The Bones of the Earth- The Complete Collection

by Scott Hale

  The truck could be anywhere, but where it wasn’t was where it ought to be. So with that in mind, Linnéa left Six Pillars behind and made her way through Bedlam to Merrin Street.

  By the time they made it to Price Homes’ newest construction site, Linnéa had chewed her lip to pieces. Getting out of the car, she spat out the dry skin like chew and flagged down the first worker she found.

  “Sir? Excuse me, sir,” Stephen said, heading off the worker. “Just a moment of your time, my man.”

  Something clicked into place inside Linnéa. A gear, maybe, that’d be unaligned. She was the muscle, he the mouth. Brute Force and Beauty. That was going to be their band name, they’d decided once in the late hours, when sleep was second to Filipa’s baby monitor.

  The worker was a lean, freshly shaven—bloody nicks and all—man in clothes that didn’t fit and a hardhat with as many scuffs as he had second chances. The shell of the house he stood by was infested with others just like him, and when they asked him what was going on, he waved them off, rubbed his stubble, and said, “What can I do for you?

  Linnéa put her hands on her hips, to give herself that demanding mother-like figure men always seemed so afraid of.

  “We need to speak with the foreman,” Stephen said.

  The worker stared in silence and said, “You… You two. Oh my god, I’m sorry about your little girl.”

  “It’s about our little girl,” Stephen said. “Can you point us in the right direction?”

  The worker pointed past a house further along, and the squat, mobile can of an office all bosses seemed to be stationed at these days.

  The worker took off his hat and shielded his mouth with it as he said, “Is Mr. Reynolds involved?”

  Linnéa nudged Stephen. Parked beside the office was a blue truck with the logo of Price Homes fixed to it.

  Stephen swallowed hard and said, “Whose truck is that?”

  “Mr. Reynolds’,” the worker said. “I’ll take you to him.”

  “That’s good of you,” Linnéa finally said, a fire building in her belly. “Did he just get back?”

  “Mr. Reynolds? No, ma’am. He’s been here all morning. We’d know.” He laughed. “That’s when we cut out, when he’s gone.”

  The worker led them across the dug-out, mud covered, gravel-choked, corporate no man’s land and left them standing outside the office, their hate in their hands. Stephen asked if the worker would wait outside. He obliged.

  They entered without knocking, and at first, the foreman, Mr. Reynolds, lost in an air conditioned, cell phone game coma, didn’t realize. Sideways and bent, a full moon at high noon at the back of his pants, he smashed his pudgy thumbs into the cell phone in his hand, racking up points with complete indifference.

  Stephen cleared his throat.

  Linnéa let the door close with a sharp smack behind them.

  Mr. Reynolds jerked up in his swivel chair and spun around, losing the phone to his breast pocket and his breath to the movement in a few seconds flat.

  It smelled rotten in the office, too. Even the foreman noticed, twitching his noise as he did so. Had he rushed back in here? Did he just beat them here? Was this their guy?

  “Mr. Reynolds?” Stephen said.

  “Mm.” He grumbled as he half stood and shook Stephen’s hand. “Sorry.” He sat back down. “I wasn’t expecting any visitors today.”

  Stephen’s breathing settled. He approached the desk like a lawyer would a witness on the stand. “Is that your truck out there?”

  Mr. Reynolds glanced at Linnéa.

  She crossed her arms.

  “Company truck. Why?”

  Ignoring him, Stephen continued. “Mr. Reynolds, I know a decent man when I see one. I used to think of myself as one, too, but when I look in the mirror, I’m not so sure anymore. You might know my wife and me from the television…”

  Linnéa found comfort in the tone of his voice, the cadence of his words; that downhome drawl that’d disappeared in their own Great Depression. It was funny how sadness could do that to a person; rob them of who they are, like plucking notes from a song, until they were nothing more than monotone drone. Sums of their symptoms.

