Summer by the River

by Debbie Burns

  She’d lived to be eighty years old, well outliving her mother and father—both fathers, actually, the one who’d raised her and the one whose DNA had created her. But regardless of whether she wanted to admit it, the act of not being here anymore frightened her.

  And somehow Josie’s knowing stirred up that fear. But as her father had taught her, the only thing to do with such thoughts was quiet them with a good cup of tea.

  Halfway down the stairs, she smelled coffee brewing and noticed light spilling from under the closed kitchen door. It wasn’t even five o’clock. She stepped into the kitchen to find Carter filling a thermal mug to the brim.

  “I didn’t expect to find you awake this early.” She patted his shoulder as she crossed to the sink.

  “Myra…I found her.”

  She turned to eye him sharply. “Is that so?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Where I expected to see compassion, I find a steely resolution instead.”

  “What do you want me to say? It never occurred to me that Zoe wasn’t hers.”

  Myra felt her mouth press into a thin line. “Be careful of making accusations about things you know nothing of.”

  “So, you’re saying those articles are wrong?”

  “I am saying there’s more to this story than you understand after a night of searching through a bunch of internet gossip.”

  “Yeah, well, since neither of you are sharing anything with me, I’ve got to find the truth somewhere.”

  “Wait for it. She’ll bring you into her confidence in time. I’m certain of it.”

  “I’m not waiting anymore, Myra. That independent site, the one you mentioned the other day, who is that searching for her?”

  Myra shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know. The owner uses a ridiculous pen name.”

  “Do you think it’s Zoe’s father?”

  Releasing a breath that seemed to deflate her lungs, Myra took a seat on the nearest chair. “You’re going to have to ask Josie that. But I can only think of one person from her past who would still be searching for her.”

  “Well, I’m finding out. Today with any luck.”

  For the first time, Myra noticed Carter’s laptop bag and a backpack on one of the kitchen chairs. “Carter, you’re not! You have no idea how dangerous some of those people are.”

  “That’s why I don’t want Josie to suspect a thing. I’m asking that you keep my confidence. For her safety, and possibly for mine. If she gets suspicious, she won’t be able to retrace my browsing history. I’m going right to the source. We’re meeting in St. Louis later today.”

  Myra inhaled sharply. “You don’t know what he’s capable of. None of us do.”

  “Which is why I didn’t tell him anything. All he knows is that I’m a journalist from New York, and that I have questions regarding her disappearance.”

  “I can see the determination in your eyes, so I know there’s no talking you out of it. Damn me for giving you that hint, anyway.”

  “It helped, but I’d have found her eventually.”

  “Perhaps.” Myra would never have expected the morning to take this sort of turn. “Seeing as you’re set on doing this, I think you should take a gun.”

  “I’m representing myself from a newspaper, and I gave a pen name I use occasionally. We’re meeting in a public place. I’ll be fine.”

  “I still think you should have a gun. It’ll pacify me, at least.” She pushed up from the table and waved him out of the room after her. “Unfortunately, the only one I have to give you hasn’t been fired in a very long time. Hopefully you can find a secluded place to test it on your drive.”

  Carter followed her to the library where she sifted through the lowest desk drawer and pulled out an antique pistol hidden in an old cigar box in back.

  “I found it years ago buried under a loose floorboard in the corner. Knowing what we know now, I’m sorry to say I suspect the last time it was used, it killed your grandfather. Of course, if I’m right, a whole new set of questions arise, like why it was hidden here in this house and not elsewhere. Perhaps my mother never even knew about it.”

  Carter sucked in a breath. “Myra, that’s a Colt 1911. That’s the type of gun they were searching for when my grandfather was autopsied.” He held out his hand for it, lifting it into the light to study its craftsmanship. “I’m pretty confident the only luck this gun could bring me wouldn’t be in my favor any more than it was in Myron’s.”

