Two If by Sea (37 page)

The rink was quiet, but a light was on deep within, and when Frank blasted through the door, the only ones left on the ice were Billy's older private-pay students preparing for college tryouts.

“Where are my boys?” Frank yelled from the door.

“What do you mean?”

“Where are they?”

“They went with Patrick. He came in to get them.”

“I just saw Patrick . . . Billy, how do you know Patrick?”

“The little short guy? Works at Tenacity? Got an English accent? Red hair? Sure. When your mom called . . .”

Frank turned away from Billy and ran out into the empty parking lot. Who had called? A few minutes before, he'd been grimly grateful that there would be no arson investigation, despite the fact that this surely was a set fire, because Frank knew that an investigation of any kind could lead to the spurious identity of Ian Not-Donovan Not-Mercy. Now he would call the FBI if he had to. The fucking Marines. A fire caused by old Jack's . . . pipe! Frank knew now he should have never left the boys, or gone back for them the moment he heard about the spurious
pipe
! An old man's life, the destruction of a pregnant woman, a whole family—a family and their home, their horses—these were just small expediencies if they could get to the boy. He dug in his pocket for his phone, fumbled, dropped it, watched in horror as the glass shattered. When he scraped it up, it still functioned, but Claudia's number went over to voicemail. Frank limped off down the street, in the direction of the pool building, but then turned back toward the truck. What could he do on foot?

His phone chimed and Claudia said, “I already know. I know. I heard Colin.”

“Where are you?”

“It was a while ago. He said help. He said,
Help
.”

“Claudia, where are you?”

“I went to the farm, after your mother called me . . . but now I'm in town . . . in Spring Green.”

“So am I.”

“He's not saying anything. If he can't call us, he's unconscious,” Claudia said. “There wouldn't be anything Ian could do.”

“He could make them stop. He could make them let him go.”

“Only if he can reach them, Frank. They wouldn't send someone to take them if it was someone he could get to. Who has human feelings. They must be smart enough to know he can only have the Ian effect on someone who has—”

“Claudia, not very many bad guys are very smart. And not many people are truly psychopaths,” Frank said. “I'm calling the police. Hang up.”

Frank heard the officer answer, “Spring Green Police . . .” before he realized he was standing directly in front of the police station, nearly under the upended cone of light that spilled out over the steps of the miniature municipal building, where small bridges with iron-lace fencing with metal weavings representing black-eyed Susan and scarlet catch-fly connected the library with the fire department, the department of public works, and the police.

“I'm calling to report that my two boys are missing . . .”

“Is this Frank Mercy?

Struck still, Frank finally said, “Yes.”

“Frank, I think it's fine. This is Shane. Shane Baker. We had a report about fifteen minutes ago from a man walking his dog, an older guy who declined to leave his name, about two little boys trying to break a window at the pool building. I think there were three boys, a teenager with them at first, but he drove away when they hid under the steps. Maybe they're hiding because they think they're going to get a spanking. We sent a car over there just now, but the officer didn't see them right away—”

Frank heard Claudia scream, “Frank! Over here.”

She came stumbling through the park, past the little band shell where Eden and his mother set up a cardboard stand for three summers and sold hotdogs and bloated, greasy cream puffs for a fund to make those little bridges between the buildings. Claudia came out of the darkness into the false, orange Arizona of the sodium-vapor sunlight. She was staggering, carrying Colin, whose eyes were shut, his mouth slack, and his pale hair, his white waffle jersey, and even his gray sweatpants were black with blood.

There was no sign of Ian.

I
S HE CONSCIOUS?”
Frank said, and stopped. Fear had made him foolish. “Is he breathing?

“He's fine,” Claudia said. “It's . . . he says it's not his blood.”

“Colin, where's your brother?”

“He's on the steps at the pool,” Colin said. “He's outside. He has the skates and the hockey sticks. We have to go back. They could come back.” He held out his arms to Frank and started to cry. “I thought she was gone, but she came back.”

Claudia turned and ran back across the park. Frank's phone was still lying in the grass where he had left it.

