Night Light

  Doug moved Aaron behind him, and his grandfather grabbed him. But Aaron wouldn’t be silenced. “Look, I know you don’t like to rat each other out and that’s fine. We won’t tell the cops nothing about you. I just want my sister!”

  The girl from the living room came to the other door, as if curious about the tension.

  “We don’t know nothing about her, kid,” Yellow Teeth said. “Now get out.”

  Doug didn’t like being a drug addict’s bull’s-eye. But Allen blocked the door where the girl stood.

  “Some of you have children,” Allen said in a raspy voice. He turned to the girl. “Are you a mother?”

  Her face slackened. “Yes.”

  “Then think of that tiny three-year-old girl in the hands of a maniac.” His voice broke, and tears filled his eyes. “I’ve lost my daughter. I don’t want to lose my granddaughter too.”

  There was silence in the room. No one moved.

  The man with the gun had steely eyes. “Empty your pockets,” he said.

  “We don’t have any money.” Doug pulled his pockets inside-out. Aaron and Allen did the same.

  “Then we don’t have no information. You got ten seconds to get out of this house.”

  Doug raised his hands. “Okay, put the gun down. We’re going.”

  But Allen still wouldn’t budge. “You people have families somewhere. People who love you and want better for you. People who are praying for you to come home.”

  Doug shot him a look. This wasn’t the time for a sermon about the social perils of drug abuse.

  But Allen went on. “You had a choice. You came here of your own free will. You chose where you are. But little Sarah didn’t choose. She’s the hostage of a man who’s not in his right mind.” He looked from one to another of them, beseeching. “You’re not zombies, you’re human beings. You’re worth more than this. And you can still feel something for a little girl who’s in jeopardy.”

  The man with the gun wasn’t impressed. “Ten … nine … eight …”

  Finally, Allen gave up, and led Aaron through the living room and to the front door. Doug followed, fully expecting the boy to erupt and run back in.

  “Five … four … three …”

  Doug shoved both of them out the door.

  Aaron was drenched with sweat and breathing hard. “They know where she is. All of them or some of them, they know. We’ve got to make them tell us.”

  “Son, they have a gun,” Doug said.

  “I don’t care!” Aaron screamed. “Let them kill me!” He started to sob. Doug reached for him, but he wouldn’t be comforted.

  Tears spilled onto Allen’s cheeks as he cried, “God, help us!”

  In a low voice, Doug said, “It’s dangerous here. We can’t stay. We’ll get Sheriff Scarbrough to come back and shake the place down. That’s the best we can do right now.”

  Aaron’s eyes flashed, and he turned on him. “My sister is missing!” he shouted. “She could be dead. I’m sick of burying people.” The words shot straight to Doug’s heart. “My mother was mean, even to Sarah. She deserved to die, but Sarah doesn’t!”

  The words stunned him. Allen straightened and turned to the boy.

  “You’ve never said that before,” Doug said. “That your mother was mean.”

  The boy was falling apart, and his voice was hoarse with his ranting. “She went psycho sometimes. That last day, she came home all high on something and started beating us all up. And when she hit Sarah and locked her in the closet, I couldn’t take it anymore …” His voice faded as if he realized he’d said too much.

  The girl in the house stepped out on the porch and looked at the boy.

  Doug just gaped at him. “What did you do, Aaron?”

  Aaron smeared his tears. “Nothing!” he cried. “Nothing. I didn’t do nothing. I just distracted her and she came running out after me. At least I got her away from Sarah before she bloodied her nose like she did Luke’s.”

  As the boy raved, the events of Jessie’s last day began to take shape. Aaron had had something to do with his mother’s death, as Doug had suspected. Had Aaron shot his mother in self-defense? Was he Jessie Gatlin’s killer?

  Before Doug could put the thoughts together, the woman hurried off the porch, looking furtively over her shoulder. She headed straight to the frantic boy, tears welling in her eyes. “I saw your sister,” she said.

  Aaron sprang to attention and Doug caught his breath.

  “You did? Where?” Aaron asked.

  “Came by here yesterday,” she said. “The little girl was asleep and he said she was his kid. I didn’t know he had a kid, but then, they looked alike so I figured it was true.”

