I grabbed another branch and pulled myself hand over hand through the opening. But the buckle on my gun belt wedged against the sill. I tried to raise my hips, working to ease the buckle over the sill. I heard it scrape on the concrete. I sucked in my stomach, raised my hips as high as I could, felt the buckle slip free, and tugged forward harder, inching through the opening. My hips came through. My thighs. As soon as I was on my hands and knees, I surged up.
Adrenaline burned my muscles as I raced from the bushes at the side of the house. I saw Petey’s truck, which the boards over the window had prevented me from hearing when he’d returned to the house. I didn’t see Kate and Jason, but I was certain that, even dazed, they’d have known enough to run in the opposite direction from the truck. I whirled to charge after them toward the back of the house, to cross the clearing and reach the cover of the forest… .
And found myself ten feet from Petey, who aimed a shotgun at my chest.
He trembled with rage.
I couldn’t draw my pistol and shoot before he pulled the trigger. Even if I hit him, my 9—mm bullet might not kill him, but with a shotgun at ten feet, he was sure to blow my chest apart.
“Stop, Petey!” With my beard, I couldn’t be sure he recognized me. “It’s me! It’s Brad!”
Even before I shouted, his eyes had narrowed. He looked startled. Straining to see past my beard, he realized who I was.
The wind buffeted us so hard, I could barely hear him murmur, “Brad.”
“Listen to me! Did they tell you who Lester was?” I shouted, doing the only thing I could think of to distract him from shooting. “Do you know why they took you?”
“Lester,” he murmured.
“Did they tell you Lester was Orval and Eunice’s only child?”
Smoke poured from the basement window.
Moving away from it, I had to keep distracting him. “Did they tell you he died, that they went crazy with grief?”
The house would soon explode.
“They’d already lost three children to stillbirths!” I kept my voice raised, inching toward the trees. “The rest of the Dants were dead! Eunice couldn’t conceive any longer. Lester was their only chance of continuing the family line.”
Petey sighted along the shotgun’s barrel. “Lester.”
As smoke billowed, I moved closer to the trees. “They were desperate to replace him. But they couldn’t do it in Brockton. That was too close to home. They might have been recognized.”
Petey kept pace with me, the shotgun aimed at my chest.
“So they set out on the interstate, driving from one town to another. They waited for God to direct them, to put a boy of the same age before them. They tried one town after another. They crossed from Indiana into Ohio. They passed Columbus. They came to Woodford.” I spoke faster, more intensely. “We’ll never know what made them leave the interstate and pick our town. Something must have seemed a sign from God. As they drove this way and that, they turned a corner, and there you were, all by yourself, pedaling down a street that seemed deserted.”
“ ‘Can you tell us how to get to the interstate?’ ” Petey said it with such bitterness. “ ‘Do you believe in God? Do you believe in the end of the world?’ ”
The smoke worsened. I tasted it as I neared the trees.
He moved with me, his finger looking tighter on the shotgun.
“They took you, and they put you in that underground room, and they told you your name was Lester, and they punished you if you didn’t act like their son.”
“Lester.”
I thought I saw flames beyond the smoke at the basement window.
“ ‘This my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ Luke, fifteen, twenty—four,” Petey said.
“When you told me you’d been molested, I thought you meant sexually.”
I took another step.
So did Petey.
The wind gusted harder.
“But you didn’t mean sexually. You meant molested in your mind. In your soul. They wanted you to be Lester so much that they beat you and starved you; they treated you like an animal, until you didn’t know who you were. It was so awful that in the end you were ready to be anybody they wanted you to be as long as they didn’t hurt you, as long as they took away your bodily wastes and gave you something to eat.”
“They taught me the good book,” Petey said. “ ‘The truth shall make you free.’ John, eight, thirty—two.”
“The truth is, you can be free. I’ll get help for you, Petey! It’s not too late! Once the police understand why you did what you did, they’ll want you to get help, too. I promise you, life can be better. Don’t let Orval and Eunice destroy you again. Stop being what they made you into, Petey.”
