“Yes,” she said, suddenly solemn. “But this isn't like that.”
He shook his head, the uneasiness back and roaming naked across his face. He stared down at the flyer again, studied it a moment, and slid it across the table toward the boy. “Kid meet Gabe.”
“I know my own son, Walt.”
“I know you think you do.”
“He knew where Michael kept the spare car keys in case of an emergency. In a magnetic box under the wheel well of the left front tire. Michael used to nag me about it whenever I'd forget and have to call Triple A. I still keep my spare keys in the same place, Walt. The boy – he went right to them. He knew right where they were.”
“How'd you know that?” Walt asked him.
“Dad always kept them there.”
“Well, there's a safe enough answer,” Walt said, sinking back into his seat. “Look, this isn't getting us anywhere. If you really want to believe all this—and it's gotta be a hoax, Teri, let me tell you that much right now, it's gotta be a hoax—but if you really want to believe it, at least check it out first, will you?”
“That's one of the reasons I called you.”
“Well, I don't even want to know the other reasons.”
“They can wait,” Teri said, knowing that they probably couldn't. “First things first. I want you to ask him whatever you think might shed some light on this thing. You ask him, and he'll answer the best that he can. You will, won't you?”
The boy nodded. “Sure.”
“And when you're finished, then we'll talk about this other stuff.”
“Are they, by any chance, related?”
“Yeah, I think they are.”
“Great.” Walt scratched at an invisible itch near his right ear, and then looked across the table at the boy as if he were hoping he might be able to find some easy way of stepping inside his head. “All right. We'll play Twenty Questions and we'll see where it takes us. But I'm telling you right now, this is not going to get settled tonight. Not if you're expecting to make a convert.”
“That's fine, as long as you keep an open mind. That's all I'm asking, Walt.”
“That's all, huh?” He smiled. “This all okay with you, kid?”
The boy, who had been mesmerized by the flyer in front of him, looked up and nodded numbly. “Sure,” he said, his voice soft and mouse-like. He was getting tired, Teri thought. He had that rheumy-eyed look of an old dog before it's had a chance to lie down and take its afternoon nap. He slid the flyer across the table at Walt, and rested his head against Teri's shoulder. So much the little boy. So much like Gabe would have done under similar circumstances.
“Okay, why don't you tell me what you were wearing the day you disappeared?”
“I was wearing these.”
Walt glanced at her and she nodded, referring him to the description in the flyer. Levi's. A black tee-shirt beneath a blue-and-white wind breaker. A generic brand of K-Mart tennis shoes. White athletic socks. It was all there. Just like the description.
“Odd, isn't it?” she said.
He ignored her. “What's your middle name?”
The flyer listed him as Gabriel “Gabe” Knight. No middle name.
“Michael,” the boy said. “After my father.”
“And your birthday?”
“April 22nd, 1974.”
That was information listed on the flyer as well. The date of his birth. The date of his disappearance. His age. His name. What he had been wearing. A brief description of his physical characteristics. The circumstances of his disappearance (which had been sketchy, since little was known beyond the fact that he had arrived home that afternoon and then left for the park). The amount of the reward. And of course, a phone number to contact. It was all there.
“All right, then. Tell me this. At the time of your disappearance, were your grandparents still alive?”
“Only Grandma Knight. She lives in Toledo, so I haven't seen her since I was little. I got to call her, though. On my last birthday, because she sent me twenty dollars.”
A chill went up Teri's spine. Edna Knight, Gabe's grandmother was no longer alive. She had passed away three years ago last Mother's Day, sometime during the night. Natural causes, according to Michael. Teri, who had always gotten along well with the woman, hadn't been able to make it to the funeral because she had spent that day—as well as the day before—with a terrible migraine headache, something she still felt guilty about. But yes, Gabe's grandmother had been alive then.
“His Grandpa Knight died in an automobile accident a couple of months after Gabe was born,” she said.
“How about on the other side of the family?”
“My side? I grew up in foster care.”
Walt nodded and glanced off to the parking lot, where the lights were shining off the rain puddles like tears in the darkness. Teri thought he probably wanted to say something polite, something like I'm sorry, but she hoped he wouldn't find it necessary. That was the way things had been when she was a little girl. Some kids had it better. Some had it worse. She had made the best of it, and she had spent very little time looking back.
“Okay. What about the birthday present?” he finally asked.
“I'm not sure,” she said, appreciating the effortless change of subject. “It sounds like something she'd do. His grandmother hated shopping for gifts, especially once Gabe started to get a little older. I remember she sent him a check for Easter that year, because she made it out to me and asked that I buy him some new clothes with it. But that Christmas – I can't remember if she sent money or not.”
“She did,” the boy said.
Walt frowned. “I'm not sure we're making any starling breakthroughs here, Teri. I hope you realize that. I mean, it sounds convincing, I'll grant you that much. But for anyone close to the family most of this stuff is common knowledge, right?”
“Like who?”
