Blood Ties

by Sigmund Brouwer

  The Watcher kicked off his shoes and, still wearing her robe, crawled beneath Kelsie’s sheets for a nap. Soon, he would share far more than her robe.

  11:00 p.m.

  Clay sat on the edge of the sofa, elbows braced on his thighs, hands clenched together. Kelsie paced their living room, stopping occasionally to look outside through the picture window into the night as if Taylor might reappear at any moment.

  Over the years, Clay had been in dozens of homes filled with the same helpless horror and tension. He had seen mothers with red-rimmed eyes, fathers in stony silence. All of them had clung to him – sometimes literally – as the single expert who might be able to bring back their child. Most of them stared at the telephone as if it might ring any second with news of salvation.

  Now the same scene was happening in his own home. Clay knew the odds after a child had been abducted: It was next to impossible that he would see Taylor alive again. Chances were good he’d never even view his son’s remains. The more time that passed, the best he could hope for was an answer, that he wouldn’t be left with years of alternating between unreasoning hope or the darkest imaginings of his son’s fate.

  And Clay’s experience gave him plenty of fuel for nightmares. The screams of years of victims reverberated through his mind. Despair began to fill him. His little cowboy, gone.

  “Kelsie,” Clay said. “I need you to hold my hand.”

  She stopped pacing. He reached upward. She sat beside him on the sofa and wordlessly took his left hand in both of hers.

  They sat in silence.

  Images of Taylor flashed through Clay’s mind. Breakfast, when Taylor insisted on buttering his own toast, a task that took fifteen minutes, and Taylor’s laugh of triumph at finishing. Bath time, and the funny duck noises Taylor had learned to make. The day in a park when Taylor had put his arm around an old woman sitting hunched on a bench and hummed a happy song for her, and the tears of gratitude in her eyes when he left five minutes later. Taylor and his unfathomable fascination with watching professional hockey on television.

  “I’m sorry about this afternoon,” Kelsie said, rubbing his hand softly. “I’m sorry for the angry words.”

  “No,” Clay said, “I deserved it. I was mad at myself for not watching him. I took it out on you. And, of course, we had no idea...”

  He didn’t want to say the ugly words out loud. No idea that Taylor had been kidnapped.

  Unless Latcher’s bloodhound had followed the wrong trail, it couldn’t be anything else but. Someone had led Taylor from the ranch house into the woods and in a nearly direct line to the road. Someone had beaten Louie Two so badly the dog’s back legs were broken, and he was now in the animal hospital. Someone had taken Taylor away in a vehicle that had been parked along the road.

  After finding the dog, they’d. called the sheriff’s office, and Clay had explained it appeared to be an abduction. Search parties had gone out anyway, groups of neighbors scouring the ranch lands in all directions for as long as the daylight had lasted. Rooster, true to his word, had organized an air search. All with no results.

  The sheriff’s department had released information to the media outlets describing the possible abduction and included a photo of Taylor. The photo was recent, all the more heartbreaking to Clay because the image seemed to capture the soul of Taylor’s happiness and vulnerability. In it Taylor was standing in waist-high grass, the blades blurry in the foreground. He was wearing a dark turtleneck sweater and had one fist up to his half-open mouth, tasting a knuckle smeared with strawberry jam. Taylor’s brown hair was short at the front, long at the back, ponytailed in the manner of some of the singers he loved watching on the country-music videos. What tore at Clay the most were Taylor’s eyes: soft, innocent, and with the almond-shaped beauty shared by most children with Down’s syndrome.

  What person would kidnap such a child?

  Through the photograph, they could always hope that someone might spot Taylor in a restaurant or a gasoline station. Clay wasn’t giving it much hope, though. Whoever had done this was smart enough to succeed in daylight, with no warning and leaving no traces. It was unlikely a dumb mistake would be made from this point on. Besides, it was too easy to keep a kid of Taylor’s size and gentle disposition hidden in a van or a car’s trunk.

