Never Come Back

by David Bell

  Excerpt from that Hiding Place

  Prologue

  What do you remember from that day, Janet?

  Janet remembered the heat. The way it shimmered in waves in the distance, making the edges of the trees, the cars in the parking lot blurry and indistinct. Wherever she stepped, the grass crackled or the dirt puffed. The heat rose from the ground and scorched her feet through the soles of her cheap plastic shoes.

  She was seven years old and in charge of her baby brother for the first time ever.

  Janet watched Justin. She thought of him as a dumb four-year-old, a silly kid with a bowl of blond hair and a goofy smile. He sat with the other kids in the sandbox, scooping piles of sand into mounds with his hands, then smoothing them over. Back and forth like that. Sand up, sand down. Dumb and pointless. Something little kids would do. She watched him. Carefully.

  But no, that wasn’t right. That wasn’t right at all…

  Justin wasn’t silly. And he didn’t smile all the time. He was a quiet kid. A loner. He sat in the sandbox alone that day. And he didn’t smile much. Not much at all. No one in her family smiled much, not when she looked back on her childhood… or even her life now.

  What did she remember from that day? What did she really remember? It was so hard to—

  Michael showed up.

  She remembered that.

  Michael showed up, her seven-year-old playmate, the boy from the neighborhood and school. Their parents were friends. They played together all the time. Her boyfriend, she liked to think and giggle to herself, although they never touched each other. Never hugged or kissed or held hands. They were too young for that, too young for a lot of things.

  But Michael showed up wearing denim shorts with a belt like a long rope and sneakers with holes in them. His hair hung in his face, and he brushed it out of his eyes constantly. He lived on the other side of the park. And so Michael called her name, and when he did her heart jumped and she turned away from the sandbox and the swings and the other kids. And she followed Michael wherever he went. Across the playground, over the baseball diamond, over by the trees. She followed him.

  Is that all she did? Run across the playground?

  It was enough. She let Justin out of her sight. Dad was at work and Mom was at home, and Mom let them go to the playground alone that day for the first time ever, but it didn’t seem like a big deal. The park was near the school and the church and the other kids would be there, other kids they knew and even some parents. And all Mom said on that day when they left the house was, “Janet, don’t let Justin out of your sight. He’s a little boy…”

  But she did. She let Justin out of her sight.

  Did she see the man?

  Janet can’t say anymore. She’s seen his face so many times. At the trial. In the newspaper. The mug shot. His face stoic, his eyes round, the whites prominent. His full lips, his black face. Not really a man. Now when she looks at the face, she sees a kid. Seventeen when he was arrested, but tried as an adult. He would have looked like an adult back then, that hot day in the park…

  But she doesn’t know if she saw him.

  Other people did. Adults and kids. He was in the park, talking to kids at the sandbox and the swings. He carried Justin, according to some of the witnesses. He paid special attention to her brother, they said. Walked around with him. Talked to him. Lifted him on his shoulders.

  For years, Janet thought she saw that, thought she remembered that. The young black man with the frizzy hair and the dirty clothes carrying her brother on his shoulders. Justin’s blond head up high, almost as high as the top of the swing set. Justin parading around like a champion. Being tricked by this man. And then being taken away.

  But she doesn’t really remember that, does she?

  She thought there was a dog. A puppy. It ran through the park, and Justin ran after it.

  Is that what happened? Is that how Justin got away?

  What do you remember from that day, Janet?

  She can’t be sure anymore. Not after twenty-five years.

  She isn’t sure she saw the man that day. But she wishes she had. She wishes she knew.

  And she really wishes she had kept her eye on Justin, like she was supposed to.

  She didn’t see the man and she didn’t see Justin.

  And when it was time to go home, when Janet finally did look around and try to find her brother, he wasn’t there. The adults became hysterical and the police arrived and people asked a lot of questions, but none of it mattered.

  Justin was gone. Long gone.

