The Forgotten Child

by Melissa Erin Jackson

  Maybe she could finish her third viewing of Tiana’s Circle …

  Jade’s words came back to her: “Don’t you usually take Thursday nights off to watch your shows?”

  Her shows. Was that really all she did anymore? Why hadn’t Jade intervened sooner?

  But she’d tried, hadn’t she?

  Riley threw back her comforter and took the longest shower of her life. She brushed her teeth, gargled with mouthwash, then brushed again.

  As she was up close and personal with her reflection, examining the state of her pores, something shifted in her peripheral vision. Something dark, like a cat zipping past. But Riley didn’t have a cat.

  Stepping out of her bathroom, she gave a quick scan of her bedroom. No movement. She waited, listening. Saw nothing. Heard nothing.

  It was just a lingering creepy-crawly feeling, courtesy of the ranch, she told herself. She went back into the bathroom to continue scrutinizing her face.

  When she felt semi-human again, she replied to Michael.

  You pick a place for lunch yet?

  He immediately replied with, How do you feel about pizza?

  I feel great about pizza.

  I knew I liked you. What time are you free?

  Now. She texted him her address.

  Leaving in 10!

  Riley never wore much makeup but given the vomiting in the cellar and the freak-out over the haunting, she needed a little something extra to help decrease her disaster-status. Plus, she’d just accepted that she wasn’t living her best life, but the life of an eighty year old. Mascara to the rescue.

  Though her eyeshadow game wasn’t as strong as Pamela’s, it helped hide the less-than-six-hours-of-sleep under-eye bags she was rocking. After changing nearly ten times, she finally settled on a black tank with a white, off-the-shoulder top over it, jean shorts, and sandals. She left her hair down, curls mostly behaving.

  I’m out front, Michael texted.

  Be right out!

  Breathe, Riley. It’s only pizza.

  Michael was leaning against his passenger side door when she walked out of the pedestrian gate a few feet from where he was parked near the apartment call box.

  He gave her an elevator scan without moving away from the car and she felt suddenly exposed. “Hey, gorgeous.”

  “Hey,” she said, walking up to him, reminded of high school. Of how shy and nervous she’d been any time a guy came to pick her up.

  Granted, there hadn’t been any guys as hot as Michael in high school. Except for Mr. Kirk the English lit teacher, but that was another matter entirely.

  Michael wore jeans and a just-tight-enough gray shirt. His short brown waves were slightly out of control, and he’d left the day-old stubble unshaven. “You ready to have your mind blown?”

  “This better be some damn good pizza.”

  The hole-in-the wall restaurant had a gaggle of people waiting out front for their carry-out orders. Inside, the dozen tables were almost all full, and a small line formed at the door shortly after Riley and Michael scored the last table at the back. All fifteen barstools were full, too, a soccer game playing on a single screen up in the corner opposite Riley’s table.

  Michael ordered a pepperoni and sausage pizza and a side of cheesy garlic bread, then told her to wait to experience nirvana.

  Riley let out a completely embarrassing groan after the first bite. Michael lit up like a Christmas tree.

  “Ha! I’ve impressed you!”

  A bark of laughter sounded to Riley’s right.

  “You say you impress her as if you cook the thing yourself.”

  Michael, whose back faced the restaurant, stood up suddenly, arms out. “Tony!” he said, dragging out the two syllables in an elongated drawl Riley swore she’d only heard in Italian mob movies.

  “Mikey!” Tony replied in an identical fashion.

  A sixty-plus-year-old short man emerged from behind a pair of swinging doors. He embraced Michael in a bear hug, only coming to Michael’s chest. He wore a stained white T-shirt and black pants—his protruding belly hanging a bit over the top—and sported a sparse comb-over.

  “Paul came back to tell me he saw you come in,” said Tony. “Haven’t seen you in a while. Where you been?”

  Michael angled his head in Riley’s direction.

  Tony glanced at her, where she was still seated in the booth. “Oh ho! What have we here? You bring a girl here for once?”