It was still speaking, as though Frank had never left it.

“You were right! Hiding!” Frank said when he reached down with one hand and picked it up. “What a night for us.” He pressed the bar to disconnect. “It's okay, Collie. It's okay. I've got you. Claudia will get Ian.”

Slowly, carrying Colin, Frank walked through the deserted streets.

“Will you still keep me?” Colin said softly. “I don't really hate her.”

“Keep you? Of course we'll keep you. There was never any thought that we wouldn't keep you. You're our kid.”

“I'm pretty bad. My mum—”

“Your mum said that? You were bad? You're not bad. You just have a wild streak. That's all. Like Glory Bee.”

“She didn't say I was bad. But she took drugs.”

“That doesn't have anything to do with you.”

“It does kind of.”

“No,” said Frank. “It never does. It never has anything to do with your kid.”

They walked on, a few more steps, Colin's crying quieting enough so that he could catch breaths. Frank said, “I know you love Ian. I love Ian. I can help you take care of him. We'll take care of both of you. Claudia and me. Grandma and Eden and Marty. Patrick even. We don't just love Ian. We want to love you, too.”

“My dad said take care of Ian, when my dad was sick.”

“He meant take care of him in the big brother way, like, make sure other boys don't beat him up.”

Colin said, “No, he didn't. He meant the other.”

Frank could see Claudia approaching by then, bent over under the weight of the two big hockey bags, holding Ian's hand. He thought he would shout from love of her. Who had they sent—if Billy believed it was Patrick? Who was little like that? Who walked in bold enough . . . The kids didn't think it was Patrick?

“Did Patrick pick you up?” he asked Colin quickly.

Colin began to cry again, going heavy in Frank's arms, shuddering like a hooked fish. “No, no. He said it was Patrick.”

“Who did?”

“The man, the coach said go ahead, it's okay. Patrick went back out to move the truck and it looked like the truck for a minute and I don't know the names of trucks from America, like Ford, and it was dark where he put it. Then a guy come down the walk and says, hi, Patrick, like a cobber, and Patrick had on this big long anorak. He picks up Ian and puts him in the middle of the front seat and then puts me on the side by the door and I knew Patrick wouldn't do that. He says sit there, all pommy. He jumps in the other side and pulled off the cap. I saw her hair and it was her.”

“It was her?”

“That girl, the girl with the red hair. She said Don't you fucking move. I didn't mean to swear.”

“It's okay,” Claudia said.

That was exactly what Billy had said, describing Patrick. Surely, Billy was not to blame; Billy may have seen Patrick twice in his life, probably in the sour murk of Raise the Bar, the tavern where the better cut of his townspeople watered—the others driving just north to the Country Scholar, a curiously decorous name for a bar fight with four walls around it. Patrick's hair was thick, dark brown, like Frank's own.

Frank said, “Then what?” Colin cried harder, so hard that he began to choke, and leaned out of Frank's arms to throw up an evil jet of soda pop.

“I think that's enough for him now,” Claudia said. “He needs to go home and have a rest. Nothing will change by talking about this right now.”

“Should we . . . should we take them to a hotel or something? The house will stink of fire, and . . .” He did not say it, but Claudia would know he meant that this, on top of Jack's death and everything else, would be too much for the stunned family back at Tenacity. Even more, he was sure that Claudia didn't yet know that Prospero was dead.

She said, “I think home is best, no matter how it smells or looks. The house wasn't damaged. Just that old porch on the back of the old barn. And your grandfather. I'm so sorry, Frank.”

“What?” said Ian. “Why are we being sorry?”

“There was a fire at the farm. At Tenacity. That's why I left the skating rink, but I will never leave the skating rink again. Ever. And old Grandpa Jack died in the fire. He was very old, and he couldn't get away and no one could save him.”

“Oh,” said Ian. “That's sad. Is Grandma okay? Is Sally okay? Is Glory Bee okay? Is Sultana okay? Is Edie okay?”

