by N L Hinkens
Ray flinched. “I can’t imagine doing that. He’s only four-years-old. But of course, I can’t remember, can I?”
“You need to be patient with yourself. Have you remembered anything else since we last spoke?”
Ray knit his brows together in concentration. ”Bits and pieces. It’s too fragmented to make any sense of it. It’s almost as frustrating as fishing. You know how you can see a fish just below the surface of the water, but you can’t get it to bite. That’s how I feel when I’m trying to remember something. I keep getting flashes of a fight scene. I’m not sure who I was fighting with—probably my father. My brother might have been there too.” He paused for a moment. “I think I punched someone. I keep seeing a man fall backward, but his face is blurred. There was blood everywhere. I don’t know … I really hope I didn’t kill my father.” His voice broke and he cleared his throat to cover his embarrassment.
“You didn’t. Celia told us her husband died of a heart attack,” Sonia assured him. ”Granted the fight scene’s not the happiest of memories, but at least it shows that your brain’s beginning to heal. Did you try looking through the photos again?”
“Yeah, it didn’t help.” He hesitated, wondering if he should enlist Sonia to help him with an idea he’d been toying with ever since he’d discovered the license in his backpack. He wouldn’t be able to tell her the truth—that he suspected he was somehow involved in Katie Lambert’s disappearance—but maybe he could pass his request off as a benign appeal for help. After all, Sonia struck him as the type who liked to lend a helping hand. She’d given him the benefit of the doubt, so far, unlike her mother who signaled her disapproval of him at every opportunity.
”I found something this morning that might help jog my memory,” Ray went on. ”It was a map of the Blue Ridge Mountains with a highlighted trail. I must have been intending to hike it before the accident. Or maybe it’s a fishing spot I’ve been to before—there’s a stream nearby. At any rate, I was thinking it might help to go back up there and see if it jogged my memory. You know how they always say nature heals.” He paused, then twisted his lips into an apologetic grin. ”The thing is, I can’t drive myself. I would rent a car, but the doctor hasn’t cleared me to drive yet and—”
“I’d be happy to take you if you think it will help,” Sonia interrupted. ”My mom can watch Henry for a few hours. She’s getting around much better these days.”
Ray raised a skeptical brow. “I doubt she’ll go for it—the part about you driving me, I mean. She’s made it clear she doesn’t trust me.”
Sonia shrugged. ”I won’t tell her. I’ll say I’m going to a job site, and you have to go to the hospital for a follow-up appointment. Why don’t you call an Uber to pick you up at your place so she’s not suspicious? I’ll meet you in town.”
“Well, if you’re sure,” Ray responded.
“It’s not a problem. I can even hike the trail with you, in case you get disoriented or something. How far is it from here?”
Ray squeezed his jaw. “It’s about an hour’s drive.” He didn’t add that he estimated it would take another hour to hike to the end of the highlighted trail after that—a hike he would be making alone. If the coordinates led to Katie Lambert’s grave, he couldn’t risk Sonia finding out.
They glanced up at the sound of the front door opening.
“That’s probably my mother,” Sonia said.
Evelyn shuffled into the kitchen, frowning almost imperceptibly when she spotted Ray. She slipped off her coat before joining them at the table. “I’m surprised to see you here, Ray. I thought you had plans to do something with Henry today.”
Ray exchanged an uncomfortable look with Sonia. He’d rather not relay what had happened at the park, but Evelyn would find out soon enough. He was under no illusions that anything that happened in the neighborhood escaped her attention.
”I took Henry to the park,” he said. “We bumped into a little girl from his preschool. Everything was going great until Henry told her mother I wasn’t his dad. She called the cops on me.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. ”I explained the whole situation to them, that Henry’s mother passed away recently, and that he was just trying to get attention. The cops were decent about it, but they drove me home so they could verify my story with Sonia.”
Evelyn pinned a hawk-like gaze on him. ”But she can’t really verify anything, can she? The only story she can verify is the one you told us.”
“Mom!” Sonia protested. “Give him a break. He’s had a rough morning and he’s still recovering from the accident.”
