by D. K. Wall
After several excruciating moments, Sheila pulled back the curtain and invited David to join them with the admonition, “If you upset Jaxon, I will toss you out. Understand?”
His opened his mouth to respond but froze when he saw the kid on the bed. He had never met Jaxon Lathan in person before he was kidnapped, at least not that he remembered, though it was always possible in a small county, but the face looking back at him looked startingly like the photographs clipped to the front of the case file.
Shaggy, matted hair hung long over his bare, bony shoulders, only a hint of the original dark brown sheen coming through the filth. His dull gray eyes no longer held the brilliant, shimmering blue captured in a photo of him with a birthday cake. His face was gaunt and drawn around the cheekbones and had lost the long-ago innocence of the six-year-old child. An ugly, purple scar snaked from his ear across his cheek, marring that once-smooth skin.
Despite the differences, David’s disbelief dwindled. He had stared at the kid’s photo too many times, haunted by his mischievous little grin. Despite the changes wreaked by years of abuse, Jaxon Lathan, missing for a decade, sat in front of the sheriff. He knew that what little doubt danced around the back of his mind could be eliminated with a few simple questions.
Sheila settled into a chair beside the head of the bed. She enveloped the boy’s thin hand within her grasp and spoke quietly. “Honey, this is David here. He’s here to help, and I’m going to stay with you while he’s here. Would you answer a few questions for him?”
The boy’s eyes darted back and forth between the sheriff and the nurse, and he gripped her hand. David tucked himself into a chair at the foot of the bed, making himself appear as small and nonthreatening as possible, which wasn’t an easy task with his tall frame or something he usually did. Being an imposing figure was usually a strength in law enforcement.
With a soft voice, he asked, “Can you tell me your last name, Jaxon?”
The boy looked at Sheila, his eyes wide and uncertain. She smiled and brushed his long bangs out of his eyes. When he turned back to face David, his hands were trembling, and his voice shook. “We weren’t allowed to use our last names. He told us to forget them.”
“He?”
“The man.” The boy looked confused as he searched for words. “His house. His rules. That’s what he always said.”
“Tell me about him.”
The boy drew his legs up against his chest like a turtle withdrawing into his shell. His face drained of color, and his eyes spread wide in fear. He mumbled, “I don’t want to talk about him.”
David decided to circle back to identifying the boy. “He isn’t here, and it’s okay to use last names here in the hospital. For example, my last name is Newman. Can you tell me yours?”
The boy’s breath rasped. “I don’t remember it.”
The answer startled the sheriff. “You don’t remember it? Or you aren’t allowed to say it?”
“Well, it was against the rules to say it. But it doesn’t matter, because I don’t remember it, either.”
He sat back in his chair. “If I said it, would it ring a bell?”
The boy shrugged.
“For example, if I said Smith, would that mean anything?”
The boy shrugged again, his eyes darting around the room. David swallowed, puzzled about how to proceed. He wasn’t getting anywhere and didn’t see any risk to going straight to what he wanted to know. He plunged ahead. “What about Lathan?”
The boy’s eyes stopped and focused on the sheriff. Barely perceptibly, his lips moved in a soft whisper. “Lathan.”
“Is that your last name, son?”
The boy glanced nervously at the nurse, seeking reassurance.
“Jaxon, please look at me. Do you remember that last name, son?”
The boy kept his eyes down, avoiding the sheriff’s gaze, but he nodded ever so slightly. He whispered, “Jaxon Lathan.”
David clasped his hands together to hide the trembling. Be sure, he reminded himself. Be sure. “Can you spell it?”
More confidently, the boy spelled, “L-A-T-H-A-N.”
Two common names with unusual spellings. The last shreds of doubt were dissipating.
More unsettling, though, was the reaction of the nurse. She clearly hadn’t made the connection earlier, but a missing child in a place as small as Millerton would have been remembered, even years later. Her response to the uttered name told him it had sunk into her and wrenched open the memories of the town in shock over the disappearance of one of their own. David knew others would remember as quickly—and many of them would also remember the investigator who had so confidently told everyone the father had been suspected of murdering his own child. But if the boy sat there, living and breathing, he had to wonder what else the investigation had been wrong about.
