The Last Child

  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.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Steve worked the van through town. He passed storefronts and columned mansions, the parklike town square with its canopy of twisted oaks and the statue erected more than a century ago to honor a proud county’
s Confederate dead. Johnny saw a brush of mistletoe in a tree, and thought of a girl he’d once dared to kiss, whose face now he could barely recall.

  A different life.

  Once past the square and the sun-dashed campus of the local college, Steve turned onto the four-lane that led to the mall. It was Ken’s mall. He owned it. “Where are we going?” Johnny asked.

  “I have to stop by work. It won’t take long.”

  Johnny sank into his seat. Steve sensed it. “Mr. Holloway won’t be there,” Steve said. “He never is.”

  “I’m not scared of Ken.”

  “I can take you to my place first.”

  “I said I’m not scared.”

  A half laugh. “Whatever.”

  Johnny forced himself to sit up. “Why does he care so much about my mother?”

  “Mr. Holloway?”

  “He treats her like crap.”

  “She’s the prettiest woman in this part of the state, or hadn’t you noticed?”

  “It’s more than that.”

  Steve shrugged. “Mr. Holloway doesn’t like to lose.”

  “Lose what?”

  “Anything.” Johnny’s confusion showed, and Steve saw it. He narrowed his eyes and pushed smoke through his lips. “You don’t know, do you?” He shook his head. “Christ, almighty.”

  “What?”

  “Your mom used to go out with Ken Holloway.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “Well, you’d better.” Steve took another drag, drawing the moment out. “She was eighteen, maybe nineteen. Just a girl, really.” He shook his head, pursed his lips. “Hotter than a three-dollar pistol, your momma. Could have gone to Hollywood, maybe. New York, for sure. Never did, of course, but could have.”

  “I still don’t believe it.”

  “He was older, but even then he was the richest man around. Not like he is now, mind you, but rich enough. It’d be hard for a pretty girl to resist the kind of attention he could apply if he set his mind to it, and your mother was no different from most other girls. Flowers. Gifts. Fancy dinners. Anything he could think of to make her feel important.”

  “She’s not like that.” Johnny was angry.

  “Not now. But young people like to feel bigger than the place they come from. It lasted for a few months, I guess. But then your dad came back to town.”

  “Back from where?”

  “The service. Four years. He’s what, six years older than she is? Seven? Anyway, she was just a kid when he left, but that changed.” Steve laughed and blew out a low whistle. “Boy, did that change.” Johnny stared out the window, and Steve continued. “Your old man fell for her like a ton of steel.”

  “Her, too? For him I mean?”

  “Your mom was like a butterfly, Johnny. Pretty and light and delicate. Your old man loved that about her, cherished it. He was as gentle and patient as you’d need to be for a butterfly to land in your hand.”

  “And Holloway?”

  Steve stubbed out the cigarette, spit out the window. “Holloway just wanted to put her in a jar.”

  “And she figured that out about him?”

  “You should have seen him when she said she was leaving him for your father.”

  “Angry?”

  “Angry. Jealous. He pursued her hard, tried to change her mind, but three months later your folks were married. You came a year later. It was as sharp a rejection as I ever saw, and I don’t know that Holloway ever got over it.”

  “But dad did work for Holloway. All those houses he built. Holloway was over all the time.”

  “Your daddy sees good in all people. It’s part of what makes him so fine. But Holloway was just waiting to bury him.”

  “Dad didn’t know?”

  “I told him as much, but your daddy always thought he could handle him. He’s prideful like that.”

  “Confident,” Johnny said.

  “Arrogant.”

  Blacktop slid under the truck. The fan belt made a sudden, screaming noise. “You work for Holloway.”

  “Not all of us have a choice, Johnny. That’s a life lesson for you. Free of charge.”

  Steve stopped the van at a light. In the distance, Holloway’s mall rose like a battleship. Johnny watched Steve’s face, and when he spoke, it was of his mother. “Did you want to date her?”

  Steve’s eyes were as flat as a snake’s. “Hell, son.” The light turned green. “Everybody did.”

  —

  The parking lot was slammed, which reminded Johnny that it was Saturday. Steve parked near the employee entrance at the back. When he opened the door, his mirror splashed sun into Johnny’s eyes. “Come on,” he said.

  “Can I wait in the van?”

  “Too dangerous back here. Homeless. Drug abusers. God knows what else.” Johnny watched as Steve touched the objects on his belt: Mace, radio, cuffs. “Come on. I’ll show you something cool.”

  Inside, a key card granted access to a narrow door, metal stairs, and a third-story hallway that led to an office marked SECURITY. Steve swiped his card and leaned a shoulder against the office door. “Kids never get to see this.”

