Before Cain Strikes. Joshua Corin
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Be for his height and for giving him this perfect pet and for his uncle teaching him how to drive when he was twelve. He shifted the brown station wagon into Reverse.
He drove off to his secret place, his special place. His new pet, Marcy, slept through the entire trip. Every ten seconds Timothy would peek at her face in the rearview. The eyes were closed, but Timothy knew what color they would be. Blue.
He parked near his secret place. By now an inch had accumulated on the ground, and his sneakers crunched powder with every step. That was fine. The time for stealth was almost over. He went around to the side of the car, studied those buckles and belts and straps for a good five minutes and then went to work unfastening them, which took another fifteen.
Behind him, traffic passed. No one paid much attention to what they saw. They were too eager to return home before the snowstorm really hit.
Then Marcy awoke. Her eyes were more green than blue, and they searched Timothy’s face for the semifamiliar features of her mother or father. Her eyesight could discern shapes and colors, but details would be a mystery for another few weeks. This wasn’t her mother, she concluded. So it must be her father.
She wanted her mother.
She cried.
Timothy picked her up out of the car seat. Marcy’s face scrunched up and she cried some more. “Shh,” he told her. She ignored him. He held her at arm’s length. Snowflakes dissolved on her round reddening face. “Please stop,” he said. But she didn’t. They were not far from downtown, and although everyone was hurrying home, a crying baby would still draw attention. Had he chosen poorly? Was she maybe not his perfect pet?
“Please,” he begged her.
Silencing Marcy would actually have been relatively easy. All he had to do was cradle her head with one hand and then smash that head, forehead first, into the roof of the station wagon. Her soft skull probably would explode like a piece of citrus, all pulp and juice and ripped ripe peel.
But that was the old Timothy. He was fourteen now. He was a man. He was more patient. The new Timothy held Marcy against his shoulder and bounced at the knee. He’d seen people do this in the mall. It seemed to work.
It had to work.
It worked. Marcy’s face and body relaxed. Her cries stopped. Her eyes recommenced their exploration of the world around her. The sky seemed to be falling. How pretty.
Timothy didn’t waste any time. He hurried her, still on his shoulder, to his secret place. Nobody would find her here. Nobody would hear her. She would be safe and warm and his. He settled her into her new home, made sure she was secure and then rushed back to the brown station wagon. Its engine was still running. He thought about Marcy’s mother. By now she must have returned to the parking lot. By now she must have realized her child was no longer hers. He drove up to the university campus and parked in one of the more populated lots. He unrolled all of the car’s windows, tossed the keys into a sewer drain and caught the next bus back to town.
He bought his new pet some supplies: formula, a pink blanket, diapers, a plush smiling antelope. The stores were beginning to shutter their doors for the day. People in line were talking accumulation. They were talking one to two feet. They paid no mind to a fourteen-year-old boy running an errand for his baby sister.
Once he had returned to his secret place, once he fed his new pet and played with her little hands and watched her close her green eyes—how big they were!—he knew he’d best get on his way. Blizzards inconvenienced the best of intentions, even for the new Timothy.
That night, Mother made lamb. The three of them ate quietly. No mention was made of the baby-napping that had occurred right outside her clinic. Their household was as soundless as the falling snow. Once he was finished, Timothy excused himself and went to his room. It was time to share his great good news with Cain42.
Later that night, around 3:00 a.m., he borrowed his parents’ car, drove out through the snow to his secret place and spent some more time with Marcy. He wasn’t surprised to find her crying, so he fed her some formula and changed her diaper and rocked her in his arms. He was genuinely surprised how much that seemed to quiet her down and deeply regretted having to leave, but he needed to return home before sunup, if only because of the borrowed car.
Timothy awoke late the next morning with rare verve. His thoughts immediately went to Marcy. He couldn’t wait to see her again and play with her. Both of his parents had already gone to work. Mother had left him a note, reminding him to stop by the clinic, since he hadn’t done so yesterday. That would have to be his first destination.
The outside air was crisp. Timothy tucked his hands into his heavy coat. His left hand closed around his Taser C2. He walked slower than usual along the road, cognizant of slippery patches. Such was the price he paid for always wearing sneakers. It was almost noon by the time he first spotted the strip mall and—
There was a squad car parked in front of the travel agency.
Timothy’s mind whirred. Along the side of the squad car were the words Sullivan County Sheriff’s Department. This wasn’t about Marcy. This was about Lynette. Somehow they had made the connection between the house and the free trip. What had he done wrong? He had been meticulous! He had followed all of Cain42’s rules to the letter, hadn’t he? What would Father tell them? What was Father already telling them? If they had come this far, surely they would be able to piece together the missing child. After all, he had taken her from right in front of his mother’s own clinic. Stupid! The old Timothy had been right all along.
He needed to contact Cain42. Cain42 would know how to proceed. Timothy headed back to the house, quickly, his breath sending smoke signals into the sky.
On the walls of Hammond Travel Agency were posters, dozens and dozens of posters, all depicting a Wonder of the World or a Work of Art or Great Sight to See Before You Die. They weren’t arranged by country or even continent. Here was the Parthenon next to the Sydney Opera House next to an ad for a safari in Zaire.
It reminded Esme of a bedroom and a jewelry box and her heart sank a bit. How Lynette Robinson would have loved this place.
The proprietor of the travel agency was a pleasant-faced fellow named Patrick Hammond. “Call me P.J.,” he told them. “Everyone does.”
Esme and Sheriff Fallon sat down by P.J. at his geography lesson of a desk. Two globes occupied opposite corners of the desk. Esme spun one. She couldn’t resist. Her finger landed on the Canary Islands.
“We actually have a package,” said P.J., “that includes the Canary Islands and Casablanca, all expenses paid, for well under three thousand.”
She smiled at him. This man wasn’t one for the soft sell. He exuded confidence and calmness. It was only when she sat back in her seat that she wondered how much of it was an act. If Tom were here, Esme was certain that he would have been able to figure out Patrick “Call Me P.J.” Hammond in half a second…if there were anything to figure out. But that’s why she and Sheriff Fallon were here.
“So tell us about this contest,” the sheriff said.
“Well, that’s our pride and joy!” P.J. flashed them a grin that spanned from wall to wall. “It’s a sales promotion, really, but you’d never know it. Once a year we offer a raffle. All you’ve got to do to enter is fill out a form on our website. That adds you to our emailing list, but it also makes you eligible for the annual contest. In the past, we’ve sent families on cruises to, oh, Bermuda, Cancún, Nova Scotia, the western Mediterranean. We have over a thousand subscribers to our weekly newsletter from all across the state and even a few in Massachusetts and Vermont. Sheriff Fallon, have you ever been to Tahiti?”
“Sir, as I said on the phone, this is a murder investigation.”
“Yes. You’re absolutely right, and trust me, Sheriff, when I read about what happened in the newspaper, I was horrified. What is this world coming to, right? I can’t imagine some of the truly terrible things you must encounter on a daily basis. Our jobs couldn’t be more different. I have tremendous