Lee’s back didn’t touch the wood-and-iron park bench. Her head barely moved to track each passerby—the cluster of female joggers, the guy power walking with a mutt on a leash. When nobody was nearer to her than fifty feet, she rose and fingered the snow-sprinkled needles of a blue spruce. God. She’s here, and okay. Thanks. Keep her that way.
Did they have a sketch of her? The outline of the face, the cheekbones, the chin … if an agent saw her, would he know?
Lee stood, turned halfway, and saw him. Her head angled, and a shaft of sun fell across her hair. Marcus halted outside her space. A cardinal trilled.
Lee didn’t speak. Of course. He’d called her here; he’d have to start the conversation. Her hands hung at her sides, each bone so fragile, like every other line of her that hid beneath her slim coat.
“How’d you do it?”
“Sam was able to locate the foster home. He also informed me of the baby’s deafness. I told the foster mother I was a social worker and that Elliott was being placed in a home with other deaf children.”
“And she didn’t ask for ID?”
“I was well-dressed and knowledgeable, and I was removing a responsibility she didn’t want in the first place. She already has three foster children.”
“Lee, if … if she’d called to verify anything, or …” His hands cupped his neck. “Why’d you do this?”
“Surely you know why.”
“I told you no. I told you—”
“And I told you the choice was mine.”
“You have to stop.”
“I will, if you work with Sam.”
The power walker cruised toward them from the other direction and tugged on the dog’s leash to keep it from jumping on Lee. Marcus stepped away from the center of the path, but his legs wouldn’t stop there. He paced over a patch of mushy brown grass, then whirled to tread it again.
“Marcus,” Lee said when the guy was out of earshot, “he obtained the child’s location in an hour. He verified that the foster home was temporary, providing me an ideal story. He reduced the risk of—”
“There shouldn’t have been a risk.” Not to Lee.
“Your stubbornness created it. I asked you to work with him.”
“And if I don’t, you will?” What kind of idiocy was that?
“Exactly,” she said.
“You can’t do this.”
“You desire to maintain my safety. Working with Sam is now the best way to do so.”
She … was right. He couldn’t try to keep her involvement passive. It never would be again. The knot in his gut grew cold. “Why.”
“If I aid you directly, your obsession with my welfare will cause a blunder, and you’ll be arrested.”
“I don’t want ‘aid.’”
Her gaze didn’t warm or waver.
“If.” The rest of the words thickened in his mouth like a lump of old paint.
Lee’s eyebrows asked how long he planned to make her stand here in the snow.
“If I let him give me information, you’ll stay out of it.”
“Yes.”
“All of it. For good.”
“Yes.”
One hand dropped to his side, but the other wouldn’t release his neck. “Okay.”
Lee’s head dipped a smooth nod. “Dinner.”
“Dinner? You can’t live like things are normal.”
“You do.”
“I didn’t kidnap a kid.”
“You’re merely harboring criminals and committing felony obstruction on a daily basis.”
He’d never match words with her. He growled.
“I didn’t exactly disguise myself, but I did bleach several strands of my hair, and I wore uncharacteristic clothing and makeup.”
Bleach. So she’d dyed it back, then. He shook his head. She’d probably been plotting this since she’d met Aubrey.
“I don’t look like the woman who took Elliott,” she said.
Not enough, but all they had. Marcus started toward the parking lot, shortened his strides so she wasn’t forced to trot beside him. He waited for a couple to pass on the other side of the walkway. They swung their scarf-smothered toddler between them and punched the air with laughter and an off-key rendition of “Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”
Lee walked beside him, calm in her silence. The path emptied into the parking lot. Marcus headed for the west corner. The snow turned to spitting rain as they walked. Her car stood out, but only because he knew where to look—beneath the floodlight, safe from shadows.
“What if they have a sketch of you?” he said.
They halted at her car. Lee unlocked it with a muted click and a blink of the lights.
