Here For You

by J. P. Oliver

  There was a gun across his lap. An old hunting rifle.

  I had always known it would end up like this.

  I wondered where Jamie was. He’d told me a million times that he was here for me, and would be as long as I wanted him. But the Jamie I knew, the Jamie I’d let myself fall in love with, wasn’t the real Jamie. My Jamie would never hurt me, and I’d learned that the real Jamie couldn’t love without pain.

  The proof of that, those pictures I’d left scattered on the floor, had sent me running like a stupid, cowardly boy out of the Sit and Sip, the first place I’d ever really felt safe. They’d sent me running down the streets of downtown Harlan, the first place that had felt like home since my parents had died.

  It was all so much--this musty cabin, my uncle watching over me, Jamie. I closed my eyes, trying to remember how I’d gotten here.

  “Hey, kid!”

  There had been a voice, I remembered.

  “Hey, kid! What’s wrong?”

  The voice was closer.

  I’d collapsed, unable to run anymore. I curled against the cold stone of a building, knees hugged to my chest, gulping painful gulps of late winter oxygen into my lungs.

  “Jeez, kid.” Closer still. “You okay? Can I call someone?”

  I curled tighter into my little potato-bug ball. He couldn’t call anyone. I didn’t want his help. People don’t help. They leave or they hurt.

  He crouched beside me. My eyes darted around the street, confirming we were alone. I was scared and silent, but too tired to panic. I noticed little details. He was slim. Blond hair, stiff and sculpted. Green eyes. He wore an expensive leather jacket against the afternoon chill. He seemed harmless—for now—but I wanted him to leave.

  “Man, you really took off. Is someone bothering you? Can I help?”

  “Go away,” I managed.

  He paused, silent, but didn’t move. He watched me. I looked away.

  “I can’t do that,” he said. “I wouldn’t feel right, leaving you alone here, unless I knew for sure you were okay.”

  “I’m okay,” I lied. “Go away.”

  More silence. Maybe a minute ticked by.

  “All right, kid. But at least let me help you up. I can’t leave you sitting on the ground.”

  I gave him silence. I didn’t move.

  He didn’t move either.

  I wanted to scream in his face. I wanted to punch him, over and over, until he left.

  I was too tired.

  So I said “Okay.”

  “Okay,” he said, letting the smile on his lips caress his voice.

  He stood, holding his hand out to me.

  I took it, resigned to hoisting myself up.

  He yanked me to my feet, unbelievably fast. He was stronger than he looked. He hurt my arm. I opened my mouth in protest, and his soft, smooth hand was there, muzzling me.

  “Little bitch,” he whispered, all trace of friendliness locked away. “Little fucking slut.” He shifted his weight, pushing me into the wall, pressing against me, pinning me.

  A pain. A wasp sting, it felt like, right where my neck met my shoulder. I cried out, but his hand silenced me. I struggled, but he was strong. And then I got tired. Very, very tired.

  I think we started walking, me stumbling beside his sure feet. The blackness of an alley yawned before us. “This is what happens to little bitches,” he said, “who can’t keep their paws to themselves.”

  Then silence and dark.

  I gasped. The memory had come in the matter of a few seconds, maybe less. But it had been so clear that the transition from the cold, bright streets of Harlan, back to my current dim surroundings, jarred.

  I didn’t know what it all meant, but it felt important.

  What I knew for sure was I’d ended up here, and I had to get away from Uncle Jerry.

  I wasn’t strong or smart or brave. But like my uncle, who said he was dying, I had nothing real to live for.

  I would die before I let Uncle Jerry do the things to me he’d done to those little boys in the videos. I’d make him shoot me before I let him rape me.

  But I was good at being quiet. Maybe, if I was quiet, I could free myself while he slept. And maybe I could get his rifle. I didn’t think I could shoot him—not even him. But I could threaten him with it. I could hit him with it. If he tried to hurt me, I’d hit him with it, hard, right in his stupid head.

  I felt around for the knots, but I couldn’t reach them.

  I tried to make myself smaller and slip out of the bindings, but they were tight and I was sore.

  I thought maybe I could saw through the ropes, like they do in movies. But there was nothing rough, nothing sharp, to rub the ropes against.

