The Child Snatcher

by Aria Johnson

  Thank you for downloading this Infinite Words eBook.

  * * *

  Join our mailing list and get updates on new releases, deals, bonus content and other great books from Infinite Words and Simon & Schuster.

  CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP

  or visit us online to sign up at

  eBookNews.SimonandSchuster.com

  For Carl Edward Johnson

  Chapter 1

  I arrived at work wearing concealer under my eyes, a dab of blush on my cheeks, and my lips were glossed with a cheerful raspberry tint. I rarely bothered with makeup, but I hoped the added color would hide the fact that I’d cried myself to sleep last night.

  Veronica ambled toward my desk, carrying a cup of coffee. She was a sturdy woman in her seventies, one of the five members of the horticulture department that I supervised. She wore the required uniform: a green shirt and khaki-colored slacks, covered with a protective smock. Having a position of management, I was allowed to wear regular clothes, but I would have loved the convenience of a uniform.

  “You look pretty, Claire. Hot lunch date?” Veronica inquired, her dark eyes twinkling with mischief.

  “Wouldn’t that be nice? But it’s unlikely that I’ll ever get a date if I don’t start putting a little more effort into my appearance.” My attempt at lightheartedness fell flat and my voice came out sounding as exhausted as I felt.

  She placed the coffee on my desk. “It’s good and strong. Should help wake you up,” she added knowingly as she stared into my tired eyes.

  No amount of makeup could disguise a beleaguered spirit, I surmised as I guzzled the mud-colored elixir as if it had healing properties.

  “By the way, how’s Brandon making out?” Veronica folded her arms as if bracing herself for my latest tale of woe.

  Brandon was a perpetually unhappy and hostile young man, and she was aware that only two days ago, he had kicked the closet door of his bedroom with an unflagging fury, stopping only when his sneaker had become embedded in the wood. The week before that, while sitting at the breakfast table eating cereal, he’d quietly threatened to poison the neighbor’s dog if it didn’t stop barking so much.

  It was obvious by the way Veronica’s lips were pursed together that she was struggling against the urge to chastise me for allowing Brandon to “walk all over me,” as she often put it.

  Despite our age difference, Veronica was my closest friend and confidante on the job. Stubbornly refusing to retire, the gutsy seventy-two-year-old had sued for age discrimination—and won—when the head honchos had tried to downsize her position.

  Although she knew much more about plant life than I did, my master’s degree in horticulture outranked her high school diploma and I’d been her supervisor for the past seven years. At least on paper I was. In reality, Veronica was as knowledgeable as a doctorate botanist when it came to the art of garden cultivation.

  Possessing a nurturing spirit, she often mothered me. Believing I’d been dealt a bad hand in life, she fussed over me, making my coffee every morning and often bringing me home-cooked food when she thought I was getting too thin. She also served as my armchair therapist and a trusted adviser when it came to matters concerning my brooding—and at times violent—socially awkward son.

  “Brandon is fine,” I said in a sharp tone that warned her to back off. “Really, he’s fine,” I added more gently when I noticed a trace of hurt flit across her face.

  Actually, Brandon was anything but fine. Before going to bed last night, I’d stood outside his bedroom door with a fist poised to knock as I listened to him sobbing and muttering mournfully, “Why? Why’d she do this to me? I did everything for her.”

  In addition to his father’s abandonment, this was the second major heartbreak of my son’s life. I didn’t have the answer to why his so-called girlfriend had broken up with him, and since any words of comfort from me would further enrage him, I slunk away from his door, feeling helpless.

  As Veronica hovered nearby, I eyed my computer monitor, pretending to be immersed in the blur of words and numbers on the screen while my mind wandered to last night. I’d had a hard time getting to sleep and repeatedly sprang upright with my heart racing, thinking I’d heard a thump or thud. “You okay, Brandon?” I had yelled from my bedroom. Of course, my question had been met with silence. My son was much too inconsiderate to bother putting my mind at ease with a response.

