Shadow in Serenity (15 page)

L
ogan checked his watch and decided it was too late for UPS to do a pickup, but he still had time to get his boxed equipment to the FedEx Store before they closed at eight. Setting his bag on the bed, he dialed the closest airport, which was an hour away in Odessa, to get departure times. There was a flight to Los Angeles around midnight, so he booked it.

The insistent knock at his door was unexpected, and for a moment, he sat still, unwilling to answer it.

But the knock continued, and finally, he cracked the door open just enough to see Carny. He stood in the opening so that she couldn’t see into the room.

Her face was alive with fury, and her eyes were red. “Where’s Jason?” she demanded.

“Jason? Didn’t he come home?”

“Of course he came home!” she said through clenched teeth. “And then he left again. Where is he, Brisco?”

“Carny, I don’t know!”

With more force than he would have expected from her, she shoved him back from the door and pushed her way inside. “Jason!” she called.

“He’s not here!” He tried to stand between her and the bags on the bed, but it was too late.

She stopped, stunned, and looked from the bed to Logan
and back again. “Going somewhere?” she asked, fresh tears filling her eyes.

“Yes … no! Carny, why are you looking for Jason? What’s wrong?”

“You!” Grabbing his bag with both hands, she flung it off the bed. Jack jumped up from the floor, startled. “You’re what’s wrong! You took money from my baby, turned him against me after you promised you’d never hurt him, and now he’s gone … and you … you’re getting ready to leave, aren’t you? Just like I said! Only I didn’t want it to be true!”

Logan took her by the shoulders and turned her around. “What do you mean, he’s gone? Where did he go?”

“He ran away, you scumbag!” She shook his hands off. “Who knows where he’ll go! And it’s dark, and he’s so little!” Her voice broke, and she lost herself to sobs, a sight that Logan was quite sure few people had ever witnessed.

“I didn’t ask for the kids’ money, Carny, and I wasn’t going to keep it,” he said softly. He went to his coat and fished the fat envelope with Jason’s name on it out of his pocket. “It’s all there. Every cent the kids gave me.”

Wiping away her angry tears, she looked up at him. “And what about the adults, Brisco? Are you giving theirs back too? Before you flee into the night?”

He turned away. She saw right through him, to all the dark, ugly places that had never seemed dark or ugly until he’d come to Serenity.

“No, I didn’t think so,” she said. “I’d hoped I was wrong about you. You had so much potential.” She headed back to the door.

“Carny, wait!”

“I can’t. I have to find my son!” she cried.

The door slammed, and Logan stood for a moment, reeling from the impact of her words. She had wanted to trust
him, that woman who’d had so many reasons not to trust. And he had just given her one more.

He turned to Jack, who sat on the floor, whimpering. And as he looked at the bed, where his whole life was packed neatly away in one bag, a briefcase, and a couple of boxes, he realized that he couldn’t leave town.

Not yet.

Grabbing the keys to his car, he said, “Stay here, Jack. There’s something I have to do.”

Logan found Jason in the first place he looked. He was in his secret spot at the lake, a place Logan knew the boy had never been to at night, a place that seemed more ominous than peaceful with the moonlight playing through the trees and the shadows dancing beneath them.

At first, Logan saw only the soft mound on the fallen log, but when he got closer, he realized it was a sleeping bag, opened up and draped over the boy, not to keep the warmth in, for it was May and not very cold, but probably to keep out those things he feared the most. The things he hadn’t thought about when he’d resolved to run away. But little boys never thought anything would hurt them, least of all the grown men they counted as their friends.

Logan stepped closer, and in a quiet voice said, “Jason?”

Startled, the boy looked out from under the sleeping bag. “Oh, Logan,” he said, catching his breath. “You scared me. I thought you were a mean animal.”

“Sorry,” he said, sitting down on the log next to him. “But you shouldn’t be out here at night by yourself.”

“I’m not going back.”

Logan looked at the boy staring off into the lake, his features stubborn and angry, but still so innocent. “Why not?”

