A Stranger's Touch (20 page)

So far, he’d seen a bunch of animals with horns. The woman called them bison. They looked like buffalo, but meaner. She had to stop the car once when a couple of them decided to cross the road. They took their time doing it, too. They didn’t care about cars. They were about as big as any vehicle, so they walked as slow as they darned well pleased.

After hours of driving, the road changed. Pink and grey boulders, big as elephants, sprung up on each side of the pavement, like someone had plowed right through the rock with a giant bulldozer.

Twisty dirt roads came next. That was the worst part. The ride was bumpy and made Davie feel like puking. He sagged back in his seat and concentrated on other things to take his mind off it.

He wished he had some spy gadgets, like in the movies. A microchip homing device under his skin would be great. But he’d have to settle for the gun he’d made with Lego. Davie slipped it down the front of his pants, the way he’d seen guys do it in the movies. His mom told him that real police officers didn’t do that. Especially
boy
officers. They’d be too afraid of shooting off their dinkies. But it looked really cool.

His chest hurt when he thought about his mommy. He rubbed his hand across it, but it didn’t help. He wondered where she was, and if the woman had told him the truth. Did his mom really want to get rid of him? Had she given him away? Thinking about it made his eyes water and his nose run.

His mommy always said how much she loved him. But he hardly saw her any more. It was like he had three homes—his mom’s, his dad’s, and the babysitter’s. And, when he wasn’t at school, he was mostly at the sitter’s.

He sniffed and touched his pocket, then remembered the last of his hockey cards were gone. He missed having Jerome Iginla with him. Iggie had been a good friend. Now, he was all alone.

But, if the woman was lying about his mom, he had to leave clues. He just wasn’t sure what to use next, and he was too tired to think. As the sun drooped in the sky, so did his eyelids. He couldn’t keep them open no matter how hard he tried.

The car slowed. Davie wanted to wake up, but sleep held him down. He rocked from side to side trying to shake the fuzzies out of his head. When he finally forced his eyes open, he noticed the road looked different. It was a narrow lane with stone markers poking up from the ground.

A cemetery.

He’d been to one before, to visit his Grandpa Chasin and the Grandma he’d never met. He liked to run around and hide behind the gravestones but his mommy told him he should be respectful. So he’d stand quietly beside her or squat down and look for bugs in the dirt.

The woman stopped the car and opened her door. She pulled back her seat and motioned to him. “Come on. Time for us to say hello to everyone.”

She made it sound fun. Like a surprise party. But
Davie didn’t like her surprises.

He got out of the car, his legs itching to run far away. He couldn’t see any balloons. Or people. Who was he supposed to say hello to?

Maybe the woman believed in ghosts. The itching moved from his legs into his tummy. Once, when he was way younger, he’d begged to watch a spooky show on TV. Even though his mom explained that it was all movie tricks and make believe, nightmares had him too scared to sleep for weeks.

There wasn’t a soul in the cemetery, not that he could see, but it was hard to see anything with the woman crouching in front of him, zipping up his jacket. As soon as she finished, a man appeared from behind some bushes. He wore baggy pants, a hat pulled down over his eyes, and carried a shovel.

The woman wrapped her fingers around Davie’s wrist, tight, the way she always did. She tugged him close to her and began walking toward the man. Just as they got near, the woman jerked Davie to one side. He stumbled over rocks and bumps, but managed to stay upright, as she pulled him along.

She made another quick turn and Davie’s left foot slid out from under him, dangling in space. He looked over his shoulder and saw a hole, big enough to hold a person. His heart thumped as the woman dragged him away from the open grave.

“You don’t want to go there yet,” she told him.

She towed him along by his jacket collar, her cold fingers scratching his neck. She led him through the markers, until they stood in front of two matching ones, both dark gray with white lettering.

“These are your grandparents. Do you remember them?”

Davie scratched his head. He knew the grandparents on his mommy’s side were dead, but this didn’t look like
their
graves.

He nodded, anyway. International spies did that. It made them look like they knew a whole lot more than they really did.

