by David Wood
“But how could he have done this for so long without getting caught?” Trey asked.
“Oh, I know the answer to that one.” The Detective snapped his cigarette between his index finger and thumb. The burning tip fell off and fluttered in the wind. He pocketed the butt. “Kids go missing all the time, Mr. Leger. They go missing in the wards more often than I'd like to admit. It's normal, I guess. And I'll be frank for a moment.” The Detective cleared his throat. “Some of the poorer members of the city don't exactly trust the police. And I guarantee you some of these kids belonged to illegal aliens. And they definitely don't trust us. So they use the gangs to go looking for their kids.”
Trey shook his head and then furrowed his brow. “Do you think that's why it--I mean, he, moved on?”
Dewhurst shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe one of them tracked him down, figured out what he was doing. Maybe they started asking questions. Either way, he moved his hunting grounds up north.”
Trey nodded. “Where no one would believe it could be him.”
“Maybe,” Dewhurst said. “Just maybe.”
“So now what?”
“Well,” Dewhurst said, “we have an APB out on him, although we really don't have much of a description.” Dewhurst coughed into his hand. “The, um, description you gave is not exactly one we can use.”
“I thought I saw something on the way out of the station last night.”
Dewhurst cocked an eyebrow. “Really? And what might that be?”
“I thought I saw, well, I saw a tall homeless man. He stood on the street opposite the station. And he, well-- he looked like the guy.”
The detective nodded. “It would be a good disguise,” he said to himself. “I'll add that to the APB, sir. That's good information to have.” Dewhurst shivered. “I think it's time for us to get out of the cold, Mr. Leger.” Trey nodded. “Would you like a ride home, Trey, or you going to stay a while longer?”
“I think,” Trey said with a smile, “I should stay. I have the buses to get home.” He offered his hand to the detective. “But thanks for the offer.”
“My pleasure,” Dewhurst said with a grin. The man ran his hand through his thinning hair. “You have a good day, Mr. Leger, and please let me know if you think of anything else.”
“You'll let me know if you find anything?”
“As much as I can,” the detective said.
“Thank you.”
Dewhurst tipped an imaginary hat and walked toward the parking garage across the street. Trey watched him go. He shivered again in the cold as the breeze bit into him once more. He turned toward the revolving glass door and walked back into the warmth.
Chapter 58
After Dewhurst left, Trey started for the elevator. He looked at the clock on the wall. It was already 1300. Trey cursed and pulled out his phone. He'd turned it off while he was in Dick's room, remembering the dictates from the hospital. They claimed the cellular signal interfered with their machines. Trey wasn't sure he believed them, but he'd turned it off anyway.
He turned it on and waited for it to power up. The hospital lobby was busier, people wandering in and out of the elevators. Although most were dressed in street clothes, he saw quite a few sets of scrubs and wondered if it was lunch-time for the second shift. The phone finished powering up and immediately buzzed. Trey looked at the text messages and saw one from Carolyn.
Clucking his tongue, he selected her name from the contacts list and pressed her phone number. The phone rang in his ear. “Carolyn Leger.”
“Hi, honey. It's Trey.”
The voice no longer sounded tired and bored. “Hi, T. You still at the hospital?”
Trey nodded in reflex. “Yeah, I'm still here.”
“How's Dick?” she asked.
“Not good,” Trey said. He took in a sharp breath. “The heart attack was minor, but he's got a high fever.”
“What's the doctor say?”
“Didn't get a chance to talk to anyone except the nurse.”
Carolyn paused on the other end of the phone. “Trey? Go up there and ask the doctor what's going on. Dick doesn't exactly have anyone but us.”
Trey nodded to himself. “Yeah, okay. Look, I'll go up and figure out what's going on. I don't know if I'm going to be home in time to pick up Alan, though. Can you leave early and meet him?”
“Does he know not to wait for you?” she asked. Her voice sounded strained now. Near panic.
Trey paused. Had he told Alan that? Had he? “I, um, think I told him that, yeah.”
