Not One of Us

by Debbie Herbert

  My voice died in the gulf breeze, swallowed up in the heavy, humid air. This couldn’t be real. Any minute, Zach would stroll out of the woods, puzzled at my frantic cries. I swallowed hard. Think like Zach. Where would he go?

  “Jori.”

  I whirled around. Mimi stumbled toward me in her house slippers, her silver hair loose and fluttering in the wind. “Check the tree house,” she panted, practically out of breath from running.

  Of course. The relief turned my legs to jelly, and I took a deep breath. He’d be there. He had to be. He used to play in it for hours as a kid. My relief was short lived, though, as I remembered it was half-rotten now. It would never hold up the weight of an adult.

  Mimi’s chest heaved up and down, and I feared the panic and exertion might do her in. I couldn’t deal with yet another crisis on my hands. “Go back inside and call his day program,” I said, fighting to keep my voice calm. “Maybe there was a problem and he’s still there. We’ll find him. I promise.”

  Without waiting to see if she obeyed, I rushed to the opposite side of our property. The tree house Uncle Buddy had built for Zach years ago stood on the edge of the woods. He’d spent every free hour in the tree house as a child, dragging along his LEGOs and toy metal cars with him. I should have insisted the thing be torn down long ago. I raced out to the abandoned structure, my heart sinking at the sight of old pieces of lumber that had fallen to the ground and missing planks on the floorboard that left gaping, dangerous openings.

  Frantic, my eyes scanned beneath the tree house, fearing Zach might have fallen and lay unconscious on the ground. I imagined his body crumpled and still from the pain and shock of broken bones.

  But Zach wasn’t there. Again, the strange mixture of relief and panic rushed through me—until I imagined new horrors of dangerous possibilities.

  Let dead dogs lie.

  What if . . . what if Zach hadn’t wandered off on his own? Had the person who threatened me taken my brother? And if they had . . . what would they do to him?

  I felt the blood drain from my face, and I stumbled over to the base of a broad oak tree and leaned my back against it. Prickly bark dug through the thin material of my T-shirt, and the pain grounded my thoughts. I took several deep breaths, lifting my face to the sky. Sunlight warmed my cheeks. I couldn’t give in to the dark despair that my brother might be held somewhere against his will, frightened and confused. Not yet. Not until I’d searched everywhere first.

  “Call your friend.”

  I jumped at Mimi’s voice and opened my eyes. She stood in front of me, hair disheveled and one thin arm extended, holding my cell phone. “You know. That cop woman. The day program said Zach left at his usual time with his usual driver.”

  I took the phone and with trembling fingers located Tegan in my contacts and pressed call. She answered immediately.

  “It’s Zach. My brother. He’s missing.” I hoped she could understand my words between my gasps for air. No matter how much I breathed, I couldn’t seem to suck in enough oxygen.

  “How long has he been missing?” Tegan’s voice was crisp, calm, matter of fact. It temporarily braced me.

  “At least thirty minutes. We’ve looked everywhere. I think he came home from his day program because I was in my room and heard a car in the driveway, and then our door opened and closed. But when I checked later, Mimi was asleep in the den, and now we can’t find him.”

  “Have you called his day program yet?”

  “Yes. They said they dropped him off as usual.”

  “I’ll organize a search immediately. In the meantime, check to see if any of his belongings are missing. Is there anything special he likes to keep with him? Are any of his clothes missing?”

  That hadn’t occurred to me. “I’ll go look and call you right back,” I promised.

  “Has he ever wandered off before?” Tegan asked.

  “Never. Do you think . . .” I couldn’t speak the terrible words.

  “We don’t know that he’s been taken. Hang in there and call me back.”

  I nodded, even though she certainly couldn’t see me, and hung up.

  “What did she say?” Mimi asked.

  “Tegan’s organizing a search. While we’re waiting, she told me to see if any of Zach’s stuff is missing.”

  Mimi nodded, and we hurried off. “If there was one thing Zach would take, it’s his bucket of LEGOs,” she said.