  After being startled by an odd humming noise, I threw off the covers and crept down the hall toward Brandon’s room, stopping short outside his door. A hand covered my mouth and I blinked back tears as I listened to the mournful sound of my son sobbing. From previous experiences, I knew it wouldn’t be long before his pitiful cries escalated to a one-sided tirade that culminated in either the shattering of glass or the crash of a waste bin being kicked across the room.

  Noticing that I had drifted off in thought, Veronica gave my shoulder an understanding squeeze and ambled over to a shipment of fertilizer and potted hydrangea, allowing me to sink even deeper into my inner world.

  As my thoughts hurtled back to last night, I recalled how I’d tossed and turned and quietly wept, and then finally slipped into a fitful sleep.

  Although Brandon had never indicated that he wished to seriously harm anyone, a part of me was terrified that one day he would. His rage fully possessed him at times.

  If my son were a girl, I imagined he would have been a cutter. Or an anorexic. Or both. It seemed to me that emotionally troubled girls tended to provide warning signs before they did something terrible. But boys didn’t give any glaring indicators that they were about to go on a shooting rampage at their high school. Like Brandon, the brooding behavior of those kids who massacred their classmates had been ongoing for such a long time, it was considered more of a personality defect than a mental health issue.

  Though he still behaved like a bratty kid, Brandon was practically grown. At twenty years old, he no longer had to follow my orders, and I couldn’t force him to get counseling for his mood swings that went from depression to rage.

  During Brandon’s high school years when he had changed from a quietly sullen boy to a raging teen that was verbally abusive to neighbors, teachers, and even me, I’d hustled him off to a series of psychologists. I was repeatedly told there was nothing clinically wrong with him. He exhibited a behavioral problem known as oppositional defiant disorder, which didn’t require medication. The clinicians informed me that Brandon’s disorder involved a variety of genetic and environmental factors. Mainly environmental factors, insisted one of his therapists, and she seemed to point a finger at me. The mother was always to blame.

  It was recommended that Brandon attend family therapy with both parents, but my ex-husband, Howard, refused to participate.

  Brandon’s behavior at those sessions had been embarrassing. He openly sulked, defiantly rested his cruddy boots on top of the therapist’s pristine coffee table, and glared at both the therapist and me, responding to all questions with seething sarcasm. So, we stopped going.

  But he had gotten worse, and there was no denying that my son needed some kind of treatment. If he agreed to go, I’d be willing to sit through the agonizing sessions alongside him with a pained smile plastered on my face. I’d do whatever it took to usher my child into adulthood as a happy, self-sufficient, and well-adjusted human being.

  It would have been nice to have the hot lunch date that Veronica had hinted at, but it was impossible for me to enjoy any kind of pleasure when I felt like such a failure as a mom. Until Brandon became a functioning adult and at peace with himself, any joy that life possibly held for me was temporarily on hold.

  It was a habit to check on Brandon as soon as I woke up each day. This morning when I quietly cracked
open his door, I found his room in its normal messy state with an overflowing trash bin, old pizza boxes, and piles of dirty laundry. I felt immense relief that there were no shards of broken glass. No toppled furniture. No recent holes in the wall.

  My deeply troubled man-child was sleeping soundly with an expression so blissful and angelic, I’d been tempted to forge a path through all the junk on the floor and steal a quick kiss on his cheek.

  But I hadn’t. No point in taking the risk of disturbing him from the peaceful slumber that protected him from his waking belief that he was a fucktard, a dipshit, an asshat, and any number of the self-bashing slurs that he routinely hurled at himself . . .aloud.

  Being Brandon’s mother should have aged me. Should have grayed my hair and given me wrinkles, yet there were no outward signs of aging. At forty-two, I was surprisingly youthful considering all I’d been through. To my amazement, I was often mistaken for my son’s sister.

