Jayne Is A Girl's Name
Title: Absconditus Obligatus
Chapter Five: When There's Nothing Left To Burn You Have To Set Yourself On Fire
A/N: If anyone actually reads this I'd love some feedback.
Disclaimer: If you recognize it then I don't own it. Nor am I claiming ownership. You could sue, but really is my DvD collection and a Great Adventure pen really worth all that trouble. You can totally have the pen.
Characters: Shawn, Gus, Karen, Jules, Henry, Lassiter, Others
Warnings: Allusion to some not nice things, though probably not what you're thinking
Genre: Angst/Mystery/Suspense
Words: 2,575
Summary: The mother once warned, "My child the worst of monsters come out in the light." And the mother was never wrong.
Shawn is missing in action when a serial killer hits Santa Barbara. Somehow a cold case from so far away is relevant, and worse the killer is calling for their psychic by name. Where is Shawn? What went on in the Keystone State? And how the hell does a terrified eight year old factor in?
Prologue I Chapter One I Chapter Two l Chapter Three l Chapter Four
A/N:This chapter and it’s finishing may be credited to moogsthewriter updating Vengeance, which I adore. As well as the album ‘In Our Bedroom After The War’ from Stars, specifically the song “Life 2: The Unhappy Ending”.
Chapter Five: When There's Nothing Left To Burn You Have To Set Yourself On Fire (3,297)
Past
She knows she shouldn’t be reasonably surprised when they find the girl in the exact same condition as the first, but she still is, hardened detective training in place or not. You can tell by the exposed skin that isn’t covered in lacerations that she’s young. Perhaps as young as the first. Though she simply can’t imagine someone taking the life of two children in so little time.
And yet, here she and her partner stand, watching over the disregarded remains of another victim. Another soul lost to this unknowable monster. Another case that was just as likely to go unsolved. It had been two and a half weeks since the first girl was found. A teenager taking a detour after a long road trip stumbled upon her. The media had been conspicuously absent, then again maybe not. There wasn’t so much national coverage for a career foster child found dead in a ditch. There aren’t any parents to plea on television for their little girl. There isn’t any school provided portrait to plaster all over the papers begging for information. It was wrong to hope that this girl had a family somewhere that was missing her, but at least then it might matter to someone who didn’t wear a badge six days a week.
She steels herself for a minute and turns back to the victim, broken and bloody, discarded like so much trash. It’s time to pretend she can work this scene.
-------
Shawn hadn’t been looking for a place in Pennsylvania and he certainly never thought he’d fall in love when he stopped at the local bookstore to check a map on his way to upstate New York. His mother was doing a workshop in Albany for another two weeks. He was on his way out of Albuquerque and it seemed like the right kind of exhausting endeavor to distract him. Now he just needed to take a gander a map that would lead him through the Keystone to the Empire.
That was until he lost his heart and his will to leave Pennsylvania.
She was sitting on the counter, her well taken care of blonde hair pulled half-back, showing delicate features and curious green eyes. She flashed a glance at him when the bell above the door announced his entrance. He watched as her gaze flickered from his leather jacket to the bike outside and then back to the book that had held her attention before he arrived.
“Daddy,” she called in a sweet voice, “There’s a boy here to steal from you.”
Shawn fought the smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. She said it so matter-of-factly, a sarcastic seven year old. That was new. He walked forward, eyes narrowing as he took in everything of interest in the small store, finding his quarry next to the girl on the counter. In the background, behind her he listened to Third Eye Blind being turned down and the man he could easily read as the child’s father stepped into the room, an apologetic smile on his face.
“You’ll have to excuse Jenny.” His quiet voice started, amusement sparkling in eyes that matched his daughter’s in every way but size. “She doesn’t always remember the filter between mouth and brain.” He emphasized his point by poking his daughter while he spoke, inciting rapturous giggles from her. By the careful way he spoke and the words he chose Shawn could easily tell that the gentile man, perhaps -at most-six to eight years his senior had been well educated and intended for his daughter to be as well.