“Okay,” Carolyn replied. “I'll leave a message at the school for him. Just in case you, um, forgot. Or he does.”
Trey smiled. “Yeah, okay. Love you, C.”
“Give Dick my best, T. Call me and let me know, okay?”
“Sure will.”
“Love you.”
The line went dead. Trey turned the phone back off and headed to the elevator. He waited with a large group of people crowding around the bank. He had to wait for the 2nd elevator to get on. Packed. He felt the claustrophobia trying to blanket and strangle him but he pushed it away. Just people, he told himself, just people. Nothing to worry about with all the people.
When the doors finally opened to the third floor, Trey breathed out a long sigh and stepped off. The nurse's station was empty save for a single woman. An alarm was going off at the desk. The nurse behind the counter typed frantically on a computer. He walked toward Dick's hallway and stopped. The alarm was louder. He watched as three people ran into Dick's room. Trey blinked. “Fuck,” he whispered and then he was running too.
He made it to the doorway of room 334 and peered inside. The three people in the room, two in red scrubs, and a young man in blue scrubs, were chattering to one another in frantic voices. The blue scrubbed young man grabbed a pair of paddles and had them on Dick's chest. “Clear!” he called out and then pressed the paddle buttons. Dick's ashen skinned body jumped in the bed. Trey began to cry. The steady, annoying tone continued.
“Sir?” a voice said from beside him. “Sir?”
A stabbing pain in his head. His eyes burned, feeling scratched and too dry. “What?” He was still staring into the room. A white sheet covered Dick's body. No one else was in the room with the body. “Where's--”
“Sir?” the voice said again and Trey felt a hand on his shoulder.
He turned slightly. The young man in scrubs was beside him, eyes frantic and concerned. “What's going on? Why is--”
“Sir? Do you have epilepsy?”
“I--” Trey coughed into his hand. “What happened to Dick?”
The young man nodded to him. “Let's walk over here, okay?” The man led him by the elbow to an empty room down the hall. Trey wanted to shrug the man off, but he felt strangely weak. He allowed the man to sit him in one of the visitor's chairs. He stared up into the man's blue eyes. “Sir? What's your name?” the man asked as he pulled a penlight from his scrub pocket.
“Trey Leger,” Trey said in a broken, scratchy voice.
The man flashed the light into Trey's right eye, then his left. Frowning, the man put the penlight back in the pocket and reached for Trey's wrist. Trey said nothing. “I'm a doctor. You've had an absent seizure.”
Trey blinked at the doctor as he took Trey's pulse. “Yeah,” Trey said in a flat voice, “I guess I did.”
“So you've had them before?”
A tear fell from Trey's eye. “Dick's dead,” he whispered.
The doctor looked up from his watch. “Mr. Dickerson?” Trey nodded. “I'm sorry, sir. Yes. He is.” Trey tried to shrug off the man's hand, but the young doctor just tightened his grip. “Sir? Please let me do my job. I want to make sure you're okay.”
“How long was the seizure?” Trey asked.
“Too long,” the doctor said.
“How fucking long?” Trey growled.
The doctor looked up from his watch and took a step backwards. “Five or six minutes, I think. That's how long it took for us to notice you
,” the doctor said.
“Fuck,” Trey whispered. He held his head in his hands.
“You need to see someone about this immediately,” the doctor said.
“No,” Trey said, “I need my friend.” The doctor said nothing. Trey sobbed once, wiped away another errant tear, and then stared up at the doctor. “Why? What did he die from?”
“I don't know,” the doctor said. “His fever spiked. I don't know why.”
“Will there be an autopsy?” Trey asked. The world felt unreal now, as if it were made of fog and he was somehow trying to walk through it. The doctor's face grimaced.
“Mr. Leger?” the doctor asked. “Do you see lights?”
Trey cocked his head and stared at the man. He smiled. “No. I don't. I never have,” Trey said. “Will there be--”
The doctor nodded. “Yeah, there will be. If the family allows it.”