  Imagining that the decline and erosion were taking place on the inside, I grimaced at the notion of having vital organs that were diseased and rapidly failing, one-by-one. In the midst of pondering the condition of my internal organs, Veronica reappeared at my desk. She ran a hand over her close-cropped, gray hair and sighed as she took a seat beside my desk.

  “You can tell me to butt out, but it wouldn’t be right if I didn’t at least try to talk some sense into you. I realize how protective you are of Brandon, and this is a touchy subject, but . . .” Veronica paused.

  I groaned inwardly, sensing that she was gearing up to lecture me about my culpability in the way Brandon had turned out.

  It briefly occurred to me to fabricate a story and tell her that Howard had offered our son a position at his real estate firm. For good measure, I could add that Brandon was so enthused, he’d signed up for an online real estate course. But what would have been the point? Veronica would have seen right through my lies, and Brandon would still be jobless, sequestered in his bedroom, trolling the Internet, and playing video games.

  I could have simply told her to mind her own business, but she meant well and I didn’t want to be disrespectful.

  She cleared her throat. “Claire, you have to face the fact that you’re not doing Brandon any favors by coddling him. In fact, you’re enabling his behavior.”

  “You’re being overly dramatic, making it sound as if Brandon has a drug problem,” I said defensively.

  “You know what I mean. To allow a practically grown man to lie around, doing nothing, is setting him up for failure later in life. He’s never going to learn to take care of himself if you make life easy for him.”

  “He needs time to—”

  Veronica held up a hand. “He dropped out of college well over a year ago. He’s not going to amount to much if he continues down the path he’s on.”

  I scowled in aggravation. “What path? You make it sound as if he’s involved in criminal activity.”

  “Brandon needs tough love and if you don’t make him get off his butt and get a job, you’re going to be taking care of your grown son for the rest of your life.”

  I sighed wearily. “You have no idea the amount of strength it takes to keep pushing someone who refuses to budge.”

  “You’re the mother—so act like it. Make Brandon get off his lazy tail and do something worthwhile with his life.”

  “Some kids mature late in life. I’m sure he’ll figure things out in his own time.” My lack of sleep was taking a toll and I didn’t have the strength to defend myself against Veronica’s badgering.

  “Are you saying you’re willing to put up with his outbursts indefinitely? Do you mean to tell me that you’re going to allow a twenty-year-old man to keep having tantrums and bashing holes in your walls . . .along with all of his other shenanigans?”

  I made a mental note to stop sharing my personal problems with Veronica. Had I not disclosed so many details of Brandon’s behavior, I wouldn’t have to put up with her righteous indignation.

  “Brandon has emotional issues,” I said somberly and then gave a shrug of defeat.

  “Then, he should be getting treatment.”

  “He’s not psychotic. He’s merely high-strung. Always has been . . .you know that.”

  “All I know is that you make a lot of excuses for him, and if he’s not pointed in the right direction soon, he’s going to end up a forty-year-old ne’er-do-well.”

  Ne’er-do-well. I cringed at her archaic choice of words. Loser would have sufficed just fine.

  I massaged my temple. “I’m tired of fighting with him. I give up. I simply don’t care anymore.” But the pitiful whine that slipped into my voice was a dead giveaway—a sign that I did care. I cared so much I could feel a kind of pressure in the center of my chest, and the hand that had been massaging my temple moved down to my chest, and began rubbing circularly.

  “Are you okay?” Veronica asked.

  “Heartburn,” I mumbled, pulling open my desk drawer and seizing a container of Tums.

  Veronica gripped the handle of the cart she used to transport plants and pushed it toward the door. “Do you need anything?” she asked, looking over her shoulder at me with a softened expression.

  I shook my head. “No, I’m fine.”

  She nodded before shuffling off to the greenhouse to tend to the flowers and foliage in there.