  Michael smiled at her. “Tony, this is Riley. Riley, this is Tony.”

  Riley stood and held out her hand, oddly pleased Tony was surprised to see him there with a date. “Nice to meet you.”

  “Get in here,” he said, pulling her into a tight hug. He smelled like flour and garlic.

  “I’m trying to get this girl to like me, Tony. Don’t tell her anything embarrassing.”

  Tony pulled away, but held fast to her hands. “Mikey is a good guy. But between you and me—” he shot a look at Michael over his shoulder and made no attempt to lower his voice, “—I’ve seen him try to pick up women here. He’s very bad at it.”

  Riley laughed. “Oh? Do tell.”

  “All right, all right,” Michael said from behind them.

  Tony laughed and deposited a kiss on the back of either hand. “You need anything, you let me know. Mikey’s like family. Like the extra son I never wanted.” He made a dramatic show of dodging while Michael pretended to give him a swift kick in the rear.

  With a final wink to Riley, Tony ducked back through the swinging doors.

  “He’s fun,” she said, sitting back down.

  Riley tried very hard not to make obscene noises while she polished off the rest of her pizza. “I would like more information on your failed attempts at hitting on women.”

  He wrinkled his nose. “The one time I had a drink thrown in my face just happened to be when Tony was watching …”

  With a gasp, she asked, “What did you say!”

  “Nothing!” he said, hands up to show his innocence. “I just used the ‘If I told you that you had a nice body, would you hold it against me?’ line and she was not amused. She was also close to twice my age.”

  Riley was caught between amusement and horror. “Oh my god.”

  “My only defense was that I was twenty-two and the world’s largest idiot.”

  “Was?”

  He tossed a wadded-up napkin at her. She’d learned from last time, though, and swatted it back effortlessly, beaning him square in the forehead.

  Smiling at her, he said, “How long do I have you for?”

  “I’ll let you know when your time’s up.”

  They went to an open-air flea market in Albuquerque, wandering around for a couple hours. They looked at handmade jewelry, painted ceramics from Mexico, clothes, and somehow managed to eat more. Riley polished off half a bag of caramel popcorn before thrusting it at Michael and telling him never to let her eat again. Half an hour later, they each had an ice cream cone.

  A long stroll through Old Town Albuquerque ended at yet another restaurant sometime after seven. Riley told him about the time she’d locked herself in her parents’ car when she was three and had to be rescued by the fire department; he told her about the one and only time his father participated and won a food challenge because his spleen ruptured. The Chicken Wing Challenge hadn’t caused the rupture, but Michael and Donna had felt so bad for him that they gave him a pity win and the pair agreed to watch the Golf Channel all day.

  A waiter stopped by the table, interrupting Riley’s very detailed account of the guy she’d seen last week in the grocery store who had a ferret poking out of his fanny pack.

  “Just wanted to let you folks know we close at ten …”

  It was 9:55.

  “Yikes when did that happen?” Riley asked, then stifled a yawn.

  “I think maybe my time is running out,” he said, watching her from across the table.

  “Just a little behind on sleep.” Another yawn seized her.

&
nbsp; “I’m taking you home now,” he said, laughing. “At this rate, I’ll have to carry you inside.”

  Leg bouncing, Riley watched the passing scenery, now muted shades of blue and black. Why was she nervous now? They’d been together all day.

  She buzzed them through the gate and he pulled into a guest spot. Parked. They didn’t move. Should she invite him up? She should probably invite him up. Even though the date had lasted nearly ten hours, she wasn’t sure she was ready to say goodnight to him yet. But she needed to sleep, too.

  “Is it too much to ask if I can see you tomorrow?”

  She glanced over at him. He seemed tense, shoulders rounded.

  “Not sick of me yet?” she asked.

  “Not even a little bit,” he said. “But, uh … this is going to sound really stupid but—can we take this kind of slow?”

  “Yes!”

  He laughed, straightening. “Yeah?”

  She nodded.

