The Men I Sent Forward (Baer Creighton Book 6) Read online

  Corazon looked around the room and said, “Wow, thank you. You saved me.”

  From the other room DeChurch said, “Who was that?”

  “I don’t know. He attacked me. I was walking home from work and he just attacked me.”

  Still in the other room: “You’re lucky to have found me.”

  Something about Chester DeChurch was off.

  Corazon said, “I’m lucky you were still awake. Thank you for letting me in. I’ll just wait a minute and go.”

  DeChurch stood in the entrance to the other room with a revolver loose in his hand and pointed at the floor.

  “Like I said, you’re lucky to have found me. You’re safe here. Wait a few minutes. Do you smell bleach? Is that you?”

  Chapter Two

  Corazon looked at the short black revolver in DeChurch’s hand. The chill of his eyes didn’t match the warmth of his smile.

  “Like I said, you’re safe here.” He held the revolver so she could see it from the side. “It’s a thirty-eight like Michael Corleone used to whack the police chief.”

  Corazon watched.

  DeChurch held her look and parted his lips with a wet click. “Great movie. Yeah… Well, aren’t you a cutie?”

  DeChurch lowered the revolver and gestured toward the sofa with his other hand. He turned on a lamp. The sofa was brown leather, the lamp copper and cowhide. The floor was shiny wood in a zebra pattern. DeChurch was rich and single. He stepped to the sofa and placed the .38 on an end table that looked new and beat up at the same time and sat.

  His knees popped.

  DeChurch patted the cushion beside him.

  Corazon tingled. With his body angled away from the gun he would have to twist his shoulders and extend backward to reach it. In a moment of alarm his grasp would be prone to error. Given his size and age, Corazon thought she could cut him first.

  She sat on the right side of the leather sofa with her blade in her front-opening right jacket pocket. She arched her back against the oversize armrest, rolled up her pelvis and barely — just barely — widened the gap between her knees.

  “Wow. Bleach and alcohol,” he said. “Have you been drinking?”

  Corazon flashed a smile, looked away and then met his eyes. “A little.”

  She eased her hand to her chest and unzipped her top a few inches. The cloth was snug. She wore no bra.

  Chester looked.

  She said, “I’m sleepy. I should go now. I am grateful to you, but I must go.”

  “You can go if you want.”

  She waited.

  Chester looked straight ahead.

  She smiled. “You’re scaring me with your gun. I think the man outside is gone. You should put the gun away.”

  “I like it nearby.”

  “I see how you look at me.”

  “How do I look at you?”

  “Like a man.”

  He smiled. “That isn’t strange, is it?”

  “You know…”

  He waited.

  “Sometimes when I need a little money…”

  “Yeah?”

  “Sometimes when I feel safe…”

  “Uh-huh…”

  “You know.”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Sometimes I make men happy.”

  DeChurch’s mouth fell a little and the corners turned up.

  Corazon grinned, but she sensed a look of calculation remained in her gaze and she wondered if that was how DeChurch felt earlier when his eyes didn’t match his grin.

  She’d seen men clumsy about sex, but this man was not. The situation reminded her of when her father taught her to play chess; the face of an adversary — even one who loved her — was not the same as the face of a friend. DeChurch didn’t look like a man scrambling to find the words to close a sex deal. He looked like a man engaged in a game of strategy, dealt a hand he knew would win.

  But if he perceived something strange about her being there, why didn’t he dismiss her? Should she bolt for the door?

  He said, “That could be interesting. Where are you from?”

  “Las Vegas.”

  “You might have passed through Vegas, but that isn’t where you’re from.”

  “You won’t tell?”

  “Tell who?”

  She stretched her left arm to the top of the sofa. The back was too tall so she lowered her arm to the cushion, fingers stretched toward DeChurch.

  Chester placed his hand on hers.

  Corazon tingled. All her dead so far had been armed only with superior size. DeChurch’s revolver changed things — but did it? He might be a little on edge but like all men, he was mentally weak. His constant desire for gratification made him gullible, and that negated the advantage of his greater physical strength.

  Corazon imagined the face of a random girl who would no longer be in danger from DeChurch, and slipped her hand from below his and placed it on top.

  She thought through her next moves: She’d lean toward DeChurch and slip her hand to his wrist. She didn’t have to restrain him, only slow him.

  No.

  First, she’d unzip her top another few inches and drag her hand between her breasts. His eyes would stop there and he’d misinterpret her hand on his wrist as if she’d placed it there to pull him on top of her. Men thought that way. She’d lock eyes, extract the Scarab from her pocket and whip it toward him.

  No…

  She’d wait until he was in motion of his own volition, then attack, firing her blade open midway to her target the way she’d practiced. Overshoot, jerk back and the blade would be positioned at his neck. Ripping toward herself, she’d destroy his left carotid artery and windpipe. Dechurch would spurt blood before his heartbeat quickened.

  Ready?

