She opened her door and went to help James out of the truck. He shook off her help.
To Kelsie, his rejection added to the surrealness of the situation. How had it come to this – returning as a stranger to her own home? And returning because her son was gone? She forced her body through walking motions and rounded the front of her father's truck.
“Happened to stop by to ask about borrowing a tractor, and I heard the sad news,” Rooster Evans said, pulling himself away from the knot of people. He remembered his cowboy hat and yanked it from his head. “Don’t you worry, Babs, we’ll have your boy within the hour.”
Kelsie pasted a smile on her face. She remembered the cute poems he’d written for her when she was just a girl. Rooster was ever sweet, the only one to still call her Babs. He had taken her to the high-school prom, asked her a dozen times to marry him, and had not shown anger at her dozen firm refusals. He’d married a town girl a few years later; it hadn’t stuck. The town girl had departed the Evans spread with healthy alimony, and he’d stayed, running the ranch under the watchful eye of his father, Frank, who continued to grow in orneriness with each passing year. Rooster’s hair was still deserving of his nickname. It was paler red than the fiery color of his teens but still short and bristly. Light freckles still covered his forehead, arms, and hands. His hairline had receded, and there were tan lines across his brow from where he always wore a hat, but he still looked like the teenager she always remembered hanging out with Michael and Lawson.
“And if we don’t find him then,” Rooster said, “I’ll take my plane up and Lawson will take his. We’ll find him. I promise.”
More than a few of the big ranchers had planes, for hobby, hunting, and convenience. Rooster, Michael, and Lawson, in fact, had once all shared in buying an airplane. That had happened much earlier, when Michael was still alive, when all three had been musketeers, raising gleeful cane throughout the valley, when Michael and Lawson were still friends, not bitter enemies over a matter that neither had discussed with anyone.
“Won’t surprise me if we get five planes into the air,” Rooster said. “You know how folks around here help out.”
“Rooster, you always did know how to cheer me up,” she said.
Rooster nodded shyly and stuck his cowboy hat back on his head.
Kelsie moved past him, conscious of her high heels on the packed dirt, conscious that the conversation stopped between Clay and Lawson. They were as uncertain of what to say as she was.
She waited for Clay to speak and noticed a purple sweater on the top of one of the corral rails. Didn’t the sweater belong to Taylor?
Before she could ask, Clay took her elbow and pulled her away. They stopped at a corner of the corral. Her feeling of strangeness intensified at his coldness; she hadn’t seen him since Sunday, but it seemed like years, and she caught herself studying him as if indeed – by the manner he stood apart from her – he was another woman’s husband.
Age had softened the angles on his face, but character and strength were molded into place. His awkward frame had filled out over the decades, but he was far from fat, a result of the ranch work that demanded most of his daylight hours. His flannel shirt had faded; his new jeans had not.
He was staring back at her with intensity and some anger. Kelsie became aware of something that surprised her: She felt renewed desire for this man, the tall, rugged stranger. Why now when there was no way to go back to him? Why now in the face of crisis?
“I’ve already called Noah Latcher," he said. “I thought it might make more sense to try bloodhounds before calling the hired hands or neighbors for a search party. And I’m not real, real worried about Taylor. Not yet. Louie Two’s gone, too, so I’m guessing they went together. Louie Two will take care of him.”
“He’s lost,” she said. “Taylor is lost. You know that for a fact?”
“No, I don’t know that. He might be under a pile of towels in the laundry room. I was just getting lonely up here and decided to find a way to get attention.”
“I don’t need this,” she said angrily.
“Sorry. Let me remember to think of you. first.” His sarcasm was obvious. He grabbed her shoulders and stared her in the face. “I don’t care what you need. Taylor is in the woods somewhere. We both know he doesn’t have a chance of finding his own way back.”
“In the woods... but how?”
