He was Walking Alone

by P. D. Workman

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  W

  hen everyone was up in the morning, Kenzie and Zachary called Campbell to see if he had any ideas about what to do about Devon.

  “Unfortunately, I agree with Buck. Devon has a permit to carry, so that in itself is not an offense. There is nothing overtly threatening in the email to you about your friend… I wish I could say there was, but you’d be asking a jury to agree that an X through a picture was the equivalent of a serious death threat. All you need is one juror who cut her ex out of all of their pictures without ever intending to do him any physical harm.”

  “He bullied and harassed Harding to death. He was the one who told him to kill himself. He was the one who said that Harding didn’t deserve to live.”

  “But that’s not the same as killing someone. Nobody is going to convict on that. Bullycide is an internet meme, not a legal charge.”

  “Do we have enough to get him for cyberstalking? There must be enough evidence to charge him with that.”

  “Yeah, I think we’ve got a lock on that one.”

  “What’s the penalty for cyberstalking?” Kenzie asked eagerly, giving Zachary two thumbs up to encourage him.

  Campbell sighed and didn’t answer. Zachary closed his eyes. The one thing they could get Devon on, and Campbell was afraid to even tell them the bad news.

  “First, we’d have to convince the FBI that it was worth their while to investigate him, since he was living in New Hampshire and harassing you in Vermont. If we could convince them to investigate him, charge him, and send him to Vermont… the sentence is two hundred and fifty dollars or up to three months jail time.”

  Zachary thumped his head down on the dining room table in disbelief. Kenzie touched his back sympathetically.

  “Are you still there?” Campbell asked.

  “I am,” Kenzie said. “But I think we’ve lost Zachary.”

  He shook his head, still resting it on the dining room table. Two hundred and fifty dollars. That was what his life was worth. That was what Richard Harding’s life was worth. A miserable two hundred and fifty dollars or up to three months.

  “Zachary?” Campbell asked.

  He didn’t answer.

  “Can we go ahead with it?” Kenzie asked. “Can you get the FBI to pursue it so that we can at least get him off the streets for a few months? Maybe?”

  “I’ll ask them, but I wouldn’t expect anything to happen immediately. They’ll only have a skeleton staff over Christmas, and nonviolent crime is not high on their priorities list.”

  Zachary decided that if he were ever going to be able to feel good about leaving Mr. Peterson alone, he was going to have to take matters into his own hands. He made a few phone calls, calling in what favors he could, in order to get a security system installed immediately. It meant extra money to get people in during the holiday season but, as far as Zachary was concerned, money was no object. He would do whatever it took to make sure Mr. Peterson and Pat were safe.

  He worked on their phones and computers, cleaning off any suspicious programs, and added extra firewalls and security measures to keep them from being hacked again in the future.

  “Don’t open any email you aren’t expecting,” Zachary insisted. “Talk to the sender and find out what it is if you’re not sure. Especially if it’s from me or something to do with me. Don’t click any links or attachments unless you are one hundred percent sure what they are and that it was really the person you think it was who sent it to you. I think you should get burner phones. Change your numbers so that he can’t track you or get into your phone logs somehow. This guy is good. Really good.”

  “Maybe we should go back to wall phones with rotary dials,” Mr. Peterson joked. “I never got a virus on one of those, and there was no need to track them, they were always in the same place.”

  “You’ll be careful?” Zachary persisted.

  “We’ll be careful,” Pat assured him. “You know Lorne is just joking. You don’t need to worry about us.”

  But Zachary was worried. He took their car to a local shop and had them put it on a lift so that he could make sure no one had put a tracking device underneath. He checked for bugs at the house and in the car and found nothing, which just made him more sure he had missed something. He kept going at a frenetic pace all day long, getting everything done that he could. He ignored all pleas to eat or rest or sit down and visit.

  When it was all done and he had nothing left to do, it was Christmas Eve.

  Zachary sat on the bed in the spare bedroom, facing away from the door. Staring toward the window, but not actually looking out, his eyes unfocused.