  The biggest question for Clay was as simple as it was inexplicable. Why? They hadn’t received a ransom note or phone call. Why take Taylor?

  One of Clay’s first actions had been to call his former colleagues at Quantico, alerting them to the kidnapping and asking for a search of any recently released or escaped prisoners who might have had motive to revenge themselves on Clay. The preliminary results showed no candidates.

  Clay sighed his grief. He’d seen the hopelessness and despair of parents who were missing children. He had always had sympathy for them but had never felt nor understood this level of agony.

  Some monster had taken his son. And Clay knew all about monsters.

  “Clay?”

  He looked over. He realized he’d clenched his fist hard, crushing Kelsie’s hand in it. He relaxed his fist.

  She lifted his hand to her mouth and softly kissed the back of his hand, looking over it into his eyes.

  He saw tears and tenderness. Without thinking, he reached with his other hand and pulled her close, his arm around her shoulders. Her head fit into the crook of his neck. Tears ran against his throat.

  “I love you,” he said, staring sightlessly at the far wall. “No matter what’s happened and what we go through, I love you."

  She kissed his neck. “I love you too. No matter what’s happened. I do love you.”

  He kept his arm around her shoulders. She shifted her head and kissed his neck again, a long, lingering touch of warm lips against his skin.

  Clay closed his eyes. It was bittersweet to feel such strong love against the curtain of his grief, uncertainty, and despair.

  She kissed him again, then wrapped her arms around his back. He felt the hunger in her embrace and realized she was expressing what he, too, was feeling.

  Neither moved, as if both were silently trying to deny their heightened awareness of the other. The hunger only grew.

  Then she pushed away from him and flicked off the lamp on the table beside them. In the darkness, she began to unbutton his shirt.

  “Kelsie, are you sure that –”

  “Shhh,” she said, her voice breaking. “Shhh.”

  Strange, he thought, the complexities of the soul. Taylor was gone. Both of them were frantic with worry. He was angry at her for leaving without an explanation. Yet an elemental, unreasoning need was driving them together.

  She kissed him fiercely, and he tasted the salt of her tears.

  He responded, amazed at the love and desire flooding through him. They clung to each other like survivors of a shipwreck. Too soon, the world and its pain would return, but for now, in this moment, they still had each other.

  11:43 p.m.

  The flashlight illuminated the rough earth walls, and shelves cut high into the walls. The Watcher focused the beam on Taylor.

  Taylor squinted and smiled. “Cowboy, me,” Taylor announced, happy for company. “Hungry, me.”

  The Watcher ignored Taylor. He set the flashlight on one of the shelves then stepped outside, leaving the door open. He had no fear the boy would escape by running into the night.

  “Cowboy, me,” Taylor called after him.

  The Watcher returned, dragging a man. He pulled the man to the far wall and left him lying there. Then he went back and shut the door. When he turned around, he saw Taylor squatting over the motionless body.

  “Cowboy, me,” Taylor said.

  “Simpleton,” the Watcher said. “He’s dead.”

  Taylor continued to look into the face of the body. He tugged on the dead man’s sleeve.

  The Watcher had better things to do than marvel at genetically wired stupidity. He pulled a box off the crude earth shelf and set it on the ground.
He picked up the flashlight and searched inside. The contents absorbed him so completely, he didn’t realize he was humming until he felt Taylor beside him, humming in the same way.

  “Shut up.”

  “Hungry, me,” Taylor replied.

  The Watcher pushed Taylor away.

  Taylor returned and hugged him. “Hungry, me.”

  “Idiot.” The Watcher pushed him away again.

  Taylor returned and hummed and hugged.

  The Watcher pushed Taylor back. When Taylor stepped forward, he slapped Taylor’s face.

  Taylor looked puzzled, but he did not cry or move back. He merely smiled uncertainly.

  The Watcher sighed. Obviously, he wasn’t going to enjoy revisiting the memories called up by the contents of the box unless he took care of the boy. He reached into his jacket and pulled out two chocolate bars. “Shiny colors,” he said, mimicking Taylor. “You like shiny colors?”

