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Author's Chapter Notes:

Here you go! What happens at the church... Enjoy! TAG


///~///~


Chapter 11 - He Was Right Here.



The Jeep screeched to a halt directly in front of the steps up to the ornate double doors of the old stone church. It wasn’t a large building, but it had been built back in a day where even smaller churches attempted to imitate grand cathedrals, so it definitely looked the part of a church. There was even a large, roseate stained glass window over the entrance. 


But Justin didn’t have time to admire the architecture right then.


The second the vehicle stopped moving, Brian was out of the car and sprinting for the entryway. Justin was only a few paces behind. They hit the doors running, causing the wooden portals to slam loudly against the old fashioned brass door stops, and were immediately plunged into the relative darkness of the dimly-lit sanctuary. The sudden truncation of their vision meant that Brian almost didn’t notice that the line of pews was offset with regard to the entrance, resulting in the rearmost set of seats blocking his direct line of attack; if it weren’t for his quick reflexes, Brian would’ve fallen on his ass and Justin would’ve toppled over him a second later. 


After that, they were forced to slow down to a brisk walk as they made their way up the aisle towards the front of the darkened church. Once their eyes adjusted, however, they were quickly able to locate the racks of votive candles which were set up in the recess of the South transept. Brian took off in that direction, jogging again as he made his way down the length of the nave, with Justin hot on his heels.


Only, when they got there, there was nothing whatsoever to see.


It had taken them less than ten minutes to race the few miles from the loft to Deb’s church, but in that short time their quarry had disappeared. Everything else about the scene looked the same - the rows of votive candles in their glass cups, the modernistic painting of the Madonna on the wall behind the rack of candles, and the lines of dark wooden pews stretching away into the Nave - it was all there. But there was no stroller. No Gus. No kidnapper. 


In fact, there was no one at all in the church when Brian and Justin arrived. The building appeared empty. If it hadn’t been for the merrily twinkling little candles, the place might have looked deserted. 


“MOTHERFUCKER!” Brian screamed loudly enough to shake the hundred year old rafters. “They’re fucking gone! We’re too fucking late!”


“Shit,” Justin agreed, albeit at a lower volume. 


“Is there something I can help you with, Gentlemen?” an unknown voice startled them both, causing the pair to spin around to find the new speaker.


Walking their direction across the breadth of the transept was a man dressed in somber black slacks and shirt, the white collar at his neck giving away the man’s profession. He wasn’t a bad looking guy - for a priest - in his late 20s or early 30s, with sandy blond hair, and a kind smile. As he approached, he held both hands out, palms up, seemingly trying to imitate the statue of a benevolent Christ that hovered over the alter a few meters away.


Brian wasn’t mollified by any of that, though. “Did you see a baby in a stroller? He was right here,” Brian pointed to the floor in front of the rack of votive candles, “just a few minutes ago.”


“I’m sorry, my son, but I’ve been hearing confessions for the past hour or so and haven’t even looked out of the confessional until just now,” the priest answered.


“Damn it!” Brian growled, his fists balled up, looking like he wanted to hit something. “They were JUST here! We fucking saw them . . .”


“Please, my son, we don’t use language like that in the church,” the Priest admonished him.


The young empath put a restraining hand on Brian’s forearm, just in case the distraught father was inclined to act on his impulse to hit the unhelpful priest, which was what Justin was sensing his companion wanted to do right then. “Sorry, Father. As you can tell, my friend  is a little upset. Someone took his son this morning and we thought we saw the kidnapper come in here.”


“Oh. I’m so sorry. That’s horrible,” the priest exclaimed with a look of genuine sympathy on his face. “I really wish I could be of more help, but I honestly didn’t see anyone else in here this morning except for our usual parishioners coming to confession.”


Brian muttered one last “fuck!” under his breath then abruptly turned around and headed back towards the exit. 


Justin offered up a weak smile of gratitude for the priest and then followed in Brian’s footsteps. Meanwhile, he was desperately scrambling to come up with something consoling to say to the man whose hopes had been snuffed out once again. Justin could feel the gloomy desperation wafting off Brian’s retreating form. Not that the youth blamed him; Justin felt almost as despondent, especially since it had been his ‘vision’ that had sent them off on this wild goose chase. 


“Wait!” Justin heard the priest call out to them before they’d got more than a few meters down the aisle. “Is your name Brian Kinney?”


Brian froze in mid-step. He turned around slowly, looking curiously back at the priest. “Yes?”


“Then I presume THIS is for you?” The priest pointed towards the rack of votive candles.