  Chapter One

  Janet hid the morning paper from her father. She saw it when she’d come downstairs, and even though she knew it was coming—knew for close to a week that an interview with her brother’s murderer would be on the front page—the sight of it, the sight of his face, hit her with the force of a slap. And then she thought of her dad. His anger, his roiling emotions at the mere mention of Dante Rogers. She folded the front page in half, with Rogers’s face inside the fold, and slipped it beneath a chair cushion.

  Janet heard water running in the bathroom down the hall, then her father’s feet on the hard wood. She was breaking her own rule. When she’d moved back in with her father after he’d lost his job, she’d made a silent vow not to be his household servant. She wouldn’t become some version of a substitute wife to him—cooking, cleaning, laundry. But on certain days, she made exceptions. She took out eggs, cracked them into a skillet, and watched them sizzle. Summer work hours at the college left her just enough time to do it—and it might take the old man’s mind off his troubles.

  “Where is it?”

  Janet turned. Her father, Bill Manning, filled the entrance to the kitchen. He was still tall—over six feet—but since being laid off he had gained about twenty pounds, mostly in the stomach and the face. He’d been out of work for nearly two years, ever since the recession had hit and his company, Strand Manufacturing, “went in a different direction,” which meant laying off anyone over the age of fifty. Twenty-seven years working in product development and then an unceremonious good-bye.

  Janet recognized the foolishness of trying to hide the paper. She pointed to the chair. Bill picked up the paper and sat down. Janet put the eggs in front of him.

  “I thought you said you wouldn’t wait on me,” he said.

  “I felt like it.”

  “You felt sorry for me,” he said.

  Janet didn’t answer, but there was some truth in what her father said. Years ago, he’d lost his son and then his wife. Then came the recent job loss, and Janet moved in to help make sure he didn’t lose the house. Her father might be reserved and distant—difficult even—but she never outgrew the desire to protect and help him. And that desire only became stronger as her father grew older. He was sixty-two and starting to look his age.

  “Jesus,” he said. He folded the paper, snapping the pages into place with a flick of his wrists, and leaned close to read the story. “Not even at the top…”

  Janet knew what the story said. Her brother had disappeared twenty-five years ago that day, and the local paper was running a couple of stories to commemorate the anniversary. The first one detailed the life of Dante Rogers, the man convicted of killing her brother. Paroled three years earlier, slowly adjusting to life back on the outside, working part-time at a church on the east side of Dove Point, Ohio…

  While her dad read the article and cursed under his breath, Janet turned to the sink. She ran a rag over some dishes from the night before. “Today’s our day, remember?” she said. “The reporter is coming over at two. I’m leaving work early—”

  The paper rustled and fell to the floor. When Janet turned, her dad was cutting into his eggs, shoveling them toward his mouth with machinelike quickness. He paused long enough to ask a question. “Do you know what I think of all this?” he asked.

  “I can guess.”

  He pointed to the floor where the paper rested, the article about Dante Rogers facing up. “Th
is article—it’s like they want me to feel sorry for this guy. It reads like he got some kind of a bum rap because he went to jail for twenty-two years for killing a kid—”

  “Did you read the whole story?” Janet asked.

  Her dad kept chewing. “I already lived it.”

  Janet leaned back against the counter and folded her arms across her chest. “He still says he’s innocent,” Janet said.

  Her father’s eyes moved back and forth, giving him the look of a caged animal. His cheeks flushed. “So?” He looked down at his plate, pushed the remains of the egg around, making a runny yellow smear. He didn’t look back up.

  “He says—”

  “I don’t want to hear it,” he said, dropping his fork. “He just wants sympathy from people. Probably living on welfare.”

  Janet took hold of the belt of her robe. She worked it in her hands, fingering it, using it almost like rosary beads. “If it makes you feel any better, I don’t really want to tell my story to the reporter either,” she said.