“They're okay. Let's go home,” Frank said. “Let me get a blanket out of the truck.”

Claudia and the boys sat side by side on a bench in the dark, chilly park as the wind plucked and tousled the leaves above their heads. Frank came back and shook out the blanket preparatory to winding Colin in it, but Colin stood up and screamed. They were twenty feet from the front of the police station, with a screaming child. An officer going up the stairs paused; Frank waved at him, and the man waved back and kept going.
We're just going to finish raping and abducting this kid and then stuff him in these big black bags
 . . . Frank was glad the guy hadn't checked on them, but also felt alone at the end of a long promontory in dark water. Colin screamed again.

“Colin, what?” Claudia said.

“You'll push it against me with that blanket!”

“What?”

“The blood! I have to take these off! I don't want this shirt anymore!” He didn't even want his new shoes. Using the toe of one on the heel of the other, he kicked and shoved, trying to force his sturdy high-top off his foot.

“We'll throw them out,” Claudia said. “It's okay. Right here. We'll put them in this old sack that's on the backseat and throw them out.”

Frank thought, Not yet.

“We'll burn them,” he said. But if the blood wasn't Colin's, Frank would keep at least the shirt and bring it to someone at the state hygiene lab, or ask Claudia to find an acquaintance to type and match it and run DNA. But why? They were ghosties. There would be no match in any criminal database. Frank extracted his pocketknife and, carefully, with the tenderest of unhurried movements, cut open the back of Colin's shirt and pants, and helped him out of his socks and shoes. Claudia unwound her white scarf and used it to wipe the blood from Colin's hair and face.

“There's a fountain over there, Frank. Wet this,” she said. Turning to Colin: “When you get home, you can have a bath.”

“Collie killed her,” Ian said. “He had to. He had to kind of kill her. Almost.”

“You saved yourself and your brother,” Claudia said. “You are a hero.”

Weak with crying, Colin sagged against Frank. Frank draped the blanket and over Colin's slight shoulders and then crossed one flap under the other, papoosing the boy. He pulled Colin down across his legs.

“She was going very fast,” Colin said. “I had my skates over my shoulder. So I took off the rubber thing and I hit her with the rubber thing on the eyes and she put her hands up on her face and she tried to grab me, but the car went up over the side of the street, the bump there. She had to let go. Then she got out and said You are going in the back, you little buster.”

“You opened the door . . .” Frank said.

“
She
opened the door and I hit her head with my skate blade and she fell down and I jumped out and I pulled on Ian. He fell out with the bags. She couldn't see. We hit her with the sticks. This man come with his dog and he said, You there . . . ! The dog started to run around and around. We ran away to the pool. I said, Ian, bash in the window. We both tried to break the window and we heard her truck and then somebody grabbed my neck but it was Claudia.”

“Good job, Colin,” Claudia said. “Okay, let me wipe off your face now . . .” She dabbed at Colin's face with the wet scarf—cashmere, Frank noticed—and showed Colin the stain. “Boy! This is coming off. Good. It's almost all gone. And when we get home, you'll have a bath and I'll help you scrub if you don't mind. You can wear your swimming trunks.”

“Okay, but with bubble stuff,” Colin moaned.

T
HAT SATURDAY, IAN
followed Frank outside and, unasked, as he always did, began to help him muck out the stalls and feed the horses. A few minutes later, Colin—as he never did—followed.

“I'll do it, Ian,” he said. “You go play with Sultana.”

Freed, Ian skipped away. Frank wondered if Sultana would be able to keep her coat for the remainder of her life or if she would go bald in spots from being curried so relentlessly.

“Sultana,” Ian sang to her as he brushed. “You are my orange and my banana. I like you as much as Grandma, rama lama lama lama . . .”

Although Colin didn't like the horses, he was competent with them, and, just as cats liked Frank—who could not stand cats—they responded to Colin with respect and affection. In this, Colin reminded Frank of himself. He did not adore horses either, but horses made themselves his.

“You don't have to do this, Colin. I got it,” Frank said.