The Forgotten Child

by Melissa Erin Jackson

  “You can’t know that.”

  “Should I delete my page?”

  “It might look suspicious,” Riley said. “Plus, you’ve been back for two years and he’s left you alone. He could just have creepy internet habits.”

  Riley sure as hell did.

  “Crap.” Mindy did her two-handed hair tuck again. “I gotta go.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah,” she said, scratching the side of her neck. “I get anxiety attacks sometimes. I just need to walk it off. Sorry.”

  Mindy grabbed her purse and jacket, gave Riley an awkward side-hug, and fled.

  Blowing out a long breath, she turned the laptop to face her head on, then she logged out of Mindy’s account and back into her own.

  A chat request waited for her now.

  She hit accept.

  Hank Carras: hi

  Riley Thomas: Hi

  Hank Carras: thanks for accepting my request

  Riley Thomas: No prob

  Hank Carras: Your cute

  Riley cringed.

  Riley Thomas: Thanks … you too

  Hank Carras: hope its not weird i contacted you i like to know who looks at my page just a curious guy i guess

  Riley Thomas: No, it’s cool. I’m just embarrassed you caught me!

  Hank Carras: your to cute to be embarrassed

  Riley rolled her eyes and sent a blushing emoji.

  Hank Carras: so whats up?

  Riley had no idea what was up other than this dude had a violent past and was paranoid enough to keep tabs on who visited his page. He thought she was cute; she could chat him up for information. But the idea of fake-online-dating him for intel made her want to throw up—plus she’d never do that to Michael.

  Hank Carras: common cutie don’t be shy

  What the hell reason could she possibly have to be creeping around this guy’s profile? When she first contacted Mindy, the voicemail message she left had mentioned writing an article. Could Riley say she was a reporter? Her profile didn’t reflect that, but she could always say this was her personal page, not her professional one.

  Hank Carras: you fall asleep on me?

  A story about what, though?

  Riley Thomas: Sorry! Got up to grab something to drink

  Hank Carras: what you drinking

  Riley Thomas: Wine

  Hank Carras: mmmm

  She hated this guy already. But she kept him talking about nonsense for another fifteen minutes until she came up with a semi-decent lie.

  Riley Thomas: So I hope this isn’t forward of me …

  He sent a winking face. She rolled her eyes again.

  Riley Thomas: I’m a freelance writer and I’m doing a piece about men who have done jail time, got out, and turned their lives around. I’ve been very impressed with the work you’ve been doing at your company. I apologize that I’m doing this on my personal page, but you caught me while I was trying to do some off-the-clock snooping. I’ve always found such strength in people who are able to learn from past mistakes. You seem like a shining example of that.

  She crossed her arms and waited, half expecting him to log off or block her. The other half expected him to gather his wits about him and then curse her out.

  Tapping her foot, she saw that he didn’t sign out or block her. It didn’t say he’d gone idle either, so he was trying to figure out what to say. She decided to appeal more to his ego.

  Riley Thomas: So many young men are convicted of crimes and never truly recover—bouncing in and out of the system. You found a way to rise above that. I think your story could be an inspiration to so many others.

  No reply. Appeal to vanity.

  Riley Thomas: Plus, you’re gorgeous, so you’d pull readers simply from your cover picture

  Hank Carras: i could be the cover story?

  Riley Thomas: My editor loves this idea; I think I could convince him to have you be the lead story.

  Hank Carras: if you can show me some proof of who you are i’d be down to meet with you

  Meet with her. In person. Mindy, Michael, and Jade would all smack her upside the head for agreeing to that.

  Riley Thomas: I’ll work something up and email it to you. What’s your email?

  After getting his information, she made up an excuse and logged out. Her heart pounded in her chest.

  Oh, this is a bad idea.