“Like Michael, for instance.”
“Jeeze, Walt, you aren't—”
“Don't get your dander up. I'm not accusing anyone of anything. I'm just trying to make sure you aren't wearing your blinders. People can do some pretty cruel things to each another.”
“Michael could never do something like this. Never. You know that.”
“I don't know anything of the sort, Teri.”
“You're grasping at straws.”
“You guys never got divorced, did you?”
“Divorced?” the boy said, suddenly alert and sitting up. “Why would you get divorced?
“We haven't,” Teri said.
“Maybe he's come into some money? Maybe he's worried about losing it?”
“Mom...”
“It's all right. Your father and I are just living apart right now. It's nothing to worry about.” Teri pulled him back into the fold of her arms, reassuringly, and felt a warmth sweep through her like a hot August wind. It stunned her. She looked down at the boy, suddenly recognizing a truth within her. She desperately wanted it to be true. No matter how farfetched, no matter how unlikely it might be, she wanted this boy to be hers.
Walt watched the exchange. “You need to be aware of the possibilities; that's all I'm saying. All right?”
“Sure. But not Michael.”
“I've put it out there; you do what you want with it.”
“I already have.”
“Fair enough.” He took a sip of water, as if he were looking for a way to swallow back his caution and move on. “What else can you give me?”
“I don't know,” Teri said. “What else do you want?”
“How about something just between you and Gabe. Something no one else knew about. Maybe a song you used to sing, or a secret you made him keep.”
“I don't know. Any secrets between us?” She glanced down at the boy, who shook his head and seemed suddenly quiet again, almost pouty. He was getting tired, she thought. Not unlike the little boy who could barely keep his eyes open when he stayed up late on Friday nights to watch Tales From The Darkside. God,
how she wished she knew what was going on inside his head. “You all right?”
“Uh-huh.”
There was a song she used to sing to him. This had been years ago, when he had been a little tike, maybe four or five. She'd tuck him in bed at night and sing him the “Pajama Song.” Teri had heard the song from her mother, who had heard it from her mother, and it had been passed all the way down to Gabe. But it had been a long time since he had been that little. She didn't imagine there was much of a chance that he'd still remember the words.
“I remember something,” he said softly. His eyes widened a bit. “That time I knocked over Dad's model boat. The one he was always working on in the garage. The schooner. Remember?”
“Some sort of a sailboat, right?”
He nodded. “I knocked it off the bench and broke it, and you said you wouldn't tell Dad because he'd be madder than hell. You made me promise that I'd never go near his workbench again. And then when Dad came home, you told him Marcus had gotten into the garage and knocked it over and it was your fault because you were busy bringing in the groceries and weren't paying any attention.”
“Marcus?” Walt asked.
“The family dog,” Teri said.
The boy looked away. “We had to put him to sleep.”
“You remember why?”
“Because he started limping and the doctor said he had cancer.”
Walt glanced at her for confirmation.
She nodded. “Bone cancer.”
The boy nestled deeper into the fold of her arms. For a moment, they shared the same small space, the same long ago memories. Marcus had been their only dog. And that sailboat had turned out to be the only boat Michael had ever tried to build. He hadn't been as angry as Teri had expected. Instead, he had said something about not being cut out for modeling anyway, that it took more patience than he thought he might have. That night, he tossed the boat into the garbage, tossed it out and walked away and never looked back. Walking away was something Michael had always been good at.
“Michael never knew any of this?” Walt asked.
“Not about the sailboat.”
“Interesting.” He sat back in the booth, gazing off through the window into the night, fighting some sort of internal, invisible battle. Then he looked at her, his eyes dark with reservation. “It's gotta be a scam, Teri. There's no other logical way to look at it.”
“Maybe it is and maybe it isn't. I don't know. But I do want to believe him.”
“I know you do.” He shifted uncomfortably. “But what about the truth?”
“The truth? We aren't hiding anything.”
“You might not be hiding anything. The kid, he's a different story. You don't know what he's hiding, now do you? He shows up at your door and claims to be your son, and you know in your head that that just can't be, because Gabe's got different eyes, and Gabe's got be in his twenties by now. But you don't want to listen to your head, Teri. You only want to listen to your heart.”
“There's more,” she said solemnly.
“Meaning what?”
“Some men showed up at the house tonight.”
“Yeah, so?”
“You're going to think I'm crazy.”
“I already think you're crazy.”
“Good. Then I guess I've got nothing to lose.” She smiled, wishing she knew exactly where to start, and then she took in a deep breath, and did her best to tell him everything that had happened.
[8]
Walt had no trouble at all believing men had broken into her house. That surprised Teri. Though later, giving it more thought, it probably shouldn't have. She should have known that kind of thing would be easier for him to understand given his line of work. But it surprised her just the same. And when she was finished, Walt surprised her again by nodding, as if everything made perfect sense now.
“And what do you think they wanted?” he asked.
“The boy.”
