A battered pewter cross hung from the rearview mirror from a cheap leather chain.
“Found it on the beach,” he said, noticing her gaze on the cross. “Thought it might be lucky.”
She reached into her backpack and pulled out the crystal. “To chase away the darkness.” She set it in one of the cubbyholes in front of the glove box.
“Katie, don’t give me that.”
“Why not? I told you, I don’t expect anything in return.”
He closed his eyes briefly. “It has nothing to do with that. It’s just that…”
“What? Every time I’ve tried to give you something, you turn it away. One time it was only food, for Pete’s sake!”
She could see his struggle in deciding to tell her. He loosened his shoulders by rolling them back.
“I have trouble…accepting things. It makes me feel funny.”
“Funny how?”
“Just funny. Inside, here.” He rubbed his knuckles against his stomach. “I’ve always been that way.”
“Didn’t you get gifts when you were a kid?”
“No. Not after my mom died, anyway. Maybe it’s because of the one gift I got at birth. My empathy,” he clarified. “Maybe I think all gifts are going to affect me weird. I don’t know, I’m guessing.” He glanced at the crystal in the ashtray. “I don’t have many friends, so I’m not used to getting gifts. It’s usually not an issue.”
“Uh, huh.” She didn’t get it at all. Except the part where he wasn’t used to getting gifts. “Surely you’ve had girlfriends through the years.”
“I’ve met women here and there, usually while I’m working on a book. I’m never in one place long enough to have a girlfriend.”
In the instant she felt that jealous spike over Celine, she realized that he could probably feel it, too. “I hate that you can feel what I feel.”
“That’s another reason I don’t date for long. Women say they want men to read their minds, but they don’t like when I read their feelings. I’ve learned to keep my thoughts to myself over the years, but they slip out. It’s easier to just stay on my own.”
Celine had hung around, though. Why had she wanted to see a photograph of her anyway? Now she could picture that pretty woman cuddling up with Silas.
They were heading east and were already long out of Flatlands. Since reading the files, she kept imagining those girls walking along these roads. Stopping to talk to a stranger who offered them a ride. Disappearing forever. Some of the signs they passed were for towns where a girl was taken.
“How can you stand to do what you do?” she asked. “Writing about murder, I mean. What’s it like?”
His fingers tightened on the wheel slightly, but he kept his gaze ahead. “I start to see everyone, particularly women, as potential victims. I imagine what their headline would be, how their life would be summed up. I did that with Geraldine, too.”
“Do you see me that way?”
“No. I won’t let myself.”
She tried to hold back the shudder. “What about talking to killers like Swenson? When I read about his life, in your book, he seemed so real, so normal otherwise.”
“That’s the scary part of what I do. I actually understand where they’re coming from. Not that I condone it, but I see that in some ways they’re just like us. They eat, sleep, dream, and fear. It’s what they dream and fear that separates us and them. I’ve looked evil in the face, and it’s human. He’s charming, handsome, rich, intelligent. He’s a police officer, the man next door, the guy at the deli. He could befriend any of us, any of our daughters. He could
be
any one of us.”
Those words chilled her, especially spoken in a low, thick voice. He spent way too much time in the dark. She picked up the crystal and dropped it into his shirt pocket. “It’s not a gift. It’s a loan.”
The corner of his mouth quirked. “A loan, huh?”
“To chase away the shadows that live inside you.”
He pulled out the crystal and set it back in the cubbyhole. His fingers lingered on it for a moment before he put his hand back on the wheel. Getting him to accept anything, even as a loan, seemed futile. She wondered if he had trouble accepting non-physical gifts…like love. Had he ever been offered it?
“What exactly are we investigating?” she asked, steering her thoughts away from that line of thinking.
“I don’t want to get into the details yet in case it’s a mistake.”
“Does this have to do with the birth certificate and diplomas?”
“Yeah,” he said. He clearly wasn’t convinced they were Ben’s father’s.
“Ben talks about his past very little. All he said was he’d been orphaned at a young age and lived in various foster homes. He never mentioned his father before. But he wasn’t lying. I mean, he didn’t look guilty at being caught.”
