by Ritter, Todd
“No,” Kevin said. “Because by that point, my father told me that the Olmsteads had moved.”
“Did he say where?”
“No. Just that they were gone. So I went to live with him. He gave me a new name. To signal a new start, he said. It was weird at first, but I eventually got used to it. Especially after going to a new school. Everyone there called me Kevin. No one knew I had once been Charlie. After a few months, it was like Charlie had never been my name.”
“So you spent the rest of your life as Kevin, Craig Brewster’s son?”
“I did.”
“And he was good to you?”
“He was.”
“No abuse? No sexual assault? Nothing like that?”
“No. Never. He’s a good, kind man.”
“Did you ever see him with any other boys?”
“What do you mean?”
“At any time, were there other boys living with you? Maybe identified as distant cousins or the children of friends?”
“No. It was just the two of us.”
Nick had another question. Instead of blurting it out, he wrote it down on the prescription pad, tore off the page, and handed it to Tony to read. He did, with mild annoyance.
“Did you ever try to find the Olmsteads?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I had no reason to. At some point after I went to live with my father—I can’t remember if it was a few weeks, a few months, or a few years—he told me that they were dead.”
“All of them?”
“Yes. Ken and Maggie. Even the baby. I didn’t ask for details and he didn’t give me any. He said that there was a tragedy, they all died, and I was now officially his son.”
“How did this make you feel?”
“Sad, of course.” Kevin looked to Nick again. “Like you said, they raised me. And they were good to me. I cried when I heard the news. I wanted to go to their funerals, but my dad said they were already buried. Instead, he took me to the lake. I painted their names on three rocks and dropped them into the water. I had my own burial.”
Nick tried to stop himself. He really did. But as he listened to Kevin talk about his former family, the urge to speak expanded in his chest until it had to burst out.
“They’re not dead,” he said. “Maggie Olmstead is, but just recently. The others, Ken and Eric, are still alive.”
The news stunned Kevin Brewster. What little color there had been in his cheeks drained away and his mouth dropped open.
“I don’t believe you.”
“I’ve met Eric,” Nick replied. “He’s looking for you right now. Your mother spent her whole life trying to find out what happened to you.”
“Maggie Olmstead is not my mother.”
“She was,” Nick said. “Once upon a time. And your father, this Craig Brewster, he lied to you.”
“Prove it.” Kevin hopped off the table. Tony intercepted him and edged him back in place. “My father wouldn’t lie to me like that.”
Nick left the room. Back in the waiting area, he headed straight for the nurse. She was on the phone, the paperback at her elbow. Nick picked it up and mouthed four words, “May I borrow this?” When the nurse smiled and nodded, he took the book into the examination room and handed it to Kevin Brewster.
“Who wrote this?”
Kevin read the cover. “Eric Olmstead.”
“That’s the same Eric Olmstead who was your brother. In his mind, he’s still your brother. He always has been and he always will be.”
Nick flipped the book over, revealing an author’s photograph on the back cover. It was a black-and-white image of Eric, who seemed to stare out at his former brother. “He’s alive, Charlie.”
“It’s Kevin,” the former Charlie said.
“Yes. Kevin. But you were once Charlie Olmstead. You were once part of a family that loved you. When you left, they missed you. They still miss you. And they’d love to see you again and know that you’ve been safe all this time.”
Kevin Brewster started to cry. Nick didn’t know what actually prompted it. Maybe his words. Maybe the picture of his long-lost brother. The cause didn’t matter. The important part was that he realized he had been lied to all those years ago, and that clarity made him weep until his body was wracked with sobs.
“Where is Eric now?” he asked, trying to stop the tears.
“Perry Hollow,” Nick answered. “Probably a half hour away.”
Kevin Brewster, who seemed to be changing back into Charlie Olmstead with each passing second, wiped his eyes.
“Take me to him,” he said. “I want to see him.”
THIRTY-TWO
One hour.
