The hospital had a policy that only family members could attend patients in critical care and therefore, at first, they were denied a visit. Chace explained the circumstances including the fact that it was jacked, but Faye was the closest thing the kid had to family and the only person who they knew who had spoken directly to him in weeks. The doctor relented instantly knowing, even if nurture came from someone he hardly knew, nurture was nurture.

Chace and Faye were let in to see him and at first sight of his small body with tubes stuck in him, his hands wrapped, his face bruised and still swollen, his arm in a sling, the covers taller around his dressed leg, Chace thought Faye would fall apart. Many people would, men or women. Fuck, Chace had to suck in breath to hold it together.

But she didn’t. She moved directly to him, ran her fingers lightly through his hair and bent right to his ear.

“It’s Faye. Chace and I are here, Malachi. We’re here. We found you. You’re safe now,” she whispered. “You’re safe, honey. You just need to get better. We’re here and you’re safe.”

Chace found a chair and moved it to the bed before he put his hand to the small of her back. She was still bent over Malachi running her fingers through his hair but when she felt his touch, her neck twisted and she caught his eyes.

“Sit, baby,” he whispered.

She nodded and sat then pulled the chair closer, stretched out an arm and wrapped her fingers around his bicep.

Chace gave her a moment then slid the hair off her shoulder and bent close.

“Gonna see to business.”

Her head twisted so she could catch his eyes again and she immediately nodded without uttering a question.

But she whispered, “Come back.”

“I will,” he promised. “I’ll send your Mom in.”

She nodded again and turned back to Malachi. “Chace has to go, Malachi. But he’s coming back,” she whispered.

“Give me some room, darlin’,” Chace muttered, Faye’s head jerked to look at him then she moved back in her chair and Chace moved in, leaning over Malachi.

He curled his fingers around his bony shoulder and bent close to his ear. “Stay strong, buddy. You’re good. You got folks lookin’ out for you now.”

He gave him a gentle squeeze, pulled back and looked to Faye to see now, she had wet in her eyes.

He wanted to comfort her but he sensed if he did, the hold she had would unravel.

So he moved in to kiss her nose, pulled back half an inch, locked eyes with her and whispered, “Be back soon.”

“Okay, Chace.”

He shifted away, cupped her jaw in his hand, slid the pad of his thumb over her bubblegum lips then he let her go and walked away.

He gave a brief report to Deck, Silas and Sondra, sent Sondra in and told Silas what he and Deck would be doing. They exchanged phone numbers. Then Chace followed Deck to Sioux Street and into the wood.

Long moments after Deck muttered the first word either of them spoke during their trek, Chace asked, “What?”

“Your woman,” Deck answered. “Sweet.”

He was not in the mood to be given shit about Faye.

“Deck –” he started in a warning tone.

“No shit, Chace. Not what I meant. She’s sweet. Pretty. Great hair. Great ass. Great fuckin’ boots. This shit fuckin’ sucks, that kid, the state of him, what you’re gonna see when you get to that shed, brother, nothin’ good about it. So bad, it’s beyond bad straight to disturbing. So now, you think of what you left back at that hospital. Because, seriously, man, when we get up there, you’re gonna need good thoughts the like of your girl.”

Chace was already preparing himself for what he’d see.

Now he knew it was worse.

Fuck.

Deck wasn’t done.

“Lined up two hundred women, told me to choose the one for you, I’d choose the one back there. Settin’ myself up for what I’m gonna see again, gonna hold onto the knowledge that a year ago, my boy had one serious, fuckin’ bitch sleepin’ in his bed and he was sleepin’ in his guest room. Now, when he’s done with this shit, tonight, tomorrow, until he does the smart thing and makes it legal and then until he dies, he’s got that sweet in his bed. Don’t flip out, I know it’s new between you two. I also know you are no dumb fuck. You got that kinda sweet, you’re gonna make it legal. Since I don’t have sweet to go home to, I’ll hang onto the fact that my brother, who’s always deserved it, finally does.”

Deck and Chace had shared vows of brotherly love over Deck’s Dad’s stolen beer they consumed in Deck’s basement when they were freshmen in high school the first time they got drunk off their asses.

Since then, through a lot of good times and bad, that love grew.

These kinds of words from Deck were rare but they were as real as the feeling behind them. Deck detested Misty, fucking hated Chace’s father and not just recently and he knew the whole story. So they were also not surprising.

They also gave fair warning of what he was going to see.