“There is no family,” Trey said, standing from the chair. The doctor came forward to try and lower him back down, but Trey shrugged off his hands. “I'm the only family he has,” Trey said.
The doctor blinked. “Are you on his--” The doctor swallowed hard. “I need you to wait here, Mr. Leger. I'll-- I'll get someone. But I want to make sure you're okay before we let you leave.”
Trey nodded and watched the man go.
Chapter 59
The last meeting of the day. Thank God, Carolyn thought. She wondered if another two hours of meetings would have caused an aneurysm. Her head already pounded from the constant questions. The client, a French company, had sent her one of the dumbest women on the planet. Each time Carolyn answered a question with a negative response, the woman rephrased the question, somehow believing that would change the answer.
Just when Carolyn was on the verge of saying “The law is the law,” the woman would move on to a new topic and the cycle would repeat.
Carolyn opened her desk drawer and pulled out a bottle of Excedrin. She popped off the childproof cap, shook three of the tablets into her palm, and dry swallowed.
“Great,” she thought, “an hour from now and I'll get her idiot stink off my brain.” She stared down at the cell phone on the desk. It had rumbled twice while she was in the meeting.
She reached for it and checked the screen. Two missed calls from Trey. She sighed and clicked the “messages” button. One message from Trey. She frowned at the phone. Two missed calls, but only a single message. Carolyn pressed the “play” button and listened to the message.
“He's dead, Carolyn. Dick's dead,” Trey said in a broken voice. “I'm trying to find out what happened and I may be here a while longer.” Trey paused. She could tell he was trying to get control of himself. He cleared his throat. “I'll call you when I know something. I love you.”
Carolyn stared down at the desk. “Dick,” she whispered, the phone still held to her ear. She slowly placed it on the wooden surface, fighting the urge to throw it against the wall. Dick was dead. Trey sounded... broken. She shook her head.
3:15. Alan would be leaving school soon. He'd be heading home to an empty house and he would have no idea the neighbor would never be coming home. Carolyn choked back a sob.
She stared out the window, looking into the darkened sky. It would rain soon, or, God forbid, sleet. The temperature was already hover- ing just above freezing. If any moisture came down, it would turn the streets into a skating rink.
“I have to get home,” she whispered.
She quickly packed her valise and placed her laptop inside. Donning her coat, she grabbed both her purse and the valise and headed toward the office door. Traffic was going to be murder. If she left that minute, she might be home in an hour. That was, of course, if everyone else in Houston hadn't noticed the weather and decided to leave at the same time.
Chapter 60
The buzzer droned. Instead of a crowd of crazed children heading toward the exit, his classmates moved with slow, trudging steps. Alan knew it was the weather. Too cold outside for recess, they'd played in the gym. Bored and listless, most of the kids headed toward the school parking lot through the front doors.
Alan headed toward the playground.
As soon as the glass doors swung open, the cold bit into him like a wild, rabid animal. The sky was dark enough to have tripped the street-lights in the parking lot. Alan walked to the curb and shivered. One of the admins had brought him a note during class, letting him know that Daddy wouldn't be there to pick him up. But he waited anyway.
He watched the large line of cars that stretched all the way through the next block. Everyone, it seemed, wanted to pick their kids up from school today. Headlights glowed in the street and parking lot. Children silhouetted against the light clambered into cars or, like him, shivered in the cold. Waiting.
Without thinking he looked toward the group of pines near the schoolyard's edge. No Ice Cream Man. No piercing bells. Alan smiled against the wind. At least he was gone.
A woman walked toward him from the parking lot. She wore a heavy woolen coat, her hair wound tight in a ponytail. The woman looked tired and a little lost. She looked at Alan and stopped about five feet away from him. “Hi,” she said.
“Hello,” Alan said. He knew he shouldn't talk to strangers. But she looked so... “Are you okay?” he asked.
The woman managed a grim smile. “Do you know my son?” she asked and handed him a small piece of paper.
He looked at it. Bryan Greely's smiling face stared back at him. Alan shivered. “I know who he is,” he said. “Are you Mrs. Greely?”
