Страница 39 из 86
“This is wrong,” Joh
“Take it easy, son.” Hunt looked at Joh
“Steve is an asshole.”
“Joh
“Well, he is, Mom.”
Hunt leaned closer. “It’s Steve or a court-appointed guardian. With Steve, your mother can visit when she wants. You’ll still be with family, at least until a final decision is made. If it goes to court, it’s out of my hands. The judge makes the call and you take what you get. It’s not always good.”
Joh
“I’m sorry,” Hunt said. “But this has been a long time coming. In the end, it will be for the best.”
“We need to find my father,” Joh
He didn’t hear his mother’s footsteps. Suddenly, she was just there, by the bed. Her eyes shone, large and dark and sad. “No one knows where to find him, Joh
“But you said he wrote. You said Chicago, maybe California.”
“He never wrote.”
“But-”
“I lied.” She turned one palm, and it flashed white. “He never wrote.”
Joh
“That’s not going to happen.”
Katherine stepped to her son’s side. She lifted her chin, and Hunt saw the protectiveness, the thin measure of pride. “Please,” she said, and took her son’s hand.
“I want to go home,” Joh
And for an instant, Hunt was kind enough to look away; but this was the job. He admired a lot of things about the kid, but whatever fantasy world the boy lived in, it was time to knock it down, before somebody else got hurt or the boy got himself killed.
Hunt crossed the room and picked up the paper bag that held the boy’s feathers, his rattles, and the lone, yellowed skull. He pulled out the necklaces and turned so that they hung at eye level. “You want to tell me about this?”
“What is that?” Katherine asked.
“Joh
Joh
“It’s not normal,” Hunt stressed.
“I don’t want to talk about that.”
“Tell me about Burton Jarvis.”
“No.”
“How did you find him? How many times did you go there?”
Joh
Hunt dropped the necklaces, scooped up the pages that contained Joh
Joh
“What?”
“Like a game.”
“Joh
Joh
“I understand why you feel the need to lie, son, but I need to know what you saw. You have five names on here, people that we’re aware of, known offenders that we’re watching. Then there’s the sixth man. The one that came to Burton Jarvis’s place on multiple occasions.” Hunt studied the page. “There’s a full page of notes on this man. You have a general description: height, weight, hair color. You have the make of his car and three different license plate numbers, all of which were reported stolen sometime in the past year. I need to know who this man is. I think you can help me.”
“No.”
“What is ‘small yellow’? What does that mean?
“You work for the same people as DSS.”
“Damn it.” Hunt’s patience evaporated, and Katherine stepped between her son and the cop. She spread slender fingers, and her words came with rare conviction.
“That’s enough,” she said.
“Half of these notes are illegible. There may be information here that is important in ways that Joh
Katherine looked at her son’s writing. She sca
“You have to trust me.”
“Nothing is more important than keeping my son,” she said.
“Not even getting Alyssa back?”
“Are you saying that might happen?”
“Your son, I believe, has discovered a previously unknown pedophile operating in the area. A smart one. A careful one. There could be a link.”
“Is that likely?”
Hunt’s doubt showed in his voice. “I don’t know.”
“Then I have to think about the child I still have.”
“I’m worried for your son.”
She held his gaze, and her voice was as sharp and brittle as a shard of glass. “You want us to trust you?”
“Yes.”
“Trust the police?”
“Yes.”
Katherine stepped forward, shoved the pages at Hunt. “You want to talk about this unknown pedophile. The smart one. The careful one. The one associated with the man that almost killed my son…”
Hunt tilted his head, and she pointed one finger at an ink scratch that only a mother could read. Her face paled into a porcelain mask of anger and fear. “That word,” she said, “is not ‘cup’ or ‘cap’ or anything safe. It’s ‘cop.’ It says the man with Burton Jarvis was a cop.” She pushed the pages into Hunt’s chest and stepped closer to her son. “This interview is over.”
After Hunt left, Katherine stood by her son’s bed. She stared at him for a long time but did not ask about the feathers or the notes or the things that Hunt had said. The color fell from her cheeks, and she looked calm. “Pray with me, Joh
He watched her kneel, felt the anger stir someplace low. For a moment, she’d been strong, and for an instant more, he’d been so proud of her. “Pray?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Since when?”
She scrubbed her palms on her jeans. “I think I forgot how good it felt.”
Joh
“He doesn’t listen,” Joh
“Maybe we need to give him another chance.”
Joh
His voice was brutal, and she shook her head, eyes both sad and startled.
“Three things only,” Joh
“Joh
“Every night, I prayed for it. Family home. An end of pills. Ken Holloway to die a slow and painful death.”
“Please, don’t say that.”
“What part? For Ken to die? Slow and painful?”
“Don’t.”
“I want him to die in fear like he’s put on us. I want him to know how it feels to be helpless and afraid, and then I want him to go someplace where he can’t touch us anymore.” She laid a finger on his hair-sad eyes gone liquid-and he pushed her hand away. “But God’s not about that, is he?” Joh
She did. A cold night on the floor of a depleted house, blood on her teeth and the sound of Ken pouring a drink in the other room. “I think that maybe I was wrong.”