The woman took a step to her right, hauling him along. The stone here was bigger, but the same color and shape.

“This is your daddy.”

Davie’s heart stopped. His hands and tummy felt tingly like he had the flu, like when he’d seen that cop lying in the middle of the road, still and bloody. Had the woman killed his daddy too?

He looked at the headstone. He knew how to spell his dad’s name. It was
R-O-N-A-L-D
on important papers, and
R-O-N
the rest of the time. The name on the stone didn’t start with an
R
. It started with a
W
, followed by an
I
and two
L
’s.

He turned to tell the woman she was wrong, that she didn’t know his daddy after all, that she’d made a mistake at the schoolyard and picked up the wrong kid. But when he looked at her, she was sniffling. She pulled out a tissue.

“I’ve lost everyone.
Everyone
.” Her bony arms wrapped around his shoulders and she gave him a squeeze. “Except for you. That’s why it’s so important we’re together.”

Davie leaned away from her. The way she was talking, she might kiss him, and he didn’t want her to get that close.

His gaze fell on the headstone for the Will guy. Underneath his name were numbers—when he was born and when he died. Below that was another name. Davie sounded it out in his head.

M-A-R-S-H.
That meant swamp. He’d seen it in a picture book about alligators.
He read the end of the word.
S-H-A-L-L.
He’d heard that at church, in the commandments God gave Moses. The word was always followed with a
NOT.
Seemed there were a lot of things God didn’t want people to do.

He put the words together, mouthing them silently to himself until they made sense.
M-A-R-S-H...S-H-A-L-L.
Marshall.
Like a policeman from the Old West. Was there a cowboy buried with the guy named Will?

Davie shook his head. The Marshall
couldn’t
be from the Old West. Thick grass sprung up around the other headstones, but there was hardly any around this one. Just dirt, dead leaves and branches. Davie picked up a stick and started poking it around, looking for ants. That’s when he got the idea for a new clue. He found a good spot and set to work.

First, he made a
D
. Then an
A
. The woman kept busy looking at the stones, so Davie had enough time to finish his first name. He’d started on his last when the woman blew her nose and patted him on the head.

“Time to go home, now.”

“You’re taking me home?” Davie blinked and dropped the stick. He could hardly believe it. He was so happy he did a little Austin Powers dance.

“You’ve missed the old place, have you? Your room’s exactly the same.” She smiled, her eyes warm and watery, like she couldn’t decide whether to laugh or cry.

Davie scrunched up his forehead. Why wouldn’t his room be the same? Had it been that long since she’d taken him? Was his mommy even looking for him anymore?

His bottom lip shook. He rubbed his sleeve over his face to make it stop. He promised himself
he’d
find
her,
even if he had to wait until he was a grownup and could drive. But would she still remember him? She could have a new husband, a new little boy. After all, his dad had a new girlfriend.

“What’s this?”

Davie froze. The woman peered down at the name he’d carved in the dirt. She rubbed it with her shoe, erasing the letters.

“Pick up the stick,” she ordered, her smile gone.

Davie did. She knelt down, locking her arms around him so he couldn’t move. She took his hand in hers, crushing his fingers. Davie whimpered. Tears stung his eyes. They slid down his cheeks and made little brown puddles in the dry earth.

“I’ll show you how it’s done.” She controlled the stick, printing new letters in the dirt. Finished, she stood, pulling Davie up by his sore hand.

“There.
That’s
your name. Now, come on.” She yanked his arm. “Time to get in the car.”

He wheezed and sputtered as she led him away, her grasp around his wrist as strong as ever. Davie spotted the man with the shovel planting a tree four or five rows over. He whistled as he dug, a sad tune that echoed through the graveyard.

“Hey, mister!”

The woman twisted Davie’s aching hand. He howled and sank to the ground, kicking at her to get away. She heaved him up and wacked his head so hard his Flames hat flew off. She stepped on the cap, grinding it into the dirt as she dragged him along.

At the car, she pushed Davie into the back seat and did up his belt, pulling it tight until he could hardly breathe. She got in, slammed her door and started the engine.

