The Last Child

CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

Johnny’s body shut down. His chest forgot to move and things went black at the edge of his vision. He stared at the bike and remembered all the times he’d seen Jack on it, how he bitched about the fact that it only had three gears, how he sat cockeyed to compensate for his small arm. He called it the piss bike, because of the color. But he’d loved it.

Hunt was huddled with the others by the cars. Nobody was looking, so Johnny touched the bike. It was small, yellow. He touched rust and cold metal, rubber tires cracked by rot.

The bike was real.

Johnny turned and threw up in the weeds.

All of this was real.

Hunt was listening to one of the firefighters. “The bike went in first and jammed in the bottleneck. Looks like the body went in after. Without the bike, it might have gone all the way down. Another six hundred feet, all that water.” The fireman shook his head. “We’d have never found it.”

“Is it Alyssa?” Hunt looked to the medical examiner.

“It’s a girl,” Moore said. “Approximately the right age. I’ll check dental records tonight. First thing.”

“You’ll call when you know?”

“Yes.”

Hunt nodded. He looked for Johnny, didn’t see him, then did. He was on his knees in the brush.

“Oh, no.”

Hunt got Johnny cleaned up and in the car. He sent the medical examiner away with the body and had the firefighters wrap the bike in a tarp and put it in Hunt’s trunk. That’s where it was now, a rattle when the car hit a rough spot, a question in the back of Hunt’s mind. He shook his head as he drove.

“I shouldn’t have let you come,” he said, but no one answered. Hunt knew his reasons, and knew, still, that it was a mistake. He was too close. Emotionally engaged. His head moved again. “I shouldn’t have let you come.”

They were halfway back to town before Johnny was able to speak. He listened to the wind, to the tires on smooth pavement. “It’s Jack’s,” he said.

Hunt turned as he drove. Johnny and Katherine were black figures in the back of his car. The road was empty. “What did you say, Johnny?”

Johnny looked out the window. A field stretched out beneath a high scatter of small, pale stars. The grass was unmoving and looked purple. Nothing made sense. “The bike is Jack’s.”

Hunt pulled the car to side of the road and stopped. He put the transmission in park and killed the engine. Johnny reached for the handle, but there was no handle. “Open the door,” he said, then heaved again. But there was nothing left. He was empty, drained. Hunt got him out and walked him on the road’s edge. “Breathe,” Hunt said. “Just breathe.”

After a minute, Johnny straightened.

“You’re going to be okay,” Hunt told him, and his voice was comforting. He walked Johnny down the road and back. He kept one hand on his arm, the other on his neck. “You’re okay. Alright? You’re okay.”

Johnny was shaky, but he nodded. “I’m okay.” They got back in the car and Hunt turned on the air for Johnny. Johnny put his face near the vent.

“Better?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Tell me about the bike.”

Johnny sat under the dome light and looked at the shadows that spilled off Hunt’s face. The light was stark but small, the shadows hard-edged. “Jack had the bike forever. He got it old, used. It disappeared about the time Alyssa went missing. He said it was stolen. I didn’t even think about it, the timing, I mean.”

“And you’re certain that this is Jack’s bike?”

“Yes,” Johnny said. “I am.”

Hunt looked from Johnny to Katherine. “Jack’s the one that saw Alyssa pulled into a van. He’s the only witness to the abduction. Now, we have his bike…”

“What are you saying?” Katherine was stretched to the breaking point. Johnny touched her arm and felt heat.

“Maybe it was not an abduction.”

Wind licked in the open window.

“Maybe Jack lied.”

Hunt turned off the interior light and pulled back onto the road. He rolled his window up and it made the same electric-motor noise as the winch. When Hunt’s phone rang, he stared for long seconds at the caller ID. His foot was steady on the gas. “It’s Detective Cross,” he said, and lowered the phone as his eyes rose to the rearview mirror. “It’s Jack’s father.”

“What are you going to do?” Katherine asked.

The car ran smooth. “My job.”

Hunt answered his phone. He listened for a few seconds. “No. I’m tying up some loose ends. Nothing important.”

Johnny saw Hunt’s eyes in the mirror. He was watching the road. Calm.

“No,” Hunt said. “I don’t have any information on that. No. He was at the Merrimon house the last time I saw him.”

A pause. Johnny heard Cross’s voice through the phone. Indistinct. Another hum.

“Yes,” Hunt said. “I will absolutely let you know.” Hunt said goodbye and hung up the phone. Eyes in the mirror. Dash lights on the side of his face. He caught Johnny’s eye. “He’s looking for Jack,” Hunt said. “It looks like your friend’s gone missing.”

Johnny’s mom raised her head, put a hand on the seat. “What does this mean? I don’t understand what this means?”

“I don’t know yet, but I will.”

She settled back and they rode in silence for a long time. Johnny tried to adjust to this new idea, the thought that somehow Jack had lied, that he knew something, anything. Johnny felt betrayed. He felt anger, and then doubt. No way, he thought. Jack had been squirrelly lately, freaked out by Freemantle and Johnny’s recent behavior, freaked out by crows, for fuck’s sake. But Jack was Jack. Jack was slicked hair and stolen cigarettes. He was Johnny’s best friend, full of loyalty, hurts, and secret shames, but a friend who knew what it meant to be a friend. He’d helped Johnny look for Alyssa a hundred times. Ditched school. Snuck out late. This could not be right.

But the bike.

Jesus, the bike.

Johnny studied the side of Hunt’s face. He was a good guy but he was a cop; and Johnny, too, knew what it meant to be a friend. So he said nothing about the tobacco barn or the truck parked in front of it. Johnny needed to talk to Jack first.

Hunt rolled into town, lights rising up on the roadside, stars fading out. Traffic thickened. “Our house is the other way,” Johnny said.

“It’s a crime scene. It’s sealed.”

The street widened out and Hunt turned onto the four-lane that bent around the edge of town. He pulled into the parking lot of a low-end chain motel and Johnny saw his mother’s station wagon parked near the front. “I had it released from impound,” Hunt said. “The keys are waiting at the front desk. The department’s picking up the room.” He steered for the portico and the glass doors. A red neon sign read VACANCY. “You’ll have your house back in a few days.”

“I don’t want to go back there. Not even once. Not ever.”

“We’ll figure something out,” Hunt said.

“What about Social Services?” Her voice was bleak.

Hunt put the car in park and turned off the engine. The red light was bright on the glass, and it was quiet in the car. Hunt turned in his seat, looked at Johnny’s mother. “Let’s worry about that tomorrow.”

She nodded.

“Are you guys going to be okay?” Hunt looked from one face to another and Johnny felt a level of affection that surprised him. He didn’t want Hunt to leave. He didn’t want to be in a crap motel. He wanted to be home. Not Ken’s house. Home. He wanted Hunt to say, one more time, that it would be alright.

“What happens now?” Johnny asked.

“I’m not sure yet. I’ll come by tomorrow. I’ll know more then.”

“Okay.” Johnny reached for the door.

Hunt stopped him. “I need the gun, Johnny.”

“What gun?” It was instinct.

Hunt spoke softly. “Your uncle’s gun. The one you took out of his truck. You don’t have it with you or I’d have asked you sooner. It needs to be accounted for.”

Johnny almost lied, but didn’t. “Jack has the gun.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“That’s unfortunate.”

“He won’t do anything stupid.”

Hunt nodded, but it was not a good nod. “Good night, Johnny. Good night Katherine.”

They got out of the car, alone in the neon.