Remaking (2 page)

Mitchell picked up the phone.

Lisa calling.

He closed his eyes, gave himself a moment to
engage. He’d written it all down months ago, the script in the
bedside table drawer under the Gideon bible he’d taken to reading
every night before bed, but he didn’t need it.

“Hi, Honey.”

“Mitch, I’m so glad you—”

“Stop. Don’t say anything. Just hang on a
minute.” He reached for the remote control and pressed play. The
screen lit up, halfway through the episode of Seinfeld. He lowered
the volume, said, “Lisa, I want you to say, ‘I’m almost
asleep.’”

“What are you—”

“Just do it.”

A pause, then: “I’m almost asleep.”

“Say it like you really are.”

Mitchell closed his eyes.

“I’m almost asleep.”

“We’re sitting here watching Seinfeld.” He
looked down at the top of Joel’s head, his hair brown with gold
highlights, just the right shade and length. He kissed the boy’s
head. “Our little guy’s just about asleep.”

“Mitch, are you drunk—”

“Lisa, I will close this fucking phone. Ask
how our day was. Do it.”

“How was your day?”

“You weren’t crying that night.” He could
hear her trying to gather herself.

“How was your day, Mitch?”

He closed his eyes again. “One of those
perfect ones. We’re in Ouray, Colorado now. This little town
surrounded by huge mountains. It started snowing around midday as
we were driving down from Montrose. If they don’t plow the roads we
may not be able to get out tomorrow.”

“Mitch—”

“We had a snowball fight after dinner, and
our motel has these Japanese soaking tubs out back, full of hot
mineral water from the springs under the town. Say you wish you
were here.”

“That’s not what I said that night,
Mitch.”

“What did you say?”

“I wish I could be there with you, but part
of me’s so glad you two have this time together.”

“There aren’t many days like this, are
there?”

“No.”

“Now, I just want to hear you breathing over
the phone.”

He listened. He looked at the television,
then the boy’s head, then the ice-blue sweater.

Mitchell held the phone to Joel’s mouth.

“Say goodnight to Mom, Alex.”

“Goodnight.”

Mitchell brought the phone to his ear. “Thank
you, Lisa.”

“Mitch, who was that? What have you—”

He powered off the phone and set it on the
bedside table.

When the boy was finally asleep, Mitchell
turned off the television. He pulled the covers over the both of
them and scooted forward until he could feel the hard ridge of the
boy’s little spine press against his chest.

In the back window, through a crack in the
closed blinds, he watched the snow falling through the orange
illumination of a streetlamp, and his lips moved in prayer.

The knock finally came a few minutes after
3:00 a.m., and nothing timid about it—the forceful pounding of a
fist against the door.

“Mitchell Griggs?”

Mitchell sat up in bed, eyes struggling to
adjust in the darkness.

“Mr. Griggs?”

More pounding as his feet touched the
carpet.

“Griggs!”

Mitchell made his way across dirty clothes
and pizza boxes to the door, which he spoke through.

“Who is it?”

“Dennis James, Ouray County sheriff. Need to
speak with you right now.”

“Little late, isn’t it?” He tried to make his
voice sound light and unperturbed. “Maybe I could come by your
office in the—”

“What part of right now went past you?”

Mitchell glanced up, saw the chain still
locked. “What’s this about?” he asked.

“I think you know.”

“I’m sorry I don’t.”

“Six-year-old boy named Joel McIntosh went
missing from the Antlers Motel this evening. Clerk saw him getting
into a burgundy Jetta just like the one you drive.”

“Well, I’m sorry. He’s not here.”

“Then why don’t you open the door, let me
confirm that so you can get back to sleep and we can quit wasting
precious minutes trying to find this little boy.”

Mitchell glanced through the peephole,
glimpsed the sheriff standing within a foot of the door under one
of the globe lights that lit the second-floor walkway, his black
parka dusted with snow, his wide-brimmed cowboy hat capped with a
half-inch of powder.

Mitchell couldn’t nail down the sheriff’s age
in the poor light—late sixties perhaps, seventy at most. He held
the forend stock of a pump-action shotgun in his right hand.

“I’ve got two deputies out back on the hill
behind your room if you’re thinking of—”

“I’m not.”

“Just tell me if you have the boy—”

A radio squeaked outside.

The sheriff spoke in low tones, then Mitchell
heard the dissipation of footsteps.

A minute limped by before the sheriff’s voice
passed faintly through the door again.

“You still there, Mitch?”

“Yeah.”

“If it’s all right with you, I’m gonna sit
down. I been walking all over town since seven o’clock.”

The sheriff lowered out of sight, and through
the peephole, Mitchell could only see torrents of snow dumping on
the trees and houses and parked cars.

He eased down on the carpet and leaned
against the door.

“I was just speaking with your wife. Lisa’s
concerned for you, Mitch. Knows why you’re here.”

“She doesn’t know any—”

“And so do I. You may not know this, but I
helped pull you and your son out of the car. Never forget it. Been
what, about a year?”

“To the day.”

Drafts of frigid air swept under the door,
Mitchell shivering, wishing he’d brought a blanket with him from
the bed.

“Mitch, Lisa’s been trying to call you. You
have your cell with you?”

“It’s turned off, on the bedside table.”

“Would you talk to her for me?”

“I don’t need to talk to her.”

