Authors: Leslie Parrish
Livvie reached for the corner of the sheet and lifted it slowly. Each inch
revealed more of the charred skeleton below, starting at the feet. A few of the
toe bones, phalanges, if he remembered his science classes, had broken off
and lay positioned below the metatarsals.
His stomach clenched. He’d seen bodies before, God yes.
But here were
such tiny little things. Some parent once counted those ten toes, tickled
those plump feet.
At least, he hoped so. God, he hoped this kid had had
some happiness in his life somewhere along the way.
He closed his eyes briefly, reminded himself to focus, then opened them
again.
Olivia didn’t make a sound. She just kept moving the sheet, careful not to
touch anything below it. The bones had been cleaned since he’d last seen
them, obviously for the coroner’s examination—it couldn’t be cal ed an
autopsy. It was damn lucky the means of death had been made obvious by the
broken hyoid, at least obvious to the experts, not to a layman like him.
Judging by some awkward lines, bends where things should only have been
straight, the boy had suffered other breaks. The skinnier bone below the right
knee, he couldn’t recal the name, was awkwardly bent, as if it had been
snapped and had healed crookedly. So was one of the ones in the arm. And
the right col arbone looked like it had been crunched at some point. God, did
he hope it had been after death, not before.
“So smal ,” Olivia whispered, her hand shaking as she finished removing
the sheet.
“He was a young kid.” Gabe shook his head in disgust, as he had the first
time he’d seen this awful sight Monday at the scene of the fire.
Olivia whispered something else. From here, a few feet away, he thought it
might have been
Is it you?
But he didn’t ask her to speak up. Frankly he
wasn’t entirely sure what to do. Olivia had not said anything about what she
intended or what would happen. She just calmly—if sadly—studied the
remains, making no effort to handle them.
Maybe it wasn’t going to work. Which, to be honest, sounded better and
better to him the longer they stood here. He’d find another way to work this
case, someone else to ID this kid.
Olivia lifted her hand to her mouth, like she feared she would be sick. He
reached for her, but she jerked away, muttering, “Stay back!”
Rather than being sick, she touched her lips with one finger, her pose
pensive. Then, before he could say a word, she bit at her own fingertip.
“What the hel are you . . .”
Ignoring him, she yanked her head back, tearing at the latex with her teeth.
She hadn’t been biting her finger; she’d been biting the glove.
She spat the tiny piece out. Gabe realized what she was going to do about
one second before she extended her index finger, a tiny bit of pink skin visible
on the tip. “Don’t!”
She did. With no hesitation, she pressed her bare skin to one of the tiny
finger bones dangling from what had once been the boy’s hand. It was the
slightest touch, the barest of connections between flesh and bone, dead and
alive.
But he knew right away it was enough.
God help her—and him—it was enough.
“Please . . . stop . . . hurts.”
The plea wasn’t screamed but barked from a hoarse, tight throat—the boy’s
painful y constricted one, through which he managed to take only the tiniest
sips of air.
The throat Olivia now shared with him.
Hands wrapped tight, strong fingers, the thumbs touching in the hollow,
pressing, twisting, cutting off the airway. Oh, God.
The pain was bad. But the scary sensation of suffocating—breathlessness
—was worse. Too familiar and, oh, so much worse.
This wasn’t just starting, the boy was already in utter agony, his organs
pleading for something they weren’t going to get.
Two minutes and ten seconds of this?
Stop. It’s not really happening to you. It happened years ago, and there’s
nothing you can do for him now except try to solve his murder. So keep
breathing.
That voice—her own—whispered in the reasonable, rational section of her
brain, and Olivia wanted to obey it, visualizing herself drawing in deep, steady
breaths. But it seemed impossible while her throat was closed, crushed. And
how could she al ow herself to breathe when the boy’s breaths were denied to
him?
In. Out. Slowly. Come on,
do
it
.
Final y, she did. She inhaled a choppy mouthful of stale, chemical-tasting
air. It tasted of the examination room—reality—where she stood before a
table of bones in harsh, unforgiving light. She couldn’t see any of that, though.
Couldn’t hear the tick of the big clock on the wal , couldn’t feel the warm
concern of the detective she knew was watching from a few feet away.
Don’t interfere. Please.
Knowing she was being watched, she struggled to keep a part of herself
separate, to remain aware of both lives she was living at this moment. Usual y,
she didn’t bother to try to keep herself apart from the victims, almost as if she
had to give herself over to their last moments, if only to honor them for the
tragedy of their deaths. But now she did, sensing Gabe Cooper would try to
stop her if he thought she wasn’t al right.
You’re not all right.
But she would be. Soon.
Unlike this poor boy, who struggled, fruitlessly swinging his smal fists.
Olivia held the breath for a few seconds before pushing it out. She then
repeated the steps, having to mental y go through each one. It was such a
strange sensation, feeling the breath fil her lungs at the same time she felt
them ready to burst from lack of oxygen. The air flowed through her windpipe
even while it was also tightly crushed between a monster’s massive, punishing
hands.
Suddenly, al breath, al thought ceased as a voice fil ed his/her ears. “You
betrayed us, boy. Now you gonna pay for it.”
Even as she felt the boy’s heartbeat slow, Olivia felt her own heart leap in
her chest. The boy’s stomach was empty; her breakfast churned within hers.
His skin was clammy, cold; hers erupted with sensation. Every inch of her went
on alert, every hair on her body standing upright, reacting to the hoarse,
hateful voice. Even through the thick whisper, she heard the insanity, the barely
suppressed rage. Just as she’d heard it that night.