  “Where did he take her?” Allen demanded.

  “He got a key from somebody. I heard him say something about the old Firestone building over on Lime Street.”

  Doug’s heart raced. “Lime Street. I know where that is.”

  She stood there a moment, glancing back at the door. “I had to tell you,” she said, wiping a tear. “I’d want somebody to if it was my kid.” She swallowed and touched Aaron’s shoulder. “Your mama may not have acted like it, but she loved you. She bragged about you all the time, the way you took care of things. Sometimes she cried because she knew she was doing wrong.”

  “Then why didn’t she quit?” Aaron bit out.

  “Because the dope … it had her in chains. Took over her mind.”

  The girl’s mouth trembled as she got out the words. Doug looked at her, thinking she may have once been pretty, but now her skin was dry and drawn, and fine wrinkles dug into her face. Was she describing her own bondage as well as Jessie’s?

  The girl folded her arms in front of her, and her mouth trembled. “You don’t mean that when you start out,” she said. “You don’t expect to trade in your kids for a fix. You just want to control how you feel for a little while, then the next thing you know it’s controlling you.”

  Allen’s face contorted with the pain of her words. He looked at her with the sadness of a father watching his child self-destruct. “There are places where you can go to get help,” he said. “Find them. Don’t let the drugs win.”

  She made no promises. Wiping her face, she went back inside.

  Aaron just stared at the door, his face blotched with his pulsing emotions. Allen touched the boy’s head and pulled him against him. Aaron pressed his face into his Pop’s chest and sobbed into his shirt.

  Then he pulled away and grabbed his bike. “We have to hurry.”

  Doug threw his leg over his bike. “Let’s go tell the sheriff what she said.”

  They got across town in record time and alerted the sheriff. He gathered his deputies and headed to the building. Doug, Allen, and Aaron followed on their bikes. They held back a safe distance as the team of armed deputies went in. The three of them stood, breath held, waiting for the sound of Sarah’s cries, praying she would run into their arms.

  Instead, the officers came out empty-handed.

  Scarbrough’s frustration rippled in his voice. “They were here, all right. We saw small footprints on the dirty floor. And this.” In his gloved hand was a pile of Sarah’s locks.

  Aaron went crazy. “He’s got my sister! You’ve gotta find him!”

  “He left before we got here, but we’ll go back to that house and find who gave him that key.”

  “We’ll come with you,” Doug said.

  “No.” Scarbrough’s voice brooked no debate. “Go home and take the boy. I don’t want him in the middle of all this.”

  Doug had to agree. It could get uglier than it already was.

  As they rode back home, tears rolled down Aaron’s red face. Doug knew that keeping him home would take a monumental effort.

  sixty-eight

  IT WAS GROWING DARK BY THE TIME THEY GOT BACK TO THEIR garage, and Doug had begun to feel the effects of his wound and his sleepless night. They pulled their bicycles into the garage, closed and locked it. Deni met them at the doo
r.

  “There’s a ransom note, Dad! With a lock of Sarah’s hair!”

  Aaron shot inside. “Where?”

  Deni handed it over. “Some kid said a man paid him a nickel to deliver it to our house. It came about half an hour ago.”

  Aaron took the envelope and pulled out the tendril of hair. He swallowed hard, then pulled out the letter and held it under the light. Kay came in with Marie and the kids. Marie’s eyes were swollen and red.

  Allen read over Aaron’s shoulder, then wilted. “He wants 200 dollars, tonight at 11:30.”

  Aaron’s face came alive. “And he’ll give her back?”

  “Maybe, maybe not,” Doug said.

  Aaron snatched the note away. “I want to take it to him. I want to take the money.”

  “No,” Doug said. “That’s out of the question. I’ll take it.”

  Aaron stood straighter. “But she’s my sister! Besides, you’re already hurt.”

  “I’ll take it,” Allen cut in. “She’s my granddaughter.”

  “No,” Aaron said. “Moe doesn’t know you. He’ll think you’re the cops. And Sarah doesn’t know you, either.”

