Cold Death

by Mary Stone

  I held my breath, anticipating the moment when Sean would strike back and knock Reggie to the floor with a single punch. But the bigger boy lifted his hands to protect his face and shrank away, blubbering like a two-year-old. “Stop! Make him stop!”

  An object thumped my hip, returning my attention back to the market.

  “Excuse me!” A gray-haired woman called the apology over one shoulder as she hurried away, the large shopping bag that had accosted me swinging from her arm.

  After separating the old hag’s neck from her shoulders in my mind, I located the young mother again. Looking exhausted, she was crouching and cradling both sniffling boys to her chest. “Shhh, we’ll go home soon. I know you’re tired. Come on, let’s go get an ice cream cone.”

  Like magic, the tears disappeared, and the two boys skipped along, each clutching one of their mother’s hands.

  I tracked their progress through the crowd until they disappeared around a corner. One day in the not-too-distant future, when the brothers matured enough to comprehend their inherent power, they would cease using tears as a primary tool and switch to violence instead.

  Boys were so easy in that way. Society encouraged them to tap into anger and aggressiveness to such an extent that we’d even adopted a special saying to excuse any injuries that might occur as a result of testing their inner beasts.

  Boys will be boys.

  Smiling to myself, I slid my hands into my pockets and searched the crowd until I spied a young woman wandering through the booths, wearing a sleeping baby on her chest in one of those special carriers. A tiny pink knit hat that covered the infant’s head and ears designated her as a girl, and I clucked my tongue.

  Girls posed more of a challenge, requiring more planning and skill to circumvent their natures, which were hardwired more toward nurturing and fulfilling societal expectations. Unlike boys, igniting an explosion of violence in the female of the human species necessitated a liberal application of accelerants and more than one fuse.

  I eased into the meandering crowd while my mind raced ahead to the grand finale I had in store. A fireworks extravaganza that would put the Fourth of July displays to shame. Even with all of them on high alert, the three special women in my life would never see it coming.

  With all the noise from the market, my murmuring as I weaved through the shoppers went unnoticed.

  Never fear, Ellie, Katarina, and sweet little Bethany. Soon, very soon, I planned to strip away the rest of their armor and bare the truth of their innermost selves for everyone to see.

  When the explosion came, it would detonate like a nuclear bomb.

  I couldn’t wait to watch the show.

  7

  The painting’s vivid pink and purple sky first drew Clay’s attention, but the little girl running along the beach with a swath of blonde hair whipping behind her like a kite was what sucked him in.

  The artist’s impressionistic style made the intended age of the small figure tough to peg, but if Clay had to guess, he’d say ten or so.

  Close to Bethany’s age.

  “Can I offer you a bottled water, Agent Lockwood?”

  Clay tore his attention away from the painting and touched the tip of his cowboy hat. “Thank you, I’d appreciate it.”

  The fabric of Dr. Eddington’s trousers swished as she crossed the office to pull two bottles of Fuji water from a small refrigerator in the corner. He thanked her again when she handed him one but didn’t bother opening it. Instead, his gaze drifted back to the sunset painting.

  That was where Bethany should be right now. On a beach somewhere, kicking up sand and building castles with rock walls and seaweed moats. Not in the hands of a sick man who wanted to hurt her to get even with her mother.

  His hands tightened around the bottle. He should be out there, working with the Amber Alert response team to track her down, instead of sitting on his ass in offices all day, asking endless rounds of questions.

  The Fuji bottle grew taut beneath his grip, so Clay set it on the floor before the top popped and sprayed poor Dr. Eddington in the face.

  Check your ego, Lockwood. Plenty of good agents are out searching for Bethany. It’s not like you have any special skills they lack when it comes to finding lost children.

  If he did, he would have found Caraleigh years ago.

  An invisible knife twisted between Clay’s ribs. Bethany might have legions of LEOs out hunting her down, but his sister had no one.

  No one but him.