  “I for one have always been a believer that luck is what you make of it. Take it with you. At the very least, it could be a bluff if you need it. The bullets are in here.” She passed him a small satchel that was hidden in a vase on the shelf. “What am I to tell Josie about why you aren’t here?”

  “Nothing right now. I’ll call her when she wakes up. By then, I’ll have had time to think up some kind of story. It’ll probably be easier on you if she doesn’t know we talked at all.”

  “There isn’t one part of this I like.”

  Myra sighed as Carter pressed his lips against her forehead.

  “Have them call my cell when they wake up. I’ll be back tomorrow most likely. You won’t have to keep the truth from her for long.”

  Chapter 31

  Adrenaline kept Carter going through the winding country highways, and he reached the St. Louis Gateway Arch an hour sooner than he anticipated. Thanks to too much coffee and too little sleep, he was both groggy and riding a caffeine buzz.

  He’d never been to the city before, and the Arch was something to take in. To kill time, he toured the underground museum beneath the Arch, which detailed western expansion, and grabbed a sandwich in the café.

  At precisely noon, he headed to the ticket counter and purchased a ticket for the ride to the top, saying his pen name loud enough that the clerk selling him the ticket stopped typing to give him a once over. A movement out of the corner of Carter’s eye caught his attention. A guy in a faded-blue hooded sweatshirt was watching him.

  After getting his ticket, Carter headed across the wide hallway toward him, fresh adrenaline pumping through his system. “You meeting someone?”

  “You, it seems. I expected you to be older,” the guy replied, his eyes darting about the room. He was Carter’s height almost exactly—six feet, one inch—but with a much slighter build. With the hood pulled over the guy’s head, it was hard for Carter to tell much about him other than that he seemed like the typical American twenty-something-year-old white male. Thin as he was and in an oversized hoodie, he looked more like a teen than an adult. And he certainly didn’t look the part of a cold-blooded killer. But then again, did anyone?

  “Want to go someplace where we can talk?”

  The kid scanned the room again before answering. “Let’s go outside and walk the grounds.” He started walking before Carter answered, heading up the long ramp that led outside.

  Carter followed him. “Would you take that hood off?”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m a big believer in reading more truth in expressions than in words.” That was partly the truth. He was also pretty sure he’d seen the guy before, and he wanted a better look.

  The kid paused just outside of the exit and stared at him. Then, after a single jut of his chin, he tugged off the hood. “I guess if you’d been followed, I’d be dead already.”

  Carter’s knees grew weak as he took him in. He felt like he was a few pieces away from finishing an abstract puzzle, yet none of it was making any sense. He could see both Josie and Zoe in the shape of his face, his eyes, mouth, and nose.

  “Why are you wanting to write a story about Josie?” the kid said, shoving his hands in the pockets of his hoodie and taking off abruptly down the long concrete path that stretched across the arch grounds. It was cloudy and drizzling lightly, and there weren’t many people walking the park grounds. “She’s bee
n gone long enough that I thought everybody but me and maybe one other person gave up any real interest in her.”

  Carter’s heart pounded wildly as he trailed after him. “What’s your name, because I’m pretty sure it isn’t Harry Underball like your site suggests.”

  A hint of a smile flashed over the kid’s face, disappearing so quickly Carter had to wonder if the resemblance was actually that strong, or if he just imagined it.

  “I can’t see why that matters. What is it you want to know?”

  “Why don’t I go ahead and start with the biggest one, and ask why you look so familiar to me?”

  The kid stopped walking and turned to face him, his intense hazel eyes piercing Carter’s. “I didn’t come here to talk about me. How come you’re researching this story?”

  He’d be damned if those weren’t Zoe’s eyes. Straight on like this, the kid was undeniably equal parts of Josie too. “Are you related to her?”

  The kid stepped close, narrowing his eyes. “You’ve seen her, haven’t you?”

  Carter raised a hand and started to take a step back before he felt the sharp edge of a knife pressing into the side of his throat. The kid was fast, faster than Carter had given him credit for.