  “Everything is all set?” Kenzie asked Zachary brightly.

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you think Mr. Peterson will be able to figure out the security system?”

  “Pat’s got it.”

  “Good. Well, you’ve had a busy day. Now you can relax.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You deserve a holiday.”

  Zachary drew in a shuddering breath. Everything was an effort, even breathing.

  “And you told Ashley about it being suicide?”

  “No.”

  Kenzie cocked her head, surprised. “I thought I heard you call her. Didn’t you?”

  “I called her. But I didn’t tell her it was suicide.”

  “Oh. What did you tell her?”

  “That it was an accident, just like the police said.”

  “Did she believe it?”

  He nodded. “She paid for my expertise. I uncovered everything else. She believed me.”

  “That’s good,” Kenzie decided. “No point in laying that on her. Now she can start the grieving process.”

  “As long as Devon leaves her alone.”

  “I think he will, don’t you?”

  “If he doesn’t, we know who he is. We’ll put him away for another three months.”

  Kenzie chuckled. “Actually, if he’s been convicted before, they can put him away for six.”

  Zachary didn’t respond. What was the point?

  Kenzie sat down on the bed beside him and took his hand. “Maybe Devon will decide to get help. Maybe his conversation with Lorne will convince him to look at therapy instead of transferring his guilt to everyone else.”

  “Yeah.”

  She looked into his face, trying to connect with him. “Where are you, Zachary?”

  He blinked. Even blinking was exhausting. He wanted to go to sleep and never have to wake up again. He wanted something to take away the unrelenting pain in his chest.

  Kenzie squeezed his hand. “I’m here, Zachary. You’re not alone.”

  The Christmas lights on the neighbor’s house came on.

  Zachary heard the screaming. His chest burned with the smoke. He felt again the terror that he was going to smother and burn, all alone, trapped in the room that burned with the fires of hell. The sense of horror that he had done this to his family. That they were all going to die too. His throat was raw from screaming to them and from the superheated air of the room.

  “Zachary.” Kenzie squeezed his hand. “It’s okay.”

  “I could never carry a gun.”

  “No,” Kenzie agreed. She had criticized him for it before, saying that if he were going to investigate potential homicides, he should at least protect himself.

  But he couldn’t. Not because he was a pacifist or because he couldn’t shoot, but because it would have been too big of a temptation.

  “You’re safe.” Zachary’s voice was a croak.

  “We’re all safe. Lorne and Pat have this fancy new security system. State of the art.”

  Zachary raised his head, not to look at the window sensor and motion detector, but at the smoke detector on the ceiling over the bed.

  “Yes, we’re safe from fire too,” Kenzie confirmed. “There are no fire hazards, you know that.”

  “I need to see the tree.”

  “Come on, then.” She stood up and wait
ed for him to follow. Zachary rose slowly, every muscle in his body protesting. Kenzie put her hand on his back to encourage him. He felt like an old man walking out to the living room. A hundred years old, tottering and unsure of his feet. Mr. Peterson joined them in the living room when he saw that was where they were going. Zachary sagged into the couch and sat there staring at the decorated Christmas tree. It was still unplugged. The candles were all packed back away.

  Mr. Peterson said something, all smiles, but Zachary couldn’t process it. Lorne’s smile faded away and he sat down across from them, saying something quietly to Kenzie. She rubbed Zachary’s back. For a long time, Zachary just stared at the tree, the events of that night replaying over and over in his head. It wasn’t going to happen again. He wasn’t going to let it happen again. But he could never go back in time to correct his mistake or to make things right with his family.

  He put his hands over his face and sat there with Kenzie and Mr. Peterson. After a while, he became aware of Kenzie shaking him, trying to get his attention. He pulled his hands away from his face, still dry-eyed.

  “Zachary, why don’t you call Tyrrell?”

  He shook his head.

  “He wants to hear from you. It might help you to get through this.”

  “Kenzie, no. I can’t.”

  “Are you afraid of feeling worse than this?”

  She did have a point. He was scraping rock bottom, it wasn’t like anyone could make him feel worse than he already did.

