Against the Sky (6 page)

This was different. Jimmy was almost a teenager and he was living in a very safe neighborhood, but worry began to filter through him. He'd be damned glad when the kid got home.

Samantha shook her head. “I know I'm overreacting. I'm sure you're right.”

“He isn't handling his dad's death very well. He actually told me he believes his father was murdered. The guy died of a heart attack. I guess Jimmy just didn't want to believe it.”

“He'll get past it, just like I did.”

Nick nodded. “I'm sure he will. I'd better get your luggage, get you settled in.” Turning, he went back out to the car.

He grabbed the bags and walked back into the house. “I'll put these in your room,” he said. “Come on. I'll show you where.” Leading her down the hall to the room next to his, he carried her bags inside and set them up on the bed.

Inwardly, he sighed. In the back of his mind, he'd been hoping she might suggest staying with him. Looked like there wasn't much chance of that.

By the time Samantha got settled, dusk was moving in, earlier now with summer over, around seven thirty p.m. He wasn't much of a cook, but he could barbeque pretty much anything. Remembering Samantha wasn't a big red meat eater, tonight he was grilling chicken.

As he stood in front of the barbeque on the wooden deck attached to the back of the house, he could see her through the kitchen window, all those bouncy, fine brown curls and a face that made a man think of the girl in high school who had been his first crush. She seemed right at home in his kitchen, standing at the counter, making a salad out of the lettuce and tomatoes he had brought home yesterday.

Since he was five miles from the mini-mart in tiny Fish Lake and twenty miles from a bona fide supermarket, he kept his pantry full, and with company coming, he'd stocked up even more than usual. He headed back into the house to grab a beer, see if Samantha wanted something to drink. “Chicken's looking good,” he said. “How's the salad coming?”

She wiped her hands on an apron she had found in one of the kitchen drawers. Green canvas with a picture of an antlered deer on the front. Underneath the deer it said, Get the Buck Out of My Kitchen. Just looking at her wearing it had him fighting a grin.

“Salad's finished. I made blue cheese dressing. I hope that's okay.”

“Are you kidding? Blue cheese is my favorite.” He inhaled the yeasty aroma of baking. “Something smells good. What is it?”

“I found some canned peaches in the pantry. I used them to bake a cobbler. I figured you don't get much homemade dessert, being a bachelor.”

“Oh, man.” He walked over and brushed a light kiss over her lips. Even with that brief contact, he felt the rush. Samantha made no comment but her big doe eyes went wide. Apparently, she felt it, too.

“I'd better call Jimmy, make sure he got home. You want a beer or a glass of wine?”

“I'm fine.”

Nick pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and punched in Jimmy's number, frowned when the phone still went to voice mail. He dialed the landline at Jimmy's house.

Mary answered, near-panic in her voice. “Jimmy still isn't home. What . . . what should I do?”

Nick's hand tightened on the phone. Supper would have to wait. “I think it's time you called the police.”

The junky old car rounded a corner, throwing Jimmy against the inside of the trunk; then it began to slow. His heart started racing, accelerating till it pounded in his ears.

The crunch of tires on the side of the road made his stomach clench in fear. The engine went off and both car doors opened. He could hear the sound of footfalls heading toward the rear of the car.

“Put your mask on, stupid.”

“Fuck you, Virgil.”

When the trunk popped up, the men were wearing the same red ski masks they'd had on before. “Okay, kid, the joyride's over.” The bigger man, with shaggy brown hair sticking out from beneath the cap and squinty little eyes, grabbed Jimmy's arm and dragged him out of the trunk. Jimmy noticed the gun on the belt at his waist.

The other man had a hooked nose that protruded through the hole in the middle of the mask. He pulled out a pocketknife and flipped it open. The loud click of the blade locking in place echoed in the darkness.

Jimmy froze. Though his legs felt wobbly, when the guy with the knife started toward him, Jimmy crouched, ready to spring and fight to the death.

The big guy cuffed him across the head. “Take it easy, kid. We aren't going to hurt you—not if you do what we say.”

Jimmy didn't believe them. He was breathing hard, fighting to hold back his fear, trying to work out a plan, figure out what to do.

The man with the knife came toward him again and Jimmy stiffened. “Relax, boy. I'm just gonna cut the tape.” His raspy smoker's voice sent a chill down Jimmy's spine.

To his surprise, the knife sliced cleanly through the duct tape around his wrists, then his ankles. The hook-nosed man pulled tape off his jeans and yanked it off his mouth. Jimmy unwrapped the tape on his wrists.

“Now here's the deal,” the big man said, his squinty eyes locked on Jimmy's face. “You been nosing around, digging into things that are none of your business. That's gotta stop. You understand?”

