“Jake?” she shouted. “It’s time to go home.”

David and Chloe stood in silence as they awaited any kind of response from their son. They could see about 100 feet in every direction. Jake was nowhere to be seen.

“Oh my God. David, what do we do?”

“Don’t panic. Get looking. All of us. He can’t have gone far.”

A million thoughts, theories and possibilities ran through both parents’ heads. Losing a child was perhaps the most horrific feeling in the world. No one ever thought it would happen to them but when that fear became a terrifying reality, the gut-wrenching bile in the parents’ stomachs was like nothing else.

After five minutes of searching, David and Chloe reunited on the edge of a path overlooking a steep, rocky hill. Below was a murky, green-tinted lake surrounded by rocks, jagged pathways and a fence to keep away the general public.

David and Chloe looked down into it.

“That’s it. I’m calling the police,” said Chloe.

“No,” said David.

“No?”

“Wait. Can’t you hear that?”

From a distance, a faint voice carried through the air. It sounded like Mom, Dad.

“Jake? Can you hear me?” shouted David.

Again, as faint as the spring afternoon wind, a voice responded. “Yes.”

“Where are you?”

They waited a moment. It felt like hours.

“Down here.”

Peering over the rocks, David noticed a football lying against the lake’s fence. A wave of relief washed over him.

“You scared us to death, you little shit.” This time, he didn’t disguise the volume of his voice. “What are you doing down here?”

“I think you need to come and see this,” Jake replied.

After five minutes of walking, David, Chloe and Misa followed the official path that led down to the lake where Jake had found himself. David had planned on immediately scolding him the second Jake came into sight but he found he couldn’t.

Something else grabbed his attention and didn’t let go.

Hidden beneath a rock formation on the edge of the lake, an unnatural monstrosity presented itself. The four members of the Richards family stared at it in silence.

There, displayed as though she were a puppet whose owner had dismembered it, was the upper half of a woman’s body. Her head, shoulders, arms and midsection were all intact but then everything stopped. Along the concrete floor, her entrails dangled from her as though she were a tentacle sea creature. Blood dripped from her torso and made its way into the lake, which had garnered the attention of all manner of aquatic animals.

Jake backed away to his family’s embrace. However, before he did, he pulled his football beneath his feet. In an act of curiosity in which his parents were too enthralled to intervene, Jake propelled the football directly toward the woman’s body.

“Jake, no!” David screamed but was too late. The ball hit her chest. It pushed her over, displaying her mutilated innards to the world.

Fifteen minutes earlier, David’s wife had told him it was his job to protect his son from stumbling across dead bodies. It seemed he’d failed at his task.


3

 

 

Notoriety was somewhat of a paradox for a private detective. In the same way a successful blues musician no longer has the blues, when a private detective loses his anonymity, his job becomes more difficult.

Being in the presence of someone who didn’t know his real identity was a small blessing that gave him satisfaction.