Cold Touch

by Leslie Parrish

  A scared kid, running in the dark, after what she’d been through? It probably would have been morning, anyway. “It wouldn’t have made any difference for Jack. You know that, right?”

  She managed a short nod. But he didn’t imagine his words would help. She hadn’t set down that heavy load of guilt; he doubted she ever would, not until she found out for sure what had happened to the boy. He hoped to be able to help her with that, especially now that he knew her horrific story.

  “So, what about his truck?” he asked, still piecing it all together in his mind.

  “The police found it at the bus station a few days later and figured Collier had parked there and walked to the drop site, wanting to scope things out since he knew I’d gotten away.”

  He made a mental note to look into that. “Was it registered to Collier?”

  She shook her head. “Stolen two years before from out of state.”

  Damn. So many leads that went nowhere, so many unanswered questions. If only the police had managed to take the man alive.

  “What do you think, Gabe?” she asked, his name sounding really nice on her lips. “Do you believe me? Do you think I could be right, that he walled Jack up?”

  Yeah, actually, he did. Somehow, he’d begun to believe in her. Maybe because she was so sure, her description so dead-on. Maybe because of the mother who’d come to the station today with her theories. Whatever the reason, he strongly suspected the Jack whom Olivia had known was the boy whose bones he’d looked at four days ago.

  “I do,” he admitted. “He couldn’t risk burying him. He knew you’d be bringing the police; that’s why he got rid of the camper.” Which would have been the natural place to leave the body. But plenty of tourists and hunters visited the swamps, and he couldn’t have known the camper would never be found, especially if it was ditched quickly and at night. Walling up his victim at a work site like something out of a Poe story might have sounded a little safer at the time. And hell, maybe he’d wanted to kill time, wanted to listen to the news reports or even scan police radio traffic to see if anybody was talking about picking up the missing Wainwright girl. His confidence could have built with every hour that he didn’t hear that news until he’d decided to make a try for the ransom.

  “The police did find the site,” she said. “There wasn’t much. Some footprints, tire tracks, trash that made it look like they’d been staying out there for a while. Little else.”

  Suddenly remembering what she’d told him that afternoon, he said, “Was it somewhere near the cemetery? That’s where you were found, right?”

  Her already pale face went the tiniest bit whiter, which just served to emphasize its delicate lines. The high cheeks, huge eyes, those pretty, trembling lips. “The old barn was in a big wooded area west of Laurel Grove North. I actually made it as far as the cemetery during the night. By that point, I was jumping at every noise and just wanted to hide.”

  Her throat worked as she swallowed, and, for the first time since his arrival, she turned her gaze away, not meeting his eyes. This wasn’t fear. It was humiliation. Shame. That was clear in the small, quiet whisper. “So when I found an old run-down crypt with a broken capstone, I pulled it open, crawled inside and hid until daylight.”

  “Jesus, Mary and St. Joseph,” he muttered, repeating his late mother’s favorite saying, which she’d used when she didn’t know what to say. He didn’t punctuate it by making the sign of the cross, as she would have; there was no religion in the expression. Just pure, utter shock.

  How much agony had this one woman—girl, at that time—been expected to survive? And where on earth had she come up with the strength, the utter grit, to survive it?

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered, not knowing what else to say, hoping she hadn’t interpreted his outburst as a sign he was judging her for choosing to curl up with the dead in order to save her own life. He wasn’t. In fact, the only feeling he had right now was admiration that she’d dug so deep and found such stamina to fight for her own survival.

  “Thanks,” she said with a nod, confirming she didn’t think he’d been criticizing the choice she’d made at a desperate moment. “The next morning, when it was light, I crawled out. A caretaker spotted me stumbling around, called nine-one-one, and I was rescued.” She lifted her hands in a helpless shrug. “There’s not a lot more to tell. The rest you know. Collier was killed, and the police never found Jack. Twelve years went by. Then, this morning, I saw his face on the news.”

  Had that just been this morning? Had he really not even known her name one day ago? That seemed impossible. Wrong, somehow, on a deep, primal level he couldn’t quite understand.

