The Last Child

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

The hospital forced Katherine to leave Johnny’s room at nine that night. In one sense, it was hard for her, but in another, it was a blessing. Ken Holloway had called the room four times, refusing to hang up until she agreed to meet with him. He’d been insistent and she’d been strong, refusing each time, explaining that now, finally, she had to put her son first. Eventually, she’d been forced to hang up on him. Twice. After that, she twitched in fear every time the door opened or a noise rose too quickly in the hall.

And then there was the dryness. She tried to be strong, but felt it in every part of her body.

The need.

She lingered by the bed for a final moment. Her son was asleep, his face, as always, like that of his sister. Same mouth. Same lines. She kissed him on the head, then met her cab at the rear entrance of the hospital.

The ride home was white-knuckled. They passed three stores advertising beer and wine, two different bars. She tightened her jaw and dug nails into her palms. When the downtown lights fell away, she allowed herself to breathe. There was dark road, the steady hum of tires on black pavement. She was okay. She repeated it.

I am okay.

The cab started down the final hill, and she saw the house from a half mile out. Light spilled from every window, stained the yard in bumblebee patterns of black and yellow.

She’d left the place dark.

Climbing from the cab, she started for the door, then hesitated. Her hand found the cell phone in her purse. She got as far as the porch, then changed her mind and stepped back. Everything was so still: the yard, the woods, the street.

That’s when she saw the car. It was parked two hundred feet down the road, edged far onto the shoulder. It was too dark to make out the color. Black, maybe. A big sedan that she did not recognize. She stared hard, took a step toward it, and realized that she could hear its engine running.

She took two more steps and the car lights snapped on. Spitting dirt and gravel, the car made a tight, squealing turn and flew up the road, taillights growing small, then dropping away as the road fell.

Katherine tried to slow her breath. It was just a car. Just a neighbor. She turned back to the house and saw that the front door stood open a crack, a long slice of yellow that spread wide when she pushed.

Inside, music played.

“Have yourself a merry little Christmas…”

It was late May.

She turned off the music and moved down the hall. The house felt empty, but the music freaked her out. It was the one song, set to play again and again. She checked the bedrooms first, found nothing out of place. The bathroom was fine, too.

She found the pills in the kitchen.

The orange bottle sat in the exact center of the chipped Formica table. It was bright and shiny, its label a slash of perfect white. Katherine stared at it, felt her tongue thicken. The pills clicked when she picked the bottle up to read the label. It had her name on it, dated today.

Seventy-five pills.

Oxycontin.

In a rage, she tore open the door and flung the bottle into the yard. The lock twisted in her fingers as she drove it home. She checked every window, every door, then sat on the sofa by the front window. She kept her back straight, and felt the bottle out there, a presence in the dark. She ground her teeth and cursed Ken Holloway’s name.

It wasn’t going to be that easy.

Johnny left the hospital at noon the next day. They rolled him to the curb and he stood carefully. “You okay?” the nurse asked.

“I think so.”

“Give yourself a minute.”

Thirty feet away, cameras clicked and whirred. Reporters shouted questions, but the cops held them at a distance. Johnny took it in, one hand on the roof of Uncle Steve’s van. He saw news trucks from the Charlotte stations, the ones in Raleigh. “I’m ready,” he said, and the nurse helped him into the van.

“Nothing too stressful,” she said. “Two of those cuts went plenty deep.” She gave a final smile and closed the door. Behind the wheel, Steve studied the cameras. Next to him, Johnny’s mother kept one hand up to shield her face.

Hunt stepped to the window once Johnny was secured in the back. When he spoke, it was of the deal he’d arranged with DSS. “This is only going to work if you all play by the rules.” He moved from face to face, stopped on Steve’s. “I need to know if you can handle this.”

Steve glanced at Johnny in the rearview mirror. “I guess. Assuming he does what I tell him.”

Hunt looked at Johnny. “This is a gift, Johnny. With all that’s happened.”

“How long does he have to stay away?” Katherine asked.

“It’s up to DSS now.”

“This is bullshit,” Johnny mumbled.

“What did you say?”

Johnny kicked at the floor mat. “Nothing.”

Hunt nodded. “That’s what I thought.” He stepped back, spoke to Steve. “On my taillights. All the way out.”

The drive took twelve minutes, and nobody spoke. At the house, Hunt parked on the grass. Johnny and his mother climbed from the van. She stared at a distant streetlamp, touched her throat once, then went inside. Johnny followed her to his room. On the bed lay his clothes, neatly folded. Her voice was full of apology. “I laid them out last night. I didn’t know what you’d want to take.”

“I’ll pack.”

“Are you sure?” She gestured at his bandaged chest.

“I can do it.”

“Johnny…”

He looked at her, saw how stretched she looked. She’d always been strong, and then, after the abduction, the exact opposite. This face now, it was different, as if the two sides of her were engaged in some fierce struggle. “I should not have lied to you,” she said. “I should never have told you that he wrote.”

“I understand.”

“I didn’t want you to know that we were so alone. I thought-”

“I said I get it.”

She ran a hand over his hair. “So strong,” she said. “So self-contained.”

