The Child Taker & Slow Burn by Conrad Jones Page B

during a shootout. Although she loved the unit, when she was approached to trial for the Terrorist Task Force she jumped at the chance. She had no regrets, despite the move costing her marriage. The relationship had always been shaky as her husband was intensely jealous of her working with men, and of her success. One day Tara had enough. She packed a small case and left without so much as a goodbye and she hadn’t spoken to him since. Their divorce had been brokered via solicitors and she never looked back. Her workmates were her family now. Grace could be prickly to say the least but the rest of the counter-terrorist unit were friendly and supportive.
    “Look here.” Grace’s voice interrupted her thoughts. On the floor was a cone-shaped red plastic top, less than an inch in length. “What do you make of that?”
    “It looks like the top from a tube of glue. Super glue?”
    “My thoughts exactly.”
    “We shouldn’t be looking for something on the floor. He’s stuck it to a tree.” Tara looked around the immediate area and checked the trunks of the nearby trees. “I’ll check the clearing, you take the streambed.” Tara could tell by the look on Grace’s face that she didn’t appreciate being told what to do, and she smiled to placate her. Grace turned and walked in the other direction without saying a word. Tara reached the clearing and then tracked backwards, checking the trunks, boughs and branches of the trees that she past.
    “Over here,” Grace’s voice called. “We’ve got something.” Tara walked back up the streambed to where they had separated. She saw Grace twenty yards on, crouching next to a thick oak tree. As Tara approached, she could see the silver glint of a metallic object.
    “What is it?”
    “Some kind of voice recorder.”
    “Glued to the tree?”
    “Yes, just like you said, Sherlock” Grace joked, her animosity to her colleague forgotten for the moment. “And look what else we have here.”
    Tara bent low and brought her head level with Grace. The glue was hardened into a clear plastic resin, and behind the recorder a tiny fibre shimmered in the light. “Is it hair?”
    “I think so.” Grace took a small evidence blade from her belt pack and prised the recorder from the wood.
    “Shouldn’t we inform the police?” Tara smiled.
    “We test it first, and then we’ll inform them, agreed?”
    “Agreed, let’s get this stuff back to the lab.”

Chapter Thirteen
     
    The first kick slammed into his groin with a sickening thwack. Blinding white lights went off in his brain as the delicate tissues that made up his testicles were crushed and torn. Jack went deeper into the darkness of his mind to escape the pain, but a second heavy blow sent sparks searing through his nervous system. He tried not to cry but this time tears ran freely from his eyes. When he was a boy, Father Paul liked to hear the boys crying, becoming more turned on by their distress, and so Jack learned not to cry aloud. If he remained impassive, like an automaton, then the abuse was over much quicker. Like anything else challenging in life, the human psyche adapted to sexual abuse, and found ways to survive it. Jack survived by building mental doors in his mind. The doors led to rooms, dark rooms deep in his mind where the abusers couldn’t reach him. It didn’t matter what they did to his body while his mind shut down to protect him.
    A third kick ruptured his right testicle and he screamed louder than he’d ever screamed before. He couldn’t catch his breath and thought he was going to choke to death. His mouth was open and he was gagging, but nothing came up. He could feel his ruined testicle swelling badly and the pain seared through his abdomen to every nerve ending in his body. The blood was pounding through his brain and his heart felt as if it was about to explode. Unconsciousness gripped him and dragged him down as the pain became too much for his body to bear. Through the darkness, he could