And I was right.
I found the school with an SUV parked out front. He wasn’t even trying to hide. Then again, no cops were looking for Ladell Pratt. Atticus Rosenkohl, the chief of police, went to backyard picnics at Ladell Pratt’s big house. Even showing Rosenkohl the video, if I’d even dreamed of being that moronic, would’ve only resulted in having it confiscated from me. Rosenkohl would probably put a tail on me and find a reason to arrest me.
No, police had never entered my mind, and Pratt knew it. I’d get this bowtie-wearing clown myself. But first I had to secure the release of Deloy Pingree.
I went down an inner hallway, my boots sounding loudly on the cement. The hallways were open to a central courtyard where tattered laundry hung from sprawling trees that hadn’t been pruned in decades. I wondered if some of those clothes had belonged to Dingo before he’d been taken in by Gideon. I almost laughed at some cargo pants that definitely looked like Dingo’s style.
“My lovely. So glad to see you.”
Pratt actually took me by surprise. He came to me, not the other way around. I had to spin around to see him, and instantly berated myself for not being on top of things.
Looking back, I should’ve taken him out then and there. I think I wanted to see Deloy first, though. I wanted to make sure he was still alive before sacrificing myself for him.
“I’m not here to play fucking games, Pratt. Let me see Deloy.”
“But games are the reason we’re here, my dear boy. I like to play games, and I don’t give a rat’s ass if you don’t. How do you like that?”
I closed my eyes with patience. “Just let me see Deloy, Pratt. You’ve done enough to that poor fucking kid. You don’t have a beef with him.”
A cloud came over his round face. “Oh, but I do ‘have a beef,’ as you say, with Pingree. He desecrated my beautiful Kenyon Stout. Without Pingree, Kenyon Stout would’ve risen in the Aaronic Priesthood to become a bishop. Those were our plans for him. But when Deloy’s father found them—together, that was taken off the table for sweet Kenyon.”
“‘Desecrated’?” I roared, pointing to the ground, to the spirit prison where I presumed Pratt would soon go. “You wanna talk ‘desecrated’? What did you wind up doing to Kenyon Stout? You prostituted him on the fucking darknet. You fucking killed him.”
All trivial joy evaporated from Pratt’s stupid face. “I did no such thing. We used Kenyon for that which he was intended. It was his destiny in life, since he could no longer become a bishop.”
I took five or six long strides toward him, closing the gap between us. I even poked him in his stupid chest. The knowing smile never wavered from his face. “We have proof it was you who killed Stout, you motherfucker. If you think you’re gonna pull the same shit with Deloy you’ve got another thing coming.”
“No,” he whispered, almost in a caricature of an evil mastermind’s voice. “It’s you who have another thing coming. Turn around.”
I stood up straight. “What?”
He frowned. “Turn around. You want to see Deloy again? Turn around.”
I had no choice, and he whipped off my cut and tossed it somewhere behind me. It had rained earlier that day, and raindrops still dripped from the eaves, from the courtyard trees. From Dingo’s old laundry. Then, predictably, Pratt zip tied my hands together over my tailbone.
“Show me Deloy!” I snarled. “I’m going no further until I see Deloy.”
“In time.” Suddenly Pratt’s round body was plastered to mine, his tongue snaking in my ear. I hated the fact that his wet breath automatically made my nipples stiff—something he could tell when sliding his hands up my chest and tweaking them. He toyed with my nipple ring, and I hated how it stiffened my cock. From this position, I could’ve given him a powerful shin kick, but he just would’ve tased me, or brained me, or killed me. None of which would’ve helped Deloy.
“I need to frisk your delightful body for weapons.”
He felt in all the usual places, but when he took an especially long time examining my crotch lovingly for any knives hidden in my jock, I bellowed, “Deloy! It’s me, Levon! Where are you?”
I thought I heard a muffled cry in the brief moment before Pratt stuck me in the arm with a needle.
The last coherent thought I recall was Now he’s got both of us. He doesn’t have to let either one of us go.
One voice murmured down by my crotch. Another voice shrieked about ten feet away.
The quiet voice sighed, “I am God. I have spoken. I shall fulfill. Amen.”