“Lawson and I were upstairs. We had an appointment with some government yahoo going over those stupid environmental regulations for cattle on open range land. Taylor was downstairs. Safe, I thought. When Lawson and I went down, the patio door was open. No Taylor.”
“You know he’ll wander,” Kelsie said. “Why wasn’t it locked?”
“Look in my eyes, woman,” Clay said. His voice was low. “Don’t you dare put any blame on me. Some boys have a full-time mother. Some boys even have mothers who love them, Maybe if you had been at the ranch –”
“You and I made our arrangements long ago.” Kelsie found it easy to respond with her own anger; it pushed fear and worry aside. “Taylor has Down’s syndrome – I hardly need to point that out to you – which means he should not be left unattended. Which was another part of our arrangement. Obviously he was, and now he’s gone. Instead of looking for someone to blame, why don’t we concentrate on finding him?”
“Sure. Let’s find him fast so you can get back on your way. Hate to inconvenience you and your little life too much.”
“You rotten, miserable...” she began, her eyes stinging.
He’d turned his back to her and marched back to the small group.
* * *
Noah Latcher arrived ten minutes later, a single bloodhound in the cab of his pickup truck. He and the hound were reputed to be a couple sniffs better than old Caleb and his legendary brace in their day.
When he stepped out of the truck, Noah had a leather leash wrapped around his left hand. He wore jeans and a dirty white T-shirt with a photo of Marilyn Monroe on one side, Elvis on the other. He wasn’t wearing boots but a pair of high-top running shoes, well worn and brown with mud and manure.
Noah didn’t pause but nodded hello, opened the passenger door, and lifted the low-bellied dog onto the ground. He snapped the leash on its collar and unwound the leather strap from his hand. The dog sniffed disinterestedly at Noah’s ankle.
“All right,” he said. He had his old man’s bulbous nose and shy way of speaking. “You got what I asked for over the phone?”
Clay stepped over, handing him the purple sweater from the wooden rail of the corral. “Taylor wore this all day yesterday.”
“Good,” Noah said. “Bring me and my dog to the last place you know the boy stood.”
“You want all of us with you?” Lawson asked.
“Don’t matter none to me,” Noah said. “Nothing distracts this hound.”
“Lawson,” Clay said, “why don’t you stay with Kelsie and James? You’re not wearing the clothes for a trek through bush. Rooster, for that matter, you’ll break your ankles climbing around in those cowboy boots. Fact is, if you have work, you might as well go on. I'll call you as soon as we find Taylor.”
Rooster shrugged agreement.
“I’m going,” Kelsie announced. “I’ll be in sweats and hiking boots in less than a minute.”
It wasn’t that she pictured Taylor huddled somewhere frightened out of his wits and waiting to be rescued. No, she wasn’t much worried about him. He couldn’t have gone far, she thought, and the hound would track him, probably within a half-hour. She also knew he would be playing happily wherever they found him, and just as happy to be interrupted and taken home again. She wanted to go with the bloodhound because she didn’t want to be sitting around the kitchen with Lawson and her father, enduring the awkward silences as they waited for Clay to return.
She changed into clothes she’d left behind and met them at the patio door of the walkout basement.
Noah gave the bloodhound the scent from Taylor’s purple swea
ter, and the dog began to cast from side to side, its massive nose sweeping the top of the lawn. Within seconds it gave an excited “harumpph” and yanked at the leash, taking Noah in a straight line across the grass and toward the trees at the far edge of the yard.
Clay followed. Kelsie followed Clay. They had avoided eye contact and any more conversation since she’d arrived.
The trail was easy to follow. It cut among the trees in a slightly uphill direction, taking them out of sight of the house and ranch buildings.
“I don’t like this,” Clay said, stopping long enough for Kelsie to reach his side.
“Neither do I,” she said. “I mean, he can’t be far, but if he fell or anything
“That’s not what I mean,” Clay said. “Think of what Taylor would be doing on the loose in here.”