She knew that voice. She’d heard it in her nightmares for twelve years now.
“You coulda ruined us, after al we done for you. So this is what you git.”
It’s him. It’s both of them.
Her would-be kil er . . . and her savior
.
There could no longer be any question. The child being strangled to death
was Jack. Her kidnapper had come back too soon, perhaps right after Olivia
had gotten away. He had realized the boy was not burying her as he’d been
ordered to. And Jack had paid the ultimate price, his poor little bones al that
remained to prove he had ever existed.
It was al true.
Olivia’s body began to shudder uncontrol ably. Her fingers curled into
defensive fists, her legs wanting to run, her mouth opening to beg for this to
stop. Only there was no air. No air.
Yes, there is. Breathe it in. Let it out.
She did, sucking in oxygen between nearly closed lips, sure if she parted
them farther, they’d let out the scream building inside her.
As if time itself had opened a portal between them, she suddenly realized
the boy’s airway had opened a tiny bit, too. The tight grip on his throat—their
throat—relaxed for a second. Enough for a gulp of air, another plea. “No,
Uncle Johnny . . .”
Uncle Johnny? Who’s Uncle Johnny?
“You cal him daddy, boy!” the man screamed, sounding utterly enraged.
Is someone else there? Why can’t I see?
She’d been focused on breathing, then on the voice, and hadn’t even
availed herself of the most important ability—her sight. The last images he’d
seen in his life. Seeing the photographs of Dwight Col ier after he’d died
wasn’t enough. She had to look into his face, see the insanity in his eyes so
she could final y overcome her fear of him.
She focused, pul ing her attention off al the other senses, trying to make out
the images. And she realized she was seeing—not wel , not very clearly. A fine
red mist appeared to be covering her vision.
Their
vision.
Broken blood vessels in his eyes.
But he/she wasn’t total y blind. She blinked several times in a row, final y
focusing in, enough to see the shape of him. The man was close, his big T-
shirt–covered chest fil ing his/her vision, his hot, rank breath brushing the
boy’s/her face.
She saw thick, greasy, dark hair, but it hung over the angry face. He was
almost too close, so she couldn’t make out any of his features, just the hair
and an inch of stubbled cheek.
Damn it
.
His broad body was pressed against theirs, his thick leg pressing the much
smal er form against something hard. The barn wal ?
No, too smooth. Cool.
The camper?
He shifted slightly, and the vision cleared, brightening. His body had been
blocking out the . . . wait. No. That was impossible, it couldn’t be right.
“You shouldn’ta done it, Jackie-boy.”
“I . . . din’t . . .”
“Don’t lie. That little cunt’s escape’s al over the news!”
Hot tears burst from his/her eyes, streaming down the cheeks and
drenching the lips with salty moisture. But there was a morsel of air, and they
grabbed for it greedily.
It hurt. He couldn’t quite take it in; his throat was damaged, crushed. Hers
wasn’t, and she knew she was fil ing her lungs, though it felt as though she
weren’t.
She tried desperately to make her brain work, to keep thinking, keep some
part of herself lucid. She needed to make sense of this . . . what she was
seeing, the impossible thing he had just said. But the coherent part of her was
slipping further away as Jack’s agony continued.
“This is too good for you,” the man hissed. “Why don’t you go like your
girlfriend did?”
The word
no!
screamed in her brain.
She and the boy were spun around. She saw a large, old-fashioned
washtub, fil ed with water. Not the high barrel he’d put her in but stil very
capable of fulfil ing its purpose: drowning someone smal and helpless.
Oh, God, no, not this
.
Anything but this
.
The boy resisted weakly, and she struggled with him as she had before. But
his smal , already nearly dead form was no match for the powerful arms
gripping him, pushing him down onto his bony knees beside the tub. Olivia’s
stung, too, as sharp rocks sliced into skin.
Then the monster looped an arm around the boy’s waist—her waist—and
bent them over, forcing his/her head down toward the tub. Olivia was sobbing
now, flailing, desperate to not have to go into that water again, wanting to give
Jack al her strength so they could escape this hideous nightmare.
To no avail. The water loomed ever closer.
It wasn’t greenish-black and dirty, as she remembered. It was murky, yes,
but not old, as if the tub had been freshly fil ed with untreated wel water.
The details weren’t right. Something was wrong here, very wrong. Her
conscious mind realized that, even as the rest of her remained locked in the
struggle for Jack’s life.
An inch closer, and she suddenly realized the water was glimmering with
beams of bright sunlight. And, in the brightness of that day, she saw another
reflection.
His
reflection.
Jack’s.
Olivia moaned, grasping what was so wrong about al of this. Seeing that
face so clearly was almost enough to break her mind.
I shouldn’t be seeing you. I didn’t see myself, how can I be seeing you?
This makes no sense!
Closer stil , the body nearly immobile yet stil trying to jerk, making the tub
shudder and the water splash.
Then, one more half-angry, half-recriminatory cry from the kil er: “You broke
my heart.”
Lips almost touching the water now, its sulfurous reek fil ing his/her nose. A
silent scream rose—hers, not his—its urgency growing until she thought her
head would explode with the need to let it out.
“G’bye, Jackie-boy,” the man said.
Then, right before the boy/she was pushed under, she heard a faint whisper.
The final words of a boy making one last brave effort to reclaim the only part of
himself he could in the last seconds of his life.
“My name is Zachary.”
Ty was getting a little worried. He hadn’t heard a word from his partner for hours, and their last conversation had been pretty