I watched them covertly to see if I could pick up any tricks on this dating thing, starting with Josh and his wife; felt like a fucking peeping Tom. I nixed that idea in the first three minutes, the guy is a dictator; I never noticed how much of one before. He watched what she ate piling more on her plate when she didn’t take enough to suit him. I also realized that if the girl kept rolling her eyes like that she was gonna need a new pair by the end of the damn year.
“Joshua I have enough how many times must I tell you I can’t eat all of this?”
“You need to build up your strength babe remember what the doctor said?”
“This would build up the strength of ten lumberjacks.” Everyone at the table started laughing at their bickering back and forth.
Next I checked out Nessa and the douche but nixed that too. It didn’t take long to notice that she ruled that play. He catered to her every whim, but on farther inspection she leaned on him a lot. I could maybe use bits and pieces from each of them I guess. Mom and dad were a crazy mix of both. They were still into embarrassingly whispering to each other and sharing secret smiles, holding hands under the table.
“Did you get what you need son?” dad’s voice brought me back to the present; my mind had wandered off trying to process all this new information.
“What do you mean dad?”
“You’ve been studying us like ants under a magnifying glass; trying to get pointers?” He had a stupid smirk on his face as he said it.
“It occurs to me that I might not know the first thing about dating.”
“What do you mean? You had a girlfriend for four years son if anyone knows how to do it you do.”
“Yeah but this feels somehow different, like I have to do things in a whole new way. I have the basics I guess but what is too much and what’s not enough?”
“Dude…”
“Shut up Josh. Mom I’m going to need you.”
“What do you need son?”
“She doesn’t have a mother, I mean she has one but she’s out of reach for now so I need you to be there for her like you are for Carrie and Nessa.” One of the things I’d learned in my little digging expedition is that she couldn’t really contact her mom because they were afraid that this guy had a bead on her and any contact would tip him off to where she was hiding. He didn’t know anything about her dad and that was the only reason he hadn’t found her as yet.
Mom got a sad look on her face “Of course Matthew you know you don’t need to ask.” I nodded my thanks and went back to eating. The conversation went back to normal around me but my mind was full of her.
When dinner was over I excused myself and headed for the privacy of my room to read the report her father had given me. Tommy Bruno was a middle-aged businessman who had fixated on Kadyn when she was a child of fourteen. He’d moved into the neighborhood where she and her mother lived and had struck up a friendship. According to the report everything had seemed on the up and up in the beginning just a friendly guy seeing a single mother on her own and offering his services. He would cut their lawn on the weekends and even pick up their mail when they travelled out of town. Things took a turn when the mother Simone noticed the unusual interest in her underage daughter and what she deemed inappropriate touching. The young introverted girl hadn’t noticed anything different or hadn’t known any better until her mother warned her and forbid her from being alone with the over friendly neighbor who she had seen as just a friendly uncle.
After heeding her mother’s warning the gifts started. Bruno would hide and sneak the young girl gifts of stuffed toys and chocolates, which he cautioned her never to tell her mother about. When it was brought to Simone’s attention that the older man had kept up contact after she’d warned him off she had confronted him to no avail.
Things got worst when the young Kadyn caught Bruno peeping in her bedroom window in the early morning as she got dressed for school. A subsequent trip to the local police station had garnered no help as there was no hard evidence against the perpetrator and when questioned Bruno had stated that he was just passing on the walkway between the houses on the way to his shed.
Then followed four years of what is now known as stalking. He followed the young girl everywhere including to and from school, on outings with friends and even the local grocery store. With no help from the law the mother had done everything she could to safeguard her daughter, putting bars on the windows, changing her work hours so that her child was never home alone in the evenings. They became hostages in their own home because of one man’s obsession.
Things came to a head when him or someone sent pictures to Kadyn of her asleep in her bed. From the angle it was evident that the person had been standing over her when the picture was taken. The cops couldn’t prove that it was him because he’d been careful enough to cover his tracks.
Simone finally realizing that she couldn’t protect her daughter had called in the father who had taken his daughter out of the situation. She was basically living like a fugitive while her tormentor was walking freely. The state was now making steps to update their stalking laws but it was too late for Kadyn, her life had already been disrupted.
Josh came into my room just as I was finished reading. “Well?” I didn’t have to ask what he was talking about I just threw the papers at him and waited while he read it.
“I want to hurt him. This shit just got as real as it gets. I want to find him and make him pay for every second of fear.” I pounded my fist against the mattress in frustration.
“We need a plan.”
“I already know what I want to do to him I’m going to need you to show me how to do that computer thing. How to hack into his system.” The little fucker cracked his knuckles and grinned; I never knew until just here lately just how much of a delinquent my brother is. He thrives on shit like this.
“I want to do it myself so just get me in don’t go doing anything, this is my fight remember.”
“Damn that’s no fun, can I at least watch?”
“Sure Joshua.” He did some shit with my computer again mumbling the whole time as I watched trying to figure out what he was doing but I hadn’t a clue. Funny thing is I want to study engineering but when it came to this hacking shit I was at a total lost.
“What the fuck is all that?”
“His bank statements, 401K, trust, the whole works.” The screen was covered with an excel spreadsheet with rows and rows of numbers. Shit was scary how easily he did that. “What about his social security number and pins and stuff like that?”
“That’s next.” He went back to work getting me the information I needed while I paced and thought. This was all about getting her her freedom back somehow, more so than seeking revenge on this asshole, though that would be an added bonus. I’d had a few moments of doubts when I wondered if this guy was mentally ill, it wouldn’t be fair to go after someone who had no control over his actions because of a mental issue, but from what I’ve seen he wasn’t ill, just evil.
I’d seen shit like this on TV before, who hasn’t? and always I wondered where were the fathers and husbands of these women, and why weren’t they fucking this douche’s shit up? Now I find myself in the same position and I know it couldn’t be easy for them to sit back and do nothing, especially with the law telling them their hands were tied. I’d be fucked if mine were.
“Damn this fucker is good, he has his shit safe coded like Fort Knox; this might take me a while.” Not what I wanted to hear but beggars can’t be choosers. In the meantime I switched gears. Obviously it would be more important for her to have this taken care of but then what? How did Matt and Kadyn move on after this? It was the after that I was focused on now because I had no doubt that I would eliminate the threat, there was no other alternative. I refuse to accept that someone else could have that much power over what belongs to me. Fuck that.
By the time Josh signaled that he was in I had come to a decision. As far as dating goes I’ll just go with my gut and my heart, maybe I’ll be a combination of the three men in my family: dad with his old world charm, Andrew with his compassionate and doting ways and Josh with the crazy over protectiveness. They each had their own merits. With that settled in my head I could breathe easier. I wasn’t going to treat her like a victim either; her new life was going to start now, a life without fear and uncertainty. But in order to that I have to take steps to show her that she was safe.
Chapter 14
“Thanks bro I’ll take it from here, I’ll get started in the morning this shit has left a bad taste in my mouth.” It was amazing that less than twenty-four hours after learning about this that I already had a clear-cut plan worked out of what I wanted to do. Seems to me the law could’ve done a hell of a lot more to protect one so young instead of telling her time and again that there was nothing they could do. Since they wouldn’t do their fucking jobs I’ll do it for them.
“So what’s the plan bro, what’s the end result here?”
“Best case scenario, death, barring that I want him to spend some time in a maximum security prison where his housemates know of his love for terrorizing little girls.”