The flitting shadows of a blue jay crossed Kelsie’s face. It landed on a tree a few yards away and hurled insults at their intrusion. A small white butterfly dipped from flower to flower.
She understood Clay’s concern. “He’d be chasing that butterfly,” she said. “Crawling under bushes to look at beetles. Wandering over to try catching that blue jay.”
“Exactly. Anything but hiking in a direction with a purpose. It’s like someone has him by the hand.”
Kelsie felt her first prickle of fear. To this point, she’d felt concern but not fear. Not until now. It couldn’t be...
“Maybe he heard something ahead,” Kelsie said, “something that drew him. Or maybe he was trying to keep up with Louie Two, and Louie Two was after a deer.”
“No,” Clay said. “You know Louie Two. It’s the other way around. Louie Two keeps up with Taylor.”
“He’ll be fine,” Kelsie said. “He’ll be fine.”
For a dangerous moment, it seemed Clay was about to put his arm around her shoulder. She moved forward and followed Noah and the bloodhound, letting Clay trail her.
The path took them in a large semicircle until it eventually reached the edge of the trees at the main road a half-mile beyond the ranch house. There was a ten-foot-wide shallow ditch filled with tall grass. The bloodhound took them through the ditch and up to the asphalt. It went left, then right, patiently sniffing. Then he began to whine.
“Problem, Noah?” Clay asked.
“Must be the oils in the pavement. He’s not picking up the boy’s trail. I’ll take the hound to the other side of the road and let him cast about there.”
Ten minutes later, the dog was still trying to pick up a trail.
“This isn’t good,” Noah said, calling them over. He unleashed the dog and gave him a command to circle wider. “I mean, the kid didn’t just fly away.”
“Unless he got into a vehicle,” Clay said.
Kelsie’s prickle of fear began to grow.
“Well...” Noah said, scratching his head. “If it was someone local, they would have brung him to the ranch by now. And if it was a tourist, they’d probably take him to the police station, right?”
Clay didn’t answer. He crossed the road and returned to where the trail had first reached the asphalt. He squatted and looked in both directions. He grunted, rose, and walked up the road a couple of paces. “Here,” he said, pointing downward. “See this oil patch.” He reached down and smeared it with his forefinger. Dark liquid gleamed on his fingertip. “It hasn’t all soaked through yet. It’s pretty recent.”
“Clay?” Kelsie asked.
“A vehicle was parked right here, long enough to drip oil. And it didn’t leave all that long ago. I sure hope it was coincidence. If not...”
“Yes,” she prompted.
“If not, it means whoever drove it away was waiting here for Taylor.”
“What about Louie Two?” she asked. “He wouldn’t let anyone take Taylor. You know how protective that dog is.”
She lifted her hands and cupped her mouth. “Louie Two!” she called. “Louie Two!”
The only sounds to greet them were the buzzing of flies, the rumbling of a distant truck, and the bloodhound whining.
Then the tall grass began to shake. It took a few more seconds to realize what was causing the grass to move. At first, all they saw was Louie Two’s head. Then they saw why he was dragging himself along. Someone had smashed both his back legs.
7:58 p.m.
“You said Daddy wouldn’t die,” the boy said, holding his mother’s hand tight as they sat in the church.
The boy didn’t like the organ music. It wasn’t happy music. Everybody was too quiet. And everybody seemed to be staring at him and his mommy.
“The angels need him in heaven, honey. That’s where Daddy is right how In heaven looking down on us.”
The boy pointed at the long, dark box in front of them. “But didn’t you say Daddy was in there?”
“Hush. His body is in there. That’s what your daddy left behind when the angels took him to heaven. Just his body.”
“Can we see him? I just want to say good-bye.”
His mother’s shoulders shook. He couldn’t see her face because she had a black curtain in front of it. The black curtain hung from her hat. There was this sad music and grownups who were very quiet and he was scared and he couldn’t see his daddy’s face or his mommy’s face. He felt alone.