  The security office was large and complex, with a bank of video monitors that covered an entire wall. Two guards sat in black swivel chairs, hands on keyboards and joysticks, changing images on the screens, zooming in and out, observing. They turned as Johnny stepped in, then did a double take.

  One of them was twenty-something and fat, with hair mowed short and a razor-burned face. His smile was at once awe filled and dismissive. “This the kid?”

  Steve put a hand on Johnny’s back, propelled him farther into the room “My nephew. Sort of.”

  The fat guard offered a meaty hand, and Johnny studied it warily before shaking it. “Good job, kid. Wish I could have been there.”

  Johnny looked at his uncle, who offered two words. “Tiffany Shore.”

  The guard made a shooting motion. “Pow.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” Johnny said.

  But the guard was eager. “You see this?” He whipped a newspaper from the counter. “Front page. Check it out.”

  The picture was of Johnny, taken through the window as he sat in the front seat of his mother’s car. His hands still gripped the wheel. His mouth hung open, face shocked and empty. Blood sheeted everything, dark where it had dried, bright where it wept red on Johnny’s chest. Feathers and rattles shone black on his skin, the skull as yellow-wet as a stone soaked in honey. Tiffany angled across the seat beside him, sun so fierce on her face that it shattered in her eyes. Men with clean clothes and long arms reached through the door to pull her out, but she was fighting, mouth tight, fingers desperate on Johnny’s arm.

  The caption ran below the photograph: “Stolen Child Found, Pedophile Killed.”

  Johnny’s voice came in a choked whisper. “Where did they get this picture?”

  “The security guard at the hospital took it with his cell phone. They’re using the same picture on CNN.” The fat guard shook his head. “Probably paid him a fortune.”

  Steve stepped in front of Johnny and pushed the paper away. “He doesn’t need to see that.”

  The guard shifted as he took in Johnny’s face, saw how shadows multiplied in the hollow places. “I didn’t mean nothing.”

  “Is the boss in?” Steve interrupted.

  The guard hooked a thumb at an office door but kept his eyes on Johnny. Johnny followed Steve’s gaze and saw a window and white blinds sheathed in dust. An eye peered out and the blinds snapped shut. “Shit,” Steve muttered. “Has he been looking for me?”

  “Should he be?”

  Steve shrugged, but looked nervous. “Anything exciting?”

  “One shoplifter. Two D-and-Ds.”

  Steve explained. “Drunk and disorderly.” He tapped Johnny on the shoulder and crossed the room. “Come here,” he said, and Johnny followed him past the bank of monitors to a wall of glass that was nine feet high and twice as long. The view was o
nto the Food Court. Steve tapped the glass. “Mirrored,” he said.

  Johnny peered through the windows and could see everything spread out below: storefronts and food stands, escalators, people. The fat guard ambled up, cupped both hands and breathed deeply. “This must be what God feels like.” Johnny wanted to laugh at the absurdity of the comment, the sheer smallness of it.

  Then he saw Jack.

  Red-faced, humiliated, awkward-looking Jack.

  He stood at the edge of the crowd, a small, tan boy with a shriveled arm and no meanness in his entire body. He stood, taking it, because fighting back would get him nowhere, and because walking away would imply that he actually cared about the shame that was being heaped upon him. His tormentors were seniors, lean, muscled kids with self-aware smiles.

  Johnny cringed when he saw spit go down the back of Jack’s shirt; but his anger spiked when he saw Jack’s brother, who stood ten feet away and did nothing to stop it. He was surrounded by fawning girls, four at least.

  Johnny pointed. “Do you see that?”

  Steve leaned forward. “Gerald Cross? Yeah, I see it. The girls have been like that ever since he signed with Clemson. He’ll go pro in a year. His contract will be ten million, minimum.”

  “Not him.”

  “Then what?”

  “Can I go down there?”

  Steve shrugged. “Go. Stay. I’m not your daddy.”

  —

  Johnny pounded down the stairs, through the security door and into the crowd. He smelled pizza and scorched beef, the crush of overheated bodies and, somewhere, an unchanged diaper. He angled for Jack and heard his name whispered. Fingers pointed.

  That’s the guy.

  It took Johnny a minute to understand, but then he did.

  The story was everywhere.

  By the time he crossed the Food Court, a dozen people were watching him, but he didn’t care. One of the seniors was snapping rabbit punches at Jack’s bad arm, hitting beneath the meat of the shoulder, right where the hollow bone had the least protection. Jack was trying to hide it, but Johnny saw that his friend was about to cry.

  Johnny bulled his way into the group and punched the senior as hard as he could. He connected with the kid’s mouth, felt whiskers, teeth, and the ripe softness of a burst lip. The guy stumbled left, caught himself, and his hands came up, fisted. He drew back to throw a punch, then recognized Johnny. “Holy shit,” he said.