Avery's Desire Pt. 12

The fight had somehow made its way to the hall again as one of the two involved had probably tried to escape the other. Rick knew that it was more than likely Avery who had tried to run away but was subdued by his assailant. His heart sank when he realized that probably meant. Avery had managed to get passed his attacker but was caught before making it into the hallway, and the brunt of the assault had taken place in the doorway.

Rick understood now why the door had been left open.

From the lack of blood in the living room he could only assume that Avery had been dragged out of the apartment by who ever had broken in. He was probably unconscious...or worse. No, Rick shook his head. He couldn't think that way. Avery was fine. It was entirely possible that he'd gotten away and ran out the door looking for help.

"Of course!" He smiled half-heartedly. "He probably ran outside, hid somewhere and called Boomer, or Trash."

Rick went back into the front room, sat down in the arm chair, and called Boomer. It was still early but if Avery had gone to Boomer's they would both be awake and waiting for Rick to call.

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Boomer sat on the edge of the bed rubbing his temples. "Have you called Trash yet?" He asked, holding the phone to his ear. His hands were shaking. A terrible feeling began to creep over him. The more Rick told him, the worse he felt. He hadn't heard from Avery all night. He assumed that Avery had decided to stay in for the night.

After closing Boomer had considered swinging by the apartment just to check on him but he was afraid of waking him up if he'd already gone to bed, so he decided to just go on home. He was silently cursing himself now for not stopping by.

"Call Trash and see if's heard from him. If he couldn't get a hold of me he'd call him but Rick, call the cops first. You need to report the break in and if Trash hasn't seen him, well, you'll need to report him missing. I'm coming over there. We'll figure this thing out, don't you worry."

He hung up the phone then stood up and grabbed his clothes.

"What's going on?"

"Avery's missing." Boomer turned and looked at his wife, Carla, who'd been awake, listening to the conversation with great concern. "Someone broke into the apartment and trashed the place. Rick says it looks like there was a struggle."

"Oh my God!" Carla gasped. "Is he going to call the police?"

"Yeah, he said he was going to as soon as he hung up with me."

Boomer sat back down to lace his boots up. He was fully dressed and ready to leave but for some reason he was having a difficult time mustering up the courage to stand. This was bad, and he knew it. Rick thought so too. Boomer heard it in his voice.

He leaned forward and rubbed his face, taking a deep breath, he sighed. "I can't go through this again." Tears wet his eyes and he hung his head as he tried to compose himself. "I can't lose another one..."

Carla came up behind him and wrapped her arms around him, laying her head on his back. "Avery's fine." She whispered to him. "He has to be. God wouldn't be that cruel to us."

"I hope you're right babe, I really hope you're right."

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Rick had never seen so many cops gathered in one place before. The commotion was more than he could deal with at the moment. All he could think about was Avery, where was he? Was he suffering? Was he even still alive?

The continuous onslaught of questions from various people had only added to his confusion, making it more difficult for him to answer them all. Flashes of light from cameras, people traipsing in and out, and the glare of flashing lights from the many police cars parked out front became so distracting and nerve wracking that Rick felt like he had to get out of there or he'd go mad.

Boomer had arrived before the police, and Trash showed up shortly after. Neither of them had heard anything from Avery and Rick felt as if the entire situation was just getting more and more hopeless. Trash even called Kat who seemed sympathetic, but also had no idea of where Avery was.

The neighbors were beginning to come out of their apartments to see what the commotion was. Some of the cops had gone around interviewing them, asking if they had seen or heard anything, and so far, none of them had.

Boomer explained again about the break in at the bar, the strange man he and Avery had witnessed lurking around the outside of the bar. He did his best to describe the man, but it had been dark and he was already starting to forget certain details. Mikey's name was brought up again but there was still no proof that he'd been anywhere near the apartment the previous night or any other.

A plain clothes cop who'd been walking around the apartment investigating the scene came out of the back room, into the living room, and sat down on the couch next to Rick. The man was in his late forties or early fifties. He had short hair, mostly grey, and a mustache. He seemed friendly enough but Rick could tell that he wasn't someone to be fucked with.