  He put them in Taylor’s hand. Taylor bit into the paper. It was so unexpected, but so logical, that the Watcher snorted laughter. “Hey, cowboy. Unwrap it.”

  Taylor bit again. He spat out the paper.

  “Here. Let me do it.” The Watcher peeled the wrapper off and gave the chocolate bar back to Taylor. Taylor crammed it in his mouth. The Watcher unwrapped the other chocolate bar and gave it to Taylor. Taylor offered the second chocolate bar to the dead man.

  The Watcher shook his head. When Taylor got no response, he set the chocolate bar on the ground near the dead man’s face.

  “Idiot.”

  Taylor grinned.

  Enough of this, the Watcher thought. He took a small plastic bottle out of his other pocket. “I’m leaving you water. In this bottle. Understand?”

  Taylor grinned. He took the water and fumbled. with the plastic tap.

  The Watcher reached for the bottle and opened it, then handed it back to Taylor.

  Taylor tilted it. Some of the water ran down his neck. Taylor tilted and tilted. He wiped his face with the back of his hand when he was finished.

  With a final disgusted shake of his head, the Watcher stepped outside, shutting the door behind him, leaving Taylor in the dark with the dead man.

  Moments later, he opened the door again. He beamed his flashlight on Taylor, who was already beside the body.

  “Cowboy, me,” Taylor said quietly to the dead man.

  The Watcher stepped inside, reached down, and took Taylor’s hand. He wrapped Taylor’s fingers around the handle of the flashlight. “Don’t ask me why I’m doing this,” the Watcher said. “You’ll probably try to eat it.”

  As the man shut the door again, Taylor pointed the flashlight beam in erratic circles. He pointed it at the man who would not wake up. Taylor stared and stared. Then he grabbed the corner of one of the blankets the Watcher had left, pulled it over the body, and moved under the blanket too.

  Holding the body, Taylor hummed himself to sleep, with the flashlight pointing at the rough wooden door of the prison.

  Day 3

  4:45 a.m.

  Rustling of clothes brought Clay to consciousness. His back hurt; he’d been curled on his side on the couch, with Kelsie sleeping spoon-style in front of him. His arms were empty now. He blinked and looked for his wife.

  The yard light outside threw a glow into the living room. Everything in the shadows of this room was familiar to him: the wide mantelpiece across the stonework of the fireplace; the outlines of the lamps; the bookshelves across two walls; the paintings, their details now blurred grays and blacks.

  During their marriage, Clay had faced plenty of nights when he’d known he would be too restless to sleep. To spare Kelsie, he’d take a blanket and move to this couch, staring at all those familiar objects, trying to keep his mind blank and, occasionally, managing to drop into restless sleep.

  Tonight in her arms, for a few hours, he had slept as if dead. The strain of separation from Kelsie had driven him to exhaustion, and with her return, he’d finally relaxed enough to succumb to his tiredness.

  Awake again, he took in the familiar night outlines of this room and another familiar outline. His wife. She was standing at the side of the coffee table, reaching behind her to zip up the skirt she’d worn when first arriving at the ranch.

  “Honey?” he said softly.

  The rustling of her clothes stopped. “I’m sorry I woke you,” she said. “I waited as long as I could.”

  “You didn’t sleep?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “You did.”

  She leaned forward and put her arms into her sweater then straightened and reached up as she wriggled to pull it down over her head and shoulders. The image seared into his mind, a quick impression of the paleness of her flesh and litheness of her body. He smiled. This was one beautiful woman, one he loved. He might not understand her, but he loved her deeply. Something had driven her away from him, made her take an apartment in town. But she was back, and he could forgive.

  This was the blessing in Taylor’s disappearance. It had knocked down the walls between them. Together, they’d face the new problem. Once they got Taylor back, he and Kelsie could rebuild. Those were the thoughts he’d had falling asleep. These were the thoughts he had waking up and seeing his wife in front of him in the shadows of their living room.

