by Linda Ladd
Mariah seemed to relax. She laid her head back on the pillows and shut her eyes. “There’s nobody left for me in Sydney, Will. Daddy died eight years ago. My mother died two years after that. I’ve been out of the country most of the time since then. On assignment in Japan. I hardly have any friends left back home except for some colleagues in ASIO. I’ve got more friends in Tokyo now.”
“No problem. You and Ryan can stay here as long as you want to. I will protect you both, until I find a safe place for the kid to go. He told me he used to like to visit his dad’s family. That his grandparents were nice to him. He said that they’re really old now, but that’s still probably the best bet for him to have a normal life.”
“Sounds like it. So does staying here. I like you quite a lot now, since I’d be dead if you hadn’t gotten me to the hospital in time.” She laughed a little, and then she grimaced as if it had hurt her. “Yeah, I heard about the duct tape. The doctors were impressed. Very ingenious, I must say.”
“It comes in handy.”
“Yes, I’d say so.”
Outside, Ryan suddenly yelled Novak’s name. He sounded frightened. Alarmed, Novak ran outside to the front gallery and found the boy standing a good way out in the yard under the magnolia trees. He was not moving, just staring at Novak’s little neighbor, Adonis, and her German shepherd puppy. Adonis was dressed all in camo today, her bow and quiver of arrows strapped on her back, another squirrel in her hand. Novak smiled, glad to see her, safe and sound, and out and about. She was definitely making progress. Getting really brave now, moving all up and down along their road.
“Hey, it’s okay, Ryan. That’s just my friend Adonis. She’s all right. She’s not going to hurt you. Maybe she’ll let you play with Toby.”
Adonis nodded, solemnly. She was nearly always somber. She put down the puppy, and the dog ran over to the little boy and started jumping up on his legs. Novak watched for a moment, but then he glanced around, at the entrance road leading out through the trees. Suddenly, he felt uneasy. If Emma Adamson wanted her son back, she would come here and get him. He knew it. If she thought Ryan was her property, she wouldn’t let anybody else have him. Novak just wasn’t at all sure she wanted the kid. She used him, yes. Emotionally abused him, it sounded like. The kid would be better off if he never laid eyes on his crazy mother again. But Novak couldn’t let himself count on it being over. Not for Novak. Not ever. Not until Emma paid the price. And she had a lot of crimes to answer for.
Chapter Twenty-eight
November turned out to be nice and sunny, in the warm 60s most days in South Louisiana. One fine morning as Novak finished washing up the breakfast dishes, he felt pretty good about the way things were going. He hung up the dish towel and then walked down the grand foyer and checked on Mariah. She was sleeping peacefully, on her back, lots of silky black hair fanning out across the pillowcase. Her breakfast tray sat untouched on the bedside table. She was still very sore and not strong yet and never very hungry. All in all, she was holding up better than he had expected. The home nurses that he’d hired the day before Mariah had arrived had visited again yesterday and doctored her wounds and changed her bandages and checked her vital signs. He always felt better when they gave him a good progress report.
At the moment, Mariah was healing well and thank God for that. Novak was more concerned about the kid. Ryan’s state of mind was not in a good place. The boy was now convinced that his mother was going to come and grab him right out from under Novak’s nose. He lived in a state of dread that she’d show up and take him away. Novak had found him hiding under Mariah’s bed with a pillow and blanket a couple of times, and another time inside the giant armoire upstairs in the master bedroom where Novak slept. The rest of the time he stuck like glue to Novak’s side, but today Novak hadn’t seen him since they ate their Lucky Charms and cinnamon toast together at the kitchen counter about thirty minutes ago. Novak was worried about him. He was worried about both of them. He wasn’t used to having to worry about things. Especially about other people. It felt strange to him, alarming almost.
At the bottom of the grand staircase, Novak called Ryan’s name and looked up the steps, but softly so as not to awaken Mariah. No answer. He went out the front door and glanced around the yard and white-shelled driveway. He walked down the gallery to the east side of the house and then back to the west, but the galleries were deserted. No Ryan anywhere. He called the kid’s name again. Louder this time. Still no answer. Concerned now, Novak descended to the front sidewalk and stood at the bottom of the steps. The kid had rarely shown enough courage to step off the front porch by himself, much less disappear. Where the hell was he?
