Devil's Night (27 page)

Deana shrugged. “It’s all right. Truth is, I needed the job. Things were tight after the funeral home closed. A lot of people wouldn’t hire me because of, well, you know. But I have a friend, Doreen, who works at the library. She’s the one who got me the job.”

A woman approached. A jogger. Reflective tape was stuck to the sleeves of her sweatshirt, catching the glare of a streetlight flickering to life as she passed. Seeing them, she did a double take.

That was the moment Henry realized that people weren’t staring at him. They were looking at Deana Swan. Judging her. Hating her. For the first time, he thought about how difficult living in Perry Hollow must be for her now. He wondered if she had any friends besides this Doreen, a person she had never mentioned during the months they were dating. He remembered what Kat had told him early that morning in the diner, that no one saw very much of Deana. He imagined her hidden deep inside her house, stepping outside only to go to work and back again. Just like he used to do.

They were at her house now. Deana walked a little faster, visibly nervous as she led Henry up the driveway, across the front walk, to the door. Before following her inside, he touched her shoulders, bringing her to a stop.

“I need to know,” he said, “if you’re happy. Because if you’re not, then get far away from here. Just run away and forget your past. I’ve done it twice now.”

Deana touched a finger to his temple. Gazing at his face, she traced his scar all the way past his mouth.

“It’s not that easy, Henry. Besides, I’m the happiest I’ve ever been.”

She opened the front door and they stepped inside. The place looked just as Henry had remembered it. Comforting. Like being enveloped by a warm hug. In the living room, a plump woman with bleached blond hair sat on the couch, flipping through a copy of
People
. She stood when she saw Henry.

“Thanks, Doreen,” Deana told her. “I owe you one.”

Doreen gave her a sisterly jab in the ribs with her elbow before nodding a silent hello to Henry. Then she was out the door, closing it behind her.

Deana moved deeper into the house, disappearing up the stairs. “I’ll just be a minute,” she called down. “Make yourself at home.”

Henry remained standing, back to the door, craning his neck to see if he could spot Deana moving around the upstairs landing. He had no idea why she had brought him here, other than to maybe show him off to Doreen. He grew uncomfortable. The last time he was inside her home, they had made love, intense and passionate, in her bedroom. Was Deana there now? Waiting for him to come up in hopes of a repeat?

He felt the urge to leave. It would have been easy. He was two feet from the front door. All he needed to do was slip out. Then he’d never have to see Deana again. Never need to worry about her feelings and expectations.

But then he heard footsteps on the landing as Deana descended the stairs. She moved slowly, with caution. When she reached the halfway point, Henry saw her shoes. Then her legs. Then he saw the baby she held in her arms, asleep, wrapped in a blanket as white and puffy as a cloud in summer.

“Henry,” Deana said, “this is your son.”

7
P
.
M
.

Night had fully descended by the time they reached the house where Danny Batallas lived. For that, Kat was thankful. It would make their job if not easier, then at least less visible. The fewer people who saw their approach, the better.

She parked her Crown Vic on the street. Carl did the same. The state trooper they had brought along—good old Randall Stroup—parked his vehicle on the opposite side of the street. The three of them then conferred outside Kat’s car.

“Danny lives in the basement apartment,” she told them. “There was no sign of him this morning, but that doesn’t mean he’s not there now. And while he’s shown no signs of being dangerous in the past, again, it doesn’t mean he’s not.”

All three of them had put on their Kevlar before leaving. Kat hoped it wouldn’t be necessary, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

The house—a ramshackle two-story dwelling with peeled siding—looked to be unoccupied. All the windows were dark, although a porch light flickered intermittently. The place was surrounded by a chain-link fence, a sun-faded sign on the unlocked gate warned them to beware of their dog.

Kat opened it anyway, the gate groaning as they pushed through it. It was the only noise on an otherwise silent block. Kat led the way as they crept across the yard. She kept low to the ground, scanning the dark corners of the property. A light popped on in the house next door, revealing a motionless silhouette watching them through the window. They had been spotted.

