The Last Child

  “No.”

  “What is ‘small yellow’? What does that mean?

  “You work for the same people as DSS.”

  “Damn it.” Hunt’s patience evaporated, and Katherine stepped between her son and the cop. She spread slender fingers, and her words came with rare conviction.

  “That’s enough,” she said.

  “Half of these notes are illegible. There may be information here that is important in ways that Johnny doesn’t fully understand. He needs to talk to me.”

  Katherine looked at her son’s writing. She scanned the notes, then read them more closely. It took some time, but Hunt waited. When she finished, she looked frightened. “If he answers your questions, will that help us with DSS? Or hurt us?”

  “You have to trust me.”

  “Nothing is more important than keeping my son,” she said.

  “Not even getting Alyssa back?”

  “Are you saying that might happen?”

  “Your son, I believe, has discovered a previously unknown pedophile operating in the area. A smart one. A careful one. There could be a link.”

  “Is that likely?”

  Hunt’s doubt showed in his voice. “I don’t know.”

  “Then I have to think about the child I still have.”

  “I’m worried for your son.”

  She held his gaze, and her voice was as sharp and brittle as a shard of glass. “You want us to trust you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Trust the police?”

  “Yes.”

  Katherine stepped forward, shoved the pages at Hunt. “You want to talk about this unknown pedophile. The smart one. The careful one. The one associated with the man that almost killed my son …”

  Hunt tilted his head, and she pointed one finger at an ink scratch that only a mother could read. Her face paled into a porcelain mask of anger and fear. “That word,” she said, “is not ‘cup’ or ‘cap’ or anything safe. It’s ‘cop.’ It says the man with Burton Jarvis was a cop.” She pushed the pages into Hunt’s chest and stepped closer to her son. “This interview is over.”

  —

  After Hunt left, Katherine stood by her son’s bed. She stared at him for a long time but did not ask about the feathers or the notes or the things that Hunt had said. The color fell from her cheeks, and she looked calm. “Pray with me, Johnny.”

  He watched her kneel, felt the anger stir someplace low. For a moment, she’d been strong, and for an instant more, he’d been so proud of her. “Pray?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Since when?”

  She scrubbed her palms on her jeans. “I think I forgot how good it felt.”

  Johnny heard the words as if a stranger had spoken them. It was so easy for her to quit, to throw up her hands and settle for feeling better.

  “He doesn’t listen,” Johnny said.

  “Maybe we need to give him another chance.”

  Johnny stared at her, so disgusted and disappointed that he could no longer hide it. He gripped the rail and felt as if he might bend metal with his fingers. “Do you know what I prayed for? Every single night until I realized that God doesn’t care? That he never would. Do you know?”

  His voice was brutal, and she shook her head, eyes both sad and startled.

  “Three things only,” Johnny said. “I prayed for the rest of our family to come home. I prayed for you to stop taking pills.” She opened her mouth, but Johnny spoke over her. The words came fast and cold. “I prayed for Ken to die.”

  “Johnny!”

  “Every night, I prayed for it. Family home. An end of pills. Ken Holloway to die a slow and painful death.”

  “Please, don’t say that.”

  “What part? For Ken to die? Slow and painful?”

  “Don’t.”

  “I want him to die in fear like he’s put on us. I want him to know how it feels to be helpless and afraid, and then I want him to go someplace where he can’t touch us anymore.” She laid a finger on his hair—sad eyes gone liquid—and he pushed her hand away. “But God’s not about that, is he?” Johnny sat up higher, anger gone to rage, rage taking him fast to tears. “Prayer didn’t bring Alyssa home. Or Dad. It never kept the house warm or kept Ken from hurting you. God turned his back on us. You told me that yourself. Remember?”

  She did. A cold night on the floor of a depleted house, blood on her teeth and the sound of Ken pouring a drink in the other room. “I think that maybe I was wrong.”

  “How can you even say that after everything we’ve lost?”

  “What God gives us can’t be so absolute, Johnny. It can’t be everything we want. He doesn’t work like that. It would be too easy.”

