“Remember what I said about that intuition?”
“I do,” said Carter, “but you also said that you aren’t correct 100% of the time.”
“Correct, but I’m right the majority of the time. This one I’m fairly confident about...”
“But you didn’t check out the house like the investigators did.”
“Carter…remember when I told you that I’m a private investigator and have been ever since my wife went missing? Well, let’s just say I work behind the scenes. What the hell do you think I was doing in your home the two times you came home, and the other two times when you didn’t. I can say with a high degree of certainty that your son walked out of this house on his own.”
Carter was taken aback, yet suddenly okay with the fact that Evan had broken into his house not twice, but probably more than four times. He thought there was something bizarre about his neighbor, but it was that feature which intrigued Carter. Maybe he was the guy to go to for answers that defy logic; answers that nobody else could get regarding the very strange disappearance of Adam Spence. He really needed answers. He wasn’t getting any from the police. He was beginning to envy Evan, and wished to emulate his approach to life. It was not the norm, but his son’s entire story was not the norm. He didn’t care anymore about how he got answers, but he wanted them.
Carter put his hand out for Evan to shake. As he was shaking hands, he said, “I gotta tell you Evan, I’m not quite sure how to take you, but I’d sure like to learn. If you can stop by tomorrow and have a chat with Adam, I think that would be a good place to start. What do we have to lose?”
CHAPTER 11
Carter had a hard time selling Brenda on involving Evan more than he already was involved. She thought there was something off about him, and the story Carter had just revealed to her sealed the deal. Sure, he was trying to help, but she was not in the least confident that Evan was just in it to help them. She had a feeling that there had to be something in it for Evan, but she was at her wits end trying to figure out what that was exactly.
At breakfast, they explained to Adam that Evan was coming over soon to visit.
“Why is he coming over?” asked Adam.
Carter shifted around in his chair, cleared his throat, and pushed his scrambled eggs around on his plate. “He wants to come visit with us. He was a big help when we were looking for you. He’s a friend to our family now. Evan’s a good person. Anyone who puts their life on hold to help others is…”
“Carter,” Brenda interrupted, “you’re overdoing it.”
Carter gave Brenda a sideways glance, and Adam did not miss it. Adam didn’t miss much.
“He’s not a friend?” asked Adam.
“No…I mean yes…he’s a friend of the family. Adam…he wanted to come over here today and talk with us about what happened to you and what has been happening with you. He used to be a police officer, so he’s worked on cases like these before. I don’t know a lot about him, but I know enough from all the time we spent together this past week. He’s a very smart man, and if he could possibly help our family, then sign me up…”
“Is he gonna bring his dog?”
“I imagine he is because I have yet to see him without the dog,” said Carter.
“Oh good! I want a dog. If I got a dog I would walk him every day. I’d even feed him.”
“Well, we’ll see about that. If we got a dog, I have a feeling you would walk him and feed him for a week, and then the interest just may start to dwindle.”
“I would walk him and feed him for more than a week. I wouldn’t dwiddle.”
Carter smirked as he looked into his son’s excited blue eyes. “Okay…I’ll give you two weeks…tops.”
“Okay dad,” said Adam. “I’ll walk him and feed him for two weeks.”
Brenda smiled throughout the negotiations. She and Carter had actually discussed getting a dog once Adam got older. She had one when she was a little girl, and always wanted another, even if it meant that the duties would fall upon her. Carter also had a dog when he was a young boy.
Once the scrambled eggs and toast were consumed by the family, Brenda was doing the dishes by hand as Carter and Adam retreated to the living room to watch TV. SpongeBob Squarepants was on TV, so they watched it through to a commercial. This was a good time to prep Adam some more about the visitor.
“So you like Evan’s dog, do ya?” Carter asked his son.
“Yeah, he’s a nice doggie.” Adam’s eyes lit up with pure excitement as he reflected on meeting Skippy.
“He’s a nice doggie who used to work with Evan when he was a police officer,” said Carter, who sat back and looked at his son, wondering what he was going to ask next.
“He was a cop dog?” Adam’s excitement level was still high as his mind was basking in the reflections of this dog.
“Ah, yeah, I guess you could call him a cop dog,” said Carter, uncertain of the phrase.
“Okay, I will. I’ll call it that when he comes in the house.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t go that far,” Carter warned. He didn’t want his son to go out of his way to call the dog that name. “They’re both retired now. I’m not sure if Evan would get offended if you called his dog a cop dog.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know why. I don’t know him that well, but he just might not like it.”
Adam leaped off the couch and ran around the living room for no reason whatsoever. Perhaps he was running because SpongeBob was running. Carter wasn’t sure, but any running contributed to a reasonable bedtime, so he let it go.
Moments later, the doorbell rang, and Adam kept on running, but this time to the door.
“Adam, what did I say about opening the front door?” asked his father.
