by Dale Mayer
“We can’t stay here. If he is avoiding us, he’ll see us. And they won’t come home.”
Her hand fell away. “Reese is out here somewhere. I don’t know what I’ll do if they’ve taken him away again.” Her tone was stark, no hiding the fear and panic rising within her.
“Can you reach out to him?”
She dropped her gaze to her hands. “If I wasn’t so personally affected, maybe,” she admitted.
“Why don’t we head back into town, pick up a bite to eat and maybe find a place where we can watch this road and eat in the car. You can calm down and send him messages. Let him know it’s okay, and that we’re searching for him. I’ll call Peter and get his help.”
She nodded.
He started the engine, and this time it seemed like they were at the mall within seconds. They walked inside a convenience store, looking for anything that was food. They had hot dogs.
“You know how many hot dogs I have eaten in the last couple years?”
He gave a bark of laughter but ordered four hot dogs anyway. “There isn’t a whole lot of choice here.”
She nodded. “Add some coffee to that.”
They also picked up some fruit. With their purchases they drove back toward the house and slowed down as they approached. No lights were on. There was no sign of a vehicle; the garage door was still open.
Kirk drove past the house to a little pull-out not far down the road and shut off the lights and the engine, and then they sat. “This is a pretty good position,” he said, pointing at the house. “We can see if they come from here.”
She nodded, opened the bag of goodies and handed him a hot dog. She took one for herself and munched away.
“How come you’ve eaten a lot of hot dogs in the last year?”
“They were cheap and readily available,” she said. “Think about where I worked.”
“How did you not get tired of them?”
“Because they were cheap and readily available,” she said with a laugh. “Money wasn’t easy to come by. By the time I paid for my cell phone, the rent, the vehicle, gas and insurance, there just never seemed to be quite enough left. And that was after paying for a private detective too.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize how tough it was for you.”
“If you had thought about it, you would have,” she said. “But I find that’s often the way with people who have an education or a skilled job. It never occurs to them how people struggle who work at menial jobs.”
“Sure, but don’t forget I thought I left you seed money and a roof over your head for at least six months. And most of us assume, if you don’t like what you’re doing, you’ll do something about it.”
“I liked what I used to do,” she said. “But I hardly loved being at the amusement park.” Then she thought about her words and slowly chewed the last part of her hot dog. “That’s not quite true. Because I really like the people. They accepted me and brought me into their family, and I had friends again for the first time in a long time.”
“Did you not feel that way about the police department?”
“No,” she said curtly. “I was only there for them to use.”
“I don’t think that’s quite true,” he said.
“As long as I was giving them what they needed, they were friendly. But they weren’t friends,” she emphasized. “I was never invited out to lunch. I was never part of any of the groups or the coffee klatch, hanging around the coffee bar. When I came in, silence usually fell. There were friendly enough smiles, but sometimes I wondered if that was just to stop me from looking at them too closely.”
He stopped chewing and turned slowly to her. “Is that really how you felt?”
“Of course. When was the last time I was invited out for lunch with the rest of you guys?” She watched the frown flit across his face.
“I never thought about it,” he admitted.
“I didn’t have their respect,” she added. “Even when I did give them all the right information, they looked at it suspiciously. I think they admired what I could do, but they didn’t trust it. And, of course, the one time I did mess up, I messed up bad. So then I lost whatever respect I had.”
“I think it’s a tough business, particularly when lives are at stake. The minute you mess up, and somebody dies, everybody’s distraught and looking to lash out to deal with their own pain. Unfortunately you became the easy target.”
“But it’s all old stuff anyway,” she said. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”
“I think it does matter,” he said gently. “I asked the bank about the money. Apparently it’s still sitting there. But the password was changed almost as soon as I left. I assumed it was you.”
“And I assumed it was you,” she said with spirit. “I wish I’d known. I might not even have gotten so sick trying to stay afloat then.”
“No,” he said softly. “Maybe you wouldn’t have.” He groaned. “As soon as we find the boy, I’ll get to the hospital and check their records. I haven’t had a chance yet.”
“Can’t you call them? Check their records that way?”
“The database on your file has photocopies of everything. I need to know who worked the shifts when Reese died.”
“You mean, when he was supposed to have died,” she corrected. “Don’t kid yourself. The little boy I’m chasing right now is my son.” At his stern look, she subsided. “Okay, he might be my son.” He seemed to hesitate, and she cut right through the thick silence. “I don’t give a shit if you believe me or not. But that connection between him and me is strong.”
“If he’s the one sending the spiders your way,” Kirk said, “that would convince me as much as anything.”
“You just need to see his face. That will convince you.”
“Why?”
“Because he is the spitting image of you. You should have enough baby pictures still hanging around to see it.”
“Maybe, Stefan certainly believed it as well,” he said softly. He pulled out this phone. “Peter is looking for me.”
“What did you tell him?”
He shrugged and answered the phone. “Peter, what’s up?”
