Chapter 25
Vanian
As I pull into the parking lot at Club X, I glance at Nantes.
We stopped for dinner so we wouldn’t get here too early, and even through that, he’s been acting the same as he always does.
He’s oddly calm considering what we came here to do, and I have to wonder how he’s handling it.
Never in a million years did I think he would ever know my secret, much less join me, but his reasoning makes sense.
I’ve done the mental work I think I need to do to make this matter.
One last time; a sacrifice. Then I walk away.
With Nantes putting his own life on the line, I have to.
“How ya feeling?”
He turns to me and smiles. “Oddly calm. More anticipatory than anxious.”
“That’s how I felt when this all started.”
“How does it feel now?”
I shrug. “Like a job. A necessary task. That’s probably a clue that I should let it go. It doesn’t even get my blood rushing anymore.”
“That’s the problem with any obsession. Over time, it takes more and more of it to get the same hit. You have to constantly raise the stakes or it loses its effect.”
“Spoken like a true doctor.” I reach across the seat and squeeze his hand. “This is weird, but I’m glad you’re with me.”
“Is it weird? I feel like it’s just us. We connect on a level most other people never can.”
Smiling, I nod. “You’re right.” I glance at the club. “We have our story straight, right? We’re going to meet him, get a vibe, and encourage him to come with us to meet our main contact. We’ll offer to drive, but if he’s cautious and wants to drive himself, that’s fine.”
“We’ll tell him it’s a party,” Nantes says, “and he can only get in with us.”
“Correct. We’ll take him over to the abandoned warehouse we saw off the freeway coming in. We walk him in, and when he sees it’s empty, he’ll probably react.”
“That’s when you’ll use the stun gun.”
“Right. That’ll slow him down, and then we can do the rest.”
Nantes nods. “Got it. I’m ready.”
I squeeze his hand. “Let’s do this.”
We exit the car and walk confidently to the front door. There’s no cover, so we enter easily, scanning the area for the man we came to see. I thought I might feel slightly uneasy having Nantes with me, but it’s just the opposite. My confidence soars with him beside me.
He taps my arm and motions with his head towards the bar.
I spot Alex Fetterman easily, sitting alone and looking at his phone, his leg bouncing nervously.
He looks older in real life, and very average.
He wouldn’t stand out in any crowd, and that’s how people like him get away with it.
They don’t attract suspicion, seem like decent people, and work in professions that breed trust. Like the clergy.
Why anyone still trusts church people with their kids is beyond me.
It’s a playground for groomers and abusers.
We approach Fetterman, and as he recognizes our presence, he looks up from his phone, turning slightly to face us.
His expression is neutral, but there’s a desperate hunger in his gaze I’ve seen a million times before.
The temptation to just pull out my gun and blow his head off is strong, but not here.
“Birddog?” I ask as I reach him. We’re all going by code names. That’s the norm in these circles.
“Yeah,” Alex grunts.
“BearsFan and Bugs here.”
We shake hands even though it disgusts me to touch this creep.
“Ready to go?”
Fetterman nods, throwing down some money on the bar top. Before I can get too far though, he grabs my arm. “You sure this is safe? Private?”
“A hundred percent. I’ve been going for years and I’m never disappointed with the selection.” I lean in close. “Word on the street is they just got three new kids, all preteens.”
His eyes light up and my stomach twists. Absolutely disgusting.
“You said they get a lot of blond girls?” he asks, his voice brimming with excitement.
“Yeah. Definitely.”
Nantes isn’t saying a word, but I’m impressed with his impassive expression, like none of this affects him at all. Must be the trauma doctor in him hiding his true feelings.
Once the three of us are outside, I nod in the direction of our car. “You can’t get in without us. We can drive if you want.”
“Yeah, sure,” Fetterman says, not even slightly suspicious.
He doesn’t seem to have any inkling that something is wrong. These types run in circles where you have to trust someone to get what you want, unless you can source your own victims, and Fetterman here is no longer in a position to do that.
Nantes offers Fetterman the passenger seat and slides into the back.
I hadn’t thought of that, but it’s pretty smart, giving our target a sense of comfort with us.
I start the car and set the navigation back to the highway.
As I drive, I glance over at Fetterman, who is scrolling on his phone.
A few seconds later, he turns his screen to me, showing a picture of a young blond girl who doesn’t look like she could be more than ten or eleven.
“My favorite,” Fetterman says. “Her name is Ruthie. I met her when she was six years old.”