“Don’t call me Petey!”
My voice broke. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am. I know that your life changed because of me, that everything would have been different if I hadn’t sent you home from that baseball game! But, damn it, we were just kids. How was I to know that the Dants were going to grab you? Nobody could have known about them. You were just my little brother tagging along. I didn’t mean for it to happen, Petey.” Tears streamed down my face. “There wasn’t a night since you disappeared that I didn’t beg God to bring you back safe, that I didn’t plead for a second chance. Let me make it up to you, Petey. Please, let me try to give you the life that Orval and Eunice took from you.”
“Stop calling me Petey!”
“You’re right. When you came to my house, you asked me to call you Peter, but I didn’t. We’re not kids anymore. You’re Peter.”
“No! Don’t call me that, either!”
Staring at the shotgun’s trigger, I made a placating gesture. “Okay. Whatever you want, Lester.”
“I’m not Lester!”
“Then I don’t understand. Who are you?”
“Brad.”
The dark intensity in his eyes made clear how serious he was. I’d ruined his life. Now he’d stolen mine. Taking my wife and son, he’d convinced himself that he was also taking my identity. In his mind, he was me. As the depths of his insanity became obvious, my legs felt unsteady. “I’m so sorry. God help you,” I murmured.
“No.” His tone left no doubt that he was going to pull the trigger. “God help you.”
19
The blast hurtled me into the bushes. Not from the shotgun. The blast from the house. As the building exploded, the shock wave lifted me off my feet and threw me into the undergrowth. Wreckage flew, chopping tree branches, shredding leaves.
Dimly, I became aware enough to smell smoke and hear the crackle of flames. In pain, I slowly sat up. I felt dizzy, sick to my stomach. The ringing in my ears was unbearable.
I’d been thrown into a hollow. That was the only reason I’d survived the shrapnel from the blast. Chunks of smoking, burning wreckage lay around me. Bushes were on fire. The wind thrust the flames from tree to tree.
Coughing from the smoke, I staggered to my feet. I stared around, searching for Petey. I faced the burning crater of the house. He wasn’t on the ground where we’d last stood. He must have been thrown into the undergrowth the same as I had been.
Flames crowded me. Kate and Jason. I had to find them. As I stumbled deeper into the forest, I prayed that they’d kept running, that they were far enough away that the fire wouldn’t reach them.
And that Petey wouldn’t. He’d do everything in his power to get them back.
Unless he was dead. Unless the blast had killed him.
Then where was his body? After the explosion, there was so little cover that I should have been able to see his corpse. Where was he?
The wind hurled smoke at me, making me cough harder as I lurched through the forest. While I’d been unconscious, the fire had spread rapidly, leaping from tree to tree. Bushes burst into flames. I zigzagged, trying to avoid flames on my right, only to discover that a new section of the forest was suddenly afire on my left.
I wanted to s
hout, “Kate! Jason!” But they’d been so afraid of me in the house that I doubted they’d answer me. If anything, I’d throw them into a greater panic. On the off chance that they did answer my shouts, Petey would hear them, would go to them.
Plus, if I shouted to Kate and Jason, Petey would hear me, would know where I was.
The fire roared around me. The smoke whirled past, driven by the wind. Fighting for breath, I stumbled into a clearing. Again, the fire leapt into the trees ahead of me.
How far had Kate and Jason managed to go? I remembered the stream that I’d followed into the forest. If I could reach it, if Kate and Jason could reach it, we had a chance.
Reach it? How? I’d been so distracted by my need to avoid the fire that I’d lost my bearings. The same with Kate and Jason. They might be fleeing in a circle.
I fumbled for the compass in my shirt pocket. Squinting in the smoke, I aligned myself in a northwest direction, the opposite of the southeast line that I’d used to approach the house. I put the compass back in my shirt, dodged a flaming branch falling toward me, and ran toward untouched trees northwest of me.
