The Book of James (30 page)

I was exhausted. I had sobbed so much my eyes were nearly

swollen shut. I don’t remember the drive back to Dylan’s. The next thing I knew, I was sitting on his couch.

“Mackenzie, let me call your family. Your father.” He handed

me a tissue.

“I don’t have a family,” I said, wiping at my face. I doubled over and put my head between my knees. I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t start

throwing up again. “It’s like Nick all over again.” I continued to cry, and the noises coming from me sounded almost like a train

engine. I felt Dylan get up, but I didn’t pay any attention. He came back a few minutes later and sat right next to me. He put his arm around my shoulders.

“Mackenzie. I don’t know what to do for you. Come here.” He

pulled me close. “You can’t go through this alone. I want you to

stay here tonight.”

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ELLEN J. GREEN

I shook my head. “I’m going back to the hospital.”

“There’s nothing you can do. You need to sleep, at least a little.

Here, take one of these.” He tipped a prescription bottle over onto the coffee table. Pil s scattered across the top. “These were part of Pete’s stash that we confiscated from him one time. Let’s see, you have your choice of Xanax”—he pointed to a blue oval pill—“Klo-nopin, or your run-of-the-mill Valium. None of them are a high

dosage, and it might help you sleep a little. Take your pick.”

I looked at the table. “I guess I need something.” I reached for

the Xanax and put it in my mouth. He handed me a glass of water.

“When you get up, you can go back to the hospital.” I took a

tiny sip and felt my stomach lurch, but I kept it down. He took the glass from me and set it on the coffee table. “Come on.” He pulled my arm gently, and I followed him upstairs to Samantha’s room

and sat on her bed. “It’s almost three thirty. Why don’t you try and sleep a little bit.”

“I want to take a shower,” I said woodenly. It was like someone

had plunged a straw into the top of my head and sucked all of my

insides out.

He squatted in front of me. “Are you sure you don’t want me

to call someone for you? Your brother, or maybe another friend?”

“No. I’m not dragging anyone else into this mess.”

He just nodded and stood up. “Take a shower. I’ll be right

downstairs if you need anything.”

I started to cry again. “This was all my fault.” I wiped my face

with the edge of my shirt. “Ginny told me to leave it alone.”

“You think someone did this on purpose? Like Cora?” He

looked incredulous.

“The letters.” I jumped up and scanned the dresser top, the

nightstand. The floor, the trash. Nothing. “Have you seen a stack of letters written on white stationery, anywhere in your house?”

He shook his head.

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“I gave them to Sam—they were in her purse. Now they’re

gone. Every time I have something, it disappears. The photograph, the Bible, now the letters. So, yes. I think Cora was involved in this.” Dylan said nothing. “What if she’s not okay? What am I going to do?”

“She’s got some broken bones, some cuts, and a concussion.

That’s all.”

“They said brain swelling. Brain swelling.”

He stood in front of me. “No, they said
maybe
she has brain swelling. They just need to watch her for a few days.” He reached out and gently pushed my hair back off my face. “Take a shower

and try to lie down.”

I stood under the stream of hot water, barely moving. It

numbed me, and the Xanax was starting to take effect. I felt calmer, less emotional. I looked through Samantha’s things and put on a

sweatshirt and a pair of huge shorts made out of sweatshirt mate-

rial that she’d had for so long, I’d forgotten where she’d got them.

One of her old boyfriends, probably. The sewn elastic waistband

fell down around my hips. I tossed and turned, but my thoughts

kept me awake until final y I got up and went downstairs. Dylan

was sitting on the couch.

“You’re not sleeping.”

“Neither are you.” He was reviewing some legal papers. He

took a sip from a coffee cup and looked at me, his eyes bloodshot.

“I’ll try and take a nap a little later, before I go in to work. Now is probably not the best time, but I wanted to tell you, I looked into the Jim Durham thing for you.”

“And?” My head felt heavy, gritty.

“I talked to my father and some other people. Jim was fin-

ishing kindergarten at Chestnut Hill Academy. His father was a

real-estate developer. They lived in Bryn Athyn. His cousin, who

was fifteen, and some of his cousin’s friends went to the park that 248

ELLEN J. GREEN

day. Kids love Devil’s Pool. You can jump from these rocks into a deep spot in the water. It’s a lot of fun.”

He shifted a little on the couch. “From everything I heard, it

was just an accident. The other boys were at the top, on the rocks.

Jim was down in the water and got in over his head. I only found

one real connection to Nick or Cora.”

“What?”

“Even though Jim was only five, he was a bal buster. A clown.

Nick was the target of his teasing from the very beginning of

school.”

“He picked on Nick?”

“Phillip said it was relentless. Jim liked an audience, and he’d

tease him in front of all the other kids for fun. Calling him names, taking his stuff, pushing him. It got so bad, they had to call his parents in for a meeting. Jim had to sit out recess.”

“Do you think maybe Cora went and got revenge?”

“How? The drowning happened with a bunch of teenagers

around.”

“They were right there? Are you sure? Or were they a distance

away?”

“Little detective, I’ll keep digging, see if there’s more to the

story or if I can find one of the boys who were there.”

I glanced up. Dylan looked exhausted. “You don’t have to

babysit me. I feel bad for you. Your life’s been invaded, and it’s like you’re stuck with me.”

He put his papers down and looked at me. “I just don’t know

what to do for you to make any of this better. I know how close you and Samantha are.”

I chewed on my lip and nodded. “If anything happens to her,

I’ll never forgive myself.”

“How long have you two been . . .” He stopped and I looked

up at him.

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When something real y awful happens to you, first you go into

shock. You don’t feel anything. Then all the emotions rush over

you in a huge, uncontrol able wave. But it subsides, I guess to give you time to recoup. And this is where I was. The horrible emotions had subsided for a little bit, and I could breathe.