“I want to see Daddy,” he said, raising his voice. “Why can’t I see Daddy?’
She took a handkerchief and pressed it against her face beneath the curtain. “Nobody can see him,” she said. “The car accident burned part of him.”
Burned? So his father was dead. And dead meant forever. He remembered that. He also remembered wishing that his father would die. That meant this was his fault. His wish had made it happen.
The boy became so still and so quiet that after several minutes his
mother tugged on his hand. “Are you all right?” she asked him.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t really mean it.”
“You didn’t ask anything wrong,” she said. “It’s just that I’m upset. Very upset.”
Now it was his fault his mother was crying. He put his head in her lap.
"That’s all right, honey,” she said.
He pressed the softness of the black dress against his face and tried to block the sounds of the music from his ears. Then the music stopped. He looked up and saw a tall man with a white face and gray hair walking past the box that held his father.
“Ashes to ashes,” the man began in a deep, slow voice...
The Watcher let himself in the front door with a key. He didn’t bother to bolt the door behind him.
He was surprised at the rundown condition of the condominium, but then he realized she had probably chosen it because of the garage below. The row of condominiums were all two-stories, built into a hill. The front side of the condos appeared to be one-story high and could be reached by a sidewalk. The backside of the condos all had garages on the lower story, with the living quarters above the garage. A stairway from the garage led directly upward into the living quarters, which meant condo owners could drive inside the garage, shut the electric garage door behind the car, and from the safety of the garage walk directly into the condo.
Hers was a two-bedroom layout. From the hallway, a corridor ran past the small kitchen and a small living room on one side and the two bedrooms on the other side. This was the hallway that led to the back door and the steps down to the garage.
The Watcher opened the back door and looked down into the garage with satisfaction. The same features that made the condo appear secure from an outside attacker made for an extreme disadvantage for the victim if the attacker was already waiting inside. Once Kelsie had her car parked in the garage, he could easily move her into the car, completely hidden from witnesses.
Smiling, the Watcher returned to the living room and resumed his inspection. Even though early-evening sun tilted through the patio doors, he flicked on some lights. The orange-brown shag carpet had been flattened from years of use. The paint was beige, the ceiling grimy.
From the living-room patio doors, he checked the sight lines into the condo. He was grateful. From the roof of the buildings on the opposite side, he should have a clear view inside. If he changed his mind and allowed her to remain here for any length of time, he could rent one of the opposite condos and watch her at his leisure.
The Watcher stalked from room to room going through her belongings and carefully putting them back in place.
The Watcher found himself returning to her bedroom. Even though she’d just moved in, already the scent of her perfume was starting to overcome some of the mustiness of the carpet and old furniture.
He looked for her bathrobe and found it hanging on a hook on the backside of the bedroom door. He put the bathrobe on, savoring her closeness to him. When he left, he would have to take something from her shower. A used razor blade, maybe, as a souvenir.
He turned slowly, hugging himself, and gazed at her bed, That was where she would be tonight: a perfect prize, there for the taking any time he wanted. And, after years of waiting until the situation was perfect, he was finally on the verge of possessing her. He had prepared his home for her. He had Taylor safely hidden close by – the day’s activities had been hectic but worth it. All that remained for the Watcher was a few more details. Until then, he intended to savor the fruit of his careful planning and patience.
Still wearing her robe, he stepped to the bed. He sat on the edge, then leaned back until he fell, his arms spread-eagled. His feet on the floor, he smiled at the ceiling.
Tonight, he thought, she will be here in the darkness. Here where my body now lies.
The thought gave him satisfaction.
He knew she wouldn’t be home for a while. With the trouble over the boy, she would be at the ranch for hours. That gave him time to enjoy her apartment.
He also needed to sleep. He had energy far beyond ordinary mortals, but even he needed to recharge. Ahead of him, in the darkness of the night, he would have need for strength. A few of the details did need attending to, and he could not afford to be careless this close to his final goal.
Blood Ties Page 20