The Light at the End of the Tunnel (24 page)

“But you said
‘one similar thread,’
”
Nicole said.

“Yes. I did say that. Our expert wasn’t clear
about that, and when I pressed him he kind of just mumbled.”

So think of this, young man,” Nicole went on,
“If we hadn’t come across the young Les Paul and checked his DNA,
then the old Les Paul’s DNA would have eventually passed into
obscurity, maybe even would have been erased from the computer
banks, and maybe we would never have learned about this
‘similar
thread’
—“

“Not likely,” Sikorsky cut in, “I doubt any
of that stuff is ever erased. What would be the point? Computer
storage is infinite!”

“Oh I doubt that it’s infinite, my good man,”
the chaplain offered, “Only God and the cosmos is infinite.” He
hesitated, and felt very surprised at what he had just said, as he
had not spoken of God and his beliefs for years, and both Nicole
and Sikorsky stared at him, for a few seconds.

Nicole was the first to look away, “But say
what I was getting to was true,” she continued, “If the old Les
Paul’s DNA got erased, and the young Les Paul never got into enough
trouble to get his DNA even taken…well, who knows? He could get to
be twenty, thirty, forty years old before he even got caught, and
his DNA checked. So then we wouldn’t have learned what we think we
just learned.”

“Yes, that
‘similar thread’
business
is definitely interesting. Would be nice if we could check his
records, deeds, and DNA from his past lives.” Realizing what he had
just said, Sikorsky grinned.

So did the chaplain. And what they both had
just said kind of went along with what he had just said. And
everybody’s statements opened up a whole new spectrum for the
science fiction and horror fiction genres, something for Stephen
King and Dean Koontz to speculate about and write new thriller
novels. He should contact those two authors and make the
suggestion.

“And if the old records had been erased.”
Sikorsky continued, “Yes, Nicole, unlikely, but it’s probably
something for law enforcement to someday consider, and, I have some
possibly unexpected news for you.”

“Yes…?” The chaplain asked.

“Our young Les Paul didn’t go to a foster
home. We’re going to cool his heels for a while at our Juvenile
Detention Center.”

“Well, he can’t get into much trouble there,
can he?” Nicole asked. “I mean…he’s watched…right?”

“Our juvie center is not the best in the
world. The boys are…observed. But with economics being what they
are the center had to let three staff go—one from each shift—not
that they got the best of care even before, but yes, the boys can
get into plenty of trouble, even from the inside.”

“But certainly they take musters every
day.”

“Very likely they do,” Sikorsky answered.

“Very likely…?” Nicole said, “Don’t you
know
?”

“Not my job. I’m a cop.”

“So they just get dropped into the system and
forgotten.”

“My dear,” the chaplain interceded, “By the
time children get to that part of the system they have long since
already
been
forgotten. I hate to say it, but,
we—officialdom—simply can’t help them all.”

Nicole just shook her head.

Sikorsky and the chaplain continued talking.
Nicole stopped listening. Her thoughts had gone to the young girl,
Cassandra. How was the girl doing, she wondered, after getting her
childhood taken from her? And not just the rape. Why was she in
foster care at all? What had happened to her? What happened to her
parents? Why was she so alone in the world? Was she happy?
“Radford…?”

Both men turned toward her. The chaplain
answered, “Yes, my dear?”

“I want to return to Marble Falls—right
now—and adopt Cassandra.”

****

Time passed. Les Paul made the trip to the
little darkened house whenever he could to meet different pimps and
their girls, and always got a woman at least older than sixteen. He
was happy, finally getting fulfilled, yet something still felt
lacking. The increasing memories didn’t help. They just increased
his thought that something important was still missing.

No longer did he go with Pierce. He went
either alone, or took a less experienced boy with him, older or
younger didn’t matter. The lady with the huge purse wasn’t their
only contact, but he did like his first woman that first night. He
hoped he could have her again, and he wondered what that treat
would be that the woman with the big purse promised. He stayed in
touch with Pierce, though, and used him for information, things
only older boys knew. But Les Paul himself was fast becoming the
older boy.