“I’m under here, Mr. Novak.”
Ryan’s voice, very soft and frightened, coming out from under the porch supports. Novak bent down and spotted the boy’s little face, peering out through a hole in the latticework. Novak squatted down right in front of him. “Hi, Ryan.”
“Hi.”
“What are you doin’ under there?”
“Hiding.”
“You don’t have to hide anymore. I’m right here. See? I’m not gonna let anybody hurt you. Not you or Mariah. We’re all safe out here.”
“You don’t know my mom. She’s scary, and she likes to hurt people.”
Novak knew that well enough. Had seen her handiwork with a steak knife, up close and bloody and horrible. Seen the oozing stab wounds in Mariah’s back and abdomen. He still didn’t know how she survived that terrible attack. He didn’t like to think about how she had looked when he’d found her. “So why don’t you come out here and we’ll talk about it?”
“You can’t keep her away from me. She’ll come. She always comes. She says I’m her boy and she’s going to make sure I stay that way. Barrett used to want to take me away. Send me off to school somewhere back home. You know, in Sydney. He knew I was afraid to live there with her.”
“Come out here and tell me about all that. I need to know. It’ll help me keep you safe.”
“Huh-uh. She’ll be coming any time now, and she won’t see me under here. I wish you and Mariah could get under here, too. We need to hide, Mr. Novak. Okay?”
“Oh, c’mon, Ryan. I’ve got some candy. Want some?”
Long pause. Ryan was thinking it over. “What kind of candy do you got?”
Novak grinned. “M&Ms and Skittles.”
“I like both those kinds.”
“Me, too. Come on out and we’ll share.”
The child still didn’t bite. Didn’t say anything else, either.
Novak waited a bit. Then he said, “I’m heavily armed, you know. I always have my weapon with me. I’ve got it with me now. I won’t let her get you. I promise you, Ryan. I’ll shoot her if she tries to come here and take you away, okay?”
“Cross your heart? Hope to die?”
Novak smiled again. “Cross my heart. Don’t know about the other part.”
“Okay, I guess.”
“C’mon then.”
Novak waited while the kid squirmed out on his belly and stood up. He had dirt all over his clothes now. His face and hands were dirty, too. Ryan started brushing it off. He gave a little grin and then looked off down the road. “You sure she’s not coming down here to get me?”
“She doesn’t know where I live. Not many people know about this place or how to get out here. You’re gonna be okay now. I’m gonna take you home to your daddy’s parents, just like I promised. To your Memo and Papa. I already talked to them on the telephone. They said they really missed you and want you to come live with them. They’re already trying to get legal custody of you. Remember, I already told you all this, just the other day.”
Ryan nodded, but he kept his eyes fixed on the road leading to the house. The kid had been through a hell of a lot in his young life. Who could blame him for being afraid? He suddenly looked up at Novak. “Can we start with the Skittles?”
Novak laughed and got them out of his pocket. “Sure. Sit down here beside
me.”
Ryan sat down very close to him and leaned up against Novak’s arm. Novak put his arm around him and handed over the Skittles. Ryan tore the package open and dumped about twelve of them into his palm. “You want some?” he asked Novak.
“Sure. Thanks.”
So they just sat there together, eating the candy and listening to the birds calling and squawking to each other out in the swamp. It was a really nice day, very warm, sun spangling patterns on the ground in front of them. The breeze was cool, though, and brushing through the leaves as if the trees were shivering. The plantation lay in a kind of sleepy lull, a tableau of peace and quiet that Novak loved about the place. Just the birds and the breeze and the soft rush of the bayou, way down the hill, far behind the house.
“I like it here. You got a nice house to live in.”
“Thank you, Ryan. I like having you here. Mariah, too.” Novak had never thought those words would come out of his mouth, but this time he realized he meant them. She was okay now. She needed his help, and she was going to get it. Sarah was probably smiling somewhere in heaven, pleased now that her husband and her sister had declared a truce.