The noise from the fire was filled with pops and cracks as wood ignited. Dry stumps exploded from the heat. A huge chunk of bark and wood blew away from a tree on my right, and I dove to the ground, realizing that one of the blasts was from Petey’s shotgun.
I drew my pistol, dismayed by how violently my hand shook. In Denver, my instructor had warned that no matter how good a shooter was at target practice, nothing prepared one for controlling a gun in a kill—or—be—killed situation. When fear took charge, skill collapsed.
The fire swept closer. I couldn’t stay where I was. But as soon as I moved, Petey would shoot again. I thought of everything that Kate and Jason had suffered, of everything that I’d been through to find them. I thought of Petey leaving me to die in the mountains. Fury compacted my muscles. My hand stopped shaking.
I raced toward another tree. A shotgun blast tore a chunk from it. Immediately I did what Petey would have least expected, charging back toward the flames, toward the tree where I’d hidden. I had a sense of where he’d shot from, a clump of bushes that I now put three bullets into. Smoke enveloped me. I held my breath and used the smoke for cover, rushing toward those bushes, angrily putting three more bullets into them. But when I crashedb through, what I found wasn’t a body, only an empty shotgun shell.
I crouched, breathing hoarsely, scanning the undergrowth for movement. But everything was in motion as the heat from the flames added to the force of the wind. The empty shotgun shell. How many times had Petey shot at me? Two that I knew of. How many shells did a shotgun hold? In the gun store where I’d taken lessons, I recalled hearing that most held four in the magazine and one in the chamber. Petey’s shirt pockets hadn’t bulged from spare shotgun shells. As far as I knew, he had only three shots left.
My back felt so scorched that I had to rush toward farther cover. Staying low, I reached more bushes, took advantage of the smoke around me, and raced toward another tree stump. Blam! The top of the stump disintegrated. The shocking pain in my left shoulder felt as if hornets had stung me at enormous speed. I lurched back, shooting as I fell. I hit the ground, hoping that what had struck me were chunks of wood from the stump. But the blood on my shoulder warned me that I’d been struck by metal pellets. The only reason that my arm hadn’t been separated from my shoulder was that Petey had shot from a distance. In the confusion of the smoke and the flames, his aim had been thrown off. Only part of the spray had hit me.
The wound throbbed. I had trouble moving that arm. But I had no trouble moving the rest of me. I was so primed with fear and adrenaline that I rolled toward a fallen tree, knowing that I didn’t dare stay where I’d fallen. The fire again scorched my back. Its wind—driven smoke enveloped me. But it had to be enveloping Petey also. He wouldn’t be able to see me.
I pulled the compass from my shirt and checked it again. Straining not to cough and let Petey know where I was, I aligned the compass on a northwest route and shifted forward through the fast—moving haze. I couldn’t see more than five feet ahead of me. Prepared to shoot the instant I saw a threatening shadow, I worked farther through the forest, checking the compass frequently.
Blood dripped from my left shoulder. I felt lightheaded. The fire was about to get ahead of me. Heat shoved me, urging me to move faster.
I was so busy watching the blowing smoke for a sign of Petey that I didn’t pay attention to the ground. The slope to the stream was about six feet deep. I’d have fallen into it if a deer hadn’t charged from the flames on my right. It startled me, crashing past me and down, splashing through water, then bounding up the opposite side.
I squirmed down to the water, feeling cool air. The stream was shallow. I crossed it, oblivious to my hiking boots and socks getting wet, concentrating on where Petey might be. On my right, farther along the stream, a shadow moved amid the smoke. I started to shoot but stifled the impulse, realizing that the shadow might belong to Kate as easily as to Petey.
I kept aiming. The smoke made my eyes water as I strained to see along the barrel. I stared at the smoke, waiting for the shadow to become more distinct.
The shadow disappeared. Whoever it was had climbed from the stream and continued through the forest. Keeping pace with it, I struggled up the slope and passed through smoky undergrowth, watching for the shadow to come into view again.
I kept thinking, If it was Kate, wouldn’t I have seen a smaller shadow with her: Jason?