  “Not today. Not now.”

  “Tyrrell might need you tonight just as much as you need him,” Mr. Peterson pointed out. “Do you think it’s a coincidence that he wrote to you as Christmas was approaching?”

  He hadn’t thought of that. He thought of Tyrrell as angry, another cyberstalker like Devon, intent only on hurting Zachary, but Tyrrell had been through the Christmas Eve fire too. Maybe he was traumatized rather than angry. He had the same blood running through his veins. He had grown up, at least until age six, in the same family atmosphere. It was possible he suffered the same PTSD and depression as Zachary, especially at the time of year when he’d lost his home and half his family.

  “One of us can call if you can’t manage it,” Kenzie said. “You don’t have to do it yourself.”

  Zachary rubbed the tight band across his forehead. He nodded.

  “Yes?” Kenzie asked eagerly. “You want me to call? Or Lorne?”

  Zachary felt his pockets for his phone, retrieved it, and handed it to her.

  Chapter Thirty

  I

  t was probably a good thing that Zachary hadn’t been eating. Waiting for Tyrrell to arrive, he felt dangerously nauseated.

  “He sounded really nice,” Kenzie assured him after the call. “He sounds a lot like you do on the phone.”

  So maybe Tyrrell wasn’t angry. Maybe he was just looking to connect. But Zachary still wasn’t sure that meeting on Christmas Eve was a good idea. He wasn’t very good company. If Tyrrell was having a rough time, Zachary wasn’t sure there was anything he could do to help.

  The doorbell rang. Zachary got to his feet and moved to the door, no longer exhausted and in pain, but numb and disconnected from himself, feeling as if he were watching himself from a distance. He knew he should check through the peephole first to make sure it wasn’t Devon, but he was afraid that any hesitation would keep him from opening the door at all. He drew in a deep breath and turned the door handle.

  He expected to see a stranger, but Tyrrell seemed completely familiar to him. He looked just as he was supposed to. Taller than Zachary, but with many of the same features as Zachary saw when he looked in the mirror. His hair was longer and shaggier. He was clean shaven, whereas Zachary knew he was scruffy after a few days without shaving. And his eyes were Tyrrell’s. Just exactly the same eyes as Zachary remembered in six-year-old Tyrrell.

  Zachary just stood there, looking at Tyrrell, stunned after decades of not seeing any blood relations.

  “Hey, Zachary,” Tyrrell greeted, holding out a hand uncertainly.

  Zachary automatically shook in response, then Tyrrell pulled him in and wrapped his other arm around him, hugging him tightly. He swore and laughed.

  “Man, Zachary, it’s been too long! It’s been so, so long!”

  Then they were both crying. Kenzie came over and closed the door and herded them into the living room. She was grinning fit to burst.

  “Merry Christmas, Zach,” she murmured, touching him lightly on the arm.

  He didn’t even look at her, completely wrapped up in Tyrrell. Tyrrell kept thumping him on the back, exclaiming things like. “Can you believe it? My big brother!”

  Eventually, they both managed to land on the couch. Tyrrell stretched his arm around Zachary’s shoulders, still holding him close. “I can’t believe it!”

  “You look good,” Zachary managed to say. Tyrrell seemed healthy and happy. He was well-dressed and didn’t look like someone who had spent his life barely making ends meet.

  “And you look…” Tyrrell ran his hand over Zachary’s head, the hair cropped close in a style that was easy to take care of with minimal fuss. “You look like crap, Zachary. Are you sick?”

  Kenzie snorted, then laughed aloud. “He doesn’t always look this bad,” she advised.

  “I just… haven’t slept in a few days.” Zachary rubbed his eyes self-consciously. He had seen in the mirror that morning how hollow they looked, and didn’t imagine they were much better after a hard day’s work. He’d avoided looking at the mirror again. And his long whiskers. He should have cleaned himself up before Tyrrell arrived, but he hadn’t had the energy or will.

