What No One Else Can Hear (11 page)

“Sir, you
will
calm down, right now. We’re already going to make a note that you want to deny the boy a procedure that could prove you guilty. Now, if you come along right this minute, we’ll—”

“I wouldn’t give a damn about whether or not you do the test if all I was worried about was the results. I
know
what the results will be. I’m just worried about Stevie. He won’t do well in the hospital surroundings themselves, let alone undergoing invasive procedures.”

“Officer—” Sara tried to be the voice of reason. “—can’t we do the exam here? Bring any doctor you want if you don’t want Dr. Brown to do it, but let the boy be in familiar surroundings.”

“That’s not what the subpoena calls for.”

“Surely you can think outside the box a little,” she said.

I had to give her credit. At least her voice was 100 percent calm.
I
was about to explode. Dottie was just waiting her turn to lay into the officers, and Drew was trying to keep Stevie calm. Hank had gone to help Tara herd the other children away from the problem area. “Call the precinct. See if those arrangements would be okay. This child is autistic. He won’t be able to tolerate all the noise and busyness of a hospital ER. You can stay with the boy until the doctor of your choice gets here, but I really must insist that this child not leave this facility.”

“We have the signature of the boy’s father—”

“To do the exam. But
I
have the signature of the boy’s father, albeit years back, to take care of this child the best way I can and to ensure his safety and continued health—mental as well as physical. I can get our resident doctor and resident psychologist to attest to the fact that a trip to the ER will not be in this child’s best interest.”

“Officer Gannon” beat “Joe Friday” to the punch and had already called in to the precinct. He quickly got permission for Stevie to stay here for the exam. They were arranging for a doctor to come as soon as possible, but the matter of the exam itself remained.

“Sara…,” I pleaded.

Dottie knew where I was going with this. If I said anything else that looked like I didn’t want the test, it would supposedly prove I did something horrible to Stevie. It wouldn’t look good for the case—great, I’m a
case
now—and the officers would simply dismiss any argument from me anyway. So Dottie stepped in.

“Sirs, can’t Stevie be sedated before the exam? He really wouldn’t tolerate the invasive procedure very well.”

“That’s not my decision,” “Sergeant Friday” started.

The other officer finished. “We can ask the doctor when he gets here if there’s any medical reason why the child couldn’t be sedated first. I can’t really see how it would affect the gathering of evidence.”

“Thank you,” I said quietly. I
had
to get myself together. Stevie was becoming more and more agitated by all this. He’d started pulling at his shirt and slapping his ears by turns. I needed to clamp down on my own emotions so I could help him.

I knelt back down to talk to Stevie. “Sport….”

The first officer jerked me back up again and started putting the cuffs on me.

“This isn’t necessary. I’ll come with you. Just let me calm Stevie down first.”

“Mr. McKinnon, we are not in the habit of letting pedophiles scare the crap out of their victims in our presence. You’re no doubt going to say something to the boy that will seem innocuous to us, but
he
will know it’s a threat because you’ve prompted that response during one of your, um, sessions.”

“
What
?” Okay, I lost it. “That is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. I’ve never
had
any ‘um, sessions’ with Stevie. That’s sick, man. I would
never
hurt Stevie.”

Stevie had started crying as soon as the handcuffs came out, and was on the floor, completely inconsolable at this point, rocking and banging his head. Drew looked at Dottie, signaling her to take over with Stevie. He came to where I now stood with hands cuffed behind my back, being strong-armed by the quiet officer while I yelled at the other one.

“Jesse,” Drew said quietly, putting his hands on my face to get me to focus on him, not the officers. “Stevie’s taking his cue from you on this. Remember we talked about you possibly sending empathic waves or something? You’re upset and spitting mad—with due reason—but he doesn’t understand any of this and—”

“Drew,
I
don’t understand any of this. What evidence could they have for something that didn’t happen?”

“I don’t know, Jess.” He kept his voice quiet, and thankfully the officers were allowing this much interaction. “But you’ve got to get it together for Stevie, man.”