Both men started to retrace their steps. Now that his attention had been drawn to the candles themselves, Justin could see there was something white perched between two of the rows of flickering lights. The whiteness of the object reflected the candlelight, causing whatever it was to glow much brighter than it otherwise would in the dimness of the old church. As they neared, it quickly became obvious that the glowing object was a standard-sized white envelope. On the front, clearly visible even in the low light, was written the name, ‘Brian Kinney’, and Brian’s home address.


“What the fuck?” Brian went to reach for the envelope, but Justin stepped in front of him just in time.


“Stop, Brian! Don’t touch it,” Justin warned, getting an exasperated look for his effort. But he didn’t relent. “It’s evidence, right? There could be fingerprints or DNA or something. You can’t touch it till the cops look it over.”


“Call Horvath!” Brian ordered, passing over his phone to the teen without further comment. 


///~///~


It took the cops a full thirty minutes of hoopla before they finally let Brian open the damned envelope. 


First, Horvath and company had roared up to the church with lights and sirens blaring as if they were going to take down a dangerous drug cartel or something. The entire church and its environs were searched, but there was no sign of Gus or his abductor. The Priest, who gave his name as Father Thomas, was officially questioned. He told the cops the same thing he’d told Brian and Justin. Brian blew off the cops’ questions about why he’d come by the church with a vague statement about how, ‘Debbie always lit a candle here whenever bad shit was happening . . .’, without further explanation, and they seemed to accept his unspoken spirituality. Justin mostly just held his tongue and tried to stay off of everyone’s radar; he’d always been a lousy liar and he didn’t want to get questioned too intently.


Finally, after Horvath deemed the investigation to be at the properly chaotic stage, he handed Brian a pair of latex gloves and let him pick up the envelope.


Brian took the envelope in hand, pulled the top flap out from where it was tucked inside the bottom - for some reason, it hadn’t been sealed - and pulled out the folded sheet of paper contained within. 


Just like the note the police had found in the park where Gus was abducted, this was a single sheet of copy paper with a block of all-caps text in the center. There was no other identifying information on the page, front or back. The printing itself looked like it could have come from any computer printer in the universe. Justin didn’t see that there was any clue there. Unless there were fingerprints, or something else beyond what you could see with the naked eye, this was probably another dead end clue. 


Brian proceeded to read the ransom demand aloud.


‘PUT THE MONEY IN A BLACK BRIEFCASE AND LEAVE IT IN THE TRASH CAN NEAR THE ENTRANCE TO THE FORT PITT MUSEUM ON TUESDAY MORNING BY 11:30 AM. NO POLICE. IF YOU FOLLOW DIRECTIONS, YOU’LL BE GIVEN FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS ON HOW TO GET YOUR BRAT BACK. IF NOT, YOU’LL NEVER SEE HIM AGAIN.’


Nobody commented for several long moments.


Then Brian erupted. “Tuesday? The creep thinks he’s going to keep my kid till fucking Tuesday? No fucking way!”


It didn't take an empath to know that Brian Kinney was freaking out; the volume of his voice was more than enough to demonstrate that fact. Not that Justin would have had any advantage at the moment, however, since Brian had once again mastered his emotions and was now completely blocking out the youth. Justin still didn’t know how Brian was doing it, though. How could anyone with an emotional sentience that strong, strangle all his feelings that viciously? It would require a steel grip on one’s psyche that was difficult to comprehend. Either that or years of practice. An even better question, though, was why you’d want to? Why did Brian feel the necessity to stifle all semblance of emotion? It’s not like anyone other than Justin would be able to sense them, right? And Brian had no reason to protect himself that securely from Justin. So who was he trying to keep out? 


All those thoughts raced through Justin’s mind in a flash while the rest of the people in the church struggled to placate and reassure the outwardly hysterical father. 


“Enough, Kinney,” Horvath spoke up, using a voice that was much more forceful than his usual fatherly tone. “You going ballistic on my team won’t get your son back any earlier.” Brian glared at the older detective but at least he’d stopped cursing them all out. “Besides, this delay will give us more time to get a plan together. We won’t have to rush to put in security at the drop site. And didn’t you say you needed time to come up with the cash? Well, now you have it.”


“But what about Gus in the meantime? Tuesday . . . That’s four fucking days away. How do we know the fucking kidnapper will take care of him?” Brian stated the concerns they all had out loud. 


“We don’t. And if the only way this kidnapper plans to communicate is through notes left at random places around town,” Horvath waved the note, which was already protectively ensconced in a plastic evidence bag, in front of Brian’s face as an example, “if we don’t have any means of two-way conversation then, I’m sorry, but we have no way to confirm your son’s condition.” Horvath shook his head. “This guy is smart. We’re at a disadvantage. Which is why we can use all the extra time we can get to plan out our strategy. Otherwise we might never catch him.”