He wiped his nose with the cuff of his jacket and cradled his hand—stiff, red, and puffy. Seeing it made it hurt even more, so he looked back at the gravestones, instead.

Marshall.
The name of the cowboy on the headstone. And the name the woman made him print in the dirt. She’d told Davie it was
his
name. But how could that be? He wasn’t a gunslinger. The Lego pistol in his pants didn’t count. But he kept his crushed hand on it anyway, planning his escape until the car’s engine sung him back into a teary sleep.

Chapter Fifteen

“W
hy didn’t you tell me about the latest kidnapping?” Maggie’s voice wasn’t unkind, but her words carried an accusation that burned deep into Stafford’s gut.

He stared at his shoes, now only shadows on the car’s floor. Cold air crept through the interior, icy fingers grasping at the ashes of his conscience. He’d had enough introspection for one day. Flies, be damned. He opened his door and climbed out of the vehicle.

He marched down to the water, now a dark navy as night closed in around them. The insects were on him in seconds, relentless as his traveling companion. He turned and there she stood, shrugging into her jacket, demanding an answer.

“Because it has nothing to do with Davie. Morley doesn’t have your son.”

“How do you know?”

Another question. Stafford sagged, drained beyond thinking. Why couldn’t Maggie accept his explanation? “I just know. Like I’ve known other things. Can’t you trust that?”

“No. I can’t.”

“Try. Let down the wall you’ve put between us and let me help you.”

She did the opposite, inching away, adding another layer to the fortress. She may have found his hot button, but he’d definitely found hers. She couldn’t ignore what had happened between them. But it looked like she was going to give it the ol’ college try.

“Y-you withheld information from me.” So, she was back to the first topic. Still a hotbed, but safer than the one they’d shared the previous night.

“Information you didn’t need. And if you’re mad at me for that, you require more help than I can give you, lady.”

“Me?”
Her usually warm voice squeaked, the sound of a mouse caught in a trap. “I’m not the one getting messages from hockey cards.”

“You’re getting strange signals from somewhere for you to act this way. Admit it.”

“Admit
what
?”

“You put up barriers after we made love.”

Maggie’s eyes widened, like a scared animal ready to flee. But instead of running, she jammed her hands into her jacket pockets and looked away. “Sorry.”

Not the reaction he’d hoped for. His ego deflated like a balloon. “Sorry for
what
? That you reached out to someone? That you were, for a few minutes, vulnerable? Human?”

Her arms flapped at her sides, as if she wanted to tell him something but decided against it. She opened her mouth, then closed it. She turned and headed back to the car, then swiveled around and came at him.

“Okay,” she screamed, her hands fisted. “I admit it. I’m vulnerable. I’m human. I’m filled with doubts.”

Guilt pulled him forward as he beat himself up for goading her. She held up a hand, white against the black night, keeping him away. “I wanted you to make love to me,” she whispered, her arm melting back to her side. “I wanted to be carried away. And you did that. So well that when I look at you now I can’t see straight.”

Ego on the rise, Stafford reached her in one step and brought her close. He brushed his lips against her forehead, and would have found her mouth, but she pushed against his chest, putting some distance between them.

“This feels so wrong. My entire focus should be on my boy, on finding him. But you make me...” She clutched her chest. “Ache. With need. Something I’ve never felt before.”

And more than he’d hoped for. He wasn’t sure if he should embrace her again or get in the car and speed away. He was on a mission too. He had to find Morley. And getting involved with a woman—any woman—wasn’t in his plans.

Until he met Maggie. Every time he looked at her, those plans took a hike.

“I need to know I can still believe in you. I need to know why you’re so sure Morley isn’t involved in my child’s disappearance.”

To run would have been the right move. But it was too late now. Stafford let his head droop, too weary to hold it up. He took a seat on the ground. Let her think it was by choice. Not because he felt like a wrestler who’d taken a final dropkick to the chest.

She followed him down to the grass. Keeping her distance.
Good.
That would help. In the darkness, he could pretend he was talking to the sky. Not exposing his soul to another person.