God, he was right, but how on Earth was I supposed to calm him down if they wouldn’t let me even talk to him, much less touch him. Touch always worked best for Stevie.

I sighed and turned toward the officer as Drew sank back to the floor to be with Stevie. “I apologize for my outburst. That was inappropriate. But
please
let me talk to him. Just talk. You can take down every word I say. Analyze it later for any hidden threat.
Please
! I can’t leave him like this.” If there was any chance I was projecting emotion to Stevie, it had to stop right now.

“I’ll take responsibility, if that will help,” Sara said.

I had forgotten she was still on the hall. Right now all that entered my muddled brain about this whole situation was that Stevie was on the floor in a serious meltdown and I was about to be pulled away. Sara was still talking however.

“Jesse is really the only one who can soothe the child. He’s going to start hyperventilating if we don’t calm him soon, and
that
wouldn’t be in his best interest either.”

“Friday” nodded and “Officer Gannon” let go of my arms. I knelt down to talk to Stevie where he lay on the floor face down, writhing and screaming.

Drew had slumped down beside him, knowing by now that Stevie needed touch to help him calm down, so he rubbed circles on his back while I spoke to him. “Come on, big guy. You need to get this under control. Come on. Lie still, Stevie.”

He finally did do
that
much, and his screams were slowly transitioning into sobs. Drew pulled him up to a seated position and leaned him against his chest, still rubbing circles while I spoke.

“That’s it, sport. Man, I
know
it’s hard to stay calm right now. All this emotion. I’m sure it hurts. You’re doing great, Steve.”

A few more moments and he was just silently crying. He turned toward me and tried to hug me, but of course I couldn’t return it, and that was beginning to upset him again. He started wriggling again and whining.

“Hey. It’s okay, big guy. You
know
I’d hug you if I could, but I need to go with these nice police officers now, okay? And it’s their rule that I have to be in cuffs. Everything will be okay, sport.”

He sat back against Drew, and looked me in the eye. His voice was so broken, it broke my heart. “I don’t want you to go, Bear.”

“I know, Stevie. But remember when your teacher talked about police officers in class?” He nodded. “She said they
help
people, right?” Another nod. “Well, right now, for some reason these nice men think it will help if I go with them for a while.” Stevie wasn’t convinced. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

I heard the lead police officer say something about threatening the child with the fact that he’s not safe for long even when I’m gone, but I focused on Stevie. “We have to listen to police officers, right, sport? When you’re all big and become a police officer, and you think it would be best for someone to come with you, you would want them to listen to you, don’t you think? Even if they really,
really,
didn’t want to go.”

“I guess, Bear, but—”

“I know, buddy. We’ll get this worked out, okay? For now, I’m going with these police officers and you’re going to stay here with Drew. He can help you build the walls, okay? You listen to him.”

Dr. Brown entered the hall. To this day I have no idea who called him in the middle of all this turmoil, but his presence reminded me of what was going to happen to Stevie. “And Steve, Dr. Brown and another doctor need to make sure you’re not hurt anywhere, okay? And—”

“I didn’t hurt myself this time, Bear.” He was utterly bewildered and pulled up his shirtsleeves. “See? No scratches.”

“I know, buddy. You did
such
a good job of remembering not to scratch, even when you were upset. I’m really proud of you, but the doctors still need to look all over and make sure there are no ouchies from any other time, okay?” I looked at the officer in charge. “Did we decide he could be sedated?”

With the most compassion I had seen him express, he said, “Well, our doctor hasn’t arrived yet, but… I don’t see where it would hurt anything. I’m willing to sign off on it, if his own doctor thinks it would be okay for him to have it.” He looked at Dr. Brown, who nodded. Sara must have told him who the doctor was when he arrived, but I hadn’t been listening to anyone but Stevie at that point.

“Thank you,” I said to him and then turned to Stevie. “Okay, buddy. Dr. Brown is going to go with you to your own bedroom, and he’s going to give you a shot.”

