Counterfeit Son (8 page)

"Okay?" she asked.

"Okay," he said, wondering how much it would hurt to fall off the bike. Less than Pop's hands and belt, anyway. The wheels wobbled frantically, but to his surprise, he juggled his weight from side to side, compensating, and pedaled jerkily.

"Like they say," Diana said, surprising him so much he almost lost his balance all over again, "you never forget how to ride a bike."

Or some people are just fast learners,
Cameron thought thankfully as he followed her. He wondered if he had ridden a bike sometime in the past. Maybe he had, and Pop had forbidden it. If Pop had beaten him for it, he might have blanked out learning how. There were so many things he knew he should remember, but couldn't.

Luckily the Freeport library wasn't too far away. By the time Cameron coasted up to the bike rack behind Diana, he was beginning to feel more confident about the machine. But every time he heard a car pass by he jumped, jerking the handlebars and nearly losing control. He couldn't get the idea out of his head that being here with the Laceys wasn't for real—the police had just made it up about killing Pop, and any minute he'd feel Pop's fingers digging into his shoulder. Part of him wanted that to be true so he could go back home, but the part of him that wanted to be Neil Lacey knew that if Pop showed up he'd give Cameron the worst punishment of his life for trying to escape. Cameron was only too glad to climb off the bike before he lost control by jumping at shadows and made a real fool out of himself.

Diana threaded her chain through both bikes and the rack, and led the way up the stairs into the library.

He followed her into the cool foyer, forgetting about Cougar for the moment, just glad that they'd come. He'd always loved libraries, even when he'd been a really slow reader. Books were a good way of not thinking about things, almost as good a way of blanking out reality as escaping to the sailboat in his mind. Pop hadn't cared if he read a book, as long as he dropped it when ordered. Reading was quiet, and that's what Pop had liked.

"This is my brother Neil," Diana announced, shattering his thoughts.

Cameron found himself staring at two wide-eyed librarians on the other side of the checkout desk. Up until now he'd been an expert on not being noticed, but apparently Diana had no interest in keeping a low profile. He wished he could dissolve into the shadows.

"He needs a new library card," Diana went on, looking pleased with the stunned silence she had created.

"Hi," he told the two women weakly.

"Come on," Diana said, pulling him away by one sleeve before the librarians could say anything. "We'll pick up your card when we're ready to check out books."

"Why did you do that?" he muttered, jerking his sleeve loose.

"What?" she asked, looking innocent.

"Make a scene like that?"

Diana turned to him. "You used to always run up to the front desk and say hi—you liked that even more than checking out books. You always liked being the center of attention."

Cameron met her stare, not caring what Neil would do. "Not anymore. So quit it." She looked surprised, and he went on, "Where are the old newspapers, anyway?"

She grinned then. "They don't keep old newspapers, dummy. It's all on microfilm."

She led him to a weird machine with a wide screen, an empty spindle, an empty take-up reel, and a handle for turning them. It sat on a table in the center of the main reading room.

"Wait here, if you don't want a fuss," she told him, and disappeared through a door in the far wall.

Cameron looked around nervously and found a similar machine in a corner. He was waiting there when Diana returned in a few minutes with a stack of small boxes.

"You really can't take the limelight," she said, smiling crookedly.

Cameron shook his head but didn't say anything. He couldn't bring himself to explain that he couldn't stand having his back exposed to half the room like that. He'd be looking over his shoulder every time somebody walked behind him.

"Want to read about yourself?" she asked when he said nothing. Cameron shook his head emphatically. He already knew what those articles would say, and he didn't want to read them on a screen. He also didn't want Diana to read them over his shoulder, and maybe make the connection that he only knew the things about Neil that were in the articles.

"I want to read about the man who went to jail," he told her more firmly than he felt. Cameron studied the pile of boxes dubiously. He'd pictured stacks of yellowing newspapers, or lots of newspaper clippings in file folders, like the ones he'd memorized. He felt unnerved by this strange machine.

"Okay," Diana said. She opened one of the boxes, deftly slipped the reel onto the empty spindle, and threaded it through the machine and into the take-up reel. Then she switched on the power, and Cameron saw a miniature newspaper spread out on the screen. The print was small, but he could make it out clearly enough.