  “You son of a bitch! You tell me where she is right now before I cut your throat, you hear? If you touched so much as one hair on her head, you’re going to pay like you’ve never imagined.”

  Carter reacted on impulse, jerking back and giving a powerful right blow that connected under the kid’s jaw, taking him down. As soon as the kid hit the ground, Carter kicked him in the back hard enough to debilitate him a few seconds, then kicked the knife out of the way. Cursing, he closed his palm over the side of his throat. He’d been cut.

  He pressed hard but could still feel the blood flowing down his neck. “Christ, that frickin’ stings. How the hell did you get that through security?”

  The kid wasn’t listening as he writhed on the ground, a string of obscenities pouring from him. Two of his words hit Carter like a slap in the face, shaking him so much that he dropped to his knees, his hand still pressed hard against his throat.

  “Did you—did you say she’s your sister?” Suddenly the puzzle pieces seemed to make more sense. But impossibly so. “Sam? Are you Sam?” Sam Pictures was dead. He’d been shot three times in the chest.

  The incredulity in Carter’s tone must have sunk in. The kid rolled onto his back and pushed himself into a sitting position, grimacing as he pressed a hand to the side of his back. Carter had had no restraint when he kicked him.

  “You’re Sam, am I right? I don’t mean to hurt you.”

  The kid’s eyes were on his neck. “Yeah, well, I didn’t mean to cut you.”

  With Carter kneeling and the boy sitting up, they were face to face again. He could pick out Josie’s features perfectly. What was a bit more perplexing, considering Zoe wasn’t hers, was the way he was looking at him with Zoe’s eyes.

  “I thought you were dead!”

  The kid scanned their surroundings again, reminding Carter of a dog who’d been picked on enough to hold a fear of it.

  Their antics had attracted a handful of tourists. Carter suspected a few of them would be calling the police soon if they hadn’t already.

  The kid pushed up to a standing position, wincing again, and unzipped his hoodie. He had Carter’s full attention when he pulled his T-shirt up to his neck to reveal a spattering of scar tissue that covered his chest the same as if he survived a war zone.

  “I was,” he said. “Officially for seventeen minutes. Then I woke up.”

  * * *

  Carter wanted to swallow, but his throat felt unusually heavy as the emergency-room tech sewed the final stitch into the side of his neck. The kid was sitting in a chair at the side of the room, not having left his side in the two hours they’d been at the hospital.

  “You’re a lucky man, Mr. O’Brien,” the tech repeated. “A few centimeters deeper, and you could’ve bled out on the spot.”

  Carter didn’t need that reminder after looking in the mirror. If he ever had a knife pressed against his throat again, he hoped to do more than act on instinct.

  “I recommend taking it easy the next several days. Rest as much as you’re able and let pain be the guide for when to lie down.”

  Like the numbness that had spread over his neck, the whole situation was akin to being half-asleep. The kid—Sam—had overheard Carter’s real name as he checked in, and he’d made no attempt to hide the search he’d done on his phone.

  All Sam really knew were things that tied him to New York. He didn’t know about Galena or where to find Josie. But even though they hadn’t spoken in any real depth yet, Carter trusted the kid. He’d driven Carter’s car to get him to the hospital. Once here, when he could have taken off, he didn’t, even though he didn’t know if Carter was the type to press charges. And it was clear his only motivation was to find his sister.

  “Where is she?” the kid repeated for the umpteenth time after the tech left to get Carter’s release paperwork.

  “I’ll take you to her myself once we get out of here and you convince me of what I need to know.” Resisting the urge to clear his throat, Carter pressed his fingers around the thick bandage that spanned from the middle of his neck to his Adam’s apple.

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Tell me about Zoe. Why did Josie take her?”

  Sam’s eyes widened in surprise. “She’s still got the kid? I thought—I thought she’d have dropped her with Social Services somewhere. I never thought she’d stay in hiding with a kid.”