“Is he?” Evelyn pursed her lips. ”It’s pretty convenient that his memory was wiped out. There are plenty of questions I’d like answered myself.”
Ray stood abruptly, the chair leg screeching on the travertine floor. ”I should go.”
“Why don’t you let Henry stay and play for a bit so you can get some rest,” Sonia suggested. “The kids will enjoy hanging out together.”
Ray glanced at his watch. ”I think I will go lie down for an hour. My head’s pounding.”
“I’ll bring Henry back over later,” Sonia said, seeing him to the door.
Back in his mother’s house, Ray sank down on the couch, reeling from everything that had happened. The incident at the park had been extremely stressful. His heart had been juddering against his ribs the whole way home at the thought of the police discovering Katie Lambert’s driver’s license. Not to mention the fact that he still hadn’t found Henry’s birth certificate. What if the police had asked to see it? It would have looked incredibly suspicious if he hadn’t been able to produce it, especially in light of what Henry was telling people. He had to locate that birth certificate ASAP. He would have to make a trip back to his old house right after he checked out those coordinates. He shifted onto his side and adjusted the cushion behind his head. Gradually, his eyelids grew heavy, and he abandoned himself to the heavy feeling seeping through his bones.
He woke with a start at the sound of the doorbell. Henry! Had it been an hour already? He pulled himself up on the couch and rubbed his eyes, muted images flitting through his mind like ghosts. He’d been dreaming of the fight again. Raised voices, exchanged blows, the stench of fear and blood—always the elusive face.
Suddenly, a new memory from his dreams sprang to mind. Rough-sawn timber, a whiff of woodsmoke. A gasp escaped his lips when it dawned on him. The trail he’d highlighted wasn’t a hike he’d been intending to take. He’d taken it before.
It led to a cabin in the woods.
18
Ray stumbled to his feet and hurried to answer the door, his mind a blur of activity—streaming images he couldn’t process quickly enough to comprehend. Pressing his fingertips to his temples, he willed himself fully awake before wrenching open the door. “Hey, sorry to keep you waiting, Sonia.” He grinned at Henry and made an awkward attempt to ruffle his hair.
“Are … you all right?” Sonia asked, blinking at him questioningly.
“Yes, I’m fine, thanks. I conked out on the couch.” He made a point of smothering a yawn. “Just need a few minutes to regroup.”
“Do you want me to keep Henry a little longer?” Sonia offered.
“No, not at all.” Ray let out an embarrassed laugh. “I’ll put some coffee on. That should do the trick.”
Sonia gave a dubious nod as she released Henry’s hand. She got down on one knee and looked him in the eye. ”Be sure and tell your daddy to bring you over for some cookies tomorrow.”
Ray closed the door behind her and exhaled a rough breath. His brain felt like it was on fire, the wiring reconnecting, flashing bits and pieces of important information at him—too swiftly to assemble into a meaningful sequence. But he had to figure it out. He needed to know everything that was stored in the recesses of his mind. Even the dark, disturbing things. More than anything, he desperately needed to know what he’d done. He could scarcely bring himself to entertain the possibility that he had something to do with Katie
Lambert’s disappearance. But how else could he explain how he’d come to be in possession of her driver’s license? He had to get to the bottom of it—and quickly. He would start by writing down everything that came to mind, no matter how disjointed. He could figure out how to put the pieces together afterward.
His gaze drifted down to Henry. First, he needed to find something to occupy his son with. Stationing him in front of the television wasn’t the most desirable option, but it was a surefire way to hold his attention. “Come on, Henry. I’m going to turn on the TV. You can watch some cartoons while dad finishes up his work.”
Henry trotted obediently into the family room and positioned himself on his knees in front of the television, his toy truck peeking out of the pocket of his jeans. Ray opened the heavy, velvet drapes to let in the light he had blocked out earlier to nap. After settling on a suitable channel, he pulled the door partly closed behind him and left a mesmerized Henry to watch his shows. Back in the kitchen, he fumbled with the coffee pot, barely able to focus as fragmented memories drifted by like wispy clouds in his brain, vanishing the minute he tried to catch them. He grabbed a pen and a pad of paper and sat down at the kitchen table to jot down some notes.