  He knew her now, though, knew her better than most people did, he’d wager. While he’d come here determined to make her prove she wasn’t frigging crazy, now he would dare anyone to suggest she was. And yet . . . and yet . . .

  She’d told him everything that had happened to her but still had explained nothing about the end result. Oh, sure, he had his suspicions that her back-from-the-dead experience and her subsequent night spent in the embrace of some old skeletons had combined to make her think she had some kind of psychic ability. Whether it was real or not he wasn’t willing to say. He was the biggest skeptic on the planet and would never have believed that an abused, kidnapped, twelve-year-old boy could have schemed to have a girl drowned just so he could later save her life. And that it would work. So what did he know?

  Finally, as if knowing his mind was again churning, she sighed deeply, shaking her head to force out all those dark, unpleasant thoughts and prepared to give him one more explanation. The big one. “As for what I can do and why I want to examine the remains?” she said slowly, as if wondering if he really wanted to know.

  “Tell me.”

  “You remember how I said I was dead a little more than two minutes?”

  “I remember.” Vividly.

  “Well, Detective Cooper, since that night, I’ve had the ability to touch human remains and relive the final minutes of someone else’s life. See what they saw, hear what they heard.” She cleared her throat. “Feel what they felt. Which means if Jack’s bones are the ones you found, I’ll know it. Give me two minutes and ten seconds, and I promise you, I’ll know.”

  He hesitated, staring, not sure he’d heard right. Once he’d absorbed the words and saw she meant every one of them, he spun them around in his mind, thinking about everything that had happened. Everything she’d been through. Everything he knew about this woman so far.

  Then, when it had all fallen into place, he handed her his empty beer bottle. “I think I need another drink.”

  More than a drink. Maybe a lot of them. Not because he didn’t believe her but because somehow, deep down in his true skeptic’s heart, a part of him really did.

  Or, at least, was considering it.

  Though it sometimes seemed like he was remembering a scene from a movie or a TV show, the boy felt pretty sure his name had once been Tucker and that he’d once had a mama and a daddy and a big sister.

  Some Tucker had, anyway. Maybe it had been him. Maybe not. He couldn’t hardly remember anything anymore, beyond the rickety old trailer with the roaches living in the walls. And the dead grass outside. And the heat, the never-endin’ heat.

  Once, maybe, he’d lived in a place that got cool inside even when it was hot out. Not anymore, though. Now it was always hot. Day and night. Always.

  Like now. As he stirred the pot of canned ravioli on the portable camping stove in the kitchen, he couldn’t help thinking about what it might be like to go jump in a cold swimming pool. Or the ocean, maybe.

  That other Tucker had gone to the ocean a couple of times, he thought. More often, he’d swam in a lake. There’d been a rope hanging from a big old tree that used to let him swing out over the water like he was a bird flyin’ through the air. He’d always been afraid to let go, even though sometimes he wondered if he could maybe just keep on flying rather than falling down and makin’ a big
splash. He’d be afraid, terrified, but also excited and pretty sure he’d be fine. That, just like always, he’d land safe in the water, and his mama would smile and clap her hands, and his daddy would laugh and give him a big okeydoke sign with his fingers.

  He’d lived with his family in a pretty house near a field full of apple trees that his daddy grew along with peaches and cherries. He didn’t like the peaches, but he thought he used to climb up to snitch apples on his way home down the long gravel lane that led from the school bus to his house. He also sort of remembered the way his big sister would run home fast, her braids flying out behind her, leaving him in her dust, his shorter legs unable to keep up.

  Sometimes in his dreams, he found himself running and running but never getting anywhere.

  Just dreams. Like Tucker. Like his old life.

  Now he was Jack.

  “Damn it, boy, I told you to have my supper on the table!”

  He cringed, tucking himself into the corner between the stove and the flimsy wall that separated the tiny kitchen from the just-as-tiny living room. He’d been thinking, letting his mind drift, rather than doing what he’d been told. He’d probably pay for that now.