They walked in silence for a few more minutes before men’s voices could be heard and the beams of high powered flashlights like the ones Deck and Chace were using to light the way could be seen.

“Keaton and Decker,” Chace called to inform them of who was approaching.

They got a “Yo,” and a “Hey,” back from two of the four uniforms on duty, Dave and Terry. Both were new recruits. Dave, a three-year veteran who moved to Carnal from Idaho to be closer to his nearly new wife’s family in Gnaw Bone seeing as she was pregnant and had three sisters and thus they had four built-in babysitters, including her Mom. And Terry, a fresh recruit out of the Academy, hailing from Fort Collins.

Deck and Chace met them in the snow outside a dilapidated shed about the size of a big bathroom. The men huddled, kept their lights low in their hands, aimed up but away from faces, lighting the conversation.

“Didn’t pull in lights, Chace, ‘cause it’d be a pain in the ass to haul ‘em up here but also because we might wreck tracks if we did,” Dave informed him and Chace nodded.

“Got in a good look around, though,” Terry added. “Did the best we could not to disturb anything. Not that there was much to disturb.”

This was not good.

Chace nodded anyway.

Avoiding the shed for now, he asked, “What’d you find?”

“Not hard to find the trap,” Dave told him and went on to explain, “seein’ as the blood trail led from it to him.” He dipped his head toward the shed.

“Two hundred yards, I figure,” Terry shared quietly, careful with this knowledge because of what it said and Chace braced so his body wouldn’t jerk.

Two hundred yards. Two fucking football fields. A long way to go with a broken arm, two mangled hands and a fucked up leg.

A long way to go.

Jesus Christ.

“Able to walk the first fifty.” Dave’s voice was also quiet. It got quieter when he continued, “Had to drag himself the rest of the way.”

Chace closed his eyes and dropped his head.

He shouldn’t have let it go the way it did. He should have tracked him or set Deck on him sooner. He shouldn’t have given in and gone slow. He should have pushed it.

He didn’t.

Jesus Christ.

“Trap’s old,” Terry carried on, Chace opened his eyes and looked at him. “Probably set years ago and forgotten. Rusted. Snowed over. The kid couldn’t have seen it even if he was movin’ in daylight. Pure bad luck he happened on it.”

Malachi seemed to have a lot of bad luck.

But this bit of it was on Chace.

“He’s big on invisibility, Chace,” Dave put in. “Couldn’t find a lot of tracks and, we get lights or come back in daylight, we’ll know more but seems like he covered them. We went a fair ways, large perimeter, got some animal tracks, only thing we got is a few leadin’ toward the trap he probably hadn’t yet covered and was in no state to mess with and the tracks leadin’ from the trap to the shed. Lots of disturbed snow around the trap.”

“Found some drops look like blood,” Terry stated. “Leadin’ to the trap comin’ from the hill, northeast.”

“He was beaten before he hit that trap,” Deck muttered.

“Yeah?” Dave asked.

“Leg was fucked up by the trap but his arm was broken and his face was a mess. Trap didn’t do that,” Deck told them.

This got nods.

But Chace was thinking of a kid who had been beaten, his arm broken but still had the presence of mind to cover his tracks in the snow.

Who the fuck was beating him, who was he hiding from and why?

These questions were strangely exclusive at the same time inclusive. Somehow, whoever got hold of him got the chance to do it.

But they didn’t know about this place. He kept this a secret.

So how did he keep getting beaten?

Terry looked to Chace. “You want lights brought up?”

Chace looked at his watch then his gaze went to Terry. “Not tonight. Tomorrow morning, we’ll come back up, get a better look around in the daylight, follow that blood, see if we can get anywhere with that.”

Dave and Terry nodded.

Chace reluctantly turned to the shed.

“Bad shit, man,” Dave murmured. “Popped Terry’s cherry, steppin’ into that.”

Terrific.

“Won’t sleep tonight,” Terry mumbled, glancing at the shed then back at Chace. “How old was he?”

“He is nine, maybe ten,” Chace replied.

“Is, right, is,” Terry mumbled again, this time quickly then he asked, “He good?”

“No,” Chace answered.

“Right,” Terry muttered.

Chace studied Terry a moment and decided not to tell him there’d be other sleepless nights. Memories of this and new memories. Traffic accidents. Domestic disturbances. Child abuse. Suicide. Overdoses. Small town didn’t mean small crime. Even with a clean Department. He stayed the course, made it his career, he’d have enough to haunt his sleep for the rest of his life.