  I gave up.

  And then a door slammed. Not the one I could see over Uncle Jerry’s shoulder, near the boarded-up window. A door behind me.

  “Jerry? Jerry!”

  My uncle snored.

  Footsteps.

  “Jerry, wake up. And don’t fucking shoot me.”

  That voice. The green-eyed man’s voice.

  Uncle Jerry stirred. Opened and closed his mouth a few times, then raised his head, eyes bleary.

  “Lind?”

  “Yeah.”

  And the green-eyed man came closer. I couldn’t see him, but I could feel him, and his voice was louder.

  “Fuck are you doing here?” asked Uncle Jerry. “Thought you’d be back in Denver by now.”

  “It was 2:00 a.m. when I dropped the kid off, and these roads are for shit. I found an abandoned cabin and caught a quick nap. I’m heading back as soon as I leave.”

  “Don’t let me keep you.”

  A laugh, low and without humor, but I heard no movement. “Don’t think you could if you wanted to. You’re not the bruiser you were before those kidneys gave out.”

  “Fuck off, Lind.”

  “Speaking of fucking off, looks like you’ve been too weak to open your little present. Thought you’d have torn into him by now.”

  “Hardly a present. I paid enough for him.”

  Another laugh. “Maybe. But I did kidnap the kid in broad daylight and drive him out to the middle of nowhere for you. If you wanted to be cheap, you could have just thought about him while you whacked off.”

  “I ain’t complaining.”

  “My mistake. It sounded like you were.” Another small pause, then, “Mind if I say good-bye to him?”

  “If that’s what it takes to get you on your way.”

  The scuffle of feet on the wooden floor, and then another jolt of pain, dull at first and then icicle-sharp, as he grabbed a fistful of hair and jerked my head back.

  “Ow,” I said childishly. The green-eyed man laughed, then examined me.

  “I don’t know what Jamie saw in you,” he said eventually. “Must be that goddamn hero complex he carries around with him. He always did love a wounded puppy.”

  The man from the pictures. He had to be. My mind spun.

  “He told me you were wounded,” I said, voice scratchy, throat dry. “He told me you were sick and broken. No wonder you’re friends with my uncle.”

  I didn’t know where that came from. Jamie had never said any such thing. He’d never even mentioned a guy named Lind. But looking into his face, I realized I hated him. I was scared of Uncle Jerry, but this man, I just hated. I wanted to hurt him.

  His face turned red and his eyes shone with violence. The grip on my hair tightened. Then he smiled, and he spit in my face, stinging my eye.

  “Cute, kid. See if you can keep that up when your half-dead uncle is balls-deep in you. Especially knowing it’ll take Jamie all of two weeks to forget about your trashy little ass once I get him back.”

  “The fuck out of here, Lind,” said Uncle Jerry.

  The green-eyed man laughed, then released me. My head bounced into the lumpy mattress. The sound of footsteps receded, and I heard the rasp of a door open.

  “I’m leaving the key on the counter. So long, kid-fucker. Try
to go out with a bang.”

  Uncle Jerry lifted his rifle, pointing it toward the voice, but his grip looked unsteady. The gun wobbled, and the door slammed.

  “Faggot,” he muttered. Then eventually his eyes settled back on me. “Just like you, huh, sissy-boy. Just like my pretty little sissy-boy nephew.”

  The mattress pressed against my mouth muffled my disgust.

  “We’ll have to do something about you,” he said, his voice starting to slur again. “I’ll have to remind you who your uncle…is. Let me get…a little rest…and I’ll…”

  His chin was on his chest again.

  I was still bound, and still sore, but at least Uncle Jerry was quiet.

  18

  Jamie

  It was hard to wrap my head around. Noah had had a hard time letting go, but I didn’t think… Kidnapping? And doing such a sloppy job of it? For all the risks Noah had taken in the bedroom, or in the “playroom” he’d built in his basement, he’d always been sharp and precise in his day-to-day life. Sure, he’d made me more and more uncomfortable every time I’d run into him lately, and I’d been fairly certain he was the silence at the other end of those phone calls, and he was surely the one who’d mailed those filthy pictures. Even so, this didn’t sound like him.

