Daniel nodded and rattled off a number that began with four-oh-five.
Eric crossed the room and snatched his phone off the kitchen counter. He dialed the number. It went straight to voicemail, and it was an automated message. No voice. No name. He left a brief message with his phone number and hung up. Somehow, he didn't feel any closer to finding the woman than he had before.
"What's your mother's name?"
"Carrie Anderson."
"Where do you live?" Based on the accent, the use of the word sir, and the four-oh-five area code, which was not from New Hampshire or any of the surrounding states, he'd guess they didn't live anywhere nearby. But maybe they'd recently relocated.
"We don't live nowhere."
Huh. Transients? In Eric's experience, homeless people weren't this well dressed—not that the clothes were appropriate for outdoor living in February, but they were new, and they matched, and they looked like they fit him well enough. This boy looked cared for. Clean, shiny brown hair, bright white teeth, a healthy complexion, nice glasses. Certainly didn't look homeless to Eric.
"What do you mean?" Eric asked.
Again with the shrug.
"Before you didn't live anywhere, where did you live?"
"Oklahoma."
That answer came fast. Eric was tempted to grab his computer and start searching, but he didn't want to make the kid nervous.
"How'd you end up in New Hampshire?"
"Mama brought me."
"Why here?"
"She never said."
"You guys move around a lot?"
"We left Oklahoma after Christmas. We been on the road since then."
On the road. "What kind of car does your mother drive?"
"Old van, but it died a while back. Then we just rode on busses."
"Okay. But how'd you get out here. No busses come this way."
"Mama borrowed a car. She drove us."
"Borrowed? From who?"
Daniel shrugged.
"What kind of a car?"
"A black one."
"How many doors?"
"Uh...four. And the trunk. Does that count?"
A black sedan. That narrowed the search to just about every third car on the road. "Did she borrow it in New Hampshire?"
"I guess. Not too far from here."
"A city? Maybe Manchester?"
"Maybe."
Eric stifled a sigh. That was hardly helpful. "Besides your mother, do you have any other family. Grandparents? Aunts? Uncles?"
"Don't have any of those."
"No family at all?"
"Just Mama."
Eric stared into the flames, frustrated. He didn't want to have the boy thrown into the system, but what choice did he have? "Well, kiddo, unfortunately you can't stay here. I'm going to have to take you to town. Maybe we can find your mother."
The boy set his mug down. He looked...disappointed. "Okay."
"Unless you can think of a way to get in touch with your mother."
Daniel shrugged. "She said she'd come back for me when she could."
"Did she leave you in the woods?"
"She had to do something."
"Okay. But...do you think she'll look for you where she left you?"
Daniel snuggled beneath Eric's parka and looked at his knees. His voice was small when he answered. "No. She's not coming back that soon."
BY the time Eric and Daniel settled into Eric's Jeep—Magic panting with joy between them—the sun had set and the snow was falling harder. Eric glanced at the clock. Five-thirty. Winter was tough in New Hampshire, especially for a Texas boy. He didn't mind the cold. He didn't mind the snow. He didn't mind the frequent rain, which made the world green and lush. But the short winter days got to him. The long dark nights, all alone in his little house in the woods, made for some melancholy thinking. Thank God for Magic, whose doggie smile and crazy antics often enough raised his spirits. And having a warm body—albeit a furry one—on the other side of the bed helped him sleep at night.
Beside him, Daniel patted the dog but remained silent. Stoically so, Eric thought. How could an eight-year-old boy abandoned in the woods not be more emotional? It was weird. Not that he knew a lot about kids, but he'd have guessed most kids in that situation would be crying, begging for their mamas. But Daniel seemed to accept this as normal. Eric's heart went out to the kid. What would it be like to grow up without a stable home life? Eric had been blessed more than most. He knew that. What would it be like to have a mother who abandoned you in the woods on a cold night? Did the woman want him to freeze to death?
