She had a hard time with that thought—her mind telling her he was dead. It’s been how long now? Eight years? Surely…but she chased that thought from her mind and focused on the telephone poles that ran along the highway, imagining she could hear the voices carried through those lines and trying to guess at what they were saying—she did that as a kid—and she wondered if Maxie had passed those same poles when his kidnappers took him away? A man in town had told her he had seen Maxie get into a car with someone—a man, he thought. Maybe two. But the witness was Rawley Bunkers and he was crazy. Maybe not completely mad, but he was odd. Talked endlessly about nothing. Ran for public office every year—for mayor most of the time. Tried to talk Jillie into voting for him. She said she would, but didn’t mean it. He always got three or four votes. Probably his mother’s, his two sisters’, and his own.
“Jillian?”
And that brought her out of her thoughts.
“You okay?”
“I’m fine. Just thinking.”
“Leave the past to itself,” Henry said. “It’s been eight years. Time for you to have a life. Now I forbid you to think about anything but the good time we’re going to have in Cleveland. And you…you’re going to love the new art museum.” Henry was glad he was able to break away from his work before the weekend. It would give them three extra days in Cleveland.
Jillie thought about what he had said—not thinking about Maxie. He should understand. He had one of his own.
Henry cut around Cambridge, a small crossroads town where I-77 and I-70 meet and then depart from one another leaving exit ramps behind them that stretched for miles. He took Route 22, a two-lane country road that ran through farm fields, bypassing the busy main street of Cambridge and connecting with I-77 on the north end of the city. In twenty minutes he was on the ramp for I-77 that would take them to Cleveland and the brand-new, world class art museum that everyone in Cleveland said was right up there with MOMA in New York City—and visiting New Yorkers would say, Yeah, sure, gimme a break.
Henry’s rental, a black Mercedes sedan—diesel, he explained—sped past harvested corn fields with dead stalks rotting after the reaping; past barns painted red, some near the highway, some backed against a tree-line away from the road, some with tobacco advertisements written in big letters across the side facing the highway—the signs always worn, like advertisements from decades ago; past acres of trees that looked black now that they had lost their leaves; and past cows, some standing, some lying down. Jillie watched it all in her own quiet corner of the car.
“It’s snowing,” Henry said, breaking into her silence, smiling and pointing to the sky where flakes almost invisible were beginning to dance in front of the windshield. They quickly turned to water when they landed.
Jillie nodded, smiling. “Maybe it’ll stick. I’ll build a snowman when we get there.” Why did I say that? she thought, confused about her feelings. But she was resentful of Cooper. He had deserted her. Or...had it been her who...? She shook her head and stared at the gathering of snow building on the highway ahead.
Henry turned on the lights. “We’ll build a fire tonight.” And she felt a sting in her stomach. Oh God. I’m so happy and yet I’m not, she said to herself. And she refused to think of Cooper.
Chapter Sixty-Four
The Inn and Tavern
Friday Afternoon, December 9
Jillie looked at her phone. There were no messages. I don’t know what I expected, she thought. A message from Coop telling me not to do this? It was noon and the snow had taken over the highway. She saw the Akron City Limits sign and knew they were just a half-hour from Cleveland. But Henry didn’t take the freeway downtown. He exited I-77 and took the ramp that fed into I-271 north, Cleveland’s outer belt on the east side. It runs through the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, a forest as green and lush as Saint Patrick’s Ireland, and is part of Cleveland’s Emerald Necklace, a ring of parks that surrounds Cleveland on all sides save the north where Lake Erie spreads out to Canada.
But today the forest, now stripped of its leaves from the fall harvest and bare to the winter winds, was lost in the snowstorm and the highway, now a brilliant blanket of white, was indistinguishable from the roadside. And that made Jillie nervous. So she told Henry that they should stop soon. He said he would.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
Henry smiled. “A surprise.”
He turned off the outer belt and headed west on Ohio 422. They had only travelled a few miles when he turned again, this time left onto a small rural road that wound among hills and valleys and along a stream where water gushed over stones. The storm was less intense here in this New England style countryside with its stone-fronted houses and fenced-in barns—no farms here, just good old country squire living. And then she saw the sign.
“Chagrin Falls!” she cried, excited—and relieved.
Henry took Solon Road to the center of the town where there was a bridge overhanging a stream with a small waterfall that broke under the bridge, and next to it an ice cream store. And he stopped in front of the shop and watched as she stared in wonder at the falls and the water and the bridge.
“I just love it,” she said, and stared for a few moments until…
“How about some ice cream?” he said. “Also, we absolutely have to try their chocolate covered strawberries. They’re famous for them.” He hesitated before opening his door to see her reaction.
“I would love it,” she said, still lost in the falls. The sound of the water washing over the large, smooth stones beneath the falls consumed the silence.
