LOCAL GIRL ALLEGES RAPE
Al Stukins, Reporter
A sixteen-year-old Siloam Springs girl reported on Tuesday that she was repeatedly raped and sodomized by an out-of-state student who had allegedly paid her for a night of sex. A spokesman for the local sheriff's department reported that they have been unable to substantiate the charges due to the lack of physical evidence and allegations that the woman was under the influence of LSD and possibly marijuana at the time of the incident. As of this afternoon, no charges have been filed.
Chapter 18
Jack Talbot leaned back in his wheelchair and watched the computer screen roll by with each click of the mouse. He'd been writing code for so many hours he barely noticed the twitching in his eyes or the tight muscles at the base of his neck. He'd lost count of the hours. As far as he knew, it could have been days since he'd last eaten or showered or talked to another human being.
But he was so damned close.
"Come on, you sweet bitch." The screen continued a seemingly endless scroll. A blur of names and dates flew by. He slowed the flow of data when he saw the list of babies born on August 20, 1975, in Dayton's Good Samaritan Hospital. Delivering physician, Dr. Heimer Kourt.
"Yeah, baby, talk to me." He clicked the mouse. A dozen names scrolled by. Alpha order. He clicked the mouse. Halfway down the page, the name Agnes Beckett materialized.
It was the closest thing to an orgasm he'd had in five years.
Victory, as sweet as a lover's kiss, made his chest swell. His breath jammed in his throat. With a trembling hand, he touched the monitor, leaving a greasy smear where the name Colleen Glass appeared. The name of her doctor. Heimer Kourt. He clicked the mouse and searched to see if the father had been named.
And he froze.
He stared in disbelief, knowing that somehow his high tech lover had failed him, "This can't be." He punched the Print Screen key. The laser spit out the name in indisputable black and white. "Sweet Jesus."
The bell on the alley door jingled. Surprised, disoriented from so many hours of work, Jack spun his chair around, expecting to see Randall. Instead, it masked man dressed in black leveled a semiautomatic pistol at his chest.
Adrenaline danced through his midsection, but stopped at his hips. With an eerie calm, Jack noticed the silencer, realizing immediately he'd discovered the truth too late. His only thought was that he would never be able to tell his brother what he'd found. The injustice of it nearly sent him from the chair.
He cursed his legs.
Helpless to flee or to protect himself, knowing he could never reach the .22 revolver in the top drawer of his desk, Jack stared at the man as his heart pumped furiously. "The whole world knows," he said. "You're too late. You fucking bastard."
He watched powerlessly as the man's finger tightened on the trigger. Instinctively, he braced against the impending impact. A thousand thoughts rushed through his brain. The state of his life. The people he would leave behind. Cold, hard fear hammered at him as he imagined pain and blood.
An instant later, a nine-millimeter slug exploded in his chest.
*
Addison read the article twice before she let herself breathe, before she let herself feel. She told herself she'd already known what happened to Agnes Beckett, that this shouldn't be hitting her so hard. But to see the truth on paper shook her. One by one, the ugly words crept into a brain that didn't want to believe. The emotions swirled inside her like debris kicked up by a violent tornado.
She steeled herself against the pain, choking back the outrage, the injustice, and the bitterness that followed. Her only thought was that she had been conceived through a vile, incomprehensible act. An act of violence that made her feel dirty and sick to her stomach.
Forcing a breath into her lungs, she lowered the article, carefully folded it, and tucked it back into the bible. That poor girl was Agnes Beckett."
"Probably."
She looked down at the article. "He raped her. My ... birth father."
Randall's jaw flexed.
"They discredited her by mentioning drugs. My god."
"I think this town has a dirty little secret tucked away into its neat gutters," he said.
The thought jolted her. "What do we do now?"
"What's the byline on that story?"
She quickly scanned the article. "Al Stukins." She fought the hope rising in her chest. God, how she wanted to get off the emotional roller coaster.
''There's our witness."
''The story was written twenty-five years ago. He could be anywhere now."
"Or he could still be here in Siloam Springs."
Randall parked the car curbside across the street from McNinch's Bar. Its neon Beer on Tap sign glowed at the front window. "This is where your birth mother used to work," he said.
"This is where you spoke with the waitress."
"That's right."