As he began to write, it felt like a dam in his brain suddenly burst. The memories came fast and furious, tumbling over themselves to be heard. Ray’s forehead grew slick with sweat as a picture began to build. He glugged down a second mug of coffee, his fingers shaking so violently he could hardly read his own writing.
When he was done, he set down his pen and skimmed over the words he’d put on the page. A shiver shot down his spine. He’d been writing about his dream last night. He’d described the hand-built log cabin in intricate detail: the saddle notched interlocking beams framing the roughly twelve by sixteen-foot space, a gable roof built from spruce and covered in sod and moss, the eight-point deer antlers nailed above the rough-hewn steps, the painstakingly crafted front door, and the bench beneath the south-facing window. A smell of damp bark and smoke greeted him as he stepped inside, his eyes sweeping over the unpretentious furnishings. Next to the stone fireplace, staring into the crackling flames, stood the cabin’s sole inhabitant—his younger brother, Tom!
Ray leapt to his feet and plowed his fingers through his tousled hair. His body tingled all over as the certainty of it sank in. Tom was alive.
In a trance, he walked over to the coffee pot and poured the dregs into his mug with shaking fingers. He grimaced as he swallowed a bitter mouthful, before dumping the rest in the sink and returning to the page of notes he’d left on the kitchen table. He rubbed his aching forehead as he tried to absorb the enormity of it. After years of searching for his brother—even going so far as to hire a private investigator—he had given up all hope that he was alive. To think that all this time Tom had been living only a short distance from their mother. Evelyn had mentioned that Tom used to call Celia regularly. His mother must have known all along where he was.
Ray folded his arms on the table in front of him. He had probably found the coordinates to the cabin among her belongings after she died. And, at some point in the past few weeks, he had hiked up to Tom’s cabin. He could see it clearly in his mind now—inhale the scent of it even when he closed his eyes. He glanced over at the counter, furrowing his brow when he spotted the pile of paper clipped bank statements he’d been going through. Why had their mother been sending Tom such a large sum of money each month? What could he possibly have been using it for? He certainly wasn’t spending it on his cabin—everything in it had looked handmade or recycled.
Ray scrunched his eyes shut in a desperate bid to remember what had gone down at Tom’s place. All at once, the fight scene flashed to mind again. And this time, he distinctly saw the face of the man he’d punched to the ground. His fingers curled into fists as the truth hit home. It wasn’t his father he’d been fighting with at all—it was Tom. But what had the fight been about? Had he confronted his brother about the money he’d been taking from their mother?
Ray stood and began pacing the floor. Another memory sprang to mind, stopping him in his tracks. This time he was in his truck, heading to the cabin, the black backpack on the seat next to him. He had driven up the mountain as far as he could and parked in the closest campground to the trail. As he’d hiked up to the cabin, the dense trees had slowly begun to close in around him, shutting out the light and sounds of the outside world—sealing in the scent of pine and the chittering of squirrels. Just when he’d begun to fear he was hopelessly lost, he’d bumped into a hunter. The stranger had been wary of him, and Ray had been equally cautious, noting the rifle casually slung over his shoulder and the large hunting knife strapped to his person. But, after explaining that he was Tom’s brother, the hunter’s demeanor changed—in fact, he’d gone out of his way to direct him to Tom’s place.
Ray flinched out of his reverie when the door creaked open.
Henry pottered into the kitchen. “I’m hungry.”
Brushing a hand over his jaw, Ray hurriedly tried to disentangle his brain from the muddled memories it was sifting through and focus on the more mundane task of feeding his son. “All right, let’s see what we’ve got here.” He opened the refrigerator and assessed his options. “How about a cheese stick?” Without waiting for an answer, he peeled off the plastic and held the string cheese out to Henry, who stared at it in bafflement before accepting it. He clutched it like a toothbrush and asked, ”What is you doing?”
Ray gave a nonchalant shrug. “Nothing, buddy. Just … thinking.”