“Because my mother treats me like a kid.”

“Your mother happens to be worried sick about you. She came to me crying, Jason. Do you want to make your mother cry?”

Jason didn’t answer for a moment, and finally, he asked, “What did she say?”

“She was looking for you. Everybody’s looking for you. Jason, running away is no answer. Why don’t we go back, and let her —”

“No!” he said. “If you came out here to talk me into that, then you can leave. I’m not scared to stay here by myself.”

Logan sighed. “I know you’re not. Look, what do you plan to do? Spend the night on this log? What about tomorrow? What will you eat?”

“I’ll fish,” he said. “I’ll start a campfire and cook it myself, and live like Huck Finn, without anybody telling me what I can do with my money.”

“Jason, your mother was right about the money. I never should have taken it from you. I gave it back. Your mother has it.”

“See?” the boy said, throwing off the sleeping bag and standing up to face him. “I knew she would do that! She’s ruining everything!”

“She’s trying to protect you, Jason.”

“Well, I don’t need protecting. I can make my own decisions.”

For a moment, Logan stared quietly at the boy, knowing that nothing he said right now was going to make any difference. “All right,” he said finally. “I won’t try to talk you into going back. But I hope that sleeping bag will fit two, because I’m staying here with you.”

Jason gaped at him. “What?”

“You heard me. I’m not making you go back, but I won’t leave you here, either.”

“What about Jack? You gonna leave him alone all night?”

“He’ll be all right.”

Jason looked confused. “Yeah, well, you can stay tonight, but tomorrow, I’m taking off, and you can’t come. I don’t need anybody slowing me down.”

Logan would have found Jason’s words amusing, except that he remembered making the same decision himself when he was fourteen. “It’s lonely out there, Jason.”

“I don’t care.”

He patted the log, urging the boy to sit down, and finally, Jason did. Logan put his arm around him and pulled him against him. Weary from the battle, Jason laid his head against Logan’s chest. “Jason, I know how you feel, buddy. I really do.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Listen to me, Jase. Listen real close, because I’m gonna tell you a story, and I’m only gonna tell it once. It’s not easy to tell, and I’ve never told it before. Are you man enough to keep it to yourself?”

Jason pulled back and looked up at him. “Sure I am.”

Logan hoped the boy couldn’t see the mist in his eyes as he cleared his throat. “Once there was a little boy who lived with his mother, and she was the most wonderful person alive. He didn’t know his father, but it didn’t really matter, because his mother gave him so much love that nothing seemed to be missing.”

Jason pulled back slightly and looked down, and Logan knew that he thought he was talking about him. “Did she keep him from giving his own money for really important things?”

Logan set a finger on the boy’s lips, shushing him. “This little boy was only five, and money was the furthest thing from his mind. He liked to be read to and he liked singing songs with her and he loved bedtime, because that was when she tucked him in, and they cuddled while they said their prayers.”

He hadn’t expected the memories to be so painful, and he found his mouth going dry as he got the words out. Jason was quiet now, listening.

“The little boy stayed with a babysitter while his mother went to work, and every day she came just before supper-time and picked him up. But one day, she didn’t come.”

“Why not?” Jason whispered.

“The little boy didn’t know. He waited and waited, and finally the baby-sitter fed him, and then she told him that he would be staying with her that night.”

Logan’s voice wavered, and he stopped and waited for a moment, trying to rein in the emotions he had never voiced before. But the words had to come out. “He kept thinking that she’d be there soon, but the next day, she didn’t come. He waited and waited, sitting by the door most of the day, watching out the window, but his mother never came.

“Finally, a social worker came to the babysitter’s house, and she took the little boy. She told him they were going to find him a new home.”

“Why?” Jason asked.

“He didn’t know. All he knew was that, when his mother came back for him, she wouldn’t be able to find him. They put him in a home with people he didn’t know, people who didn’t have much patience with him, and he sat by the window most of the time, staring out, waiting for his mother to come. But she never came.”

