BoneMan's Daughters (16 page)

Within the day of stumbling across the girl, Alvin knew that his hiatus was over. He had found the girl who would love him
as a father, and no amount of restraint could dissuade him.

He walked to the head of his bed, lifted his pillow, and withdrew the photograph. This girl would be Alvin Finch’s daughter.
Nothing else mattered now besides this stunning creature staring back at him from the 5 x 7 inch glossy photograph in his
right hand. He would take her and he would crush any imposter who called himself her father and he would either win her devotion
or he would kill her.

Alvin tucked the photograph back under his pillow and left the room, stilling a tremor in his hands.

The living room was dark although it was day outside the apartment. He switched on the lamp beside his computer and saw that
it was just past noon. The trip would take an hour and a half and he would need to arrive when the sun was down. There was
no rush. He’d waited over two years; he would wait another hour.

There were two things Alvin hated. Nay, three that were an abomination to him. He hated humans. He especially hated ugly skanks
with perfect, beautiful faces and skin.

He hated mothers and fathers.

Mothers because he hated his own mother who’d made him the way he was and although he cherished himself he also hated himself.

Fathers because they were all pretenders who could not love their daughters the way he would. The way his mother should have
loved him.

If Alvin had his way, he would line up all the mothers and fathers in the world and break their bones to teach them a lesson.

Alvin made himself a cheese sandwich and ate it slowly with a large glass of cold milk. He’d been in this particular apartment
for just under two months but he’d paid the lease for a full six months, explaining to the landlord that he traveled often
and didn’t want to make the mistake of missing a rent check.

He wasn’t sure how long he would be gone when he left tomorrow. A week, a month, maybe longer. What he did know was that all
the waiting would soon be over. All his preparations at each location, the trailer, the truck, the manner in which he would
abduct his next victim.

Alvin washed the last of the cheese sandwich down, rinsed out the glass, and checked the front door to make sure it was locked.
Then he walked once around the dark apartment, making sure that everything was in order before stepping out the back door
and descending to the garage.

He’d sold the Ford truck two years earlier, when they’d pinned his work on Phil Switzer, who didn’t have the brains to eat
a bowl of cereal without spilling milk down his chin much less kill seven women without breaking their skin. The Ford F-150
parked in the garage now was a blue king cab, identical to the one he’d used before. They should know that the father was
back, taking his daughter from under their noses. Nothing would make the statement as much as the tires on this truck and
his boot impressions.

It took Alvin an hour and forty-five minutes to reach the outskirts of the city. He parked in an H-E-B grocery parking lot
at the corner of Highway 71 and Bee Cave Road, lay down on his side, and tried to rest.

But the anticipation was too great and he spent the next two hours fighting off chills of excitement rather than sleep. This
particular trip was only a dry run, but he took his dry runs very seriously. If all went well, he would return tomorrow and
execute the mission flawlessly. He’d learned a few things in the military that came in very handy now, planning being the
most important of them all.

At six o’clock he went into the store and purchased two lemons, a box of prepared sushi, and two liters of Mug root beer.

The sun slowly sank into the western horizon, and unwilling to wait another hour, Alvin started up the Ford and headed down
Highway 71 toward Southwest Parkway. By the time he pulled onto Barton Creek Boulevard, he was tingling with anticipation.

And by the time he’d parked the truck and hiked into his position near the house, where he had a clear view of the girl’s
bedroom, he was covered in sweat. He’d learned long ago that applying lotion to sweaty skin was nasty business that turned
one into a fish. So he withdrew the towel he’d brought in his knapsack, carefully removed his shirt, applied some lotion to
his cooling skin, and feeling refreshed, shrugged back into his shirt.

Now he could settle down and wait until midnight before walking up to the window to peer inside.

He’d been watching the house ever since he’d decided he must take her, three weeks ago. The fact that the district attorney,
Burt Welsh, was evidently making a play for Bethany’s whore mother was a pleasant surprise that would complicate Alvin’s plans
but only in the best of ways.