“Have we been what?”

He gave me his full attention. “Together. What, do you want

me to just come out and say it?”

I pushed back on the sofa. I could feel the shorts slide down on

me a little, and I pulled at them. “Dylan. I’m not sure how to tell you this. Regardless of what you think, Samantha and I have never been together. Sexual y, I mean. We’ve never experimented that

way, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

He looked confused. “Oh, come on, Mackenzie. I walked in on

you. I was going to say something to you before, but it was a little awkward.”

I laughed. It felt good to laugh. “No, you didn’t. We were just

lying there talking. She’s like my sister. Women can share a bed or do each other’s hair and it doesn’t mean anything.”

He looked crestfallen. “No, no, don’t lie, your shirt was all

undone when you came out of the room.”

“One button, Dylan. One button. We were lying there laugh-

ing after you walked in because we knew what you were thinking,

and I guess it came undone. My right hand to God.” I raised my

hand. “Get me the Epistle of James and I’ll swear on it.”

“You never . . .”

“No, I’m sorry. Never happened. But admit it, you kind of

liked the idea a little.”

“I wouldn’t say that.” He was embarrassed. “But I have to say, it was interesting. I mean, you’re both attractive. So you’re telling me that . . . not even once?”

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ELLEN J. GREEN

I thought about it. “Wel , I’ve seen her naked a hundred times

or so, does that count? And I think we’ve been naked together in

the same room before.”

He was interested. “When?”

“In the Macy’s dressing room trying on swimsuits. Oh, but

we weren’t completely naked, so that doesn’t count. And in high

school, we played on the softball team and afterward we had to take showers, and it was just one big shower. We took them together.

No clothes.” I smiled; he was listening intently. “And another time, right after college, a bunch of us rented a cabin in Maine and we went skinny-dipping after dark. There were six of us. None of us

had any clothes on at al . Is all of this going to help you when you’re alone later on tonight?”

“I’ll let you know.” His face was flushed a little.

I looked over at him and smiled. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“Making me laugh.” I got up and went into the kitchen to get

coffee.

“Mackenzie? Pull up your shorts, or they’re going to fall to

your ankles and it’ll give me something else to think about when

I’m alone tonight.” I hitched the shorts up without looking back.

I’d give it another hour and then I’d go back to the hospital.

Samantha’s eyes were closed. Her head was bandaged, and I

couldn’t tell if they’d shaved part of her scalp. The scar was going to be bad enough. It ran across her cheek and was a good four inches long. The doctor had said the cut went almost completely through

her cheek. It’d taken twenty stitches to close it. I wasn’t sure how she’d take the news when she woke up.

She’d always been attractive. It was just part of her. She’d never had an awkward period, or gained weight, or had a bad haircut.

She was just always perfect Samantha. But her parents, especial y her father, beat it into her head that looks weren’t that important; they would fade, and she needed to rely on other things,

develop her mind. After floundering in college, she’d gone into

real estate—and I could testify, by the commission checks I’d seen lying around, that she was very good at it.

I sat near her bed and waited for her to wake up. Her breaths

were full and even, and she didn’t seem to be in any pain. I swore, after this, no more hospitals for a long, long time.

Her nurse came in and tried to reassure me that my friend was

going to be fine. No sign of swelling yet, things looked promising, 252

ELLEN J. GREEN

only a hairline fracture of her skull and a concussion; she was sleeping because of the medication they were giving her, so go home

and get some rest. After several hours, I obeyed. I was eager to get back to the library, to continue the search through the microfiche.

Eventual y I would find something. I just knew it.

The same man was at the counter when I requested my films.

I rolled each newspaper through the machine, scanning through

them as fast as I could. I saw Ronald Reagan’s election campaign, never-ending stories on the hostages in Iran. I stopped at the end of June. My neck hurt, and I was weary. I wanted nothing more

than to leave the library, stop and see Samantha, and then go home and go to bed. I put the next film in and rolled it, pushing the button to call up the next page. Then I saw it. It was only a tiny article on page eighteen. Hardly a mention. I might have missed it if I

hadn’t seen the picture next to it. I read it once and then bent over in the chair, holding my stomach. I’d been on the wrong track all along.

On the evening of Friday, September 18, four-year-old James

Robert Whitfield was taken from his home in Chestnut Hill.

He has not been seen since. He disappeared from the front

of the family’s property on Chestnut Hill Avenue sometime

around 2:00 in the afternoon. Police and search-and-res-

cue teams are scouring the woods and surrounding area.

James was last seen wearing a navy-blue short-sleeved top,

blue denim shorts and sneakers. Anyone who has informa-

tion regarding the missing child, please contact Detective

Franchetti at the Philadelphia Police Department.

A small photo accompanied the article. I looked at that face,

blinking a couple of times and sucking in my breath. Hundreds

of little needles poked my skin. Dylan and I had pursued the lead on the other James in the black-and-white photograph, the one

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who had drowned, but hadn’t paid enough attention to the tod-

dler reaching for the camera. The toddler—Nick’s brother, James.

Maybe it was one of a few surviving photographs of this child. A

secret to be tucked away in an old book, burned if necessary.

Find James.
Nick’s last spoken words on this earth. It might have been easier if he’d just told me that he had a younger brother who disappeared. That his mother was crazy. But he didn’t want to tell me. This was a riddle. A game. One last chess match that probably amused him in those moments before they filled his veins

with propofol and he went to sleep for the very last time. How

could I possibly begin to find a child who had been missing for

over twenty years? The librarian copied the page; I folded it and stuck it in my purse.

I ran down Walnut Street to Dylan’s law office. I’m sure I

looked a mess when I pulled open the glass door and demanded to

see Mr. McBride. The receptionist scanned me up and down and