Chapter 36
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Dimos
Without knocking, I kick the door open on my first try. I have so much adrenaline pumping through my veins right now, I think I could lift a city bus if I tried.
I listen for any sign of life inside before the two of us quietly search the unit. No one is here, and I have a feeling Ren is smarter than I’d like him to be in order to pull off a successful abduction. There are two back bedrooms, and I enter the first one I come to.
“Check in that one, and let me know if you find anything of interest,” I direct Izaak.
The room I enter is messy. There are empty bags of chips and candy bar wrappers all over the place, littered in with empty 20 oz bottles of Mountain Dew.
The screensaver is floating around the computer screen.
I give the mouse a little nudge, and the monitor comes to life once again.
The Photoshop application is open, and there is a jumble of different sea creatures being placed onto a sand dune in the middle of outer space.
I click on the downloads folder and search through the images inside of it.
There are several of Ren and Saylor. One where Saylor is tied to a chair, smiling seductively at the camera.
There are more of her laughing. One of her pretending to cry—at least I think she’s pretending.
Her face looks sad, but I don’t see any real tears.
I also see pictures of Ren sitting in a chair with his hands behind his back. He’s bent over, and he looks like he may be sleeping. There are a few more in the series, but this is the only one where he isn’t looking at the camera.
After that, I sort through the pile of papers scattered over the desk, and my eye catches on a very disturbing image.
It’s one of the images of Saylor I just saw in the downloads folder, only in this version, she’s tied to a chair with tape over her mouth.
Her cheeks are wet with tears, and she looks like she’s scared out of her mind.
Is it digitally enhanced, or did this actually happen?
Rifling through a few more papers, I find an identical image of Saylor crying in the chair, only this time the image of Ren with his head hanging down is next to her. But in this image, he has blood coming out of his ear and what appears to be duct tape on his mouth.
What the hell?
“Excuse me? Hey!”
The voice behind me belongs to a stocky kid with glasses wearing a backpack. He looks like he just got home from school. Izaak has him in a chokehold with no intention of letting him go.
“What do you think you’re doing in here?” he questions.
I wave Izaak off.
“I’m looking for someone. Ren Butler. Do you know where I might find him?”
He rolls his shoulder once he’s out of Izaak’s grasp and shoots him a death stare. Then he looks back to me, but his eyes quickly shift to the images in my hands.
“No.”
“What do you know about these pictures?” I hold up the stack in my hands, showing him the one of Saylor. “This one here. Do you know if Ren hurt her before taking it? Or was it photoshopped?”
I point to the computer screen.
“I edited it.”
I breathe a small sigh of relief.
“Why?” I ask.
“Ren asked me to. What is this about?”
“How well do you know Ren?”
“I know him a little. We’ve only lived together for about six months.”
“I think he abducted someone very special to me. Do you happen to know where he might have taken her?”
He’s looking at me like he wants to ask a question, but he’s almost afraid of the answer he might get.
“Does this have to do with Carley?” he nods his head toward the picture of Saylor in my hand.
I hold up the picture and look more closely. No, that’s definitely Saylor.
“This girl’s name is Saylor. She’s Carley’s best friend. What do you know about Carley?”
The boy takes a deep breath and puts his backpack down.
“About six weeks ago, he comes home from the club acting strange. I asked him what was going on, and he tells me he’s met the girl of his dreams. I didn’t think much of it, and we both went to sleep.
After that, he started staying at her house more often.
He would come home from time to time, but not for long.
But then, he started getting … weird. Every time I saw him he would say things like ‘he’s trying to take what’s mine’, or ‘I need to take her far away from here and save her.’ I kept asking him who ‘he’ was, but that made him angry.
Like, violently angry. I don’t know, things just didn’t seem right. ”
Before I’m able to speak, he starts again.
“I’ve been searching for a new place for about two weeks now. He’s been really unstable lately, and I’m scared to be under the same roof as him. Don’t tell him I told you that, though!”