The man had an air of authority about him that demanded respect from the other officers present as well as anyone else he happened to encounter. He had a stern, serious demeanor, but his eyes were kind and caring. He could tell that Rick was deeply upset by what had happened so he was careful to handle him with kid gloves.

"How you doing Rick?" The officer asked him.

Rick shot the man a condescending glare.

"I know, stupid question." The cop sighed. "Your lover's missing and you're worried sick."

"Worried sick?" Rick laughed bitterly. "That doesn't even begin to cover it."

The office nodded in understanding. "We're going to do everything we can to find him, but first, I want to go over your statement again." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a business card then handed it to Rick. "My name's Hanson." He told him. "I'm taking lead on this case. Just tell me what you told the responding officer. Starting with when you first got home."

Rick held the card in his hands. He slid his finger tips over the embossed lettering and sighed. "I got home, the door was open, and I thought it was a bit strange so I went around looking for Avery. That's when I noticed the blood and the trashed kitchen. I ran to the bedroom to see if he was there and noticed the hand prints all over the walls."

He looked at Hanson and narrowed his eyes as his demeanor became a bit more perturbed.

"How is this helping anything? He's not here. Someone came in, beat the hell out of him, and then dragged him out! Shouldn't you have people out there looking for him?"

"I will." Hanson assured him, "But first I need to get a little more information. Why didn't you call the police the minute you realized that he'd been taken? Why call your friend first?"

Rick shrugged. "Boomer's like a father to Avery, to all of us. If he'd gotten away and went someplace for help, Boomer is the first person besides me he would go to. I didn't want to believe that..." Rick paused, wiping at his eyes. He lit a cigarette and, taking a long drag, exhaled a large cloud of smoke, and continued. "Part of me was just hoping that he was someplace safe. I wasn't ready to believe that he was actually missing, that someone would actually come into our home and take him like that. It just didn't seem real."

"Okay, fair enough." Hanson took out a small pad of paper and a pen and began hastily jotting down the information that Rick had given him. "And, after you had called Mr. Rhoads, you called 911, correct?"

Rick nodded. "I called 911 and then I called Trash, or Tracey, we call him Trash. After I called him and told him what had happened I hung up and basically waited for you guys to come. I mean, I was ready to bust down Mikey's door and kick the fucker's teeth in until he told me where Avery was, but Boomer told me to stay here, so I did."

Hanson chuckled some and rubbed on the back of his neck. "Yeah, you got a smart friend there. I can understand how upset you are but going around beating the shit out of people isn't going to help your boy friend any, you get that right?"

Rick shrugged. "I just feel like I should be doing something. Sitting around here waiting is driving me nuts."

"You're doing something by helping me piece together what happened here. The more details you can give me the better."

"I don't know what else I can tell you. I didn't touch anything; you can see exactly what I walked into."

"That's good though." Hanson put a hand on Rick's shoulder, lightly squeezing it. He tried to be reassuring but at this point nothing aside from finding Avery was going to make him feel any better. "You did good son. It helps us to do our jobs if we have a fresh, undisturbed, crime scene to work with."

Hearing the words "crime scene" made Rick shudder. It was just making it more evident to him that this was really happening. Avery was really missing, and there wasn't a damn thing that he could do about it but wait until the police found something.

"Can you tell me about the bat?"

Rick looked up, brought back to reality by the question. "Huh?"

"That bat," Hanson asked again. "We found a baseball bat on the kitchen floor. It had blood on it and it looks like someone smashed it into the wall. Was the bat already here, or did the assailant bring it with him?"

Rick thought for a moment. "Um...we keep an aluminum bat in the bedroom, next to the window on the other side of the bed. Avery's had it even since before I moved in. He sucks at baseball, but he keeps the bat around mostly for protection."

Hanson turned around and called to one of the officers that were still in the back. "Hey, Liam?"

A young, tall, red-haired uniform stepped out of the hall into the front room. "Yeah boss?"

"Is there an aluminum bat propped up against the bed room wall, next to the window on the far side of the bed?"

"Not that I recall boos." The officer told him. "I'll check again, but the only bat we found was the one in the kitchen."

