“Sundays are my cleaning days. By the end of the week, it’ll take a forklift to get around in here.”
It was nearly three o’clock in the morning now. Condensation had formed in the corners of the living room window, where the cold was hovering in wait. Walt had set up an air mattress and a sleeping bag in the other room for the boy, who had almost immediately fallen off to sleep. Teri wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to sleep again. Whenever she closed her eyes, she found herself staring at that ugly jagged scar again. It gave her the creeps.
She sat in the nearest chair.
“Can I get you anything?” Walt asked. He seemed ill at ease, having his place invaded like this, though Teri suspected he wouldn’t have had it any other way. “Coffee? Diet Coke? Water? Anything?”
“No, I’m fine. Really.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“All right.” He sat down across the table from her. “Quite a day, huh?”
“I’m not keeping you up, am I?”
“No, not at all.”
“Because if I am—”
“You aren’t. Honest.”
“Well, it’s really nice of you to put us up.”
“Glad to do it.” He pulled the fingerprint cards out of his shirt pocket and tossed them on the table. Time to get down to business, Teri supposed. “So what can you tell me about tonight?”
“Not much.”
“How about the boy? What time did he show up?”
“A little after eight, I think.”
“And the woman you said he was with – what was her name?”
“Miss Churchill.”
Walt climbed out of his chair and rummaged around in a drawer in the kitchen until he came up with a pencil and a pad. “That’s the way she introduced herself? As Miss Churchill?”
“Actually, she didn’t introduce herself at all. I got her name from Gabe.”
“From the boy?”
Teri nodded, fully aware of the subtle game of semantics they were playing.
“This Churchill woman? She say anything at all?”
“Not much.”
“Anything about where the boy’s been the last ten years or why she was bringing him home at this particular time?” He sat down at the table again, immersed in making notes. “By the way, I want you to know that I’m going to have you check Gabe’s dental records tomorrow. We’ll see how they match up.”
“You still don’t believe it’s him, do you?”
Walt glanced up from his notepad, stared at her a moment in silence, then sighed and leaned back. “Neither do you, Teri.”
“Well you tell me then, if he’s not Gabe, then who is he?”
“I don’t know who he is.”
“And why would anyone do such a thing? I mean… what’s the point? I haven’t got any money. I’m not connected. What in the world would anyone want with me?”
“I don’t know that, either. But I want you to keep in mind that that kid, whoever he is, isn’t capable doing this all on his own. Someone’s behind the scenes, pulling the strings, Teri. I don’t want you to forget that.”
The mood between them had shifted, and they both seemed to realize it at the same moment. Teri sat back in her chair. Walt tapped out a handful of beats against his notepad, and blew out a breath of air.
“We’ll get a handle on it,” he said finally. “One way or another, I promise you, we’ll get a handle on it.”
She nodded and stared down at her hands, which were nervously picking at the hem of her shirt. She hadn’t had a handle on anything in longer than she could remember. Not her family. Not her marriage. Not her job. After Gabe had disappeared everything had seemed to fall apart all at once, right before her eyes. She didn’t want to let that happen again.
“She said he didn’t know how long he’d been away.”
Walt raised his eyebrows.
“Miss Churchill. She said the boy thought he had been in an accident a couple of weeks ago, that he didn’t know he’d been missing for ten years.”
“Did you ask him about it?”
Teri nodded. “He doesn’t remember anything about any accident. I keep thinking it was something she must have told him as a way of explaining where he was and what had happened.”
“Does he remember anything before the accident?”
“He remembers being Gabe.”
Walt shook his head, a smirk on his face. “And after?”
“Apparently, he woke up in some sort of medical facility.”
“Is that what he told you?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay,” Walt said absently. He jotted down a note, and she could see he was burning with raw curiosity now, the investigator poking at the edges of the facts to see if anything protruded from the other side. “Tell me about these other guys.”
“There were three of them.”
“Were they carrying weapons?”
“Yes. The one named Mitch—he seemed to be the one in charge—he was carrying a gun. He showed it to me when we were standing at the front door. I think he thought it would help persuade me.”
“How about the others?”
“I don’t know about them.” She flashed back to the man, his suit coat pulled back, exposing the gun. There was something odd about that. Something that had been quietly gnawing at her. “It was strange; because that was the only time I saw the gun, when we were there at the front door. He never took it out of the holster.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No.” She shook her head, thinking how odd that seemed now that she looked back on it. “Why didn’t he take a shot at me?”
“Probably because he wasn’t supposed to hurt you.”
“You make it sound like you don’t think he was really in charge.”
“Oh, there’s no question he wasn’t in charge. This whole thing was orchestrated from behind the scenes, Teri.”
“How can you know that?”
“The cleanup,” Walt said matter-of-factly. He tapped another solo out on the notepad, the look in his eyes clear and focused. “This kid wasn’t supposed to be wandering off from wherever it was they were keeping him. And that’s why they showed up at your place right behind him.”
“Because they knew that’s where she would take him.”
“Exactly.”
“Home.”
“Or someplace he was supposed to think of as home.”
“Who are we talking about? Why would anyone want me to believe my son had come back after all this time?”
“I don’t know,” Walt said. “What about Michael?”
Teri shook her head. “No, I can’t imagine him doing something like this.”
“He didn’t hold you responsible?”
“For what?”
“For everything. For what happened to his son, for the disintegration of his marriage, for all of it.”
She shrugged, almost unnoticeably, and hoped Walt hadn’t caught it. She was about to tell him a lie. Michael had held her very much responsible for the breakup of their marriage. She had become obsessed with finding Gabe again, and everything else, including their marriage had been put on the back burner. What had Michael told her just before he moved out? First I lost my son, then I lost my wife.
“No, it’s got nothing to do with Michael. I’m sure of that.”
The mood had shifted again.
Walt got up and headed for the kitchen. “You sure you don’t want anything to drink?”
“No thanks.” Teri stared across the table at the notes he had been scribbling. It was impossible to make them out upside down. “Oh, I almost forgot. The guy that seemed in charge—Mitch? He had a scar over his left eye.”
“That helps.” The refrigerator door closed and Walt came around the corner with a Diet Coke in his hand. “How about the other two?”