  Then it occurred to him. She was getting dressed.

  “What time is it?” he asked, sitting up and pulling on his shirt.

  “A little before five.”

  “Sun won’t be up for another hour. Do we have to be in a hurry?”

  “I do,” she said.

  “You do.” It was an accusation. Not a question.

  The silence became awkward.

  “Clay,” she finally said, “last night surprised me as much as it surprised you. It was like we needed each other. But maybe last night was a mistake.”

  “I’m your husband. I love you. We do need each other – especially now. How could it be a mistake?”

  “Because...” she faltered, then found the courage to continue. “Because I don’t want to give you the wrong impression. I can’t come back.”

  He stood angrily. He grabbed his pants and hopped from foot to foot as he pulled them on.

  “Tell me what is going on,” he said, his voice low and intense. “Our son is missing. Do you understand? Missing. Abducted. Of all times, this is when we need to be together. You can’t just walk out and leave me with questions about why. Not now. It was unfair when you first left. It’s inhuman now.”

  “I have to go,” she said.

  “No!” For the first time in their marriage, he shouted.

  She turned away from him. He jumped over the coffee table and spun her toward him. “No,” he said again, almost pleading.

  “I have no choice,” she said. She began to cry. “Can’t you trust me? I have no choice, and I can’t even explain to you why I don’t have a choice.”

  “You’re going to explain,” he said.

  “Don’t you think I want to? Look at me. I need you – infinitely more than you need me. I need you for me. I need you for Taylor. The last thing I want is to leave this house and leave your arms.” She began to sob. “Clay, I don’t want to be alone,”

  Her admission stunned him. He felt immediate guilt for being so hard on her. He put his arms around her, and she sagged against him.

  “I don’t understand,” he said. “I just don’t understand.”

  She didn’t reply.

  For five minutes, she hung on to him, sobbing with a reckless force that scared him. Eventually her wracking sobs began to subside. Her breathing grew less ragged, the rise and fall of her ribs less pronounced.

  “Please,” he said, whispering. “Tell me.”

  She pushed herself away. “If you love me,” she said, “you’ll let me go.”

  Drained, he watched with helplessness as she walked into the kitchen and out of the house. A few minutes later, the headlights of her BMW swept the ranch yard, and she was gone.
/>   4:48 a.m.

  Sonny Cutknife stood in front of the open filing cabinet in the corner of his office. He was almost ready to strike a match. It would be an irrevocable act and in some way, major or minor, would certainly change the course of his comfortable life.

  He savored the moment, not because he enjoyed the thought of a fire destroying the administrative building, but because he enjoyed being aware of significant moments. Few were the men with the courage to forge their own destinies; most let life act upon them and, like corks on a wave, arrived at unknown shores. Not Sonny. He took pride in knowing it was his own hand on the rudder and that he charted his own course through the winds and tides of events around him.

  It was the same with corruption. For some, Sonny knew, corruption was a gradual process. Small acts of laziness, minor unethical decisions, a series of shortcuts – all of it dust settling in layers, until one day the dirtiness was real and apparent, with no pointer to the transition from innocent to guilty.

  Sonny, however, clearly remembered the moment and place he had sold out. It gave him a minor sense of virtue. Corruption had not taken him unaware; rather, he’d been in control of the process, and he’d known exactly what he was doing. It made him better than the hapless fools who woke up one morning and wondered with sudden regret where they had gone wrong and how they’d managed to fall so far. No, Sonny had understood the significance of his decision while making it. No matter what happened, he was not going to waste time on regret; something else he had decided as he deliberately allowed himself to become an apple – white beneath red skin.

  The moment and place of his sellout had begun at the pool table in the bar of the Kalispell Hotel on a September evening a few months after Harold Hairy Mocassin had disappeared. Sonny had been leaning over a difficult bank shot, hoping to knock the eight ball into the side pocket, knowing if he missed slightly he’d probably scratch the cue ball and lose not only the game but also the last five dollars in his wallet.