Kat couldn’t dislodge the number from her head. Sixty minutes of discussion about James’s problems, although the conversation had been pretty one-sided. Jocelyn Miller barely let Kat get a word in edgewise, which made her feel both angry and foolish. And duped, of course. She couldn’t forget about feeling utterly duped by her son.
According to the principal, the deception began on Wednesday, when James entered fifth grade carrying his lunch box. A student in his homeroom—a smart-alecky runt named Randy Speevey—immediately teased him about it. James, who had at least six inches on Randy, grabbed his lunch, opened it up, and saw it was so much better than the one Kat had packed. So he tossed his lunch box, ate Randy’s lunch, and then lied about it.
He did it again the next two days. When Kat and Lou saw him throw his lunch into the trash outside the school, they had assumed it was to prevent it from being stolen by others. In reality, James had simply been tossing it in favor of Randy’s. The principal said James probably would have kept on doing it if Randy Speevey hadn’t tried to stop him. Denied his better lunch, James beat him up, causing a black eye, a cracked rib, and a sky-high doctor’s bill that Kat was now obligated to pay.
“You’re grounded for a week,” she told James. “Starting the moment we get home.”
They were in her Crown Vic, stopping and starting in the late-afternoon traffic on Main Street. School had let out while Kat was stuck in the principal’s office. Now it was rush hour, when it seemed like every car in Perry Hollow was heading somewhere.
“No computer,” Kat continued. “No TV. No video games. No iPod.”
“What about school?”
There would be no school, either. At least not for a week, which was the length of the suspension Jocelyn Miller handed down.
“I can’t believe you hurt that boy,” Kat said. “I taught you better than that.”
James crossed his arms in defiance. “I told you someone would make fun of me.”
“That doesn’t mean you needed to take his lunch and beat him up. You could have just asked for better lunches and I would have done my best.”
That’s all she wanted him to understand—that she was trying to raise him the best she could under stressful circumstances. It was hard being the only parent of a child with special needs while simultaneously watching over an entire town. In a way, Perry Hollow was like a second kid, sometimes more needy and unruly than James.
“You just need to talk to me more, Little Bear. And I’ll listen.”
James frowned. “No you won’t.”
“What do you mean by that?”
Kat’s cell phone, clipped to her duty belt, began to vibrate. She had silenced it during her meeting with Jocelyn Miller, letting it buzz throughout the hour-long ordeal. Grabbing the phone, she saw that Nick had called eight times. This was attempt number nine. He had news about Craig Brewster. Huge news, Kat assumed. But she couldn’t answer it, not with James staring at her with a dejected look on his face.
This is what he was talking about. The phone calls. The long hours. Being shuffled off to Lou’s house or Carl’s place or anywhere there was a responsible adult willing to look after him for a few hours. Kat had vowed to change all that ten months earlier, after she and James had come face-to-face with the serial killer known as the Grim Reaper.
But her old ways had crept back without her realizing it.
“It’s about this, isn’t it?” Kat said as she held up the phone. “Not lunch boxes or problems at school. It’s about how you think I’m choosing my job over you.”
She remembered what Jocelyn Miller had said about bullies subconsciously seeking attention from their parents. James had become one of those kids, doing whatever he could to make Kat notice him.
“Is that what you want?” Kat asked. “My attention?”
James nodded.
Kat lowered her window and tossed the phone out of the car, where it clattered into the street. A UPS truck in the oncoming lane ran over it, the phone crunching under its wheels. Kat was too angry to care.
“There,” she said. “You have my undivided attention.”
The tense silence that followed lasted all of a minute. Then the police radio crackled and Lou’s voice boomed out of it. “Chief? You there?”
Kat could easily get rid of her phone, but the police radio was another matter. There was no way she could avoid answering it, no matter how much James pouted.
“I’m here, Lou. What do you need?”
“Two things, actually,” Lou said. “The first is that the Chinese astronauts are walking on the moon. It’s all over the Internet. On the TV, too. I figured you’d want to know, just in case.”