  Packing up her things, she hustled for the exit. Her waiter seemed relieved that she was finally leaving. It was nearing four, so it was slow—that in-between lunch and dinner time—but she was sure he didn’t want to have to keep checking on her to see if she needed anything else when she so clearly didn’t and was just soaking up their free Wi-Fi. She had almost made it to the door when she backtracked and tapped the waiter on the shoulder, where he’d been wiping down menus.

  His eyes widened.

  Fishing a ten-dollar bill out of her purse, she said, “Thanks for letting me hang out back there.”

  “Oh, you don’t have—”

  “I’m a server, too. Consider it a professional courtesy.”

  He grinned, taking the money. “Appreciate it.”

  As she walked to her car, she pulled out her phone and dialed Michael.

  “Hey, Ry,” he said after two rings.

  “So, I did something stupid.”

  CHAPTER 17

  Once Michael determined Riley wasn’t in any immediate danger, he walked around her living room, arms behind his back as if he were a patron in a museum. As if he thought memorizing the exact placement of her furniture would unlock the secrets of her soul.

  Riley sat on her couch watching him. She hadn’t had anyone over other than her parents or Jade in the six months she’d lived there.

  Suddenly he stilled. “Is Pete here?” he whispered so fiercely, eyes wide, that Riley laughed.

  “He seems to be having problems manifesting lately. He knocks things over or moves them around to let me know he’s here, but I haven’t seen him in a couple days,” she said. “Even though seeing him pop up in my living room scared me, I’m getting a little worried about him.”

  Michael nodded at this as if it made perfect sense. After a few more minutes of inspecting her apartment, he sat next to her. Pulling her feet up onto the cushions, she wrapped an arm around her knees.

  He turned toward her, one leg propped up on the seat. “So what level of stupid are we talking?”

  After recounting her stupidity, Michael sat quietly for a spell. She worried he was going to reconsider this whole thing and see himself out.

  “Well. Could be worse,” he said. “It shouldn’t be too hard to craft some official-looking badge. Choose a paper or magazine and I’ll make one—bonus of dating a guy with a design background. If he asks, tell him you’re not listed on any websites because you’re freelance.”

  Riley blinked at him. “You’re not going to yell at me?”

  “I’m building up so much good karma right now by not yelling,” he said. “In a couple years when I start to have an existential crisis and want to start brewing beer in the bathtub? You won’t be able to say a damn thing to stop me because I’ll bust out the ‘Remember that time I helped you interview a psychopath?’ card.”

  Smiling and shaking her head, she said, “What if he tries to call the whatever magazine I claim to work for?”

  “Give him my number and I’ll make something up.”

  “Seriously?”

  He shrugged. “I’m guessing you did your obsessive research thing and didn’t find anything too alarming, right?”

  Riley sucked in a breath, but then closed her mouth, letting her cheeks puff out.

  “Aw, shit. You went good news/bad news and didn’t tell me.”

  “Don’t forget you said you’re not going to yell at me!” Steeling herself, she gave an even more sanitized retelling of her dream than she’d given Mindy. Michael still looked horrified.

  “Is that why you stayed home from work?” he asked, voice so
ft, gaze sweeping over her face.

  Riley managed a nod, focus shifting to her hands where she worried at a loose strand on one of her throw pillows. He put a hand over hers.

  She couldn’t look at him. “It uh … the dream played out as if I was Renee. I could still feel his hands on me even after I woke up. It took a couple hours to stop crying.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Yeah.”

  When he was silent for longer than usual, she glanced up at him. Their hands were clasped in the space between them, his brows were pulled together.

  “You don’t want me to meet with him, do you?” she asked.

  “Can you blame me? If he got away with what he did to Renee, who knows what else he might be guilty of. Maybe nothing. Maybe that was it and he’s just paranoid about getting caught. I just …”

  “I know.”

  They fell silent again, him holding fast to her hand.

  “What if I go with you?”

  Riley raised an eyebrow at that.

  “I could be the photographer? I could just as easily make two badges.”

  “You’re really not going to fight me on it?” she asked.