Brian looked like he was still going to protest, but Horvath put a comforting hand on the worried father’s shoulder and continued.


“Right now this guy is playing us and we need to turn that around. Once he’s got your money - assuming you’re still going forward with the ransom drop - we lose all leverage to force him to return the kid. So we need to use whatever edge we’re given to allow us to find him before that point.” This frank assessment, although commendably honest, did nothing to reassure Brian, who dropped down onto the nearest pew, his anger deflating and leaving him looking small and defeated. “Trust me, Kinney. We’ll use the next four days to intensify our investigation and make sure we have a rock solid plan in place before Tuesday. It’s the best hope we have to catch the person who took your son.”


///~///~


It took another hour or so for the police to finish up at the church. Brian stuck around, hoping against hope that there would be something else, some other clue, that they might find. Unfortunately, the church didn’t have any type of video surveillance on the premises and there didn’t seem to be any eyewitnesses that saw whoever had dropped off that envelope. The cops did their best, nevertheless - dusting pretty much everything in sight for fingerprints - but in the end, the note seemed like it would be the only real clue they’d be taking away from the scene. And that would need to be taken back to the lab for further processing. So eventually Brian was convinced to leave, still without any solid answers. 


By that point it was getting close to five pm. Justin had not only missed the entire day of school, he was now late getting home. He assumed that the constant vibrating of the phone in his pocket had something to do with this fact. He had no idea what he would tell his mother, who was sure to quiz him on where he’d been and why he hadn’t come home at his usual time. He’d received a few texts from Daphne throughout the afternoon, begging for updates, but he’d either put her off with vague answers or simply ignored her messages as well. Without any good news to relate, he didn’t much feel like saying anything, even to his best friend. But now that they weren’t needed at the church any longer, and he didn’t have any more practical assistance he could offer to Brian, it felt like maybe it was time for Justin to head home and deal with the fallout from his lost day. 


As they were walking out of the church together, Justin finally spoke up. “I hate to just abandon you like this, Brian, but I need to check in at home. I should have been back from school, like, an hour ago. My mom is probably freaking.”


Brian merely nodded without comment as he got in the driver’s side of the Jeep. Justin hesitated on the sidewalk next to the vehicle. He was trying to figure out where the closest bus stop was and if he had enough change on him to pay the fare. Then he remembered that he’d left his school bag back at the loft. 


Before he could say anything, though, Brian reached across and pushed open the passenger-side door. “Get in.”


Justin wasn’t gonna pass up a free ride so he followed directions without protest. They made a quick pit stop at the loft, picked up Justin's bag, and then headed off to the ‘Burbs. The trip was mostly silent - the only conversation being Justin’s hushed directions. Brian was close-lipped and emotionally distant the whole time. Justin let him be; it had been a long day and they were both spent, so it seemed wise not to push. 


“It’s that white brick, split-level on the right,” Justin announced when they eventually reached his block.


“. . . About fucking time. Another few miles and we’d be in Scranton,” Brian murmured as they pulled up in front of the house, the inner city boy obviously not used to commuting as far as the suburbs.


“I really appreciate the ride. It would have taken me at least an hour, maybe more, on the bus at this time of night,” Justin tried to placate Brian with gratitude, although without any noticeable response. Then the boy paused, struggling to find a way to word the rest of what he wanted to say. “I’m sorry I wasn’t more help today, Brian. And I’m REALLY sorry I didn’t come to you earlier with my concerns, no matter how unlikely it was that you’d believe me. I’ll . . . I’ll keep trying to reach out to whoever took Gus. If I discover anything more concrete I’ll let you know, okay?”


“You got a pen in that bag?” Brian asked, seemingly out of the blue.


“Uh . . . Yeah.” Justin unzipped a side pocket and pulled out a blue ballpoint.


Brian lifted the lid of the center console and handed over a business card. 


“Write this down,” he ordered, dictating a phone number, which Justin jotted down on the back of the card. “Call me - Immediately! - if you see anything else in one of your fucking ‘visions’.”


Justin smiled sadly but nodded his agreement. “I promise.” Then he tore the card in half, keeping the bottom section which still showed Brian’s numbers, and scribbling something else on the half he subsequently handed back. “Here’s my number too; just in case you need it.”


Justin might have said more - hell, he might even have tried for a kiss goodbye - except that right then Justin noticed the curtains in the front window being pulled back and his father’s face appearing behind the glass. Craig Taylor didn’t look like he was in a good mood. Justin figured he was in enough trouble and probably shouldn’t push his luck with blatant homosexual displays in the front drive. So, with nothing more than a small wave and another sad smile, he got out of the Jeep. 


