by Karen Young
She stared thoughtfully at a spot beyond him. “That would explain the epidemic of drug activity here in Tidewater, wouldn’t it?”
“It might.” He was completely dressed, but he didn’t make any move to leave the bedroom. Instead, he paused for a moment, studying her with an odd look on his face.
“What is it?” she said.
“Is that all you’ve got to say?”
“About the DEA thing?”
“Yeah.”
“You mean where’s the tearful lecture on the danger of anything connected with Rick Streeter? And, oh, the checklist of dos and don’ts if Rick should just happen to need you and your people?” She shrugged, smiling. “I’m trying not to nag so much.”
Cramming his keys into his pocket, he reached out and pulled her against him. “A little nagging makes a man feel loved,” he said, rubbing her nose with his.
“I have other ways to make you feel loved.” She planted a kiss on his neck, just under his ear.
He was reaching for his tie when the phone rang.
He jerked up the receiver. “Yeah?”
Frank Cordoba said, “Sorry, Jake, but we need you here.”
“What’s up?”
“The DEA thing. Streeter’s arrived.”
“Loaded for bear?”
“Loaded for bear.”
“Give me ten minutes.” He hung up, fishing for his keys with his other hand.
“Complications?” Rachel asked, knowing the signs.
“Looks like it. I’ll call you when I get a chance.”
She put her arm around his waist and walked with him to the door. When he pulled it open, he drew her forward and kissed her.
She smiled against his mouth.
“I love you, baby.”
“I love you, too.”
SHE WAS ALREADY DRESSED to go to work and was standing in front of the aquarium feeding the goldfish when the doorbell rang. Her heart jumped and she ran from the room, hope springing to life as she hurried toward the door. Every time she looked at those dumb goldfish it was as though Michael stood right at her shoulder. She was almost at the door when she realized it couldn’t be Michael. Why would he need to ring the doorbell?
It was Todd Stewart.
“Todd!” In spite of herself, she looked hopefully beyond him, but there was no one there.
“’Lo, Miss Rachel.” He grinned with a winning mix of diffidence and brass.
“Hello, Todd.” Her smile came spontaneously. She realized, with some surprise, that she was glad to see him. Very glad to see him. His hair, as usual, was stiff with gel and colorful dye. The last time Michael had brought him home, the left side had been bright purple. Today it was tangerine. The earring, she noted, was different. Instead of the macabre skull and crossbones, a pewter circle with the word peace inside it dangled from his left earlobe. His parents must have been activists in the sixties, Rachel thought. But then she remembered the absolute dearth of parental influence in Todd’s life, and her own loss rose in her like an unexpected thorn in a bouquet.
“Can I come in for a minute, Miss Rachel?”
“Oh, Todd, of course.” She stepped back, opening the door wide. “I’m sorry. I was just—” She managed a smile. “When I saw you, I thought of Michael and it…he…”
“I know. He split.”
“I’ve been trying to find you for two days,” she said.
“My mom made one of her pit stops,” he explained, shrugging as though a visit from his mother was insignificant.
“I know.” She’d learned that much from his caseworker. “Is she staying?”
“Nah, she’s already gone, headin’ for Atlanta this time. At least, that’s the plan. She’s travelin’ with her agent. They said they’d try to send for me if this gig works out. She’s a singer, did you know that?”
“Not really,” Rachel murmured, struck again by the hardships some children suffered. How could Todd’s mother bear to leave him to the care of the state?
“Todd, I wanted to ask you about Michael. I’ve talked to most of his other friends, trying to get some clue as to where he might have gone.”
“He told me he might have to do something like this.”
“Have to?”
“His thinking was a bit messed up, Miss Rachel. And I told him so. But he was not in a listenin’ mood, if you get my drift.” He looked beyond her to the den and the doors that led to the patio and pool and shook his head wonderingly. “I could tell he was wrestlin’ in his mind with a lot of heavy stuff. He said it was mostly personal, but it had to do with you and the sheriff. That day the two of you went to Orlando and the little kid didn’t turn out to be—what was his name? Sammy?”
