Page 18 of Cruel Captor

I need to focus.

As I sit in my office, working the computer, I remind myself of the control I still have.

I am confident that Charlemagne doesn’t know I’m here, which is helpful. I accessed the location tracker on the cell phone he gave me, and I rewrote the software so the phone would still report that I was in New York.

And I have figured out how he fooled the surveillance team I paid to watch Dr. Barnard and his family. Ever since the day I had my brother trapped at the Blackthorne Institute, I had them under guard. I needed Dr. Barnard to know that if he ever let Charlemagne escape, his family would pay the price.

But somehow, Charlemagne’s been free for six months, and Dr. Barnard never said a word to me. Even worse, he lied to me and showed me fake video making it look as if Charlemagne was still locked up.

Looking over the surveillance video of the Barnard family, I have a good idea of why he did that.

Charlemagne was holding different members of Dr. Barnard’s family prisoner. That’s how he got Dr. Barnard to cooperate, to maintain the ruse that he was still safely tucked away at the Blackthorne Institute.

Dr. Barnard would go out for a walk with his wife and a couple of his kids. A week later, he’d be seen taking three of his kids out to dinner, but this time, the wife and other two kids weren’t there. The entire family hasn’t been seen together at one time in six months.

And close-ups of the videos show the strained looks on their faces, the tightness of their smiles. I should have noticed that a lot sooner. If I were better at understanding and interpreting human emotions, I would have.

If Charlemagne has been holding members of the family prisoner, that means they know where he’s staying. Early this morning, I had my men stage a raid on Dr. Barnard’s house, and they snatched up Dr. Barnard and the two boys who are currently with him.

It’s midmorning when Dr. Barnard and his two sons, Fletcher and Paul, arrive. Fletcher is twelve and Paul is ten. The whole family is blond with pale blue eyes and fair complexions. They’re all pale from strain, and there’s a haunted look in their eyes, but Dr. Barnard is the only one who’s been crying. His cheeks are still wet with tears and his lean face is puckered with self-pity. His sons just look angry and resolute. They’re more of a man than he is, and their voices haven’t even changed yet.

Fletcher looks at me suspiciously. “You’re not Micah,” he says to me. “You look like him, but you walk differently.”

Smart boys.

“I’m his twin brother. My name is Joshua. Nothing’s going to happen to you. I just need to talk to you.” I’ve never been the type to say reassuring things before. Tamara’s influence again.

I gesture at Garrett. “Take them down the hall and give them some video games while I talk to their father,” I say to him.

They glance at their father. He looks away, avoiding their eyes, and he wails as I lead him down the hall. He’s actually crying out loud in front of his children. Jesus. What a pussy.

Once I get him into my sound-proofed workroom, I tie Dr. Barnard to a chair and I pull up my cart of tools. I pick up a skinning knife. I don’t have time to screw around.

He starts crying louder, like a big miserable infant.

“I wish I’d never met you,” he snivels. “Do you know what your brother did to me?”

“No, but I hope it hurt. Now you’re going to start talking.”

He tells me everything he knows. Charlemagne seduced one of the nurses and, with her help, escaped six months ago. Dr. Barnard was stupid enough to try to cover it up so I wouldn’t find out.

That was a mistake.

My brother kidnapped Dr. Barnard and took him to a big empty warehouse and cut his balls off to pay him back for keeping him prisoner. He interrogated Dr. Barnard and found out I was the one behind his continued imprisonment. He also showed Dr. Barnard’s the head of the nurse who helped him escape. Left it sitting on a table next to him while he tortured him.

Then he set him free, but only after kidnapping Dr. Barnard’s wife and two of his daughters. And ever since then, he’s swapped them out like pieces in a chess game. Sometimes he’d keep the daughters, sometimes the sons, sometimes the wife would get to stay with her kids, sometimes he’d send her back home and keep a few of her children. There are three girls and two boys.

If Dr. Barnard utters a word, they’ll be killed.

His wife and his daughters were snatched up a week ago, and his sons returned to him. He has no idea, of course, where they’re being held.

So here he is, a neutered, pathetic, sniveling shell of his former self. His life unraveled by greed and stupidity.

But what he’s telling me is the biggest break I’ve gotten so far.

For this to work, Charlemagne would have to be staying in a house that’s reasonably close to Dr. Barnard’s family. My search area just shrunk considerably.

I hurry to the room where Fletcher and Paul are waiting. They’re sitting on a couch, huddled close together. Garrett gave them Nintendo Switches, but they’re just ignoring them, talking to each other in low voices.

---