He needed to be one hundred percent sure. “I want to talk about before you went to that place. Do you remember where you lived before? The address?”
The boy looked puzzled and shook his head. “I don’t remember before. It was long time ago.”
“Do you remember how old you were when you left where you lived before?”
The boy glanced nervously at the nurse, who squeezed his hand in comfort. He turned back to the sheriff but kept his eyes lowered as he whispered. “Six. I think. I’m pretty sure.”
“What happened that morning? Can you tell me what happened to you?”
Jaxon’s voice sounded more confident. “Connor was a really cool big brother and played games and stuff. We were supposed to stay at the house until Dad got there, but he was late like always. Rode bikes to the park so Connor could see his friends. He went riding on the trails around the park. Said he would be back. Don’t tell Mom he left. Don’t leave the playground. Don’t go home. Stay right here.”
David considered the story told in such a choppy, hesitant manner. The mention of Connor’s name horrified him because he remembered the kid crying incessantly as he confessed to leaving his brother alone while he rode off with his friends. They never published those details because they didn’t want to traumatize him.
He knew he should stop asking questions, but the cop in him persisted. Acid spread through his stomach as he was taken back to that day. He swallowed hard but asked the question because he had to know what he had missed that day. “And…?”
Jaxon leaned against Sheila, who shot the sheriff a warning look. But the story up to that point was one David already knew. Who the little boy had left the park with had always been the question. “Just a little more, Jaxon. What happened next?”
The boy hung his head and whispered, “A man asked for help.”
“Your… father?”
David’s last hope that the investigation had at least pointed in the right direction evaporated as the boy shook his head vigorously. “No. The man.”
“What did he say?”
“He’d lost his puppy and needed help finding it. He had a leash in his hand. No one else was around to help. He was nice at first. His van was parked there. Offered a Coke from the cooler in his van for helping him. The door slammed shut. Duct tape on mouth. Duct tape around wrists and ankles. Can’t scream. Can’t run. Hurt. Can’t fight ’cause he’s bigger.”
David sat back in his chair, horrified at the simple story. “What did the van look like?”
The boy closed his eyes. His answer was monotone, a voice of surrender. “Two-tone brown. Kinda old. The back had boxes and stuff. Smelled funny. Drove a long time.”
“You’re doing good, Jaxon. What was the man like?”
“There wasn’t a puppy. He lied. He smelled and was really mean. He hit and… uh… does stuff. Doesn’t care if you cry. Slapped really, really hard if you talked back or tried to stop him.” Tears welled up in Jaxon’s eyes. He turned to Sheila, who gathered him in her arms. She shook her head at the sheriff as the boy cried, “I don’t want to talk about him.”
“The place. Can you talk about the place? Tell me where it wa
s?”
But the boy could only sob.
13
Heather Lathan’s change-of-shift report to the incoming nursing team was mostly uneventful news about the patients convalescing in the third-floor surgical-recovery wing. All but one had spent the night peacefully, in a happy state of pain-medicated sleep. “But then there’s Boris Pavlovich.”
Tonya Jackson rolled her eyes. “I thought Mr. Big Shot New York City was being discharged yesterday. If I have to listen to any more stories about the restaurants he could get into, the theater tickets he commanded, the Knicks seats on the floor right near Spike Lee…”
Heather smiled. “The doctor doesn’t think he’s healing fast enough and said he had to spend another two nights. Of course, that sent Pavlovich into a rant about small-town hick doctors and their incompetence.”
“Oh, please. It’s his own fault. He should’ve stayed down there in Florida all winter rather than coming up here to check on his house. Then he wouldn’t have wrecked his car and broken his leg. And we wouldn’t have to hear how miserable it is here and in Florida and how bloody high the taxes are in New Yawk.” Tonya emphasized the last two words with a mock accent, making both ladies chuckle.
