He made a wet, choking noise.
“Names,” I repeated. “Start talking.”
He stared at the table, at my phone, at the timer counting down.
Nineteen minutes.
“I… I don’t know real names,” he said. “Screen names in our group. Handles.”
“Say them loud and clear so I can record them.”
He flinched. “—Rex… uh, RexWantsBare,” he blurted. “And…I don’t know!”
“Keep going.”
“‘BlueRoom69.’ ‘SaintMichael.’” He spoke faster, breathless now, the list spilling out. “They’re in group chats. They post pictures—I didn’t post pictures—I wouldn’t do that?—”
“Addresses.”
“I don’t?—”
“You do.”
His eyes squeezed shut, and his head tipped forward.
“I met him.Once.SaintMichael, he runs it—he runs all of it. He picks who. He picks where. We just—” His breath caught. “We justgo.Please. Please, you have to—I didn’twantany of this, he found me, he turned me! I’ve sinned but God will forgive me. OhGod?—”
“Real name.”
“I don’t—please—” He sobbed, his head dropping. “I don’t know it. None of us know. He doesn’t—he doesn’t slip. He’scareful.That’s who you want. Not me, please,please,I have a family, I have?—”
“What did he look like?”
“Tall. White. Hair… his hair is in a ponytail. Fifties. He calls everyoneson.Like a priest. Likegrace.That’s how he—that’s how hegetsyou, you don’t even know it’s happening,please,you must understand…”
God had no part in what they were doing any more than he’d been part of my convent training.
“You delivered children to him,” I said and tapped his knee.
“No—God,no—I had nochoice,he’d have killed my wife, my kids, he killed Tony, he just—Tony wasgone,one week andgone,what was I supposed to—” He was choking on it now, snot and blood and tears mixing on his chin. “I’lltellyou everything,anything,just—I just did what he told me, Iswear,I just did what he told me?—”
He’d just confessed that his ceiling had a ceiling, that he’d been handing children on a schedule, and that the man at the top was going to know, very quickly, that Neil Langston had sat in this room and talked. He’d also confessed, without hearing himself do it, that he was guilty of everything I was already going to kill him for. He just didn’t think those two things went together.
Good.
“How did you meet with this man?”
“He gave me a burner. It’s in my safe, and I’ve only used it four times?—”
“What’s the code to the safe?”
“You’re not going to my house! My family?—”
I carved a line in his other leg, the skin splitting easily.
“Jesus save me!”
“Jesus isn’t here,” I said, and carved a cross, watching the blood spill.
