Run to Me (15 page)

Weirdest of all, the cut on his leg was sending out pulses of stabbing heat perfectly timed with
the beat of his heart. Yet
maybe he’d been feeling that for a day or so. It was hard to tell. Taking care of Corey and Reece had kept him so distracted that he hadn’t paid much attention to himself. Now that they were gone and . . . he was alone . . .

Alone. Somehow the word made him feel even colder.

He looked towards the cabin. Smoke was billowing out of the chimney. The crazy lady had lit
a fire. He slid from the rock, limped to the edge of the clearing and stood debating.

He’d seen no evidence the place was inhabited by anyone but her. Even the washing that hung on the line suggested she was on her own. What would she do if he went inside, just walked in? Would she scream? Throw him out? Call the police? What possible reason could he give her for being here? Yet, being crazy,
maybe she wouldn’t even ask for one.

With a burst of resolve he started forward. Cold gnawed his fingers with razor teeth and his body shuddered. He couldn’t stay outside a minute longer. If she called the cops he’d just run away before they got here. He tip-toed up the cabin steps and across the porch. Took a deep breath and opened the door.

One big room. A couch and two armchairs squared off
an area before a stone fireplace; a kitchen, table and chairs behind it. On his right a ladder rose to a loft, and on the left, two doors – one open, one closed. The crazy lady was nowhere in sight.

He stepped inside, leaving the porch door open behind him in case he needed a fast escape.

His gaze swung instantly back to the fire. Even from across the room he could feel it, its warm arms reaching
out to embrace him, urging him nearer. Yet something stopped him moving towards it.

The scents of wood smoke and pine enveloped him. No stench of cigarettes, no reek of beer. The furniture was comfortably worn yet clean, not a fast-food wrapper or bottle in sight.

For some reason tears were burning his eyes.

Light in the darkness. Warmth in the cold. Home as it should be. Safe and snug and
bright and –

The crash tore a startled cry from his throat. Heart thudding he swung towards the sound. The crazy lady stood in the doorway off the kitchen, the fragments of the jar she’d been holding strewn at her feet.

Zack cleared his throat, swallowed hard, but her look was so wild, so filled with alarm, he couldn’t speak. Clearly, this had been a mistake. He turned and left.

The seven-year-old
seated at the table before him was possibly the sorriest sight Nolan had ever seen. The boy’s clothes were filthy, his sweatshirt torn. His brown hair was matted and his grimy face was streaked with tears. Nolan couldn’t have cared less.

‘Well now, Reece, it’s time you and I had a little talk. I’m going to ask you some important questions and I want you to tell me everything you know. Because
right now you’re in a world of trouble, and unless you help us find Zack and Corey things are just going to get worse for all of you. Understand?’

The boy nodded.

‘All right, first question – what did Zack tell you?’

‘About what?’

‘Well, for starters, why did he want you to run away from us?’

‘I don’t know.’ Reece shot a glance aside at Vanessa, who was standing against a nearby counter.
‘He just said we had to get away from you.’

‘That’s it?’

He nodded.

Nolan let doubt creep into his words. ‘That’s all he told you and you went along with him? We tell you we’re taking you to
a great new home, he tells you we’re not, and you believe him, not us.’

A spark of resentment lit Reece’s eyes. ‘Zack never lies to us. He takes care of us.’

Nolan laughed. ‘He’s sure done a bang-up job
for you so far.’

The boy stuck out his bottom lip.

Rising from his chair, Nolan crossed to the fridge and opened it. ‘So did Zack mention anyone else to you?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Did he talk about a man we were taking you to see? Did he say any names?’ Nolan pulled a plastic-wrapped bundle from a shelf, closed the door and returned to the table.

Watching his approach, Reece shook his head.

‘You sure about that?’ With an innocent smile Nolan slowly unwrapped the bundle, lifted its contents and took a big bite.

Reece didn’t answer. His gaze had locked on the chicken salad sandwich. He watched as Nolan picked up a morsel that had dropped to the table and popped it in his mouth.

‘Oh, hey, I’m sorry. You must be starving. You want some of this?’

Reece looked warily from one to the
other then reached out his hand. The sandwich jerked back before he could touch it.

‘Tell me the name first.’