  Thwack! A stinging pain, his ears ringing with the force of the slap. He braced himself for the next one, but he got off easy; there was only that one. Uncle Johnny musta been pretty distracted. He’d come back in a funny mood tonight, itchy, almost, like he was jumpy in his own pants. Mad and cursin’, then acting like there was nothin’ wrong at all.

  Maybe it was because of the man in the shed.

  Though he was all tied up and blindfolded, the man had throwed hisself so hard against the door, it had almost splintered open before Uncle Johnny had even knowed it. Jack was glad that had happened this evenin’, after Uncle Johnny got home from wherever it was he went most days. If the man had got away while Jack was here alone, he had the feeling he’d be the one who’da got beat with the strap instead of the poor, cryin’ man in the shed. The fact that Jack couldn’t have done anything, since Uncle Johnny locked him in the trailer when he was gone, probably wouldn’ta even made a difference.

  Funny, that Tucker boy had never thought men could cry, only girls and babies.

  As for Jack? Well, he knew better. Oh, my, yes. He’d heard men not only cry but sob, scream and beg. Sometimes he had to put his hands over his ears late at night just to make the sound of it stop, even long after whoever had made those sounds was dead and buried in an unmarked grave in the woods.

  “Well, you gone deaf, boy?” snapped the big man at the table. “Where’s my supper?”

  “It’s ready,” he whispered, quickly spooning the food into a cracked bowl. Scuttling over, he put it down in front of the man, offered him a spoon and a shaky smile, too. “Not too hot, just the way ya like it. And I buttered ya some bread.”

  Uncle Johnny scooped up a few pieces of the soggy pasta and shoveled them into his mouth. He chewed, swallowed, then muttered, “Not bad.”

  Jack waited, wondering if Uncle Johnny meant it and would follow up the praise by pattin’ him on the head or tellin’ him he could have some food for himself. Or if he was just playin’ possum, waiting for Jack to get closer so he could whack on him again. Jack never knew.

  Sometimes Uncle Johnny seemed to be like two people sharin’ the same face and skin. He could be nice, friendly-like with a big smile, sayin’ things like “Call me Daddy, son!” Then something would snap, and he’d be mean as a snake. He even seemed like he had two brains in his head. Each one talked with a different voice, and, when it got real bad, they sounded like they was arguin’ with each other.

  A while back, when he started to notice how bad Uncle Johnny could be when the mood came over him, he’d started to think of the mean Uncle Johnny as someone else. Uncle Bob. Not out loud, a’course, just secretly, in his mind. He didn’t know why; it just helped keep him on his toes to remember which one he was dealing with.

  He suspected Uncle Bob had walked in the door and smacked ’im. But he wasn’t sure who was sittin’ at the table right now.

  Finally, when the bowl was almost empty and the room had been real quiet but for the sound of his eating, Uncle Johnny—and he thought it was Uncle Johnny now’cause his eyes weren’t all squinty and hard—looked at him. “Well? Aren’t you hungry?”

  “Yessir!” he said, so relieved at that normal voice he wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry.

  “What are you waiting for, then? Have something to eat,” he said with a smile, as nice as could be, like he hadn’t just walloped him. “Growing boy needs to keep his energy up.”

  As good as it was to see that smile, Jack knew it could be wiped away in an instant. He could never count on it stayin’ for long. If he’d dared to have some food without first bein’ told he could, and Uncle Johnny had been in an Uncle Bob kind of mood, he coulda ended up with his arm in a sling. Better to wait to be invited, no matter what.

  Now that he had been, he hurried back to the stove. His stomach rumbled loud enough for Uncle Johnny to hear it, and from the table, he let out a laugh. “Hurry up there, Jackie-boy. The grizzly in your belly is getting hungry.”

  “Yessir,” he mumbled, quickly spooning the few remaining pieces of food into the other bowl. He stood by the stove, eating his scraps quickly, using his fingers. He didn’t want to risk getting too close, for fear that Uncle Johnny would decide he did want the rest, after all, and take it.

  Or, worse, that Uncle Bob would.

