Though no other car had passed by in the last minute or so, Nathan had a sudden fear that, after all this time, just as he was about to hold his son once again, a car would rise over the crest in the highway and run Jeremy down as Nathan himself nearly had.
When he had pulled even with Jeremy, Nathan dropped the car into park and threw open his door. On unsteady legs he hurried around the car and across the road. Jeremy was standing there on the road’s shoulder, leaning awkwardly to one side. It was him. It was his son.
“Jeremy?” he called as he crossed the road.
Jeremy looked up and…
It wasn’t Jeremy. From a short distance, he looked quite a bit like him—about the right size, close enough to the right age…but the wrong face. This man’s face was a contradiction. Half of it was movie-star handsome, the other half scar tissue. Nathan’s heart shattered like glass. This man wasn’t his son.
Nathan stopped beside the man. For a moment, he couldn’t speak. Disappointment had stolen his voice.
The man cocked his head strangely, turning slightly away from Nathan, tipping his head back a little.
“Hello?” the man said.
Nathan swallowed. “Are you okay?”
“Mostly, I guess.”
Nathan looked up and down the highway for a parked vehicle. “What are you doing out here? Where’s your car?”
“I don’t have one. I was riding with some people and they…they didn’t want me riding with them anymore.”
Nathan nodded. “Lot of bad people out there. What were you doing in the middle of the road?”
“I didn’t realize I was in a road until it was too late.” Nathan was confused until the man added, “I’m mostly blind.”
Nathan shook his head. “These people you were riding with are sounding nicer and nicer. Did they hurt you?”
“Not really. At least not on purpose. They took my money but they didn’t really hurt me.”
The man shifted his feet.
“You’re standing funny,” Nathan said. “Leaning a bit.”
“They hit me with their car.”
“You said they didn’t hurt you.”
“Not on purpose. They were trying to drive off after they dumped me and I got in the way.”
Nathan noticed then that the man was sweating terribly, despite the cool night air. He also now noticed that the man was breathing too quickly between his sentences, small shallow breaths.
“You sure you’re okay?” Nathan asked. “You don’t look like you’re breathing right. Maybe you punctured a lung or something.”
“No, it’s not that. I have…anxiety issues.”
The man shivered and closed his eyes. Nathan was about to say something when the guy reached up and touched his own face with both hands and his lips began to move, almost like he was praying. Nathan stayed silent for a moment, allowing the man to finish his prayer. Finally, his breathing seemed to slow a bit. He lowered his hands.
“Is your leg okay?” Nathan asked as if nothing had happened. “You need to go to a hospital?”
Nathan knew he shouldn’t have even asked. He should have just put the guy in his car and found the nearest hospital. The guy could have ruptured organs. He could have been bleeding inside. Plus, he didn’t seem to be all there. Maybe he’d suffered a head injury. The right thing would be to take this man to a hospital. But Nathan didn’t think he could afford the time to do the right thing here. He needed to get to his lake house, to Jeremy.
“No, I don’t need a hospital, thanks,” the man said and Nathan felt a bit better. “I’m pretty sure I’ll just have a big bruise on my leg. Nothing broken.”
“Well, that’s something then.”
“Guess so.”
“You got a cell phone?” Nathan asked. “You call the cops yet?”
“They took my phone. Any chance I could make a call with yours?”
“I don’t own a cell phone,” Nathan replied. No one I ever really need to call.
Nathan looked at his watch. He rubbed his neck. He looked up and down the highway hoping a cop would come along. Finally, a set of headlights crested the rise in the road. Nathan waved to the car as it approached.
“Here’s comes a car. I’ll flag it down. Maybe they can call the cops for you.”
The vehicle was coming fast. No way the driver didn’t see them, yet he blew past without touching his brakes.
“There goes another good Samaritan,” Nathan said. He looked at his watch. “We’ll get the next one.”
Two more cars zipped by at eighty miles per hour and Nathan began to doubt seriously that anyone one would be stopping tonight. He had no more time to waste.
“Where you headed?” he asked the man.
“Franconia Notch State Park.”
“At this time of night? What for?”
The man hesitated, then said, “There’s something I’ve gotta do there.”
He didn’t elaborate. That was okay with Nathan. He checked his watch again.
“Well, listen, I’m not going that far but I can’t leave you out here. How about I take you to the next rest stop. I’ll give you a few bucks. You can call whoever you need to call from there, okay?”
The man nodded. “Thanks, I appreciate it.” He stuck out his hand. “Boone Forrester,” he said.
Nathan took his hand. “Nathan Zeltner.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
THE LITTLE BLOND boy had been in the back of the Audi. Alice had no doubt about that. The car’s windows were dark, almost too dark to see through at all, especially at night, but somehow, in some mysterious way, she’d seen him anyway, his face pressed against the glass, looking out at her with fear and desperation in his eyes. She’d never seen him like that before. Even when he was pointing or waving, he was calm, his face serene. But behind those tinted windows he looked terrified, scared and small and very much alone in the dark of that car.