“Did he get mad at you for snooping?”
“Not at all. He said if I wanted to know anything, to ask.”
“People in town think he’s some kind of god, at least that’s the impression I get.”
She nodded. “He’s very kind and generous. Maybe too much. I don’t understand why they all seem to dislike me so much.” She hated the way her voice got thick when she admitted, “I offered to help out at the County Fair. They’ve had signs in the diner window for weeks now begging for help. Ben didn’t want me to, because he wants me with him at the fair. I offered to help anyway.”
“Good for you.”
Even his genuine pride didn’t lessen the disappointment. “They turned me down. Flat. I know they still need help; that sign is still in the window.”
“I’m sorry they treat you that way. I know how it feels to be an outcast. It hurts.”
She met his gaze then, feeling closer to him than she had to anyone since her mama. She felt other things, but she tamped them down before she could acknowledge them and before he could feel them. “Thanks, Silas,” was all she could manage to say.
Reverend Maplethorpe led them to a small room off the main sanctuary. He was stoop-backed, though he got around well enough for a man of his age. The room was crowded with children’s projects mid-completion. Globs of dried glue and glitter dotted the white table where they sat.
“You wanted to know about Ben Ferguson,” the reverend said once they’d sat down. “I’m not sure why. He’s been dead a long time.”
Katie met Silas’s gaze, trying to keep the surprise from her own. He meant Ben’s father, she realized.
Silas said, “I can understand your question. Katie is Ben’s wife. Ben junior, that is. She’s working on his family tree as a surprise. All she knows is that he’s from Milledgeville and not much more than that.”
The reverend looked perplexed as he took in Katie. “Ben Ferguson didn’t have a son.”
“That…can’t be right,” she said. “Are we talking about the same Ben, the town’s vet, born right here 1915.”
“I’m quite certain it’s the same man. He did have a young man who worked with him for several years, was as close as a son. His name was Larry Howard.”
While Katie shook her head, Silas asked, “Tell me about Larry.”
The reverend steepled his gnarled fingers and took a deep breath. “Larry’s story could have been one of those sweet, romantic stories you see on television. He was left on the church steps just before the Sunday service. Except he wasn’t exactly a baby; he was three years old. His mother, or we presume it was her, tied his hand to the front door so he wouldn’t wander. We tried to find out where he’d come from, but to no avail. My wife—she’s passed on now—and I decided to let him stay with us. We couldn’t have children, and Larry seemed like a gift from God. We found out differently within a few months.
“He was the most incorrigible child I have ever seen. He hated to be touched, wouldn’t be cuddled, and he cried all the time. We tried our best with him, but my darling wife just couldn’t handle him. After two years, we put him back into the system. It broke our hearts, but we found out it was the best. For us, anyway.”
“Why?” Silas asked, overly interested in the story of a stranger who had no bearing on their lives.
“He went through seventeen foster homes throughout his adolescence, and each one ended badly. With one family, he hung another foster child from a deck by his feet. He claimed he had no intention of dropping him, just scaring him. And he did try to be good. He organized a search party for a neighbor’s lost dog. He saved a litter of kittens from drowning when someone put them in a bag and threw them into the creek. I think he liked animals better than people. I gathered from my talks with him over the years, he understood them better.”
The reverend’s preaching voice had emerged. “That’s where Dr. Ferguson came in. He was our town’s vet, a very nice man whose wife had recently died. Larry had hit a dog with his bike, and the doc had stopped to help. The two bonded. Dr. Ferguson was the first person to get through to Larry. Indeed, the doc probably saved his life. He hired him on after school and eventually let him move into one of his rooms. Larry graduated high school, barely, but he did graduate. He continued to live with the doc, working and learning about veterinary medicine. Everyone was happy that he’d finally found stability and was staying out of trouble. Or maybe they were relieved. We were.”
