Shining his flashlight on the carpet ahead, Alex walked his memorized route to the toy chest. It was an old, plastic thing, painted to look like a pirate's treasure chest. Alex's room was too small to have anywhere to hide food; he had no closet and the space under his bed was too large. The idea of the toy chest crossed his mind when he considered, ironically, that Lauren's room would be the easiest to sneak into. Alex had seen to extensively checking and rechecking the chest, making sure it would open silently. He had left nothing out of his extensive preparation.
Except for that stupid squeaky door.
He opened the lid without hesitation, and began loading in the food: bread, meat, and other non-perishables, looted from the usually-locked pantry the night before. His backpack filled with the necessities of life, he returned to his room and scooped several sets of clothing into the large back section.
That's everything.
Alex zipped up the backpack and took it out of the room, traversing the hallway again and descending the stairs. The living room was eerily dark; he rarely went downstairs at night, but had still taken care to learn how to navigate.
He was almost at the door when he remembered another item from his mental checklist. Quickly, without thinking, letting his feet carry him, he moved through the house toward his parents' bedroom. At the door he stopped, hoping to avoid another ordeal.
Open. Good.
Stepping through the doorway, he began tiptoing as an extra precaution, even though he was walking on a rug and a floor which, as far as he knew, was docile. The breathing of his hated parents, added to the sound of Roland's soft snoring, made him even more sure he would do what he set out to do. He knew they would not be hurt when they woke up to find him gone; but would have his last act of defiance.
There wasn't much more to do, and then he would be out of the house forever. His objective was to break into Roland's safe and empty it. He had puzzled for a long time over how to pull this off; and finally resorted to waiting for the house to be deserted and trying every possible combination. Daring to use his flashlight, he held the tip against the tumblers and read the numbers: four zeroes. He flipped the wheels into the correct locations, and opened the door with a booming click.
His head darted around. His parents remained asleep.
After finally managing to spring the safe, he had counted the money: 294 dollars in total. He swept it all into a separate compartment.
Only one thing remained now.
He reached for a large shadow in the back of the safe, and brought out his father's pistol, stashing it behind the money in the already loaded backpack. He didn't know why he felt that he would need it—but he knew that having it would be preferable to not having it and desperately needing it.
At the front door he paused one last time. He began thinking again.
If I pass this door, if I am nearly killed or fully killed, if I die or if I live, I will never return. That's my vow.
Then Alex took a deep breath and stepped through the doorway and over the threshold.
CHAPTER 2
The Orphan
Sarah hated her home.
It wasn't even her home, really, just some empty shell of the home it had been once—and it would never be her home.
True, Woodsbrook Orphanage had been some tycoon's mansion originally. He had died a few years after he bought it, and his wife had sold it to the city, and it had been made into an orphanage.
Sarah didn't even know what her home was, just that her parents had died several years ago of a foreign disease while traveling abroad. The story seemed rather unlikely to her, and she was sure that the orphanage knew no more about it than she did.
But they supported the story, shaky as it was, and Sarah came to believe it herself. It was definitely better than brooding over it day and night.
Obviously, the old tycoon's wife had lost a lot of money in estate tax. Since before the city bought it, the building had been shoddily and continuously repaired and was falling into disrepair.
That's what comes from living on donations.
The whole operation, as Sarah called it, was terribly staffed, as most of the "teachers" were completely indifferent to the bullying and fighting running rampant across the school and home of the orphanage. It looked so innocent from their point of view, Sarah thought bitterly. A game, maybe, a friendly cuff or slap on the back.
They're masters of deception.
The bullies would leave you bruised and without anything of value that you were unlucky enough to have on you if crossed them. It was like a regime: an evil, corrupt political party and an indifferent government.
As for fighting, most people hated each other, so often fistfights broke out. If you wanted to be safe, you could hang with the bullies, or try and fight your way to a safe life, but the orphans were still waiting for someone with the guts to try that.
So to Sarah it was a fake home.
Once a week, one of the teachers would take Sarah to the adoption office to see if they could find her some parents. In the orphanage van was where she found herself now, thinking over her home. The trip was taking longer than usual because of the falling snow, and she constantly had to get out of the van and help heave the front wheel out of a snowbank. Once she fell in, and her coat was covered in the powdery snow; she was spitting it out and shivering the rest of the way. They had to continuously take detours because the city had blocked off the icy parts of the road.
But somehow, they overcame the many obstacles that the snowstorm had thrown at them, and found themselves parking the van in the lot of the adoption office. Sarah opened her door and stepped onto the icy asphalt behind the teacher, whose name was Mrs. Hanscomb (Sarah was not allowed in the front seat of the van, being only eleven).
As they walked toward they building, Sarah pulling her coat tight around her, Mrs. Hanscomb said, "You will be seeing Mr. Edbrough today."