  At the house, we rushed inside to his bedroom. The nightstand where he kept the toy bucket was completely bare. What little optimism I’d had drained out of me. Just how long had my brother been missing? Was he even still in the bayou? The county? The state?

  “It’s gone,” Mimi whispered, so soft I could barely hear her. “What does that mean? That Zach took them and wandered off on his own?”

  My skin crawled with fear. It didn’t make sense.

  Let dead dogs lie.

  The refrain beat a steady drum of fear into my heart. Zach—so innocent and so vulnerable. He had no conception of evil and limited communication skills.

  I sank onto his bed and covered my face with my hands. From afar, the wail of sirens blasted in the air.

  Chapter 23

  I’d set up the room to make Zach as comfortable as possible.

  He slouched on the couch, his hands constantly shifting the LEGOs. Grab a scoop of pieces, let them fall back into the bucket. Clickety-clack. Clickety-clack. A mechanical waterfall of plastic bits. Over and over ad nauseum. The constant clatter was getting on my last nerve. I wanted to yank the bucket of toys away from him, but I feared that would result in even worse noise. We were in a remote location, but you never knew when someone might be out walking the backwoods or boating along the bayou creeks.

  I’d only done what was necessary to protect myself and my secrets.

  Nobody would understand that, however.

  Zach stood up, LEGO bucket in hand. “Go home,” he said, a stubborn, determined set to his face.

  I raised my voice. You had to be firm with others, apparently something his grandmother and sister didn’t seem to understand. Growing up, my dad never hesitated to use the strap on us kids. Or coddled us in any way. It had been a harsh, hardscrabble kind of existence in the bayou backwoods, but it had made me strong. You had to fight for every scrap of money and power in this world, a lesson I’d learned early as a kid. I’d do whatever was necessary to keep my world from imploding. I’d done it before, and I’d do it again. “Sit down,” I ordered. “And shut up.”

  Zach flung the LEGO bucket across the room. It smashed against the wall; hundreds of plastic pieces clattered around us on the rough-hewn floor, loud as an explosion of gunfire. He started to walk around me, and I grabbed his arm.

  “You will mind me,” I warned, forcing him back onto the couch. “Now sit down. Or else.”

  I didn’t yell at him or grab him hard enough to leave a bruise. It wasn’t necessary. Not yet. And I hoped it wouldn’t be. I prided myself on only using the right amount of force called for in any situation.

  But if lethal measures were necessary, so be it.

  Chapter 24

  TEGAN

  Jori and her grandmother sat on the edge of the sofa, their bodies poised and tense, as though ready to spring into flight. Jori’s eyes were dark and wild and large in her pale face. If Linsey and Luke were missing, I’m sure I’d look the same.

  Uniformed cops swarmed their small house and the property.

  “We’re doing everything possible to find Zach,” Oliver said in his most reassuring voice. “It’s possible Zach returned home, grabbed his toys, wandered outside on his own, and then got lost in the woods. We’ve organized a volunteer search crew to comb the woods, and I have officers interviewing everyone employed at the day program. Hopefully, somebody has seen something out of the ordinary.”

  Jori stood and paced to the window, pulling back the curtains. Already, twilight had begun to gather, casting long shadows and cooling the spring air to a slight c
hill. “He must be cold. And frightened.”

  “He doesn’t know how to swim,” Mimi interjected. “If he fell in the water . . .”

  Nobody spoke. Less than fifty feet from their house was one of the many winding creeks that threaded its way through swamps about the bayou. They teemed with water moccasins and the occasional alligator. With the advent of spring, the reptiles were stirring from their dormant winter, mating and sunning in the warmer weather.

  Zach’s grandmother looked terrible. She seemed to have aged a decade since the last time I saw her. Her frail limbs trembled, and her face was a sickly shade of white and ash. Her eyes were red and swollen. She was a pale shadow of the saucy woman I’d met earlier.

  “It’s all my fault,” she kept muttering.

  Jori left the window and strode to the couch, then took a seat beside her grandmother and put an arm across her shoulders. “They’ll find Zach. I want you to take your medicine and go lie down. Okay? There’s nothing you can do.”