‘What name?’ Tears had sprung to the boy’s round eyes.

‘The one Zack told you. The name of the man.’

‘He didn’t . . . There wasn’t . . .’

‘Who’s the woman you two were with, then?’

‘We weren’t with any –’

Nolan slammed the table. ‘I said no lies!’

Reece burst into tears. ‘I don’t
know! I don’t know! Zack never said!’

Vanessa was suddenly at Nolan’s side. She nudged him off the chair then pulled it closer to Reece and sat down.

Putting her arm around the boy’s shoulders she stroked the tangled hair from his brow. ‘There, there, sweetheart, don’t let him upset you. He’s just worried because we haven’t found the others. He’s afraid something might happen to them out in
the forest all alone. And so am I.’

Gradually Reece choked back his sobs.

‘So tell us – there was only you and Zack at the store. What happened to the other boy? Where’s Corey?’

‘He got . . . sick and we had to . . . take him to the doctor.’

With a muttered curse, Nolan turned and started pacing.

‘Oh no, poor Corey,’ Vanessa said. ‘What doctor did you take him to?’

‘The one just up the road
from the store.’ Reece wiped his eyes. ‘But Corey isn’t there any more. An ambulance came and took him away.’

She clamped her teeth. ‘When did this happen?’

‘Yesterday. When it got dark.’

‘What did you tell the doctor about him?’

‘Nothing. We didn’t even see the doctor. Zack just carried Corey inside and ran out again before they saw him.’

‘Well, that’s something, at least.’ Nolan stepped
closer and bent down to Reece. ‘You said Corey was sick. What was wrong with him?’

The boy cringed back. ‘I don’t know. He said his stomach hurt.’

‘You mean like a tummy-ache? He was throwing up?’

‘No, it got hurt in the accident. He had a mark. Then he fell asleep and we couldn’t wake him up.’

Nolan straightened, pulling Vanessa aside for a conference. ‘If the kid was unconscious they’d’ve
shipped him off to the nearest hospital. The question is, where?’

She narrowed her eyes. ‘I might just know a way to find out.’

They were only small, half-grown at most. Yet dragging the two of them down the long corridor took most of his strength. Like all those who
’
d walked this stretch before them they were fighting to the last
.

Why did they do it? With no hope of escape, no prayer of swaying him from his purpose, they still pulled and clawed, jerked and strained. How it must hurt, their collars tightening
around their necks. If they just wouldn
’
t fight, it would all be over so much faster
.

The garage yawns low and wide before them now. The chamber door stands agape, leaking fumes and the throaty purr of the idling engine
.

He bends to lift them, the pale one going limp in his arms, at last surrendering. But once inside last-stand panic revives their struggles. Their faces, unrevealed until now,
twist and distort as they call his name. He slams the steel door closed on their screams . . .

Zack shot upwards from the depths of his dream, a drowning swimmer clawing his way through polluted waters. He surfaced
with a gasp, tangled in the burlap sack that had been his blanket for the night.

It had been his old nightmare but with a twist. In this version, instead of the victim, he’d been
the offender, dragging Reece and Corey to their deaths. He closed his eyes against the memory of their twisted faces, their hands reaching out to him, their shrill voices calling his name. What did it mean? He would never do anything like that in real life!

He shivered, waiting for his heart rate to slow. Morning sun slanted through the open garage but behind the snow-plough blade where he’d
slept – on a pile of rags gathered from the work shed – the shadows were deep and chilled with night.

He pushed to his feet, took a step and winced at the pain knifing through his groin. The fullness he’d experienced the day before had overnight become a throbbing fire spreading upwards into his belly.

Hearing the clunk of footsteps outside, he hobbled to the door and peered around it. The crazy
lady was coming down the cabin steps.

He watched her walk toward the pick-up truck parked directly in front of the garage. As she came toward him he studied her face. For a nutcase she was kind of pretty. Probably about the same age as Vanessa but soft and light instead of dark and tough-looking.

He ducked back as she climbed in the truck. The cops hadn’t shown up last night as he’d feared so
either she hadn’t called them or there weren’t any in this one-horse town. The engine started and the truck drove off.

