Counterfeit Son (4 page)

His mother went out while he dressed, fumbling a little with the new clothes, and with the effort of keeping his back turned away from his father without being obvious about it. The last thing in the bag was a pair of green-and-white running shoes, so new that fresh rubber and leather smells filled the bag.
Expensive, like the other stuff,
Cameron thought. He'd been right about the money. He wasn't greedy, but he still thought he'd be safer if the family had money.

He finished tying the laces and looked up. "Thanks," he said, meaning it. "Dad," he added quickly.

His father blinked his eyes rapidly. "Oh, Neil," he said huskily. "A few clothes—it should have been years of clothes—" He turned away, interrupting himself.

"Dad…" Cameron started.

"Neil—I've got to say this—you've got to know—" He broke off again and stood, leaning against the wall with his fists pressing against the clean white paint, the tendons stiff and knotted beneath the sleeves of his striped golf shirt. "That man—what he did to you—"

Cameron's hand clenched on the handle of the blue nylon bag as his stomach lurched. He'd been stupid to try to hide his back. Of course they knew—about the scars, and about the rest. The doctor had said he could see what had happened. For all Cameron knew, they could figure out from the bodies of the other boys what had happened to them, too. Pop always told him not to tell.
They llknow you've been bad,
Pop's memory reminded him. This man, his father now, was going to punish him, just as Pop had said.

"I'm so sorry—" his father was saying, his voice thin and strained. "I wish the police hadn't killed him. I'm so furious I want to take him in my own hands and kill him myself for what he did to you. Neil—" His father suddenly turned and gripped his arms, and Cameron was shocked to see tears running silently down his cheeks. He hadn't realized the man was crying. He couldn't hear it in his voice.

"Whatever he said to you, Neil, don't believe it. It wasn't your fault. He was an animal, Neil, and you survived, and I'm so proud of you, son."

Cameron stared into the hazel eyes that mirrored his own so uncannily and realized that this man wasn't blaming him. He wasn't going to punish him. Pop had lied.

Something cracked inside of him. His eyes blurred, and Cameron felt salty warmth on his cheeks and discovered that he was crying. He caught his breath, and then knew it was all right. If Neil's father was crying, it must be all right for Cameron to cry, too.

His father loosened his grip on his arms and pulled him close in a rough embrace. Cameron should have been frightened by being held so close, but all he could do was cry. He couldn't remember ever crying like this. He had even been afraid to cry down in the cellar, in case Pop came looking for him before he was finished with the other boy. He'd done that a few times. Cameron cried once in a while in a corner of the school yard, but he didn't dare cry much. He was afraid Pop would find out.
All those years of held-back tears,
he thought.
That's a lot to make up.

"What's this?" It was his mother, and he could hear she was frightened. His father hugged him tightly, then released him and gave him a watery smile. "Just a man-to-man talk," he said, wiping his eyes without any sign of embarrassment.

Cameron ducked his own head and grabbed a corner of the sheet from his bed to scrub his own eyes with.

"Neil, are you all right?" his mother asked, still worried.

"Yeah," he said, surprised to hear how strong his voice was. "I'm fine, Mama Bear."

And she laughed at that, so he guessed she wasn't frightened anymore.

"Come on, then," she said. "We're going home."

He followed them down the hospital corridor, on foot for the first time instead of in a wheelchair. Double glass doors fell open in front of him with a gentle
whoosh
of air, and then he was outside, under a clear blue sky, hearing the rush of engines and spinning of tires.

"They let me pull the car around to here," his mother said, and Cameron followed them to a new Lincoln Town Car, sleek and dark blue. He was certain it couldn't be six years old, and he felt relieved at not having to recognize it.

His father held the passenger door open for him. "You sit in the front seat," he said, his voice light and full of happiness. "I'll get in the back and try to close my eyes while your mother drives."

"You'll do no such thing," she said, laughing. "You go ahead and drive, Jon."

"I'll sit in the middle," Cameron suddenly volunteered. "You can drive, Dad. And Mom, you can sit on the other side."