  She nodded meekly, and Jori went to the kitchen, returning a minute later with a pill bottle and a glass of water.

  Oliver’s phone buzzed. “Mullins. What’s up?”

  I followed him out to the porch as he answered the call, then watched his expression as he nodded and sighed. “Okay. Come on over to the residence. We need every able body in the search. If we don’t find him before dark, our chances dramatically decrease.”

  A quick glance over my shoulder reassured me that Jori and her grandmother were heading down the hallway and couldn’t overhear.

  “Any news?” I asked as he stuffed the phone back in his pocket.

  “No. Mullins and Haywood interviewed every employee who worked at his day program today. No one observed anything unusual. At approximately three twenty, he and two other clients got in the car with their driver. The other clients were safely returned home.”

  “What about the driver?”

  “He said that when he pulled into the driveway, Zach climbed out, and he watched him until he was safely inside the house, then left.”

  “He didn’t find it strange no one was at the door to meet Zach?”

  “No. He said sometimes Zach’s grandmother came to the door, but not always. He didn’t think anything of it.”

  “What do you think?” I asked. “Surely it’s not a coincidence that Jori Trahern receives threatening messages and then this happens. Would her brother really wander off on his own? According to his family, he’s never done that before.”

  The door swung open, and Jori eyed us. “What’s happening?”

  “We’ve interviewed all of the day program employees and his afternoon driver,” Oliver said. “Nothing out of the ordinary happened today. There’ve been no reports of suspicious people hanging around the building or any employee who exhibited an inappropriate relationship with your brother.”

  “How’s your grandmother?” I asked.

  “Crying herself to sleep. The one time I want her to be confused and unaware of what’s happening, she’s one hundred percent lucid.”

  “Sleep’s the best thing for her right now,” I said gently.

  Jori acted as though she hadn’t heard me. “This is all my fault,” she said, repeating the same words her grandmother had used. “Someone’s after me, and they’re using Zach to hurt me.”

  I only had an inkling of how she must feel. Once when the twins were five, my ex was three hours late bringing them home. We were going through the worst of times in our relationship, and I’d feared he’d taken off with the kids. He didn’t answer his phone. He wasn’t at his house. Every minute with no news ticked by like an hour. Even with my extended family gathered around me, it had been a special kind of hell. Finally, he’d called from a car repair shop and reported that his transmission had died and he’d been stranded. Typical Josh—he was careless about charging his phone, and the battery had died. The twins corroborated his story when they arrived home.

  Jori needed more resources, I decided. She toted a lot of responsibility on her young shoulders, and even though she’d grown up in the bayou, she’d been away a long time and needed to forge new connections. I’d make sure to help her with that. But for now, I kept my mouth shut, unwilling to utter false platitudes that Zach had probably just wandered off on his own and would be found shortly.

  It could be no coincidence he was missing so soon after Jori received threats. Had Strickland’s killer kidnapped Zach? If so, I feared for Zach’s life. The person who’d murdered Strickland had proven he had no qualms in permanently silencing his victims.

  Chapter 25

  JORI

  I sat on the back porch steps, rubbing my arms as I watched the woods, willing with all my heart and mind for Zach to materialize out of nowhere. But I knew better than anyone that any amount of wishing and hoping was useless. It hadn’t brought Deacon back alive, it hadn’t kept my mom from dying of cancer, and it sure as hell wasn’t helping Mimi ward off the ravages of dementia. Each minute, the darkness seeped a degree deeper, extinguishing my hope.

  The sound of footsteps trampling on twigs and a low murmur of voices drifted on the wind. Even though I couldn’t see them at the moment, dozens of civilian volunteers along with uniformed cops were in the nearby woods, combing the ground for Zach or any clue of where he might be.

  Warmth pressed across my shoulders and back, but I kept my gaze forward, staring at the empty yard.

  “You’re shivering,” Tegan said. “Thought you could use this afghan from your sofa.”