Second homes dotted the ridges of the mountains of Miller County, closed for the winters and used as summer retreats. Many of them were owned by people who had made their careers in the northeastern U.S. and then retired to Florida to avoid income taxes. They quickly tired of the heat and humidity, and so they escaped to their massive homes in the relatively cool Appalachian Mountains. They were commonly known as “halfbacks”—halfway back to New York or wherever.
Heather chuckled. “That’s not his fault, don’t you know? Last night, he told me he knew how to drive in the snow, much better than we do, and it was only because we don’t know how to plow roads down here that he wrecked.”
Tonya let loose an exasperated sigh and pointed at a blinking call light at the nurse’s station. “Oh, he’s already started. Wonder if the room is too hot or too cold? Or maybe the blankets are itchy or the room’s too dirty.”
“I bet he starts with ‘What took you so long? Don’t you know who I am?’”
Heather smiled as she watched Tonya walk down the hall and push open the door. “Good morning, Mr. Pavlovich. How are you feeling this morning?” she asked pleasantly.
“What the hell took you so long? I could’ve died in here waiting on you to—” The door clicked shut, cutting off the rest of the conversation as Heather slipped on her coat. She whistled a tune as she walked to the elevator, ready for a day of peace. The happiness faded when a page requested her to report to the emergency department. They should be asking for one of the day shift nurses—she had already clocked out. She planned breakfast with her son, a soak in a steaming hot tub, and then climbing into bed for eight hours of sleep. She almost walked out to her car, prepared to pretend she never heard it, but then thought maybe it wasn’t work related. Maybe Connor had wrecked his car or had been hurt.
She scurried to the emergency room. When she rounded the corner, she saw who was waiting for her.
No, no. What is he doing here?
“Good morning, Heather.”
She glared at the sheriff standing in front of her, his hat in his hands. They had talked often over the years, less and less lately, and he never brought good news. “Is Connor okay? What happened?”
“Connor’s fine,” he hesitated. “At least to the best of my knowledge. I haven’t seen him in a long time. But he’s not why I asked them to call you.”
“Harold?” She clenched her first. “Damn it, what did he do? Wreck a car again? Drunk driving? You have him here for a BAT?” Uncooperative suspects were sometimes brought by law enforcement to the emergency room for blood alcohol tests. Her ex-husband was the definition of uncooperative, particularly when it came to the sheriff.
“I thought Harold had been sober for a few months. Has he fallen off the wagon again?”
“I don’t think so. He always tells me—a hundred fifty or sixty or whatever days since his last drink.” She looked around the emergency room at the closed curtains. “So he isn’t here?”
“No.”
“So…” She squeezed her eyes shut and felt the world sway. If it wasn’t Connor and it wasn’t Harold, there was only one other reason the sheriff would want to talk to her. “Did you find… his body?”
He gently took her arm and guided her into an empty station. “Heather, listen to me. We brought a patient in this morning. I want you to look at him.”
She glanced toward the other nurses for guidance—nurses always knew everything happening in their department—but they were busily looking anywhere else, avoiding her eyes, and pretending not to eavesdrop. “Why? Sheriff, what’s going on?”
“We found a teenage boy, about sixteen, walking along the side of the interstate early this morning. He’s got lots of minor injuries—well, not really minor but nothing life-threatening. The thing is…” He looked very uncomfortable and struggled with his words. “He says his name is Jaxon Lathan.”
A buzzing filled Heather’s ears. Her pulse quickened. Am I already home in bed and dreaming this nonsense? “That’s ridiculous.”
“I agree. I thought the same thing. But”—he lowered his voice—“I’ve seen him. Talked to him.”
Her knees felt weak. “Are you saying it’s him?”
