Page 2 of Skid
Finding the man who took from Aubrey when she was a child and end him.
She had given James a thumb drive that documented something so vile that I told Devlin I would watch it and gather information. He insisted he could do it, but I didn’t want him to have that vision in his head. He, his brother, and newfound sister deserved that much. Besides, it would put him in a dark place that Elise would struggle to bring him back from, so I took the thumb drive from him.
It sat on the desk in my cabin for over two weeks before I could bring myself to watch it, then I threw up twice while viewing it. My anger was deeper than anything I’d ever experienced before, and after capturing screenshots, I secured the thumb drive in my desk. For the next week, I ran every picture through our facial recognition programs and let the system analyze the data.
Aubrey deserved justice, and while we were able to give her some measure of vengeance, there was still someone out there who deserved to die.
It was an old newspaper article that sent me down the path I’m walking, hoping to chase down any other victims of that sick fucker’s degeneracy. The man who hurt Aubrey in unimaginable ways had died four years ago, along with his wife, in a car accident in Atlanta while on their way home from vacation.
With the contacts Devlin fostered through the years, we used back doors to track people the government needed to disappear without getting their hands dirty. Those same contacts turned their heads when we needed to find someone, so I began digging through the dead man’s life. From all outward appearances, he and his wife were good people, but I knew his revolting truth. Aubrey may not have been his first victim, or his last.
The newspaper article I found in their local small-town Missouri newspaper praised how they fostered children who needed homes until they could be reunited with their families, and they were touted as gracious, giving, and loving. I scoffed as I read it, knowing what kind of a sick freak he really was.
Questions began to swirl around my mind, and I used a back door into the state foster system, gaining a list of kids placed with them through the years. The state of Missouri closed their files since they didn’t have any foster kids under their care when they passed. The list wasn’t long, and I accessed every back door Devlin placed in his security systems to get the information I needed on every child placed in theircare.
They were both in their mid-forties when they died and had fostered eleven kids over sixteen years, five boys and six girls. Running background checks on eleven foster kids was harder than I anticipated. Some kids aged out of the system or were returned to their families, leaving little to no information for me to find. During my search, I questioned why they fostered instead of adopting but knew I’d never get an answer to that question.
After finding what information I could, I began to condense the list, removing the boys and praying they weren’t affected by him. The girls were all ages during their time with them, and I went one by one, either removing them due to age, how long they were with them, records from the state on their next placement, or a gut feeling.
That left one girl who spent twelve years with them and was listed as a runaway with the state. She was their longest placement, and they never made a move to adopt her.
Grace Palmer.
I read how she ended up in foster care, and my heart broke for the girl. She was another casualty of the rampant drug problems destroying communities, yet from every indication, her early life wasn’t all that bad. She lost her father to a sudden heart attack, and within a year, her mother lost her to foster care due to addiction.
Grace was placed with the Ringmans when she was four years old, long before Aubrey’s nightmare, and seemed to have a normal life until she was almost sixteen. Her state record said she had been a mild-mannered young woman, even with her past trauma. Shortly before she disappeared, her social media took a depressive turn and then it just ended. Her pages weren’t closed, but there hadn’t been any activity in years. Not even secret logins, which I looked for.
Without access to social security records, which were locked up tight within the government, it made finding her harder. There were no marriage or death records that I could find, no criminal background, no employment records, and after exhausting all available avenues, I called in the experts.
Devlin, James, and I began accessing the cameras and security systems that had been installed all over the country. Private homes, small businesses, traffic lights, ATMs, and major corporations all had Callahan Security systems installed.
For months, the system scanned every face captured on its cameras, and I continued to use the back door we had with the government programs, hoping to catch a glimpse of what our computers predicted she looked like. Without a current picture, we were flying blind, and with every passing day, my obsession to find Grace grew. The last photo of her was taken ten years ago, before she ran away, and the likelihood she had altered her appearance was high.
I was sound asleep in my comfy bed, the fireplace blazing in the corner, when my phone chimed from the end table. It was dark outside, and I stretched under the warm covers before reaching over to grab my phone from the charging dock. I was used to late night calls from club brothers in need or one of the Callahans. Reading the report, I shot up in bed and turned the lamp on as I quickly scanned the information.
“Fucking finally,” I spoke into the empty room as I slid from the bed and walked into the bathroom.
It was chilly for an early spring morning, so I slipped on a pair of gray sweatpants and a long-sleeved T-shirt before sliding my feet into my new house shoes. My laptop was on the coffee table from my search last night, and I needed to pull up the full report before getting my hopes up. We’ve had eight false reports, and I feared this might be another one.
Turning my computer on, I started a pot of coffee and tossed fresh wood into the living room fireplace, feeling the warmth across the open living room into the kitchen. My computer pinged, letting me know I was on a secure network, and I sat down. Reading the report, I flipped through the attached photos and felt my heart racing as each one downloaded.
After months of dead ends and false hope, Grace Palmer was staring at me through the screen. She had a small smile on her beautiful face as she made a withdrawal from an ATM. After finding the location of the machine, I realized it was installed last week in Alabama, along with a few hundred more across the southern United States.
Headlights flashed across the large windows along the front of my cabin, and I unlocked the door, knowing who was about to walk in. The coffee pot finished bubbling as James walked inside, shaking the water droplets off his jacket. I lifted my chin to him and turned the corner into my kitchen, reaching up and pulling down two cups.
“I was wondering how long it would take you to show up after the system sent the report,” I stated as he walked into the kitchen and accepted a cup from me.
“I got the notification about an hour ago and jumped in the car. I know we agreed to let you take the lead on this, but I feel like I need to do something.” His voice was filled with rage, and I sat down at the small kitchen table, waiting for him to join me.
James was a killer unlike any other. From outward appearances, he looked like a bored frat boy who wouldn’t hurt a fly. In reality, James has a higher body count than anyone I know. He was ruthless when he was younger, and it’s only been since he met Amaya that he found any part of a soul. Knowing, without exactly knowing, what his sister endured when she was only twelve years old had brought James’s monster to the surface.
“How are you going to handle this?” he asked, and I shrugged.
We didn’t know if Grace had to endure what Aubrey did, but my gut said something happened to that beautiful girl to make her run. She was a good student, active in her school activities, had friends who she spent time with, posting pictures of their infectious youth, but slowly, her outward life seemed to dim. Then she was gone . . . until now.
“I need to know if she’s okay. Sadie and Aubrey kept everything hidden for years, and I . . . I just need to know.”
James ran his hands through his brown hair and sighed deeply. “Do you think he hurt her too?”