He glanced across the front seat, saw Daniel smile at Magic. The kid's attitude was far too casual for this situation. Which made Eric wonder—had his mother done this to him before? Maybe he'd already been in the foster system somewhere. If so, the social worker should be able to figure out where he came from, maybe find some family. If nothing else, they could start looking for the kid's mother.
Eric slowed the Jeep automatically as he approached the rickety bridge that separated his home from Nutfield. The state had plans to replace it the following summer, but until then, Eric would proceed with caution. He had no fear of bridges, but he wasn't an idiot, either, and this thing was nothing but old boards and rotting timber.
They crossed slowly, the bub-a-dum, bub-a-dum beneath the tires loud enough to interrupt conversation. Not that they'd been talking. Daniel was still petting the dog, and Magic was lapping up the attention.
Maybe Daniel's mother was an addict. Or maybe she was suffering from a mental illness. Either way, Eric thanked God the kid had been abandoned near his house. There were plenty of folks who wouldn't be rushing the kid into town right now. Eric had a file at the station filled with names and information about a few of the men in town who Eric suspected might be involved in some unsavory things. He had no real evidence against any of them. Some were registered sex offenders, and Eric always kept a close eye on them. One guy in his file Eric had seen in the Nuthouse, the local hangout for teens. A grown man, alone, leering at the teenage girls. But as his chief had told him, there's no law against leering. Another guy he'd stopped in a routine traffic stop. Grown man with a fifteen-year-old girl who'd looked... Eric hadn't been able to put his finger on the expression on her face. Frightened, defeated. Eric had been sure that guy had been up to no good. But they'd called the girl's mother and it turned out, the girl was his niece. Eric kept his name in the file anyway.
Eric still suspected that guy was up to no good, but he had no evidence.
Wait. Maybe there was a connection from the mother to one of the men on his list.
"Did y'all meet anybody while you were up here?" Eric asked. "Friends, maybe?"
"You talk like home," Daniel said. "Folks up here don't say y'all."
Eric chuckled. "It's always 'you guys.' Even if you're talking to a bunch of women."
"Weird," Daniel said. "Where're you from?"
Eric considered the question, not because it was a tough one but because the kid seemed pretty mature for an eight-year-old. Another clue he'd been well cared for. "Plano, Texas, a little north of Dallas."
"How'd you end up here?"
Eric adjusted the heat and glanced at the boy's curious face. "Now that, kiddo, is a very long story."
"I think it's too cold."
"Winter doesn't last forever, and it can be great fun. Sledding and skiing and ice skating. You don't get to do those things much in Oklahoma."
"No, sir. Sure don't."
The boy seemed willing to talk when Eric wasn't questioning him about his past. "So...did you and your mother meet anybody when you got to New Hampshire?"
"Nope."
"Did you meet anybody along the way, maybe friends of hers?"
"Nope. Mama doesn't know anybody 'round here."
Fine. Maybe Eric was just paranoid.
"Where we goin'?" Daniel asked.
"I'm taking you to the police station where I work."
"Okay."
"I'm a police officer," he said, though the kid hadn't asked. "Actually, I'm a detective now. I investigate crimes."
"Like what?"
"Nutfield's a little town, so I investigate all the different kinds of crimes. Burglaries, robberies, drugs." He snuck a peek at Daniel, but the kid didn't flinch at the word. Maybe his mother wasn't an addict. Or maybe she just hid it well. "Vandalism. Stuff like that."
"What's that...vanderism?"
Eric smiled. "Vandalism. When people ruin other people's property. Like when people paint on the sides of buildings."
"Or write on bathroom walls. Sometimes people don't write very nice stuff on walls in bathrooms."
"Very true."
"Cool job."
Eric did like his job. He'd known since he was Daniel's age that he wanted to be a cop someday. Though he'd always pictured himself in a big city, not a place like this.
"What do you like to do?" Eric asked.
"Skateboard. When the car broke, Mama said we had to leave my skateboard with it, because we couldn't carry it in our backpacks. But she's gonna buy me another one when we get settled."
Sure she was. Eric suspected the woman would never return for Daniel. What kind of mother must she be?