  My fingers grasped at the blanket edges, pulling it in closer. It was true—my entire body shook uncontrollably. You’d think I was in Antarctica instead of Alabama.

  “Any idea what might have driven someone to take Zach?” she asked.

  “You agree this is from whoever threatened me last time?”

  “We have to take that option seriously. Can you think what might have angered them?”

  “Yes. Like I said, this is all my fault. I went to Gulfport a couple days ago and talked to Jackson’s adoptive father.”

  “His name?” Tegan already had her phone out, ready to make a note.

  “Ardy Ensley.”

  “What happened?”

  I quickly filled her in on my conversation with Ardy. “It was so stupid of me. It’s like I’ve become obsessed with what happened in the past and why someone doesn’t want me to dig it up.”

  “I’ll contact Ensley at once. Maybe he can help.” Tegan jumped off the step, started to walk away, and then turned back. “Just in case . . . do you have a friend you can call to stay with you tonight and keep you company?”

  I thought of Dana. That bridge had been burned. “No one,” I admitted.

  She nodded and strode away from me, already on the phone with another cop to get in touch with Ardy.

  Had Jackson’s father abducted Zach? I saw no reason for him to do so. All he wanted was to forget everything and everybody in Bayou Enigma and concentrate on his current family. But, presumably, I’d made my enemy very nervous.

  That’s how I thought of the intruder now. He was an enemy who’d dared harm one of the two people I loved. Guilt slammed into me as I remembered how I’d selfishly worked while Zach had been kidnapped right under my nose. To think I’d been complaining ever since I got home about having to take care of Zach and Mimi. I’d give anything to have my brother back now.

  “I’m sorry, Mom,” I whispered. “I failed you.” The only thing Mom had ever asked of me was to watch out for Zach after her death. I’d done a horrible job of it. I’d run away to Mobile, leaving everything in the hands of my aging grandmother, and had only returned when her health was too precarious to care for Zach anymore.

  Where the hell was Zach? I pictured him in a series of disasters, each progressively worse: lost, scared, walking in circles as he tried to find his way home; gulping swamp water as he sank into a pond; being tied and gagged and beaten at the hands of my enemy.

  My vision blurred from a film of
tears that overflowed and trickled down my face in hot salt tracks that I didn’t bother wiping away. Misery and fear had me locked in a death grip that made it hard to breathe. Each second ticked by like an eternity. A chill that had nothing to do with the lateness of the afternoon seeped into the marrow of my bones.

  I stared ahead, unseeing and numb, the world a blur. A shout went up somewhere beyond the tree line of the yard. A voice boomed from the woods.

  “Zach! Zach! He’s here!”

  Zach? I stumbled to my feet like a drunk emerging from a weekend binge. Excited voices rang out from somewhere in the darkness.

  Was he alive? Or . . . I flung the afghan from my shoulders and ran toward the noise. My breath was loud and labored, hope and fear warring within me. Before I got to the edge of the woods, a group of cops ran forward, waving and pointing.

  “Over here!”

  Zach walked in the middle of the group, his gaze drifting from one person to another, as though trying to understand what all the excitement was about. He clasped the LEGO bucket firmly in his right hand. One of the cops tapped him on the shoulder and pointed at me.

  I ran to him where he stood and then wrapped my arms around him. He was alive. I pressed him tight, and he stiffened uncomfortably before wiggling out of my embrace. I had to laugh through my tears. Even though my heart was bursting with love for him and relief that he appeared unharmed, Zach still didn’t want to be hugged. It was just who he was.

  “Are you okay?” I asked, rubbing his hands. It was the one gesture of affection Zach allowed.

  “Okay,” he repeated, the echolalia automatic and rote. I scanned his body to check for obvious signs of abuse. There were no bruises, blood, or rips in his clothes.

  “We’ll need to do a full-body scan and question him when he gets inside,” a cop said.

  I nodded, not hopeful that their questions could ever be answered. Still, I asked what we all wanted to know.

  “Where’ve you been, Zach?”

  “All done,” he answered, walking toward the house. He grabbed my hand and pulled me along.