A ball of tension starts to build in my chest. “Yeah? Where’d you meet her?”
“At my church. She was in my son’s youth group.”
“Oh, you have a son?”
“Yeah.” His tone immediately cools. “Fucking ass. Tried to get me in trouble over some shit.” He laughs darkly. “They couldn’t find enough on me to stick, but I did get fired from my job.”
“Too bad. Where did you work?” Like I don’t know.
“At a church. I was the Youth Leader.”
“That must have been a treasure trove.”
“You know it.” He chuckles again. “Fresh faces all the time. I taught for years, you know. Even though I haven’t believed in religion for ages, it was too abundant of a hunting spot to walk away.”
I glance at Nantes in the rearview mirror, whose expression is tight. I’m sure he has to bite his tongue right now to keep from saying something. Now he’s learning what I go through, only I don’t walk away from creeps like this.
“How many?” Nantes asks, his voice sounding smooth and calm in spite of his expression.
“Who knows?” Fetterman answers with a bragging tone.
“Most of them are quick and meaningless, but I still remember Ruthie. She was such a sweet girl. She’d stay with my family sometimes while her parents traveled for missionary work.
Ruthie would get scared during the night, so I’d sit with her on the couch and watch cartoons until she fell asleep. ”
Fetterman sounds wistful, like someone recalling the time they met the love of their life.
“Her skin was so soft I couldn’t get enough. The older she got, the more trusting she was. She talked to me about her problems and fears, and I was a source of comfort her own parents couldn’t be.”
“What happened with her?” Nantes asks.
“They took her away from me when she was fourteen. Her father got a job out in Colorado. Never saw her again, and she doesn’t seem to have social media. I’ve tried to find her. I want to know what she looks like now.”
“Would you still like her as an adult?” I ask.
Fetterman shrugs, dragging his finger over the picture on his screen. “Probably not. Just curious to see how she changed.”
“What about your kids?” Nantes asks. “Ever—”
“No,” Fetterman says abruptly. “I never saw my own kids that way. I knew too much about them. I saw them when they were sick and dirty and bratty.” He shivers with the disgust I already feel. “Yeah, no. Not them.”
Small mercies.
“Here it is.” I point off the highway at the warehouse structure we picked for our outing.
It probably won’t take Fetterman long to notice the lack of other cars here, so I reach over to touch the stun gun still in the car door’s pocket, feeling for the power button so it has time to charge.
Alex is still distracted by the picture on his phone as I exit the highway and navigate the cracked road covered with weeds that leads to the building. It’s dark now, thankfully, so it’ll be a minute before he notices the silence.
When he finally looks up, his brow creases. “It looks so empty,” he says.
“Yeah, the guys must be in the back or something. We were supposed to be here a little early so we can take care of business before a bunch of people show up.”
“Gotcha,” he says, but I sense the nervousness creeping through him.
Nantes is calm in the back seat, with his hands folded in his lap. He looks so completely harmless that there’s no way he’d raise any concerns. Me, on the other hand…
I pull to a stop in front of massive wood and iron doors. I bet back in the day this place was pretty nice. Hints of its former glory cling to its crumbling facade, as if trying to remember their own existence.
Nantes exits first and Fetterman follows cautiously. I grab the stun gun and stuff it into my waistband, smiling as I walk behind him. Fortunately, we’re able to push the door open, given it’s barely hanging on by the hinges.
Inside, it’s dark and dusty, the putrid scent of animal waste and mold permeating the air. It smells like the graveyard it’s about to become.
“What is this?” Fetterman asks, now completely on edge. “Where is everyone?”
“Huh.” I pull my phone from my pocket. “I wonder if I got the address wrong.”
Pretending to tap the screen, I focus on my phone but see Fetterman twitching in my peripheral vision. Nantes looks calm as he glances around the empty space. After a minute, I turn on the flashlight of my phone and wave it around.
“Nope. This is the address.”
“No one’s fucking here. Are you dicking me around, man?”
“Me? Why would I do that?”
My eyes meet Nantes’s behind Fetterman’s and he nods. Guess it’s time to get things started.
“Oh, you know what?” I set my phone on the ground to give us a little bit of light. “This is a private party tonight. For just the three of us. And you’re the guest of honor.”
“What? I don’t fuck men. If you lured me out here for some gay shit, you’re way off.”
“I’m sorry. Molesting kids makes you think you’re above ‘gay shit’? That’s rich.”