Chapter SIXTEEN
“I know you won't believe this, but I'll tell you first that I'm sorry.” Jamison walked toward her slowly, his hands out, like he was trying not to spook a horse. “I’m going to put you over there, then I won’t touch you. I promise.”
Skye glared, but allowed him to move her over to the long box. If he tried to put her inside, she wasn't about to cooperate.
“Sit.” He stepped back and waited for her to obey, then he moved a red and white Indian blanket from another box on the opposite wall and sat down, holding it. He didn't relax, she noticed, but sat on the edge, ready to spring to his feet if she tried anything.
“I'm sorry this was necessary, but I couldn't think of anything better.”
She murmured, hoping he might want to know what she had to say badly enough to remove her gag.
“I guess you'll just have to listen for a while, huh?”
He took a deep shaky breath, like he'd come to the end of a long day and needed to rest a while.
She closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the wall.
“Don't do that!” He was suddenly in front of her, grabbing her head, forcing her to look at him. “Don't call them. I know you can do things. That they can do things with their minds, but I promise you, if they come for you they'll wish they hadn't. We'll all wish they hadn't.”
He let go and moved back, letting the candlelight reach her face.
“Do you understand?”
She nodded. She hadn't intended to call the others...yet. She wanted to see if the evening could end without anyone else knowing that Jamison had become a threat again. Depending on what he planned to do, she might not have a choice.
The whole world knew what a teenage boy was capable of if he was pushed too far or thought he had no options. Usually those troubled boys didn't come from loving families, or even loving-but-flawed families. But she did understand the stress Jamison was under, with Kenneth dying. And she couldn't get to those memories of Texas. Only he knew what had happened there.
One unknown. Sometimes that was all it took to make the rest irrelevant.
He finally returned to his seat and started folding the blanket. If she was a mortal, she'd be getting a little cold, wouldn't she? Did he really not care?
She checked her internal temperature. It was fine. The room must be warmer than she thought. Looking around, she found a miniature radiator in the corner to her right.
“I wouldn't let you freeze.” He pointed to the box she was sitting on. “And there's food and water in the boxes, so we really have all the time in the world.”
She murmured again.
“Not yet. I can't trust you...not to scream...yet.”
She tried to promise.
“Sorry. Not yet.” He folded his arms and tucked his hands in his armpits. “I guess I could have taken you to the old Latimer place, or somewhere on the other side of town, but I didn't want to leave you alone very long. This way, they can see that I'm home. If I went missing along with you, that wouldn't be good.”
What disturbed Skye the most was the planning that had gone into getting her up there. Just how long did he think to keep her?
She tried to promise again, with her muted speech and then her eyes.
He looked away and eventually she wondered if he'd forgotten she was there.
“All right. I'll take it off. But if you scream, it goes back on. Got it?”
Jamison couldn't mean it. He couldn't. But all night she'd felt like she no longer knew him, hadn't she?
She nodded, almost reluctant to give him a reason to step close to her.
Delicately, he untied the knot, then pulled out the large white handkerchief he’d stuffed between her teeth.
Kenneth! What would he think if she didn't go see him tomorrow? Or for a few days? She wanted to ask Jamison just that, but she'd hold on to the question and use it when he didn't seem so...dangerous.
“I didn’t want to have to scare you like this, but I’d be a coward if I didn’t do something.” He wrapped the scarf around his neck and resumed his seat, then folded the hanky and put it in the pouch pocket of his dark sweatshirt. “Are you afraid?”
“No.”
“Liar. I thought you were always honest.” He sneered.
“I am. Why would I be afraid? You've been kissing me all night. Or was that just to get me up here?”
His gaze dropped. “Let's just call that a series of good-bye kisses.”
Skye shut her eyes. “Why? Did Lucas tell you I'll be leaving?”
Jamison’s head snapped up. “No!” Something on his wrist stole his attention. “When?” His voice broke and he started again. “When are you supposed to leave?”
He was hurt. He did care! Everything was going to be fine.
She kept a sober face. “Two weeks. Maybe sooner.”
“Permanently?”
“Yeah.”
His foot started tapping. “Where to?”
“Another compound.”
He opened his phone and the little blue screen lit up his frown. He jumped up, so quickly it affected the candle. He went to the door in the floor and slid out the bolt. Looking back as he was lowering himself through, he said, “Don't make a sound, Skye. Please. We have a lot of talking to do. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“I believe you.”
The door closed again and she heard him slide the bolt through the loops on the bottom.
Maybe his mother had come home. Maybe Lucas or the others had sensed her distress and were looking for her. Maybe she was too shocked to pick up on anything.