“Scotty,” she whispered, her hand resting at her throat.
“Well, that day he was down, man, really down.”
“Todd, did he tell you anything?” She caught his arm eagerly and began to urge him toward the den.
“Well, that’s what I’ve been wonderin’ about.” He sank down on the couch, obviously thinking back on his conversation with Mike. “When I heard he’d split, I got to thinkin’ about what we said, goin’ over and over it in my head. Mostly I was mad at him for even thinkin’ about tossin’ all this away.” He looked again at the pool, where late-afternoon sun shone like Fourth-of-July sparklers on the blue water. “I told him he was dumb to think you didn’t love him.”
Rachel pressed her fingers to her mouth, stung by guilt and a sense of remorse. “I do love him, Todd, but I’m so ashamed that he had to run away before I realized just how much. Before I could tell him. If only—”
“I’m not sure he ran away, Miss Rachel.”
“Why?”
He drew in a breath and stared at his hands. “This is gonna sound crazy.” He laughed shortly. “But hey, my kinfolk are crazy. At least, most of them, from what I’ve seen.”
“Todd, you’re not making sense. What does your family have to do with Michael leaving?”
He leaned back, giving her a sideways glance. “I’ve got some relations living out in the boonies, Miss Rachel. Cross Corners. You ever heard of it?” When she nodded, he hunched one shoulder. “Man, it’s like a swamp out there. Anyway, they’re… Well, let’s just say they’re not your kind of people.”
“And—” she prompted. This was not the time to dwell on her past snobbery. She’d make it up to Todd later. To Michael.
“I was talkin’ to Mike about them the other day. I never go out there if I can help it because…” He shrugged. “Face it, they’re mean types. Really low-down, you know?”
He looked at her and continued. “Nah, I can see you don’t know. Well, anyway, the last time I was there, they had this little kid. He just sort of hung around, didn’t say much. They said he was a cousin or something.”
Rachel sat down simply because her legs wouldn’t hold her another moment.
“Y’see, up to the time I met Mike, I’d never noticed those pictures of your little boy. Scotty? Even when I did, it still didn’t click, y’know? But once me and Mike got to be friendly, I couldn’t help but think about Scotty. Man, Mike was always, always dreamin’ up schemes to find him. He was gonna flush out the porn people in case they were the ones who took him. Or he was hitchin’ to Miami because they have the most street people….” He shook his head. “Like he was gonna spot one little six-year-old in a place with a coupla million people.”
“Todd, please—”
“Oh, yeah, well… The more I thought about that little kid out at Cross Corners, the more it seemed to me he looked like the kid in the pictures.”
For a second, Rachel thought she would not be able to breathe. Hope and fear were a painful tangle in the place where her heart was beating madly. “Oh, Todd.”
Todd looked directly into her eyes. “I told Mike about him that day.”
“You think Michael went out to…to Cross Corners?”
“I don’t know nothin’ for sure, but it could be.”
“You thi
nk the little boy could be…Scotty?”
“Oh, now, ma’am, I don’t want to get your hopes up. I—”
“And if he is, and if Michael just showed up…” She stopped, frowning. “How would he have found the place? That swamp is huge. People get lost in there.”
“I got a cousin hangs out at a bar on Highway 6,” Todd told her. “He lives out at Cross—”
“Lou’s Bar?”
Todd gave her a surprised look. “Yeah, Lou’s. You talk about mean… Those dudes are the worst. They like to mix it up with knives and whips and—”
“Jake.” Rachel came to her feet abruptly. “We’ve got to call Jake. No, we’ve got to go and see Jake.” She wheeled toward the bar, where her car keys were. “Todd, do you know where these people live?”
Todd stood up. “Yes, ma’am, but we can’t just head out there blind. They might be my kinfolk, but they’re still mean people, Miss Rachel.”
She put a hand to her throat, resisting the thought of what Scotty might have been forced to endure for six months. “In what way?”