  But all the evidence suggested he’d taken Beck.

  After a long night of climbing the walls because I couldn’t do anything, Eli and I had burst into action this morning.

  As soon as the courthouse opened, we’d made some calls. A quick check of court documents showed Noah had defended Jerry Egan. My ex, who didn’t come cheap, had worked for a beat cop on trial in Hillsboro County, nearly four hours from Denver, on one of the most disgusting cases I’d ever heard of. And that beat cop was the man I’d been holding a grudge against for weeks, the man who had tried to break mi ángel.

  I don’t believe in coincidences, and this set off a whole symphony of alarm bells.

  Around noon, we’d found the footage. The security camera at a bank on the edge of downtown showed a guy who looked an awful lot like Noah running after someone who looked an awful lot like Beck. The film was grainy, and they’d been too far from the camera to get a perfectly clear shot, but I knew how both of those men moved.

  Beck had stopped running, almost collapsing against a building. Noah had approached. They seemed to have spoken for almost two minutes before Noah had helped Beck to his feet. What happened next was a blur, but within seconds, Noah’s arm was around Beck’s shoulder, and they’d disappeared out of the frame.

  Seven minutes later a car had cruised past, slow enough to catch our attention. We’d gotten the plates.

  A rental. Picked up from the airport. And the name on the credit card was Noah Lind.

  Noah had been in Harlan on the day Beck went missing.

  I’d called Denver PD and explained the situation to my sergeant. I’d gotten a text two hours later that Noah hadn’t shown up at work and wasn’t at home. Cops were waiting at the car rental place at DIA.

  Every cell in my body screamed at me to head back to Denver, but I stayed put.

  If I were the one who found Noah, I’d kill him. It was best to stay away.

  And Beck had to be the priority. The car had been clocked at a stoplight heading south out of Harlan, and again going through an ExpressToll, exiting I-25 onto Highway 50.

  And 50 ran right through Hillsboro, where Beck had grown up. Where Jerry Egan had filmed and stashed and…enjoyed …hours and hours of child pornography.

  But Egan hadn’t been seen since the day after his release. He’d withdrawn the last few thousand dollars from his savings, and there was nothing to track after that.

  I wanted to drive to Hillsboro and shake the town to its foundations till we found the pinche pervertido, till we rescued mi tesoro. But Hillsboro was more than a three-hour drive from Harlan, and Eli talked me down. Local cops were on the case. That had to satisfy me for now.

  Instead of helping, I was picking apart a paper cup. A cup that had once held coffee. Coffee that, mixed with adrenaline, rage, and fear, was the only thing keeping me awake. Then Eli opened the door.

  “Cross is here.”

  I stood up so fast the cheap metal chair I’d been sitting in clattered to the floor, then followed Eli to an interview room.

  Beck’s aunt was a slim woman with auburn hair, just starting to go gray. Her large eyes darted sharply around the room, and her thin hands never stopped fidgeting. She was one of those people who’d had to learn that fear kept you alive. Over the last twenty-four hours, I’d learned she’d abandoned Beck to his uncle, and I hated her for that. Still, sitting across from her, I felt the familiar, useless urge to protect her.

  She locked eyes with Eli and launched right in, panic lacing through her voice. “Is Beck here? Will he see me?” She had a slight accent, a sharpness to her cs and a flatness to her rs.

  “Not at the moment, Ms. Cross. We have a few more questions for you.”

  “Of course,” she said. Worry flashed across her eyes. It looked right at home there. She looked from Eli to me, and then down at her nervous hands.

  “You’re aware your former husband was released from prison late last week.”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s important we get in touch with him, but—”

  “Is this about Beck? Is he safe?” Her outburst startled me. She looked up, pale and worried. I forced my sympathy down into my gut and ignored it.

  “He’s missing, Ms. Cross, and we’re hoping you might help us find him.”

  If she’d been pale before, she went deathly white now. “Missing? But Jerry’s sick,” she said, voice loud and trembling. “He’s dying, they said. And Beck would never go back to him.”