  “Aren’t you Zoe’s father?”

  He shrugged. “That’s what Jena said. I never laid eyes on her before the day everything blew up.”

  “Well, kid, I’ve laid eyes on her, and I’m willing to bet you are. Positive paternity test or not.”

  Sam turned away and stared at the wall before replying. “That would explain why Josie kept her.”

  “What happened to make her run with a baby that wasn’t hers? What happened to make those gangs want all of you dead?”

  Sam tugged at his zipper and shrugged. “The baby’s mother was, uh, well connected, I guess you could say. It was East LA if that means anything to you. Her brother was one of the biggest drug dealers in the area. For that matter, her lover got pretty high up there too. This guy—her man—we grew up with him. He was like a big brother to me, and he was in love with my sister ever since they first met in fourth grade. Only, he dropped out of school in high school and started dealing, and she dumped him. More or less. It got to be a vicious circle of who was hurting who, but the chick he ended up with—the baby’s mother—she had it out for my sister. This guy and the baby’s mom had a kid together awhile back, a boy. They were tied together that way, though neither of them were legit faithful, you know.”

  Carter noticed how Sam didn’t use any names but didn’t stop him to question it.

  “One day, I guess close to two years before things really fell to shit, I ran into that chick at a supermarket. We’d hung out in the same circles, but we weren’t close. She needed money for cigarettes, and I needed a ride. I guess you could say she gave me one. I never saw her alone again until the day she called, begging me to come over. She was hysterical when I got there, saying her kid was mine and a few of the wrong people had gotten wind of it. Minutes later, she took a bullet in the head, and I was holding a crying baby in my arms and had about ten different guys wanting me dead for reasons I hadn’t seen coming.”

  “So, what happened?”

  Sam glanced toward the door, still messing with his zipper. Not for the first time, Carter noticed the dark circles under his eyes and the shiftiness of his gaze. He couldn’t help but wonder which of the two had a harder five years, the sister who made it out but believed her brother dead, or the brother who was very much
alive but unable to locate his sister.

  “We’ll be out of here soon. We’ll talk when we’re back in your car,” Sam answered.

  Carter nodded and closed his eyes. In seconds, he slipped into a doze, the dull burning in his throat pulsing like a lullaby.

  * * *

  “So, where to?” Sam flipped over the ignition, and Carter’s Mustang purred to life. Carter was out of the running for the driver’s seat for a day or so. “Where’s my sister?”

  “How can I be sure that bringing you to your sister cold turkey is the right thing to do?”

  “Look, you dumb shit—no offense.” Seeing the look on Carter’s face, Sam started again. “Sorry, but you can’t possibly know what it’s going to mean to my sister to have me back in her life. To have her back in mine. And every fricking minute we waste, it’s all I can do not to go apeshit on your ass. Five and a half years is a really long time.”

  Carter nodded. “Let’s go by your place. As you pack, you can fill in the rest of the holes. If you can convince me it’s safe to take you there, we’ll go tonight.”

  “I haven’t got much, and besides, everything I own is dispensable. And my lease is month to month; I’ll convince you as I drive. Wait, there’s a cat that comes and goes in my apartment. I keep a window open for him, but I should shut him out if I’m not going to be here.”

  Sam’s place ended up being just a few blocks from the Arch but on a less polished end of town. It was an undersized, refurbished warehouse apartment with a wall of windows overlooking the riverfront. In the right hands, the apartment could have been fantastic. In Sam’s, it was wanting. As Sam had said, it was sparsely furnished with items that looked as if they’d come from Goodwill. It also lacked any real personality, making Carter wonder if his stay was temporary. In the main room, there was a beat-up couch facing a giant flat-screen TV and a MacBook on what looked like an old TV tray. At the far side of the couch, curled against a flattened pillow, at first glance seemed to be a poufy cream blanket but was the fur of the biggest cat Carter had ever seen.