His father cocked his head to one side. "It'll be crowded."

Cameron smiled. "I don't mind."

Cameron slid over the soft blue plush of the seat and sat in the uneven space in the middle. He was a little scared at being sandwiched in between two people, but at the same time it felt strangely safe, like the metal railings around the hospital bed. He leaned against his mother to give his father room to work the gearshift, and felt suddenly tired.

As the car backed smoothly out of the parking space and swung around, Cameron caught sight of a police car on the side of the ambulance parking area. He flinched at the sight.

"Neil, are you all right?" his mother asked.

"I'm sorry," he said automatically. "I'm okay."

He was glad he'd sat securely wedged between them. The driver's window of the police car was rolled down, and through the Lincoln's windshield he could see the face of the detective who had questioned him so closely—Detective Simmons, the man who didn't believe he was Neil Lacey.

Cameron wasn't sure what he'd expected. The pictures of the sailboats in the file had just shown a wide green lawn with a few trees, a small redwood dock, and the boats. He hadn't really thought much about the house itself.

It wasn't a mansion, Cameron knew that. One of the boys had come from a real mansion, a white house with towering columns, half hidden behind ornate iron gates. He'd seen pictures of that house in a magazine clipping. Cameron remembered the article said that the boy's parents had offered to pay a big ransom. Not that money would have made any difference to Pop.

But this was an expensive house, made of tan fieldstone that gleamed golden in the late-afternoon sun, with a curving drive that ran up to a stone entryway. There was money in this house, like the money in the Lincoln; enough money to make him feel secure. There were also roses blooming against the fieldstone, and bright pansies lining the entryway. And beside the house, the lawn ran down to a sparkling lake rippling gently in the slanting sunlight.

He'd slept during most of the drive home, giving in to the tiredness and the strain, and blanking out his fear at seeing Detective Simmons. There was heavy traffic getting out of Knoxville during the Monday afternoon rush hour, and his father muttered that he was glad he'd driven after all. After a while, Cameron just leaned against his mother and drifted off into dreamless sleep, swaying gently in the smooth, quiet car.

It was the bump as they turned off the main road through Freeport onto the lakefront road that woke him. He sat up apologetically, but when he looked at his mother, it seemed as though she hadn't minded. She had a peaceful look on her face for the first time since he'd seen her.

He watched the houses pass by, with the shimmering lake visible between them. They weren't too close together, not like houses in the city. But they weren't as isolated as his house had been. Pop had built it himself, though Cameron couldn't remember him doing that. Pop had told him he'd deliberately bought that large lot on the edge of the woods. It was far enough from the next lot so that no one could hear Pop when he shouted at the boys—or hear the boys, for that matter. And no one could smell anything strange, even right after he and Pop poured the lime and mercuric acid into the cellar before filling in a new hole. These houses beside the lake were a comfortable distance apart. You had some space, but somebody would hear you if you needed them.

The Laceys' house was at the very end of the lakefront road. For a second Cameron felt a surge of fear, because there were no more homes on the far side of the big stone house. The lake continued past the house to the northwest, but there was nothing on the shore but woods and a plowed field. Then he got hold of himself and saw there was a house next door to the Laceys' on the near side, so it was all right. He made himself look again and saw metal towers supporting power lines running down the field and cutting through the woods, and he guessed that was why there wasn't another house there. It didn't mean anything threatening.

"Look familiar?" his father was asking, his voice a little worried.

"Of course, we've done a lot over the years," his mother said quickly. "We'd just moved in—there wasn't any garden yet."

Cameron nodded. "It looks wonderful," he said, and meant it, and he could feel his father relax beside him.

The garage door swept open suddenly, and his mother opened the passenger door and climbed out, beckoning for him to follow. He was sliding across the seat when he saw two kids come running out beneath the still-rising door and skid to a stop, staring at him. Cameron got out slowly and tried to smile at them.

The girl—his
sister,
he thought—looked a lot like her mother. She had the same deep brown eyes and golden hair, only hers was sun-bleached paler and cut short, curving around her face. And her face didn't look as friendly as her mother's. Her eyes were narrowed, and as she stared at him she chewed on her lower lip.

