dimple appeared in her cheek.