Jason’s eyes were moist as he considered that for a moment. “Because she didn’t know where he was?”

“That’s what the little boy thought,” Logan said, taking a deep breath. “That little boy got real angry, and he threw a lot of fits, so the family he was with didn’t want him anymore. They wound up moving him from one foster home to another. For a long time, he kept waiting for his mother to come get him. But then he couldn’t remember how she looked … what she smelled like … When he was ten years old, he was sitting in the social worker’s office one day, waiting for her to assign him to a new home, when he saw his file. He opened it and learned that his mother was dead.”

“Dead? When did she die?”

“That first day she didn’t come home, when he was five.” He cleared his tight throat. “That was the worst day of his life, when he found out the truth.”

Jason stared up at him, horrified. “Did anybody ever adopt him?”

“No one ever did,” Logan said. “The file described him as ‘a precocious, angry child, prone to trouble.’ All his life, all he wanted was to have a real family, where someone loved him, where he could count on people, where he was important. He didn’t care if he got to make his own decisions or if he got to spend his own money, and he didn’t even care if it was a poor family. He just wanted to belong somewhere. But that never happened, so one day, when he was about fourteen, he decided he was old enough to be on his own, and he ran away.”

“Just like me.”

“Not exactly like you,” Logan said. “He was older than you, and he was running
to
something. He was looking for a place to belong. You already have a place to belong.”

Jason considered that for a moment. “What happened to him? He was all right, wasn’t he? On his own, I mean?”

“No, Jason, he wasn’t. He was very lonely, and he did dishonest
things to make a living. He lost whatever childhood he had left, and he never really found what he was looking for.”

Captivated, Jason gazed up at Logan with sad eyes.

“Jason, do you know what that little boy’s name was?”

He shook his head.

“It was Logan Brisco. That little boy was me.”

Jason caught his breath, and stared at Logan with a new reverence. “Really?”

Logan swallowed the emotion in his voice. “Yeah, really. And you know what? If I’d had one person who loved me like your mom loves you, my whole life would have turned out differently.”

As he held the little boy’s gaze, he saw the tears forming in Jason’s eyes. They dropped over his lashes, and Logan pulled him against himself and held him while he cried.

After a moment, Jason looked up at him. “Logan, I want to go home.”

W
hen Carny ran to embrace Jason, her face brought back a fantasy that Logan had had all his life. It was of someone — anyone — running to him with that look of pure love and unconditional belonging.

He watched as she clung frantically to the boy, tears streaming down her face. Then, pulling back, she made a lame attempt to look angry. “Jason, I could kill you for pulling such a stunt. Don’t you ever do that again!”

“I’m sorry, Mom.”

She crushed him back against her and held him tighter. “Where were you?”

Jason couldn’t seem to answer, so Logan stepped in. “He was at his secret place at the lake.”

“I looked at the lake, Jason! And Grandpa and David — didn’t you hear us calling?”

“Yeah, I heard,” Jason said. “But I didn’t want you to find me.”

She wiped her eyes and stood up, looking down at him. “Jason, I love you. Don’t you know that?”

“Yeah, I know, Mom,” he said weakly. “I love you too.”

“And you won’t ever run away again, will you?”

“No, I promise.”

She looked around at Nathan’s parents and her in-laws. “You hear that, everybody? He promised.”

Laughing with relief, she called the police to tell them all was well. The Trents said good night, and the Sullivans herded the weary child to his room to get ready for bed. Carny watched until he was out of sight, then turned back to Logan. “Thank you,” she whispered.

“Don’t mention it.”

Their eyes locked for a long moment, and finally, he said, “I’m sorry I caused all this trouble.”

She gave a mirthless laugh. “I honestly thought you’d be halfway to Mexico by now.”

He didn’t know what to say. There was no point in trying to hide anything from her. “I’m not going anywhere, Carny.”

“I saw the suitcase and boxes, Brisco.”