  “I know the story. Rogers killed my boy. That’s it.” He pushed away his plate and rose to his feet. The first year after being laid off, her dad dressed just like he did when he went to work—shirt and tie, neatly pressed pants. The past year had seen a change. He no longer dressed first thing in the morning and went days on end without shaving. He stopped reading the classifieds a few months earlier.

  “Then I guess it’s silly for me to ask if you want to do anything special today?” Janet asked.

  “Anything special?”

  “For the anniversary of Justin’s death.”

  “Have I ever before?” he asked. “Have you?”

  Janet shook her head. She hadn’t. Every year, she tried to treat the day like any other day. She tried to live her life, work her job, and raise her daughter.

  “Then there’s your answer, I guess,” he said. “What time’s that reporter coming over?”

  “I just said. Two o’clock. So, are you going to talk to her?”

  He left his dirty dishes on the table. “I’ve got nothing to say to any of them,” he said. “Nothing at all.”

  Chapter Two

  Ashleigh sent Kevin a text: Where R U?

  She waited near the swings, the sun high overhead prickling the back of her neck. It was just eight thirty and already hot enough to send sweat trickling down her back. Ashleigh scuffed her sneakers in the dirt and checked her phone.

  No response yet.

  Where was he?

  She watched the little kids scream and play. They ran around like monkeys, their mouths open, their hair flying. They never tired or stopped. Ashleigh felt something swell in her throat, an emotion she couldn’t identify. She took a deep breath, like she needed to cry, but swallowed back against it, choking it down. She turned away. She couldn’t watch the kids anymore. They looked so vulnerable, so fragile, like little glass creatures.

  This is the park, she thought. This is where it happened.

  Kevin came out of the trees. She recognized his loping gait, his broad shoulders. He wore his work uniform—black pants and a goofy McDonald’s smock. He’d decided to grow his Afro out over the summer, and it made him seem even taller. Ashleigh took another deep breath, collected herself before Kevin arrived.

  “Hey, girl,” he said.

  “Thanks for writing back.”

  “I got called in.” He pointed at his shirt. “I have to be there at ten.”

  “That’s bullshit.”

  Kevin shrugged, casual as could be. “I have to earn my keep.”

  “Let’s get going then. These kids bug the shit out of me.”

  • • •

  They didn’t talk much. Ashleigh imagined that the parents on the playground—the ones who always came to watch their kids, whether they knew what had happened there twenty-five years ago or not—had noticed the two of them: a tall black boy and a short white girl, walking side by side. She’d known Kevin for three years, ever since the first day of junior high, when they’d sat next to each other in history class. At first she thought he was dumb, maybe even retarded. He was so big, so quiet. Then she noticed the jokes he cracked at the teacher’s expense, his voice so low only she could hear.

  “What’s your plan?” he asked.

  They came out into the neighborhood that bordered the park. It was opposite where she lived with her mom and grandfather, and a little nicer too. She supposed it was upper middle class as opposed to simply middle class. Bigger houses, nicer cars. A neighborhood where no one got laid off.

  They walked past older homes with nice yards. Retirees lived there, old people who spent their days digging in their gardens and sweeping their walks. If a piece of trash ended up in the yard, they’d probably call the police.

  “I don’t have one yet,” Ashleigh said.

  “You usually have a plan for everything.”

  “I don’t for this.”

  They reached Hamilton Avenue, a major road dotted with strip malls and gas stations.

  Kevin said, “So you’re just going to go up to this dude and say, ‘Hey, what do you know about my dead uncle?’”

  “Be quiet.”

  Ashleigh looked down the road. She saw the bus.

  “If I go with you…” Kevin sounded uncertain. “I’m going to be late for work. I’ll get written up.”

  “Then don’t go,” she said. “Make hamburgers for strangers. Forget about all those football games I went to with you.”

  “Come on, Ash. My dad says if I don’t have a job this summer, he’s going to kick me out of the house.”

  “And remember how I helped you proofread your history term paper? Heck, I proofread all of your papers last year.”