The three of them pressed on, quickly reaching the house. Kat stuck close to it, her shoulder brushing the siding as she rounded the corner into the backyard. Along the way, she glanced down at the basement windows located near her ankles. Like the rest of the house, they were also dark. If Danny Batallas was home, he sure didn’t want anyone to know it.

The door to the basement unit was located in the back, next to the garage. Just like that morning, it was locked. This time, though, Kat didn’t bother to knock.

“Stand back,” she whispered to the others. “I’m going to kick the door in.”

Randall Stroup put a hand on her shoulder. “I can do it, if you’d like.”

“No need,” Kat said. “I’m actually pretty good at this.”

Leaning back, she raised her right leg and smashed her boot against the door, just above the knob. The door frame splintered instantly. When Kat kicked it again, the door broke free and flew open.

“Now!” she yelled. “Go!”

Randall rushed through the door, pounding down the steps into the basement. Carl followed, with Kat close behind. On her way through the door, she flicked on the overhead light, illuminating the drab and dirty stairwell. The area around the bottom of the stairs brightened. It was Randall, also turning on the lights.

Guns raised, the three of them spread out through the apartment. The place was designed like a series of attached train cars, with one narrow room leading directly into the next. At the bottom of the stairs was the kitchen, all stained linoleum and fluorescent lighting. A tiny table with one short leg propped up by a phone book sat near the door. A dead plant hung beside one of the rectangular windows.

A closet door sat next to the fridge. Randall flung it open and looked inside.

“Kitchen is clear,” he said.

Kat pushed into the next room, which was a living room of sorts. Decorated like a den from the seventies, it had shag carpeting and faux-wood paneling. Candy wrappers and potato chip bags littered the coffee table. An end table contained an ashtray with a half-smoked cigarette poking out of it.

“Living room is clear,” she yelled before moving on to the adjoining bathroom. There wasn’t much to it. A toilet. A sink. A shower. Kat opened the door to the linen closet, seeing only towels and washcloths tossed haphazardly on its shelves.

“Bathroom is also clear.”

The final room was the bedroom. Kat hit the light switch before moving inside. The room was small and sparsely furnished. Other than an unmade bed, it contained a nightstand cluttered with a lamp, clock radio, and several copies of
Penthouse
. A weight bench and dumbbells sat in the corner, next to a rickety desk crammed with a computer and printer. There was no door on the bedroom closet, giving Kat an easy view of Danny’s jeans, Tshirts, and clothes for work.

“Bedroom is clear,” she said.

She stared at the empty bed. Something black and shiny peeked out from beneath the tangled sheets.

A cell phone.

Kat grabbed it. Scrolling through its touchscreen menu, she found the log of calls, both incoming and outgoing. Danny had made several calls during the past few days, all to places with helpful labels. Work. Firehouse. Mike’s Pizza. Someone he had anointed Sex Fiend.

There were fewer incoming calls, many from the same places he had dialed. Kat saw that a half-dozen from his workplace had come in earlier that morning in the directory of missed calls. According to the phone, Danny had yet to listen to the accompanying messages.

In the directory of received calls, however, was one that Danny had answered shortly after seven that morning. No number was listed with it. Whoever called him had used a block on the caller ID.

“Chief.” Carl’s voice rose from the living room. “I think I found something.”

Kat dropped the phone back onto the bed and returned to the living room, where Carl and Randall stood over the coffee table. The wrappers and chip bags had been cleared, revealing a small stack of paper. Kat riffled through it, alarm growing with each passing page. Maybe Connor Hawthorne wasn’t their man after all.

She turned to Randall Stroup. “Get on the radio and try to get someone from motor vehicles. I want to know the make, model, and license plate number of whatever Danny Batallas is driving. Then put out an APB and round up all the troopers not guarding one of the historical buildings.”

She moved on to Carl. “Head to Main Street and ask around if anyone has seen Danny all day. You know where to go.”

“The diner, Big Joe’s, and the Sawmill,” the deputy said, nodding. “Where are you going to be?”

“Talking to Dutch Jansen. I want to find out everything he knows about Danny Batallas.”

*

His name was Adam.

That’s the first thing Henry learned about his son.