He found himself gazing again at the store, though it was thoroughly catalogued in his memory already, searching for signs of this newfound knowledge. It was easy to see in the scattered titles that his assumptions were correct. It was slightly confusing however as the child at the counter had to be at least seven years old, possibly even eight, and yet her father could not be more than twenty seven. That didn’t really seem conducive to the education his mannerisms hinted to. The lilt in his voice spoke of Massachusetts origins, and the strict annunciations of a university setting in the same northeastern region. Perhaps Brown, or Columbia.
“Daddy he was going to steal.” The one referred to as Jenny replied quickly. “He has a motorcycle.” She finished in a whisper, as if that decided the matter. Now both Shawn and the bookstore owner fought grins.
“It’s not the motorcycle that makes me the bad guy.” Shawn started, “It’s the hair. Bad guys always have really great hair.” He paused for effect. “I thought about becoming a potato chip sorter, but I knew, with hair like this,” He gestured grandly, “only one career option available.”
Jenny’s father smiled from behind her but his daughter held Shawn’s gaze squarely. “Maybe you should shave it off. You’re not very good at being a bad guy.”
“Is that so?”
“You’re not supposed to get caught before you start stealing.”
“Maybe you’re just too good of a detective.”
She smiled at him widely, appreciative that he continued the joke and Shawn was smitten. “Maybe. Or maybe you should be a potato chip sorter.” She offered before going back to the book she held.
Shawn laughed and Jenny’s father, quickly introduced as Robert, started to help him find the right map and ended up offering him the apartment next door as well as a job.
-----
The third girl was found the first week Shawn worked for Emma and Robert. As it happened Emma was just as soft-spoken and kind as her husband. It was easy to see that the sense of humor showcased so publically by their daughter was something they had inspired but not something they so readily revealed. The precocious nature of Jenny seemed to be born rather than nurtured. She and Shawn were soon fast friends and traded banter as easily as they traded information about the store’s customers.
Shawn would first voice his observations and then conclusions, after which Jenny would inform him of how off base he happened to be and give him outrageous stories she swore to be true. Eventually either Robert or Emma would correct their daughter, amused by her imaginative tales, but insistent upon her being kinder to the patrons. She would always persist that Shawn was smart enough, barely but enough, to know she was only speaking in jest. And if he wasn’t did her parents really want him cataloguing their shelves?
It was easy to see that the girl was not the average eight year old. And it was even easier to see that she and Shawn were kindred spirits. Under the nurturing influence of both of the elder Rileys Shawn was treated more like her wayward older brother than an employee and he was happy to forget that was far from the truth.
He never asked why, at only 27 and 26 Robert and Emma respectively had a daughter of such an age. He didn’t ask why or how they had gone from students at Ivy League universities to running a shop in a small town in rural Pennsylvania. He could tell it was not a subject that was ever broached, especially in the company of perceptive and sharp little Jenny. He wouldn’t get his definite answer until after the accident and after the abduction but at the time his theories were as enough for him.
It’s during that first week that Shawn curses his father for the first time in eight days, a sort of record. One of the rather ingrained senses his dad imparted that he could live without was his never-ending awareness of local police activities. While being attuned to the goings on of the nearest law enforcement officials might have been a useful skill if Shawn were a career criminal or partaking in nefarious deeds in his off hours it was instead a graining annoyance that only assured him of their incompetency. Too often he was finding himself incapable of standing idly by while they botched obvious cases and then animosity was all he garnered for his effort to solve their mistake. That and a polite suggestion to move on or continue being ticketed every time he stepped out his door.
He doesn’t want to notice, and certainly doesn’t need the distraction. He was happy in his oblivion the company of the Rileys provided. This case was different though. The locals hadn’t realized that though the bodies were dumped in three separate and non-bordering counties they were killed by the same excuse for humanity. He called the most promising of the three branches and pretended to be from one of the previous two asking if they’ve noticed the connection between the crimes. That should mean federal involvement and he shouldn’t have to hear about kids being found on the side of the road. Should and actually happening apparently don’t coincide as often as one would think.
