Kasey walked into the team house. Actually, it was Bryon's home, but the team worked from there. They were like family in many ways, including the fights and the way they sometimes got on each other's nerves. What held them together was what they did, the reason they were there.
Bryon had worked with others long before Kasey joined the group but had split from them shortly before meeting Kasey. He didn't know a lot about Bryon's history other than he'd lost his sister somehow in the past, and that drove him to start hunting pedophiles. Bryon refused to talk about it, and none of them brought it up.
The rest of the team was slowly brought in over the years. Bryon handled most of the active hunting on the dark web. He was well trusted and had worked for years to appear to be a very active member of the dark web's pedophile circles. It was how they managed to gain most of their information. Trenton, Carter, and Matt also worked the computers, all possessing hacking skills that would leave the government in awe. Carter especially had skill, able to get into almost any system and spy on whoever they needed to research at the time.
Xander and Dyson rotated jobs with Kasey. They were called the muscle of the team because they were the ones who went out and did the physical job of taking down the men and women who hurt children. They were the ones who broke into the houses, stormed into warehouses, and the ones who expertly made each victim suffer with their own brand of vengeance. Right or wrong, it worked. They might not be able to change some pedophile's warped mind, but they could make sure they didn't find any sexual gratification again.
The team also had a doctor working with them. Beau was a pediatrician at the local children's hospital. He was trained in how to handle child sexual assault and had seen things that Kasey didn't want to even imagine. Beau also took care of the team. More than once something had gone wrong and they'd needed Beau. Be it an accidental cut from a knife or something more severe like when Xander had been shot a couple years back, Beau was there for them. They had a bedroom at the team house converted into a medical room, and Beau kept it fully stocked for almost any situation.
The only female member of the team was Becca. She was young, and Kasey had no idea how she'd come to join them, but she was a huge help. She worked for the local courts and was able to get them information on offenders, case outcomes, and other legal information they would need. She heard about new cases often before the team did, and could give them a heads up when a case was coming up that they needed to watch the outcome of.
The team had rules, and as long as the legal system did their job, the team let them for the most part, but it was when the system failed, and the pedophiles were released and reoffended, that STK would step in and take care of the problem.
The team met a couple times a week to talk about cases and to plan stings, and this afternoon was one of those meetings. As Kasey grabbed a bottle of water from the refrigerator, Trenton walked out from where they had the computer lab down the hall. Xander liked to call it the geek cave since that's where all the computer geeks spent most of their time.
"Hey, you look beat. Long day?" Kasey eased back onto the couch as he twisted his water bottle open.
"Yeah, I've been staring at those screens too long today. Most days it doesn't get to me, but today…" He shrugged. "I probably just need to grab a beer and reset."
"I'm free tonight if you want to go grab one." Kasey hadn't spent a lot of time with Trenton, but they were good enough friends they could enjoy a night of beer and pool.
"Thanks, but my brother is in town. I'm going to hang with him." Trenton sat down in one of the oversized lounge chairs.
"I didn't know you had a brother." Kasey should have known that. A wave of guilt hit him for not knowing more about some of the team.
"Twin brother. He lives in Oregon. Married with two kids. We get together a couple of times a year. He's here for some business convention." Trenton glanced up as the door opened and Faith rushed in, followed by Xander and Matt.
"Can I go downstairs?" Faith glanced back at her dad.
"Don't make a mess, and none of the violent games." Matt narrowed his eyes at her.
"You know I don't like those." Faith waved to them as she darted downstairs to the game room the team had set up so they could relax from time to time.
"Greetings, married couple." Trenton laughed.
"You make that sound like a bad thing." Xander flopped down next to Kasey, pulling Matt beside him.
"You two make it look good, but it's not for me." Trenton shrugged. "Bachelorhood looks good on me."
"Don't you mean celibacy?" Bryon walked out of the back room.
"Fuck off, I get laid when I want to." Trenton flipped him off.
"I was talking about a real human, not your fist or some store-bought plastic thing." Bryon took a seat in one of the other chairs.
"Fuck you." Trenton laughed.
Kasey bit his lip. He hated when the guys got this way. They acted like sex was so important. He just didn't get it. Sure, it felt good, but it wasn't all they made it out to be. It was messy, it was awkward, and it didn't do anything for him. He found it easier to just stay out of these conversations when they started.
The door opened again, and Beau walked in, his arms full of medical supplies. "Who's bringing dinner?" He set the stuff at the base of the steps that led upstairs. "I'm starving."
"Becca's bringing Chinese," Bryon said.