“Just mean,” Todd said darkly, as though that explained everything. “It may be Scotty or it may not be, the little kid out there. But I’ve been thinkin’ about Mike. If he did go out there, where is he now? How is it he just disappeared?” He pulled at his T-shirt. “To tell the truth, Miss Rachel, I’m real worried.”
JAKE WAS STANDING with Rick Streeter in front of a map of the county when he heard the commotion outside his office door. When he recognized Rachel with Todd Stewart, his breath caught in his chest. Michael! They’d found Michael!
Seeing Jake’s expression, Rick stopped mid-sentence, his gaze following Jake’s to the woman hovering in the doorway. A teenage boy with tangerine hair stood behind her.
“Jake!” Rachel’s tone was enough to make Jake move involuntarily toward her, his arms opening. She flew to him and let herself be enfolded and held close for a fervent moment before pushing back and looking up at him. “I’m sorry to barge in like this, but you have to hear what Todd…” She swallowed and began again. “Todd thinks—Todd told me…”
“Is it Michael?” Jake asked, giving her a little shake.
She nodded frantically. “And Scotty! Both of them!”
He sent a quick look at Todd, who shuffled his overlarge feet self-consciously but held his gaze. “Todd?”
“I’m not sure, Sheriff. I told Miss Rachel it might not be Scotty.” He shrugged. “But he sure looks like those pictures.”
With his hand on Rachel’s arm, he reached for Todd’s shoulder and ushered them both into his office.
“How are you, Rachel?”
Jake had forgotten Rick. At his greeting, Rachel gave him a quick, distracted smile and introduced Todd. Jake plowed his hand through his hair. “Rick, how about a break here? There should be fresh coffee.” He glanced at the clock on the wall, even though the last thing on his mind was a coffee break.
“Sounds good,” Rick said, moving obligingly to the door. “Nice seeing you, Rachel. Todd. Take your time, Jake. I’m going to brief my team and try to work out some logistical snags. The terrain out there is rugged. We have to keep in mind that they’re in their natural habitat and we’re not.”
Nobody sat after he left. As soon as the door closed, Rachel and Todd spoke simultaneously.
“Jake, you have to—”
“Sheriff, I could be—”
Jake raised a hand. “Wait. I can’t listen to you both at once. Rachel, you tell me what’s going on.”
Looking at him, she pressed her fingers to her lips, trying to gather herself together, but she couldn’t prevent her hand from trembling. “Jake, this is… You’re not going to believe this.”
“Just tell me and let me decide that,” he said, hanging on to his patience by a thread.
“Todd has seen a child who looks like Scotty, living with some of his relatives.”
Jake shot a quick look at Todd. “Why didn’t you say something before now, boy?”
“It wasn’t intentional,” Rachel said quickly, wanting to protect Todd. Jake could be intimidating if riled. “He only put it together today.”
“Put what together?” Jake demanded, his attention centered again on Rachel. “And what does this have to do with Michael?”
“Todd never thought much about this little boy suddenly coming to live with his relatives until he met Michael at school and they became friends. According to Todd, Michael was concerned about Scotty. Since his picture is all over town, when he and Todd were together, Michael talked about it frequently.”
“All the time, man,” Todd put in.
“Todd gradually became aware of the resemblance between the pictures of Scotty and the little boy in Cross Corners. He—”
“Where?” Jake whipped out the word.
“Cross Corners,” Rachel repeated. “But that’s not all, Jake. You—”
Stunned, Jake leaned against the edge of his desk.
“What is it?”
He rubbed his temples, realizing he couldn’t say more. He couldn’t tell Rachel that Cross Corners was the suspected center of operations for the drug cartel and that the DEA team was moving in tonight. The amount of heavy artillery Rick had assembled for the raid had shocked even Jake. In the decade he’d been out of the business, things had gone downhill.
“What is it, Jake?” Rachel demanded again.
“Cross Corners is not Disney World,” he said. “There are some bad types out there, Rachel.”
“I told her that already,” Todd said.
Jake fixed his attention on Todd. “What makes you think Michael might be out there, Todd?”