  “Okay. I just … I really like you, Riley. It’s actually scaring the shit out of me. And I just don’t want to screw up.”

  “Who told you that you couldn’t express your feelings?”

  His mouth quirked up on one side. “Every girlfriend I’ve ever had. And … uh … most recently, my therapist.”

  Oh. Oh.

  “And that same therapist said I should be really transparent with the next woman I’m interested in …”

  When he paused for longer than seemed necessary, she wondered if he sought permission to continue. “Transparent about what?”

  “So. Uh. When Kim, my ex-fiancée, and I broke up—you know, after her whole affair with a student thing—I did not take it well. Eventually, thanks mostly to Donna, I went to talk to someone. Which I’m still pretty shit at. My family’s gotten better at talking in general, but I still had a really hard time with all of it. I’d say I was fine when I wasn’t.”

  “How long have you been going?”

  “I went weekly for about a year. I’ve scaled it back to once a month.” His shoulders were rounded again, gaze focused on his lap. “I wouldn’t have gotten through it without a significant drinking problem otherwise.”

  Unsure of how to react to this, Riley reached out and gently placed a hand on his back. “I’m really glad you went.”

  He flinched slightly, as if startled, but nodded. “Me too.” Sitting straighter, he focused on her, rather than addressing his lap. “I just … I wanted you to know. People hear ‘therapy’ and get a little creeped out.”

  “I’m not creeped out. I get visited by dead people, remember?” she said. “I want to see you tomorrow.”

  His smile made her stomach flutter. Lord was she in trouble.

  Walking her to the base of the stairs, he kissed her on the cheek. “I’ll call you in the morning, okay?”

  All she could manage was a nod.

  “Night, Riley.”

  “Night, Mikey.”

  “Don’t.”

  Grinning, she hurried up the steps without tripping. The night had definitely been a success.

  CHAPTER 12

  After a long, hot shower, her hair wrapped up in a towel, Riley suddenly felt wide awake, wired after her conversation with Michael, and the memory of the soft, warm kiss on her cheek. She sat on her couch with the next episode of Tiana’s Circle loaded and ready, but she couldn’t get herself to hit play. If only Jade were there to grill her about every little detail of the day.

  A very small part of her wished she was still at the ranch so she could talk to all the girls about it. Too bad the place was four hours away and crawling with spirits. If it wasn’t already so late, she’d call Pamela.

  Something quick and black darted in her peripheral vision, just as it had that morning. But when she turned her head, nothing was there.

  The memory of Pete watching her from the top window twisted her gut. Her time with Michael had been a welcome distraction, but it was all coming back to her now. Riley had been lucky enough to have a way off the ranch, but Pete didn’t. In life or death.

  Another quick dash of the dark not-cat. Riley pulled the towel off her head, her damp curls falling against her shoulders. Nothing.

  The temperature in the room plummeted abruptly. Goosebumps raced across her skin.

  “Hi.”

  Riley shrieked, leaping to her feet with a speed that surprised even herself. Behind her couch stood Pete himself. Her heart slammed in her chest. “Oh my god, kid. You can’t sneak up on people like that.” Then her brain caught up. “How are you here?”

  He wore his Scooby Doo shirt again. A pair of beat-up white sneakers peeked out from the hems of his jeans. His hair wasn’t tamped down by the maroon beanie this time, his dark curls wild. The image of him flickered then, like an electrical glitch. Then he solidified again. “I followed you.”

  Riley placed a hand on her forehead. He followed her? “How?”

  “I didn’t want you to go. You’re nice.” His voice was quiet when he said, “Orin’s not nice.”

  Riley blew out a slow breath.

  “I don’t like it there,” Pete said, chewing on his bottom lip. “Can I stay with you?”

  How was she supposed to tell him that she could hardly take care of herself, let alone a kid? She shook her head. He’s not alive, she reminded herself. No matter how real he looked standing there in her living room.

  His image flickered again. There, not there, there, not there.

  “Pete?”

  Gone.