Johnny stiffened because those were the words she’d once used to describe his father. Johnny had walked into a rare argument, the source of which was still unknown to him. But those had been her words: You don’t always have to be so self-contained! He’d just smiled and kissed her, and that had been the end of the argument. Johnny’s dad was good like that. When he chose to smile, no one could stay angry at him. To Johnny, even now, self-containment and strength were one and the same. Don’t complain. Get the job done. He had that in full measure. What he lacked was the same easy smile. Whether he’d never truly had it, or whether he’d forgotten its feel, he could no longer say. Life, for Johnny, had become a matter of self-containment. He scooped up a pair of jeans, shoved them into a duffel. “Let’s just do this.”

She left the room and he heard the click of her door, the small crunch of bedsprings. He didn’t know which side of her had finally won, the softness or the strength, but experience told him that she was under the covers, eyes shut tight. Her sudden presence in the door, moments later, took him by surprise. She held out a framed photograph, a color shot from her wedding day. She was twenty, all smiles, and the sun spilled perfect color across her face. Johnny’s dad stood by her side, the same reckless smile bending his features. Johnny remembered the photograph. He thought she’d burned it with the rest. “Take this,” she said.

“I’m coming back.”

“Take it.”

And Johnny did.

Then she hugged him with great tenderness; and when she returned to her room, the door stayed closed.

Johnny stopped behind the screen door, duffel pulling hard on one shoulder. Outside, the leaves twitched in a fitful wind. Hunt stood with his head down, hands shoved deep into his pockets. He peered out from deep-set eyes, staring at the house. He did not see Johnny; his gaze touched first one window, and then another, head unmoving, forehead creased in the center. He shifted when Johnny nudged the door with one foot. “You’re not supposed to be carrying that.” He lifted the bag from Johnny’s shoulder. “You’re going to pull those stitches.”

“They felt okay.” Johnny stepped into the yard and Hunt stopped beside him.

“Before we go.”

“Yeah?”

“When you saw Levi Freemantle…” Hunt hesitated. “Did he have anybody with him?”

Johnny considered the question, looking for danger. He’d refused all of Hunt’s questions, but could not see how this could cause trouble with DSS. He saw the hope on the detective’s face, watched it fade as he shook his head. “Just the trunk.”

Hunt’s eyes were tortured, his voice tight. “Nobody at all?” Hunt could not ask the rest of it: No child? No small girl that could melt a heart?

Johnny shook his head.

Hunt paused, then cleared his throat. “Here.” He held out one of his cards, and Johnny took it. “You can always call me. You don’t even need a reason.” Johnny tilted the card, then tucked it into his back pocket. Hunt looked one last time at the house, then forced a smile. His hand touched Johnny’s shoulder. “Be good,” he said, and tossed Johnny’s bag into the back of the van.

Johnny watched Hunt’s car ease into the road, then turn. The van door squealed when he opened it. He climbed in, Steve’s lips twisted in forced cheer. “Guess it’s just us.”

“This is bullshit,” Johnny said.

Steve’s smile fell away. He started the car, and pulled out of the drive. He licked his lips, cut his eyes right. “Can you tell me what happened?”

He was talking about Tiffany Shore.

“I didn’t save anybody.” It was automatic now, metallic. Johnny kept his eyes away from the house. He feared his reaction if he looked at the shell he’d left his mother in, the vacuum wrapped in flaked paint and rotted wood.

Steve accelerated. “Still, your dad would be proud.”

“Maybe.”

Johnny risked a final glance as the house grew small behind them. The swaybacked roof seemed to straighten, its blemishes faded, and for an instant the house shone like a dime. “Are we going to be okay with this?” Johnny asked. “Me staying with you? It’s not my idea, you know.”

“Just stay out of my stuff.” The van crested the hill, and Steve twisted his jaw like it had popped out of joint. The road dropped into shadow. “You want to buy some candy or comics or something?”

“Candy?”

“That’s what kids like, isn’t it.”

Johnny said nothing.

“Feels like I owe you.”

“Well, you don’t.”

Steve inclined his head toward the glove compartment, more relaxed. “Reach in there and grab my smokes.”

Papers and other junk stuffed the glove compartment. Cigarette packs. Receipts. Lottery tickets. Johnny pulled out a wrinkled, half pack of Lucky Strikes and handed them to his uncle. Then he found the gun. It was wedged into the back corner, tucked away beneath the owner’s manual and a coffee-stained map of Myrtle Beach. The grip was brown wood, nicked, the metal blued with a silver shine on the hammer. Cracks discolored the dry leather holster. Next to the gun rested a faded cardboard box of shells that said:.32 hollow point.

“Don’t touch that,” Steve said easily.

Johnny closed the glove compartment. He watched whiskered trees march beside them, the dark spaces between that hinted of giant men the color of smoke. “Will you teach me how to shoot?”

“It ain’t that hard.”

“Will you?”

Steve glanced sideways, appraising, then flicked a skin of ash out the window. Johnny kept his features still, and he was proud of that, because still was not what he felt. He was thinking of his sister and of a giant man with a melted face and a mustee name.

“What for?” Steve asked, and Johnny showed his most innocent eyes.

“Just ’cause.”