“We talked at school a couple of days ago, then that afternoon Mike disappeared. I don’t know if he’s out there, but he was so bent on finding Scotty that I don’t think he’d pass up a chance to at least check it out.”
“How would he find the place?” Jake asked. “The logical thing would be for you to take him.”
Todd looked wary, suspecting criticism. Rachel spoke up quickly. “Todd spent the past two days with his mother. She came home to Tidewater unexpectedly.”
Jake nodded. “Then how did Mike get out there? How did he locate your relatives?”
“That’s the amazing thing,” Rachel said, touching his arm. Her eyes were alight with excitement. “His cousin is sort of an unsavory type, according to Todd, and he often hangs out at—”
“Lou’s Bar,” Jake finished for her.
“Yes!” Her smile was both wobbly and triumphant.
“What’s your cousin’s name, Todd?”
“Willard Biggs.”
“Bingo,” Jake said softly.
“What?” Rachel’s smile wavered.
Jake stood up and began to pace. “I saw him yesterday. At Lou’s. He ducked when he noticed me, then headed toward the back where the booths are.”
“Why would he take Scotty, Jake?”
He covered her hand where it lay on his arm and squeezed it reassuringly. “I don’t know, baby, but I’m going to find out.”
“Sheriff—”
Both Jake and Rachel looked at Todd.
“If Mike showed up askin’ questions and my cousin did take him to Cross Corners and Scotty is there…”
It wasn’t necessary for Todd to go any further. All three were aware that Michael had placed himself in jeopardy when he approached Willard Biggs.
Rachel’s stomach was in a knot. She’d spent six months imagining the horrors her little boy might have endured. But always she had clung to one belief, and it was that he had endured. He was alive. Both her sons were alive. They had to be.
WITH A BLINDING FLASH of lightning and a mighty boom that rattled the walls of the shed, the rain came. It poured down in sheets so heavy that Michael thought the galvanized roof would collapse under the strain. I wish, he thought dejectedly. He’d explored every crack and crevice of the smokehouse a thousand times, and it was built to last. It would take more than a thunderstor
m to destroy it.
“I’m scared, Mike.”
He wrapped his arm around Scotty’s skinny shoulders and hugged his little brother closer. “Don’t be scared, Scotty. A little rain never hurt anybody. It could be worse.”
Scotty turned wide eyes up to his big brother’s. “How could it be worse?”
Mike grinned at him. “Hey, it could be snowing!”
“I’ve never seen snow.”
“Well, I have, and trust me, rain’s better.”
Accepting that, Scotty relaxed a little. When the next fierce boom exploded, he barely cringed. “Tell me about how we’re gonna escape again,” he said.
“Well, first we’ve got to figure a way to get out of this shed, and I’m working on that. It’ll have to be at night, because they won’t be able to track us down at night.”
As he had every time Mike reached this point in their escape plans, Scotty interrupted him. “Are you afraid of the dark, Mike?”
“Nah. Heck, it’s the same as daytime, only better for escaping.”
“Then me, neither.”
“Awright.” Mike squeezed the small shoulders.
Scotty settled back again. “And then what?”
“We’ll stick to the road, but we’ll be real careful. We hear anything, we’ll hit the dirt. I figure it’s about five miles to the fork that leads to Highway 6. Can you handle five miles?”
“I can if you can.”
“Then we’re home free, buddy, ’cause once we get on Highway 6, we’ll catch a hitch from a big rig, and they’ll drop us right at our front door.”
“It’ll be easy, because you hitched all the way from Iowa.”
“That’s right.”
Scotty’s eyes were drooping. They didn’t get enough to eat most days and his stamina flagged early. “My mom’ll sure be glad to see me, I bet,” he said sleepily.
“She sure will,” Mike agreed softly, swallowing hard. He shifted so that Scotty could straighten out a little. He might sleep longer that way. It meant Michael would have to sleep with one leg bent, but it was the only way. With the two of them tethered by the chain, he never slept much anyway.