  “It has to be me,” Doug said. “I know them both. He’s probably expecting me.”

  “It could be a trap,” Kay blurted. “You shot him, Doug. He may just want to get even. We have to get Sheriff Scarbrough.”

  “No!” Aaron cried. “I won’t let you. He said he would kill her. We have to do it his way.”

  “We can’t trust him, Aaron,” Doug said. “He’s a criminal, a kidnapper.”

  “I don’t care! There’s a chance that Sarah’s okay.”

  Doug turned to Jeff. “Son, go to the sheriff’s department and send someone after Sheriff Scarbrough.”

  “No!” Aaron screamed. “You can’t do that! He said he’d kill her!”

  Doug stooped in front of the boy. “Aaron, listen. We’ll do this smart. We’ll have the police hiding. He won’t see them. He’ll think we did it his way.”

  “What if he knows? What if he’s watching the house and he sees the sheriff coming? What if he kills Sarah?”

  Doug thought that over. The boy was right. He looked up at Jeff, who waited in the doorway. “Jeff, tell the sheriff to meet us behind the abandoned Shell Station on Keisler Street in an hour. Ask him not to bring his van. It’ll attract too much attention.” He took the ransom note from Aaron’s hand. “Take this to him.”

  Jeff took the note. “What about the money, Dad? We don’t have two hundred dollars.”

  Doug shook his head. “We still have one hundred dollars of our money.”

  Allan pulled out his wallet and counted his own bills. “I have thirty dollars. How are we going to get the rest?”

  Doug took the thirty dollars. “Maybe the sheriff can come up with it. If not, we’ll start asking the neighbors.”

  “I’ll ask him,” Jeff said, then he hurried out to find the sheriff.

  “I have to take the money to him,” Aaron said. “I’ve always took care of her. I’m not afraid of criminals and mean people. I kept my mother off her, didn’t I?”

  Doug exchanged looks with Kay. He couldn’t let that comment go. Not now. It was too important. He sat down at the table, pulled Aaron into a chair and looked at him, his face close to his.

  “Aaron,” Doug said gently, “I want you to tell me what happened that day when your mother locked Sarah in the closet and bloodied Luke’s nose.”

  Aaron’s face tightened. “Nothing happened.”

  “Then how did you know your mom wasn’t going to hurt the kids more?”

  He looked at his dirty hands. “Because she wasn’t, that’s all. I just knew.”

  “How did you know?”

  Allen intervened. “Doug, this isn’t the time.”

  But Kay was hearing all this for the first time. Frowning, she looked down at the boy. “Aaron, do you know who killed your mother?”

  Aaron’s face seemed to swell with restraint. He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. “No, I don’t know anything.”

  “Aaron,” Doug said, “you told me before that your mom was chasing you. Did you run into the woods?”

  Kay caught her breath and shot an alarmed look at Doug. Deni slowly sat down.

  Allen and Marie were quiet. Beth and the kids came into the room. Kay cleared her throat. “Beth, take the children and go play upstairs, okay?”

  Beth nodded quietly and gathered Joey and Luke, but Joey refused to go. “I’m staying,” he said. “This is my business.”

  Beth took Luke upstairs with her.

  Joey stood looking at his brother. “She had the shower rod and she was hitting us with it,” the younger boy said.

  Aaron sucked in a deep breath, and his lips curled with his words. “She was coming at me and I was running in the woods, deeper and deeper …” He looked at his grandparents and shook his head. “She was just dope-sick, and she took something that made her crazy.”

  Kay’s hands covered her mouth.

  “She didn’t know I had the gun,” Aaron said. “But I did. I found it in her purse and I got it out so she couldn’t hurt nobody. And I turned it on her and I told her to leave me alone or I would shoot. She didn’t stop coming, and the gun was shaking so bad I didn’t know if I could pull the trigger. But I aimed at her legs.” He sucked in a breath. “I thought if I shot her there, she wouldn’t die but she would stop. So I pulled the trigger.” He squeezed his eyes shut.

  Silence hung over them. Doug felt sick. Not only had the boy carried the weight of his family, but he’d also carried this …

  “I didn’t mean to kill her,” he cried. “I only meant to stop her. I didn’t want her to die.”