“Don’t open it to strangers when you’re not here.”
“Not exactly,” said Carter. “More like…don’t open the front door. Wait for your mother or me to open it.”
“But I wanna see the dog.”
“I know you want to see the dog, but safety first. You wait for us.”
Adam’s round face became pouty, but then he swung his head around the door when his father opened it, as if the person who sees who it is first is the winner. His thin blonde hair swung around and blocked his vision, and that was only because his haircut was more than three weeks overdue.
“Hey Evan,” said Carter. “Good to see you. I see you brought your dog. Adam was asking about your dog. He was hoping that you would bring him.”
“Oh,” said Evan, stepping through the door with his dog on the leash. “I don’t leave home without him. He’s my American Express.”
Adam made a confused look, then said, “What’s your cop dog’s name?”
Carter rolled his eyes as Evan told Adam that the dog’s name was Skippy.
“Like the peanut butter.”
“That’s right. Like the peanut butter. He was named after the peanut butter.”
“He was…really?” asked Adam.
Evan chuckled, then said, “I don’t know for sure. He was named when I got him.”
”How did he come with a name?”
“Someone owned him before he signed on with the force.”
Once the commotion of the entrance died down and Adam’s round of questioning came to an end, they were able to settle down in the living room. Carter put an end to SpongeBob Squarepants, and they were able to begin with the usual warmup small talk.
“So,” Carter said, looking at his son and attempting to break the ice, “Evan was telling me that he has been a police officer for 30 years, and he’s worked with so many ki
ds like you during his time. He knows so much about what you went through. We didn’t have a lot of luck with that man we spoke to the other day, so I thought it would be neat to sit around and chat with Evan and his doggie. What do you say?”
“Doggie! I want a doggie just like this.” Adam went to Skippy and began petting him. His excitement was off the charts as indicative of the ear-to-ear grin plastered on his face.
“Well, we’re not quite there yet,” said Carter, “but someday…soon.”
“Tomorrow?” he asked.
“Not that soon,” said his father. “I wanna get one, though.”
“So Adam, how old are you now?” asked Evan.
“I’m six.” Adam stopped petting Skippy and took a seat on the couch next to his father, who was on the smaller loveseat facing Evan, separated by a glass coffee table full of newspaper and magazine stacks.
“Ah, you’re getting up there in age. I remember when I was six.”
“You do?”
“Not really, but I remember being a young lad like you. I remember ever since I was young, I wanted to be a police officer. Guess what I ended up being?”
“Did you work in the circus?”
“No,” said Evan through a chuckle. Carter muffled his laughter. “Turns out that’s what I was for my entire career.”
“What’s a Korea?”
“A career. That’s what you do for work during your lifetime.”
“I’m bored.”
“Adam,” said Carter. “Stop it. Don’t be fresh.”
Evan looked at Carter and winked, then returned to Adam. Brenda just then entered the room and leaned against the wall behind Carter and Adam. Evan looked at her and nodded, but continued on with Adam. “Anyway, where was I…let’s see…oh yes…when I was young, I always wanted to be a police officer, and there was one other thing that I remembered about being that age.”
Adam was hooked. “What?”
“For years I had this friend, but he was an imaginary friend. I called him Whisper, and whenever…”
“Why’d you call him Whisper?”
“Called him Whisper because whenever I spoke to him I had to whisper.”
“Why?”
“So my parents didn’t hear me.”
“Why?”
“Because I didn’t want them to think I was talking to myself.”
“Why?”
“So they didn’t think I was going crazy or nothin’.”
“Did he whisper back?”
“He actually…did not whisper back. He couldn’t.”
“Couldn’t talk?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because he didn’t exist. He was my imaginary friend. I was making believe the whole time.”
“Why?”
“Oh, I don’t know…bored I guess. I was an only child like you, and maybe got a little lonely.”
“He was make pretend?”
“Sure was. It passed the time. Haven’t you ever done anything like that…made up a make believe friend and listened to him and talked to him to keep you company?”
“Nope.”
“Never?” Evan stared across the room at Adam without blinking, but he wasn’t budging and did not appear ready to spill anything. He pressed some more when he was confident that nothing more would come of it. “Ever talk to anybody up in your room that wasn’t there?”
“Nope.”
Evan thought some more. “How ‘bout talked to someone that was there with you in your room…that you could see…but only you could see? Someone or something that nobody else could see?”
Adam froze for a moment and fidgeting in his seat. He quickly looked up at his mother and then shot a look at his father, but his attention and focus returned to Evan. His hands began to work at each other as if he was slowly drying them under a blow dryer. It was almost as if he was caught in a lie and trying to squirm his way out of it.
“It’s okay,” Brenda said to him. “You can tell him the truth. He had an imaginary friend when he was your age. You can tell him.”
