Goodbye Forever

by Bonnie Hearn Hill

  Kit fought to keep her expression neutral. ‘Jessica?’

  ‘Just an old friend of his Lucas likes to keep around. They helped each other out when they were real young. Lucas and me – we’re partners, though. If he wants her with us, I’m all right with it.’

  ‘Where’d you find her?’ She looked out the window into a frostbitten orchard so that he couldn’t see her face.

  ‘We knew her when we were kids. Lucas first, but only by a year.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Don’t push me, Katherine. First I have to figure out a way to hide you until Lucas is OK with it.’

  He pulled off on a narrow road.

  ‘What do you mean, hide me?’ She fought to keep the panic from her voice. ‘And where are we?’

  ‘Don’t jump out of the truck.’ He gave her that crooked grin once more. ‘I have my own quarters. Not a suite at the Ritz Carlton, but you can stay there while I convince Lucas to let you in.’

  This kid didn’t look as if he’d ever been near the Ritz Carlton. ‘Where are you from?’

  ‘We’ll talk soon,’ he said. ‘If you want to continue, that is. If you don’t, I’ll take you back where I found you, and no one will know you were here.’

  Kit’s head churned with every possible scenario. Go back to where they met and hope John Paul and his cop buddies could find a link to the homeless kids? Do what Richard suggested and hire a private investigator? Stay in this guy’s so-called quarters and text Richard. The girl at this place had to be the right Jessica, and Lucas had to be that same little boy. If Richard’s niece was this close, going there with Ike would be worth the risk.

  ‘I want to continue,’ she said, in a voice she knew sounded as beaten as she felt.

  ‘Don’t sound so glum. I help run the compound, and you’ll be fine, Katherine.’

  His voice seemed to drop and fade into doubt.

  ‘Except for what?’ she asked.

  ‘Except, like I said, I need to get Lucas on board.’

  They drove farther in silence. Richard would be frantic, and so was she. She needed to figure out a way to text him.

  Ike seemed to be studying her, and Kit tried to distract him. ‘Tell me about Jessica. Is she nice?’

  ‘Not to me. And don’t get any idea about you two being friends. She’s going to hate you too.’

  ‘Why?’ Kit asked. ‘I don’t even know her.’

  ‘She just likes acting like she’s better than she is.’

  ‘What makes her any better?’ Kit asked. ‘She’s a runaway too, isn’t she?’

  ‘Yeah. But she’s Lucas’s runaway, and that makes her better, in her eyes – and his maybe.’

  ‘So what will I be?’ she asked. ‘If I really go to this place with you, I mean.’

  ‘Lucas says we need someone who doesn’t share our past, and I just think you’ll be good for us, that’s all.’

  ‘Ike.’ He stopped at a dented stop sign and glanced over at her. ‘There’s one thing we’d better get straight. I want to go wherever this is with you. But I do not want a relationship with you or anyone right now. I can’t handle it.’

  He scoffed. ‘No one said you were God’s gift to anyone. Besides, we need to get this straight too. Harming a girl against her will, the way you were harmed, being a predator – that’s the worst thing a man can do. It’s the worst kind of crime because the victim carries it the rest of her life.’

  ‘So? I already told you I agree with that.’

  ‘Coming on to a guy, though, pretending you want him and then saying no – that’s a different story.’ His hands on the wheel looked as though he were strangling it.

  ‘I hope you don’t think I’ve been coming on to you,’ Kit said.

  ‘I’m just warning you.’ He loosened his grip on the wheel, yet his thick knuckles remained white. ‘That’s all.’

  TWELVE

  This guy was dangerous. Not to Kit, at least not yet. But he had been one of Weaver’s child patients, and he had just made it pretty clear that he had no problem raping or otherwise harming a girl he perceived as coming on to him. Kit needed to look around this place, make sure she had found the right Jessica, and then get out. As soon as Ike left her alone long enough, she would text Richard.

  The road went from paved to rocky to dirt. Ike started to pull into a deserted parking lot and then said, ‘Screw it. No one’s back at the compound right now. Might as well save ourselves the walk.’

  ‘I don’t mind walking,’ she said.