  “You gotta sleep,” Tyrrell said. He patted Zachary again on the back. “You gotta take care of yourself, you know.”

  Zachary sniffled and nodded agreement.

  Tyrrell leaned back, letting out a long stream of air. “Oh, you don’t know how long I’ve been waiting for this day. After the first year or two, I never thought I’d ever see you again. The social workers would never tell me anything about you. Or they’d say they didn’t know. I imagine they could have found out, if they really didn’t know. They just didn’t want to tell me. They wanted me to just forget.”

  Zachary nodded.

  Tyrrell looked around the room. “This is a nice place. I thought you lived farther north—”

  “It’s not mine.” Zachary took in his surroundings. He pointed to Mr. Peterson, still sitting in an easy chair. “Lorne, this is Tyrrell. Mr. Peterson—Lorne—was one of my foster parents. It’s his place.”

  “Oh, okay.” Tyrrell nodded. “You kept in contact after all these years? That’s amazing. You must have lived with him a long time.”

  Zachary shook his head. There was so much to tell, so much to explain. “I was only with him a couple of weeks. Not here, with him and his ex-wife.”

  “Zachary and I are both into photography,” Mr. Peterson explained. “Zachary used to come over to develop his pictures, even after he was moved. So we kept in touch over the years, even after my wife and I separated. Pat and I bought this place just a few years ago.”

  “Ah. Well, you can tell her that it’s very nice. Very homey.”

  “You can tell him that yourself.” He raised his voice and directed it toward the kitchen. “You should come in and join the fun, Pat.”

  Pat poked his head through the kitchen doorway, grinning. “How about some Christmas cheer? Would everybody like drinks? Cookies?”

  There were agreeable noises all around. Mr. Peterson got slowly to his feet. “I should help in the kitchen. What does everyone want? Egg nog? Cider? Mulled wine?”

  “Wine sounds good to me,” Kenzie said.

  Zachary wasn’t sure he’d be able to get anything down. It had been so long since he’d eaten or slept, any alcohol would go straight to his head.

  “Something nonalcoholic,” Tyrrell suggested. “The cider?”

  “Cider it is,” Mr. Peterson said. “Zachary, the same?”


  Zachary nodded. He glanced over at Tyrrell.

  “You don’t drink?” Tyrrell asked.

  “Not usually.”

  “I’m a recovering alcoholic,” Tyrrell said frankly. “So I don’t drink at all.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry.”

  “Should we not drink in front of you?” Kenzie asked. “Would that be a problem?”

  “No, no,” Tyrrell waved his hands at both of them. “You go ahead. And there’s nothing to be sorry about,” he told Zachary. “We all have our own challenges. I don’t remember much about it, but I guess Mom and Dad drank, and there’s a genetic predisposition for these things. I found my way through it, but I never want to fall down that hole again, so I avoid it.”

  Zachary nodded. He remembered them drinking. Remembered the voices getting louder and angrier as the nights wore on and they’d had more to drink. Alcohol was not something that ever brought back happy memories for him.

  Tyrrell looked around. “We should turn the tree on! Old Saint Nick will be making his journey around the world soon.”

  Kenzie looked at Zachary. He looked at the tree, trying to decide whether he’d be able to tolerate it, since Tyrrell was there with him. But it was Christmas Eve. The tree could go up like a torch.

  Even though he knew logically that history wouldn’t repeat itself, he couldn’t help the panic and vertigo that swept through him when he even considered the possibility. He shook his head at Kenzie and Tyrrell.

  “I… I can’t. I…”

  “Zachary sort of has a thing about Christmas trees,” Kenzie informed Tyrrell.

  Tyrrell looked at Zachary, understanding dawning. “Oh. Hey, I get it. I still can’t listen to Santa Baby. That’s okay, no sweat.”

  Madonna’s rendition of Santa Baby had been playing on Zachary’s radio that night, just before Tyrrell fell asleep. Remembering it brought back a flood of memories. His parents screaming and fighting. Tyrrell cuddled in his arms, scared. Holding him and humming along with Santa Baby to put him back to sleep.