“This is done now. You can’t go back.”
“I don’t wish to,” she said. “Do you have a restaurant preference?”
The ice in his stomach was on its way to a thaw, but his shoulders couldn’t shrug. “Somewhere dim.”
Lee’s lips lifted.
“In a corner. And you keep your back to the doors.”
“Marcus.”
He opened her car door, and she slid inside. The slenderness of her frame made him want to hold her close. Stand as a shield between her and them. Between her and everything. The car roof froze his hand almost instantly. He kept it there anyway.
“Mexican.” Her face turned up to his. “That place on Van Dyke.”
“Okay.”
“However, murky lighting is usually accompanied by a bar.”
“That’s okay.”
It was. Had to be, despite how often the thirst hit him lately. He was slipping backward somehow. Last night, he’d slept in the basement rather than risk walking past his keys, grabbing them, going for a drive, stopping at that tavern on—
Lee nodded. He closed her car door and walked to his truck. He cracked the windows, cranked the heat, and switched on the windshield wipers. It was raining, after all.
33
Babies required a lot of stuff. Not like Marcus hadn’t known that already, but wandering the infant department … Heck. Strollers and car seats and high chairs and baby gates, and that was just one aisle. The easiest aisle. Then there were the rows and rows of softness. Apparently, they needed separate cloths for multiple functions. And so many blankets. He imagined the small form of Elliott in the crook of Aubrey’s arm and understood. Babies were so helpless and so … well, valuable. Why had Aubrey asked only for formula and diapers? Elliott should have more than that.
He threw three packages of size-two diapers in his cart and searched out the baby formula. Aubrey had said the brand didn’t matter. If he could buy the wrong thing, she’d have specified. He grabbed a can, then three more. Maybe he’d call the landline and make sure she didn’t need anything else. Oh, baby wipes. He had to get those, at least. They’d be with the diapers, right? He started back.
“Mr. Brenner!”
A five-year-old whirlwind gusted down the aisle and stopped only a foot before crashing into Marcus’s legs. He grinned upward as if he was meeting a celebrity. Or a best friend.
A quick look down the aisle didn’t show Pamela or Jason. Where …? Oh, heck. Jason.
Marcus couldn’t leave J.R. here alone. “Where’s your mom?”
“At home.”
Great. “Where’s your dad?”
“He said I could come with him to get the pizza! But first we got to buy some stuff for Kyle’s bottom.”
Okay, then. “Let’s go find your dad.”
“Oh, we don’t got to. Hi, Dad.”
From behind Marcus, Jason’s voice snapped with panic. “J.R., don’t you ever—”
Marcus turned. Surprise smoothed Jason’s face, followed by relief. “Brenner. Okay, the don’t-talk-to-strangers lecture won’t work here.”
The guy wore
jeans and a smoke gray sweatshirt. Did he wear that shade of gray all the time, even out of uniform?
“Da-ad.” J.R. rolled his eyes. “Mr. Brenner’s not a stranger.”
“You do not leave the aisle I’m in without telling me. And you do not go running after people.” Jason passed a tube of ointment from one hand to the other. His tone seemed caught between explanation and tirade.
“But Mr. Brenner’s my friend, Dad. I got to say hi to friends, or they won’t be friends anymore.”
“You always ask me first, always. Otherwise, I don’t know where you are.”
“And you think some hate-stuffed guy grabbed me?”
“That’s right.”
Marcus’s arms prickled as if he stood in a draft. Before he could bid them good-bye, Jason’s eyes skimmed over his cart.
“Diapers, huh?”
His pulse jolted into overdrive. Crap. He couldn’t say the cart wasn’t his. J.R. had seen him pushing it. Okay, get a grip. No reason for Jason to connect dots. No dots for him to connect. Marcus nodded.
“You’ve got a kid?”
The nonchalant yeah almost made it out of his mouth. But no. You couldn’t lie to a cop, not about something he could check into later. Marcus shook his head.