"Great," Sarah replied, feigning interest.
They were both glad to get inside the heated lobby. Brushing off the largest snowflakes, Sarah hung her coat on the rack next to the door.
Mrs. Hanscomb strode briskly up the reception desk. "We are from the orphanage, here to see Mr. Edbrough."
"I'm afraid Mr. Edbrough is busy right now, ma'am," answered the receptionist, who was warming her hands on a cup of hot coffee. The sight of it only made Sarah think more about how cold and wet she was after falling into the snow.
Mrs. Hanscomb hated delays in her schedule possibly more than anything else. "Pray tell, what is Mr. Edbrough working on?"
"Well, we've got a pretty big case to work on right now. Mr. Edbrough is in charge of finding foster families for children who have been abused and maligned by their birth parents, as well as working on orphan adoption.
"Anyway, we get calls from the SPCC about kids who need to be adopted into another family."
"Get to the point," Mrs. Hanscomb said sharply.
"The vice president of Woodsbrook Instruments is using his second-born son as some kind of slave."
Sarah caught strands of this last sentence. "You don't mean Roland Orson?"
"Quiet, girl!" snapped Mrs. Hanscomb.
"I'm surprised you know about him. Orson is one of Edbrough's biggest cases," the receptionist said, addressing Sarah this time.
"He's in the news every now and then," Sarah said. "Seeing as Woodsbrook Instruments pretty much runs this town…"
"Shut up!" Mrs. Hanscomb snarled.
"He was a big part of the embezzlement scandal a few years ago. He was always being interviewed by the Sun, saying how he was sure the company would pull through this and see happy times again, you know, interview jargon," Sarah raised her voice a little to be heard over Mrs. Hanscomb's.
"Well, I'll page Mr. Edbrough," the receptionist told them, reaching for her phone.
Sarah kept away from Mrs. Hanscomb while the receptionist tapped a few buttons and spoke into the mouthpiece: "Mr. Edbrough? There's an orphanage worker hear to see you. Sh
ould I send her up?"
There was an audible groan on the other end, then some muffled words.
"He'll be with you in a half-hour," the receptionist told them.
Thirty minutes later, Sarah was sitting a chair opposite Mr. Edbrough, who was sitting in the plush swivel chair peering at her over the desk. Mr. Edbrough was the kind of man who tried to make himself look intimidating, but really just ended up looking like a gray-haired, overweight, over-promoted lump.
Every time she went to the adoption office and was referred to Mr. Edbrough, there were several minutes of uneasy silence. She would stare, he would shuffle papers or simply look back.
Finally, after it started to seem like he was enjoying making her uncomfortable (which she wouldn't put past him), he spoke.
"Ms. Jones. What are we to do with you?"
You could get me out of that hellhole orphanage so I never have to see you, or Mrs. Hanscomb, or any of the bullies again, she thought, but for good reason the words never made it from her brain to her mouth.
"You've come to trouble us at this office every week for years," Mr. Edbrough smiled, a smile which barely disguised the hatred he felt for all orphans, all children.
He thinks we should be thrown out with the rats, Sarah thought. How he got this job I'll never know.
Sarah had never understood the adult attitude toward kids. Some she had met treated children like they were all stupid, like they were aliens or criminals, like the smartest child was inferior to the stupidest adult.
"It seems there are few good Samaritans left in Woodsbrook," Mr. Edbrough laughed, as though this were the joke of a lifetime. "However, I'm sure this office can find a home for someone like you. You're a difficult case, Ms. Jones."
She opened her mouth to retaliate, but at that moment his secretary burst through the door.
"Mr. Edbrough, sir? There's someone here who wants to talk to you about the Orson case. He's in the lobby now."
"God. If I never hear that name again it will be too soon for me." He turned to Sarah. "Stay right there, and don't touch anything. I'll be back in a minute."
Sarah wasn't normally one for breaking the rules, but she hated Mr. Edbrough, and found it increasingly hard to stay in the chair while his footsteps receded and his grumbling didn't.
She began thinking about what she would like to do with him. Over the years a lot of schemes had formed in her mind, which were fun to harbor, even if none of them were plausible in the least. Once or twice, she had thought of trying to get Mr. Edbrough fired. These thoughts lasted about a minute before she remembered that he was the division head.
Sarah mused over her many plans for escape, and came to the conclusion that she had spent the last six years defeating herself. Every day she thought, today I escape. But always, some invisible voice had held her back, saying, wait.
Your time will come.
Just two days ago, it had been her eleventh birthday. It would be her gift, she decided.
I'll leave before I'm twelve.
She was snapped out of her thoughts by Mr. Edbrough's voice, apparently shouting at one of his subordinate. Sarah strained her ears.