  “You’re going to throw that back at me?”

  “I’ll go alone. The guy’s probably not dangerous.”

  “You know how my dad is,” Kevin said. “He’s old-school. He worked his way through college, so he thinks I need to earn my keep.”

  The bus pulled up, air brakes exhaling. The diesel stank, burned Ashleigh’s eyes. When the door rattled open, she didn’t even look at Kevin. She just climbed on and dropped her coins into the slot, where they rattled like loose teeth. She moved down the aisle and took a seat, staring out the window and watching the traffic go by.

  She picked up movement at the front of the bus, something in her peripheral vision.

  “Hey,” the bus driver called.

  It was Kevin. He ignored the driver and walked right back to Ashleigh’s seat.

  She looked up into Kevin’s face. A cute face, she had to admit. Beautiful eyes. A little puppyish.

  “What?” she said, trying to sound mad.

  “You really want to do this?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Come on, goddamn it,” someone yelled from the back of the bus.

  “I have one problem,” Kevin said to her.

  “What?”

  “Can I borrow fifty cents?” he asked, smiling.

  She reached into her pocket and handed him the coins.

  Chapter Three

  Janet tapped lightly on Ashleigh’s door. Nothing. Then she knocked again, using more force.

  “Ash?”

  The knob gave as she turned. Janet stepped into the darkened room and saw that Ashleigh was already gone, so she pushed the door open all the way. It wasn’t unusual for Ashleigh to leave the house early. Not unusual at all. She’d be with Kevin most likely, or sitting at the library thumbing through books and magazines. Kevin. Ashleigh didn’t bring him around much anymore, not since they’d moved in with Bill. But the two spent all their time together. Janet tried not to pry, tried not to be a nosy mother, but she wondered sometimes. Did her moody daughter have a boyfriend? That at least was a normal concern for a mother to have, worrying about her daughter’s dating life. The other things Janet worried about were a product of her own childhood, and they made her heart flutter…

  It’s okay, she told herself. It’s okay to let h
er out of the house. She’s not a child—she’s fifteen. She won’t get taken and it’ll be okay.

  Janet reminded herself to breathe. She’d half entertained the notion of taking Ashleigh out to lunch or shopping, something to break the usual routine and mark the importance of the day. But Ashleigh was living her life, just the way Janet wanted her to. Why burden her or anyone else?

  Janet turned her attention to the things in the room. She had to give Ashleigh credit for something else—the girl knew how to keep order. No teenage mess in that room. The bed was made, the closet closed. Janet went over and opened the blinds. The light fell across a neat row of photographs on the shelf above Ashleigh’s bed. The photos were all familiar. Janet and Ashleigh at a school awards ceremony. A portrait of Janet’s mother—high school graduation?—the grandmother Ashleigh never knew. And on the end, facing the light, the last portrait of Justin ever taken, the one that ran in the newspaper and on TV during the summer he disappeared. Janet picked the photo up, ran her hand across the dust-free glass.

  Janet had once asked Ashleigh why she kept a portrait of her dead uncle above her bed. The girl just shrugged.

  “It’s the past,” she said. “Our past. And isn’t the past always with us?”

  Janet shivered. Out of the mouths of babes…

  She went to get dressed for work.

  • • •

  Janet had begun working at Cronin College fourteen years earlier. She’d started in the mailroom just after high school, sorting packages alongside work-study college students from all over the country. Ashleigh was a year old then. Janet didn’t think she could work, raise a baby, and attend college, but she took the job at Cronin with an eye toward bigger things. She knew—knew—her daughter would go to college someday, and employees of the college received a huge tuition break. Janet even planned on getting a degree herself and had taken classes over the years as she worked her way from the mail processing center to the copy and print center to the chemistry department and finally to her current position working for the dean as office manager, overseeing a staff of five. She loved her job. She loved supporting herself and her daughter with her own work. She even enjoyed knowing that her job and salary helped her dad hold on to her childhood home.