Michael sat on the wooden steps to Chuck’s bed-and-breakfast, waiting for Sheriff Spencer, his mind still spinning over the events of the last thirty minutes. He was ready to jump out of his skin with worry for Jamie. Spencer had told him to stay put until he got there, so he was. Didn’t mean he had to like it. His brain was running wild with images of Jamie in the hands of a killer. Daniel…Chris sat beside him, and Brian was trying a balancing act on the low rail around the deck. Michael was trying to wrap his head around calling his brother Chris.
“Brian’s only heard me called Chris. I’ve called myself Chris in my head for almost twenty years.”
“Mom and Dad might struggle with that a bit,” Michael replied. Chris paled a bit at the thought of their parents and asked Michael to hold off on notifying them just yet.
Right now they had a much bigger issue. “We need to find Jamie.” Michael rubbed at the back of his neck. “Where would he take her?”
Chris shook his head. “I don’t know. I’d hoped the Ghostman was dead, but—”
“What’s his real name?”
Chris shrugged with one shoulder, and the familiar movement triggered a dagger of pain in Michael’s memory. How many times in the past had he seen Daniel make that move? Chris, not Daniel.
“I don’t know. He made us call him ‘sir.’ When he wasn’t around, we called him the Ghost or Ghostman.”
“There’s got to be something you remember—”
“I remember everything,” Chris said forcefully as he leaned toward Michael, gazes locked. “I’ve relived every memory a thousand times, searching for something to zero in on this guy. Something to identify him so I could sneak in his house and murder him in his bed. If he was dead, then I could get my real family back. I’ve had this goal since I was thirteen. Do you know what it’s like to want the same thing year after year? I wanted him dead and all you guys safe. I have worried about you, Jamie, your parents, and Brian every day of my life.” Chris looked away, across the street. “But he’s a fucking ghost, impossible to pin down. And he turned me into one, too.
“I feel like I don’t exist. I live a made-up life and pretend everything is hunky-dory so my son won’t see my stress and worry.”
“Brian has to see it. He has to pick up on it. Maybe it’s subconscious, but Brian is aware on some level that your life isn’t right.” Michael watched Chris’s gaze sweep the landscape, noting every rock and tree. The man was on high alert. How did he keep it up 24/7?
Michael was struggling with a similar level of mental stress. With Jamie out of sight and his hands currently tied, he had the energy to run a marathon boiling under the surface. He struggled to focus on his brother.
“He asks sometimes about other kids to play with. There’re hardly any kids in town, and I homeschool him. Juan’s dog…” Chris rubbed at his face. “Juan’s dog was probably his best friend. Shit. Do you know what happened to the dog?”
Michael shook his head. “I didn’t see a dog around.”
“Juan lets him wander. Not the smartest thing to do…sometimes he’s gone for a day or two. I’ll check for him later.”
“How come…” Michael looked Chris up and down for the millionth time. “How’d they not see that you weren’t Chris?”
“They? My parents?”
“Yeah. I can plainly see Daniel in you now. I don’t see Daniel the kid…but I can see that you’re Daniel as an adult.”
Chris shook his head. “I was a mess when I came back. I looked like I’d survived a concentration camp. My face and skull had been beat to hell. I think they saw what they wanted to see. Our hair and eye color were close. I said I was Chris, and they accepted it.
“Do you remember the story a few years ago about the two teenage girls? I think they were in a car accident. One died and the other was severely injured and in a coma for a week or two. Anyway, they misidentified the one who’d died. When the other girl came out of the coma, it wasn’t her parents pacing her hospital room. It was the dead girl’s. Parents see what they want to see. I was in a hospital for months, my head covered in bandages, multiple surgeries on my face. My parents were simply thankful I was alive.”
“I’ve got to tell our parents. We can’t put it off any longer. They’ve been living in hell for two decades.”
Chris shook his head. “Not yet. We don’t have the time to give them the attention this kind of news will take. Another day or two won’t matter. We’ve got to find Jamie and take care of the Ghostman. Then we can tell them together.”
Michael looked at his watch for the millionth time. Jamie was getting farther away every minute, and he was sitting here on his ass. “Damn it! Spencer is taking forever. He said he was done at the Buells’.”
“Buells’?” Chris’s focus jerked back to Michael. “What happened at the Buells’?”
Michael brought him up to date.
“They think it’s my gun? I have one like that back at the house…or I had one. Fuck!”
Chris pushed off the stairs and paced to the end of the walkway and back, lips silently swearing. Brian abruptly stopped his balancing practice long enough to watch his father. Michael glanced at Brian, gave him a wink, and after a pause, the boy resumed concentrating on his foot placement.
Brian knows more than Chris realizes. He watches out for his father probably as much as his father watches out for him. Not healthy.
“No one can live like something’s gonna jump out of the bushes every minute,” Michael said.
Chris stopped pacing and planted himself in front of Michael. “Then I have to eliminate the threat.”
“Eliminate the Ghostman. That’s already on my to-do list. And every cop in the state of Oregon. I think you’ve got some support going on.”
Chris took a deep breath. “Why our family? Why did the Ghost want to destroy our family? He never talked about…Jamie’s family the way he did ours. It was like he had a mission to mess us up.” He glanced at Brian, but the boy had found a bug on the far side of the wraparound porch to poke at.
“What are you saying?” Michael said slowly. Was the kidnapping aimed to hurt The Senator?
Frustration crossed Chris’s face. “He never threatened the other kids’ families. Just mine. And I always felt like his focus was on me…I mean…like the other kids were there accidentally.”
“The kidnapping was because of you? To get at The Senator? Or Mom?”
Chris scowled. “But he never said that. I inferred it, I think. The real Chris and I talked about it over and over. Why was the focus on me?”
Michael’s stomach coiled. “Fuck. You didn’t say what happened to Jamie’s brother,” he whispered. “It’s not good, is it?”
Chris shut his eyes. “No. It’s not.”