“No. I mean, I don’t know. It looks like him, at least sort of, to me. And his story matches up. We’ll send his blood off for DNA testing, of course, to be sure, but I didn’t want to…. I mean, if it’s him, and I didn’t tell you…. Oh, hell, Heather, it might be him, but I don’t know. Tell me I’m crazy. I hate doing this to you, but I don’t know what else to do.”
She leaned against the wall and closed her eyes. Her hands were trembling, and sweat rolled down her back. “What do you want?”
“Just look at him. He doesn’t have to know anything at all. Let him think you’re just another nurse.”
“Unless he recognizes me…”
The sheriff put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed gently. “Wouldn’t that be a good thing?”
She shook his hand off with a shrug. “And if he doesn’t…”
“Heather, it’s been years. Even if it is him, maybe he still won’t recognize you. And it’s probably not him. But I think you should look. Just in case.”
She took several deep breaths to steady her nerves before laying her coat across a chair. He led the way down the corridor to a closed curtain. She felt the eyes of the other nurses on her back and knew they were all trying to give her space but also wondering what was about to happen.
When they reached the cubicle, the sheriff grabbed the hanging curtain and turned to look at her. He waited for her subtle nod of approval before drawing the covering back to reveal the occupied bed, the hooks clanging against the metal rod.
The boy’s appearance in the bed shocked her. Her vision of Jaxon remained what she had last seen, a small six-year-old, but a teenager stared back at her. The strangeness of him frightened her.
He was grotesquely malnourished. The hospital gown hung loosely on his skeletal frame, a thin rag propped up on scarecrow sticks. His sunken cheeks accented the sharp outline of his skull under stretched, pale skin. His reedy arms poked out of the sides and were covered in scars and scratches.
An IV line snaked along the side of the bed to one hand. The other was wrapped in gauze. A scar, puckered and dark against his pale skin, ran in a jagged line across his right cheek. Splotches of red skin from frostbite speckled his cheeks and nose. His chapped lips were raw and peeling with bright-red splits.
Despite the gentle washing by the hospital staff she knew he had to have been given, his hair was ragged and dull. His bangs were shaggy and unevenly cut, as if he had used scissors himself without a mirror.
Heather stood quietly, inventorying the plethora of changes until her gaze settled on the boy’s eyes. Six-year-old Jaxon’s eyes h
ad shimmered a brilliant sheen of blue, startling in their color and glowing with life. The brilliance in his eyes had faded, much as his once-shiny hair had dulled. The irises were more gray than blue, tired and wary rather than playful and excited.
But those eyes had been the focus of her dreams over the years. She had missed them more than she had really known. Giving a quiet prayer of thanks, she rejoiced.
My baby boy is back. How is that even possible?
14
Jaxon Lathan.
I hadn’t heard or said that name aloud in years. We had whispered it, in the dark, hiding in that cellar and keeping our voices low so he wouldn’t hear us.
And now, here, I can say it. No one will hit me for it. No one will tell me I can’t.
The memories come rushing back. The man. The stench of his sweat. The rotting smell of his teeth. The sting of the back of his hand or the crunch of his fist. We all suffered from his anger. And his appetites.
From the basement, we could hear the van when it arrived or left. Usually, it was empty, at least of anything other than boxes or bags or whatever else he hauled in it. But sometimes, it came back with human cargo. At some point after it returned, I would find myself outside, under his close supervision, hosing out the blood splattered inside. Necessary, he said, to get the attention of the boy.
I would pick up scraps of duct tape and hang up the dog leash, a strip of leather that probably had never been near a dog. He had enticed more than a few boys into his vehicle with his silly story. Silly, except it worked. The tale was the same for everyone, with only minor exceptions. How he would appear, leash in hand, looking around. His actions seemed innocent enough that he could easily disappear again into anonymity if someone else showed up and asked questions.
And every boy, every one, would be the first to ask, “Whatcha looking for?”
“A dog,” he said. “I lost my dog. The leash broke. He’s a little guy with short brown fur. I’m so worried he’s scared or hurt.”
And every boy, every one, would think how awful it was to lose your dog or to be the poor lost dog.