He was delivered by C-section on a rainy day in June. Because she wanted to keep it a secret, Deana had had it done at a hospital in a neighboring county. Other than her co-worker, few people in Perry Hollow even knew she had a child. She told Henry she wanted to keep it that way, at least until the town’s collective memory faded.

“I don’t want people to look at him the way they do me,” she said softly, while cradling the baby. “I don’t want him to grow up thinking he’s different.”

“Is he healthy?” Henry asked. “No problems?”

“He’s as healthy as can be.” Adam was awake now, wriggling in Deana’s arms. She kissed the tip of his nose. “Would you like to hold him?”

Henry hadn’t even considered it. He was still in shock, a lump of numbness on the living room sofa. He wasn’t sure his arms, as stable as jelly, were capable of holding a baby. Still, he found himself nodding. Yes, he wanted to hold his son. More than anything.

Deana lifted Adam and placed him in Henry’s arms. All numbness vanished as soon as he felt the weight of his son in his hands. It was replaced by a newfound strength, an overwhelming urge to do everything he could to protect this child.

“Support the head,” Deana said, guiding his hands. “There you go.”

Henry gazed down at the boy. Adam had blue eyes, like his mother, and blond hair that was already starting to curl. But the rest of his facial features clearly came from Henry. Same nose. Same strong chin. Same smile. Looking at his son, Henry saw his own reflection.

“I can’t believe I’m a father,” he said. “I’m still amazed.”

Only that seemed like too weak a word to describe how he was feeling.
Overwhelmed
was more like it. Or
stupefied
. Or
gobsmacked
. He could have recited an entire thesaurus and still not gotten to the root of how he felt.

He was a father. Of a healthy baby boy. It’s what he’d always wanted. It’s what he would have had, too, if not for a snowy night, an overturned truck, and a car accident that destroyed life as he knew it. Now that it was a reality, it felt as if the past six years had been a test of his patience, the longest labor in history. Fate had provided him with the child he had always desired. It just had taken a lot longer than he expected.

Henry thought of Gia. He couldn’t help it. All these years later, he still missed her. And he knew she’d be happy that he had helped create life after all, that something good had come from his miserable existence.

He began to weep, gentle tears that contained both joy and regret. One of them slid from his cheek onto Adam’s. The tiny splash made the baby wrinkle his nose. Henry smiled and wiped it away with his index finger.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I wanted to,” Deana said. “But I didn’t know how. I didn’t even know where you were.”

Henry felt a slow burn of shame as Deana told him about her attempts to find him. Google searches that led her to Web sites written in Italian. Phone directories in other countries. She said she had even considered hiring Nick Donnelly to try to find him, but she feared he would then tell Kat. It was a risk she couldn’t take.

“So I gave up,” she said. “By disappearing entirely, you made it clear you didn’t want to be found. And I had come to terms with the fact that Adam would never know his father. But it still felt wrong. I felt guilty that—”

Deana’s voice cracked, caught on a wave of emotion. She swallowed hard, trying to suppress it, but the tears came anyway.

“I felt terrible that after all you had been through, you’d never get the chance to know that you were a dad.”

But now Henry knew. Now he was able to hold his child. Now his son—his son! He still couldn’t wrap his head around it—would grow up knowing who he was. Henry was going to make sure of that.

“I’ll support him,” he said. “Any way I can. You won’t have to raise this child alone. I’ll be there, too.”

“But how, Henry?” Deana asked. “You live in Italy now. That’s half a world away.”

“I don’t know. I’ll think of something.”

He had to move back to the United States, that much was certain. Maybe try to get a reporting job somewhere nearby. If that didn’t work, then he’d try his hand at something else. He didn’t know what, nor did he know where.

All Henry knew as he cradled Adam in his arms was that his life had unexpectedly changed yet again.

*

“I was surprised to get your call. With all these fires going on, I think we both have better things to do than hang out here.”

Dutch Jansen looked around the lounge of Maison D’Avignon, rolling his eyes at the mahogany bartop decorated with tea lights and the bottles of wine hanging from wrought-iron racks.