As usual it would seem his father’s imposed destiny would be circumventing Shawn’s plans. This time however Shawn refused to lose the tranquility he gained with each new day in these green hills. His resolve would have shattered had the news station that his apartment picked up aired segments on the victims four, five and six. He doesn’t hear again about the killer until victim number seven and by then, well by then the monster’s already bought a copy of Catcher In The Rye, and Jenny has already smiled sweetly while she put it in a bag and her mother handed him his change. By then it’s too late to stop the roller coaster.
-----------
Present
Phone calls, that’s what happens after they return to the crime scene they just left, only to have another victim on their tally. Another girl, so young, found in almost the exact condition as the first. There could be no doubt as to the connection. The same monster, the same slaughter.
When they finally finish, a barked order for more uniforms left in their wake, it becomes a game of catch up, research and phone calls. Gus is quick to explain his theory, something he seems so hopeful over, to the partners again. The chief is already trying to get a hold of someone in Pennsylvania, but they’re three hours ahead of them and important people are asleep. It’s taking too long.
Juliet steers Gus from Lassiter who might inflict some kind harm, Gus is still on his high and the detectives can’t join him, not now. Not when they’ve found another girl, barely entering adulthood, brutalized beyond anything but dental recognition. Especially when the person drawing all of the hatred Lassiter could channel was leaving notes in the pocket of that poor kid’s jeans demanding the attention of someone they hadn’t seen in over a month.
It was best that he accompany her back to her desk while her partner dug through case logs and tried to find a liaison from the Philadelphia office of the F.B.I. that was awake. He could growl at the federal agent and smash his stapler against his desk instead of doing so to her friend. They would go over the postcards Gus had brought to them again and try to contact the local news station and try to track down Emma and Robert Riley, or perhaps their daughter Jenny. She’d be about eighteen now.
While it would perhaps sound more official to use police channels to ferret out the whereabouts of the Riley family a search yielded no results and the bookstore is a Starbucks now. Juliet turns to Google. Not as official, but six times as fast and a hell of lot handier. They scroll through the results, looking for something that will narrow the trail, of course a headline reading “Foul Play Suspected In Fatal Riley Crash” was not what they suspected. They also never thought that clicking on this first link would bring them to a page that listed the title and web address of every article in a series. A series that read more like an impressive arrest record than the tale of a young and promising family.
-------
Past
Four months after Shawn started working for the Rileys he knows he has to move on. He’s running out of postcards that aren’t from this zip code and he doesn’t need to be even more attached to the small family. He left Santa Barbara swearing to never be tied down, to never lose the freedom of choice and spontaneous decision-making. Now he models his schedule around that of the Riley family.
He picks Jenny up from school on the days that Emma teaches night classes at the local high school. He drops her off on the mornings that Robert lends his editorial services to the publisher two towns over. He sleeps on their couch on the Saturdays that they venture to Manhattan after he and Jenny get back from the park. The people in town have started to assume he’s some kind of younger sibling to one of the couple. Jenny spurs this even further by calling him all kinds of familial nicknames when they’re in public. She adores confusing the busy bodies. He enjoys it just as much and lets her.
This is not the life he set his course for and he knows he has to start extracting himself from it. He needs to stop eating dinner with them five nights out of seven. He needs to not be the second emergency contact at Jenny’s school. He needs…he needs to leave. So he sits Emma and Robert down and starts explaining, he vows he’ll go more than two weeks if that is what they need to find the right kind of help. He assures them he won’t be a stranger, and he’d never miss Jenny’s birthday in the fall.
Perpetually Robert and Emma they smile happily for him and beg that he not worry about their replacing him. They ensure that he could leave tomorrow as long as he promised to visit and it would be no strain on them. He explains that the need to leave is not nearly that urgent and promises them the next two weeks.
It is while Shawn plans his departure and pours over maps of the continental United States in his apartment that the monster buys a copy of The Grapes of Wrath. Jenny smiles just as sweetly while she hands him the change and her father offers him the bagged novel. She has recently mastered the new cash register and is quite proud of herself.
At the time when Shawn decided to continue on to Albany, though his mother is long gone, the monster decides that Jenny is the epitome of what a little girl should be. The monster returns her warm smile, knowing that he will be back for another classic tomorrow. He will return for another book and he will return for her. Those parents can’t possibly appreciate what they have, perfection for a daughter.