She could only hear Kirk’s part of the conversation.
He glanced over at her and said, “I’m busy. Why?” There was a short pause. “No, I’m trying to help somebody.” Kirk frowned, stared at the steering wheel and then at Queenie. “Look. I know you don’t agree with this. But I have to do what I can do. And I need you to do something for me. Pull all the hospital records back from when Queenie was in the hospital.”
Even she could hear Peter’s roar on the other side.
“And what if she’s been right all along? … She hasn’t got her claws into me. I’m not completely over my head. I know what I’m doing,” he insisted.
Queenie sat back and stared out the window. She knew nobody there wanted Kirk to be with her. When they were riding high, everybody cheered them on, but the minute she fell, they had all scattered and had pulled him away too. She fell into a deep dark pit of depression trying to figure out why her abilities had failed her. But there hadn’t been very much she could do about it at the time. And she hadn’t been there for him any more than he’d been there for her.
She tried to block out the rest of the phone conversation.
Finally he ended the call and turned to look at her. “I’m sorry about that.”
“Why?” She shrugged. “They’re all thinking it. Nobody wants you to hook up with me again. Nobody wants you even in the same room with me anymore.”
“It was tough at the time for me too, you know?” he said in a conversational tone. He reached into the bag and grabbed his second hotdog. “For a long time they were jealous as hell. Jealous because I was with you, and you seemed to have the magic touch. Jealous because we were closing cases at a crazy rate. Jealous because the brass had noticed, and I was being fast-tracked upward. But, when everything blew up, it’s like they turned on me, not just on you. They blame
d you, but they also blamed me for pulling the department down, for tarnishing the shiny reputation I’d helped them build. They blamed me for not keeping you happy or not doing whatever you needed to make you work properly. And, as you got blamed, so much of that shifted onto my shoulders as well. I was raked over the coals by the brass, by my teammates, by everybody at the office. It was pretty rough for a while.”
“I didn’t know that,” she said. “It’s easy to get so caught up in your own shit that you don’t see how much muck everybody else is wading through.”
“The dead woman’s husband,” he said, his tone soft, “he cornered me in the hallway. He just railed at me for at least ten minutes before he burst into tears.” Kirk stared out the car’s window. “There was nothing I could do. We’d been so sure we could solve this, like we’d solved so many. And, when he lost his wife, he went to pieces. But not until after he verbally attacked me. The other men saw it, and nobody stepped in to help because they felt I deserved it. I was as guilty as you were.”
“And yet I’ve finally come to see that neither of us were guilty,” she said faintly. “Stefan said something weird about that. I’ll have to ask him for clarification. He said something about it being ridiculous that law enforcement often wanted to only take credit for the good information and to blame us for the bad—instead of realizing it’s a crapshoot all the time. We can only give what the visions tell us at that time. Sometimes it’s great. Sometimes it’s not. But to hold us responsible for bad information is not fair.”
“And yet we were all high on the good information.”
“You were,” she said with half a smile. “I wasn’t. I was glowing in the sense that I was doing something, that I was helping. But don’t forget. I can see behind the words coming toward me. I could see that, while they said, Good job, Queenie, they were just shoveling more and more cases at me. I don’t think it was because they wanted to help the victims as much as they wanted to clean off their desks, and they wanted to close all these cases for the commendations.”
“We’re a greedy lot, aren’t we?”
As she reached for her second hot dog, she smiled. “I guess.” She took a big bite. “Normally I only eat one of these.”
“And that’s why you’re a bone rack,” he said.
“No. I’m a bone rack because I woke up in the hospital without my son,” she corrected. “And I spent years grieving for him.”
He turned to her. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “There were much better ways of handling what we went through, but the fact is, we were different people back then, and hopefully we’re better and wiser now.”
She swallowed the last of her hot dog, thinking about his words. “I can agree with that.”
“Enough to forgive?”
Her nod was instinctive. “I never blamed you. I should have told you about your son. Maybe he’d be alive today if I had.” Then realizing what she said, she added, “If he’s dead.”
Kirk chuckled, then, in a surprise move, tugged her into his arms and just held her.
Tears burned in the corner of her eyes. She slipped her arms around his waist and hugged him back. “I miss this,” she whispered.
“Hugs? Human touch?”
“Being close to someone again. Being held by someone who cares.”
His arms tightened; then he relaxed. “We were always good together.”
“Then why were we suddenly not good together? I always wondered that. I know I pushed you away, but you stayed away when I honestly thought you would come back when you calmed down.” Her whisper was so low but audible in the silence of the interior of the car.
“Dear God, I’m sorry. I’d give anything to return to that time and do it all differently.” He swept her up close again.
She could feel his heartbeat pulsing against her ear and the regret in his voice. “I was such a mess. I didn’t blame you for leaving.”
“Don’t say that. I blame me.” He tilted her chin up. “You might forgive me, but I don’t.”
She looked him in the eye and put two fingers against his lips. “Shh. It’s over and done with.”