  With Veronica out of my hair for the next hour or so, I returned my attention to the computer screen, prepared to spend the next few hours writing the dreaded biannual job evaluations for the seven horticulturists—including Veronica—whose jobs included maintaining the grounds, creating eye-catching floral designs, and overseeing the on-site organic composting program at the small children’s zoo where I was employed as the Director of Horticulture.

  It was a lofty title that didn’t match my laughably small salary. Although I deserved and certainly could have used more money, especially since Howard had stopped paying child support the moment he’d discovered that Brandon had dropped out of college, I remained in my position because of my love of greenery.

  Though I seldom got the opportunity to actually work with the plants that my department nurtured, I experienced the wonderful sensation of having my hands in soil more at home than at work. I had a stunning flower garden in my front yard that was my pride and joy. Simply being around flowers and enjoying their beauty allowed me to forget my troubles, bringing peace and sanity to my chaotic world.

  I labored over the evaluations, working straight through lunch, and waving away Veronica’s offer to share her home-cooked pot roast. I was determined to finish, but had to pull myself away from the tedious work to attend a management meeting that was so boring, it was a struggle to stay awake.

  After the meeting, I called Brandon and asked what he wanted for dinner.

  “Not hungry,” he said in the typical monotone he spoke in whenever he wasn’t bellowing about how much his life sucked.

  “You’ll be hungry later,” I reminded him in a patient tone. “I could stop at Taco Bell or Domino’s. Do you want . . .Mexican or pizza, hon?”

  “I don’t care,” he muttered irritably. “Get whatever you want, Mom.” He disconnected the call before I could come up with other food suggestions.

  Chapter 2

  Brandon called an hour later while I was stuck in crawling traffic.

  “Are you on your way home?”

  “I’m actually on my way to Taco Bell. Why?”

  “We haven’t had Thai food in a while. Would you mind picking up something from House of Siam?” His tone was surprisingly polite and upbeat.

  House of Siam was on the other side of town, but I didn’t mind going out of my way because there was something in Brandon’s tone that filled me with hope. Maybe he would make an effort to get himself together and stop brooding over that vile girl who’d broken his heart. God only knew what he’d seen in such an unsavory character in the first place.

  In the midst of bumper-to-bumper traffic, I managed to make a U-turn a
nd steered the car in the opposite direction. My mind wandered to Brandon’s laptop. I gripped the steering as I recalled how my son would sit and stare at his screensaver, an image of a girl named Ava that he’d met in a porn chat room.

  There was nothing cute about Ava. She looked perpetually pissed-off with mean, squinty eyes, a hawk nose, and a turned-down mouth. Tattoos splattered her neck and shoulders, and her stringy hair was streaked with all sorts of colors. Ava probably wasn’t even her real name, but one of numerous Internet monikers.

  My lips puckered in distaste. Although I’d never met her personally, I could tell by her expression—the tight way she held her mouth—that she wasn’t very nice. And some of the unpleasant things Brandon told me she’d said after she dumped him for a girl proved that she was a cruel person.

  Why don’t you grow some balls and stop acting like a bitch? What’re you, a stalker? My new girlfriend’s more man than you’ll ever be and she’s gonna kick your ass if you keep calling and harassing me.

  Brandon was much better off without that atrocious girl and I hoped he realized it. If only he’d take my advice and enroll in our area’s community college, he could meet nice girls who weren’t covered in tattoos. I was sure he’d be a happier person if only he’d stay out of chat rooms, get out of the house, and start mingling with young people who didn’t hide behind screen names and who actually had goals in life.

  Then again, maybe sitting in a structured class environment wasn’t the right fit for him. Perhaps he needed to do something creative and use his hands. Culinary school, maybe? It was an idea worth looking into since part of Brandon’s grievances over the breakup was that he’d done all the cooking and cleaning during the short three weeks he’d shared an apartment with Ava.

  I’d never known my son to be interested in puttering around the kitchen or in keeping things tidy, and I wondered if the cooking thing was a hidden talent he’d inadvertently stumbled upon out of necessity.