The monster hates their ignorance, he hates that they pawn off their child so often to their hired help. They don’t understand how precious she is. They don’t understand how soon those precious young girls change. They change into something dirty and nasty. They learn to lie, to manipulate. They become women. He’s been trying to save them. He’s saved almost ten now. But Jenny. Sweet, dear little Jenny. He might be able to save her beyond all the others. Eventually they all fall into the wicked ways of women. Just like Eve, they bite the apple of sin. And so he must save them from themselves in the most decided of ways.
But he could save Jenny; he could save her before her ignorant parents could ruin her. She was so much like…
He could save her from sin.
--------
Present
Juliet begins scrolling and with each word, each new title, she feels the horror begin to creep in deeper. Beside her Gus has lost all the goodwill he had gained with his discovery. It is clear that they were both left out of this piece of Shawn’s past. Very clear that despite his easy demeanor and inviting presence that seemed so open and exposed Shawn had been locking away parts of his life, parts of himself, and the idea was jarring. Shawn had always seemed the type to be unable to keep a secret for more than hour. Hell forty-two seconds. Here in these headlines they found that supposed fact irrevocably wrong. Perhaps they had not found their friend because they really had no idea who they were looking for.
Juliet moves the cursor, banishing the thought, and clicks on the most demanding of titles.
“Jennifer Riley - Survivor of Preteen Predator - Dies In Car Accident On Same Highway As Parents - Age 16”
----------
Past
Shawn finished his sorrowful two weeks with the Rileys, more forlorn about leaving this home than he had any right to be. Jenny had stopped talking to him the minute she was informed of his plans. She didn’t break her silence when he showed up at the bookstore that night with the key to his apartment. It was very like the scene in which they had first met. She sat on the counter, serenity long forgotten however, her blonde hair pulled halfback to reveal her delicate features, a book in her lap.
Emma and Robert were both behind her now and this time Collective Soul was wafting through the speakers of the small radio in the back. He hugs Emma and Robert, they are ever their quiet and kind selves, giving him his last paycheck that he suspects is far too generous and that he’ll have to mail back. After a few minutes Jenny still refuses to look up so Shawn approaches her.
“Hey, Jaybird, you got any parting words for your uncle-brother-in-law-cousin-resident thief?” The nickname is one he usually only uses when they’re alone. She once confided that she wasn’t very partial to being called Jenny. Saying that there were too many songs about girls named Jenny. People were prone to crooning them, usually off key, whenever they saw her. As if it were appropriate to sing “867-5309” to an eight year old or any form of a Little Richard ballad. So instantly he’d begun referring to her with every possible dilution of Jennifer he could imagine. The one he used most often, though not exclusively, was the one he used now. It was markedly her favorite.
When she speaks her sweet voice is thick, “If I say goodbye then you’re allowed to leave.” She continues, her tone now falsely harder, “Besides I’m not talking to you.”
He ignores her and wraps her in a fierce hug. It doesn’t take a measurable amount of time before she returns it with as much intensity as a child can. She never allows herself to really cry, but a few small tears burn down her cheeks. “You can’t leave if I don’t say goodbye.” She whispers to him again.
“I really wish that were true.” Shawn answers, quietly enough that she was the only one to hear. Had she been just a bit older she would have heard the weight of what he’d said.
When he starts his engine a coroner loads the body of the tenth victim in his van. And the monster is finally ready to save his Jenny. Everyone is too blissfully oblivious, Shawn speeding towards the state line, Emma and Robert consoling their daughter, the detectives filing missing persons reports for the tenth victim hoping and dreading a match…
They don’t notice that the monster is so close, so ready.
The monster that steps into the light.
End Notes:
So as has become the norm this chapter is past due. The next one shouldn't take me as long as I'm writing it now. I was thinking of waiting to post this one until I finished that one but I thought you might rather I posted this as soon as I could. This chapter is a lot darker than many of the others and the next will not be much better. Expect angst for some time.