  Corazon had killed men with both firearms and knives and found comfort taking life with a blade. Sure, using a pistol in close proximity, the bullet punched meat so quickly after pulling the trigger that the sounds compressed into a single, oddly satisfying bang-smack. On the road she’d used Tat’s Sig Sauer and the instant explosion and spatter followed by the man’s raspy wheezing and choking was quite a reward. She’d watched his fear blossom and fade like time lapse photography. His death was really nice… but it wasn’t like watching a pedophile’s life bleed out from his neck and thighs.

  After the first kill she’d felt a tiny pang of conscience afterward, even though she’d taken great care coming to informed opinions.

  What if he’d changed his heart?

  Corazon had studied pedophiles while holed up in the mountain lair for six months. English was a second language but it came easily. She’d read news stories and blog posts and even medical research, and views disagreed. Pedophile recidivism was high or low depending on the research a writer chose to cite, but the bulk of the papers expressed what Corazon had seen — pedophiles were plotters — and from that kernel sprouted her understanding.

  Normal people found it difficult to knowingly cause harm to another. They required the heat of an impassioned moment to deliver the will to use violence. But pedophiles sustained their willingness to harm a child for sexual gratification throughout planning and execution. They didn’t need a moment of peak frustration to put them in an aberrant mental state. They were already there. Always.

  Pedophiles were wired differently.

  There was no other way to think about it. They were defective and whatever part of them that malfunctioned didn’t somehow get fixed in prison or during probation. Therefore, if a man was on the pedo website and he looked like the men she’d experienced in Salt Lake City…

  Fair game.

  So long as he failed her test.

  Corazon’s first kill asserted her in a world that didn’t care if she existed. The man had proved his rottenness. Executing a death sentence that she ordered using self-asserted law founded on her own moral experience proclaimed her an authentic being. It celebrated her agency and justified her, but she didn’t need to kill to feel good about hers
elf.

  Her motive wasn’t revenge. Her sister Tat had already killed all the men who had harmed her in Salt Lake City.

  Nor did she desire to punish pedophiles whom the government had already returned to society. Punishment was a rehabilitative tool used on redeemable people.

  Since she acted not for revenge or punishment, but only to protect the nameless innocent girl, Corazon needed to ascertain if her target was still a threat.

  After her first killing she stood before the mirror cleaning blood from her skin. She realized her face still recorded her years accurately. Her soul felt a hundred years old but her face was fifteen. Perhaps, instead of running up and shooting men, she might give each the opportunity to prove he no longer desired fifteen year old girls.

  Her next pedo had been a whitehair and he failed. He’d struggled but Corazon had spent months inside a cement mountain practicing knife moves learned from YouTube. Nothing changed when she started using the Scarab except pressing the mechanism to fire the switchblade. Her hand was fast and even if he had expected her to slice his femoral artery, he wouldn’t have been able to throw her — not with her hips on his shoulders and his trousers bunched at his knees.

  Corazon smiled again at DeChurch. She tried to twinkle her eyes but a nagging feeling that the house didn’t feel right kept her from slipping into the moment.

  “Okay. Here’s the truth. I need the money. I will make you very happy.”

  She pressed her tongue against the inside of her cheek and pulsed it outward, mimicking a blowjob, knowing it looked junior high but that would be a plus to a pervert.

  “Oh, really. Uh, wow.” DeChurch shook his head. “I don’t know. You just showed up from nowhere.”

  “Of course. A man was chasing me.”

  She looked at his groin.

  “And now you want me to pay you for sex. You police or something?”

  “Do I look old enough to be a cop? I’m fifteen.”

  That explained why he seemed on edge.

  Didn’t that mean he’d otherwise have sex with her, if she gave him the chance? Was the logic sound enough to kill him, now?

  She needed harder evidence.

  “I have a confession,” Corazon said.

  “What?”

  “I’m traveling to New York and I ran out of money. I looked you up on the government website. You’re like my regular clients. I’m passing through. I’m clean — ”

  “You looked me up?”

  “The website. It’s how I find all my clients.”

  “Fuck off, cop.”

  Corizon stood, unbuttoned her pants and wiggled them down her hips. She wore no underwear.

  DeChurch stared.

  “Would a cop do that?”

  “Uh. I — uh — you.”

  “I’ll call you Daddy if you want me to.”

  “No. Stop. I didn’t expect …. You said you looked me up on the Internet? Is that what you said? On the government website?”

  Corazon squinted. “I’m fifteen years old, Daddy.” She covered her crotch with her hand. “It’s like a vise.”

  “I don’t know. This feels like a setup.”

  “Me, setting you up?”

  She jerked up her pants and buttoned them then rested her hands in her jacket pockets with her right on the Scarab.

  “You’re fifteen?”

  “I think you saw I’m a woman.”

  “Hypothetically — how much money?”

  “A thousand.”

  He waved his hand. “I don’t keep that kind of cash.”

  “Yes you do. Men like you always do because you all fantasize about the same thing. A hot fifteen year old girl showing up breathless on your doorstep, wanting to fuck. You have the money, but if you don’t, I’ll come back after you go to the ATM.”

  “You uh, sound like you’ve done this before. Uh, how much time with you would I get? Speaking hypothetically?”

  “One hour or less.”

  “What if I don’t — ”

  “One hour or less.”

