“I don’t like to talk about it. Why?”
“Something’s bothering her. She wouldn’t tell me, but she wants to meet later this afternoon. She’s convinced that Slater isn’t the Riddle Killer. I can buy that, but there’s more. She knows something else.” Jennifer hit the steering wheel. “Why do I always feel like I’m the last to know what’s going on here?”
Kevin stared at the house. She sighed. “I had to tell Milton about this. He wants to talk to you this morning.”
“What did you say?”
“I said he would have to take it up with the bureau chief. We still have official jurisdiction. The rest are still running their investigations, but on the ground everything goes through us. The thought of Milton interviewing you gives me the creeps.”
“Okay, let’s go,” Kevin said, distracted. They might as well get this over with. She would never know how much better he felt with her here. On the other hand, she was a psychologist—she probably wouldunderstand. He opened his door.
Jennifer put her hand on his arm. “Kevin, I need you to know something. If we discover that Slater did take Balinda, there’s no way we can keep it from the media. They’ll want to know more. They can be nosy.”
“So then my whole life gets dissected by the press.”
“Pretty much. I’ve done my best this far—”
“That’s what Slater wants. That’s why he took her. It’s his way of exposing me.” He dropped his head and ruffled his hair.
“I’m sorry.”
Kevin stood from the car and slammed the door. “Let’s get this over with.”
Walking across the street and up the steps to the front door, Kevin made a firm decision. Under no circumstances would he blubber or show any more emotion in front of Jennifer. He was leaning on her too much already. The last thing she needed was a basket case. He would walk in, give Bob a hug, slug Eugene, do his I’m-looking-for-the-key-to-Slater routine, and leave without so much as batting an eye.
His foot crossed the threshold for the first time in five years. The tremble started in his fingers. It spread to his knees before the door closed behind him.
Eugene let them in. “I don’t know. I just don’t know where she could have gone. She should have been back by now!”
Bobby stood at the end of the hall, grinning wide, beaming. He started to clap and hop in place without leaving the ground. A lump the size of a boulder filled Kevin’s throat. What had he done to Bob? He’d abandoned him to Princess. He’d been punished his whole life in part because of Bob, but that didn’t make Bob guilty.
“Kevin, Kevin, Kevin! You came to see me?”
Kevin quickly walked to his brother and hugged the man tight. “Yes. I’m sorry, Bob. I’m so sorry.” The tears were leaking already. “Are you okay?”
Eugene watched dumbly; Jennifer wrinkled her brow.
“Yes, Kevin. I’m very good.”
He didn’t seem so concerned about the old bat’s disappearance.
“Princess has gone away,” he said, smile suddenly gone.
“Why don’t you show me your bedroom,” Jennifer said to Eugene.
“My, my, my, my. I don’t know what I’ll do without Princess,” Eugene said, heading off to the left.
Kevin let them go. “Bob, could you show me your room?”
Bob lit up and skipped through the narrow passage between the stacks of newspapers. “You want to see my room?”
Kevin walked down the hall on numb legs. It was surreal, this world he’d escaped. An issue of Timepoked out of the stack to his right. The face on the cover had been replaced by a smiling image of Muhammad Ali. Only God, the devil, and Balinda knew why.
Bob hurried into his room. He snatched something off the floor. It was an old beat-up Game Boy, a monochrome version. Bob had himself a toy. Balinda had softened in her old age. Or was it because Kevin had left?
“It’s a computer!” Bob said.
“Nice. I like it.” Kevin peeked into the room. “Do you still read stories that Bal—Princess gives you to read?”
“Yes. And I like them a lot.”
“That’s good, Bob. Does she . . . make you sleep during the day?”
“Not for a long time. But sometimes she won’t let me eat. She says I’m getting too fat.”
Bobby’s room looked just as it had five years earlier. Kevin turned back into the hall and pushed open the door to his old room.
Unchanged. Surreal. He set his jaw. The flood of emotions he’d expected didn’t come. The window was still screwed down and the bookcases were still full of bogus books. The bed he’d spent half his childhood in was still covered by the same blanket. It was as if Balinda was waiting for him to return. Or maybe his leaving didn’t fit into her reality, so she refused to accept it. With her mind there was no telling.
No keys to Slater here.
A wail—Eugene—carried through the house. Bob turned and ran for the sound. So it was true.
Kevin walked back out to the living room, ignoring the sounds of lament issuing from the back bedroom. He should take a torch to this place. Burn out the rat’s nest. Add a few more ashes to the backyard. The stairwell to the basement was still choked off with a mountain of books and magazines, stacks that hadn’t been touched for years.
Jennifer stepped out of the master bedroom. “He took her.”
“So I gathered.”
“He left a note.” She handed him a blue slip of paper. Three words were scrawled in the familiar handwriting.
Fess up, Puke.
“Or what,” he said. “You’ll dump her in the lagoon?”
Kevin stared at the words, numb from four days of horror. Part of him didn’t care, part of him felt sorry for the old hag. Either way, all of his deepest secrets would soon be on the table for the world to pick through. That was the point. Kevin wasn’t sure how much he cared anymore.
“Can we go now?”
“Are you finished?”
“Yes.”
She looked around. “The health department is going to have a field day once this gets out.”
“They should burn it.”
“That’s what I was thinking,” she said. Her eyes settled on his. “Are you okay?”
“I feel . . . confused.”
“As far as the rest of the world is concerned, she’s your mother. They may wonder why you don’t seem to care. She may be a witch, but she’s still human. Only God knows what he’ll do to her.”
The emotions came from his gut, unexpectedly and in a rush. He suddenly felt suffocated in the small, dark space. She was his mother, wasn’t she? And he was horrified by the fact that he even thoughtof her as a mother, because in reality he hated her more than he hated Slater. Unless they were one and the same and she had kidnapped herself.
A confusing mixture of revulsion and sorrow overcame Kevin. He was falling apart. His eyes swam with tears and his face wrinkled.
Kevin turned for the door. He could feel their stares on his back. Mommy. Fire burned through his throat; a tear spilled from his left eye.
At least they couldn’t see. He would never allow anyone to see this. He hated Balinda and he was crying for her and he hated that he was crying for her.
It was too much. He hurried for the door, crashed through with far more noise than he wanted, and let out a soft sob. He hoped Jennifer couldn’t hear; he didn’t want her to hear him acting this way. He was just a lost boy and he was crying like a lost boy and he really just wanted to be held by Mommy. By the one person who had never held him.
“Kevin?” Jennifer was running after him.
He only wanted to be held by Princess.
22
Monday
Afternoon
THE QUESTIONS HAD NAGGED at Samantha through the night. The scenario fit some unseen hand like a glove; the question was, which hand? Who was Slater?