Please review, thoughts, criticism, requests for gunplay...
Chapter Five: When There's Nothing Left To Burn You Have To Set Yourself On Fire
A/N: If anyone actually reads this I'd love some feedback.
Disclaimer: If you recognize it then I don't own it. Nor am I claiming ownership. You could sue, but really is my DvD collection and a Great Adventure pen really worth all that trouble. You can totally have the pen.
Characters: Shawn, Gus, Karen, Jules, Henry, Lassiter, Others
Warnings: Allusion to some not nice things, though probably not what you're thinking
Genre: Angst/Mystery/Suspense
Words: 2,575
Summary: The mother once warned, "My child the worst of monsters come out in the light." And the mother was never wrong.
Shawn is missing in action when a serial killer hits Santa Barbara. Somehow a cold case from so far away is relevant, and worse the killer is calling for their psychic by name. Where is Shawn? What went on in the Keystone State? And how the hell does a terrified eight year old factor in?
Prologue I Chapter One I Chapter Two l Chapter Three l Chapter Four
A/N:This chapter and it’s finishing may be credited to moogsthewriter updating Vengeance, which I adore. As well as the album ‘In Our Bedroom After The War’ from Stars, specifically the song “Life 2: The Unhappy Ending”.
Chapter Five: When There's Nothing Left To Burn You Have To Set Yourself On Fire (3,297)
Past
She knows she shouldn’t be reasonably surprised when they find the girl in the exact same condition as the first, but she still is, hardened detective training in place or not. You can tell by the exposed skin that isn’t covered in lacerations that she’s young. Perhaps as young as the first. Though she simply can’t imagine someone taking the life of two children in so little time.
And yet, here she and her partner stand, watching over the disregarded remains of another victim. Another soul lost to this unknowable monster. Another case that was just as likely to go unsolved. It had been two and a half weeks since the first girl was found. A teenager taking a detour after a long road trip stumbled upon her. The media had been conspicuously absent, then again maybe not. There wasn’t so much national coverage for a career foster child found dead in a ditch. There aren’t any parents to plea on television for their little girl. There isn’t any school provided portrait to plaster all over the papers begging for information. It was wrong to hope that this girl had a family somewhere that was missing her, but at least then it might matter to someone who didn’t wear a badge six days a week.
She steels herself for a minute and turns back to the victim, broken and bloody, discarded like so much trash. It’s time to pretend she can work this scene.
-------
Shawn hadn’t been looking for a place in Pennsylvania and he certainly never thought he’d fall in love when he stopped at the local bookstore to check a map on his way to upstate New York. His mother was doing a workshop in Albany for another two weeks. He was on his way out of Albuquerque and it seemed like the right kind of exhausting endeavor to distract him. Now he just needed to take a gander a map that would lead him through the Keystone to the Empire.
That was until he lost his heart and his will to leave Pennsylvania.
She was sitting on the counter, her well taken care of blonde hair pulled half-back, showing delicate features and curious green eyes. She flashed a glance at him when the bell above the door announced his entrance. He watched as her gaze flickered from his leather jacket to the bike outside and then back to the book that had held her attention before he arrived.
“Daddy,” she called in a sweet voice, “There’s a boy here to steal from you.”
Shawn fought the smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. She said it so matter-of-factly, a sarcastic seven year old. That was new. He walked forward, eyes narrowing as he took in everything of interest in the small store, finding his quarry next to the girl on the counter. In the background, behind her he listened to Third Eye Blind being turned down and the man he could easily read as the child’s father stepped into the room, an apologetic smile on his face.
“You’ll have to excuse Jenny.” His quiet voice started, amusement sparkling in eyes that matched his daughter’s in every way but size. “She doesn’t always remember the filter between mouth and brain.” He emphasized his point by poking his daughter while he spoke, inciting rapturous giggles from her. By the careful way he spoke and the words he chose Shawn could easily tell that the gentile man, perhaps -at most-six to eight years his senior had been well educated and intended for his daughter to be as well.