  “Do you want me to? Do you want me to try like hell to convince you not to? Because I will.”

  “I …” She shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe the opposite? Maybe I want to know you’re okay with it.”

  “I’m not. Not even a little bit. But what if I fight you on it and you decide to do this by yourself and something happens to you?” he said. “And, who knows, if I was in your position, maybe I’d be doing the same thing. I can’t understand what you’ve seen or experienced. I know how scared you’ve been of your ability. I just … I don’t want you to feel like you’re alone in this. So I’m here to give you whatever you want, even if I think it’s batshit crazy.”

  Her eyes inexplicably welled with tears.

  “Hey, what’s wrong? What’d I say?”

  Shaking her head, she said, “I’m just having a hard time with all this.”

  “Come here,” he said, tugging gently on her hand and lowering his leg so both feet were on the floor.

  She truly worried that if he put his hands on her, it would trigger her memory of the dream all over again. But he just pulled her to him and she rested her head on his chest, one arm draped around her. He kissed the top of her head.

  “We’ll figure it out,” he said.

  She curled a little closer to his side, letting herself believe it.

  By the following weekend, they had a plan. Riley and Michael arranged details via text, as she’d taken on extra shifts to make up for taking the weekend off.

  The pair now “worked” at Albuquerque Life magazine, which Riley chose because, through another one of her Internet search wormholes, she discovered the magazine had already gotten in trouble a handful of times for their dodgy journalistic tactics. Hiring a couple of freelancers to harass stories out of supposedly rehabilitated criminals wouldn’t even be the worst thing they’d been accused of.

  Riley and Michael procured a fancy camera from Brie, who was apparently very into nature photography.

  They agreed to meet Francis at a coffee shop in Santa Fe on Saturday.

  “If anything gets weird, call me,” texted Jade. “I’ll have the cavalry there in two shakes of a lamb’s tail if that psycho touches a hair on your pretty head.”

  Just after one-thirty, a knock sounded on her door.

  “Hey,” Michael said when she let him in, hugging her immediately. She hadn’t seen him since the weekend before. “You nervous?”

  “About meeting a murderer? Nah.”

  Michael quirked a smile, picking up Brie’s camera off the coffee table as if it were made of glass. Its case sat beside it, two additional lenses inside. She hoped they didn’t break the thing. It would cost a small fortune to replace.

  “I looked up key photography-sounding words,” he said, draping the strap around his neck. “Shutter, aperture, image.”

  Riley snorted. “You had to look up image?”

  “I’ll just talk about the light a lot.”

  Luckily, he was quite charming and looked professional as hell in his work clothes—which he’d donned for this occasion—so she figured he could fake it.

  Riley would be doing most of the talking, anyway. Her stomach had been in knots all morning. She wore the one pencil skirt she owned—black—paired with a dark purple button-down silk shirt she’d gotten for mandatory family photos years ago.

  “I can tell you’re nervous,” he said, “but you look amazing.”

  She smoothed out the non-existent wrinkles in her skirt by running her sweaty palms down the front of it. Her cheeks heated up, embarrassed for some reason, and kept her gaze focused on the tips of her cream-colored ballet flats.

  “You turn a darker shade of brown when you blush,” he said. “It’s oddly sexy.”

  When she glanced up to glare at him, he snapped a photo of her. Hands on hips, she gave him her best “If you don’t put that camera down, I’m going to smash it over your head and make you pay Brie back” look. He snapped another one.

  Laughing, she held a hand up to block her face. “Stop!”

  “There’s that smile.” He took the camera off and carefully placed it in its case. “You ready? We’re meeting him at three, right?”

  After tossing everything but her purse in the trunk, she climbed into the passenger seat, greeted by two badges hanging from his rearview mirror. They were on the end of black lanyards, and the cards behind the protective plastic covers had their names, titles, and place of employment, paired with a picture.

  “Not bad, Roberts.”

  “I’m trying to convince myself you’re dating me because you like me, and not for my access to Photoshop.”