  “Our daughter, Filipa, is missing, along with three other children from our neighborhood. And of late? Of late, we’ve seen a truck just like that one outside in our neighborhood, day in and day out, at all hours. I don’t know what that means, but we need to speak to whoever’s been driving it. Please. We’re at the end of our—”

  Mr. Reynolds held out his hands. “Okay, okay. I got you. But that’s the only truck—” He punched the table, shook his head, and pointed at the door. “Someone standing out there? Would you mind?”

  Linnéa opened the door and gave the worker waiting outside a nod to come in.

  The worker came in with his cap in his hands, like an animal with its tail between its legs. He smiled at Mr. Reynolds in the same way something small smiles before a shark. The foreman wasn’t their guy, but someday, he’d be someone’s.

  “Hollis. Is he back yet?”

  Hollis didn’t need reminding. He knew who exactly what Mr. Reynolds was getting at. He shook his head.

  “Son of a bitch. He’s done. You see him pull up two hours from now and send him straight to me. He’s done. Go on, then.”

  Hollis nodded, tapped out a tune on the top of his helmet, and backed out of the office.

  “Someone else drive a blue truck like that one out there?” Stephen asked.

  Linnéa took out her phone. With three percent of its battery left, she carried it like a guttering torch to the desk and shoved it into the foreman’s face. Flipping to the picture she’d taken earlier of the blue truck, she said, “Those his plates?”

  A handsy person, like strangers who have to touch everything in a new room, the foreman pawed for the phone as she took it away. “That’s his, but that logo shouldn’t be there. I told him not to…” He got out of his seat. “Listen, I can’t just share employee information with you. I understand where you’re coming from. I’ll deal with this, but… I can’t.”

  Linnéa backed up as Stephen stepped into the ring. He said, “You fired him,” and then: “He’s not an employee anymore.”

  “I—”

  “Sir, I don’t know if you’re a father or not.”

  “I’m not and—”

  “Filipa’s been missing over a month now. When it comes to statistics, she’s in the negative. The chances of her…” Stephen stepped away, wiped his eyes. “This right here? This is all we’ve got. The cops don’t have anything. Whoever did this is leading them in circles. We could send them here and maybe they could talk you into giving them a name and an address, but that would take time. Minutes. Hours. Days, even. Those kids? They’ve been gone hundreds of hours already. You know what a person can do with just a few minutes. A person can destroy a life in a few minutes. We can’t wait any longer. Filipa can’t wait any longer, and neither can Darlene, Charles, or Jimmy. Those’re the other kids who were taken. That’s their names, Mr. Reynolds.

  “We’re not going to tell anyone what you did for us. But if we find those kids because of you… you’ll have saved their l-lives.” Stephen was crying again, but this time, he didn’t bother with the tears. “And… if we find them… and you could’ve helped, but it was too late. I… I won’t hold it against you—”

  “I will,” Linnéa said, darkly.

  “—because you were just doing your job. I get that. But no one job is worth the lives of four children, is it?”

  Mr. Reynolds shifted uncomfortably, as he sweated through his shirt. “You’re sure it’s him?”

  Stephen shook his head. “No, not at all. But if we’re wrong, we’re wrong, and that’s all right. So, what do you say?”

  The owner of the blue truck’s name was Ved Matcira, and he lived at 707 Meridian Avenue—a short, crooked road that began at and dead-ended into the same, crescent-shaped cemetery. It was a place where all the houses were built
on the same side; four one-story monuments to expired aspirations; broken gutters, missing siding, and for-sale signs from centuries past; and no sounds or sights of life, save for the headstones across the way, where lives were written, not splattered, across stone.

  707 Meridian Avenue was hidden in the way that all obvious things were hidden. They’d passed it or the cemetery more times than they could count, on almost a daily basis, going to work or going for groceries. They might’ve noticed once, when they’d first moved in, or when Filipa was old enough to point it out, but beyond that, it was no more than a blur—blended brushstrokes of disposable memories. Things like that were bound to happen, especially when you lived as close as they did to 707 Meridian Avenue; that is, ten minutes away.

  Linnéa and Stephen parked the car in the cemetery and hurried to its edge, where it met Meridian Avenue, and hid themselves amongst the frail trees there.