  ‘No reason to. Besides, we’ve seen things out here.’

  ‘Things?’

  ‘Snakes. Stuff like that. One time, a bear. What a big mother that was.’

  Kit huddled down in the seat. ‘Are you sure no one will be there?’

  ‘Not if we hurry. They don’t usually get back from church until noon.’

  ‘Your friends went to church on a Tuesday?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s a good time to get the things we need. Good time for me to show you around too.’

  Uncertain as she was, Kit couldn’t resist taking a look at where he and maybe Jessica lived.

  ‘They steal from church?’ she asked in a calm voice, free, she hoped, of judgment.

  ‘A couple of them do.’ He spoke as if it were commonplace. ‘You have a problem with that? It’s not a religious thing. Just an opportunity.’

  ‘No, I don’t have a problem. At least, not until I hear more about it.’

  ‘Well, you won’t hear more about it today because we will be the only ones there.’

  ‘Then let’s get in and out in a hurry.’

  ‘As big a hurry as we can,’ he said. ‘I do want to show you everything. Then you’ll know if you want to stay.’

  All she wanted was to see it and get out. ‘I’ll know pretty fast, I’m sure,’ she told him.

  ‘I will too.’ He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye and slowed the truck. ‘No reason for us to race. Like I said, noon’s the earliest they ever come back on Tuesdays.’

  But there might always be an exception, and Kit didn’t want this to be it.

  ‘Here we are.’ He pulled the truck into a small driveway in front of scattered shelters. Clapboard farmhouses sat back from a larger home in front. The tiny community was so well hidden behind the vineyards that no one who didn’t know how would be able to find it.

  ‘How did you discover this?’ she asked.

  ‘What is this, the grand inquisition? You keep forgetting that I ask the questions.’ He got out of the truck. ‘Come on, now. We have a couple of hours.’

  ‘I have a right to know where we’re heading.’ She jumped out before he could get around to open her door. ‘I need to know what I’m getting into.’

  ‘That’s why we’re here.’ As she started to move toward the main house, he blocked her way with his massive body. ‘Katherine, no outsider has seen this place until now. Don’t make me sorry I brought you here.’

  ‘And don’t you make me sorry I came.’ She glared back at him.

  ‘What are you complaining about? You have no place else to go.’

  ‘Sometimes the streets are fine,’ she said.

  ‘You won’t last another day.’ He drew away from her and stopped in front of the house. ‘I always had this option. Now I’m offering it to you.’

  But he was from Oregon, she thought. This couldn’t be his.

  ‘You own this place?’ she asked, hoping she sounded sufficiently impressed.

  ‘Nope, but from a young age, I always knew I had somewhere to go when the time came. So knock that chip on your shoulder and check it out.’

  He gestured toward an elaborate manufactured treehouse set back from the main road and higher than anything else on the property. Two of the four sides she could see were painted in dull earth tones that looked like chipped slabs of fading olive green and rust.

  ‘What’s that?’ Kit asked.

  ‘I warned you it wasn’t the Ritz Carlton.’

  ‘
You live up there? In that tree?’

  ‘Someone has to keep watch.’ His voice went sing-song, and she realized she should leave sooner than she had planned.

  ‘Is that where you expected to hide me from Lucas?’

  He squinted at it as if seeing his home with her eyes. ‘You’ll have it all to yourself,’ he said. ‘I’ll stay down here in my sleeping bag.’

  ‘While I’m up there?’

  ‘Don’t judge it until you see it. We put wall-to-wall carpet in that thing – the plushy kind your feet sink into. It even has a heater.’ He crossed his arms with more conviction than he must have felt staring at his pitiful excuse for a home. ‘How’s that compared with the streets?’

  ‘If it’s my only choice, I guess I can’t complain.’ She moved closer to the house. ‘But I’ll need some time to think about it.’

  As they headed for the front porch, her tennis shoe tripped over something, and she almost went down. Ike grabbed her arm. She stepped back and looked at the blistered gray paint of a wooden trap door. The padlock appeared new.

  ‘What’s that?’ she asked.

  ‘Just our basement. Don’t worry about it.’