"The boxes are dated," she told him. "They arrested the man about two years ago, so the articles should start in this box." She showed him how to scroll the newspaper pages through the reader. "I'll take back these earlier films if you're sure you don't want to read about yourself."

"I'm positive," he said, scrolling forward until a grainy photograph of Cougar caught his eye, and he shivered involuntarily. Pop hadn't let Cougar do anything to him, although Cameron knew they'd shared some of the other boys. But his stomach lurched as he remembered the two men drinking and laughing. He'd felt Cougar's fist a few times hard on the side of his head when Pop wasn't looking. He remembered Cougar, all right—he remembered the shifting eyes, part mean and part scared, but mostly mean. The paper said his real name was Bill Scott, and he'd been on and off the unemployment rolls since he'd dropped out of high school. He'd been working as a part-time clerk in a liquor store, but he must have lied about his age—he was only nineteen when he was arrested.

Cameron stared at the caption beneath the photograph, so paralyzed by memories that he could barely breathe. Cougar had been arrested because of the boy Pop had let him take. He remembered that night, hearing the two men quarrel. Cougar had been with Pop when they'd picked up the boy—Alan Wells was his name. Pop had been telling the boy what to do, but Cougar kept trying to take charge. Finally Pop had told him to take the kid and get lost—he never wanted to hear from him again. And Cougar had hauled the boy out to his pickup and roared away, spitting gravel from the drive so hard it hit the living room windows. Pop had been angry that night. Cameron shut his eyes and tried to blank out the memory of how Pop had taken out his fury on him.

Then, a couple of days later, the police had come. Pop had ordered Cameron to be quiet or he'd kill him, and despite what Diana and Detective Simmons thought, Cameron had known the threat was true. He'd sat at the bare wood kitchen table, staring blindly at his world history notes, listening to the rise and fall of voices in the living room until he heard his name.

"Mr. Scott says you have a son, Mr. Miller, name of Cameron. Is he here today, sir?"

He'd felt his stomach tighten into knots and wished he could run down into the cellar and hide in the corner with the file cabinet until the cops left. He remembered all too clearly how Pop had told him the cops would take him away and lock him up because he was so bad. Cameron didn't want them to see him.

"May we speak to him, please, Mr. Miller?"

And Pop had led them into the kitchen, to show them his son doing his homework like a good boy.

The cops had been polite. He'd told them he was Cameron Miller and that he didn't really know the man they were talking about. He'd said that his father called the man Cougar, and that Cougar sometimes came and drank beer with his father, but that Cameron didn't stay up with the men.

The cops had shown him a picture of Alan Wells and asked if he'd ever seen the boy, and Cameron had stared at it, remembering the boy's tears that night and wondering if Cougar had killed him. Neither of the cops had seen past his blank stare and tried to help him. Finally he'd shaken his head and said he didn't think so, and asked softly if it was someone he was supposed to know from school. The cops had gone away a little later, and Pop had slapped him on his sore back and grinned at him, telling him he'd been good for once.

Cameron blinked his eyes, trying to focus on the present instead of the past. Reading the newspaper articles now, he saw that Alan Wells hadn't been killed. He'd gotten away from Bill Scott's house, and run and told the police.
Good for him,
Cameron thought. That was one boy who wasn't in Hank Miller's files.

The articles said that Alan had remembered the license plate of the pickup and described Scott's house. He'd told the police there was another man in an out-of-the-way house, but he hadn't been as clear about that one. They'd arrested Scott, and Alan had identified him. It was Scott who'd told the police about Hank Miller. According to the newspaper, the police had gone to Miller's house but had found no evidence to confirm Scott's accusations. They'd found a quiet widower with a steady job and a son who went to school regularly and didn't make any trouble. Miller and his son were both open about knowing the man, but they said they knew nothing about Alan Wells, and there was nothing to indicate that they were lying. In a police lineup, Alan Wells had failed to identify Miller. Cameron guessed the boy had been too frightened that night to remember Pop's face clearly.