  “You haven’t seen Beck since he was seven,” I said. “You don’t know what he’d do.” I agreed with her, in fact, but the words shot out of me, hard and sharp. My worst impulse. I wanted to hurt the person who’d hurt Beck through her absence. Under the table, Eli’s hand found my thigh and squeezed hard enough to make me wince. I exhaled and forced myself to lean back in my chair.

  “The point is,” Eli went on, his words tumbling over mine, “that no one’s seen your ex-husband for four days, and no one’s seen Beck for almost twenty-four hours. It’s possible if we find one, we’ll find the other.”

  She was crying now, silent tears that welled in her eyes and pushed their way down her cheeks. She shook her head, barely a tremble of a muscle. The guilt in my gut won out over whatever fire I’d felt a moment before. “I haven’t—” She turned to me, and now there was just a hint of steel in her gaze. “You’re right. I haven’t seen either of them in over a decade. I’ll do what I can, but I don’t know where they might be.” She swallowed and dropped her eyes. “I hoped Jerry would muster the good grace to just go home and die.”

  “That’s part of it, Ms. Cross. Mr. Egan sold your old house after his arrest. He racked up quite a few legal bills. We’re not even sure where to start looking.”

  “Did he sell the cabin, too?”

  In an instant, Eli and I sat up, stiff and alert, and in unison we repeated, “The cabin?”

  “The cabin,” she said. “He has, or at least had, a cabin about an hour from where we lived, near Gunnison National Forest. His father owned it when we were married. We had our honeymoon there, and he took me there for a few weekends early on. But I’m not the outdoorsy type, and…” She shook her head again. “Eventually, we stopped taking weekend trips together. But his father died, maybe a year after Beck came to live with us, I suppose—he took the death of his daughter, Beck’s mother, quite hard—and Jerry started going by himself. A weekend every few months. He said it was the only place he could go to get away from me. The only place he could think.”

  A clue. A hint. A way, if we were lucky, to narrow down our search. I felt my heart swell and thud, and realized I wasn’t breathing.

  “We’ll look into it, Ms. Cross. Thank you. Would you mind waiting here
for a moment?” Eli stood. I was less than a millisecond slower than he was.

  “Sir?” Gillian Cross’s cool voice stopped me in my tracks.

  “I’m not a good person,” she said. “I’m certainly not a brave person. But I loved…I love Beck. I wanted to save him. I tried. But I couldn’t. And staying with Jerry—it would have killed me, and it wouldn’t have protected Beck. I fought for him, but he was Jerry’s blood. I fought as hard as I could, and when I lost, I ran.”

  I held her gaze for a moment. I didn’t want to blame her, but my head and my heart were struggling with each other. I couldn’t tell yet which was going to win. Eventually, I just nodded, then I followed Eli into the hall.

  The next ten minutes were a flurry of activity. Eli barked instructions to a pair of desk cops, who immediately got on their phones and started dialing, then he got a map and took it in to Ms. Cross. I wasn’t invited, after my outburst, so I stood in the hallway clenching and unclenching my fists.

  After forever, Eli emerged, striding with the force of a bull through a red cape. “C’mon,” he called out as he passed me. “We’re going camping.” I fell in.

  Once we were in the car, tearing toward I-25, he started chewing my ass, telling me he’d toss me out of the car if I was going to get in the way of the case, if I couldn’t keep my cool and check my goddamn emotions.

  I took it. I deserved it. Besides, nothing Eli said could get under my skin. He was taking me to Beck.

  19

  Beck

  Uncle Jerry slept for a long time. I fought fatigue as long as I could, but dozed on and off throughout the night, sometimes dreaming of Jamie, him telling me he’d always be there for me. Sometimes those dreams woke me. Sometimes Uncle Jerry’s snores did.

  That was a relief. I didn’t know if I’d get out of this alive, but if he was going to kill me, I wanted it to be quick. Uncle Jerry looked like he might die in his ratty old chair, leaving me to starve.

  I was hungry, and so thirsty my mouth felt like it was stuffed with cotton. My head ached, a dull throb, and I wondered if that was dehydration. I hadn’t had to go to the bathroom since waking, and that was probably a bad sign. I wondered how long ago I’d eaten.