  Joey started to sob. “You killed her?” The seven-year-old was shaking as he stepped toward his brother. “You told us you found her dead, Aaron! You told us a lie.”

  “I didn’t mean to,” he cried. “She was still yelling when I left her there, still cussing at me and telling me to come back, hollering for me to call the ambulance. I thought I just hit her in the leg. I thought she could walk. She got up and was dragging her leg behind her, and I ran and locked the door and wouldn’t let nobody open it. But she never came.”

  He wiped his runny nose across his arm. “The next day I went back looking for her and she was laying there, blood all over her head, everywhere.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “I didn’t even think I hit her in the head. And I couldn’t tell nobody because if they put me in jail, who would take care of Joey and Luke and Sarah?” Wailing, he looked up at his grandparents. “That’s why God hates me. And you prob’ly hate me too!”

  Allen knelt in front of the boy. “No, son,” he whispered. “We love you.”

  “I had to leave her there ’cause I was scared to go back.” His grandmother pulled him into her arms, and he didn’t resist.

  Doug let the movie roll in his head. Aaron shooting, running away … finding her dead the next day. Telling his siblings she was dead without letting them know how … holding a funeral without the body, just so they’d have closure.

  But there’d never been closure for the boy.

  No wonder he thought he couldn’t be forgiven.

  sixty-nine

  AARON DIDN’T LIKE WAITING. MR. DOUG HADN’T WANTED him to have anything to do with the plans for the ransom drop, and had insisted that he stay home. His grandparents hovered over him, not letting him out of their sight. But as time grew close, his mind worked to find a way to escape. If Doug or the sheriff messed things up, maybe he could convince Moe to give Sarah back.

  Besides, the painkillers Moe had stolen from the doctor’s house might make him careless; he might make mistakes. What if Moe caught a glimpse of the deputies hiding in the trees, waiting to arrest him? What if he got away and took it out on Sarah? What if the drugs made him violent?

  Before they locked up the garage for the night, Aaron made Joey get one of the bicycles and hide it in the bushes.

 
Aaron couldn’t shake his grandparents even for a moment, and when he told them he was tired and wanted to go to bed early, they didn’t buy a word of it.

  “I’ll lie down with you,” Allen said. “I’m tired too.”

  Aaron just stared up at him. “I don’t really like sleeping with nobody else.”

  His grandfather gave him a sad smile. “Aaron, you sleep with your two brothers every single night. You wouldn’t be planning to sneak out, would you?”

  He felt his cheeks getting warm, but he shook his head. “No, I’m just tired, that’s all.”

  “Fine. But tonight I’m going to sleep with you.”

  Aaron had no choice. But he waited, wide awake, for Pop to fall asleep. Unfortunately, his grandfather never closed his eyes.

  Aaron’s mind raced. He sat up in bed.

  Pop looked over at him. “What is it, Aaron?”

  “I have to go to the bathroom.”

  He saw the hesitation on Pop’s face. “Okay. Go and come right back.”

  He thought of running down the stairs and out the door, but Pop followed him into the hall. Aaron went into the bathroom and closed the door, locked it. A windup clock hung on the wall. He grabbed the flashlight they kept by the sink and shone it on the numbers. It was eleven o’clock. Thirty more minutes before the drop. He still had time.

  There was a window over the toilet. He stood on the commode lid and quietly unlocked the latch. Slowly, he pulled the window up. It made little noise.

  He leaned out into the night air and shone the flashlight, looking for a way down. He couldn’t jump from the second story, but in the moonlight he could see that part of the roof extended under that window.

  By the time Pop realized he was gone, he’d be on his way.

  Carefully, he slid out the window and tiptoed across the roof. He climbed down the lattice under Jeff’s window and hit the ground. He found the bike where Joey had hidden it and took off toward the bridge.

  It took him fifteen minutes to ride to the Tenth Street Bridge. There was a park next to the bridge with picnic tables and playground equipment; a wooded area surrounded the park. He got off his bike before he reached the park and rolled it into the trees. Then he peered toward the bridge.