Zack stepped out and watched it disappear around the side of the cabin. He wasn’t all that afraid of the woman seeing him, so long as no one else did. If she caught a glimpse of him now and
then and realised he wasn’t a danger to her maybe she’d get used to him and let him inside.
Until then . . .

He looked towards the cabin. How long would she be gone? They were miles from anywhere so probably a while. Time to sneak in and get something to eat.

The instant Chase hung up the phone and stepped from the treatment room Elaine spoke up. ‘So what’s the word on our little John Doe?’

‘Well, he’s stabilised but beyond that they aren’t saying much. Until they locate his parents
they don’t want to give out any information.’

‘You mean to say they haven’t found them yet? How can that be?’

‘Presque Isle police say missing persons has no report of a case child meeting the boy’s description. They’re sending someone over here later today to talk to us and canvass the area.’ He frowned. ‘You’re absolutely certain you didn’t recognise him?’

‘Trust me. I know all the families
in the area. If he’d been a local I’d have recognised him. Poor little thing.’

‘He must’ve been with people passing through town, then.’

Elaine was incredulous. ‘If a family’s missing one of their children how long do they wait before raising the alarm?’

‘Maybe they couldn’t. Something might’ve happened, some kind of accident.’

‘Then how did he get here? He was unconscious – someone would’ve
had to carry him in. Unless he came in by himself and passed out after he lay on the couch.’

‘No, you’re right, he still would’ve had to get here from somewhere. If the accident was close enough for him to walk, someone would’ve seen it.’

Elaine sat frowning. ‘Maybe somebody dropped him off. Found him injured and left him here without saying anything because they didn’t want to get involved.’

‘Or the person did the damage himself and ran before he could be charged for it.’ Chase didn’t realise he’d spoken his thoughts until he saw her studying him.

They were silent a moment as she sipped her coffee.

‘I suppose you would’ve seen a lot of that in Boston,’ she said at last. ‘That clinic of yours was in a rough neighbourhood.’

‘We did see our share of abuse cases, yes. A big reason
I wasn’t sorry to leave there.’

She regarded him over the rim of her mug. He could almost see her mind ticking over, her antennae rotating towards him. ‘It must have been hard, never knowing whom to trust, what story to believe.’

‘Yes, it was.’

‘And of course, being human, you doctors can’t always get it right. There’d be times you’d fail to pick up the signs a child was at risk.’

‘Sometimes
there isn’t any way you can know.’

‘And still you’d wonder,’ she went on, her voice hushed, ‘ “if I’d only asked a few more questions, if only it hadn’t been so busy that day, if I’d just seen that bruise on the mother’s arm . . .” ’

Chase stared past her. ‘Yes,’ he whispered. ‘Sometimes you wonder.’

Zack dropped the cookies back in the box and closed the drawer. He couldn’t believe it. After
nearly three days with hardly any food he wasn’t hungry. His stomach just hurt too much to eat. He left the kitchen in search of the bathroom.

Ten minutes later he was perched on the rim of a claw-foot
tub, pants legs rolled, bare feet submerged in several inches of warm soapy water. Aiming to leave no evidence of his presence he used wet tissues to gently wipe the back of his leg. Layers of
grime and crusted blood slowly dissolved to reveal the source of his growing pain.

He swallowed hard. He’d had infected cuts before but nothing like this. The wound was surrounded by a patch of red flesh the size of his palm, and the cut, though swollen shut, was leaking a mix of pus and blood. Strangest of all were the squiggly red lines snaking away from it towards his knee. He dried his legs
with another wad of tissues, swung them over the rim to the floor and drained the tub.

In the medicine cabinet he found antiseptic and smeared some over the affected area. His socks were too gross to put back on so he stuffed them into his pockets, grabbed up his sneakers and went to see if the crazy lady had something he could wear.

Like the rest of the house, her bedroom was tidy. A double
bed draped with a patchwork quilt stood against the wall with a tallboy and dresser on either side.

In the second drawer he checked he found what he was after. He burrowed in search of a thick pair of socks till his fingers scraped something neither cotton nor woollen. He pulled it out.

Three handsome faces smiled at him from the photo encased in a large wooden frame – the crazy lady, a ruddy-faced
man and a boy about six or seven years old. By the way they were clustered, the boy in the centre, they looked like a family.