Ryan was quiet for a little while longer, chewing the candy, popping in one piece after another and sitting very still beside him. “Is she gonna die, Mr. Novak?”
“Who? Mariah?”
The boy nodded. “I think she looks real bad. You know, like she’s still real sick and stuff.”
“No, she’s gonna be all right. Don’t worry about that, either. I’m gonna take good care of her. You’ve seen the nurses come in. They come out every other day and check on her and they are going to keep doing that. You and I will take care of her the rest of the time. They told me that she was doing well. Healing up nicely.”
“She sure did get some ugly cuts on her. I saw them once when the nurse was changing the bandages. I peeked.”
“Yeah, some were worse than others, but the doctors sewed her up. She’ll be up and walking before you know it. We can help her get around until she can walk on her own.”
“Did my mom do all that to her?”
Novak hesitated, but the kid deserved to know the truth. “Yes.”
“I’m sorry she did that. Mariah’s real nice, and pretty, you know, even if she’s sick.”
“Yeah. Me, too.”
Ryan thought about it some more. “And after she gets up and stuff, I get to go see my Memo and Papa.”
“Yes, sir. Both of you are going home to Sydney together. I’ll take you down there myself. I have a good friend who owns his own plane. He’s already said he would fly us there. We’ve already talked about it. His name is Jack Holliday. You’ll like him. He and I used to play football up in New Orleans at Tulane University.”
Ryan just nodded then, pleased it seemed like. The boy ate three more pieces of candy, chewed the big wad it made, still thinking about everything.
So they sat there silently in the quiet morning, no longer talking. Novak could remember sitting on that same step with his own kids. His feisty little son, Kelly. And his beautiful little daughter, Katie. The twins had been much smaller and younger than Ryan back then, but they had been happy kids. Always laughing and playing and running and squealing and wanting him to roughhouse with them or ride them around on his shoulders. Novak had been happy back then, too. In a way he hadn’t appreciated them until they were all gone, taken from him in one single instant, in the briefest blink of an eye. He hadn’t been happy since. He didn’t think he’d ever be happy again. He glanced over at the rose garden and the gravesites he’d made in his family’s memory. He’d give anything if they were really there, buried at Bonne Terre close to him, but they weren’t. They were lost forever in the ashes and rubble at Ground Zero. Somewhere under the new memorial that he’d never even wanted to see. But he had been determined to give them beautiful headstones and a peaceful, shady place to rest, if only symbolically. He had needed to do that. For himself, as well as for them. They deserved at least that much. They deserved a lot more than that. All three of them did.
“I’ve been thinking about it, Mr. Novak, and I think my mom likes to kill people.”
Novak jerked a quick look down at the boy. Ryan was looking up at him. Scared again. His face was alive with it.
“Maybe. But she’s gone now. Probably somewhere far away. Maybe even out of the country.”
“Do you think she would kill me, too? The way she killed Barrett with that gun?”
So Emma had been the one who wielded the gun on Barrett Wilson. Ryan had never mentioned that before now, but Novak had always wondered if he’d seen the murder. “No, she would never kill you, Ryan. You’re her only son. Her only child. She won’t hurt you like she did him. And she’s not here, anyway, and she’s not gonna be. Not if I have anything to say about it.”
The boy did not look convinced. “She just took out that gun and shot him in the head. You know, right up here on his forehead.” He pointed at his own forehead. “Where do you think she even got that gun, Mr. Novak? How did she get out of her room? Barrett always makes sure she’s all locked up, good and tight. That’s why he did it, you know, lock her up, I mean. So she wouldn’t hurt people. He loved her a lot. Even when she was mean to him. Sometimes he’d get real mad at her and treat her bad, too, but it was her own fault, Mr. Novak, she did things to make him mad. She told me she did.”
“I don’t know where the gun came from. I’m sorry you had to see her do that. Must’ve been a hard thing to watch.”
The boy nodded, and then he went quiet again, ate some more candy, stared out at the road some more. After some time had passed, he slipped his little hand into Novak’s. It felt sticky. “I saw her kill my daddy, too. Did you know that?”
