The Guardian

vague they said. What a hoot. Oh well, he had already been cleared. “Too bad, so sad” ha, ha, ha, he laughed to himself. He would just be more careful.
    One of the main reasons he had moved to Las Vegas was because of Nevada’s reputation for lax enforcement of registration and notification laws. Las Vegas is particularly inept at its ability to monitor them. It was getting even worse with the increased growth of the Mexican population. Most of them were taking the children back to Mexico to sell into prostitution or child labor.
    Oh yes, he had done his research there as well. It was common knowledge that Nevada is not a bad place to be. Out of nearly 5,000 known sex offenders, Nevada authorities don’t know where over 40 percent of them are. The beauty of that for him was he wasn’t even a registered offender. With any luck, he could keep it that way.
    With Las Vegas the town that it is, parents are not taking the responsibility that they should. The numbers of children to prey on is endless. They try so hard to make it a family oriented town but as the old saying goes, “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.” Now there’s something to be proud of. Las Vegas is on nearly 8 of the 10 “worst of lists” in the country.
    Charles was always careful to win the trust, friendship, and confidence of his prey. Once he had that, it was simple. He had one boy, Michael. He had managed to manipulate and sexually abuse him for over a year. There were others of course.
    The last one was close though. Once arrested for supposedly fondling a young boy. As usual, there wasn’t enough evidence to substantiate the accusations and the boy’s testimony was considered totally hearsay.
    The prosecuting attorney wanted to bring up his prior arrests on similar charges but it was thrown out as they didn’t relate to the particular charges and everything had been expunged anyway. They weren’t even allowed to bring them up. Saved by the law again, he was a free man.
    He did have one habit that could come back and bite him in the ass. It could ruin him if he weren’t extremely careful. He had an insatiable taste for kiddy porn. He had quite a few videos and magazines. Once he had an established relationship, he would use them to entertain his young friends. He was very careful not to video himself with the children he was with. That was incredibly stupid and self-incriminating. You could buy what ever you liked at a better quality than you could make yourself anyway. The internet was full of sites you could go to. You just had to be careful not to download or print anything. Even if someone did find out and turn him in, he knew that the Nevada laws would let him off with probation or some other light sentence. He was very careful not to go to sites to solicit any of them. They were already targeting MySpace for the ones stupid enough to hunt there. A sting or some other operation like the one on TV, Dateline NBC was high. There was too much of a paper trail for that. No, he was smarter than that. One of his fellow workers was surfing the child porn sites at work. That was very stupid. Putting yourself in harms way, not only at work but at a government job where the entire computer networking system is monitored, screened, and easy to track your every move. They did nothing to him however. He was allowed retirement. He moved to Massachusetts to work at a grade school. Only in America.
    He walked out of the courthouse that day, a smug, self-righteous look on his face. Charles had an air of confidence about him that said, “Yep, this is the place to be.”
    Charles wasn’t aware of the fact that someone did know him and his past. He wasn’t aware that someone was watching him at that very moment. He strode down the steps of the courthouse, walked out to the grassy area, looking up to the sky, arms spread wide, and “Thank you Jesus” was all he said. He took his sunglasses out of his pocket, slid them over his eyes, smiling. He chuckled to himself, “God I love this town” and walked away. He was unaware he was being followed and watched. It was just as he did the innocent victims that he stalked. The man following him had patience too. He also had an agenda. Justice was its name.
    Chapter 6
    Lieutenant John Halloway was at his desk early the next morning. He needed to get busy and find out exactly who this mysterious victim was. He was not looking forward to any of this, but it was his job and even as dirty as it would