  Riley quickly rounded the couch, as if she expected to find him squatting behind it. Some ghostly version of hide-and-seek. She checked every room, but he was gone. Into thin air, just like Mariah.

  Flopping onto her couch, she covered her face with her hands. The temperature had returned to normal at least. This couldn’t really be happening, could it? She’d moved out of her last apartment because it was haunted. She really liked this one. And breaking her lease—again—would be a pain in the ass.

  Don’t get ahead of yourself.

  Heart thumping, she pulled in a long breath through her nose, then let it out slowly. Just as Nina had told her to do in the cellar. In … out. In … out.

  Gradually, she took her hands away from her face and scanned the living room. No little ghost boys. Maybe she’d imagined it. But she knew she hadn’t.

  Unable to stay idle for long, she snatched up her phone and opened the browser. “Can a ghost follow you home?” she asked her search engine.

  It didn’t take long to get the answer. Sometimes ghosts tagged along with those sensitive to their presence. Sometimes they piggybacked with people who took items of importance to the victim from a location. She hadn’t taken anything. Perhaps what Pete had told her was true: he didn’t like the ranch, so he’d followed her. Easy as that.

  Sighing, she did anther search and found his missing persons’ photo again. The wild mop of curly hair tamped down by a maroon beanie, and the half-smile that lit up his eyes.

  Obviously, she couldn’t let him stay with her indefinitely. He couldn’t go from being trapped at the ranch to being trapped with her. He needed to move on—or whatever it was that ghosts did. Maybe his dad was waiting somewhere for him.

  But in order to find his body and free him, Riley would have to return to the ranch. Her stomach churned at the thought. Guilt or not, could she deal with another run-in with Orin’s ghost? And where in the hell would she even look? Out in the woods, in that clearing she’d seen in her dream? Buried somewhere near the dude ranch, since Pete seemed to spend a good deal of time there too? In the house?

  For all she knew, he’d been buried under the concrete floor of the cellar.

  Though her gut told her Orin hung out in the cellar exclusively, it didn’t mean he couldn’t move locations if he wanted to. If Orin popped up in her apartment next, she’d break her lease and go on the lam. Being haunted by a serial killer ghost was above her pay grade.

  The cellar had been the place of Orin’s prized “work,” a
nd while the physical evidence of that had been taken out, he still felt the need to protect it. She hoped he’d stay there.

  The memory of her dream came back to her. It made more sense to her now. Her chasing Pete, and Orin chasing her.

  Knowing she would likely regret it, she swapped her phone for her laptop, then typed “Orin’s Girls” into the search bar. Of the five bodies recovered, none had been found in the cellar. All manner of tools had been found, though: knives, scalpels, rib spreaders, bone saws. The bodies, however—minus various organs—had been buried outside.

  Given the varying level of decomposition of the bodies, it was assumed he’d buried one girl a year. A year of torture and mutilation before he put them in the ground.

  Most of the girls were runaways. One hadn’t been identified; she’d been decapitated before she was buried, her head never found. It was speculated that she’d been killed three years before she’d been discovered. The body had been so decomposed, they hadn’t been able to gather any identifying information.

  Jane Doe, ten to twelve years old. No pictures.

  All investigators had to go on when it came to figuring out what had happened in the cellar were the tools in the cellar and the five bodies out back. In the short video of Mindy not long after her escape, the girl had looked around repeatedly, as if she was sure Orin was out there in the crowd, ready to snatch her up and drag her back. It reminded Riley of Pamela, shooting looks over her shoulder, sure his ghost still lingered there.

  Had Mindy been too scared to speak about the others even though Orin was in custody with no hope of being released? Yet, even after his death, Mindy still didn’t talk.

  Orin, however, had reported several times that he’d had an accomplice named Hank Gerber. Swore up one side and down another that if he himself was to be arrested for kidnapping, then Hank should be too. No Hank Gerber who even remotely matched Orin’s description had ever been found, of course. Orin pleaded guilty to the kidnapping charge but claimed he hadn’t meant Mindy any harm—said that he’d hoped to adopt her one day.