Not if he was on the other side of her.
I had to be certain before I pulled the trigger. Creeping farther through the trees, I blinked tears from my smoke—irritated eyes and stared toward the indistinct forest on my right. Something moved. For an instant, I caught a glimpse of Petey’s beard. He raised his shotgun. I pulled the trigger.
Abruptly I was almost blinded as a gust of wind tossed flames overhead. Trees and bushes erupted into fire ahead of me. Feeling the explosion of heat singe my hair, I stumbled backward and this time did lose my balance. When I fell down the bank of the stream, I landed on my wounded shoulder. I strained not to cry out, rolling down to the water, coming to a painful stop.
It took all my effort to stand. I’d dropped my compass. I couldn’t find it. Not that I could get any help from it now. With the fire ahead and behind me, with Petey possibly on my right, the only safe direction was to the left along the stream. I had no idea if I’d hit him. But if I hadn’t, he’d need to take shelter in the stream, which meant that he’d stalk along it in my direction. All I had to do was find a curve in the stream, hide, and ambush him.
I couldn’t remember how many times I’d shot. My pistol might have been almost empty. Trying to keep my hands steady, I pressed a button on the side, dropped the magazine, grabbed the fifteen—round spare from the pouch on my belt, and slammed it into the grip, ready to shoot again.
My vision grayed. As the smoke thickened, I fought for air, realizing that the fire was sucking away oxygen. The flames squeezed closer. Afraid that I’d pass out, I worked along the stream, trying to stay on the bank, to avoid making noise in the water. But loss of blood added to my dizziness. I couldn’t control where my hiking boots landed, sometimes splashing in the water, sometimes slipping through mud.
Hot air seared my nostrils. I rounded a curve, its slope protecting me from the flames above me on my right. I lurched around another curve, and cool air struck my face. I’d reached a section of the stream that wasn’t yet bounded by fire. The coolness was the most luxuriant thing I’d ever felt. I sucked it into my lungs, hoping to clear my thoughts, to get rid of the spots that wavered in my vision.
As the fresh air took the gray from in front of my eyes, I staggered to a halt at the sight of footprints in the mud. Two sets of them. An adult’s. A child’s. They were following the stream, as I was.
Kate. Jason.
I whirled toward urgent footsteps splashing through the stream behind me. But as I aimed
, it wasn’t Petey, but a panicked dog that scrambled into view. It raced out of sight along the stream. The air became hot again. The flames drew closer.
I ran in the direction of the footprints. A tree had fallen across the bank. I ducked under it, straightened on the other side, and groaned as something heavy walloped across my forehead. The blow sent me reeling back against the tree. Dazed, I sank to my knees in the water. Blood trickled down my face. I tried to clear my blurred vision.
Her eyes frantic from the drugs, Kate stood over me, a clublike branch raised to hit me again. Jason cowered behind her.
“No, Kate.” I was appalled by how distant my weakened voice sounded. “Don’t. It’s me.”
“You bastard!”
I managed to raise my right arm before she struck me again. The club whacked below my elbow, deflecting the blow, but the pain that shot through my arm made me fear that she’d broken it.
My pistol thudded onto the bank.
“No, Kate, it’s really me! Brad!”
“Brad!” Kate shrieked and struck again with the club.
I dove to the right, barely avoiding the blow. It smashed into the stream. She swung again. I rolled as she kept swinging.
She gaped at something behind me.
I followed her gaze.
Petey’s face showed above the tree that spanned the stream. His forehead was covered with soot. His hair and beard were singed. His shirt was blackened by smoke. Blood flowed from his left shoulder, where I’d evidently hit him the last time I’d pulled the trigger.
His shotgun rested on the horizontal tree, its barrel facing us.
Jason backed away.
“If you know what’s good for you, son, don’t take another step,” Petey told Jason.
I was on my back in the stream. My right arm was useless, probably broken from when Kate had struck it. My buckshot—punctured left arm was in similar agony, but at least it was mobile. Sweating from the effort, I groped for the knife on my belt.