He found himself gazing again at the store, though it was thoroughly catalogued in his memory already, searching for signs of this newfound knowledge. It was easy to see in the scattered titles that his assumptions were correct. It was slightly confusing however as the child at the counter had to be at least seven years old, possibly even eight, and yet her father could not be more than twenty seven. That didn’t really seem conducive to the education his mannerisms hinted to. The lilt in his voice spoke of Massachusetts origins, and the strict annunciations of a university setting in the same northeastern region. Perhaps Brown, or Columbia.
“Daddy he was going to steal.” The one referred to as Jenny replied quickly. “He has a motorcycle.” She finished in a whisper, as if that decided the matter. Now both Shawn and the bookstore owner fought grins.
“It’s not the motorcycle that makes me the bad guy.” Shawn started, “It’s the hair. Bad guys always have really great hair.” He paused for effect. “I thought about becoming a potato chip sorter, but I knew, with hair like this,” He gestured grandly, “only one career option available.”
Jenny’s father smiled from behind her but his daughter held Shawn’s gaze squarely. “Maybe you should shave it off. You’re not very good at being a bad guy.”
“Is that so?”
“You’re not supposed to get caught before you start stealing.”
“Maybe you’re just too good of a detective.”
She smiled at him widely, appreciative that he continued the joke and Shawn was smitten. “Maybe. Or maybe you should be a potato chip sorter.” She offered before going back to the book she held.
Shawn laughed and Jenny’s father, quickly introduced as Robert, started to help him find the right map and ended up offering him the apartment next door as well as a job.
-----
The third girl was found the first week Shawn worked for Emma and Robert. As it happened Emma was just as soft-spoken and kind as her husband. It was easy to see that the sense of humor showcased so publically by their daughter was something they had inspired but not something they so readily revealed. The precocious nature of Jenny seemed to be born rather than nurtured. She and Shawn were soon fast friends and traded banter as easily as they traded information about the store’s customers.
Shawn would first voice his observations and then conclusions, after which Jenny would inform him of how off base he happened to be and give him outrageous stories she swore to be true. Eventually either Robert or Emma would correct their daughter, amused by her imaginative tales, but insistent upon her being kinder to the patrons. She would always persist that Shawn was smart enough, barely but enough, to know she was only speaking in jest. And if he wasn’t did her parents really want him cataloguing their shelves?
It was easy to see that the girl was not the average eight year old. And it was even easier to see that she and Shawn were kindred spirits. Under the nurturing influence of both of the elder Rileys Shawn was treated more like her wayward older brother than an employee and he was happy to forget that was far from the truth.
He never asked why, at only 27 and 26 Robert and Emma respectively had a daughter of such an age. He didn’t ask why or how they had gone from students at Ivy League universities to running a shop in a small town in rural Pennsylvania. He could tell it was not a subject that was ever broached, especially in the company of perceptive and sharp little Jenny. He wouldn’t get his definite answer until after the accident and after the abduction but at the time his theories were as enough for him.
It’s during that first week that Shawn curses his father for the first time in eight days, a sort of record. One of the rather ingrained senses his dad imparted that he could live without was his never-ending awareness of local police activities. While being attuned to the goings on of the nearest law enforcement officials might have been a useful skill if Shawn were a career criminal or partaking in nefarious deeds in his off hours it was instead a graining annoyance that only assured him of their incompetency. Too often he was finding himself incapable of standing idly by while they botched obvious cases and then animosity was all he garnered for his effort to solve their mistake. That and a polite suggestion to move on or continue being ticketed every time he stepped out his door.
He doesn’t want to notice, and certainly doesn’t need the distraction. He was happy in his oblivion the company of the Rileys provided. This case was different though. The locals hadn’t realized that though the bodies were dumped in three separate and non-bordering counties they were killed by the same excuse for humanity. He called the most promising of the three branches and pretended to be from one of the previous two asking if they’ve noticed the connection between the crimes. That should mean federal involvement and he shouldn’t have to hear about kids being found on the side of the road. Should and actually happening apparently don’t coincide as often as one would think.
