covered her mouth as she stared up at him, saying,
Oh my God, Charlie.
Henri told her she was greedy, but they could hear the teasing and the laughter in his voice. They watched him kneel between
her thighs, lift her buttocks, and lower his face until the girl squirmed, grinding her hips, digging her toes into the sand,
crying out,
“Please, I can’t stand it, Charlie.”
Jan said to Horst, “I think Henri is making her fall in love. Maybe he is falling in love, too? Wouldn’t that be something
to watch.”
“Oh, you think Henri can feel love?”
As the two men watched, Henri stroked, teased, plunged himself into the girl’s body, telling her how beautiful she was and
to give herself to him until her cries became sobs.
She reached her hands around his neck, and Henri took her in his arms and kissed her closed eyes, her cheeks and mouth. Then
his hand became large in front of the camera, almost blocking the image of the girl, and reappeared again, holding a hunting
knife. He placed the blade beside the girl on the towel.
Horst was leaning forward, watching the screen intently, thinking,
Yes, first the ceremony, now the ultimate sacrifice,
when Henri turned his digitally obscured face to the camera and said, “Is everybody happy?”
The girl answered, yes, she was completely happy, and then the picture went black.
“What is
this?
” Jan asked, jerked out of what was almost a trance state. Horst reversed the video, reviewed the last moments, and he realized
it was over. At least for them.
“Jan,” he said, “our boy is teasing us, too. Making us wait for the finished product. Smart. Very smart.”
Jan sighed. “What a life he is having at our expense.”
“Shall we make a wager? Just between you and me?”
“On what?”
“How long before Henri gets caught?”
Chapter 44
IT WAS ALMOST FOUR IN THE MORNING, and I hadn’t slept, my mind still burning with the images of Rosa Castro’s tortured body,
thinking of what had been done to her before her life ended under a rock in the sea.
I thought about her parents and the McDanielses and that these good people were suffering a kind of hell that Hieronymus Bosch
couldn’t have imagined, not on his most inspired day or night. I wanted to call Amanda but didn’t. I was afraid I might slip
and tell her what I was thinking:
Thank God we don’t have kids.
I swung my legs over the bed, turned on the lights. I got a can of POG out of the fridge, a passion fruit, orange, and guava
drink, and then I booted up my laptop.
My mailbox had filled with spam since I’d checked it last, and CNN had sent me a news alert on Rosa Castro. I scanned the
story quickly, finding that Kim was mentioned in the last paragraph.
I quickly typed Kim’s name into the search box to see if CNN had dragged any new tidbits into their net. They had not.
I opened a can of Pringles, ate just one, made coffee with the complimentary drip coffeemaker, then pecked away at the Internet
some more.
I found Doug Cahill videos on YouTube: frat house clips and locker-room antics, and a video of Kim sitting in the stands at
a football game, clapping and stomping. The camera went back and forth between her and shots of Cahill playing against the
New York Giants, nearly decapitating Eli Manning.
I tried to imagine Cahill killing Kim, and I couldn’t rule out that a guy who could slam into three hundred pounders was a
guy who could get physical with a resistant girl and accidentally, or on purpose, break her neck.
But, in my heart, I believed that Cahill’s tears were real, that he loved Kim, and, logically, if he
had
killed her he had the means to get lost anywhere in the world by now.
So I sent my browser out to search for the name the female tipster had whispered in my ear, the suspected arms trader, Nils
—middle name, Ostertag—Bjorn. The search returned the same leads I’d gotten the day before, but this time I opened the
articles that were written
Oh my God, Charlie.
Henri told her she was greedy, but they could hear the teasing and the laughter in his voice. They watched him kneel between
her thighs, lift her buttocks, and lower his face until the girl squirmed, grinding her hips, digging her toes into the sand,
crying out,
“Please, I can’t stand it, Charlie.”
Jan said to Horst, “I think Henri is making her fall in love. Maybe he is falling in love, too? Wouldn’t that be something
to watch.”
“Oh, you think Henri can feel love?”
As the two men watched, Henri stroked, teased, plunged himself into the girl’s body, telling her how beautiful she was and
to give herself to him until her cries became sobs.
She reached her hands around his neck, and Henri took her in his arms and kissed her closed eyes, her cheeks and mouth. Then
his hand became large in front of the camera, almost blocking the image of the girl, and reappeared again, holding a hunting
knife. He placed the blade beside the girl on the towel.
Horst was leaning forward, watching the screen intently, thinking,
Yes, first the ceremony, now the ultimate sacrifice,
when Henri turned his digitally obscured face to the camera and said, “Is everybody happy?”
The girl answered, yes, she was completely happy, and then the picture went black.
“What is
this?
” Jan asked, jerked out of what was almost a trance state. Horst reversed the video, reviewed the last moments, and he realized
it was over. At least for them.
“Jan,” he said, “our boy is teasing us, too. Making us wait for the finished product. Smart. Very smart.”
Jan sighed. “What a life he is having at our expense.”
“Shall we make a wager? Just between you and me?”
“On what?”
“How long before Henri gets caught?”
Chapter 44
IT WAS ALMOST FOUR IN THE MORNING, and I hadn’t slept, my mind still burning with the images of Rosa Castro’s tortured body,
thinking of what had been done to her before her life ended under a rock in the sea.
I thought about her parents and the McDanielses and that these good people were suffering a kind of hell that Hieronymus Bosch
couldn’t have imagined, not on his most inspired day or night. I wanted to call Amanda but didn’t. I was afraid I might slip
and tell her what I was thinking:
Thank God we don’t have kids.
I swung my legs over the bed, turned on the lights. I got a can of POG out of the fridge, a passion fruit, orange, and guava
drink, and then I booted up my laptop.
My mailbox had filled with spam since I’d checked it last, and CNN had sent me a news alert on Rosa Castro. I scanned the
story quickly, finding that Kim was mentioned in the last paragraph.
I quickly typed Kim’s name into the search box to see if CNN had dragged any new tidbits into their net. They had not.
I opened a can of Pringles, ate just one, made coffee with the complimentary drip coffeemaker, then pecked away at the Internet
some more.
I found Doug Cahill videos on YouTube: frat house clips and locker-room antics, and a video of Kim sitting in the stands at
a football game, clapping and stomping. The camera went back and forth between her and shots of Cahill playing against the
New York Giants, nearly decapitating Eli Manning.
I tried to imagine Cahill killing Kim, and I couldn’t rule out that a guy who could slam into three hundred pounders was a
guy who could get physical with a resistant girl and accidentally, or on purpose, break her neck.
But, in my heart, I believed that Cahill’s tears were real, that he loved Kim, and, logically, if he
had
killed her he had the means to get lost anywhere in the world by now.
So I sent my browser out to search for the name the female tipster had whispered in my ear, the suspected arms trader, Nils
—middle name, Ostertag—Bjorn. The search returned the same leads I’d gotten the day before, but this time I opened the
articles that were written
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