Chapter 39
Adoption

The same intractable woman sat at the desk at
Earnestburg, Kansas, when the chaplain and Nicole entered. “So, you
two are back, huh? Did you find Cassandra, and talk to her, and get
your questions answered?”

“Yes,” Nicole answered, “And now we want to
adopt her.”

“Good luck,” the woman said.

“What? Why?”

“She’s gone. Ran away.”

“What?” Nicole cried, “And you know nothing
about why, or anything?”

“We think her foster parents tried farming
her out.”

“Farming her…
what
…?”

“For sex! There seems to be some primordial
instinct in men to have sex with nine-year-olds.”

“My Lord!” Nicole cried.

“Goes clear back to the cave man days,” the
lady behind the desk continued, “I read a whole series of books
about people during the last Ice Age. Girls as young as nine—and
who knows? Maybe even younger—being actually required to have sex
when they reach puberty, and men being required to perform the sex
act
with
them! To
teach
them! Some men were even
favored to do it over others!” The woman glanced at the chaplain
and glared, “They still do it in some Muslim countries and parts of
India! Probably
all
men want to! Some…barbarian holdover
that all men
want
, but won’t admit to!”

The chaplain blinked, and shrunk back several
inches.

Then Nicole turned to him, and also glared,
“Radford, have you ever thought about having sex with a
nine-year-old?”

“Nicole…,” he shook his head.

“And it’s not just
that
!” the woman
continued, “Just this morning I caught a YouTube video as a
headline on MSN of a little eight-year-old girl singing and
screaming a hardcore rock song and giving a really provocative
physical performance that would put even Lady Gaga to shame, so I
guess we can’t really blame our men for wanting little girls!”

“Answer me, Rad! Have you?” Nicole still
glared.

“By now,” the woman continued, “Every pervert
in the country has probably seen that video and is making plans to
find if not
that
little girl then another little girl! And
where was that girl’s mother? She should have been encouraging her
daughter to be a child instead of another wild-ass rockstar!”

The chaplain ignored the woman behind the
desk, and could barely believe the look in his darling wife’s eyes,
“Nicole, let me fill you in on something, about men. Yes! We all
have thoughts! Yes, I have looked at nine-year-olds—my god, Nicole!
And I’ve noticed how pretty some are, and how sexy for their
age—men have
thoughts
, Nicole, that they don’t
share
—my god, woman, we have instinctive
thoughts
,
but we—most of us, thank God—don’t
act
on them!”

“‘
Instinctive?’”

“‘
Thoughts!’
Just thoughts! Thoughts
that run through one’s head that one cannot control—good Lord,
girl!”

Nicole stared—
glared
—at him for a few
more seconds—but nothing like the woman behind the desk had—then
she turned back to the woman at the desk, “You can’t tell us
anything
?”

The woman also glared at the chaplain for
another few seconds, then turned back to Nicole, “The couple who
had Cassandra, both of them, have been charged—seems one of their
clients turned them in—anyway, they’re out on bail.”

“So family Services didn’t check those two
out very well,” the chaplain offered, thinking he really needed to
say something to impress his lovely wife, “Did you even ever visit
their home? I suppose they came here, both cleaned up and dressed
to kill, and they just got cleared from their appearances.”

“Sometimes, I admit, we don’t do the best job
in background checks. We’re very short-handed, economics being what
it is—“

“Yes, everybody’s blaming economics.”

Nicole reached for and gripped her husband’s
arm, “What about adopting Cassandra?”

“Adoption is a little more serious than
foster care.”

The chaplain shook his head and gave a quick
half-grin. Nicole squeezed his arm, even dug in a couple nails.

The woman at the desk glared at him again but
then went to her filing cabinet, removed a booklet, returned and
handed it over, “This should tell you all you need to know about
adoption, but I will warn you. A girl that old, if she can even be
found
, is probably already lost. She’ll end up on the
street, hungry and cold, and thinking she has
no
future.
Some bastard slaver will pick her up, she’ll begin turning tricks
for him for high pay, maybe even get into pornography. I commend
you for caring about her, but…well, I wish you luck.”