“I won’t. Promise. I’m the ‘he’ Ren was talking about. And Carley is my girlfriend, and he’s been stalking her since the night they met. I need you to think. Has he ever mentioned family or friends? Maybe someone out of state where he can stay off the radar for a while?”
“Umm…” I try to be patient while he’s thinking, but the longer I wait, the more hopeless I feel. Finally, he speaks. “The only thing I remember him saying is he grew up somewhere in Brooklyn.”
“Brooklyn. That’s great. Anything else? A street? A neighborhood?”
“No, I’m sorry. He didn’t mention it.”
“That’s okay, you’ve been a big help …” I just realized I never got his name.
“Alec.”
“Thank you, Alec. I really appreciate it. I’ll send you money to repair the door I broke.”
Exiting his room, I pull out my phone and call Travis, with Izaak on my heels.
“Travis.”
“See if you can find anything linking him to Brooklyn.”
“On it.”
Izaak and I make it to the ground floor of the apartment building before Travis comes back with any information. Just as I’m about to tell him to call me back, he speaks up.
“Got something here. He lists some references on his resume. Walter Butler, 8293 72nd Street, Brooklyn. And Grace Wilson, 5236 64th Street Brooklyn.
“Thanks, keep digging. In the meantime, Izaak and I will go and check it out.”
* * *
I told Izaak to go to visit Grace Wilson while I checked out Walter Butler’s house.
With both Wilson and Butler in Ren’s name, I’m assuming these two are his mother and father.
If I’m right in my assumption that he would take Carley somewhere familiar, then I’m hoping she’s at one of these locations.
She fucking has to be.
I called Officer Harrison from the cab on the drive from downtown to Brooklyn.
I explained Blaine isn’t the one who has been sending the letters this time.
When I gave him Ren’s name and the addresses Izaak and I are each headed to, he put a call out to the nearest precinct.
After telling me someone would be out as soon as possible, he instructed me to wait outside until they got there.
Like fucking hell I’m waiting.
I toss whatever bills are in my wallet to the cab driver before practically throwing myself from the car and running to the front door. For the second time today, I kick the door open in search of the woman I love.
“Carley!” I shout.
I listen for noise, and I hear what sounds like muffled screams coming from up the stairs. I take them two at a time, running directly into Ren on the landing between the two floors.
I don’t miss the large knife in his hand before I throw him back against the wall into a picture frame.
It crashes to the floor and shatters into a thousand pieces.
His hands circle my neck, the knife dangerously close to my face, and he pushes me backward so I lose my grip on him.
I swing my fist and land a right hook to the side of his face, causing him to lose his footing just long enough to push him to the side and run up the remaining steps.
Before I can get out of his reach, he grabs a hold of my ankle and stops my progress.
I roll over so I can pry him off me. Kicking my foot out, I try to connect with his fist so he’ll drop the knife, but I’m not successful.
He brings the knife down, nearly hitting me in the chest. I’m able to twist at the waist, rolling the top half of my body away from the incoming blade and knocking him off balance.
I stand up, but Ren roundhouse kicks, knocking my leg out from underneath me before I can get my footing on the steps. When I go down, my back cracks against the wooden step, and it knocks the wind out of me.
“I’m going to enjoy this…” Ren utters with a maniacal smile on his face as he lunges for me.
When he lands on my stomach, it hurts more than it should have.
I try lifting my arm to fight him off, but I can’t.
I can barely move at all. And that’s when I feel the fire licking its way through my abdomen.
Slowly, Ren gets off, but I still can’t move.
Trying as hard as I can, I look down at my stomach and watch as crimson paints my white dress shirt red.
Ren reaches down and grabs my shirt with both hands, dragging me up the rest of the way upstairs.
The last thing I picture before my world goes black is Carley, standing in front of the sunset, overlooking the Aegean Sea.
She’s never looked more beautiful than she did that night.