"Okay, check on that and let me know if you see it there. If not then it was moved from the bedroom to the kitchen."

"Sure thing boss." Liam turned and went back to the bedroom, calling out to the other officers already back there to look for the bat.

"I have a feeling that your boy tried to fend off his attacker with that bat." Hanson said. "It would explain why it's in the kitchen. They guy probably over powered him though. You described him as being pretty small, right?"

Rick nodded. "Yeah, he's pretty small. I don't want to say he's weak but he's not exactly the kind of kid you'd expect to hold his own in a fight. He can be a little spit fire if he's cornered, but his first reaction would be to run away if at all possible. But yeah, if he was cornered, he'd come out swinging. He's not a coward."

"And nobody would think that." Hanson smiled some, trying to stay upbeat for Rick's sake, but the more information he got, the less hopeful he became. "Rick, I don't mean to sound insensitive here but I have to ask, just so I get a clear picture of what's going on. Now, you say that Avery had a relationship with this Mike. Is there any chance that maybe the two of them were still seeing each other? Is it possible that maybe you came home from work, you were tired, and maybe feeling a little stressed. Is it possible that you came home and found them together, maybe things got a little out of hand?"

"What are you saying?" Rick turned to Hanson, glaring at him, enraged. "You think that I had something to do with this, that I would hurt Avery? There's no way, no way in hell that I would ever do anything to hurt that boy, I love him! How dare you even suggest that I could..."

Rick Stood up and walked to the center of the room, pacing back and worth, his heart was pounding. He'd never been so offended. It was more than he could deal with at the moment, more than he wanted to deal with. All he cared about was finding Avery and making sure he was okay.

Trash and Boomer were at Rick's side in an instant. Trash stared at Hanson with obvious disdain. "Are you fucking serious dude? How the hell could you even think that Rick did anything to Avery? He loves that boy more than anything, we all do."

"I understand that." Hanson said. "But I still have to rule out the obvious. I don't think Rick is behind this, but I had to ask. In a lot of cases like this it's somebody the victim knows, someone they're close to. Obviously the boyfriend is the first person we'd look at."

"Well, look elsewhere." Trash hissed. "Rick's the last person that would hurt that kid."

Rick was close to tears now. He was shaking and his mind was racing with so many images of Avery and what could have happened to him. He couldn't get the bloody scene in the kitchen out of his mind; it was like something out of a horror movie. Over and over again he kept telling himself that this couldn't be real, it couldn't be happening, but it was. He had to face reality. This wasn't just a bad dream; it was a nightmare from which there was no escape.

Boomer patted Rick on the back as Trash tried to calm him down. "I'm going to go get him a glass of water." He said.

Trash nodded. "You'll have to get it from the bathroom; they're not letting anyone in the kitchen yet."

Hanson stood up. He moved slowly over to where Rick and Trash stood. "Is there anything else that you can tell me?" He asked.

"Yeah," Rick spat, "Get out there and find my partner."

Hanson nodded. "We'll do everything we can." He sighed in frustration as he ran a hand through his hair. This was the kind of day where he found himself wishing he'd taken his father's advice and became a lawyer. He loved the job, ever since he was a kid all he wanted to ever do was lock up bad guys. He just never considered what all else the job entailed.

Dealing with bodies wasn't the easiest thing in the world to do either but at least he could give the family some form of closure. With missing persons though, it was race against the clock and the odds were rarely good of finding them alive, especially with kids. Avery wasn't a child but he was still a kid, at least in Hanson's eyes. When a nineteen year old Kid like Avery went missing, especially in a case like this, well, he wasn't holding out much hope of finding anything but a body.

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"This is bad." Frankie's nerves were shot. He kept pacing back and forth, a lit cigarette in one hand and a bottle of whiskey in the other. Don was sitting in a kitchen chair next to the window watching the road. He was nervous too but not near as jittery as Frankie was. At least not since they'd made it make to the mobile home the two shared.

"You see anyone yet?" Frankie asked, making his fifth pass by the window.

Don rolled his eyes. "Not since the last time you asked two minutes ago."