Jason’s head tilted, considering him. He was just being conversational. Right? “So, whose kid you buying for?”
“A friend.”
“Friend who can’t do their own shopping?”
“Yeah.”
“Sick or something?”
“Something.”
Jason nodded, but his mouth narrowed at the edges. Probably used to everybody spilling their guts to him whenever he demanded it. Well, Marcus’s shopping cart was none of his business.
J.R. darted to Jason’s side and pulled his sleeve. “Dad, come on. Let’s get the pizza, and Mr. Brenner can come over.”
“I can’t, J.R. I’ve got work to do. But maybe I’ll see you later.”
They couldn’t part fast enough. Marcus pushed his cart back to the diapers and found the baby wipes. Tomorrow, he’d buy some baby clothes, but the sizes were baffling, and he wasn’t about to call Aubrey with Jason prowling an aisle over.
He pushed his cart to the front of the store and was scanning items in the self-serve lane before his body registered in his mind. Mouth like cotton, heart like a hammer. Neck muscles like a vise. Had he been smart or stupid just now? He held the last can of formula over the scanner and turned it until the beam caught the UPC. Swiped his smooth new credit card and bagged the formula. He’d throw the diapers in the truck.
Only a few lanes over, Jason and J.R. stood in line. J.R. waved, but Marcus pretended not to see. Maybe he should have tried to concoct a story. A friend’s sister, a girlfriend going to a baby shower … No, dang it. Jason had no right to interrogate him. Outside the fact that he was guilty of multiple felonies. Daily felonies.
His neck ached. His head would soon.
Half a dozen people clustered around the automatic doors, including the store greeter. Murmurs drifted from the group. Somebody walked past the motion sensor, and the doors opened outward into the chilled night.
“What’s going on?” Marcus said.
The teenage greeter tugged his blue vest and shifted on spindly legs. His eyes darted from Marcus to whatever spectacle unfolded outside. “It sounds like a terrorist. We’re not sure if we should call the cops, or the con-cops, or what.”
The group included two more teen boys, an older woman, and a guy around Marcus’s age. They shuffled steps forward, steps back, trying to angle a view outside while staying clear of the window. Marcus pushed his cart past them, through the doors.
“Dude, be careful,” one of the boys called after him.
A man stood at the edge of the store’s floodlights, one shoulder of his suit jacket exposed to the sleet. More gawkers stood out here, but not too close, as if he could be carrying some disease. Marcus stepped closer, into the quarantined space around him, and the man looked up with marble-pale eyes. Cataracts? But he met Marcus’s gaze.
“You trying to hurt anybody?” Marcus said.
The man laughed. “Guess you’d think that, all right.”
“What’re you doing out here?”
“I’m sixty-nine years old, boy, and Truth’s finally found me. I’m trying to share it.” He could be Frank, time-lapsed twenty years. Marcus shot a glance back at the store. Nobody from inside had dared emerge, and the group here was inching backward, letting Marcus handle the “threat.” Good. He gripped the man’s shoulder and steered him to one side of the doors.
“You’re going to get arrested.”
“Someday soon, I’m sure.” He lifted his wrist to flash a silver watch that didn’t look cheap. “But time’s not on their side, either.”
“No. Listen to me. There’s—”
The doors opened behind him. “Mr. Brenner!”
God, no. Do something.
Another onlooker, probably in his forties, ventured forward. He tugged his coat collar up to shield his ears, either from the cold or from the old man’s preaching. “Look, sir, I think you’re confused. I don’t think you know what you’re saying.”
“I’m saying Jesus Christ is the only way to God.”
For less than a second, in his beeline to Marcus, J.R. brushed nearer to the stranger than he was to his dad. But Jason didn’t need a whole second. He snatched J.R. up and swung him half around, turning his back to the man only long enough to plant J.R. against the shield of a cement pillar that held up the awning. Then he marched forward, into the man’s space.
