Chapter 13

13

Present Day

Once back at the house, Wylie dropped the shovel and sled on the front steps and went inside. She wearily pulled off her boots. What was she going to tell the boy? Simply armored with Wylie's hat and coat, there was no way that the woman was going to survive out in the elements.

There was no sign of the woman. Any footprints left behind in the snow were swept away by the harsh wind. It was as if she had simply disappeared.

Now the living room was empty. The boy and Tas weren't where she left them. The fireplace had dimmed to orange embers and the room was chilly.

She moved from room to room with increasing worry. She made her way up the steps, the cold from the wood floor seeping through her socks. The second-floor landing was dark.

Her bedroom door was shut tight and Wylie turned the knob and nudged the door open. Standing in the dim pool of light from her bedside lamp was the boy, his back to the door with Tas lying at his feet.

"There you are," Wylie said, and the boy swung around, startled. Clutched in his hands was Wylie's 9 mm gun. Wylie gasped. Wide-eyed, the boy stood frozen; the gun was aimed directly at Wylie's chest.

"Put it down." The words came out raggedly, like fabric caught on barbwire.

He just stared, his mouth agape.

"Put it down, now!" Wylie ordered.

Tas began barking and the boy dropped the gun as if burned. It clattered to the floor and Tas scrambled away. Wylie closed her eyes and covered her ears, waiting for a bullet to discharge and rip through her. When it didn't come, she pounced on the gun, throwing herself atop it, the cold metal digging into her midsection.

Above her stood the boy, frozen in terror, with Tas yapping wildly.

"What were you thinking?" Wylie snapped as she staggered to her feet, gun in hand. With shaking fingers, she removed the bullets. "Never, ever pick up a gun. You could have shot yourself, or Tas, or me. Do you understand?"

The boy didn't answer, couldn't answer. His breath snagged in his throat, and he tried to gulp in air.

"This is not your house," Wylie snapped. "You could have killed someone. You shouldn't be going through other people's things." Wylie moved to the closet and shoved the gun as far back as it would go on the top shelf. As she turned back around, she saw the boy crawl beneath her bed.

Wylie felt like she was going to be sick. She never worried about locking the gun away here because she was the only one in the house. She had no guests; no one came to visit.

"Tas, hush!" Wylie shouted, and Tas's barks faded to soft whimpers. He looked up at her with trepidation.

Wylie lowered herself to the edge of the bed and tried to calm her thumping heart. When she trusted her voice again she spoke. "I shouldn't have yelled. I didn't mean to scare you." There was no response, just the soft snuffling hitches of the boy's breath from beneath the bed.

"It wasn't your fault. It was mine. I should have had the gun locked away. Come out," Wylie urged.

The boy remained beneath the bed. "I was scared," Wylie tried to explain. "Have you ever been scared? Really, really scared?"

What a silly thing to ask , Wylie thought to herself. Of course, the boy had been scared. He was just in a terrible car accident and had wandered alone through the storm and nearly froze to death. The boy knew what it was like to be scared. To be terrified.

Wylie waited. The boy's frantic breaths eased. Minutes passed. Wylie felt a gentle tug on her pant leg like a tiny sunfish pulling on a night crawler. She bent over, head between her legs so that she could peer beneath the bed. The boy's tearstained face looked back at her. "Will you come out?" Wylie asked.

The boy eased himself out from beneath the bed and got to his feet. Though he didn't speak, Wylie knew what questions he wanted to be answered.

"I found the truck," Wylie said carefully. "No one else." A blatant lie, but why add to his anxiety? The boy's shoulders sagged with disappointment. "Was your mom in the truck with you? Or someone else?" she asked. "Someone you cared about?" The boy didn't respond.

Wylie reached for the boy's hands. His skin was cold, and the bones beneath felt like they could break within her grasp. He pulled away at her touch as if burned.

"Once the storm passes, I'll look more," Wylie promised. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the dirty white scrap of fabric she found near the wrecked truck. "I found this. Does it belong to you?" Wylie asked.