  Before he’d finished, he heard a ringing sound coming from Uncle Johnny’s pocket. It was the phone that he kept with him all the time, except when he locked it up in a trunk he kept in the bedroom, along with some clothes and other stuff Jack had never gotten a good look at.

  Jack sometimes used to think he might make a call on that phone, if his uncle ever happened to drop it or somethin’. But he didn’t know who he’d call. Tucker’s mama and daddy and sister was dead and gone. He had nobody else, just the man sittin’ at the table, the one Jack watched now with both loathing and a kind of shaky, terrified love.

  Uncle Johnny pulled the phone out, looked at the numbers on it, and answered in a sociable voice, “Hello, there. What can I do for you?”

  Jack smiled as he washed the dishes, glad the phone call wasn’t a bad one. Maybe if Uncle Johnny stayed in this mood, he might let Jack listen to the radio after dinner. Maybe he’d even go out and get some ice cream that the two of them could eat outside while they watched the sun go down. He’d done that on occasion, a long time ago, but it hadn’t happened since they’d come to this new place a while back.

  Then he thought about the man in the shed, the way he’d screamed and cried. And Jack decided he’d rather stay in and listen to the radio, especially if he could turn it up real loud. Even if it meant no ice cream.

  “You did?” Uncle Johnny said into the phone. “This morning? Are you sure? Goodness, that musta slipped my mind. Sorry about that!”

  He was quiet again, and the next time Jack looked over, he saw those eyes get smaller. Squinty-like. Uh-oh. His legs wobbled, and he leaned against the counter, hopin’ he was wrong but not thinkin’ he was.

  “What?” Uncle Johnny asked, his voice gettin’ low, husky.

  No. Oh, please, no.

  “Who the fuck you think you’re talkin’ to?” The man sneered, his whole body curling up tight, all hard and mad. “Don’t be thinkin’ you kin order me around . . . You think I’m s’posed ta be skeered ’cause a some old bones in a wall?”

  Closing his eyes, Jack reached for the scrub brush, knowing he had to get the dishes extra clean. He didn’t want to do anything wrong, give the man any reason to get mad.

  There would be no radio tonight. No ice cream. No sunset.

  He only hoped there wouldn’t be any beating, either.

  Because Uncle Bob was back.

  Chapter 6

  When Olivia had agreed to attend a family brunch this morning to celebrate her sister’s engagement, sh
e’d thought the only hard part about it would be pretending she didn’t dislike her future brother-in-law. Though her sister obviously saw something in him worth caring for, Drew Buckman did seem to go out of his way to make himself unlikable. Their father called him a tool. And their mother, always a little more blunt, referred to him as the nutless wonder.

  Buckman was a corporate lawyer—strike one. He was also a pompous know-it-all—strike two. Finally, being seventeen years older than his fiancée, he was also a bossy, controlling jerk. He had Brooke looking to him for permission before she ordered something off a menu.

  Strike three, you’re out. Not just the game but the whole ballpark. Except he wasn’t, unfortunately. In six months, he would become a member of the family.

  Her sister could do so much better. Brooke had always been shy, a late bloomer, and had started dating Drew—who’d been their senator cousin’s best friend for decades—right out of college. She’d wanted a settled, steady, older man. Nobody dangerous, nobody too exciting. Like the tortoise who was content to go slow and steady, confident the trophy at the end of the race was worth skipping any exciting sprints, Brooke had never even considered taking a risk.

  Olivia sometimes wondered if it was because of what had happened to her as a teenager. Brooke had, after all, been sleeping in the next room, just twelve years old, when Liv had been taken. She’d been the one to realize Olivia was gone the next morning. Maybe it wasn’t so surprising she’d wanted a safe life and a safe man. Safe and, in Olivia’s opinion, sad.

  Funny, though, as it turned out, hiding her dislike of the future groom wasn’t going to be the hardest part of the morning. Neither was trying to pretend it wasn’t the weirdest thing in the world to have a big family gathering with her not-divorced parents and their significant others shooting under-the-breath gibes at each other. Nor having to listen to her senator cousin talk politics while his snooty wife talked about her designer clothes or simply name-dropped.