  “Nothing has been easy!”

  “Don’t you see?” She begged with her eyes. “There is always more to lose.” She reached for his hand but he jerked it away. In its place, she gripped the bed rail with both hands and light glinted in her hair. “Pray with me, Johnny.”

  “For what?”

  “For us to stay together. For help in letting go.” Her fingers, too, went white on the rail. “Pray for forgiveness.” She held his gaze for a long second, but declined to wait for an answer. Her head tilted, and the words came quietly. Not once did she look to see if Johnny had his eyes closed, if he had, in fact, joined her in prayer; and that was just as well.

  There was nothing like forgiveness in Johnny’s face.

  Nothing like letting go.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Hunt felt so many things as he stepped out of the room: confusion and doubt about what Katherine had claimed to read in Johnny’s notes; anger and frustration that the boy would not talk to him; relief that the kid was alive, and that Tiffany, too, had survived. Hunt pressed his shoulder blades against a cold wall and ignored the people who passed, the looks they gave. He was exhausted and worried, but hoped that the death of Burton Jarvis was the beginning of the end, that the old man’s violent end was the first step in unraveling Alyssa’s disappearance, too. He tried to convince himself that the sick bastard was alone in the terrible things he’d done; but something foul and slick worried through the back of his mind.

  A cop?

  Was it even possible?

  Hunt tried one more time to decipher the tight scrawl of Johnny’s notes. Some of it was in pencil, smudged. Parts were water stained, others marred by soot and pine sap and tears in the paper. Hunt could read just enough to know that there was more. He wanted to kick the door down and squeeze an answer from the boy.

  Damn it!

  The kid knew things. Hunt was certain of it. He pictured again, as he had so many times, the black eyes and wariness, the profound stillness of deep and careful thought. Johnny was messed up in so many fundamental ways, confused, twisted sideways; but the clarity with which he saw certain things …

  Loyalty. Fierceness. Determination.

  These attributes made the boy so much more than mere impediment. They made Hunt proud and protective. Johnny should know how rare these things had become, how precious in this world. Hunt wanted to put an arm around the kid, make him understand, and, at the same time, he wanted him to stop.

  Hunt stepped into the parking lot, and the sun was too bright, the air too pure. Green grass and sunshine made no sense on a day like this. He looked up at the sixth floor. Johnny’s room was at one end, Tiffany’s at the other. The building gleamed white, and the windows threw back perfect blue.

  Hunt moved for his car and was halfway there when he saw the man in the suit. Reedlike, hunched at the shoulders, he moved from a recess near the far corner of the building, ducked between two cars, and came up on Hunt’s right side. Hunt catalogued him automatically. Hands in plain view, affable smile. He carried folded pages in one hand. A hospital administrator, Hunt guessed. A visiting relative.

  “Detective Hunt?”

  Thirties, wispy hair, skin slightly pocked. His teeth were white and straight. “Yes.”

  The man’s smile broadened
and one finger rose. He looked as if he were trying to place a familiar face. “Detective Clyde Lafayette Hunt?”

  “Yes.”

  He handed Hunt the folded pages and his smile dropped away as Hunt took them. “You’ve been served.”

  Hunt watched him go, then studied the papers. He was being sued, by Ken Holloway.

  Shit.

  —

  Levi Freemantle’s probation officer worked in a warren of offices tucked away on the third floor of the county courthouse. Linoleum peeled from the hall floor and eighty years of nicotine stained the plaster walls. The office doors were dark oak under transom windows that leaned out on brass hinges. Sound carried from behind the doors: arguments, excuses, tears. It had all been heard before. A hundred times. A million. Lies came in a flood, which made a career probation officer one of the most astute judges of human nature that Hunt had ever seen.

  He found Freemantle’s PO in the ninth office down. The plaque on the door frame said Calvin Tremont, and the door stood open. Files were stacked on chairs and on the floor. A fan churned warm air from its place on a scratched metal cabinet. The man behind the desk was known to Hunt. Medium height, wide through the gut, he was close to sixty, with salted hair and lines that looked almost black where they creased his dark skin. Hunt knocked on the door.