She followed the Audi from as far back as she could while feeling comfortable that she wouldn’t lose it. She didn’t know what any of this meant. She knew she was supposed to follow the car, the man, for some reason, but she didn’t know why. Was the blond boy—not his spirit, but the actual boy—inside the car? Was he being abducted? But no, the face she’d seen, though it was clearly that of the blond boy, was just as clearly not that of a flesh-and-blood child. She could tell that. But the kid definitely wanted her to follow the Audi.
She considered calling the police.
“But what would I even tell them?” she asked aloud.
She’d seen the state trooper pull the car over. He certainly hadn’t seen anything to arouse his suspicion.
“Hello, police?” she said. “I’m following a little ghost boy in a Welcome Back Kotter shirt and he really wants me to follow a dark-blue Audi. Why, you ask? I have no idea, but I really think you should get involved.” She sighed.
Seriously, what could she say? She had no evidence of any wrongdoing. She’d researched on the Internet and hadn’t found a single mention of a lost little boy matching the blond boy’s description. A trooper had already pulled the Audi over. There was nothing she could tell the authorities that wouldn’t sound crazy. Besides, maybe she’d be interfering with the boy’s plan if she called the police. Maybe she was simply supposed to follow the Audi to its final destination and her calling the police would somehow prevent the car from getting there when it was supposed to.
She had no choice but to continue following the Audi and see where it would lead her. She chewed her lip. She truly believed that the little boy was in trouble and had somehow, miraculously, reached out and contacted her. She even believed deep down that she was his only hope. She knew she couldn’t possibly abandon him.
“But that definitely did not look like a warm and fuzzy guy driving that car,” she said.
He looked thick and muscular and he walked with the cocky arrogance of a man who expected others to get out of his way.
“Maybe he has nothing to do with any of this. Ma
ybe the kid is hitching in his car so I’ll follow it wherever I need to go, and after we get there the creepy driver will continue on his way.”
She thought for a moment.
“Damn it, kiddo, couldn’t you just ride with me? Point left or right and tell me where to go? Why do we need the scary guy?”
Alice thought about what she might have with her in the car that she could use as a weapon in an emergency. She had pepper spray in her purse. She’d never used it, but Daniel told her that a woman in his office had, and that it had saved her life in a subway station one late night. So Alice had carried it ever since. And that was about it, just the pepper spray. There might have been a tire iron or a screwdriver or something in the trunk. She wasn’t sure. Knowing Daniel, though, there would be a full emergency kit back there, with flares and flashers and all the tools he’d need to build himself an entirely new car if this one ever failed him. He was always prepared for every contingency.
“Don’t suppose you planned for this one, though, did you, Daniel? Got a gun back there, maybe?”
She didn’t truly imagine she’d need a gun, had no idea how to actually fire one, but she liked the idea of having one in her hand if the worst-case scenario came to pass and the Audi’s driver was a bad guy and she had to confront him.
“Alice,” she said, “your imagination is getting away from you. You don’t need a gun. You don’t need a weapon of any kind. The muscle guy will lead you somewhere, then take off, and you’ll find the kid.”
She thought about that, then nodded.
“I just hope he’s alive,” she added softly.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
AFTER WHAT SEEMED like hours rumbling along the highway in darkness, after what must have been a thousand tears, Miguel stopped crying. He was tougher than this. He’d fought off his father two years ago and he’d fought off that pervert David last night. He was done crying. He considered his situation. Locked in a trunk with a muscle-bound mob guy driving, a guy who was literally twice his size. His ankles and wrists were taped, and Larry had even thought to wrap tape around Miguel’s fingers so he couldn’t peel the tape away from the rest of his body. There was also tape wrapped tightly around his mouth, running a couple of times around behind his neck, sticking to his hair and pulling it any time Miguel moved his head.
Every now and then he could barely hear Larry over the rumble of the car, yelling something from inside the vehicle, some threat about the terrible things he was going to do to Miguel over the next couple of days—horrible things that Miguel would rather die than experience. Miguel considered trying to simply die. Could he stop himself from breathing long enough to die? He didn’t think so. He thought that your body makes you breathe, even if you don’t want to. So he tried. And he was right. He couldn’t stop himself from breathing and simply die.
So what else could he do?
He fumbled in the dark with his hands, wrists and fingers taped together, seeking something sharp, anything. He found nothing. As he lay there, his mind spinning as it searched for other options, the car bumped—must have hit a pothole or something—and Miguel heard a soft metallic thump behind his head. He wriggled and inched around like a blind worm. Movement was difficult in the small, cramped space, taped as he was, but he moved as best he could, inching back until his head hit hard, round metal. He lifted his head and rested his cheek on something hard and cold, felt like a tire iron, the straight kind, not the kind shaped like a cross. Miguel used his chin to slide the tool toward his hands. He hoped he wouldn’t have to waste time trying to spin it around. He ran his chin along its length and found that the end that took the lug nuts off was up near his chin, which meant that the flat, sharper end was near his hands.
He steadied one end with his chin while trying to dig the other into the tape binding his fingers together. Would this work? If so, would he have time to free himself before they arrived wherever Larry was taking him? Miguel dug around with the tire iron, its sharp end gouging his hands below his taped fingers and above his taped wrists. The other end ground against his chin.