Oh, God, Novak thought. He shook his head.
“That happened back when we lived in that house on the seashore. She stabbed him with a knife. Just like she did Mariah. Cut him up real bad and stuff. I was peeking in the door because I heard them all yelling but she didn’t know I was there. She and Barrett were in the bedroom, and my Daddy was on the floor with blood coming out his neck, and she did it to him, Mr. Novak. She acted like she was going crazy or something. I didn’t know what to do. I was so scared. So I ran and hid in my room. I really liked my real daddy. He was always nice to me. He gave me candy, too, like you do. M&Ms with peanuts.”
Novak didn’t say anything. It was probably good for Ryan to talk about it. Get the horrors that he’d seen off his chest. Something else that Emma was going to have to pay for.
“Then Barrett went off somewhere and got this big boat and drove it up to our beach, and then we left that house forever. I liked it there, but not as much as I like it here with you.”
Then the kid got real quiet. After a few minutes, more words came pouring out, very low, very anxious now. “He wrapped up my daddy in a blanket and took him with us in the boat. There was lots of blood on that blanket, Mr. Novak. He took us far out into the ocean, and then he got a chain and put it through the holes on some concrete blocks things and chained it to the ropes around my daddy. Then he just pushed daddy over the side of the boat. And my daddy just went down and down until we couldn’t see him anymore. I started crying but my mom shook me and said it was a good thing that daddy was dead because he was a bad man. She told me that he hurt her all the time and he would’ve started hurting me, too, if she hadn’t stopped him. She said I ought to be glad he was gone.”
Novak winced inside. This child was in trouble emotionally. Psychologically, too. He wasn’t going to get better without some kind of therapy, either. Maybe Nicholas Black would take a look at him when he and Claire got back. Black was a good psychiatrist, and Ryan had seen more violence than any kid his age should ever have to see. Violence perpetrated by his own mother. His dad’s death. Wilson’s death. Maybe others, too, that he didn’t like to talk about. He needed help dealing with the traumas he’d seen, all right. Novak would do whatever he could to help, but Ryan definitely needed prof
essional help. Novak was going to make sure he got it.
Beside him, Ryan gave a huge sigh. “She just kills people she doesn’t like, Mr. Novak. She just shoots them or stabs them or hits them with something. It’s real scary to see. Sometimes I can’t stop thinking about it. I get bad dreams about it, too.”
“Ryan, listen to me. She is not a nice woman. We both know that. But you are free now. You are going to live with your grandparents and they’re gonna take good care of you. I checked them out. They’re nice people. They love you. You’ll be fine with them. If you’re not, if you don’t like it there, we’ll do something else.” Novak hesitated there, not sure if he should ask his next question but he needed to know. “Did she ever hurt you, Ryan?”
Novak felt the child stiffen up where he still sat pressed up close against Novak’s side. The boy nodded but didn’t say anything. After a moment, he said, “She hit me sometimes if she got real mad at Barrett for locking her up. He finally had to keep her up there in her room while he was gone so she wouldn’t hit me, and stuff. I was glad when she was locked up in her room. Barrett was always real nice to me, but she wasn’t. She’s just real mean, Mr. Novak. Don’t you think she is, too?”
“Yeah. She is. None of this is your fault, Ryan, okay? You understand that, right? You have nothing to do with anything she’s ever done. You are just a little kid. You’re free of her now, and you’re going home soon to be with the people who really love you. Everything’s gonna be fine.”
Ryan remained quiet. Novak wanted to know more about the people that Emma had murdered. She was more dangerous than he even imagined. He hated to question the child further, but Ryan seemed to want to talk about her.
“Was Barrett Wilson a good friend of hers?”
“He told me that my dad hired him and that’s when he met my mom. He said that she wasn’t always mean, that she was real sweet sometimes. He said it was because my daddy treated her so bad. But I know she was always mean. Daddy tried to be nice to her, you know, gave her lots of stuff that she wanted, but she was always mad at him. And me, too. She wanted to spend more of his money. She said she did all the work, you know, painting pictures and stuff, and he didn’t have to do anything but sell them.”