There had been more than twenty missing boys on the files at that time, and the police had wanted to indict Scott for all of them, despite his insistence that Miller was to blame. His lawyer had said that Scott was a victim, too. He'd been abused by his own father until he left home, and should be in therapy instead of in jail. Cameron shuddered. Cougar, abused? How could you grow up to do something like that to someone else, if it had been done to you?

The headlines in subsequent issues of the newspaper were full of speculation, but in the end Scott had only gone to trial for the abduction of Alan Wells. The prosecution had brought up the other boys in court and the judge had ruled that there was no proof that Cougar had ever had anything to do with nine of them, as he'd been in school in Memphis then, and living at home. But Cougar had no alibi for the other cases, so the jury had heard all about those, including Neil Lacey. They'd sent Bill Scott to jail for what he'd tried to do to the Wells boy, and several jurors said they believed he had killed at least eight of the other boys, including Neil. Because of that, they'd recommended a much heavier sentence than he'd have gotten for Alan Wells alone.

"Hey, Neil?"

Cameron looked up, startled. It was the first time Diana had actually called him Neil.

She was holding a crisp newspaper, the same issue that their father had taken away from her that morning, he guessed. Her eyes were wide, and she was smiling faintly.

"Bill Scott, you know? Last week, after they killed Hank Miller and started to dig in his cellar…" She looked pale beneath the smile, Cameron realized. Maybe reading about the bodies had jolted her.

"…his lawyer went to court to get him released after they dug up the bodies," she went on. "The lawyer said Scott had said all along it was Hank Miller, that he'd been trying to help that boy get away but the kid panicked and didn't understand what had happened to him. So the lawyer filed an appeal, now that they know Hank Miller's really the one who killed the boys. He asked them to release Scott on bail." Diana looked up from the paper. "I guess he has you to thank."

"For what?" Cameron asked, confused.

"For turning up. He didn't kill you, obviously, and his lawyer said he must have told the truth about not killing the others, because the police found all those bodies at Miller's, where he said they'd be. So the court granted his immediate release, pending that appeal."

She handed the newspaper to him. "You're both free now."

"Not another word out of you, young lady!" Neil's mother shouted. She glared at Diana. "How many times have I told you never to go off alone without telling anybody where you were? How many?"

"I wasn't alone!" Diana screamed. With her fists on her hips and her deep brown eyes wide and furious, Cameron thought she looked exactly like her mother. "I was with Neil! You never yell if I go somewhere with Stevie, as long as we stay together. I just took Neil to the library, so what's the big deal?"

"Shut up," Cameron muttered to her. He might be shaky on a bicycle or a microfilm machine, but apologizing for breaking a rule he didn't even know existed was something he'd had a lot of experience with. "I'm sorry," he said aloud. "I didn't think. It was my fault, but I'm really sorry."

"How could you?" Neil's mother cried. She gripped his shoulders and shook him. "How could you?"

"It was my idea," Diana shouted. "How was I supposed to know you'd want to come home and have lunch with him? You took him shopping all day yesterday! That's more than you ever did for one of us on a workday!"

"Please," he whispered, not resisting the hands on his shoulders. What in the world was Diana doing? It was crazy to argue back—it just made the punishment worse.

His mother suddenly let go of Cameron and turned to face her daughter. "Don't you talk back to me, Diana," she said, her voice icy. "I want you to go to your room and stay there. We'll talk about this when your father comes home tonight."

"That's not fair!" Diana cried. "What about Neil? I suppose you're going to have lunch with him and fuss over him and forgive him everything and take him out and buy him something else just because he's come back!"

She whirled away, and as her glare passed over him, Cameron saw the sheen of tears in her eyes. Her footsteps thudded down the hall, then her bedroom door slammed.

He felt himself trembling and tried to steady his voice. "Please—it was my fault. I didn't think. I'll never go off again like that—"

"Oh, Neil—" His mother was crying now, the tears running down her cheeks. "I thought my taking time off from work this week would be such a nice treat for us both—and then I get here and you've disappeared again." Her breath was coming in jerks. "It was just like before, and I couldn't stand it."