  A suffocating feeling came over Kit again. She felt trapped, smothered.

  ‘I’m not going down there,’ she said.

  ‘You couldn’t if you wanted to.’ He glanced back up at his treehouse. ‘Wouldn’t you rather be up there?’

  ‘No way. I could fall and break my neck.’

  ‘I sleep there every night, and my neck is just fine.’

  ‘Maybe you’re just lucky. The thing’s a death trap. There’s not even a whole roof over it.’

  ‘There’s a second one under what you can see from here.’ He took a step toward it. ‘Want to go up?’

  ‘I most definitely do not.’ He stopped, and she could tell from his grim expression that she had gone too far. ‘I mean, I appreciate the offer, but I would like to see the house,’ she told him.

  ‘The main house.’ Ike opened the wooden front door and waited for her to go in. Kit reached into her pocket, found the pepper spray, and stepped inside.

  The house smelled like vanilla. In that first glance, it reminded her of her mom’s old home in Buckeye, Arizona, with its faux cozy living room, overstuffed chairs, and kitchen lit by the flickering fire of a squat wood stove in the far corner of the room. Except her mom’s former home, even after the tragedy that had reunited them, never felt as cold and disturbing as this house did. The cheeriness of this room went no deeper than the surface.

  Then she saw the plastic mannequin on top of a short curio cabinet. Bald and eyeless, it wore a red flame-shaped mask decorated with silver metal studs. In its lips, the mannequin held a candy cigarette. Two posters were tacked on either side of it. One was a peace sign embossed into the head of an African singer. The other was a side view of Frank Zappa poised on a toilet and tagged ‘Phi Zappa Krappa’. These kids must have created their decor from whatever had been left here over the years.

  ‘Where’d you find those?’ she asked.

  ‘In a box of stuff in the basement.’ He stood rigid as if trying to evaluate her.

  To the side of the wood stove, a fake green Christmas tree flooded its corner of the room with the twinkle of artificial light, blinking frenetically. Crowding the branches were religious symbols, beaded Victorian ornaments, a tiny stuffed Elmo, and little sequined frames holding photographs too small to see. At the top, a red felt-covered Popsicle stick wore a matching Santa hat above two tiny plastic eyes.

  She nodded at the Popsicle Santa. ‘Martha Stewart must have beaten me to this place.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘I just meant it looks like you got a head start on Christmas.’

  ‘That’s from last year. Seasons don’t matter around here.’ He moved closer to her, clearly proud of who he was now and this life he apparently controlled.

  ‘So nobody plays by the rules?’

  ‘Only the compound rules. That’s the point.’ His grin seemed less pathetic in the light of the tree and the room. ‘Come on. I’ll show you the quarters now.’

  ‘I’m not sure I want to go up there, Ike.’

  ‘If you’re worried about the stairs, I can help you. One of the guys who lived here when this place was a hippie commune taught industrial arts. Those slats he built along the side of that treehouse are so strong that they could hold you and me both.’

  ‘In a minute, then. I’d just like to see what else you have here.’

  ‘Katherine.’ He leaned against a weathered wood Adirondack chair. ‘How many times do I have to tell you? You’re safe with me.’

  ‘I’ll feel safer once I see the rest of the place. She glanced over at a hall that must lead to bedrooms. Right before the hall, just inside the kitchen, a trap door similar to the one outside was partially hidden by a braided rag rug.

  ‘Basement?’ she asked.

  ‘It has two entrances,’ he said. ‘Want to see the movie room?’

  She looked around and grew more nervous. Somehow, she had to contact Richard, and right now.

  ‘Where is it?’

  ‘Right here.’ He walked past the decorated tree to some weather-beaten French doors and opened them. Cool air rushed in. Kit stepped past Ike into the room, which was full of mismatched chairs facing a large-screen TV that dominated most of the wall. It had once been a screened-in porch, its wood-plank floor covered by woven rugs larger than the one over the trap door. Kit breathed in the smell of stale popcorn.

  ‘So you have your own theater,’ she said.

  ‘And we have movie nights. It’s fun.’

  ‘Looks like it.’ She walked back into the kitchen and the heat of the wood stove.