“I think it might not be a bad—”

“I had a meeting the next morning in Durango.
Had brought him along, ‘cause he’d never seen the Rockies. That
storm came in overnight, and you know, I just…I almost waited.
Almost decided to stay the day in Ouray, give the plows a chance to
scrape the pass.”

“I got a boy of my own. He’s grown now, but I
remember when he was your Alex’s age, can’t say I’d have survived
if something like what happened to your son happened to him. You
got a gun in there, Mitch?”

In the back of Mitchell’s throat welled a
sharp, acidic tang, like tasting the connectors of a nine-volt
battery, but all he said was, “Yeah.”

“Is the boy all right?”

Mitchell said nothing.

“Look, I know you’re hurting, but Joel
McIntosh ain’t done a thing to deserve getting dragged into this.
Boy’s probably terrified. You thought about that, or can you not
see past your own—”

“Of course I’ve thought about it.”

“Then why don’t you send him on out, and you
and me can keep talking.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“I just…I can’t.”

Mitchell heard footsteps outside the door. He
got up quickly, glanced through the peephole just in time to see
the battering ram swing back.

He stumbled toward the bed as the door
exploded off its hinges and slammed to the floor, two men standing
in the threshold—the sheriff with the shotgun trained on him, a
deputy with a flashlight and a handgun.

Mitchell shielded his eyes, specks of snow
blowing in, luminescent where they passed through the LED beam,
couldn’t see the man behind the light, but the sheriff’s eyes were
hard and kind. He could tell this even though they lived in the
shadow of a Stetson.

The sheriff said, “I don’t see the boy, Wade.
Mitchell, let me see those hands.”

Mitchell took a deep, trembling breath.

“Come on, Mitch, let me see your hands.”

Mitchell shook his head.

“Goddamn, son, I won’t tell you—”

Mitchell swung his right arm behind his back,
his fingers wrapping around the remote control jammed down his
boxer shorts, the room fired into blue by the illumination of the
television, the laugh track to Seinfeld blaring, Wade screaming the
sheriff’s name as a greater light bloomed beside the lesser.

Sheriff James flicked the light, felt the
breath leave him, blinking through the tears.

He leaned the shotgun against the wall and
stepped inside the bathroom.

The cheap fiberglass of the tub had been
lined with blankets and pillows, and the little boy was sitting up
staring at the sheriff, orange earplugs protruding from his
ears.

The sheriff knelt down, smiled at the boy,
pulled out the earplugs.

“You okay, Joel?”

The boy said, “A noise woke me up.”

“Did he make you sleep in here?”

“Mitchell said if I was a good boy and kept
my earplugs in and stayed in here all night, I could see my Daddy
in the morning.”

“He did, huh?”

“Where’s my Daddy?”

“Down in the parking lot. We’ll take you to
him, but I need to ask you something first.” The sheriff sat down
on the cracked linoleum tile. “Did Mitchell hurt you?”

“No.”

“He didn’t touch you anywhere private or make
you touch him?”

“No, we just sat on the bed and watched about
spiders and stuff.”

“You mean on the TV?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s that?” The sheriff pointed to the
notebook sitting on a pillow under the faucet.

“Mitchell said to give this to the people who
came to get me.”

Wade walked into the bathroom, stood behind
the sheriff as he lifted the spiral-bound notebook and opened the
red cover to a page of handwriting in black ink.

“What is it?” Wade asked.

“It’s to his wife.”

“What’s it say?”

The sheriff closed the notebook. “I believe
that’s some of her business.” He stood, faced his deputy, snow
melting off his Stetson. “Get this boy wrapped up in some blankets
and bring him down to his dad. I gotta go call Lisa Griggs.”

“Will do.”

“And Wade?”

“Yeah?”

“You throw a blanket over Mr. Griggs before
you bring Joel out. Don’t want so much as a strand of hair visible.
Shield the boy’s eyes if you have to, maybe even turn the lights
out when you carry him through the room.”

The deputy shook his head. “What the hell was
wrong with this man?”

“You got kids yet, Wade?”

“You know I don’t.”

“Well, just a heads up—if you ever do, this
is how much they make you love them.”

BLAKE CROUCH
is the author of DESERT
PLACES, LOCKED DOORS, and ABANDON, which was an IndieBound Notable
Selection last summer, all published by St. Martin's
Press. His newest thriller, SNOWBOUND, also from St. Martin's,
was released in June 2010. His short fiction has appeared in
Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine
,
Alfred Hitchcock's
Mystery Magazine
,
Thriller 2
, and other anthologies,
including the new Shivers anthology from Cemetery Dance. In 2009,
he co-wrote "Serial" with J.A. Konrath, which has been downloaded
over 250,000 times and topped the Kindle bestseller list for 4
weeks. That story and DESERT PLACES have also been optioned for
film. Blake lives in Durango, Colorado. His website is
www.blakecrouch.com
.

Blake Crouch’s Works

Andrew Z. Thomas thrillers

Desert Places

Locked Doors

Other works

Draculas with J.A. Konrath, Jeff Strand and
F. Paul Wilson

Abandon

Snowbound

Luminous Blue

Perfect Little Town (horror novella)

Serial Uncut with J.A. Konrath and Jack
Kilborn

Serial with Jack Kilborn

Bad Girl (short story)

Four Live Rounds (collected stories)

Shining Rock (short story)

*69 (short story)

On the Good, Red Road (short story)

Remaking (short story)

Visit Blake at www.BlakeCrouch.com