As usual it would seem his father’s imposed destiny would be circumventing Shawn’s plans. This time however Shawn refused to lose the tranquility he gained with each new day in these green hills. His resolve would have shattered had the news station that his apartment picked up aired segments on the victims four, five and six. He doesn’t hear again about the killer until victim number seven and by then, well by then the monster’s already bought a copy of Catcher In The Rye, and Jenny has already smiled sweetly while she put it in a bag and her mother handed him his change. By then it’s too late to stop the roller coaster.
-----------
Present
Phone calls, that’s what happens after they return to the crime scene they just left, only to have another victim on their tally. Another girl, so young, found in almost the exact condition as the first. There could be no doubt as to the connection. The same monster, the same slaughter.
When they finally finish, a barked order for more uniforms left in their wake, it becomes a game of catch up, research and phone calls. Gus is quick to explain his theory, something he seems so hopeful over, to the partners again. The chief is already trying to get a hold of someone in Pennsylvania, but they’re three hours ahead of them and important people are asleep. It’s taking too long.
Juliet steers Gus from Lassiter who might inflict some kind harm, Gus is still on his high and the detectives can’t join him, not now. Not when they’ve found another girl, barely entering adulthood, brutalized beyond anything but dental recognition. Especially when the person drawing all of the hatred Lassiter could channel was leaving notes in the pocket of that poor kid’s jeans demanding the attention of someone they hadn’t seen in over a month.
It was best that he accompany her back to her desk while her partner dug through case logs and tried to find a liaison from the Philadelphia office of the F.B.I. that was awake. He could growl at the federal agent and smash his stapler against his desk instead of doing so to her friend. They would go over the postcards Gus had brought to them again and try to contact the local news station and try to track down Emma and Robert Riley, or perhaps their daughter Jenny. She’d be about eighteen now.
While it would perhaps sound more official to use police channels to ferret out the whereabouts of the Riley family a search yielded no results and the bookstore is a Starbucks now. Juliet turns to Google. Not as official, but six times as fast and a hell of lot handier. They scroll through the results, looking for something that will narrow the trail, of course a headline reading “Foul Play Suspected In Fatal Riley Crash” was not what they suspected. They also never thought that clicking on this first link would bring them to a page that listed the title and web address of every article in a series. A series that read more like an impressive arrest record than the tale of a young and promising family.
-------
Past
Four months after Shawn started working for the Rileys he knows he has to move on. He’s running out of postcards that aren’t from this zip code and he doesn’t need to be even more attached to the small family. He left Santa Barbara swearing to never be tied down, to never lose the freedom of choice and spontaneous decision-making. Now he models his schedule around that of the Riley family.
He picks Jenny up from school on the days that Emma teaches night classes at the local high school. He drops her off on the mornings that Robert lends his editorial services to the publisher two towns over. He sleeps on their couch on the Saturdays that they venture to Manhattan after he and Jenny get back from the park. The people in town have started to assume he’s some kind of younger sibling to one of the couple. Jenny spurs this even further by calling him all kinds of familial nicknames when they’re in public. She adores confusing the busy bodies. He enjoys it just as much and lets her.
This is not the life he set his course for and he knows he has to start extracting himself from it. He needs to stop eating dinner with them five nights out of seven. He needs to not be the second emergency contact at Jenny’s school. He needs…he needs to leave. So he sits Emma and Robert down and starts explaining, he vows he’ll go more than two weeks if that is what they need to find the right kind of help. He assures them he won’t be a stranger, and he’d never miss Jenny’s birthday in the fall.
Perpetually Robert and Emma they smile happily for him and beg that he not worry about their replacing him. They ensure that he could leave tomorrow as long as he promised to visit and it would be no strain on them. He explains that the need to leave is not nearly that urgent and promises them the next two weeks.
It is while Shawn plans his departure and pours over maps of the continental United States in his apartment that the monster buys a copy of The Grapes of Wrath. Jenny smiles just as sweetly while she hands him the change and her father offers him the bagged novel. She has recently mastered the new cash register and is quite proud of herself.
At the time when Shawn decided to continue on to Albany, though his mother is long gone, the monster decides that Jenny is the epitome of what a little girl should be. The monster returns her warm smile, knowing that he will be back for another classic tomorrow. He will return for another book and he will return for her. Those parents can’t possibly appreciate what they have, perfection for a daughter.