  Warmth. That was the currency of this place. But the moment she found even a little, it was snatched away.

  Beside her, on the tiles of the counter, sat little towers of stacked shotgun shells.

  ‘You don’t seem very impressed,’ Ike said. ‘What did you expect?’

  ‘Oh, no. I’m very impressed.’ She rubbed her hands together inches from the stove. ‘After where I’ve been, it looks like paradise. I just can’t figure out how you can afford a compound like this.’

  ‘I’ll tell you more later, once we decide if you’re a good fit.’ Ike went to the sink, turned on the water, and squeezed some dish soap on to his hands. ‘Want some?’ he asked, as if offering her a drink.

  As Kit stood beside Ike, she saw something she had missed before: a photo pasted on to one of the cabinet walls. Dr Weaver’s halfhearted smile hadn’t changed. Except now, someone had slammed a dart through his forehead.

  Her hunch had been right. She had better be very careful about whatever she said or did next.

  ‘Who’s that?’ she asked in a bored tone.

  ‘Just a weasel,’ Ike said. ‘He feeds on children.’

  She stood next to him, both of them looking out the shuttered window as they washed their hands free of whatever Ike believed had infested them.

  Kit glanced at the dartboard that Weaver had become.

  ‘I probably ought to be going soon.’

  ‘You have to stay.’ Ike reached up to the old-fashioned paper-towel rack, ripped one off, and began drying his hands. ‘If Lucas finds you before we discuss it, you don’t want to know what’s going to happen.’

  ‘So why don’t you talk to him when they get back?’ she said. ‘I’ll take the path we drove out here on, and you catch up with me in the truck when you can.’

  ‘No.’ His tight lips and narrowed eyes reminded her of the way he’d looked when he had practically strangled the steering wheel while warning her about what happened to girls who led guys on. ‘You do have to stay here, at least for tonight.’

  ‘I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to do.’

  She weighed her options. Leave against his will and hope they could get Jessica out of there, or stay and contact Richard as soon as possible? She might be able do that if she p
retended to go along with Ike.

  ‘You don’t want to join the compound?’ Ike’s face lost expression, as if he had forgotten who she was.

  ‘I didn’t say that.’ She forced him to meet her gaze. ‘I want to think about it.’

  ‘Where are you going to stay?’ He crossed his arms and faced her, leaning back against the sink.

  ‘In your truck, maybe.’

  ‘Someone might find you there. An animal even. Not a good idea.’

  ‘Maybe just another shelter, then,’ she said. ‘It’s only one night. You talk to Lucas. I’ll find a place to stay. You text me when it’s all right to come back.’

  ‘I don’t know.’ He looked down at his tennis shoes. In spite of the weather, they were pristine. ‘Maybe you’ll decide not to come back. Maybe you’ll turn us in.’

  ‘Why would I do that, Ike? You’re my only hope.’

  ‘You’re right about that.’ He turned around and did a few self-conscious pushups off the tile of the sink. He didn’t have to say a word. The bulging muscles beneath the jacket spoke for him. Then he stopped and yanked open a wooden shutter over the kitchen window. ‘Holy shit.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Jessica!’ He slammed his finger against the partially closed shutter. ‘She’s walking up the front path.’

  Kit leaned forward and nearly collapsed against the sink. There, in jeans, a bulky jacket, and with that unmistakable burgundy-streaked hair partially covered by a wool cap, was the girl she had been seeking. A few feet behind her, a short boy in a cowboy hat yelled something to her. Jessica stopped and turned back toward him.

  ‘You’ve got to hide.’ Ike scanned the room. ‘The treehouse. You can go out the back.’

  ‘By the time we get there, they’ll see me.’

  ‘Here.’ Ike kicked aside the braided rug and lifted the trap door.

  Kit stared down into musty darkness. ‘No.’

  ‘We don’t have a choice. It’s OK. I’ll be here.’

  ‘No, Ike,’ she said. ‘I’d rather stay up here and face them.’

  ‘You can’t. You have no idea of what he’ll do.’

  ‘But you don’t understand. There’s no way I can handle this. I can’t stand to be locked up.’