And they ate ice cream and chocolate covered strawberries until they were both filled with the sweetness of it all. We will never be able to eat dinner, Jillie thought. She studied his face, angular and soft, partially covered with a beard, carefully manicured, and no more than four or five days old; the hunting vest that he had thrown on to block out the cold; his hands—delicate like a surgeon’s. She wondered if any of his patients fell in love with him, and she wondered why he hadn’t married all these years, and she also wondered who was the mother of his child—he never talked about her—or about the child—just that he had one, and she wondered if she could love him, this kind, tall, handsome man who was a psychiatrist, trying not to compare him to Cooper. But she couldn’t help it—Cooper was also tall, and kind, and handsome. But she refused to go further…refused to think that she might still love him…
“What are you thinking of?” Henry said, brushing snow from the bridge’s stone railing, smiling as he asked her.
“Oh nothing,” and she stared off into the sky that was now clear of snow but was beginning to darken on this late December afternoon.
“Where will we stay?” she asked, hoping for something romantic.
“You’ll see,” he said, and he took her arm and led her back to the car.
Chapter Sixty-Five
The Rig
Late Friday Afternoon, December 9
They were 100 yards or so from the derrick when Cooper heard a shout. It sounded like someone calling from a megaphone. He looked closer and noticed that the one who shouted was shouldering a rifle. Huck moved the boat closer. The man pulled the rifle off his shoulder and held it high, the barrel pointed skyward.
“Hold‘er there,” the man on the rig yelled.
The deck of the derrick was about ten meters (thirty-three feet) above the water, give or take. There were several boats secured to the pilings around the rig.
“Shut down the motors,” I said to Huck. He did, then reached for his alligator rifle he had laid on the bench behind him.
Richie went below and came back topside carrying his shotgun. I waved him off before the man on the rig could see it. All we needed.
“Why don’t I talk with him?” asked Louise, waving at rifle-man.
She stood near the gunnels and called out. “We suffered some damage in the storm and were hoping for help from y’all,” she said. A little southern girl?
&nb
sp; That caught him. Men seem to have trouble with women from the south. They seem so vulnerable maybe—compared to the straight-talking northern women—and men like to rescue women who are in trouble—the hell with the rest of us on board.
“Well…what kind of trouble you having?” he yelled down, cradling the rifle in his arms.
Louise looked at me and winked—like watch this.
“The motors are not working right and my husband and his friends surely don’t know how to fix a motor. I was hoping y’all could look at them—just quick like—see what’s wrong.”
He replied, “This here’s a private rig, Ma’am. I don’t have permission to let you on board,” in a soft voice, but steady and sure.
I once took Jillie on a ride over a country road in southern Ohio. Near Fire Creek. I got lost and headed up a hill to a house sitting at the top of the drive, almost lost in the trees that surrounded it. About half way up, a man appeared on the porch carrying a rifle. He didn’t point it at us. Just carried it across his chest. “What does that mean?” said Jillie. I told her it meant he didn’t want any visitors today.
And that’s the message I got from the man on the rig. So...
“Let’s turn her around,” I said to Huck, “and get the hell out of here. We’re definitely not wanted.”
He started up the motors and headed back to where we had come from. “Where we going?” he said as he pointed the boat toward the bay. The man on the deck of the rig was still watching until we lost him and the rig in the ebb-tide of the setting sun.
“Back to the crime scene,” I said. “See if we can trace those sounds to their origin.”
Chapter Sixty-Six
The Escape
Friday, December 9
The Boy woke up early, almost like he had set an alarm. Only he didn’t need to do that. He was excited. Nervous. Afraid. And he felt every other emotion that a prisoner would experience before he went over the wall. And today he was going over the wall, past the Asp, before the tutor came, before the Man returned, before the sun rose, before breakfast, but only after he readied his back-pack—with food, with money, with chewing gum—that always settled his stomach—and with a kitchen knife—just in case. So he packed his bag—quietly—so the Asp wouldn’t hear, stuffed some blankets under the quilt on his bed—so it would look as though he were still sleeping—and then went into the fridge and got some apples, and oranges, and bananas—some peanut butter too—just for protein—and he checked the stash of money that he had been saving for eight years in his pack, opened the back door to the house, took the Man’s bicycle from the garage—a cool, 12 speed, with racing tires—threw the pack over his shoulder and set off down the road that led to he knew not where.
The rising sun was at his back, so he knew he was headed east, and he knew that his home was north-northwest. He knew that from studying the maps that his tutor had let him have. The wheels of the bicycle hummed against the tarmac. The woods were silent, and the road was wet from the morning dew, and free of all traffic, this early morning. And the Boy realized that today was the start of a new part of his life, and he was excited, nervous, maybe even a little terrified. But he was determined. So, he peddled steadily and confidently toward the town at the end of the road he had seen on the map so many times, that he had never visited but would this morning. And this was the first leg of the plan that he had carefully laid out for the last few months. The plan that would take him back to his home. Or to what was left of it.
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Into the World
“I want a ticket to Muskingum, Ohio,” the Boy said. And the man looked at him curiously, over his glasses—they were wire-rimmed over eyes that were blood-shot. Maybe from not getting sleep, the Boy thought.
