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call him and he’d have his men in the car arrest him.
    The ETF arrived at 90 Dawes at 6:30. They stationed a team out front, but the bulk of the men entered through the smaller, weaker back door. Once they determined that the house was secure, they searched the place. It didn’t take long to find Johnathon. The ETF team followed the sloppy trail of blood smeared on the floor and walls that started at the pool at the bottom of the stairs, went through the broken glass the boys had dragged him over and up to the tiny crawlspace they’d jammed him into, intending it to be his final resting place. The team saw his feet, with socks but no shoes, sticking out. They called to him. He didn’t answer. An officer opened the blood-smeared door and found Johnathon inside, his body in a fetal position and covered in blood.
    Despite their training and experience with grisly matters, the officers who found Johnathon were shocked and sickened at their discovery. Crimes against children do tend to have more profound effects on police officers and the sight of Johnathon’s body, twisted and mashed to fit in the miserable little hole he was stuffed into, his face and throat covered in blood, horrified the officers present. At first, they hoped he was still alive.
    The officers immediately called for paramedics.

    Meanwhile, Tim had fled for home by bus. Seeing Ralston arrive had really spooked him. He vainly hoped that nobody would ever find Johnathon, who he and Kevin had shoved—still weakly fighting for breath—into the tiny crawlspace. He hoped that it would all just go away. He didn’t think about the ridiculous amount of forensic evidence they’d left behind. He didn’t think about whether Johnathon would live or die.
    He’d been on the bus for one stop when it opened its doors again to take on two bloodstained youths. The other passengers on the bus did their best to ignore Kevin and Pierre as they shambled toward the back of the bus out of habit. They sat near, but not with, Tim. He looked at Kevin. The big boy nodded, but did not speak. Kevin and Pierre got off after two stops and walked into the woods of Taylor Creek Ravine.
    But Tim didn’t think that much of it at the time. All he could think about was Ashley. He thought about how beautiful she was, how much he loved her, and how he hoped that she would provide him with the comfort he was sure he couldn’t get anywhere else.
    When the bus finally stopped at the corner nearest his apartment, Tim ran home and straight up to his room. At 5:55, he called Ashley and got her father. Keeping in mind what Gray had told him, her father told Tim that Ashley wasn’t home, but perhaps he should try again a little later. Ashley’s dad later described the boy’s demeanor as nervous, but unfailingly polite.
    For almost an hour, Tim did nothing more than pace around the Ferrimans’ small apartment and worry. He called Ashley again at 6:41. Her dad answered again. He lied again, telling Tim that Ashley was still out with her friends, but that he expected her home at any minute.

    At 6:55, the paramedics arrived at 90 Dawes and raced down to the basement. They replaced the cops in the tiny crawlspace. As soon as they got there, they could see Johnathon was, as paramedics say, VSA (vital signs absent). They wrapped Johnathon’s body in a specially designed blanket and rushed him outside. Once he was inside the ambulance, the paramedics rapidly tried to clamp off all his leaking blood vessels and massage his heart. One of the paramedics, attempting to intubate him, shone a light down his mouth to guide the tube. He was shocked to see the light reflected on the opposite wall—it was coming out of the holes in Johnathon’s throat.
    At 7:07, on the sidewalk just in front of 90 Dawes, inside the ambulance—after all life-saving avenues were exhausted—Johnathon was declared dead.

    Gray, informed that none of the suspects were still inside the house, sent a part of the ETF to Tim’s