Marcus took a step, then another, toward standing between them. Aubrey. Claiming his own faith would condemn her, too. And maybe everyone left on his photocopied list.
Jason and the man stood face-to-face, boxers in a ring a moment before the bell.
“Want to repeat that for me?” Jason said.
“Dad—”
“Stay back!”
The man shrugged. “There’s only one way to God. That’s the truth. Go ahead and call the Constabulary if you want to.”
“I don’t have to. You’re under arrest.” He shifted quickly to pin the man’s arms, as if he expected resistance. He didn’t get any.
God, show me how to stop this.
“Brenner.” Jason pulled out his cell phone with his free hand and dialed. “Take my kid inside.”
The bystanders hurried in various directions toward their cars. A few dashed through the sleet unconcerned about slipping, as if the terrorist might overpower the courageous cop and come after them. J.R. peeked from behind the concrete pillar, pinching the back of his hand.
“Go on, man,” Jason said.
What the kid saw or didn’t see changed none of the reality. Marcus trudged to the pillar, skirting Jason widely enough that the guy wasn’t in punching range. He lifted J.R. to one arm and turned his back on Jason and on the brother whose name he didn’t know, the brother he hadn’t saved. He shivered.
Inside the store with J.R., he waited nearly twenty minutes. The kid sat on his shoulders and peered out the window as a squad car arrived, green lights flashing. As Jason and another agent talked to the man whose nearly blind eyes didn’t hesitate to meet his enemy’s. As gawkers came and went.
Two teenage boys watched the whole thing and called out commentary. “Dude, they got him handcuffed.”
A cheer burst up behind Marcus, applause and a few voices. Something squeezed his chest. They’d be clapping exactly like this if that was me.
Do something. Say something. God, is silence what You want from me right now? How could it be? He half turned toward them, ready. Aubrey. And Elliott. Outside, Jason nodded to the other agent, then crossed through the car’s headlights. He said something to the prisoner before shutting the door.
J.R. steadied hi
mself with a hand on top of Marcus’s head and leaned toward the window. “That’s my dad.”
“Yeah.”
Five was old enough. To watch, to understand, to learn. To admire. Marcus circled his hands around the small ankles that hung over his shoulders. God, please. Save this boy.
34
“Here.” Three yellow boxes of diapers dropped from Marcus’s arms onto the carpet at Aubrey’s feet. Thud-thud-thud. Resting on his full tummy beside her on the couch, Elliott didn’t stir. Marcus set down the rustling grocery bag of canned formula more carefully. “Sorry—I could’ve woke him up.”
“You couldn’t, actually,” Aubrey said. “Not like that, anyway.”
Confusion pulled at his mouth.
“Elliott is deaf. Remember?”
“Oh,” Marcus said. “Right.”
Aubrey bent to lift a can from the bag. Like the diaper boxes, this label flaunted a name brand. With iron, DHA, ARA, choline, calcium …
Marcus stood over her, too still. The hands at his sides curled a bit.
“This is perfect,” Aubrey said. “It’s more than perfect. Thank you.”
His head didn’t jerk in a brief nod. In fact, his neck didn’t move. At all. “Okay.”
“I appreciate it.”
His eyes caught on the book in her lap, one finger holding her place.
“I didn’t think you’d mind,” she said.
“No, it’s okay.”
After a moment, before Aubrey’s next words could form, he turned toward the kitchen. His eyes hadn’t tried to incinerate her, so that stiffness wasn’t anger.
Aubrey’s hand drifted over her son’s fuzzy green sleeper. “Be right back.” She froze at the turning of a corner that would obscure Elliott, then forced her feet to keep going. Marcus stood before the running microwave. Whatever was in there didn’t look like food. Taciturn was his default, but this was extreme. “Is Lee safe?”
“No.”
“I mean, obviously not, if she actually—did she? Take him herself?”
Seek and Hide: A Novel (Haven Seekers) Page 20