Page 101 of The Fragile Ones
Katie caught herself breathing shallow—typical of an impending panic attack. Focusing as hard as she could, she pushed herself to move forward, following the sound of the voices.
She made her way up a rickety staircase and down a long hallway. To the left there were construction areas with caution tape and piles of brick. As she continued the voices became louder and easier to identify. One was a little girl, pleading between cries, and the other was Mason. Katie was sure of it by his pitch and speech patterns.
She inched closer to a small room at the end of the hallway which she speculated was a storage room. As much as she dared, Katie kept getting closer, holding her breath every time she thought Mason would come out and take her down. But he didn’t. It sounded like he was trying to coax the girl to go somewhere with him.
There was a noise at the bottom of the stairs—a scraping and then a bump. She slowly turned in the direction and listened intently. When she didn’t hear it again, she moved forward, thinking that McGaven was going to be joining her shortly. There was no way to contact him or alert him to where she was going—and the little girl was her first priority.
Katie was determined to bring Mason in alive so he would have to explain everything he had done to those little girls. She wanted him to look their parents in the eye. As she reached the doorway, she stayed flat against the wall next to the entrance, waiting for the right moment to take a quick look into the room.
Inside, Mason was leaning over a little girl sitting on the floor who was dressed in jeans and a sweater with a favorite doll ironed on. Her wrists and ankles were securely tied, and she had on a blindfold that had slipped down toward her chin. She was clearly terrified, shaking and never taking her big dark eyes away from him.
“C’mon, I’m not going to hurt you. I’m here to take you where it’s safe,” he insisted.
“No,” she cried. “You hurt me.Please…I want to go home.”
“No, I’m here to save you.”
“Hands in the air, Mason,” said Katie in a clear voice, her gun trained at his chest. “Do it now.” She prepared to shoot, noticing his heavy dark blue windbreaker with two greasy marks on the left sleeve. He turned to look at Katie, his face pale like he was sick, his eyes haunted and faraway.
“I knew you would figure it out,” he said, forcing a crooked smile. “Very clever you are.”
“Put your gun on the floor,” she said calmly. “Take it easy. Nice and slow.”
Mason put his gun down gently and stood up again. He made no move to go with Katie, but he seemed to want to get something off his chest. He was shaken. Shifting from side to side.
“I knew you would figure it out. I had given up on Chief Osborne. He wouldn’t protect the little girls—he’s just as guilty for doing nothing. He wouldn’t protect the fragile ones.”
The wordfragilestruck Katie like an arrow to the gut. It was the same word that was in Robin Mayfield’s supposed suicide note.
Fragile.
“Don’t you believe me?” he asked, turning his anxious expression to a worried one—his eyes wide and brows tensed.
“About what?” she said. “You’re a killer. You abducted and killed all those little girls and you made your own dad cover it up for you.”
“My dad? What are you talking about?” He continued to shift his weight from foot to foot. “My dad is dead. You believe I killed these little girls? I’msavingthem. I figured out what was going on. I knew there was something not right and that the chief was hiding something. I was right. See, I was right. He was hiding something for his son.”
“Foryou,” said Katie, taking a step closer into the room.
The little girl sobbed and cowered further in the corner.
“Oh, you…you believe that I’m…” His voice became a desperate whisper. “It’s true I’ve done some things that I’m not proud of…I’m sorry if I scared you the other night, and I didn’t mean to hurt your partner. But…I’ve been conducting my own investigation. I wanted to get to the truth.”
“You murdered Chief Osborne in cold blood,” said Katie, although there was something about Mason which seemed genuine. “Not a good way to get to the truth.”
“I know that was wrong, but he was a bad man. An accessory. He always covered for him. Even Rodriguez is dead. He did all the dirty deeds. Everyone dies for him, some way or another.”
“Mayfield?” she said trying mentally to piece together everything they’d learned so far.
He averted her gaze and ignored her.
You know all about him. You can reach out and touch him.
“Why did you pick this place?” she said, beginning to comb through the investigation in her mind.
“This place? I didn’t pick it. I followed the clues—just as you and your partner did. I tried to help you when I put that photo album with Robin Mayfield’s evidence. I knew I had to do it.”
Katie strained to think. Something seemed amiss—muddling the investigation. She felt like she was at a funhouse where nothing was as it would seem, every surface distorted and uneven, not knowing what to trust.