  Ved wasn’t home yet. The blue truck was nowhere to be seen. Linnéa lay in wait, waiting for the sounds of a struggling engine, or the sticky sound of tires on cement, but even after several minutes, there was nothing. Despite being so close to the construction and the detoured traffic, there was no noise here at all. The street was like a scene underwater—muffled, unreal.

  Seeing the home of the only true lead they’d had in weeks, Linnéa’s vision went blurry and her face burned. Dizzy, nauseous, she pressed her forehead into the nearest tree. When had she truly slept? When had she last showered? When she pissed, it stank, and what little she’d eaten of late was wedged inside her bowels, pressing against her side. Smelling herself, she could smell a part of all the places she’d been: the old carpet from Dario Onai’s office; the rotting food of the Crosses’ home; the hairspray and tar of the Simmonses’; and Connor’s place, which smelled of hot coffee and that late-night outside odor not unlike a dog’s coat. And then there was her own house, deeper in the fabric of her shirt, in the pores of her flesh. Unwashed sheets, oily pillows; overflowing garbage, clogged sink; the build-up beneath the toilet seat, the cold, dull chunks of hardened mud on the floor; plaster, and trapped musk; ash.

  She pulled away from the tree. The world pulled away from her. She righted herself and fought back the encephalitic swell of exhaustion building in her skull. She and Stephen had sworn to one another they wouldn’t fall apart, for their daughter’s sake, and yet the closer they came to her, the more they unraveled.

  Even though she looked like something that might’ve crawled out of the cemetery behind them, truth be told, she hadn’t felt more alive. Where her body bucked and begged for a bed, it simultaneously stung and sparked. Her hands shook. Her calves tightened. Her mind wavered and wandered, and yet its focus was a drill boring through the center of her forehead. Fight-or-flight gave way to fight-or-fight, and soon she was imagining the floorplans of Ved’s house and the things she might do to him out of need or want.

  She thought of everything, but she did not think of Filipa.

  “Phone have any battery left in it?” Stephen asked.

  “No,” she said, without checking.

  “We’re on our own.”

  “Haven’t we always been?”

  Linnéa licked her lips and took the lead. She hurried across the road and ran up Ved’s yard. The soil squelched; tufts of recently cut grass climbed into the air and scattered with the wind. She looked to her left and right for nosy neighbors, but there was no one. There might not have been for years now.

  Slowing down, Linnéa and Stephen crouch-stepped up the porch. She went to the front door and pressed her ear against it. Nothing.

  “Is it locked?” Stephen asked.

  She hadn’t tried, but when she did, it was.

  Hearing that, they broke apart, going their separate ways across the porch, overturning every rock and empty flower pot for the possibility of a spare key.

  Getting discouraged, Stephen said, “Lin, Six Pillars is right around the corner. We should get one of the cops to come and…”

  Linnéa toed a loose board. “Why? They can’t do nothing without a warrant or probable cause.” She pressed into it harder. The board turned upwards. Taped to the underside of it was a grimy key.

  “He might not be our guy.”

  She grabbed the key and hurried back to the door.

  “He’s got to know something. Seen something.”

  She held her breath and pushed the key into the lock.

  “Could be a decent man for all we know.”

  She turned it. The bolt gave itself to her.

  “We have to do this.”

  Stephen closed his eyes, nodded, and pushed the front door open, and together, they stepped inside, closing the door behind them.

  Whatever gore-stained, semen-slickened slaughter they might’ve imagined Ved’s house to be, it was not. It was, if nothing else, quaint. It was warm and smelled like apple cinnamon. The hardwood floors, though old, were spotless. The walls were a calming blue and covered in cheap, offensively normal canvases with inspirational quotes written in cursive on them, such “Live Life to the Fullest” and “A Happy Wife is a Happy Life.” Something Bethany might hang up.

  Pressing farther into the house, they found the living room with white carpet and a single couch draped in knitted blankets of kittens and puppies. There was an old tube TV with a wood paneled encasing, like something the Crosses’ might own, and bent bunny ears covered in foil atop it.