“Yeah,” said Carter. “Don’t be afraid. He wasn’t afraid when he told you about his imaginary friend.”
Adam got up from his seat and ran out of the room and up the stairs to his bedroom. He never said a word, but he made sure that today was not going to be the day he spilled the beans.
“What do you make of that?” asked Carter.
“Well, I think I hit a nerve,” said Evan. “There’s something he’s not telling us, and it must be something big because of the reaction that we all just witnessed. Maybe he’ll come around. Maybe he won’t. In my experience, I think we have a 50 percent shot at this. We’ll just have to wait and see.”
“Should we go up to his room and continue to try up there?” Brenda asked.
“No,” said Evan adamantly. “If he wanted to give up the answer today, then we would’ve had our answer. If there really is something going on, then we have to wait until he’s ready to talk. We don’t want him to feel threatened, and perhaps…sad to say, he could have been threatened himself by whatever person or thing or entity is involved. We don’t have many answers now, but it’s not to say we won’t get them. We just have to be smart about it and not burn any bridges in our pursuit. That would do more harm than good. Patience.”
CHAPTER 12
A sharp noise jolted Carter’s eyes open and he thought a moment about whether or not there really was a noise. He continued to lie in bed as his wife, Brenda, softly snored beside him. Glancing at the clock on his nightstand, he saw that it was 5:45 a.m., but darkness still consumed the world around him. He jolted himself into an upright position. Was he dreaming? He was not about to close his eyes this time, because it worked out horribly the last time he did not act immediately, even though he thought it was nothing at first.
He didn’t shut his eyes, so the only time that passed were the seconds he remained in his bed, consciously awaiting a second noise. He heard nothing more, but not wanting to take a chance, he decided to check it out. He was not going to hope for the best and close his eyes. He pushed the sheets aside and quietly placed his feet on the floor. Socks cushioned and warmed the contact. Before he rose from the bed, he listened intently for any noise. The silence was deafening, but the crickets tampered with it on occasion. The furnace revved up, but soon shut down. It just wanted to make sure the shower water was hot in the morning.
He gave another glance at Brenda, and then lifted his butt off the mattress, much to the dismay of the springs, which let the room know about his sudden stirring. He looked back at those springs with annoyance, then proceeded into the hallway and down towards his son’s room to make sure everything was okay. There was no other noise, which made him think that this was going to be nothing more than a routine wellness check. Adam’s bedroom door wasn’t open and no noise came from his room. Carter still reached for the handle of the door, but at the last moment pulled back. He didn’t want to go in just yet.
Carter stayed outside the door and just listened for any noise. He waited five minutes, realizing that he couldn’t stand there for the rest of the night because he had to return to work the next morning. He then stepped it up by putting his ear directly to the door, making sure that everything was cool and Adam was asleep and not plotting any sort of escape. As he put his ear to the door, he thought that he heard a voice, but only when his ear was pushed directly onto the door. He pressed his ear a little more against the door, held his breath and listened intently.
He heard Adam’s voice on the other side of the door. He was talking, but Carter couldn’t qui
te hear what it was that he was saying, so he pressed his ear even more firmly to the door and blocked his other ear with his hand. Then he was able to hear Adam say, “No…I didn’t…I didn’t say anything. I didn’t say anything to them.”
Carter waited for more, and he had to wait a few long minutes before he again heard Adam’s voice saying, “I told you I didn’t say anything about you.”
“What’s going on,” Brenda whispered from behind, startling Carter and making him bang his head against the door, which opened a crack. Adam saw his parents on the other side.
“What are you doing here?” asked Adam.
Carter straightened up and thought of a response quickly. “We heard something and wanted to check it out.”
Adam looked at his father and said nothing.
“Adam,” said Brenda. “Were you talking in there?”
“No.”
“Adam,” said Carter as he opened the door further. “I heard you talking, so you can’t say that you weren’t talking. Now tell mommy and daddy who it was you were talking to. You can tell us. Please tell us who you were talking to so we can help you. That’s all we want to do is help.”
Adam looked past them and then tried to scoot past, but Carter alertly reached down and scooped him up and carried him back to his bed with Brenda following behind. Adam began to cry as his father put him back down on the bed.
“Oh, it’s okay,” said Brenda. “It’s okay. You can talk to us about it. Just tell us who you were talking to.”
Adam wiped his tears and said, “I can’t.”
“Why can’t you?” asked Brenda.
Adam paused before saying, “I was told not to tell.”
“By whom?” Carter asked.
There was a loud thud in the bedroom closet that broke the tension. Carter looked at Brenda and knew that it was up to him to check it out. He slowly moved ahead into the bedroom and then quickly swung the closet door open. He looked around, then moved the hanging clothing to and fro before shutting the door and returning to the bed.
Desert Son Trilogy: Desert Son, Wayward Soul, Spiritual Intervention (Books 1-3) Page 55