Kat snuck a glance at her side mirror, where she could still see the shattered pieces of her cell phone in the street. Man was once again on the moon and she had no idea if Nick and Tony had found Craig Brewster.
“What’s the second thing?” she asked.
“I just got a call from Glenn Stewart.”
“Seriously? What did he want?”
“He called to complain about a domestic situation taking place next door.”
Kat gasped. “That’s Eric’s house.”
“It is,” Lou said. “And you should get over there. Mr. Stewart said he heard a lot of yelling.”
Kat swerved off Main Street and headed toward Eric’s house. Once on the cul-de-sac, she saw that Ken Olmstead’s rig was still parked at the curb. She brought the Crown Vic to a halt behind it.
“I’ll be right back,” she told James before jumping out of the car. “Lock the doors behind me. And if you move an inch, you’re grounded for another week.”
Inside, the house was quiet. If yelling had occurred, it was now over. Kat didn’t even hear talking. The only noticeable noise came from Eric’s cell phone, which blared from somewhere in the living room. Kat poked her head inside and saw the room was empty. She did the same with the kitchen and the dining room before climbing the stairs.
At the top, she found Eric in the hallway, sitting with his back against the door to Charlie’s bedroom.
“Eric? What are you doing up here? And where’s your father?”
He jerked a thumb at the door behind him. “In there.”
“You locked him inside?”
“I had to,” Eric said. “He was going to leave.”
“Then you should have just let him go.”
“But he was hiding something. About Charlie.”
“It’s okay,” Kat said. “They found out who did it. Nick and the state police. Hopefully they’ve arrested him by now. All that’s left is to find out what he did with the other boys.”
“So it’s over?” Eric spoke haltingly, as if in disbelief. “Really over?”
“I need to call Nick to confirm it,” Kat said, “but it’s pretty much a done deal. Now, let’s unlock the door and let your father out.”
Eric opened his hand, allowing her to pluck the key from his palm.
“This person they’ve arrested, who is he?”
Kat slid the key into the lock. “He ran the camp where Dwight Halsey disappeared. He was once engaged to Jennifer Clark, Mort and Ruth’s daughter.”
“Craig Brewster?”
“Yes.” Kat turned the key, the lock clicking free of the door. “How did you—”
The door was yanked open. Kat, who had been gripping the doorknob, went with it. She tumbled into the room, sliding along the dust-covered floor. Ken Olmstead jumped out from behind the door, leaping over her. As he left the room he lowered his head, ramming it against Eric’s stomach in the hallway.
They hit the wall hard, Eric taking the brunt of the blow. His arms flailed at his sides. His head bounced off the wall. Dazed from the impact, Eric went limp. Ken grabbed him by his shirt collar and thrust him into the bedroom.
Kat was once again on her feet and racing toward the door. She caught Eric as he fell inside, trying hard to keep him upright. In front of her, the door slammed shut. She lunged for it, catching the handle.
It was too late. On the outside, Ken Olmstead was turning the key. She and Eric were now the ones locked inside.
“I’m sorry,” Ken said through the door. “I didn’t want to do this. But you’ll never be able to understand the things I’ve done.”
Kat pounded on the door, slapping it with both hands. “Mr. Olmstead, we can sit down and discuss this. It might not be as bad as you think.”
“I’m sorry,” he said again. “Tell Eric I did it for him.”
Pressing an ear against the door, Kat heard his footfalls echo rapidly through the hallway. They became more muted when he reached the stairs. A few seconds later, the front door opened and closed.
Eric was at the window, trying to get it to open. “He’s getting away.”
Kat joined him, fingers trying to burrow beneath the window frame. It was stuck. No surprise, seeing how it had been closed for more than forty years.
Outside, she heard the low rumble of an engine. Ken Olmstead’s rig, revving to life. Still struggling with the window, she watched the rig tear away from the curb and head toward the end of the cul-de-sac. Ken made a U-turn before speeding off in the other direction. When it passed her patrol car, she saw James sitting in the front seat. Just like her, he was watching the truck’s departure with surprise and confusion.