  Heading into the kitchen from the living room, Linnéa stopped Stephen with her hand and sniffed the air. There was another scent here. It was faint, lingering like smoke does above a candle. She breathed it in. Rose vanilla. Rose vanilla lotion. The same kind Filipa would wear.

  A surge of adrenaline shot through Linnéa with such strength she almost fainted. She sniffed the air and hunted for its source. It grew stronger and stronger as she went back across the living room, muddying the carpet with her shoes.

  Then she found it, the source. On a coffee table tucked against couch, in the corner. It was a picture in a bronze picture frame. The picture was black and white, and of a woman she never really knew, but still had come to know all the same.

  It was a picture of her mother, Agnes.

  Linnéa reached for it, and then turned away. She tore through the house. In the kitchen, she found a nice table with a red and white-checkered cloth draped over it. A plate with a spoon and fork were set there, with a mug, too, that read across it, Bethany Simmons’ Consulting.

  She started ripping out the drawers in the kitchen, unsure of what she was looking for, but finding things all the same. Mismatched cutlery—three forks, three spoons, four butter knives, and four ceramic knives—and mail. Junk mail, mostly, but mail; not addressed to 707 Meridian Avenue or even Ved Matcira, but to Six Pillars—to Linnéa and Stephen, Ellen and Richard, Bethany and Todd, and Trent.

  Stephen, taken aback, whispered, “Is this all from our…?”

  Linnéa grabbed one of the ceramic knives and, seething, cut down the hallway.

  She kicked opened the bathroom. There were four half empty bottles of shampoo in the shower, and four crumpled tubes of toothpaste on the sink.

  She shouldered into a bedroom. Ved’s bedroom. Inside was a child’s bed that looked as if it had spent some time on the street, waiting to be collected by the garbage collectors. A pink pillow crowned it, a child’s blanket depicting camouflaged soldiers covered it. In the middle of the bed was a book. Filipa’s favorite. The one about changelings.

  “Oh my god,” Stephen choked out.

  Linnéa turned out of the room, nearly stabbing him, and made for the last door at the end of the hall.

  She gripped the knife until it hurt and opened the door.

  Three descending stairs.

  And darkness.

  She flipped the switch with her knife-hand. She braced herself for the cries of children, but they never came. She told herself they were here, and then she went looking for them.

  Linnéa went slowly at first, but the harder
her heart beat, the faster she went, until she was nearly tripping over her feet to get to the bottom of the stairs.

  “Lin, wait,” Stephen cautioned her.

  But she threw caution to the wind, banished it for good and all time, and plunged down the last of the steps. The cold basement floor met her feet and she caught herself.

  The basement could’ve been a dead ringer to Connor’s, but whereas his had been basically a cave, Ved’s was a workshop. A long, wooden bench stretched most of the length of the basement under a series of still-burning and loosely suspended lights.

  Beyond the table were a small chair and a small TV. It was still on, and it was playing recorded footage of someone driving through a neighborhood. Their neighborhood.

  Stephen grabbed Linnéa’s free hand, but she wouldn’t let him have it for long. There were things on the table that needed her attention. He would have to wait. For just a little bit longer, he would have to wait.

  First, she went to the pictures. The pictures of Filipa. The pictures of Darlene, Charles, and Jimmy. Pictures of them outside, or inside, having been taken through a window. There were pictures of them going to school and going to bed; of them in towels, their tiny bodies still wet from their showers.

  Linnéa punched the table. Stephen took the side of it in both hands and gripped it hard enough to crack it.

  Then she went to the pictures of the houses. Of all the entrances and exits. And the blueprints. There were windows and rooms circled and arrows pointing to walls.

  Trembling, barely able to contain herself, her hands dragged more things across the table towards her. Pamphlets from the Disciples of God. A napkin with the name Chelsea—the teen in the white van?—and her number on it. Another decal with the Price Homes logo on it for the truck. A few empty, unmarked prescription bottles atop it. A bible with the Disciples of God’s branding on the front of it. A drawing of Brooksville Manor with illegible notes scrawled in the margins. More pill bottles. Files. Files on the children. One for each of them. But they began with images and descriptions of their parents.