“Why is you not working?”
“Why are you not working?” Ray said, with a wink. “I am working in a way. It’s work that I do in here.” He tapped a finger on his head for emphasis.
“Okay,” Henry said, before taking a bite of his cheese stick and exiting the room.
Ray held his breath for a long moment and then tiptoed after him, peering into the family room to make sure Henry was safely back in position in front of the television. He padded quietly down the hallway to his bedroom and pulled the backpack out of the closet once more. He urgently needed to return to the cabin and find his brother. Whatever they had been arguing about, it couldn’t be more important than reestablishing their relationship now that they’d found each other again. It had likely been about the money—not that Ray cared about their mother’s money. Maybe Tom had some kind of addiction problem. Whatever it was, it could be resolved with the right kind of support. And Ray intended to give it to him. He loved his brother fiercely. They had been through so much together. Tears spilled freely down his cheeks. He felt a twang of guilt that he didn’t feel the same level of connection to his own son. Then again, the brother he’d thought was dead was alive. Under the circumstances, his whacked-out emotions were understandable.
His heart lurched against his ribs when he suddenly remembered the driver’s license. Slipping shaking fingers into the inner pocket of his pack, he pulled it back out and stared into the innocent eyes gazing up at him. A cold sweat broke out on the back of his neck as another thought struck.
Was Katie Lambert the reason he’d fought with Tom?
19
Sonia threw herself down in an armchair opposite her mother. ”Any chance you can watch Henry for a few hours tomorrow? I have to go out to a job site, and I’ll be gone most of the day. I’ve organized a ride home from school for Jessica.”
Evelyn narrowed her brows. “Why? Where’s Ray going?”
“He has to go to the hospital for a follow-up appointment. And he needs to sort some things out at the bank afterward. He’ll be tied up most of the day.”
“I take it he hasn’t located Henry’s birth certificate yet,” Evelyn said in a prim tone.
Sonia hesitated. When she’d questioned Ray about the documentation the preschool needed, he’d told her his files were still at his old place. Sonia suspected he was lying, but she’d let it slide. His memory was still a mess—his whole life was a mess at the moment. He’d probably
forgotten where he’d put the birth certificate and was too embarrassed to admit it. “He left it at his old place,” Sonia said breezily. ”Once he gets the all-clear from the doctor to drive again, he’s going to pick up the rest of his stuff. So, can you watch Henry tomorrow?”
Evelyn let out a dissatisfied humph. “I suppose I could bake some cookies with him.”
“You’re the best,” Sonia said, getting to her feet and hugging her mother. “Don’t feel you have to do anything special with him. It’s fine if he watches cartoons while you knit. It’s only for one day.”
Evelyn sighed, a wistful look in her eyes. ”It’s the least I can do for Celia after all the kindness she showed Jessica. I sure do miss her.”
Shortly before eight the following morning, Sonia was huddled in her car outside The Busy Bean coffee shop, hands wrapped around a paper cup of steaming French Roast, listening to the drumming of the rain on the roof. She could barely see past the wipers swishing back-and-forth across her windscreen. It was hardly an ideal day to hike up into the mountains. She’d done her best to dissuade Ray from attempting the hike until the weather cleared—she couldn’t imagine it being a healing experience in this downpour—but he was insistent they stick to the plan.
Sonia had thought long and hard about going to the police to report the things Henry had told her, but something held her back. Maybe it was the fact that Ray genuinely seemed to care about Henry. It just didn’t seem plausible that he had done some of the things Henry said he had. But what really settled the matter in her mind was when Henry pointed at the photo of Tom and called him, dad. Tom and Ray did look remarkably alike, and it had made her think that perhaps Henry had only ever seen Ray in photos before. If Ray and his wife had been divorced, Henry might have been living with his mother up until her death—which meant the man Henry referred to as his dad—the man who had choked his mother, deprived him of food, and locked him in his room—could have been his mother’s boyfriend. Sonia had decided she would give it a day or two for Ray’s memory to fully recover and then ask him outright. If she was wrong, she could still go to the police with her concerns after that.