The fact that still another man claimed to be her father was even more compelling. The time had come. This was it; he knew
this was it in his very bones.

There were two things that excited BoneMan more than he could possibly express with mere words; nay, three things that sent
shivers up his spine.

A young girl’s cries for mercy.

Noxzema skin lotion.

The sound of bones breaking beneath skin.

“GOOD.” FATHER HORTENSE smiled and sipped his tea. The man reminded Ryan of Tevye from
Fiddler on the Roof,
a thick man who always dressed in black with a heavy beard that he enjoyed stroking as he contemplated life.

“Very good, Ryan. I think we could call that a breakthrough.”

“Yes, sir.”

The last sixty days had perhaps been the most difficult months in his life—a long, dark tunnel without a light to guide him
other than his weekly visits with Father Hortense who, in addition to being a priest, was also a board-certified psychiatrist.
Under the rather unique circumstances the navy had agreed to give Hortense full supervisory authority over Ryan’s case, including
all recommendations as to how his career may or may not continue with the navy.

To Ryan, Hortense was God. The puppet master. Which would make him the puppet.

“And the lapses in time?”

They were seated in a Starbucks on University Parks Drive in Waco, three blocks from the apartment that Ryan had rented after
moving out of the Super 8 in Austin. The coffee shop was the priest’s idea, a way to get Ryan out of his dark world and into
general circulation, as he put it.

“Better,” Ryan said. He picked up his black coffee and motioned with it. “I still have the nightmares and time gets away from
me, but I’m doing better this week. Much better.”

“Good. Time is a magnificent healer and you are the recipient of her best intentions.”

“Time, yes. Thank God for Father Time.”

“Not just time, of course. I think you’re coming to terms with the divorce through careful thought and grace. Those are the
backbone of any strong character. No one can accuse you of having a weak character.”

“So you’ve said.”

“You disagree?”

Ryan leaned back and crossed his legs. They sat outside in a corner, beyond the hearing of the next group. A black BMW on
its way to the drive-through slid past, driven by a gray-haired man in a green polo shirt.

And who was this man? What kinds of challenges had he faced in life? To all who saw him from a distance he appeared like one
more successful man quietly enjoying the fruits of life, not unlike Ryan. But like Ryan, was he really a man torn by life’s
most cruel circumstances? Divorce? A failed business? A wayward child? Insomnia?

“Ryan?”

“Hmm? Yes, I’m sorry, do I disagree? What was the question again? I’m sorry, I was drifting.”

“That’s fine. I was asking if you thought you had a weak character.”

“I suppose that depends on when you ask me. I’ve had some pretty weak days these last couple months.”

“And a weaker character may have never recovered from them. Few men have endured the kind of ordeal you faced in the desert,
not to mention the divorce.”

The air grew silent around Ryan, despite the roar of cars nearby.

“All told, I’m surprised you’ve done so well.”

“Tell that to the man who stole my wife.”

Father Hortense chuckled and Ryan smiled with him. “The man you assaulted.”

“I hardly assaulted him. During the darkest times I wish I had.”

“Ah, yes, the time of deep, dark despairing.”

He’d made one final plea to Celine following his interview with FBI agent Valentine, during which he’d learned that he would
be legally restrained from seeing Bethany. But then his now ex-wife (it was hard to believe she was no longer his wife, that
the laws of Texas allowed for such a hasty divorce) had handed the phone to Bethany, who’d hung up on him.

He’d fled Austin. An hour and a half north was as far and as near as he dared. He’d taken the furnished apartment, dutifully
stocked up on food, mostly the non-perishable kind, and shut himself in.

Hortense, who’d been assigned to him without his knowledge, had tracked him down and found him in his dungeon. He’d been so
concerned for him those first two weeks that he’d come by every other day to open the curtains and haul him from bed. Thinking
back now, Ryan was hard-pressed not to think of the change in him since as anything short of a genuine breakthrough.

“Was Kahlid insane?”

Father Hortense frowned. “Either insane or blinded by rage.”

“Or simply destroyed by sorrow,” Ryan said. “As strange as it sounds, I think I understand Kahlid.”