The boy was worse. Short and stocky, with thick brown hair and his father's hazel eyes, he slouched behind his sister and glared at Cameron.

"Diana, Stevie, come say hello to your brother," their mother was saying awkwardly.

"Kids," their father said, in a careful voice, "remember what we talked about last night?"

Diana suddenly stopped chewing her lip and walked forward a few steps. Cameron realized that even though he was older, she was a few inches taller than he was. He hoped it wouldn't make anybody suspicious.

"Hi," she said. "Welcome home, and all that."

Her voice was neutral, a lot like her father's. Cameron's throat suddenly constricted. Did Neil have a nickname for his kid sister? She'd expect him to call her that. He tried to remember the clippings, but his mind was suddenly blank. How could he ever have been so stupid as to think this would actually work? Cameron nearly turned and bolted, thinking incoherently that at least he could keep the clothes that way. Or had Detective Simmons followed him from the hospital? Was he just waiting for Cameron to make a mistake? He felt more trapped than he had ever felt in the cellar.

Suddenly Stevie ran right up to him, and Cameron took a step back before he could stop himself.

"Hi, okay? I cleaned out half my stuff, okay? You can have the bed by the window, since you always liked that best, okay?"

"Okay," Cameron said before he knew he was speaking, and he heard their parents laugh.

Stevie frowned at him, then nodded. "Okay, then," he said, and turned and went back inside.

His mother sighed. "He's only eight," she said.

"And he can be a pain," Diana added, smiling at last.

Cameron smiled back at her. "He's probably mad at giving up half his room, too, I'll bet."

She nodded, eyeing him thoughtfully above her smile. "You know how crazy he was about the idea of rooming with you in the new house when he was little. But now he's used to having it to himself."

"Come on inside, Neil," their mother said eagerly, and he saw Diana's smile fade, but she followed them into the garage and on into the house.

The first thing he saw was a big window along the back side of the house, facing the lake. He headed straight for the huge plate-glass window in the living room, leaving his parents behind him, and saw the lake and the boats clearly for the first time. There were two sailboats rocking gently at the dock. One was trim, but big enough for the whole family, and one was a small boat for a single person, its sails neatly furled. On the lawn, up from the lake bank, he saw several pieces of another small boat spread out on the grass. His heart beat wildly at the thought of being close enough to touch his dream.

Diana's voice startled him. "If you'd gotten home early enough we were going to put her together so you could go sailing this afternoon." Her reflection was ghostly in the glass, superimposed on the rustling trees and the glittering lake water. "You never wasted much time in the house. You always wanted to get out on the lake—or has that changed?"

Cameron glanced at her and met her expressionless brown eyes. "I've spent a lot of time cooped up in a house," he said briefly, "most of it dreaming about the lake."

Stevie ran into the living room. "It's too late to go sailing today," he informed Cameron.

"Yeah, I know."

Stevie grinned. "Hey, Neil—if you cross the lake with a leaky sailboat, what do you get?"

The boy looked delighted with himself, and Cameron couldn't help smiling at him. "I don't know," he said. "What do you get?"

Stevie's smile faded. "What do you mean, you don't know?"

Cameron felt himself go cold inside.
Stupid, stupid—to be caught up so easily.
It must have been a riddle Neil liked. He had to pay better attention, to watch out for these things.
Think, think,
he ordered himself.
It's just a little kid's riddle—you can guess it—what do you get if you cross the lake with a leaky—

He smiled at Stevie suddenly. "Hey, I was only teasing," he said. "What do you get? About halfway across the lake. I can't believe you remembered."

Stevie shrugged. "Dad says it a lot."

Cameron looked back at the lake. How many other family jokes wouldn't he know? How could he ever pull this off? He saw Diana's reflection, studying him. Finally she said, without any enthusiasm, "Well, you can sail halfway across the lake tomorrow."

"I can't wait to get out on it, only—" He broke off, suddenly unsure.

"'Only'?" she prodded.