“James!” Kat smacked at the window, trying to get her son’s attention. “Up here!”
But James wasn’t looking in their direction. His head was turned, following the truck’s progress as it belched out diesel smoke. Kat and Eric did, too, watching hopelessly as the truck made a wide right turn at the other end of the cul-de-sac and vanished from view.
Ken Olmstead—as well as any secrets he still possessed—was now gone.
“What did he tell you?” Kat moved from the window to the door, twisting the handle in vain.
“He said Charlie wasn’t my real brother.”
Kat already knew that. It was surprising, yes, but not worth assaulting your son and fleeing an officer of the law.
“What else?”
“I’m pretty sure he knew Craig Brewster took Charlie that night.”
Now that, Kat thought, was something worth running about. Which meant she had to stop that truck, by any means possible. But the first order of business was to get the hell out of that bedroom.
Backing up, she counted to three. Then she took off into a sprint, slamming into the door with her right shoulder. She had used that move once before, eight months ago. It hurt then and it hurt now. But on this occasion, just like the last, the pain was worth it. The force of the blow cracked the door frame. One swift kick later and the door was open.
Eric let out an impressed whistle. “Damn.”
“Just wait,” Kat said, “until you see what I do to your father.”
*
The rig came out of nowhere, rounding the corner and swerving into Nick’s lane. He slammed on the brakes, skidding to a halt as the truck righted itself. When it passed, Nick noted its exterior in case he ever saw it tearing through Perry Hollow again. Black paint. Orange flames airbrushed along the side. There was also a distinct groan to the engine, a telltale rumbling that grew more pronounced as the driver shifted gears.
“He must be in a hurry.”
It was spoken by either Charlie Olms
tead or Kevin Brewster, depending on how you looked at it. Nick could only think of him as Charlie, and addressed him as such. The man sitting next to him didn’t seem to mind. Not that he talked all that much. The comment about the truck was the first thing he had said in more than fifteen minutes.
Nick made a left turn onto the same street the truck had suddenly burst from. “This is where you used to live. Does any of it look familiar?”
Charlie gazed out the window. “I’m not sure. Driving through town was like déjà vu. I recognized some things, but it’s like I couldn’t remember from where.”
If he was nervous, he didn’t show it. But from the wide-eyed way Charlie took everything in, Nick could tell the whole experience was probably one giant mindfuck.
Charlie caught sight of the Olmstead residence. “My God. It hasn’t changed at all.”
Turning into the driveway, Nick saw Kat’s patrol car parked in the street. Even though she had ignored his calls all afternoon, he was glad she’d be there to witness the reunion. Unless Tony had managed to reach them from the hospital, Kat and Eric still didn’t know that Charlie was alive. Seeing him was going to blow their minds.
“You ready to go in?” he asked Charlie.
“I think so.”
They got out of the car. Charlie headed for the house, but Nick paused at Kat’s Crown Vic. James was inside, sitting with his arms crossed. Nick rapped on the window with the tip of his cane.
“Hey, kiddo. What are you doing here?”
“Waiting for Mom.” James had his iPod in hand, shuffling through the digital jukebox like he’d never get to play with it again.
“She might be a while. Do you want to come inside?”
James didn’t look up. “She told me to stay in the car.”
“Suit yourself, I guess.”
Nick turned back to Charlie, who rotated in the middle of the lawn, trying to see everything at once. “This whole street is exactly the same. The Santangelos lived there. The Clarks next door to them. And crazy Glenn Stewart’s house.”
Looking up at the house next door, Nick saw the curtains in a second-floor window flutter, as if rustled by a light breeze. But there was no breeze, light or otherwise. Nick had a feeling that the movement came from Glenn himself, who was once again spying on them. He wondered if the neighbor recognized Charlie after all these years and, if so, how he was reacting.