  His gaze returned to the painting. The vivid sky reminded Clay of the sunset at the fair that night. He remembered that as well as the tinny music blaring from the rides. The flashing, colorful lights, and the sugary aroma of cotton candy and churros.

  He and Caraleigh had been having a great time until he bumped into his longtime crush near the Ferris wheel. After that, Clay only had eyes for Jana. Or to be more precise, he’d only had eyes for the way Jana’s tight black jeans had hugged her legs and ass.

  Caraleigh had tried to regain his attention, even tugged on his arm to drag him over to the games. Clay had trotted along, but only because he’d hoped to show off for Jana. His sister had squealed when he’d won the stuffed pig and thanked him profusely, and what had Clay done? He’d shoved the toy into her hands and prayed she’d shut up so that he could concentrate on getting to second base with Jana.

  That was the last time he ever saw Caraleigh.

  Late at night, when he tossed and turned and couldn’t sleep, Clay would rewrite the scene and change the ending. His favorite version was the one where he dropped the pig into Caraleigh’s hands, hugged her tight, then turned to Jana with a regretful smile and said, “I’m sorry, but this is brother and sister time. Why don’t we hang out next weekend instead?”

  In this fantasy, he and Caraleigh spent the next two hours together playing games and stuffing their faces with pretzels and funnel cakes before meeting up with their parents and returning home. Later, his sister fell asleep safe in her own bed with her arm curled around the stuffed pig.

  “Agent Lockwood?”

  Clay blinked at the woman seated behind the desk. “Sorry, I was filtering through some of the timeline.”

  Dr. Eddington adjusted her glasses and sighed. “I was saying that regardless of how this new information looks on the surface, I’d recommend proceeding with caution. As we discussed before, Lucas has experienced a great deal of trauma in his life, especially around the time period precipitating his escape to the cabin. His memories of living with the girl you suspect to be your missing sister might not be real.”

  Her gaze softened when her focus shifted to the young man hunched in the blue chair closest to the window.

  “She was real. She lived with me.” Lucas spoke in a flat, slightly stiff cadence that Clay attributed to his spectrum disorder.

  He studied the younger man’s body language. Nothing in his actions gave Clay any reason to believe Lucas was lying, but the other man didn’t exactly inspire confidence, either. He didn’t bother to lift his head, just sat there, examining his own fingers as they tugged at the yellow shirt.

  Clay rubbed his palms on his pants and warred with the voice in his head. Was Dr. Eddington right? Was Clay allowing hope to tarnish his judgment?

  He couldn’t deny that his heart had all but burst with fresh hope a week ago, when Lucas first identified a photo of Caraleigh as the girl he’d once lived with in the woods. The entire incident had been a stroke of luck. When Ellie had shown Lucas the picture, she hadn’t even realized that the girl was Clay’s little sister, especially since her name had been listed incorrectly. The photo had been one of many, pulled from the stack of cold case files on Ellie’s desk.

  Coincidence?

  Fate?

  Plain good luck?

  Clay didn’t care what the sequence of events could be attributed to, but he’d left floating on air. He hated to admit it, but every day since, a little more doubt crept into his heart.

  What if the link bet
ween Caraleigh and Lucas Harrison seemed too good to be true because it was just that? A fictional story created by an autistic boy who’d needed a friend while fending for himself in the wild? “How would he identify a photo of Caraleigh if she was only a trauma-induced fantasy?”

  Dr. Eddington finished sipping water and set the bottle aside. “It’s possible that Lucas saw Caraleigh once. In person or perhaps on a missing child flyer or on a news alert somewhere.”

  “I don’t watch the news.” Lucas directed the statement to his hands. His leg kicked out once before he flinched and tucked both feet beneath the chair.