When Jimmy said nothing, the man cuffed him again, harder this time. “I want to know what your father told you.”

Jimmy frowned. “About what?”

The big man eyed him darkly. “If your old man didn't say anything, why are you snooping around?”

Jimmy tried to come up with an answer, something they might believe, but his tongue seemed stuck to the roof of his mouth. “I just . . . I wanted to find out what happened to him.”

“That's it?”

He managed to nod, even as he glanced wildly around, looking for a way to escape. He knew where he was. The men had brought him back to Fish Lake. He was maybe a mile from his house.

The hook-nosed man grabbed the front of his T-shirt and hauled him close. “All right, boy. From now on you keep your mouth shut. You don't ask questions. You don't snoop around your dad's office. If you do, what happened to you today won't be piss compared to what'll happen to you the next time.”

“And it won't be just you,” the big man added. “Your pretty little aunt will get a ride in the trunk—after we've had our fill of her.”

“And she won't be coming back,” said the hook-nosed man. “She'll be fish food by the time they find her—and so will you. Got it?”

Jimmy nodded, feeling sick to his stomach. He was in seventh grade. He knew what the men would do to his aunt before they killed her and dumped her in the lake.

The hook-nosed man let go of his T-shirt and backed away. Moonlight gleamed on the gun at his waist.

“When you get home, you tell your aunt you had a fight,” the big man said. “Nothing else. Not unless you want her to wind up as dead as your old man.”

Jimmy's mouth felt so dry he couldn't speak.

“Now get out of here. Before we decide to make sure you keep your mouth shut forever.”

Jimmy bolted toward the cover of the pines just off the road, running full-tilt into the darkness. Any second, he expected to feel the burning pain of a bullet slamming into his back. He didn't stop until he reached a place where the trees were so dense he could barely walk between them, then he crouched in the deep foliage to listen for the sound of the men coming after him.

His heart was pounding so hard he could feel it inside his chest. No matter how mad his aunt got, he wasn't going to tell her or anyone else what had happened to him. As much as he wanted to find the man who had killed his dad, it wasn't worth losing his aunt Mary, the last family he had left in the world.

Jimmy listened for the sound of the car engine starting. He wasn't leaving his hiding place till he was sure it was safe to go home.

By ten o'clock Mary was in tears. Samantha sat next to her on the sofa in the impressive high-ceilinged living room of the family's log home overlooking the lake.

The State Troopers had come and gone. They had taken a report and promised to increase patrols in the area, begin the preliminaries necessary to assemble a search team. In such a rural location, an accident was more likely than foul play, which was no comfort to Mary.

“I should have called sooner,” she said, twisting a Kleenex between her fingers. “I was just so sure he'd come home on his own.”

Mary had searched every room in the house, checked the garage, the storage shed, and the forest behind the house. She had phoned all Jimmy's friends several times, but no one had seen the boy all day.

Nick was driving around in the Explorer, checking the mini-mart in the tiny town of Fish Lake, the pizza parlor, walking the shoreline in the areas near the house, checking some of Jimmy's favorite fishing holes.

“Have you looked at his e-mail?” Samantha asked.

“One of the troopers suggested it but I didn't know his password.”

“Let's give it a try. We could also take a look at his Facebook account.”

Mary came up off the sofa. “All right.” She started toward the staircase fashioned out of knotted pine, and Samantha fell in behind her.

Jimmy's second-floor bedroom had a full-size log bed covered by a dark green quilt with a bear pattern on the front. Posters of the
Cars
movie hung on the wall next to one of
G.I. Joe.

On top of the log dresser, there were photos of Jimmy's dad and mom, a tall man with a lean face and reddish-brown hair, and an exotic-looking woman even more beautiful than Mary. Samantha was surprised to see the bed neatly made and Jimmy's clothes all picked up.

“He's been trying really hard to help me around the house. I don't think his room was this clean when his dad was still alive.”

“My younger brother, Peter, was a real slob when we were kids. He's in college now, but I imagine he isn't much better.”

They walked over to the desk against the wall. An Apple laptop sat on top. “His dad bought him his first computer when he was nine years old,” Mary said. “Jimmy already knew how to use it. Alex gave him this one for Christmas last year.”

The woman glanced up, tears in her eyes. “Alex might have done a lot of things, but he loved his son. If something's happened to Jimmy, I'll never forgive myself.”

“Don't say that, Mary. He's a boy. Peter was always doing something he shouldn't. Sometimes I wondered if he'd make it through high school. He's in his twenties now and doing just fine.” She didn't mention her sister. Mary was having a hard enough time as it was.

“Let me take a look.” Samantha pulled out the chair, sat down at the computer and turned it on. The Password box popped up. “Can you think of something that's important to him? Something he loves?”

