Of Lights and Shadows (Book 4)

18) Lawful Arrest

'They never saw anyone enter or leave Sarah Earl's dressing room besides herself and that stage hand, Mr Stone. Apparently half the people didn't even know Jackson was inside the dressing room, he shouldn't have been there you see. But Mrs Earl used to leave him there because she couldn't afford a sitter. The backstage manager told her it was unsafe to keep the boy backstage unsupervised because, and I quote, "What he if wanders out and makes trouble?" He didn't seem to care too much about the boy's safety or anything like that, only about the chance that the play might be disturbed.'

Dastardious and Dutch stood outside in the cool night air as Dutch retold everything he had heard. Currently he was leaning against the brick wall watching Dastardious try to pick the lock on one of the doors. They had met up shortly after Dastardious had returned to the alley. He had just walked out of the front door and seen Dastardious dump the body of a man on to the bonnet of a police car before walking off. The news he had to give was exactly what Dastardious heard himself from the backstage crew they had gathered.

'I talked to Mr Stone as well, that job he had to do which took away his time to check on the kid? The manager called him to do it because he noticed Stone kept slipping off when he should have been working. He was kept under close watch and worked hard so he couldn't slip away again and eventually forgot about it.'

'So the boy was taken out of the dressing room via that window,' Dastardious pointed it out to Benjamin with one hand while jiggling a hair clip in the door's lock with his other, 'like I knew he was. He would have had to have been let out first because I can't see the Shadow letting him go last in case he ran out the door-'

'Unless the kidnapper locked the door before climbing out again, hey?' interjected Dutch.

'Then who unlocked it again before Mrs Earl got there? She found it unlocked.'

Dutch shrugged carelessly. 'Maybe the Shadow had someone working on the inside?'

'You mean the same one that unlocked the Harrison's bedroom window?'

Dutch shrugged again. 'It could be, or someone new.'

Dastardious didn't reply for a couple of minutes while he jiggled the clip further until finally the lock clicked and the door swung open.

'The boy would have needed help to get out of the window; I doubt he could have made it simply by standing on the chair,' he said. 'I could barely get through.'

'So maybe the kidnapper climbed in, helped him out through the window first, and then climbed after him?'

'Then what would have stopped the boy from running out of the alley, yelling, screaming, and kicking up a fuss to be noticed?' Dastardious asked as he copied Dutch and lent against the wall, calmly crossing his arms as he contemplated the theories.

'The only thing I can think of is the Shadow really does have a partner working with him. How else would they be able to make sure the boy didn't run away? Unless they clobbered him, but you think something else don't you?' Dutch asked, gazing suspiciously as Dastardious.

'Maybe.'

Pulling out his phone Dastardious chucked it to Dutch. 'Send Silence a text, I don't care if it wakes him or not, tell him to start searching for information concerning Sarah and Jackson Earl, also Edward Stone. Tell him to use that site I told him about, he'll have to use my password to log in but he should remember it. Tell him to find everything he can about them, they're the only ones that we know of who knew Jackson was in the room. Plus Ed Stone was the only one that checked on him during the time Mrs Earl was onstage. I expect him at my apartment in the morning with the information. And when you're done with that check out this building and see what's inside, see if our Shadow went this way or not,' he ordered.