Percy sat up again, running his hands over his head as if he had a full head of hair.
He stopped, touching his scalp, running his fingers from brow to spine. “They cut my hair,” he murmured. “I had no idea.”
He returned his hands to his lap.
“Pride goes before destruction,” he murmured a second time. “When I returned from the Amazon, I’d gone half mad. For weeks I sat each night, drinking whiskey and staring at the bones, elated at my escape and wracked with guilt.”
“Guilt?” Max asked.
“Guilt for having stolen them. The ghost tribe had taken me in. I’d have died without them. They’d fed and washed me. They had told me secrets they’d told no one. I’d betrayed them, and the queer thing is, even as I floundered through the jungle after I’d stolen the bones, I thought of Guy Lance. I thought, I have finally outdone him! It’s mortifying to admit these things. My father is more than turning in his grave. He’s probably climbed out and is hitchhiking across the country to put his boot in my ass.”
Max tried to laugh, but the image conjured in his mind was not a fantasy, but a nightmare.
“I called Guy several weeks after I’d returned to America. Boy, do I have a story for you, I told him. Mind you, I’d lost my traveling companions. Where was my remorse, my grief? Buried in my pride, in my desperation to beat him once and for all. He came to my house, and I told him the story. We drank a bottle of scotch sitting by the fire. He did not speak. Not a word for three hours. And then I brought out the case and showed him the bones.”
“And then?”
“And then he laughed in my face.” Percy’s mouth hung open after he spoke the words as if he could still hardly believe it. ‘Too much ayahuasca with the natives,’ he told me. I’d drank so much scotch by then, I could barely stand. Otherwise I might have punched him. I passed out sometime in the night, and when I woke in the morning, Guy Lance and the bones had disappeared.”
“He stole them?” Max asked. “What a scoundrel.”
“If only that had been the end of it. I should have let the bones go. What kind of legal recourse did I have? Phone the police and tell them this esteemed psychiatrist had swiped the bones I myself had stolen from the Amazon? I confronted him and he had the audacity to say, ‘What bones?’ as if he had no idea what I spoke of. I began to stalk him. I watched him for days, and that is when I saw the child.”
Max sat forward.
“He and another doctor were leading the boy through the woods behind the asylum. The boy looked terrified. He was crying for his mother. I called the police, and they treated me like a lunatic. Finally, I reached out to Abe Levett. He believed, me, by God, he did. But the article only incensed Lance. He struck back, printing an interview that I had gone to Brazil and lost my mind. I played right into his hands. I took my pistol and I confronted him at the asylum of all places. Fool-fool-fool.”
He slapped his palm lightly against his head over and over. “It took the orderlies in that place about two minutes to disarm me and haul me inside.”
“They didn’t call the police?”
“Oh no, Dr. Lance said he was a dear friend of mine. He told everyone he would hold himself directly responsible for my care. I had no family to speak for me. My sister is across the country and couldn’t be bothered. Lance told everyone I was crying out for help. I was admitted that day, and the drugs were administered before I’d even been brought into the building.”
“But your sister visited you. Why didn’t she sound the alarm?”
“She believed him,” Percy said dismissively. “It wasn’t her fault. I love Jody, but we’ve never understood each other. She lives in the same town we grew up in. Owns a farm with her husband. Has five children. She used to send me letters about baking pies and sewing quilts for the church.
“She’s like my mother and my father, good, devout, and serving of others. I’m a selfish man. I didn’t realize it until I took those bones. But then I did. And I have begun to pay for my pride and selfishness, but it’s not over yet. I’m taking them back. Maybe they will let me live, but it’s just as likely they will not.”
“The ghost tribe?”
Percy nodded.
“I don’t understand the purpose of the child?” Max said.
Percy rubbed his jaw. “How about a cup of coffee and a plate of eggs? I have no recollection of when I last ate, but my stomach is telling me it’s been days.”
Max blanched. “Yeah, sorry.”
He stood quickly and slipped into the kitchen, embarrassed he’d kept the man talking and hadn’t offered him so much as a glass of water. Maria Wolfenstein would have boxed his ears for such an offense.
41
The phone rang and rang. Ashley listened to it shrill through the quiet house.
Her mother had left for work promising they’d make a plan for the bike that evening.
On the carpet, Alvin slept in a tight little ball. His tiny black hands cradled his face.
Ashley lifted the toast from her plate, nibbled the edge, and then returned it, not hungry. Her heart hurt less than the day before. A numbness had stolen over her. She could see the blue door that led into the garage. The garage where the crumpled remains of Starfire lay.
Several minutes passed, and she heard a pounding on the door.
“Ash? You in there?” Sid’s voice drifted through the door.
She didn’t answer. She heard him slide the spare key into the lock.
He peeked his head in, looked to the right, and then spotted her.
His eyes widened. “I’ve called like a zillion times. What’s going on?” He walked into the living room and paused when he spotted Alvin. His eyes immediately swept the floor. “You brought him home? What about Simon and Theodore?”
Ashley swallowed, not trusting herself to speak. It all stood there, the grief, the shock of the night before. It stood perched on the edge of a cliff. If she spoke, she would tip forward and disappear into that blackness.
He kicked off his tennis shoes, a habit developed in his own home. Ashley’s mom could care less if the kids wore shoes on the carpet. When he sat next to Ashley, he seemed confused, even a little scared.
“Ash, what’s wrong? Where are the other raccoons?”
“Dead,” she muttered, unable to explain, unwilling to relive it, but forced to just the same.
She saw again the mound of fur and blood.
The vision brought the rage back. She wanted to hit, to hurt, and make them pay - Travis, his cruel friends, and the monster in the woods. All the people who had hurt her. She wanted to hurt them back.
“Did an animal get them?” Sid asked, petting Alvin’s back.
Ashley shook her head.
“Someone,” she muttered, standing and walking to the garage.
She shoved the door open so hard it smacked into the wall.
Sid followed her. When he saw her bike, he gasped.
Not speaking, he walked into the garage, leaned down, and touched the bent wheel.
“Travis Barron,” she told him.
THEY DIDN’T TALK about the bike.
They watched tv and played with Alvin until Shane knocked on her door that evening.
Her mother had appeared briefly around five, changed her clothes, kissed Ashley on the temple, and left for her second job.
“Are we still going?” Shane asked, looking between Ashley and Shane questioningly.
Ashley realized she’d forgotten it was Thursday. It was time to trap the monster.
“Better not,” Sid said. “Travis trashed Ashley’s new bike,” Sid explained.
“No freaking way,” Shane said. “Oh man.” He shook his head. “I’m really sorry, Ashley.”