  “Right, but maybe someone you lived with had the TV tuned to a news station when you were younger, and you caught a glimpse of Caraleigh then.” The doctor studied the top of Lucas’s head with a furrowed brow. “You might not even remember, consciously, but your subconscious could have stored that visual information and used it years later to create a relationship with an imaginary friend. For all our scientific advances, the human brain persists in retaining its mystery in many ways.”

  Instead of replying, Lucas began bouncing his shoe on the floor.

  Clay eyed the rhythmic motion for a few beats before arching a brow at Dr. Eddington. He remembered how emotional she’d gotten when Lucas had first identified the picture. He thought that the doctor’s heart believed Lucas’s story, while her head forced logic and reason to take its place.

  “You don’t know that for sure, which is why I want to take Lucas back to the cabin.”

  The little grooves above the doctor’s nose deepened. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea.” She reached for a manila folder to the left of her keyboard and handed the file to Clay. “Take a look.”

  Clay flipped the folder open to reveal a report dated back several years.

  …when a second patient challenged the existence of the girl in group therapy, the patient exhibited signs of anger and aggression by throwing a chair and lunging at the patient, screaming, “she’s real!” repeatedly. Symptoms are consistent with a cognitive break, likely precipitated by trauma brought on by the patient’s real world and fantasy worlds colliding.

  In one study of patients suffering from unspecified delusion disorders, pointing out the simultaneous existence of two opposing, mutually exclusive realities caused a similar reaction in multiple cases. The researchers concluded that the resulting mental confusion manifested itself as rage, causing the test subjects to lash out at the source of his pain.

  Lucas’s outburst can likely be attributed to the same reasoning.

  Clay frowned at the page. As much as he hated to admit it, the doctor’s conclusions made sense.

  50 mg of Haldol was administered IM to calm the patient following the outburst, and two orderlies returned him to his room. Patient reported no lingering side effects once the sedative wore off and appeared to return to his usual, non-aggressive demeanor by the next day.

  As Clay continued to read, Dr. Eddington started speaking again. “That was one of the only times that Lucas has ever demonstrated violent behavior of any sort or attempted to physically hurt another patient.”

  But Clay barely registered the doctor’s warning. The line stared back at him, kickstarting his hope all over again. His heart slammed against his ribs, and he squeezed his eyes shut, ordering himself to slow down and breathe.

  “Agent Lockwood? Are you feeling okay?”

  Clay held up a single finger, filled his lungs with air, and opened his eyes.

  Please don’t let me have imagined it.

  The folder balanced on his lap trembled as he forced himself to read the line again. By the time he finished, his hands shook so hard that the file almost slipped to the floor. Sweat beaded on the back of his neck, and the goose bumps erupting on his skin were triggered by excitement, not chills.

  Clay wanted to jump up to his feet, toss his cowboy hat into the air, and whoop for joy. Instead, he called on years of training to leash his emotions and slapped the folder onto the desk, loud enough that Lucas froze and the doctor flinched.

  “Sorry.” He drew in a long, ragged breath. “We can go the paperwork route if you want, but I’d really prefer you to work with me on this. Lucas is the sole witness to a crime, and at this point, he could be the only person to help me find Caraleigh.”

  The doctor regarded him over folded hands with an expression of concern. “I’m sorry, I’m afraid I’m not following.”

  Clay opened the folder to the last page. “In this report, there’s a line that makes it one-hundred-percent clear to me that Lucas’s girl and my sister are the same person.”

  A soft gasp came from Lucas’s direction, but Clay’s gaze never wavered from the report. He dragged a shaky finger down the page until he found the line in question and read aloud. “The patient’s doubt of Lucas’s account of his imaginary friend appeared to be the initial precipitating factor, but the aggressive behavior didn’t begin until a toy was taken from him, a stuffed pink pig wearing a top hat.”

  When Clay glanced up, his vision was blurred, but he didn’t care. “Dr. Eddington, my sister loved pigs. The last time I saw Caraleigh at the fair before she vanished, she was clutching the prize I’d won at the ring toss to her chest. A stuffed pink pig in a top hat.”