  She shrugged.

  “Cold.”

  Leaning over the center console, she kissed him on the cheek.

  “Hmm. You’re lucky I’m so easy,” he said.

  Because she’d abused her radio privileges the last time they’d been in the car together for an extended period of time, she’d been banished from even touching the dial. Every time she tried, Michael playfully swatted her hand away. He settled on a classic rock station and stayed there.

  When they were ten minutes away from the coffee shop—half an hour early—Riley asked, “Wait. Is it a crime to impersonate a reporter?”

  “Kinda late in the game to ask that, no?” he said, laughing. “It’s probably not a crime, but I’m sure there’s something more than a little sketchy with our plan.”

  “’Kay. Just checking.”

  Riley employed her oft-used deep breathing exercises.

  He grabbed her hand, keeping the other positioned on top of the wheel. “It’ll be fine.”

  The sun shone in a clear blue sky, birds chirping in the newly flowering bushes surrounding the shop’s outdoor seating area. The patio was populated by a handful of bright red umbrellas over black iron tables, and they chose one not far from the group of cheerful sparrows scrabbling in fallen leaves and bouncing around the branches. Thankfully the seating area, enclosed by a low wrought-iron fence, was currently deserted.

  She and Michael pressed two tables together so they could set everything up before Francis arrived. Riley hoped that the more professional they looked, the fewer questions Francis would ask—and, hopefully, the more he’d answer.

  Riley pulled up her document of questions on her laptop and had a pen and legal pad ready too, the recorder placed beside the pad. She straightened out the lanyard hanging around her neck and made sure her badge faced out.

  Michael held the camera from underneath, his hand wrapped around the lens and the base resting on his forearm. She was moments from telling him how believable he looked, when she spotted a middle-aged man walking across the parking lot. Though he was over thirty years older, he was unmistakably the man from her dream. The man who’d chased after Renee, calling her a “stupid bitch.”

  Mi
chael’s face appeared in her line of sight and her attention snapped to his eyes. “Focus.”

  She blew out a deep breath. Standing up, she took a few steps to the side and raised an arm in the air.

  Francis glanced over and stopped dead in his tracks, giving her an elevator scan. Stones dropped in her belly, the weight of each one rounding her shoulders. The fact that he was literally twice her age only made her queasier. A smile slowly inched up his face.

  The smile was disarming, even now. Riley saw how women—and likely quite a few men—could be lured in by that smile.

  Francis gestured at the entrance to let her know he was going around.

  When he was out of sight, Michael said, “If he looks at you like that again, I’m going to strangle him.”

  “Easy, tiger.”

  He grunted.

  Riley straightened her skirt and turned to face the door, hands folded in front of her. She offered a bright smile when Francis pushed his way outside, turning on her schmoozy waitress charm. “Hello, Francis. I’m Riley,” she said, taking a couple steps forward with her hand outstretched.

  “Please call me Hank,” he said, taking her hand in his. “You’re even more beautiful in person than you are in your picture. You actually remind me of someone I knew when I was younger. I’m sure she would’ve grown up to be as pretty as you.”

  Would have. Janay?

  Riley swallowed, hoping it would soothe her churning stomach somehow. “Well, thank you. And this,” she said, turning, “is my partner, Jansen Trombley.”

  The name sounded even more ridiculous out loud. No more choosing aliases for Michael. Francis knew her name; Michael still had his anonymity.

  Francis shot a cursory glance at Michael, but quickly dismissed him.

  “Ready to get started, Hank?” she asked.

  “Sure.”

  Gesturing to the chair across from hers, she sat down. Michael hovered nearby, glaring daggers at the side of other man’s head.

  “Think of this more like a conversation; I want to get to know you—” she tried extremely hard not to let her lip curl when he smirked here, “—as a person more than anything else. This piece is about you and the progress you’ve made. Jansen is here to take pictures, so just let him do his thing and pretend he’s not here.”