As he was closing the car door, Brian offered a brusque, “later.” Then the Jeep’s owner peeled away from the curb and was gone in mere seconds. Leaving Justin to face the reckoning inside on his own. 


“Justin! Finally. Where have you been?” Jennifer Taylor was in the doorway, hissing angrily at her son before Justin had even made it all the way up the walk. Once the door had been closed behind him, though, and there wasn’t any further risk that the neighbors might hear, her voice got much louder. “I’ve been trying to call you all day. Why didn’t you answer?”


“And, before you answer,” Craig Taylor interposed while Justin was still trying to cobble together some sort of reply, “we already know you skipped classes today. The school called your mother first thing this morning. So don’t try and bullshit us.”


Justin would have known things were serious even without his empathic skills when his mother didn’t bother to correct his father’s bad language. Meanwhile, his senses were being deluged with a flood of reproach and disappointment - coming from his mother - and a dash of criticism and blame added in for good measure - directed his way from his father. It was pretty clear he was gonna be punished and, judging by his parents’ current mindset, things would only get worse if he tried to prevaricate. But how much of the truth he should reveal was the real question. Craig had only barely begun to deal with the concept of his son being gay, so confessing that he’d spent the day with his significantly older male lover, probably wasn’t wise. 


The situation called for some pretty tricky spin.


“Did you see the Amber Alert from this morning?” Justin asked, catching both parents off guard with his seeming non sequitur; Craig just looked confused, but Jennifer shook her head, ‘no’. “A little boy was taken while his mother was out jogging and it turns out that I sorta know the parents.” This was the tricky part, because Justin didn’t want to reveal precisely how he’d come to know Gus’ parents. “Lindsey, the mom, is an art teacher,” Justin offered, hoping they’d jump to the - wrong - conclusion that she was one of Justin’s art teachers at St. James’. “So, when I found out what happened, I decided to go offer whatever help I could.” Justin turned to his mother, whom he could sense was already starting to soften. “Sorry I didn’t call you, Mom. It was pretty intense over there and I forgot I had my phone turned off.”


The instantaneous upwelling of compassion and sympathy from Jennifer proved that Justin had read his mother well. She was already prepared to not just forgive Justin’s failings, but ask what she could do to help as well. Craig wasn’t going to be quite that easy though. Justin’s father was, at best, indifferent to the troubles some unknown family was facing; what mattered to Craig was the propriety and discipline of his own little clan. Justin’s supposedly charitable intentions didn’t justify his transgressions in the mind of the Taylor patriarch.


“That’s no excuse for skipping school, Justin,” Craig maintained stubbornly. “Or for not telling your parents where you were all day. You can’t just go running off half-cocked, traipsing all over creation on a school day, without permission. That is just unacceptable. I don’t care what your reasons were. School needs to come first, young man.”


When Craig got all self-righteous like that, Justin knew the best course of action was to just go along with him. “You’re right, Dad. I’m really sorry. I was just so upset by the news, I didn’t think.”


“You’re damn right, you didn’t think! Which is why you’re grounded for the rest of the weekend. That should give you plenty of time to THINK about how stupid this little stunt was,” Craig declared authoritatively. 


Justin groaned. “But, Dad, I promised I would go back and help out more tomorrow . . .”


“Tough! You should have thought of that before you skipped school.”


“Craig . . .” Jennifer started to intervene, only to be cut off as well.


“No, Jennifer. I’m putting my foot down. The boy needs to learn to think before he does something stupid. Now he has to suffer the consequences of his actions. End of discussion,” Craig declared, with the pompous air of a petty dictator, before pointing Justin towards the stairs. “Now, get up to your room and get started on all the classwork you missed.”


Justin sighed but knew better than to argue. He’d actually got off pretty easy, to be honest. If his father knew what he’d really been up to that day, or with whom, Craig would have had a complete meltdown. But to be stuck at home all weekend, when he knew how much Brian was freaking out, was hard to bear. Not that he’d been much help to Brian so far. Somehow, though, Justin couldn’t help feeling that, if he could just figure out what was intermittently blocking his empathic skills, he could make a real difference to the investigation. He could help Brian find his son and put the kidnapper in jail where the creep belonged. And his intuition told him that he wouldn’t figure out this mystery while he was grounded and locked away in his room.


At least his father hadn’t taken the truly drastic step of taking away Justin’s phone or computer. He could still touch base with Daphne and get all the assignments he’d missed that day. Maybe if he plowed through all his classwork, and could prove to his parents he was thoroughly caught up, they’d relent on the grounded thing? 