  “What if I don’t need an hour?”

  “A thousand dollars. One hour or less. Don’t be estupido.”

  “Okay, so let’s do this. I want you right here on my favorite sofa.”

  “You don’t mind that I’m fifteen?”

  “Like you said. You’re a woman. Why don’t you start by taking off your top? Then bring that pretty little mouth over here.”

  “Okay, but first… would you mind putting the gun away? I’m not really comfortable with guns.”

  He smiled and the moment was broken. “I have to decline. I am comfortable with guns. And since the clock is ticking and I bought the hour, take off your top and bring me your mouth, like I asked.”

  Ha-tchou!

  Corazon jolted. A sneeze? From one of the back rooms?

  “Who’s here?”

  Corazon leapt from the couch and batted away Chester’s grasping hand. She darted toward the door and, looking back while she twisted the knob, saw FBI agents stampeding the hallway behind her.

  “STOP!”

  “FREEZE!”

  “FBI!”

  She yanked open the door and shadows from the yard raced toward her. Motion-sensor lights flashed on and the shadows became a man and woman in blue jackets with bright yellow letters. Did they already have Tat? They pointed guns at Corazon with faces as blank as their barrels. Her nerves flashed. She shoved toward a gap between them but one of the agents inside the house grabbed her shoulder from behind and spun her.

  Corazon stumbled. The agent shoved her into the siding and her face bounced. Her front tooth chipped and she pressed the fragment to the roof of her mouth. Another agent pressed her neck to the wall and she felt vertebrae shift. Someone wrenched her arms behind her. Handcuffs ratcheted tight on her wrists. Hands smacked and jabbed all over her front, sides, crotch, legs. Someone removed her blade. Another found the bottle she’d used for alcohol.

  “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to talk to a lawyer for advice before we ask you any questions. You have the right to have a lawyer with you during questioning. If you cannot afford a lawyer, one will be appointed for you before any questioning, if you wish. If you decide to answer questions now without a lawyer present, you have the right to stop answering at any time.”

  Corazon said nothing.

  “Do you understand these rights as I have explained them?”

  Corazon looked forward. The man speaking to her was to her left.

  “We heard you hablo English the entire time you were inside the house.”

  Another agent spun her to face the man addressing her.

  “You are under arrest.”

  Chapter Three

  Three FBI agents placed Corazon in the back of a new-smelling sedan, seated behind the front passenger. They joined her in the car and she studied them in turn as passing streetlights illuminated the interior. Each agent was a different color. The one next to her in the back seat slouched and his head still touched the ceiling. A man sat in the front passenger seat. A female drove. Did that mean anything about her or the men?

  During their scuffle on the porch, Corazon had noticed the woman’s best feature: a thin knife scar on her cheek.

  Corazon’s father had overseen police for the Mexican government. She’d been in his office and had seen his name badge on his desk and the family photo to the left, turned so he could see it when seated. She never saw a piece of paper that was out of place. Her father’s office was sterile and quiet, a place of repose and strategy. He never spoke about his work but one time when he came home in a bad mood, she noticed blood on his cuffs.

  One evening the family had watched a cop show on television. Her father had leaned into the torture scene and later as the credits rolled, he dismissed the program with an arm wave; they’d gotten it all wrong.

  Corazon steeled herself, knowing when the car stopped and the
FBI led her inside, torture would follow. They would use a specialist, not the three arresting agents. The agents were firm and cold, but it took a special kind of villain to be the torture guy. Cops and FBI agents seemed capable of living by the golden rule, but torturers — and pedophile killers, for that matter — had to determine themselves separate from the rule-followers in order to claim the authority to do bad in the name of good. Corazon had watched documentaries about torture techniques online during her stay inside the mountain lair. Government researchers had discovered how to manipulate human beings so their responses were almost automatic: carefully curated suggestions, drugs, surgically applied doses of horrendous pain and at just the right moment, friendship and redemption given as reward for unburdening her soul of the truth.

  Of all the dangers she’d faced, she’d never been up against a man with as many advantages as the torture guy. She would not be able to resist completely, but every second she held out, every lie she told that the government would have to track down, bought more time for her sister to get away.

  More likely Tat would get herself caught or killed trying to save Corazon.

  Corazon blinked.

  Her duty was to escape or die bloody.

  Maybe they would wait to see what information Corazon divulged in questioning before deciding to torture her.

  Corazon looked beyond the agent beside her to the window and into the Colorado night. The man beside her was young and his features seemed androgynous. He was black with a shaved head, neither handsome nor ugly with very black skin, full lips and huge eyes.

  Could she kill him? What could she do with her hands fixed at her back?

  Escape seemed impossible, yet each minute her situation worsened because if breaking free of the back seat with three agents seemed impossible, soon she would be inside a police station that was probably fortified and guarded with multiple levels of security. If Glenwood Springs ran their law enforcement anything like her father had, if she entered the police station she would never leave government custody.

  Corazon inhaled deep and let the air flow from her lungs to her muscles. She would remain nimble minded. She would search every avenue for opportunities. She had advantages and though none seemed useful in the moment, she would remain watchful.