  When Tremont looked up, his face carried a ready frown, but it didn’t last. He and Hunt had a solid relationship. “Hello, Detective,” he said. “What brings you up here?”

  “One of your people.”

  “I’d offer you a seat, but …” He spread his fingers in a gesture that included the files on both chairs.

  “This won’t take long.” Hunt stepped into the office. “I left a message yesterday. This is about the same matter.”

  “First day back from vacation.” He gestured again. “I’m not even through my e-mails yet.”

  “Good trip?”

  “Family at the coast.” He said it in such a manner that it could mean almost anything. Hunt nodded and did not push. Parole officers were like cops; they rarely did personal.

  “I need to talk about Levi Freemantle.”

  Tremont’s face offered up the first real smile Hunt had seen. “Levi? How’s my boy?”

  “Your boy?”

  “He’s a good kid.”

  “He’s forty-three.”

  “Trust me, he’s a child.”

  “We think your child killed two people. Maybe three.”

  Tremont’s head moved like the neck joint was oiled. “I suspect that you’ve made a mistake.”

  “You sound certain.”

  “Levi Freemantle looks like the biggest badass on the street, like he’d kill you for a nickel bag, which is not always a bad thing when you have nothing. But I’ll tell you straight, Detective. He wouldn’t kill anybody. No way. You’ve made a mistake.”

  “You have his address?” Hunt asked.

  Tremont nodded and rattled it off from memory. “He’s been there about three years.”

  “We found two bodies at that address,” Hunt said. “A white female, early to mid-thirties. Black male, approximately forty-five years of age. We found them yesterday. They’ve been dead for most of a week.” Hunt gave it a moment to sink in. “Do you know a Clinton Rhodes?”

  “Is he the dead guy?”

  Hunt nodded.

  “Not my case,” Tremont said. “But he’s been in and out of here for a long time. Bad dude. Violent. Now him I could see doing a murder. Not Levi.”

  “We’re fairly confident.”

  Tremont shifted in his chair. “Levi Freemantle is pulling three months on a probation violation. He won’t be out for another nine weeks.”

  “He escaped a work detail eight days ago.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “He walked off and hasn’t been seen since, except by a burned-out drunk who barely knows his own name, and by a young boy who puts him near the scene of another murder. That was two days ago. So you see, I’ve got three bodies, each with some connection to your kid.”

  Tremont pulled Freemantle’s file and opened it. “Levi has never been convicted for a violent offense. Hell, he’s never been accused of one. Trespass, shoplifting.” He snapped the file closed. “Look,” he said. “Levi is not the sharpest tool in the toolbox. Most of these crimes, hell—if somebody said, Levi, go in there and get me a bottle of wine, he’d just walk into the store and get it. He has no sense of consequence.”

  “Neither do most killers.”

  “It’s not like that. Levi …” He shook his head. “He’s childlike.”

  “I have a dead white female. Early to mid-thirties. Any thoughts on that?”

  “He’s been involved with a Ronda Jeffries. She’s white, likes to party. Been known to turn a trick or two on the side. For fun, she likes big, bad men. Specifically, she likes big, bad black men. She got involved with Levi because that’s what he looks like, the toughest mother on the street. She keeps him around because he’s easy to handle and he does what she says. He makes a few dollars and gives them to her. He takes care of the house. Makes her look legit. When she needs a break, or another man, she generally finds some way to get Levi locked up for a spell. It’s like I said, he’ll do whatever she tells him to do. The first time he got arrested, it was for shoplifting. She took a bottle of perfume off a display counter and told him to carry it; then she walked him past the security guard and out the front door.”

  “Are they married?”

  “No, but Levi thinks they are.”

  “Why?”

  A smile. “Because they’ve slept together, and because …” The words trailed off. “Oh, shit.”

  “What?”

  “Who’s taking care of their kid?”

  Hunt felt a chill. “Their kid?”

  “A little girl. Two years old.”

  Hunt reached for his phone.

  “Got a smile that would melt your heart.”

  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.