"Thank God. I thought I'd have to go home and cook or pull out another frozen dinner." Beau sank down on the other couch.
"Long day?" Kasey asked.
"Aren't they all?" Beau rolled his shoulders. "Today was busier than usual. A lot of broken arms and accidents like that. The warmer weather has the kids playing outside and that means more accidents. At least there wasn't anything very serious today. I was able to send everyone home once I patched them up."
The door opened again and Dyson walked in, carrying bags of food with Becca following behind him with more.
"I picked it up, you sort it out." Becca set the bags on the kitchen table.
Kasey stayed where he was, avoiding the rush of others swarming to the table. He'd get his in time. Truth was, he wasn't that hungry. He'd been living off simple meals the last week, not in the mood to cook or eat much.
"I smell food." Carter walked out from the geek cave.
"Help yourself." Becca waved at Carter before she sat down beside Kasey. "How are you?"
Kasey smiled. "Good, and you, Becca Boo?" He messed with her hair as he called her the nickname he'd given her when she'd started with them.
"Tired. Ready for the weekend to get here." She leaned against him.
"One more day." He wrapped an arm around her. "If I could go in for you, I would."
"I'm pretty sure they'd notice." She grinned up at him. "It's just been a long week. I've been working a trial that just goes on and on. It's an extortion case, and everyone knows he's guilty. They are just wasting time and money with this huge trial, and it's boring as hell." She took a deep breath. "You got a job tonight?"
"Nah, Xander's up tonight. Unless we have a new case, I don't have anything planned the next few days." Kasey glanced up as Bryon walked toward them, eyeing Kasey's arm around Becca.
Kasey grinned, enjoying the jealous glint in Bryon's eyes. While neither Becca nor Bryon really admitted openly that they were seeing each other, the whole team knew they were. They kept it hidden for the most part, but it had been going on for years and was impossible to hide when the team was as close as they were. To push Bryon a little more, Kasey leaned over and kissed Becca's cheek.
Bryon narrowed his eyes as he sat down beside Becca. "You remember who pays you, right?" He grabbed Kasey's hand and removed it from Becca's shoulder, replacing it with his own.
"You won't stop paying me. Then you'd have to do the dirty work yourself." He settled his hands in his lap. Teasing Bryon was fine for a minute, but you didn't push your luck with him. "So, what do we have going on?"
"Got somewhere to be?" Dyson sat down on the floor with a heaping plate of food.
Kasey rolled his eyes. "Some of us have lives to live."
"Keep your pants on." Bryon sat forward. "We'll get to everything once everyone sits down. There isn't much, but what I do have is important."
Kasey watched as everyone slowly gathered. He just wanted to get out of there. He had nowhere to go, no one to see. He just didn't feel like sitting around. He leaned back harder against the couch, waiting.
It took a few minutes, but once everyone had their food and was gathered, Bryon stood. "So, we are working on a few cases, but we have nothing now. Xander has a sting tonight, but other than that, there's nothing on the schedule, but we know how quickly that can change. What I do want to talk about is the rise in kidnappings in the area." Bryon glanced at Matt. "They started about the time Faith was kidnapped a few years ago and have steadily been increasing over the last couple of years. Two more girls were taken last week. One of the eleven-year-old girls was groomed by a man who was in his forties, pretending to be a fourteen-year-old. We have his name, but he's gone missing. Cops sent a team to his home and he'd cleared everything out. So, we know who we are looking for, we just don't know where to find him. We all know that probably means he's skipped town with the girls."
"It sucks and all, but what can we do about this?" Dyson poured soy sauce all over his food.
"That's the thing. We can't do anything, and that drives me nuts. I'm tired of saving the kids after the fact. Somehow, we have to get to these men before they get to the kids. So, I've asked Trenton and Matt to take a little time away from hunting the dark web and start playing around on social media more. They're going to create social media accounts and act like young girls. I think we're around Faith enough to understand how the kids talk these days. Once the pedophiles make contact, we'll hack their information, locations, and whatever else we can dig up on them. Some are going to be nothing more than lonely men looking to talk, and while I'd love to scare the shit out of them, the ones we're looking for are the ones who want to meet and take things to the next level—"
"Whoa, hold up." Beau held up his hand. "We don't entrap people. I get these guys need to be stopped, but I'm not sure this is the way to do it. When I joined the group, we were going after the worst of the worst. The men and women who had already been convicted, served time and were released and offended again. We were looking for sex traffickers, rapists. I'm not sure I'm okay going after some nineteen-year-old senior in high school who is hitting on the fourteen-year-old freshman. Right or wrong, we have to draw the line somewhere. I can't go along with fucking up some guy's life by cutting off his cock because he was flirting on Snap Chat."
