Page 14 of Requiem & Reverie

If I didn’t know better, I’d say he looks like he’s about ready to kill something.

5

Voss

Carl, you rotten piece of shit. Whether you harm the boy, or not, I plan to skin you alive when I get my hands on you.

I need to find somewhere I can review the video footage of the last few hours. I’m guessing the kid didn’t take off. In spite of his shithead moments, it’s obvious he loves and cares for his mom. Even his animosity toward me is born out of a need to protect her, so no way he upped and skipped off on his own. My guess is, he was swiped when Nola and I were fucking, which kind of sucks. What was undoubtedly the best sex I’ve had in years, tainted by my bastard uncle—who will pay dearly, if he harms the boy.

Gathering up my bags, I move swiftly, keeping my eyes on Nola, who stares at me through the window, phone to her ear, as I make my way to the car. The two of them probably waited a minute to make sure ‘the creep’ has properly vacated the premises. Unfortunately, I think the real creep vacated hours ago, taking her son with him.

I won’t tell her, or her brother, that, though. Not that I want to keep Nola in the dark, or watch her suffer the unknowns, but I can’t afford police fucking things up.

Carl didn’t take Oliver to hurt him. He took him to toy with me. To lure me out of my dormancy, this comfortable space I’ve fallen into with Nola, growing weak and lazy. He took him to trigger a reaction, and hells bells, the little prick is going to get one.

Once at my car, I take another minute to look back at her as the pickup truck backs out of the driveway, and I search her expression for any inkling that she doesn’t absolutely loathe me. The sadness and betrayal in her eyes tells me everything I need to know, though. The woman doesn’t trust me. Probably never will, after this, especially if she thinks I had any part in taking her son away.

I might be a torturing bastard, but there are a select few who’ve earned some immunity from my bastardly ways, and Nola is definitely one of them. I’d stab my own heart out before I’d put her through any level of suffering.

But, I suppose, she doesn’t know that.

I take off down the street, eyes peeled for Oliver, just in case I’m wrong about everything. In an empty Starbucks parking lot, I pull over and nab my phone from the passenger seat. Clicking on the app, I open the surveillance files for the last few hours, before wading through the footage for the camera placed out in the hallway, just past Oliver’s bedroom.

The camera detects movement, indicated by the narrowing of the lens, focused at the top of the stairs. Seconds later, a shadow appears, his face concealed behind a shiny latex mask. Even with the hallway light flipped on, I can’t make out any of the details. His clothes, equally obscure, seem to be a black coat and pants. For whatever reason, he places his hand over his chest as he passes by the camera that follows his movements.

It pans after him, while he makes his way down the hall, to Oliver’s bedroom door.

He opens the door.

Oliver is sitting on his bed, the white cord of his earbuds trailing down from his ears an indication that he can’t hear what’s going on.

His face snaps up from the cellphone in his hands, a moment of struggle shows the shadow standing over him, a flash of something shiny, and in the next scene, I see Oliver’s legs still against the bed.

Hoisting him off the mattress, the stranger drags Oliver’s unconscious body out of the room, backing himself past the camera, down the hall, then the staircase.

I rewind the footage to the point when the stranger first walks in and pause it.

The look on Oliver’s face sends a chill even through my usually unruffled bones. The quality is a bit shitty, but I can make out his fingers curled into the pillows. His mouth gaping, eyes panicked. Whoever walked into that room scared the shit out of him. There was no momentary confusion of trying to decide who entered his room. Trying to contemplate who might be behind that mask.

No, from the moment Carl walked in, Oliver knew.

He knew because he’s seen that mask before.

I switch to the outdoor camera and rewind it back to the same timeframe. The white van sits parked in the driveway. Broad daylight. From the house, he carries Oliver to the van and sets him inside the passenger seat.

Broad fucking daylight.

I’ll assume Jonah does his job and interviews any witnesses, but in the meantime, I know who took the kid and what he was driving.

* * *

It’s dark by the time I reach the Marriott—same place, same room as the last time I brought Nola here. With my belongings left beside the bed by the bellhop, I stand in the middle of the room, hands on my hip, staring off through the window across from me at the cityscape. Somewhere in that menagerie of buildings and skyscrapers, Carl is likely putting Oliver through hell. Probably has him locked in a room with no lights, as he often enjoyed doing to me.

A slap in the face.

Cunning little prick stole the kid and my cat right from under my goddamn nose, and that doesn’t happen. Not to me. I’ve gotten lazy, distracted.

He has the upper hand.