Please, he prayed.
The tire iron slipped off his chin and jammed into his upper lip. He tasted blood. He thought he might have chipped a tooth. He repositioned the tool, trying to get the sharp end under the tape between his hands. Finally, it felt like a corner had caught under tape. Miguel pushed harder and felt a little give. He moved his hands, pulling against the tire iron, straining his fingers and wrists. He heard a tiny rip and doubled his efforts.
This was going to take time. But how much of that did he have?
LARRY WAS STILL hungry, even after the burger and fries he bought to go at the last rest stop, so reached into the breast pocket of his shirt and took out a small bag of peanuts he’d gotten for dessert. He used his teeth to tear open the plastic, then tipped his head back and poured a few nuts into his mouth.
He took exit 23 off the interstate and followed Route 104 to Route 3, and from there he reached the small roads that would take him to his house on the lake.
Larry wasn’t sure what he was anticipating more eagerly, the feel of Miguel’s soft flesh under his hands, or the thought of that flesh between a pair of pliers. With most of David’s boys, the ones Larry used in a dark parking garage right after leaving his boss at the hotel, Larry didn’t do everything he wanted to do with other, more special, boys. Frankly, most of them weren’t worth the time or the effort. After ten minutes, he’d taken what he wanted from them. And an hour later, after he’d disposed of them, they were forgotten. He thought no more about them than he did about a newspaper he’d read and left behind on a table at Denny’s. They simply weren’t worth it. But the special ones, like Miguel, required more time. For them, he needed to be at his lake house, in the basement storage room he’d converted to accommodate his hobby. The room was small but big enough for a twin bed and a table with all the tools he liked to use. And if he left the door open, he could set up his video camera on a tripod and get a clear view of the bed. Larry used the room once a year at most—there simply weren’t that many special kids like Miguel around—but the memories he created there with those kids—along with the videos—were more than enough to sustain him until another special boy came along. And another would. One always did.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
“WHOA, THERE,” BOONE said, “you okay, Nathan?”
“What? Sure, why?”
“Well, I know I can’t see much, but it felt like we swerved a bit there. Everything all right?”
“Oh, yeah, I was just…I saw a deer on the side of the road. Didn’t want it jumping out on us.”
“Okay.” Boone frowned. That was the second time Nathan had swerved like that in the past twenty minutes. “Listen, it’s not like I can spell you behind the wheel, but are you okay to drive? You’re not—”
“What?”
Boone hesitated. He didn’t want to insult the man who had been so kind to him. “You’re not falling asleep or anything, are you?”
“Falling asleep?” Nathan said. “You kidding? We’re going seventy miles an hour. I can’t fall asleep. I could kill us.”
“Yeah, that’s sort of what I was thinking.”
“I’m just kidding you, Boone. No, I’m fine. Seriously, I saw a deer at the last second and swerved. You ever hit one of those things?” Nathan paused. “I’m sorry,” he added. “I don’t even know if you ever even drove, given your vision problems. That was rude of me.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Boone said. “Yeah, I used to drive. And I almost hit a moose once in Alaska.”
“Yeah? Bet that would put a dent in the fender. I hit a deer twenty-some years ago, not too far from here. Totaled my Oldsmobile.”
“Were you hurt?”
“Nope. Neither was the deer. He wrecked my car and just got up and trotted away.”
“One tough SOB.”
“Me or the deer?” Nathan asked, chuckling.
“Both, I guess.”
After
a moment, Nathan said, “So, what did you say was waiting up there for you at the state park in Franconia Notch this late at night?”
“I actually didn’t say,” Boone said. That sounded rude, so he added, “It’s a bit personal, that’s all.”
Personal and a bit crazy-sounding. The last thing Boone needed was to tell another person about his ghost or whatever it was and get thrown out of his third car tonight. He’d already had to ask Nathan if they could close the windows. He said it was because he was cold, and that was true, of course, with the night wind blowing in like it was, but the real reason was that Boone didn’t want to feel the open air into the car. He’d done well the past hour or so. With the voice of his newfound guardian angel, Alice, in his head, he’d beaten back four panic attacks—the first in Adam’s car, the second after Adam and his boys dumped him in that parking lot, and the third when Boone had first met Nathan by the side of the highway. The fourth had threatened just a few minutes later, while the wind howled into the car through the open windows, sliding over his skin at seventy miles per hour, covering him, trying to suffocate him. Boone had fumbled on his armrest for the switch and closed his window without asking permission. He thought he’d heard Nathan ask him what was wrong when he covered his face with his hands and pretended they were Alice’s hands. The technique had worked earlier and it worked again. He held his own cheeks and spoke inside his head and, without succumbing to panic, without retching, without going completely blind, he felt the wave of panic recede, washed out to sea before ever reaching shore. When it was all over, he calmly and politely told Nathan that he was cold and asked if he would mind closing his window. Nathan had seemed oddly reluctant but he complied. After he did, he had asked, “You okay, Boone?”
“Yeah, I’m okay.” He felt like he owed Nathan more, so he’d added, “Just dealing with those anxiety issues I told you about.”
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