It was worth a shot, right? 


So Justin spent the next several hours wading through Chemistry and Calculus problems, filling out that week’s verb charts for Spanish III, completing the Civics class worksheet, and preparing a rough outline of the speech topic he’d been assigned for the class debate the following week. He didn’t need to bother with the assignment for his Art class, since he had plenty of material he could hand in for the perspective study they’d been assigned that day. Which left only English Lit and reading the three chapters of Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’ that needed to be completed by Monday. Unfortunately, that was the kind of assignment Justin enjoyed the least. The book was a snooze, in his humble opinion. And the hot cocoa and cookies his kind-hearted mother had brought up for him just as he was delving into the boring, old tome didn’t help. 


Before he was a dozen pages into the first chapter, Justin’s eyes were drooping.


///~///~


“Damn it! Will you shut up already!” The angry voice cut through the high-pitched wails of the frantic infant lying in the old bassinet.


Justin could see the baby and it’s bed quite clearly. The red-faced and frantic infant was dressed only in a dingy onesie and a bulky disposable diaper that looked like it was a couple sizes too large. The wood frame of the bassinet was nicked and the paint was chipped in several places. The blanket that was lying, wadded up at the baby’s feet was stained with spots of something greasy and orangish. But other than the child and it’s direct surroundings, Justin couldn’t see much; everything else seemed blurred and murky and dimmed. Even the voices were distorted, like the sound of a muted trumpet, with a waa-waa quality that made the words difficult to understand unless you really concentrated.  


“What’s wrong with it?” One voice asked.


“How should I know?” Another voice answered. “Stupid brat won’t drink the damned formula I bought him. And that stuff was expensive too.”


“You should try adding some whiskey to the bottle. That’ll knock him right out.”


“You can’t give alcohol to a baby. It’s not good for him.”


“Always worked for me.”


From the corner of his eye, Justin could see a shadowy figure moving around the edge of the room. Then it was gone and there was only the baby left in the picture. 


“Come on. Just take the damn bottle, already,” the voice ordered, as a disembodied hand shoved a bottle into the open, caterwauling mouth of the baby. 


This time it seemed to work. Justin watched as the baby mouthed at the plastic nipple a few times, not really interested, before finally giving in, latching on, and swallowing. Slowly the baby’s hands raised up and grasped onto the bottle, supporting its weight without the need for further assistance. 


“Finally.” The adult-sized hand that had been holding the bottle was withdrawn. “You’re a spoiled little brat - you know that, right? So much fucking work. High maintenance. Just like your damned father. But it’ll be worth it when I’ve got the money.”


The baby, of course, didn’t answer. He seemed exhausted and was barely able to keep his tired little eyes open while he finished his dinner. When the infant paused and the bottle seemed like it was about to fall, the hand reached down and shoved it back into place, causing the baby to resume his sucking.


“That’s right. Eat up. Gotta keep you fed and happy so you don’t break all our damned eardrums with your screaming. I can’t be up all night, dealing with your shit; some of us still have to work for a living,” the voice complained even as the baby began to drift off to sleep. “Not for long, though. I’m done slaving away for minimum wage while your daddy gets everything his perverted little heart desires. It's time he shared the wealth a little. Right, brat? It’s time he HURTS as much as the rest of us . . .”


The last few words were growled out a little louder than necessary and either that, or the vitriol of the words themselves, startled the baby fully awake again. He began to whimper and sob. Which clearly was not acceptable to the kidnapper.


“Fuck it! Where’s that damned whiskey?” the voice yelled as the scene dissolved into a swirling fog of blackness. 


At the same time, Justin himself was also startled awake by the rattling of his cell phone, which was vibrating away on the edge of the desk where he’d been sitting when he dozed off. He picked it up, tapped at the icon to accept the call, and started to mumble a hello, when he was interrupted by an agitated shouting.


“I saw him,” Brian's voice boomed over the phone line, almost deafening Justin, who had to pull the phone away from his ear. “I saw Gus. Again. Why the fuck is this happening, Justin?”


///~///~


 

Chapter End Notes:

12/1/19 - Disclaimer: no real babies were harmed in the writing of this story. I promise. Please don’t give alcohol to babies, though. It’s actually quite bad for them. Trust me on this. And, in the meantime, hit me with your guesses as to what’s up with Brian and Justin... TAG

 

PS, I’m hoping that my RL responsibilities will be lightening up soon. If I can only get through the next 2 weeks, I should have more free time to write. Cross your fingers for me, please! I miss my daily writing so much. 

 

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