“Sure sounds like it, doesn't it?”
“To you, too, huh?”
“Oh, yeah.” He nodded, mulling it over in his head. “Did you call the police?”
“No,” she admitted guiltily. They both knew it wouldn't have served any purpose anyway. Before she had given up altogether—given up on ever finding Gabe again, and given up on herself—she had made a pest of herself down at the department. Walt had borne the brunt of it, of course, though every once in awhile things had spilled over to other sections of the department. And on one occasion, she had taken her complaints all the way to the Chief of Police. Then there had been the episode at McDonald's when she had tried to prevent a Gabe-look-alike from leaving the restaurant before she could talk to him. Someone had called the police. And once they had determined the boy was not Gabe, Teri had found herself down at the station. After that, she had won herself a reputation. And toward the end, when she would call about a lead or a sighting, they had quit listening altogether.
“Why not?” Walt asked.
“Jesus, Walt, you know why. They wouldn't believe me if I had caught the whole thing on videotape.”
He grinned, amused. It was his first smile of the evening, and she probably should have thanked him for it. He had put up with an awful lot from her. And not only the false sightings. Twice, when Teri had felt things were moving too slowly, she had gone directly to the press. It had made him look bad, and she hadn't cared, because the only thing that had mattered to her was getting her son back.
Somehow, Walt had found it in himself to understand that.
“No,” he said, still grinning. “I don't suppose they would.”
“And they probably wouldn't believe you, either,” she added, playfully, though there was a certain thread of truth to that, too. They had both lost some credibility in those circles. At times, when she thought about it, she wondered if maybe that wasn't the foundation of their friendship. Two lonely outcasts, clinging to each other as the lifeboat goes down.
“So what do you think we should do?” she said, her tone serious again.
“I guess we should start by taking a look at the house.”
[9]
Tucson, Arizona
The lights in the house were off.
The girls had gone to bed at nine, after watching the original Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory on video. Marian had given up and gone to bed shortly after eleven, saying she wasn't looking forward to jury duty in the morning. She had kissed D.C. on the forehead and said, “I hope whatever it is that's bothering you turns out all right.”
“It will,” D.C. had said, though he wasn't nearly as certain of that fact as he may have sounded.
“Good.”
He had been sitting alone in the darkness for more than an hour now, fingering a cigarette the way a magician fingers a coin, across the back of his hand and back, skillfully, with little thought. Marian, who was a good woman and knew her place, was accustomed to his preoccupation with work matters. In this life, with this family, he was a high-tech consultant brought into companies to solve system crashes that could cost millions if he didn't do his job quickly and efficiently. Marian understood it was a high-stress career. She understood it meant he had to travel often. She understood it was the kind of career that required him to be on twenty-four hour a day call. She also understood it involved a great deal of discretion. What she didn't understand, what she would never understand, was this: D.C. was more problem-solver than consultant... and he didn't solve high-tech system crashes. He solved security crashes.
The cigarette snapped between his fingers. He added the broken remains to a small pile already sitting on the end table next to the chair, then pulled another out of the pack and continued the monotonous routine of knuckling it across the back of his hand. Waiting was the burden of the beast. It was the part of his job he hated the most... hanging in limbo, not knowing what was going on. Most of all, it was that feeling of not being in control. At times like this, he felt like the defendant when the jury's out. It was all in their hands now.
/>
He had been toying with the idea of a Vodka Collins to take a bit of the edge off and had finally decided to go ahead and get to it—the hell with this waiting—when the phone rang. The receiver was in his hand, the ear piece pressed against his ear, before the first ring had faded.
“Tell me something I want to hear.”
“You were right. She delivered him where you said she would.”
“You have him back?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I screwed up. I didn't cover an upstairs window.”
A muscle near his temple twitched and then relaxed again, and D.C. forced himself to take in a calming breath. It was going to be infinitely more difficult now that they had lost the upper hand. He released the breath in a long, slow exhale, running through worst case scenarios in his mind and wondering how long it would be before word got out about what had happened. Things were still salvageable, he supposed. They hadn't gotten that far out of hand. Not yet. But it was going to take a stroke of luck to come out of this unscathed.
“What now?” the caller, who's name was Mitch, asked.
“Wait. He'll surface again.”
“You want us to keep the house under surveillance?”
“Is he still with Tarkett?”
“No, he's with the Knight woman.”
“They won't be going back to the house. Not for a good long time anyway. Just hang tight. Something'll break.” D.C. paused, feeling the weight of that dark, brooding uncertainty that came with the territory when things seemed out of control. “And Mitch?”
“Yeah?”
“I want Tarkett to pay dearly for this.”
“I understand.”
When he got off the phone, D.C. sat in the darkness awhile longer, still absently twirling his cigarette. The smell of raw tobacco was strong, but that was a faraway, absent observation that went by for the most part unchecked. For the moment, his surroundings stepped into the background and he lost himself in his thoughts.
Time passed in a surreal, meaningless haze.
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