Mama loves me. That's what Daniel had said. Maybe he had to tell himself that a lot in order to believe it.
"What grade are you in?"
A moment's hesitation. Then, "Second. But I haven't gone back since Christmas."
The boy needed to be in school. He needed stability. Eric prayed the county social workers would be able to give him that, at least that.
"What else do you like to do, besides skateboard?"
He shrugged. "I like to draw. I like to make videos with Mama's cell phone. She won't let me post them yet, 'cause I'm too young. But she lets me watch other people skateboarding on YouTube. You should see some of the cool stuff they can do. I'm gonna learn how to do all that stuff."
"I used to love to skateboard," Eric said. "But I wasn't very good."
"I'm good. There's a skate park in the city that Mama took me to a few times. It was so fun."
"What city was that?"
He shrugged and looked out the far window.
"You don't remember the name of it?"
Silence.
"Was it Oklahoma City?"
More silence.
"Tulsa?"
Nothing.
Very strange.
They reached the Nutfield PD. Eric parked, went around, and opened the door for Daniel. Magic bounded out, but after Eric's sharp command, the dog hopped back inside, her doggie grin gone. "Don't look at me like that." Eric patted the dog's head. "I'd take you if I could, but there are rules."
He shut the door on his pouting dog and took Daniel's mittened hand. "You ready?"
The boy shrugged, and they walked inside.
CHAPTER THREE
It was all Kelsey could do to put one foot in front of the other. She'd been trudging through the woods for hours, parallel to the roads but not on them, terrified somebody would see her and stop to help, and maybe remember her face. Terrified the car would be discovered, she would be the best suspect in its theft. She stayed just far enough in the woods that she was forced to push between bushes and fight low-hanging branches, leaving footprints in the too-deep snow, which had stuck to her jeans and slipped into her boots and frozen her toes.
She always chose older cars to steal. Old cars usually didn't have alarm systems. They were easier to break into, easier to hot-wire. They were perfect, except for the fact that they were old and thus, unreliable.
The stupid thing had broken down.
She was miles from everywhere, and she couldn't very well call a taxi out here, a stranded woman right next to a stolen car.
But, she'd thought like the fool she was, that it was only three miles to the lake. Only. Like that was nothing.
How could it take this long to walk it? Hard enough with the cold and snow, but twigs and branches kept getting caught on her pack, yanking her back like the hand of God.
Warm tears collected on her eyelashes and blurred her vision, ran down her face and froze on her cheeks. What kind of world was so cold, a person's tears froze? There was a metaphor in that, but she was too tired to figure out what it was. She kept telling herself to stop crying, but the words didn't help. Knowing she'd had no other choice didn't help. And crying sure didn't help.
She swiped at the tears with her thin gloves for the millionth time and trudged forward. A light up ahead told her maybe, just maybe, she was getting close.
It was nearly dark by the time she reached the turnoff. She'd been here before, had driven by just that day. She took the turn, keeping to the woods, and within a few minutes saw the first of many summer cabins. The sight of Clearwater Lake, frozen, surrounded by bare trees and abandoned houses, nearly started her tears again. And wasn't that the perfect metaphor for her life. What had begun full of promise was no more than an icy hell today.
She ought not to let her thoughts drift to such dark places. She'd fallen into those dark places before, and it was hard to climb back out. Too hard. And she had a job to do. Only problem was, she had no idea how to do it. She didn't even know where to start. And now, she'd abandoned the one person who'd made life worth living.
No. She couldn't think about Daniel. Not until she was somewhere that she could break down. Otherwise, she might just lean up against one of these trees and let the cold take her home.
She kept walking, still in the woods, following the road. She studied the cabins, which were all on the opposite, lake-side of the street, searching for one that looked well-insulated but not fancy enough to have an alarm. The first few cabins' exterior walls seemed barely thicker than her cheap jacket. She wanted something empty, but winterized.
It was nearly dark now. She stopped and tugged her flashlight out of her backpack and used it to illuminate her path. She was glad she had, too, when she came to the stream. It was frozen, though how thick, she couldn't tell. She wasn't dumb enough to step on it and see.