"This is so bad." He said again. "We are so busted. They're gonna lock us up and throw away the key man, that is if Mikey don't kill us first."

"Just try and relax." Don told him. "Nobody saw us, how are they even gonna know we were involved? The kid don't know who we are and hell, he was so out of it he probably didn't even realize we were there."

"Yeah but when he comes to he'll nark on Mikey and then Mikey's gonna lead em straight to us!" Frankie plopped himself down in the recliner near the front door and took a huge gulp from the bottle, making a face as the liquid burned his throat on the way down.

"And what if they don't find him in time? What if when they do find him all they find is a body? We'll be on the hook for murder then! I ain't ever killed anyone before Donnie, and I sure as hell don't wanna go to prison for it when it wasn't even our fault."

Don shot Frankie and evil glare. "Cool your jets man! He ain't gonna die. We dumped him off in front of the emergency room doors, how are they not gonna find him? That security guard steps outside to smoke about every ten minutes, he'll find him next time he goes out, or someone coming in will see him and tell someone, so don't worry about it."

"I can't help it." Frankie breathed. "We were just supposed to trash the bar and maybe slap the kid around a bit to rattle him up. No one said anything about killing the damn brat!"

"Well, we didn't kill him did we?" Don stood up and went across the room to the small refrigerator in the kitchenette, and grabbed a beer. "He's gonna be fine, we're gonna be fine. Besides, after what Mikey did to that kid, I doubt he'll say shit to the cops. He'll be too fucking scared that Mikey will come after him again."

"And what if Mikey comes after us?" Frankie asked. "He's gonna figure out that the kid's still alive. What's he gonna do then huh? He specifically told us to dump him off in the woods. When he finds out that we dropped him off at the hospital he's gonna be pissed."

Don had already considered that. Frankie was right, eventually Mikey would find out and then he'd come after them both. It was just a matter of time. In all honesty, he had no idea how to handle the situation. He knew that Mikey was a tough son of a bitch, and he knew that he had a temper, but he never thought him capable of the kind of shit he did to Avery.

Mikey had lost his mind for sure. There was no doubt in Don's mind about that, and if he could so easily do what he did to Avery, then there was no telling what he might do to Don and Frankie.

"What if we skip town for a while?" Don suggested. "I got a cousin up in Lancaster that could help us out. Maybe find us a place and I'm sure he'd let us work in his garage. What do we got to lose?"

"Yeah, that could work." Frankie agreed. "We'd have to leave soon, like real soon man, before Mikey figures out that the kids alive, and before the cops come sniffing around."

"Let me give him a call." Don said. "In the mean time, pack up just what we need, just what will fit in the car. If we're gonna be on the run then we gotta travel light, nothing unnecessary."

"Right," Frankie jumped up and headed for the back room. He stopped suddenly and turned to look back at Don. "We ain't leaving the weed are we?" He asked.

"Hell no!" Don smirked, "That shit's necessary! Besides that, if we get strapped for cash we can sell some of it."

"Good thinking!" Frankie grinned. "Alright, I'll start throwing some shit in garbage bags. You call your cousin and let's get the hell outta this shit hole."

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Hanson walked back into the apartment after having spoken to the lady next door. She remembered hearing some type of a ruckus, but she didn't really think much of it. As she explained, the boys next door often played loud music, and at times had got a little rowdy. In the past year she had just learned to ignore it and if they got to be too loud she would call Avery and he was always apologetic and would promise to tone it down some.

She described him as a really sweet boy, very helpful, and respectful. She always thought he was a little "funny," especially since all she ever seemed to see at his place were other young men, but she said it wasn't really any of her business and he'd never been anything but nice to her, so she tended to keep her opinions about his personal life to herself.

All the neighbors that Hanson had spoken too pretty much said the same thing. Avery was a sweet kid, helpful to the ladies in the complex; he was friendly, but still somewhat shy and mostly kept to himself. A few of them commented on his outward appearance. Their first impression of him was so much different than how they saw him once they really got to know him. At first he came across to them as dark, quiet, and somewhat moody. One woman suspected that he was into devil worship when she first saw him, but she confessed that she had been mistaken, and her first impression couldn't have been farther from the truth.