She forced her mind to settle, to avoid reaching out for anyone's thoughts.
Was he waiting just below the door, testing her?
She pushed aside her bruised emotions and the worry that he'd never really cared about her, in favor of a more important question, the answer to which might be the key for getting out of her little prison...
What had happened in Texas?
***
Jamison turned on the water tap on his granddad’s enclosed porch. The bar of LAVA soap sat dry, cracked and untouched on the indented edge of the old sink, waiting dutifully until someone with hard-earned dirt on his hands might have need of a good grainy scrub. Waiting for a man who might not be coming home.
The water splashed out of a faucet that had lost its screen long ago, raging with wicked speed around the basin, then plunging down the drain in defiance of any need to conserve it.
Jamison watched the torrent, hands braced on either side of the porcelain, exultant in the waste that would probably piss off the eco-nuts next door. Wild drops splashed onto the odd green soap and stirred its fragrance. Nothing perfumed about it, but the scent summoned memories that slammed into his chest like a steel pan in the hands of an angry cook.
Memories like Granddad sitting on the sturdy bench taking off his boots, their surfaces completely concealed with muck and mud not allowed over the threshold.
Granddad reaching for his cowboy hat as he walked outside, leaving an empty antler and a banging screen door in his wake.
Granddad pulling out of the driveway in his stock truck, then pulling back in on the other side of the house to ask if a little lad would care to join him at the auction.
Granddad nudging the lad’s hand into the air when the opening bid for a piglet was lowered to two bits, then grumbling the whole ride home when the piglet had to ride in the truck’s cab to keep from being trampled by the calves in the rear. And teaching the lad what a Scotch Blessing was after the piglet crapped all over the lad and the seat.
Granddad hosing him off while still seated in the truck—even Jamison had needed the lava soap that day.
The warped inner door squeaked and his mom came out on to the porch. He loved that squeak.
“I thought you were here.”
“I am.”
“A couple of Somerled men are at the front door. They’re looking for your little friend. What’s her name?”
“Skye. Her name’s Skye.”
“Come talk to them, would you?”
“No problem.”
Homework. Bonfire. Pig smells. Rachel Phillips.
Homework. Bonfire. Pig smells. Rachel Phillips.
“Hey, Lucas. Mom says you’re looking for Skye.”
“Yes, we are.”
“Saw her at the bonfire tonight.”
“She said she was going, but Jonathan drove past the school a little while ago and her car is there, but she’s not.”
“Oh, well, maybe she rode in someone else’s car like I did.” Rachel Phillips. Rachel Phillips. “Maybe they went somewhere after. The fire was kind of a letdown. Smelled like a pig farm.” He grinned at Lucas.
Lucas laughed. “Oh, I didn’t think of that.”
“Yeah, neither did I. I feel bad for the guy who has to babysit the fire until it goes out.”
“Are you worried? Should we call Dwain Cooke?” His mom opened the door wider and stepped back. “He’d be happy to help find her, I’m sure.”
“No, that’s all right. We just worried when she wasn’t with her car. What Jamison suggested makes sense. We’ll just wait until we hear from her.” Lucas followed Jonathan down the steps. “I’m only her guardian for a little longer, so I don’t want to do a poor job of it.”
“Oh? Is she going somewhere or are you?” Thank goodness his mom had asked. He didn’t think his voice would have held to do it himself.
“Our little Skye will be joining Marcus. They’d gotten attached, it seems.”
“Awww. Well, let us know if you need us to help track her down.” Mom smiled and shut the door. “I’m going to bed. You wore out Daddy today, then he wore me out telling me all about it.” She wiped away a tear then smiled as she ruffled Jamison’s hair. “You’re a good boy, Kenneth Jamison Shaw. And don’t you forget it.”
Too bad she was wrong.
And he couldn’t be a good boy again until he’d found his friends. Every time he had a plan, Skye got in the way. Now, instead of learning the truth, like he’d hoped, he had to change gears and worry about the Somerleds blowing her up. ‘Cause he’s pretty sure it was a Marcus Firework he’d heard about on the tape.
If she was going to share Marcus’s fate, did that mean his interference had gotten her in trouble?
He really shouldn’t care; she’d been in on Marcus’s little barbeque. Aaaand she was in on Ray and Burke disappearing...which was the whole reason he’d lured her to the tree house.
Good. He was focused again. No more distractions. No more kissing, that was for sure. So he’d added making out to the plan, improvised. But it wasn’t like he’d be able to touch her again after she confessed—to being a murderer, or alien, or whatever the Somerleds turned out to be.
Focus. He needed to focus.
And he needed to keep that image out of his head, the one of Skye, arms extended, rising into the air.