“Maybe for you.”
There was one way to stop him as he prepared to launch in with more regrets. She stretched up and covered his mouth with hers.
As always their connection was immediate and deep.
He pulled back slightly, easing the pressure threatening to explode. Softly he stroked his lips across hers, and she whimpered in his arms. “Easy,” he murmured, his arms holding her close, his hands smoothing up and down her back. He dropped kisses over her nose, cheeks, forehead. Every time he whispered, “It’s all right. Take it easy.”
“I’m fine.” But was she? There’d been so much craziness in these last few days; this was a piece of joy, happiness—and so unexpected that it slipped into the area of miracles. She heaved a heavy sigh and snuggled closer.
“It’s nice to hold you again.”
Lightness floated up inside her. “Ditto.”
“Can we go back to what we had before?”
“No way.” She looked into his eyes. “But I’d be happy to create something much better.” There was just enough light to see the gleam in his gaze.
This time when he lowered his head, she reached up to meet him.
Until the flash of headlights lit up the inside of the car. Instantly they both twisted to watch the vehicle approach. The car slowed and, sure enough, made a turn into the open garage.
“Bingo,” he whispered. “I want you to stay here. I’ll see if the three of them came home. I can’t be looking around to make sure you’re staying out of trouble. So, like always, please follow instructions.”
She nodded. “Just make sure you bring that boy back here.”
He slipped out of the car, and, with the same magical touch he always had, he disappeared into the shadows. All she could do was watch and wait.
*
Kirk slipped down the road, coming around the back of the house. Just then his phone vibrated. In the trees behind the kitchen door, he answered it. “Kirk here.”
“They just came home,” came a whispery female voice. “I saw the car go into the garage.”
“Good. Thank you,” he said. “I’m not far away.”
She hung up as if afraid somebody could trace the call back to her.
He put his phone on silent as the light went on in the kitchen and another one upstairs. He studied the room as the big man walked into the kitchen, opened the fridge and pulled out a beer. He popped the cap and tilted the bottle to take a big drink. And then he wandered into the living room.
Kirk checked his watch. It was almost eleven-thirty p.m. With no more activity in the kitchen, he crept closer to the house. Where was the little boy?
Upstairs a light went on in one of the bedrooms. Kirk sneaked around to the front of the house, but no more lights were on upstairs. So where was the little boy?
The man slumped into an easy chair in the living room and picked up the remote, turning on the TV.
Kirk frowned, slid around the back, checking out all the basement windows. But he couldn’t see any lights on downstairs. Was the little boy upstairs? Or had they not brought him home? He stopped beside a slightly open window to the basement and tried to nudge it farther open. It opened just enough. He used his cell phone flashlight to shine in the room. It was the little boy’s room, but it was empty. Swearing softly, he stepped back and considered the issue. Then the lady called down to her husband. “I still think we should go get him.”
“Nah, he’ll be fine for the night.”
“He’s just a little boy,” Maggie cried, desperation in her voice.
“So what? He’s not getting any older if he doesn’t smarten up.”
“It’s dark. That’s not fair.”
“He never has a light on in his room anyway. What difference does it make?”
“We left him alone. Shouldn’t do that to a little boy.”
“We leave him alone
in the basement all the time.”
“But this isn’t the basement.”
“So what? It’s just a cave. He’s been there before.”
Kirk’s heart pounded. He whispered, “What the hell? A cave?”
“When will you get him?”
“Tomorrow. He shouldn’t have thrown that scene in the parking lot.”
“You didn’t have to punish him like that.”
“Shut the fuck up. Otherwise I’ll drag you out and toss you into the cave with him.”
Kirk could hear Maggie muttering away upstairs. What the hell? What cave? And where the hell was it?
He quickly backtracked to where he’d left the vehicle and Queenie. He slid inside and told her what had happened. She stared at him. “A cave. They left him all alone in a cave?”
He nodded. “And apparently it’s not the first time.”
Even in the half-light, he could see how big her eyes were, how pale her face was.
“What kind of monsters are these people?”
“See if you can reach him,” Kirk said urgently. “I have no clue how to find a cave out here. We’ll have to get a geological map and then figure out where they could have taken him.”
He knew what he had to do. It didn’t matter whose child it was. A little boy who’d been dumped in a cave for the night would galvanize a search-and-rescue team and the local police. He picked up his phone and called Peter.
Chapter 18
Sunday Night, Late …
Queenie could feel the shaking set in. She worked desperately to control it, but it was always a problem for her when she became too emotionally involved. As soon as she did, it was impossible to connect because she couldn’t control her energy.
As Kirk called in for reinforcements from town, she needed to get reinforcement as well. Hearing the panic in her own voice, even with her best efforts to keep it under control, she cried out, “Stefan, I need your help. The little boy has been dumped in a cave somewhere within a couple hours of where I’m located. Apparently he needed to be taught a lesson.” Tears choked in her throat.
The Watcher is behind this, I presume? Stefan asked.