He tensed. “I don’t
like
shots, Bear.”

“I know, buddy. But, you can build a big wall if you want, and you won’t hear any noise or feel any tingles. Just a little pinprick from the needle.” I waited for his nod. “Then the shot is going to help you take a nap.”

I waited for him to tell me he wasn’t sleepy, but it didn’t come. “Then, while you’re asleep, the doctors are going to look for those ouchies, all right?”

“Okay, but Bear… I don’t want you to go.”

“Aw, buddy. If I could stay, you know I would. You
know
that, right?”

“You won’t stay away forever?”

“No, buddy. Never ever ever.” It occurred to me, though, in this screwed-up situation, I didn’t have a clue if I’d be coming back anytime soon. “And if I can’t be here in person, bud, we can meet in the forest when I’m asleep, okay?” He nodded. “Remember, I won’t be there when I’m awake. Not because I don’t want to be, all right? You’ll just have to wait until I’m asleep.”

I should have known the compassion couldn’t last long. “What is all this talk about forests? Is this a code to the boy that you have ways of getting to him even when we have you locked up? You
scum
.”

“It’s not a code, I swear.”

Time was up. “Friday” jerked me to my feet, none too gently, and between him and “Gannon,” I was almost pulled to the door. So much for calming Stevie down. He tried to get loose from Drew’s gentle hug, and Drew had to start holding on to him in earnest. The more Stevie struggled, the more upset he became. The last thing I saw and heard before I went through the door was Stevie breaking free from Drew, running down the hallway for all he was worth, and hollering, “
Bear
!”

T
HEY
DROVE
me to the precinct in silence, booked me, then threw me into a cell—thankfully a private one. I didn’t even want to
think
about how other prisoners might have treated me if they thought I was a child molester. Man, I couldn’t believe this was happening. I couldn’t think of anything they might have that would seem like evidence of something like
this
. I did know, or
thought
I knew, how they got their hands on whatever it was. Chuck did say, “This isn’t over.”

The thing was, I’d never been sure what I’d done to piss him off—certainly not
this
much. This accusation didn’t have to be true to stick, and if it stuck, what was Stevie going to do? He’d be back to having no anchor, no help when the voices grew unbearably loud. He’d learned so much and could handle his empathy so much better than when I’d first arrived, even for short periods without me around. But had he learned enough to go through the rest of his life with no anchor?

Did he even need one? Only Lilly’s case suggested that an empath needed a specific person to anchor them somehow. Was there only
one
chosen anchor, with all others being temporary? Or could he have a bunch of anchors? Could Drew and Dottie help him as well as I could? They had certainly helped him through all those years when I was looking for him, but not as well as I did when I showed up. Did that mean they wouldn’t be as effective now?

Was Drew’s theory valid, that there was something about me in particular, more than just being chosen by Stevie for some reason? If that was true, it seem like a—well, if not a death sentence, at least a sentence to a lot of suffering. How long had Stevie searched before he found me? If I hadn’t answered, would anyone else have? Could he find someone to answer his calls now if I wasn’t available? I guessed we could go back to meeting in the forest like we had been, but that hadn’t been enough to help Stevie in his real life.

Shit. This was a mess. My hat was certainly off to Chuck. This was a pretty good way to get back at me.

S
ARA
ARRIVED
early the next morning.

“I have a friend who’s a lawyer. He’s agreed to take your case. He’ll be here any minute. I wanted to get here a little early to see how you were.”

“I’m as good as can be expected, I guess.” I changed the subject. “How’s Stevie?”

“Not well. Drew had a horrible time getting him to calm down. Poor kid screamed for a solid five minutes, beating his hands black and blue against the door, trying to get to you.”

This was difficult to hear, but I was glad she was being straight with me.

She continued. “Drew had the presence of mind to lock the dead bolt at the top of the door so Stevie couldn’t get out. All he could do was beat on the door. Hank finally came over and both he and Drew tried to carry Stevie away but he kicked and squirmed so much they finally gave up.”