The monster hates their ignorance, he hates that they pawn off their child so often to their hired help. They don’t understand how precious she is. They don’t understand how soon those precious young girls change. They change into something dirty and nasty. They learn to lie, to manipulate. They become women. He’s been trying to save them. He’s saved almost ten now. But Jenny. Sweet, dear little Jenny. He might be able to save her beyond all the others. Eventually they all fall into the wicked ways of women. Just like Eve, they bite the apple of sin. And so he must save them from themselves in the most decided of ways.
But he could save Jenny; he could save her before her ignorant parents could ruin her. She was so much like…
He could save her from sin.
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Present
Juliet begins scrolling and with each word, each new title, she feels the horror begin to creep in deeper. Beside her Gus has lost all the goodwill he had gained with his discovery. It is clear that they were both left out of this piece of Shawn’s past. Very clear that despite his easy demeanor and inviting presence that seemed so open and exposed Shawn had been locking away parts of his life, parts of himself, and the idea was jarring. Shawn had always seemed the type to be unable to keep a secret for more than hour. Hell forty-two seconds. Here in these headlines they found that supposed fact irrevocably wrong. Perhaps they had not found their friend because they really had no idea who they were looking for.
Juliet moves the cursor, banishing the thought, and clicks on the most demanding of titles.
“Jennifer Riley - Survivor of Preteen Predator - Dies In Car Accident On Same Highway As Parents - Age 16”
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Past
Shawn finished his sorrowful two weeks with the Rileys, more forlorn about leaving this home than he had any right to be. Jenny had stopped talking to him the minute she was informed of his plans. She didn’t break her silence when he showed up at the bookstore that night with the key to his apartment. It was very like the scene in which they had first met. She sat on the counter, serenity long forgotten however, her blonde hair pulled halfback to reveal her delicate features, a book in her lap.
Emma and Robert were both behind her now and this time Collective Soul was wafting through the speakers of the small radio in the back. He hugs Emma and Robert, they are ever their quiet and kind selves, giving him his last paycheck that he suspects is far too generous and that he’ll have to mail back. After a few minutes Jenny still refuses to look up so Shawn approaches her.
“Hey, Jaybird, you got any parting words for your uncle-brother-in-law-cousin-resident thief?” The nickname is one he usually only uses when they’re alone. She once confided that she wasn’t very partial to being called Jenny. Saying that there were too many songs about girls named Jenny. People were prone to crooning them, usually off key, whenever they saw her. As if it were appropriate to sing “867-5309” to an eight year old or any form of a Little Richard ballad. So instantly he’d begun referring to her with every possible dilution of Jennifer he could imagine. The one he used most often, though not exclusively, was the one he used now. It was markedly her favorite.
When she speaks her sweet voice is thick, “If I say goodbye then you’re allowed to leave.” She continues, her tone now falsely harder, “Besides I’m not talking to you.”
He ignores her and wraps her in a fierce hug. It doesn’t take a measurable amount of time before she returns it with as much intensity as a child can. She never allows herself to really cry, but a few small tears burn down her cheeks. “You can’t leave if I don’t say goodbye.” She whispers to him again.
“I really wish that were true.” Shawn answers, quietly enough that she was the only one to hear. Had she been just a bit older she would have heard the weight of what he’d said.
When he starts his engine a coroner loads the body of the tenth victim in his van. And the monster is finally ready to save his Jenny. Everyone is too blissfully oblivious, Shawn speeding towards the state line, Emma and Robert consoling their daughter, the detectives filing missing persons reports for the tenth victim hoping and dreading a match…
They don’t notice that the monster is so close, so ready.
The monster that steps into the light.
End Notes:
So as has become the norm this chapter is past due. The next one shouldn't take me as long as I'm writing it now. I was thinking of waiting to post this one until I finished that one but I thought you might rather I posted this as soon as I could. This chapter is a lot darker than many of the others and the next will not be much better. Expect angst for some time.
Please review, thoughts, criticism, requests for gunplay...