Using only his elbows for propulsion, Nathan snaked from behind the boxwood and onto the grass. Free of the leafy tunnel, he drew his feet under him and was instantly reminded of the beating they’d taken through the woods. Though his soles stung badly, the cool wetness of the grass was soothing.
Nathan now had a full and unobstructed view of the street. Crouched like a cat, he looked around and calculated what needed to be done. The space that separated him from the shadows of the house across the street looked like the same distance as the fifty-yard dash he’d had to run in school. Fifty yards. Last time he tested out, he had covered the distance in 7.8 seconds, fastest in his class. That was no time at all.
From his crouched position, he counted down in his head. On your mark… get set… GO!
He covered the front yard in five quick strides, hit the street on his sixth step, and a well-camouflaged rock on his eighth. The rock hobbled him and made him stumble face-first onto the grass across the street.
Beyond his aching right foot and a little road rash, he was unhurt. But Jesus, he had made a lot of noise!
At that instant, an explosion of light blasted from the house he’d just left as the garage door once again rumbled upwards. Even as the door cleared the first two inches from the ground, Nathan could see the feet, legs, and ultimately the entire body of the man who lived there.
Nathan nearly panicked. He was completely out in the open, easily twenty feet from the nearest shadow. With no real alternative, he resumed his crouch and froze in place. Sometimes the best place to hide is out in the open, his father had once told him.
Nathan’s eyes never moved from the man as he rolled a trash can out to the curb, followed by a container full of newspapers. Never once did the man even glance across the street. No sign of recognition at all. Once the man disappeared inside and the garage door started down again, Nathan dashed into the shadow cast by the house he hoped would be his home for the night.
Thanks to the lessons of MacGyver, it took Nathan about ten seconds to break into the house. He chose as his point of entry the French doors on the main level in the rear. Using his elbow to break out a single pane of glass near the lock, he winced in anticipation of pain that never came. It wasn’t even noisy, thanks to the lush carpeting on the other side. Nathan reached through the opening he had created and turned both the deadbolt and the knob.
The door swung open into a darkened rec room, dominated by a floor-to-ceiling stone fireplace on his right, and by a huge entertainment center on his left. In between skulked the shadowy outlines of various pieces of furniture. Nathan gently closed the French doors again. And locked them.
Though his eyes were well-accustomed to the darkness, he moved cautiously, paranoid of jamming a bare toe into some unseen obstacle.
This place is huge.
The kitchen, with an eat—in breakfast area, sprawled to his left beyond the entertainment center. Beyond that, and out of sight, were a living room, formal dining room and library, all on the first floor.
A place like this ought to have an alarm system. The thought nudged his panic button just a little before he realized that he’d already been inside long enough that it would be too late to react. One way or another, it was a done deal, not worth worrying about tonight. Still, it was a good thought to keep in mind for the future.
Nathan’s first destination was the refrigerator. He was starving. He had to yank hard to get the door to open, but it was a wasted effort. The shelves were barren; no pizza, no leftovers, not even a carton of milk. From a compartment in the door, he pulled out a jar of sweet pickles.
Then he froze. In the dim light of the refrigerator, he got his first good look at his hands. They were filthy, caked with dirt and grass stains. And blood. Lots and lots of blood. Ricky’s blood.
In an instant, his hunger disappeared, replaced with an urgent need to go to the bathroom. He found one in the main hall, across from the stairs, with exactly no time to spare. In the darkness, he purged his bowels with a single liquid blast.
Finished, Nathan closed the door and flipped on the wall switch. With no windows in the bathroom, he could safely turn on a light. The image of the boy in the mirror frightened him. That boy looked sixty years old. His eyes were dark hollows, one of them severely swollen. His blond hair was brown with grime and matted to his head, pushed in every direction. He looked frail in the drooping coveralls, the shoulders of the garment hanging nearly halfway to his elbows. And the blood. He was soaked in it. When he moved, little chips of coagulated blood flaked off like powder and drifted to the floor.
Using both hands, Nathan pulled the lapels of the coveralls apart and ripped the zipper from its stitching. More than anything else in the world, he wanted out of those clothes. He moved quickly and clumsily, as though the prison uniform were covered with spiders. With his shoulders clear, he dropped the collar to the floor and quick-marched free of the pantlegs.
There was blood on his underpants, too, which he ripped off and tossed onto the pile. Staring at the mess on the floor as though it were some kind of beast, he retreated into the corner near the bathtub. He crouched in a ball near the floor, wondering how he was going to get past the pile of clothes without touching it.
It still was not off of him! Ricky’s blood had soaked all the way through his clothes and stained his skin. His skin.
Nathan jumped to his feet. With one hand he tore open the shower curtain, while the other turned the shower knob all the way to hot. He didn’t even wait for the water to run warm before he stepped inside and closed the curtain.
At first the frigid water took his breath away, cleared his mind. Nathan stood unmoving as the water pelted his face, moving past warm and into hot. Not until he felt that he would be scalded did he reach out to normalize the temperature. He found a bar of soap in the dish and slowly, deliberately began to wash away the nightmare. Behind closed eyes, he tried to revel in the simple pleasure of the hot water, a privilege he had been so long denied. But the darkness brought demons instead.
The image of Ricky Harris lurked behind Nathan’s eyelids. He watched the man die all over again. Nathan saw his own hands covering the hole in Ricky’s belly, trying desperately to slow down the bright red spurts, only to have them leak through his fingers. Nathan replayed the horrible sounds that Ricky made; the horrid gurgling, choking sound as he sought a breath that wouldn’t come.
Then he saw Ricky’s eyes, angry and frightened. He felt Ricky’s bloody hand around his throat…
The pictures stopped when Nathan opened his eyes. As the water and grime ran down his body and swirled into the drain, he wiggled his toes in the soapy froth and tried to smile. A smile makes the saddest man a little happier, his father used to say, but had he ever felt this much sadness?
“God, I miss you:’ Nathan said aloud, his voice a whisper. He turned his face toward the ceiling. “I’m in so much trouble, Dad. Please help me. You’ve got to help me.”
The emotions Nathan had fought so long to control broke free all at once. He started to cry, silently at first, and then, dropping his chin to his chest and covering his eyes with his palms, he gave in to long, miserable sobs.
Outside, a hard summer rain pounded heavily, providing nourishment for the ground, swelling creeks to their banks, and forever washing away the trail of a frightened twelve-year-old boy.
Chapter 7
Men me what we know, Jed,” Michaels invited, leaning back in his i squeaky vinyl desk chair. It was morning again, the day after the Fourth of July, and Michaels wore a lightweight khaki suit with a crisply starched shirt and a yellow tie with tiny red polka dots. While he would never admit it aloud, there was no question that Hackner’s attention to style had impacted the dress code of the entire division.