How did people live like this? Growing up, she'd thought it criminal when the weather dipped into the thirties, which it very rarely did. She'd gotten more accustomed to cold in Oklahoma, but this...this was different. Not just cold, but damp-cold. Snow falling like an attack. And now the sun was down, she feared she might just freeze solid where she stood. She might never be warm again.
She pointed the flashlight at the ground beyond the stream. Not a long jump, but her legs were tired, and with the heavy backpack... She aimed the beam upstream and down, looking for a better place to cross. The terrain looked about the same everywhere. This was as good a spot as any. She ought to walk down to the road, just twenty or so feet from her. She could see from here that the stream would eventually funnel into a tube that'd take it beneath the road and on to the lake. Problem was, she sure didn't want to risk being seen now, not after all she'd done to stay out of sight. And no doubt if somebody saw her walking out here, they'd stop to check on her.
Which left her no other choice. She shined the light again to see what she was aiming for, then put her flashlight in her pocket. She took a deep breath, shot up a quick prayer, and jumped across the stream.
Her foot landed, slipped a bit, but she fell forward and kept herself from sliding into the icy water. Phew. That was close as a cat's whisker, as PawPaw would say. She stood, brushed the snow from her jeans, and stepped forward.
Pain wrenched her left ankle, and she went down hard, crying out until her gloved hands hit the wet bracken.
She pulled her foot out of a hole she hadn't seen and sat on the snowy ground. Her ankle screamed in pain.
No, no, no. This was the one thing she could not do. Words her mama had forbidden her to say filled her mind, but she remained silent.
Think. She had to think.
Using a nearby tree, she wrenched herself to standing, cursing the backpack that weighed her down. Where a minute before she'
d only been cold and tired, now she was also wet and injured. Nice going, girl. Way to make a terrible situation worse.
She had all her weight on her right foot. She set the left one down, but as soon as it hit the snowy ground, pain shot up her leg and sent fresh tears to her eyes.
Tired as she felt, it was all she could do to stay upright with all her weight on one leg. She had to figure a way out of these woods, or she'd freeze to death right here, twenty feet from the road.
Wouldn't it be fortuitous if a downed tree rested nearby? If there were a walking stick of just the perfect length? If she were in a movie instead of living this ridiculous life she'd fallen into, there'd be one. But all she saw was snow. And trees. Everywhere, trees.
Okay, she'd use the trees.
She turned and peered at the road, then at the cabin that sat beyond it. Wood-sided and rustic, it was probably freezing inside. And not nearly far enough from the main road for her liking. She didn't have much choice now, did she?
Pulling her focus closer, she found a tree between herself and her final destination. Just a few feet away.
She did a one-legged hop across the space and wrapped her arms around the skinny birch trunk. Her right leg was shaking with exhaustion, her left howling in pain. She needed to get ice on that sprain and quick.
Ice. She was an imbecile.
She sat on the cold ground, ignoring the wet that seeped through her jeans, and shoved snow into her left boot. The pain was excruciating, but she didn't stop until she'd packed her ankle. Maybe that would keep the swelling down until she reached the cabin.
Teeth chattering now, she spied another tree, made it her goal, and hopped to it. She did that again and again until she reached the road.
No trees to help her now. She leaned against her latest crutch, a pine, and listened. The forest was eerily silent. No bugs whining, no sounds of movement. Nothing but the rustle of the breeze in the treetops.
She was alone out here. Good thing.
She took a deep breath and hopped to the road. She'd barely made it to the gravely pavement before she pitched forward and landed on her hands. She'd managed to keep her ankle off the ground—thank heavens. She crawled across the road, her knees feeling the jabs of every pebble beneath the snow. If she hadn't feared she might collapse from pain and exhaustion, she might laugh at herself. She must look a total fool. All that work to stay hidden, and if a car came now, the driver wouldn't stop to help her until after he'd felt her thump beneath his tires.
Innocent Lies Page 2