The boy's eyes lit up and he smiled before reaching out his hand tentatively. Wylie handed the piece of cloth to him and he pressed it to his cheek.

Why hadn't the woman waited for Wylie to come back for her? Where could she have possibly gone? Wylie couldn't help thinking that maybe she was into some bad business and was running away. Her mind raced with possibilities: She was running from the law or from an abusive husband. Maybe it was as simple as the woman being disoriented from the accident and she wandered off into the storm.

They came back down the stairs and Wylie fed another stick of wood into the fireplace. The boy had a funny way of turning his body to the side and watching what was going on around him out of the corner of his eye as if trying not to be noticed. Wylie straightened the blankets on the sofa, Tas jumped up, turned around three times, and settled into one corner. This time she didn't reprimand him.

Wylie went to the kitchen to get the boy a glass of water. He had to be hungry too. She dug through the cupboards and found a box of Cheerios and filled a bowl. She took the dry cereal and the glass and found the boy curled up next to Tas on the sofa, thumb in his mouth.

"You should drink something," Wylie said, holding the glass of water toward him, but tight-lipped, he turned his head away. "Okay," Wylie said, setting the glass and bowl of cereal on the coffee table. "Help yourself when you're ready."

The boy's eyes grew heavy, and soon his breathing matched Tas's; they were asleep.

Wylie checked her watch. How could it be only midnight?

Outside, the storm had worked itself into a frenzy. The wind bayed angrily, and the snow scoured the windows. Wylie kept looking outside, hoping to see the woman coming toward the house, but all she could see were froths of white. After a while, she gave up. The woman either found help on the snowed-in road, which was unlikely, or she succumbed to the weather.

Wylie retrieved her manuscript and folder filled with crime scene photos from upstairs and considered pouring herself a glass of wine but settled on coffee. She tried to read but kept looking at the sleeping form nestled on the sofa. Who was he? Someone else had to be out there looking for him.

Periodically, she checked the landline but was met with the same silence. For the first time in a long time, she wanted to talk to someone.

Not to just anyone. Wylie wanted to talk to her son. She wanted to apologize for just taking off. She had been so frustrated with him, so tired of the arguments, of Seth pitting her ex-husband against her. And when he took off that night and didn't come home—that was pure torture. She didn't know where Seth was, who he was with, didn't know if he was alive or dead.

Wylie had taken the easy way out as a parent. Seth's words had hurt her so much. He hated her, wanted to go live with his father. Wounded, she used finishing her book as an excuse, came to this sad, lonely place. Wylie left her son and only God knew what it would take to mend their relationship.

At that moment, she would have been content to talk to Seth about school and his friends, but that was impossible. Now Wylie was the lone caretaker of another child—one she was ill-equipped to tend to.

The storm raged, the shadows shifted, darkened. She checked her watch; 1:00 a.m. Wylie hated these quiet moments. It felt like the entire world was asleep except for her. The moment the dove-colored light peeked between the edges of the curtains, she would relax. She would close her eyes, and for just a moment, she would be like everyone else.

Wylie awoke to the creak of floorboards. She blinked sleepily to find the child sitting on the floor next to the fire, his back to her.

Something fell from the boy's fingers and fluttered to the floor. Photos of throats slit open, broken teeth, empty eye sockets. Oh, no, Wylie thought. He had found the crime scene photos. The boy stumbled to his feet and he ran from the room. Wylie jumped from the sofa to follow him. He barely made it to the bathroom before his stomach tilted and heaved and bile, hot and sour, erupted from his mouth.

The boy retched until there was nothing left in his stomach.

"You shouldn't have seen those," Wylie said from just outside the darkened bathroom. "I'm so sorry. They're for my work. I'm a writer."

The boy climbed into the small space between the wall and the toilet and covered his face with his hands.

Wylie lingered in the doorway for a moment, and when it was clear that the boy wasn't going to come out of the bathroom, she returned to the living room.

How could Wylie adequately explain what those awful images were for? There were no words. He thought she was a monster, and any chances of getting the boy to trust her were now lost.