“Thank you,” Nicole said, then still gripping
her husband’s arm she pulled him toward the door.

The chaplain chanced to glance back. The
woman continued her glare toward him till they were out the
door.

****

“How could you
do
that, Radford?”
Nicole snapped once they were outside.

“Do
what
?”

“Think about having sex with a little
nine-year-old girl?”

“Honey, people can’t really control what
thoughts flash through their mind, and they weren’t even
real
thoughts—“

“Not
real
? But you
thought
them!”

“
No
, I didn’t.” The chaplain stopped
and pulled his wife into his arms, “My darling, I would never do
that.” He pulled her close, enveloping her like he maybe yet had
not, “Even now thoughts are racing through my mind. I can’t control
them. Most of them don’t last even long enough for me to realize
exactly what they even said. You are having thoughts too. Everybody
does.” He kissed her, deeply, again more deeply than he thought he
had yet.

Nicole melted against him and kissed him back
and held him back, then backed away and turned them, “And we better
get to our vehicle before the morality police see us having sex in
public.” She grinned, and increased that smile that always lit up
Chaplain Radford O’Hare’s world.

“We weren’t exactly having sex,” he said as
they hurried toward Nicole’s minivan.

“Close, my dear, very close.”

The chaplain’s cell phone rang as they
reached their vehicle.

Chapter 40
Hitchhiking

Little Cassandra had walked for what seemed
like, to her, at least a hundred miles. She had no food, no water,
the clothes on her back, her purse, and her dolly, Rachel Ray. In
the purse a few coins, a twenty dollar bill, a soiled hankie, and a
photograph of a man in a Marine Corps dress uniform, her late
father. She had no photograph of her mother, who died when she was
born. She didn’t know why she had a photograph of her father and
none of her mother. Her father had been in the marines already five
years when she was born, but that very day he was killed by a
roadside bomb in Afghanistan. She could barely say that word, and
wondered where Afghanistan even was.

There were no relations on either side, none
that Family Services could find anyway that wanted her. Family
services hadn’t exactly
told
her that, but what other reason
could there be? Nobody wanted her. So she had ended up in one
foster home after another until that one with two other girls and
four boys, where the oldest boy raped her, and, she was sure, the
seven-year-old, had wanted to also—she would never forget the eyes
on that boy—but the foster parents had come home in time and
stopped everything.

Not that those foster parents were great
people. She hadn’t liked either the man or the woman, but at
least—when they were around—they had rules, and enforced them. But
they weren’t around much, and that’s what bothered her the most.
They weren’t around enough to see who the worst troublemaker was,
and they took the wrong boy back to Family Services, instead of the
oldest boy, the one who raped her, so she often worried about the
other two girls and hoped the boys weren’t bothering them, but she
felt sure they were. She had also gotten returned to Family
Services shortly after that episode, and that’s when she was
told—what little she was told—about her parents.

She hadn’t seen a car for a long time. The
first half dozen or so she had hid when she saw them coming. She
didn’t trust anybody, and had been afraid to get in a car with a
stranger. But now she was hungry, and cold, and it was getting
dark, and she was tired…and she saw a cream-colored minivan
coming.

She remembered looking out the window when
that nice Nicole—and that man she was with—left. They drove a
minivan the same color. She wished it would be
them—
Nicole
—she wished it so hard…
be them, please be
them!—
but she didn’t think it was.

She stopped walking and waited anyway. The
minivan began slowing down. She saw a woman driver—
oh joy! I’ll
be safe!
Another woman in the passenger seat.
Good
. She
didn’t trust anybody, but at least trusted women over men.

The minivan stopped and Cassandra saw the
other woman looked a little younger than the driver, and a girl in
the back, older than herself. The passenger-side window moved down
smoothly, “Hi, honey,” the woman driver called over the passenger,
“Where are you heading?”