“That doesn’t mean anything.” He was quiet for a moment, thinking of all the things he wanted to say. But she wouldn’t believe any of them. Finally, he said, “You’d better get to bed. We have an early lesson tomorrow. I think I’ll be able to take off with no problem, but I need some help learning how to land.”

Understanding flickered in her eyes, and she said, “I’m not sure you’re ready, Brisco.”

“Sometimes it’s just easier to glide. But sooner or later, a man has to come down. I just need help learning how.”

Logan walked back to his rented car on the street near the trees beside Nathan’s house. As he drove away, he wondered if she believed that he’d still be in town tomorrow morning.

What would happen if he told the towns people that King Enterprises had decided to pull the plug on the park — that they wouldn’t be building it anywhere? He could give all
the money back. He hadn’t spent much yet. Then he could stay here in town, get a real job, buy a house, get to know Carny better.

No, it wasn’t that simple. Someone would learn the truth. Carny was already sniffing it out, with what she’d learned about Montague. There was no way he could stay here indefinitely without the truth coming out.

It wasn’t that he feared the authorities. If he gave the money back, no law would have been broken. But he hated the thought of Carny learning for sure that he was a crook. He couldn’t belong in a place where people knew who he really was — even if he stopped being that person.

He pulled back into the Welcome Inn’s parking lot, then sat in his dark car and looked up at the night sky. “God, I don’t know if you’re there or not. Maybe you don’t listen to grifters. Can’t say I blame you. But if it’s true that you can change people, then maybe you could change me.” His voice broke, and he pressed his head on his steering wheel. “If only these people could accept a man like me the way they accepted Carny.”

He stopped himself, feeling ridiculous. What was he doing? Praying? Did he really think he could just start playing the part of a decent citizen and make it stick?

He went back up to his room. Jack greeted him at the door, glad to see him, and Logan realized that the dog had finally stopped waiting for Slade. He depended on Logan now. In some small way, that was a victory. There
was
someone who cared whether he ever saw him again. There was someone who needed him. Even if it was a dog.

Squatting, Logan petted the animal, and Jack licked his face. “Did you miss me, boy? I don’t think anybody has ever missed me before.” He stood and opened the door again. “You need to go out? Come on.”

Together, they walked down the stairs and across the parking lot to the cluster of trees where Jack had been doing his business. As the dog sniffed around for the perfect place, Logan talked to him quietly.

“Jack, if a guy was going to make good on a promise and do something he’d never really intended to do, where would he start?”

The dog gave him a sidelong glance, then kept sniffing the trees. “I mean, if I built the park for real, then I wouldn’t be a fraud. And it would help the town. It really could pull them out of their slump. But where to start?”

No answer came, and he felt the weight of Serenity on his chest. Maybe it was stupid. Maybe it was ludicrous to think that he could actually build the park and stay here in Serenity, with everyone believing he was exactly who he said he was.

When Jack finished, they went back in, and the dog sat on the bed and watched him as he unpacked his bags. “I have to approach it like a con artist,” he said. “Look at all the possibilities, as far-fetched as they may be. I’ve done impossible things before, and I’ve persuaded people to do outrageous things. Why couldn’t I convince the bankers to actually do this?”

King Enterprises was his own company, complete with a business license and address at a P.O. box inside a UPS store. Its phone number had a recorded greeting that made the place sound legit. But what if it
became
legit?

As he talked to the dog, ideas began to whirl through his head. He
could
do it, if he just planned it out carefully enough. It didn’t matter that he had lied about there being other investors, or that he’d never tried to communicate with Roland Thunder, or that he didn’t even know who owned the land he was proposing to build the park on. He could
find a way to make good on those claims after the fact. He could do it now.

Plans poured through his mind as the night grew older. He worked through the night, making timelines, checking facts. And as dawn brought the first rays of sunlight through his window, he felt better than he’d felt in a long time.

The challenge breathed new life into him. He was ready to pull the biggest con of his life. The one that wasn’t a con at all.