“Yes, I am,” she whispered. “Have you seen Bryan?”
The woman looked at him with desperate hope. With a pang of sad- ness, he shook his head. “No, ma'am, I haven't.” The way her expression collapsed into misery hurt some part of him.
She nodded. He handed the paper back to her, but she shook her head. “Give it to your parents,” she said. “Make sure they know he's missing. Okay?”
“Yes, ma'am,” Alan replied. The woman nodded again and turned around, heading toward the dwindling line of cars. Alan watched her trudge forward, head cast down to the concrete.
When Daddy was in...that place...Alan had felt like that. Like some part of him was missing. Mrs. Greely didn't know where her boy was. Alan had a feeling she never would.
He turned away and stared again at the copse of trees. Before the Ice Cream man had turned up, he and Daddy had often walked through those tall pines. Especially during early fall and late spring when the heat was so intense. The cold wind bit through his jacket, causing him to shiver once more.
Daddy wasn't coming. Mommy wasn't coming. He was going to have to walk. So he better get moving.
One foot in front of the other, Alan headed toward the trees. So many happy children had sprinted that way, heading toward the Ice Cream Man's van, money held out in front of them. In a way, Alan wished he'd been one of them. Wished Daddy hadn't seen what Daddy had seen.
Alan made his way beneath the tall pine limbs and out into the street. He looked both ways before crossing. That was something Daddy had made sure he knew to do.
The cold air was getting more biting by the second. Alan walked fast, trying to make it to the tree-lined main road where he would at least have some protection from it. Cars passed by him, each carrying at least one child. A boy his age, tucked into the back seat of a black sedan, stuck his tongue out at Alan as the car passed by. Alan shook his head and wrapped his arms tighter around himself.
Usually if Mommy and Daddy couldn't pick him up, Dick would have, but he was in the hospital. The real one. Not the place Daddy had been.
Alan walked a little faster. Daddy wouldn't tell him what happened, only that Dick had been hurt and he wouldn't be home for a while.
Alan reached the main road at last. He walked as far to the right as possible, hugging the tree-lined path. More cars passed, heading toward the newer parts of the subdivision. Above him, the wind rushed through the green pines and bare-branched oaks. It was still cold, but a
t least the wind no longer chomped his skin.
As Alan walked down the path, still shivering in the cold, he became aware of a different kind of rustling. He turned his head toward the trees. The wind rushed through the tree tops, the bare oak branches clacking together and the pine trees swishing against one another in the breeze. But there was something else. The sound of something walking through dead leaves, its weight cracking against dead limbs and the forest floor.
But he saw nothing. He heard it, or thought he heard it, but there was nothing to see. That part of the path was thick with pine trees, the branches wide and low before sprouting straight toward the sky. Tall bushes covering the forest floor still held onto their leaves in defiance of the cold weather.
Alan turned back to the path. The crowd of cars passing by on the road had thinned. The sound in the brush continued as he walked. Alan stopped. The rustling did too. He shivered again and turned his head back toward the trees. Nothing. Still nothing but brush.
He started walking again as fast as he could without running. Despite the cold, he felt sweaty beneath his jacket. His breathing was rapid, the cold air hurting his lungs. He knew that if he started running, he risked falling down. The idea of crashing to the concrete, flat on his back with the thing in the woods bearing down on him chilled him to the bone.
Whatever followed him in the woods paused each time he stopped to catch his breath. He was so intent on trying to see what was in the woods that he failed to hear the car's approach until it was already past him. As he watched its tail lights progress into the gathering gloom, a numbness crept into his mind.
He was alone, out on the road, with whatever was in the trees. Alan started walking again, quickening his pace as much as he dared.
Quarter mile. Each step brought him closer to the distant, shining street lamp, its acetylene glow spooky and foreboding in the darkening day. The crashing in the brush stopped as he continued to walk. Alan was afraid to turn around, afraid to look into the woods. Had it gotten ahead of him somehow? Or had it stepped out of the brush and onto the concrete so it could pursue him with reckless speed?