  8

  Bethany’s tummy ached all the time now. A hollow pain, like someone had carved her insides out and left an empty space behind.

  She rolled onto her back in the hard bed with the scratchy blanket, but that didn’t help, either. Nothing did.

  At home, Bethany would have already jumped out of bed and skipped to the kitchen, where her mama would have breakfast waiting. On school mornings, she usually ate Frosted Flakes or Cheerios, but on the weekends Mama fixed pancakes or French toast and hot chocolate with whipped cream. The whole house would smell like yummy syrup, and they got to take their plates to the couch and eat while watching the Disney channel.

  Trapped here in this dark room, there was no reason to get out of bed. Especially since she was tired all the time now.

  Where are you, Mama? I’m scared and hungry. Please come find me soon.

  Bethany’s throat burned, but no tears came.

  Another knifelike pain stabbed at her tummy. She whimpered and clutched her stomach. She was about to roll onto her other side and curl into a ball when a floorboard outside the door creaked.

  Bethany froze.

  Go away. Please, go away. I’ll be good from now on, I promise.

  But this prayer didn’t work any better than the rest because the door squeaked as it swung open.

  Staying still was so hard. Bethany wanted to jump up and run. Hide somewhere. But that was stupid since there was nowhere to go.

  Besides, Mama had told her what to do if something like this happened.

  “Sometimes, playing possum can save your life, but you have to understand a little about people’s bodies and biology in order to fool them. Do you breathe quick or slow when you’re asleep?”

  Bethany only needed a moment to answer that question. “Slow!”

  Her mama nodded. “That’s right. When they’re sleeping, adults breathe about once every five seconds. Children your age might breathe a little more often, but for the most part, it’s slow and steady. Now, give it a try. See if you can fake me out.”

  Bethany giggled. Her mama was a little weird sometimes, but in the best possible way. Her friends at school had moms who taught them boring stuff, like how to play soccer, or the names of the presidents, or how to plant tomatoes, but her mom was so much cooler because she taught Bethany ways to survive a Zombie Apocalypse.

  “Shhh, possums don’t giggle.” Mama poked her belly and made her giggle again before Bethany quieted and did her best possum imitation. She laid still on the couch, arms clamped to her sides and eyes squeezed shut so tight that her eyeballs wanted to pop out, and practiced breathing in and out on a count of five.

  After two tries, her mama poked her again. “You look like you’re trying to
poop.”

  “Ew!”

  When Bethany stopped shrieking with laughter, her mama grew serious. “Remember, sleep is about giving your mind and body a chance to relax, so if you want to fool someone, you need to relax all your muscles. Your arms, your legs, your fingers, your toes. Even your eyelids. Focus. Think about that feeling you get when you lay outside on a hot, sunny day, and you’re so relaxed that your body almost sinks into the ground while your mind drifts away.”

  Bethany repeated the exercise two more times until Mama clapped. “Better, much better.” Once the lesson was done, she’d led Bethany to the kitchen and made them some microwave popcorn.

  Another floorboard creaked, this one closer to the bed. Bethany’s heart pounded faster, but she couldn’t do anything about that, only her breathing.

  Nice, deep, slow breaths.

  And she tried, but this was so much harder than when she’d played the possum game with Mama. That had been pretend and fun.

  This was for real, and somehow, her stupid muscles knew the difference. They kept trying to turn stiff, and her body wanted to shiver.

  Her mama’s voice whispered in her head, urging her to try harder.

  …Focus. Think about that feeling you get when you lay outside on a hot, sunny day…

  So, she did. Bethany pictured a time when the nice couple before Mama took her to the beach for a long weekend. How, after she’d played in the waves and flopped all salty-wet onto the beach towel, the sun beat down on her skin, drying her in minutes and warming her from the outside in. She remembered the heat zapping her energy and turning her so lazy that she could have stayed there for hours, floating away like one of the kites flying over the waves.