As the man considered his request the Boy studied his face, and couldn’t help but notice the hairs growing out of his nose, and the black hair that was growing out of his ears. Except for the Man who had taken him away, and the Asp, and the tutor, the Boy never really had a chance to meet people, or to study them. Once he talked—briefly—to the mailman. But the Man came out of the house and pulled him away, quickly. Another time a woman came to the door when the Man was not at home and the Asp was busy and she said she was a missionary and gave him a brochure, with angels and devils in a fight on the front cover and the word, Watchtower, written over the top. The Man scolded him for answering the door. “You can’t trust people,” he had said. “Bad people take children away and sell them,” he warned. That scared the Boy and he was careful not to answer the door—though he still did it several more times—when the Man wasn’t around—or the Asp.
“You travelin’ alone?” the man with the wire-rimmed glasses said, his head down, counting the money.
The Boy nodded. The man looked up, a question mark appearing on his head, just above his glasses.
“Yeah,” the Boy said, wondering if he was in trouble. “Goin’ to my grandparents’ house,” he added quickly.
‘Y’all take care, hear?” said the man as he passed the Boy the ticket, the Boy thanking him and looking out to where the buses were parked.
“Yours will be waiting just outside that door,” he said, pointing to a group of people waiting in a line. “You’ll have a stopover at Charlotte, North Carolina, and then again at Charleston, West Virginia,” and the Boy noticed that he pronounced all the names like there was no ‘r’. The Man didn’t talk like that. The Asp didn’t talk like that. Nobody he knew talked like that. He hoped the ticket man didn’t know either one of them.
The Boy had been careful to hide his bicycle so it wouldn’t be visible to the Man or to the Asp if they came looking. He didn’t want them to know he had taken a bus. So he left it in a field near the road. They would think I hitchhiked, he hoped.
“How long?” the Boy asked.
“The stopovers?” the man asked.
“No, the whole trip.”
“Sixteen hours and forty-five minutes, including the stops. You’ll have a one-hour wait in Charlotte,” and he looked behind the Boy at a small line of people waiting to buy tickets.
“Have a good trip,” he said.
The Boy looked down at the ticket in his hand.
“Just give it to the driver when you get on,” the man said, and motioned to the bus.
The Boy checked the big clock on the wall of the station: 7:14.
“Bus leaves in fifteen minutes,” the man said. “Might as well get right out there now,” and he watched the Boy over his glasses as the he walked away tentatively, then the man with the wire-rimmed glasses shook his head and waited on a woman in a fur coat that looked like she had picked it up in a trash bin.
The bus was on its way at 7:30 a.m., pulling out of the station with a full load of passengers and the odor that comes from bodies too close together. The temperature was warming up. Forty-five degrees, the gauge on the bus garage read. The Boy huddled against the window, ignoring the fat man who was pushing against him, trying to settle into a sleeping position. It was going to be about sixteen hours on the road. Lots of time for sleep.
He watched the mangroves slide by, his face up against the window, resting his cheek against the cold of the glass as he followed the scenery: trees hanging over the highway, telephone poles, partially hidden in the density of the overhang. That same smell—like eggs rotting—caught him again. He had remembered it on the way to his new home eight years ago. The driver had said it was the paper mills.
He watched the signs that announced the towns they were entering and the number of miles to the next one. When they got close to a town, the speed limit dropped to forty miles an hour, then twenty-five as the bus slowed through the downtown, which for the most part consisted of a gas station, some slumping stores, and old rusted signs in front of buildings that were leaning toward each other, gravestones for the businesses that used to be there. The bus was following US 21, northbound. He recognized it from the maps that his tutor had shared with him. He had even brought one of the
maps with him so he could follow the route to Muskingum, Ohio.
The morning grew cooler. The Boy could feel the change in the window as he laid his head against it. And the landscape changed—long stretches of open countryside with few hills. He watched as the bus pulled onto a freeway— I-26 the sign read—the Boy with his cheek still up against the window, and the fat man next to him sleeping, sometimes leaning into him, and his odor, like a man who never showered. When they reached Columbia, the bus took the exit onto I-77, and the Boy knew this would be a long stretch. He fell asleep to the hum of the wheels against the concrete, and the snoring of the man next to him, and he forgot about the danger of his mission, and what lay ahead in Muskingum, Ohio.
Chapter Sixty-Eight
The Road
He slept for hours, or at least that’s what it seemed. He woke when the bus pulled into a station, came to a stop in a parking lane, and the driver opened the front doors with a hiss that sounded like air being let out of a huge balloon. Then it was quiet as passengers stirred, murmuring at first, then listening to the voice of the driver announcing an hour layover and that those who were changing busses should be sure to get all their belongings—which for the Boy was just his knapsack. No problem.
The sign on the side of the bus station read, Charlotte—just like the man with the wire-rimmed glasses had predicted. First stop.
The hour layover went fast as the Boy searched for his next bus—It’ll say Charleston, the driver had said. So the Boy looked for that bus first, asked the driver if he could stow his bag on board, and then headed for the restroom.
A Cold Copper Moon (The Cooper Series Book 3) Page 19