He’d never made the admission, and he did so now at the risk of sounding like he might be regressing. On the other hand, this
kind of honesty was anything but a sign of regression. Hortense, like all psychiatrists, thrived on complete honesty.

“Tell me how you understand him.”

“Those first few weeks”—a college student talking into an iPhone walked by and Ryan waited for him to pass—“those first few
weeks the horror of war haunted me; I couldn’t shake the feeling.”

“So you’ve said. And I can understand how it’s led you this new conviction of yours to turn away from war. God knows the shedding
of innocent blood is a terrible business no matter where or how it’s done. But that’s exactly what Kahlid did. Shed innocent
blood to make a point. That was his own kind of war. You’re saying you understand that?”

“He was driven to do exactly what he accused us of doing, taking innocent lives for a cause that”—Ryan stopped, shaking his
head at the memory—“God, I could never do that. Not now.”

“So you understand what Kahlid did but you could never do it yourself. I would say that’s healthy.”

Ryan nodded absently. “Funny how it all begins to fade over time. I don’t think I will ever be able to go back into the field
again, but those first few weeks… it was so raw then. I came back hating war. I looked at every teenager walking down
the road differently. What Kahlid did shook me to my core, Father. I’m not sure I could hurt a fly now.”

“But it doesn’t feel as raw and you feel like it still should feel raw. You’re saying you’re suffering from guilt for not
feeling as bothered as you were in the weeks after—”

“Not guilty. Just curious. When you step away from it all, you lose perspective. Like the rest of the country.”

“Then that begs another question,” Father Hortense said. “You think the war is wrong?”

“The war, I can’t say. Killing innocent life, yes. And abandoning children is as bad as killing them.”

The priest grunted. “Now there’s the real issue for you, isn’t it? It’s not just that you’ve found a heart for the innocent,
it’s that you’re suffering guilt for failing as a father to your own daughter.”

Yes. Ryan didn’t say it, but they both knew it was true.

“Shall we head back?”

They stood and walked down the sidewalk toward his apartment complex.

“You didn’t fail, of course,” Hortense said.

“No, Father, I didn’t fail.” They’d been over this a dozen times. “But I did.”

“No more than half the fathers in this country.”

“Yes, as you’ve been so willing to point out. And I’m not saying it doesn’t help. Millions, hundreds of millions of children
grow up without a father nearby. In whole cultures, fathers are less accessible to their children than in ours. During the
times of the patriarchs, times of war, the birth of our nation, I get it. But to be rejected by your own daughter…”

They walked in silence for a few moments.

“It was a painful experience.”

“One that you’ll live with for the balance of your life,” the father said. “But you’re finding yourself again. And that’s
the important thing.”

“Yes, I suppose so.”

“The fact that you can talk so freely about all of this is sign enough.”

Ryan nodded. A smile crept across his mouth with the memory of young Bethany, age seven, pronouncing that he was smarter than
the president because the president couldn’t read people’s minds while he could—speaking of her mind, of course.

“Have you considered our last discussion?” the father asked.

“I have.”

Hortense had suggested the possibility of his returning to work on a limited schedule, stateside. Temporary duty, or TDY,
as the military called it. Getting his mind into familiar territory could well speed his full recovery.

“And?”

“I think you might be right. As long as I can insulate myself from certain duties. I don’t think I can stare at pictures of
casualties.”

“That can be arranged on my orders.”

The thought of reclaiming the life he knew so well in the navy was comforting. “I’m assuming it’ll take a couple weeks to
line things up.”

“A few weeks, yes. Think of it as an extension of your ongoing therapy.”

Ryan took a deep breath through his nose, smelling the fresh scent of grass, churned up by the mower giving the park to their
right one last mow before winter.

“As long as it’s not in Austin…”

“San Antonio. You’d need to move back, of course.”

“Another few weeks, why not? I’ve never been crazy about Waco, anyway.”

“You’d be back under the command structure with the CO. Another psychiatrist would be assigned, but it might be for the best.”