Bryon nodded. "I agree completely, and that is why, for now, we aren't going after them. We're only getting case files on them. If while doing this, we come across a trafficker or pedo with a history, we will sting them as we normally do, but this is more to gain information, to see who is out there we haven't been paying attention to. We've been focusing on the dark web, but honestly, half the offenders wouldn't even know how to find the dark web if they wanted to. With the expansion of social media, they are using simpler means to earn trust, find victims, and hurt the kids. This just gives us another place to explore."
"And what about the cases that Matt and Trenton were working on already?" Becca asked.
"Carter and I will still be digging into the dark web. We aren't stopping that. We aren't even sure putting Trenton and Matt on other sites will be beneficial, but I want to try. I'm sick of turning on the news every night and seeing another family destroyed because their child has been taken. I don't want others to go through what Matt and other parents have had to face." Bryon sat back down beside Becca. "As always, we are a team, and even though I've already planned this out and talked to Matt and Trenton about it, we will vote on it. If you all don't agree that this is a good idea to try, we'll scrap it. I just know that what we're doing isn't enough. We are losing too many kids, and I want to find a way to stop it."
Kasey looked around the group, trying to guess what the others would say. Beau had a good point. When were they going too far, when should they back off? It was a lot to think about, but he'd heard about the child's body found a couple of nights before, and he hated that they couldn't stop it. If this helped, if this maybe just kept even one or two kids safe, it was worth trying. He raised his hand. "I'm in. I think we should give it a trial run, see if it works and what we find out."
Becca nodded. "I'm in."
Xander and Matt both raised their hands.
"I'm in." Trenton lifted his hand.
"Me too," Dyson said.
"I'm in." Carter raised his hand.
They all turned to look at Beau, who was sucking on his bottom lip. He finally blew out a long breath. "A trial period, but I'm warning you now if this takes us away from who we are, what we've been about, I will walk. We go after the worst of the worst. Unless we know for a fact a crime is about to happen, we stay back."
Bryon brushed his hands down his pant legs. "You have my word. Anything we find through this new search will be brought before the team. We decide together who we go after. If one of us doesn't agree, we back off."
Everyone nodded.
"I have something to bring up." Becca scooted to the edge of the couch. "It's not a case, but people were gossiping around the courthouse at lunch today. I overheard someone talking about the Sanders case. Evidently, he's out on parole next week and moving to this area."
Kasey shook his head. "We almost had him." He hated George Sanders even though he'd never met the man. He didn't need to. They'd found enough evidence online that the team had planned a sting right away. They'd been one day too late. As they were planning the operation and learning the layout of the man's house, the cops had found him. One way or another, it got Sanders off the streets, but Kasey thought of him as the one who got away. Somehow, he'd managed to get early parole. Another failure for the justice system.
Sanders had been a first-grade teacher. Everyone thought they could trust him. How wrong they were. He'd been teaching piano lessons to young girls and boys in the evenings. Parents would drop their kids off, thinking they were in good hands, only to find out years later that Sanders had abused them and taken disgusting photos of his actions to share with his perverted friends. It turned Kasey's stomach to think about the images he'd seen.
Bryon nodded. "Cops beat us to him. He's served his time, but we will keep a very close eye on what he does once he's out. I know his type. I give him a month before he is back to his old ways. We'll put extra time into making sure we have surveillance on the house and access to any online media he has."
"I just wanted you to know. I wasn't here for all that, but I've heard you talk about it." Becca reached for the plate she'd made herself right before the meeting started.
"Thanks, Bec. Anyone else got anything?" Bryon asked.
No one answered.
"Okay, then I'll call if something comes up. Xander, check in tonight like always. This sting should be in and out without a problem. And, if you don't hear from me, I'll see you back here Monday night for another meeting." Bryon reached for his plate.
Kasey stood. "I'll see you guys later. Good luck tonight, Xan." He started for the door.
"You're not eating?" Beau raised a brow.
"I'm going to go run a few miles. The food will weigh me down, but thanks." He quickly left before anyone could question him more. He just wanted to be alone. There wasn't even really a reason.
As he pulled out of the driveway and headed home to change into his running clothes, he thought about the new program Bryon talked about. Hopefully, it would keep them busier, because as much as he hated having to do the job he did, he was going nuts with nothing to do. It was either feast or famine. With too much time on his hands, he was going to lose his mind.