The reverend was absently scraping off globs of glue with his thumbnail. “And then tragedy struck again for Larry, and most certainly for Dr. Ferguson. It was Larry who pulled his mentor from the lake where he’d drowned. Witnesses saw him trying to give the doc CPR, but it was too late. Larry was devastated. He tried to get work with one of the other vets in town, but there just wasn’t a place for him. He stayed at the doc’s house for a few months. No one had the heart to kick him out, and he was keeping the place up. Then the doc’s niece, who inherited the place, came down and put it on the market. Larry, he tried to buy it, but none of the banks would take a chance on a kid with no family and no job. He left town, and that’s the last we ever heard from him. Is he in trouble? We sometimes wondered where he ended up.”
“Not far from here, as it turns out,” Silas said.
“You can’t think—” She couldn’t even say the words. “Do you have a picture of him? It’s important,” she added at his hesitation.
“I’ll see what I can find.” The reverend pushed himself up and went to the room adjacent. He returned ten minutes later with a faded picture of a little boy dressed for school with one front tooth missing. “It’s the only one we have.”
She looked at the boy with the forced smile. It had been a long time since Ben had been this age. “When was Larry born?”
“We didn’t know for sure, of course. We weren’t even sure Larry Howard was his real name. He told us his name since there wasn’t any name on the note. We figured he was born in…say 1959.” He looked at Katie. “Did you say he was your husband?”
“Yes,” Silas answered for her. “You’ll be glad to know he’s turned into a fine citizen, a veterinarian, actually.”
The reverend smiled. “I’m very pleased, and I’m glad to know he considered the doc his father. He probably won’t remember me, but please send him my regards. Tell him to come by sometime. I’d love to see how he turned out.”
Silas shook the man’s hand. “We’ll let you know as soon as we find out for sure.”
CHAPTER 17
Ben had had an uneasy feeling all day. He kept looking in the rear-view mirror to see if someone was following him. Katie should have come with him. He should have worked harder to make her come. That’s what bothered him most. All this time he’d had complete control over her. His offer to take her with him should have been met with surprised gratitude. Not just surprise. And certainly not with rejection.
That rejection stung. He’d done everything he could to ensure he’d never be rejected again. Sam Savino was the only person who had rebuffed him, though Ben didn’t much care if the man liked him or not. He wanted Sam to like him, but it didn’t matter in his life.
Katie mattered.
He’d called earlier, but she hadn’t answered. He was going to have to figure out some way to deter her wanderings through the woods. He wouldn’t even let himself think about her being with Silas.
Once he reached the Mattsons, he tried home again. No answer. It was late afternoon. He had to issue shipping papers for three of their horses and check over the new foal. Maybe he’d cut his trip short. Wouldn’t she be surprised to find him at the door tonight?
The faint scent of smoke tainted the air. In the distance, a gray cloud hovered in the sky. Occasionally Katie had seen a helicopter carrying an orange bucket of water to the fires to the north. The radio DJ talked about the close calls with several homes and the acres of forestland being burned to ashes.
“There has to be some mistake,” she said for the fiftieth time. “I mean, I just can’t believe that my husband, the man I’ve been living with all these years, isn’t who he says he is.”
“Maybe
your
Ben isn’t Larry Howard, but he’s not Ben Ferguson. Will you at least admit that?”
“No.” That meant her whole married life had been a lie.
“Maplethorpe said Ferguson was a veterinarian in Milledgeville. There’s only one vet named Ben Ferguson. Have you seen any other paperwork to corroborate his identity as Ben junior? I sure didn’t see another birth certificate or diploma with his name on it.”
“His degree on the wall at the animal hospital. I’m sure that has the right date on it.”
“It’s probably a forgery. Or has an altered date. But think: does it say Ben Arnold Ferguson
the second
?”
“All right, dammit. He’s not Ben Ferguson.”
He sat on that victory for a moment, and then threw out something even worse than the lie of Ben’s life. “Have you thought about this: he isn’t really your husband.”
“Well, of course he is. We took our vows—” The words died in her throat. “I’m legally married to Ben Ferguson. A dead man.”
“You’re not married to anyone.”
She couldn’t help meeting his eyes on that. Since Ben—Larry had used a false name on the documents, that would null and void them. “I’m not married,” she whispered.
“Are you going to confront him?”
She chewed on a hangnail. “Of course I am. I just have to figure out how. How did I find out about this, for instance?”