“Hockey. He loves to play ice hockey. He's really good at it.”

“What's his favorite team?”

“The Aces.”

Samantha typed in the word.
Incorrect Password
popped up.

“Tell me something about them.”

“The polar bear is their mascot. Jimmy has a couple of Aces' T-shirts with bears on the front.”

She typed in
polarbear
, then polarbearaces, got nowhere. She typed in
acespolarbears
and the screen opened up.

“Wow, you did it,” Mary said.

“I work with computers a lot. My brother's favorite sport was football. His password is
oaklandraidersrule.
”

They checked Jimmy's e-mail, found mostly junk, a couple of notes from friends he hadn't yet answered. Samantha went on her Facebook page to access Jimmy's, but he hadn't posted anything new. A couple of girls had posted photos of themselves, but if he'd seen them, Jimmy hadn't responded.

“It was worth a try,” Samantha said, shutting the machine back down.

“I wish Nick would call. I can't stand this waiting.” Mary led the way back downstairs and Jimmy's golden retriever, Duke, fell in beside them, a hopeful look on his doggie face. He accompanied them into the kitchen, toenails tapping on the wide-planked hardwood floors. He lay down on his bed in the corner, clearly waiting for his friend to come home.

Samantha glanced around the kitchen, which was state-of-the-art, with stainless steel appliances and designer lighting. Clearly, Jimmy's father had been a very successful man.

Just as they walked up to the breakfast table, the door from the laundry room swung open and Jimmy walked into the house.

“Jimmy!” Mary's voice came out high and shrill. “Forgodsake, where have you been?”

The boy didn't answer. Duke jumped up and hurried toward him. Jimmy patted him absently on the head and kept walking. He was tall for twelve and muscular, a good-looking kid who was clearly part Alaska Native. Mary spotted his swollen and blackening eye at the same time Samantha did.

As the boy walked past, Mary reached out and caught his arm. “What happened, Jimmy? Who did that to you?”

“I got in a fight, okay? I'm all right. It's no big deal.”

“It's a very big deal, Jimmy! Do you have any idea how worried I've been? An hour ago, I called the police!”

His face seemed to turn a shade lighter. “Call them back and tell them I'm okay.”

“Are you sure?” Mary asked. “I think you should sit down and let me take a look at you, at least let me put some antiseptic on your lip.”

“I didn't hit my head or anything. I'm fine.”

“I'll call the troopers,” Samantha volunteered, “let them know he's home safe. And I'll see if I can reach Nick.”

“Thank you.”

As Samantha headed for the phone, Jimmy tipped his head in her direction. “Who's she?”

“Her name is Samantha Hollis. She's a friend of Nick's.”

Samantha lifted the phone and dialed 9-1-1. When the dispatch answered, she relayed the information that Jimmy Evans was home, safe and well, answered a couple of other questions, then hung up the phone.

She heard footsteps in the living room, figured it was Nick. “We're in here,” she called out to him. “Jimmy's home.”

Nick walked in scowling. It was clear he was barely hanging onto his temper. “Where the hell have you been? Your aunt's been frantic.”

His scowl deepened as he spotted the boy's black eye and split lip. He reached out and caught Jimmy's chin, tipped his face up. His gaze remained hard, but his deep voice softened. “What happened, Jimmy? Are you in some kind of trouble?”

The boy pulled away. “I'm not in trouble. I got in a fight with one of the kids from school. It's no big deal, okay?”

“Which kid?” Mary asked.

Jimmy didn't answer, just mulishly set his jaw.

“Your aunt asked you a question,” Nick said.

“I'm not a rat. We had a fight. That's all I'm saying.”

Mary looked at Nick for guidance.

“All right, Jimmy, you don't have to rat out your friend. But I think it's time you talked to someone. I called earlier to ask if you wanted to go fishing in the morning. You can either talk to me tomorrow, or you can go to a counselor. As your guardian, your aunt can make that happen. What's it going to be?”

Seconds ticked past as Jimmy mulled over his choices. Samantha was sure he'd pick talking to Nick. “I'll go to the counselor.”

Nick looked surprised, though he tried not to show it. “That's a good idea. In the meantime, you and I are still going fishing. I'll be here to pick you up at six a.m.”

Jimmy's eyes widened. “No way. I don't have to go with you. We made a deal.”

“The deal was you don't have to talk to me and you don't. You still have to go fishing with me.”

Jimmy opened his mouth to argue, snapped it closed. “Fine.”

“And you better be here when I get here. I still have plenty of pull with the department. You give your aunt any more trouble and I'll have you hauled in to detention. Now get some sleep. I'll see you in the morning.”