"…and I don't care what you think, Johnson! Why do you have to add another layer to this? Why can't you leave it simple?"
A meeker voice, presumably Johnson. "All I'm saying is it's plausible…you have to concede that…"
"It is not plausible! It's not even possible! It's completely ridiculous! And if you ever mention it again, you will never set foot here again! Do I make myself clear!"
And with that, Edbrough stormed off.
He's not done. I'll have a look around.
Sarah had never before been left alone in Edbrough's office. Therefore, the first thing she went to investigate was the desk. It was a standard affair, the desk supported by two columns of four drawers on each side. She checked the first drawer on the left: paperwork. Some kid named Gordon Roberts was at the top. She closed that drawer, and opened the next. More paperwork. Fenton, Rebecca. McCarthy, Tyler. Smith, Harold. She had the same luck all the way down the first column, and was about to turn to the second, when something in the shredder caught her eye.
Orson, Alexander M.
The secretary had said Orson was one of Edbrough's most important cases. Why would he be shredding documents about him?
He doesn't want to think about it.
There was something bigger than an adoption case at work here. Hurriedly, Sarah stuffed the shredded paper into her pocket, at made to sit back down—
"Jones!"
It was Mr. Edbrough.
"What were you doing in my shredder?"
"Emptying it for you?" It was a feeble excuse, but the best she could think of.
"You were putting the paper in your pocket! Don't you know that's proprietary information?"
"No. You never bothered to tell me."
"Don't they teach you manners at that fleabag orphanage?"
"No. They're too busy being indifferent."
"Shut up. You know what? I'm not going to get you parents. I'm going to throw you out of that orphanage onto the highway. If you're lucky, I'll send you to juvenile hall. How about that?"
My time is now, she thought.
And Sarah ran.
"Why didn't I think of this before?" she shouted, tearing down the hallway, Mr. Edbrough yelling curses at her. As she rounded a corner and was rid of him forever, she detected him shouting, "You've got nothing! Nowhere to go! You won't last two days!"
He's right. I have nothing.
Her eyes watered as she burst out the front double doors, across the parking lot and on to the snow covered sidewalk of main street. She didn't know where she was going. Only where she was leaving.
"And you just let her run away?"
"What's to say? I hated her. I hate all of them."
"You shouldn't say that in front of SPCA agents, Edbrough."
Henry Machry and Irving Edbrough were sitting in the same office Sarah had searched the day before. Machry was in the chair opposite the desk, writing feverishly on his notepad. Edbrough was in his large swivel chair and obviously wanting nothing more than to make this idiot leave,
"How did you get this job if you hate children anyway?"
"It was the job itself that made me hate them. Nineteen years I've worked here. Nineteen years of talking to kids in this office, giving them false families, false hopes. I never get anything from that! This job doesn't pay very well, you know! I've got to work for those brats and get nothing in return."
"They're not all like you think, you know. Some kids are nice, and there are the intangible benefits…"
"I can't pay my mortgage with intangible benefits!"
"I'm sorry. But you have to look at them with an open mind…"
"Dang it, Machry! If I wanted a session with a psychiatrist I would have paid you!"
Sensing that the conversation was going nowhere, Machry took his notebook and turned to leave.
"I hate them! They never work! They expect everything! They're ungrateful! They're idiots!" Edbrough slammed his fist on the desk. "Oh, what I'd give to be as stupid as I was nineteen years ago…"
"Edbrough?"
"What?"
"You are quite obviously drunk."
CHAPTER 3
A Night In the Park
The Woodsbrook community park was a dreary place, one or two square miles sandwiched between an office block (Forest Creek, "building for the future") and interstate 81. In spring and summer it was covered in grass, in the loosest sense of the word. In fall it was covered in leaves that crunched at several decibels, and in winter, it was covered in snow.
Anybody who lives in Woodsbrook knows that brutal winter is most of the year.
Alex had always had a particular fondness for the park, miserable as it was. Any time he could get away from Roland and Catherine, he and Jake would head to the park and meet at their tree, a sturdy oak in the center of the field. Ever since they'd been tall enough t
o climb to the top, they'd been attempting to construct a treehouse, saving up Jake's allowance and buying lumber and tools from the home improvement store. So far they'd managed a fairly sturdy platform in the lower branches, with about half of the first wall and beginnings of a second. As Alex said, "as long as nobody can see us, it's a good treehouse".
Two months previously, when they had conceived the plan of escape, the treehouse was the first nominee for base of operations. One month previously, when they had drawn the first tangible ideas, they were working entirely out of the park. Roland had gotten suspicious, however, and cooked up tasks for Alex to complete that were even more worthless than usual. He took to scrounging up time wherever he could get it, sometimes leaving school during lunch to look over road maps. He'd hinged everything on this one, desperate plan.
Cold Snow: A Legal Thriller Page 3