“Can I help you?” the man asked.
“Do you live here?”
“Who are you?”
“Is this 53 Mulberry Court?”
“Yes, it is. Can I help you?” the man asked a second time.
The front door opened. A woman looked out with a baby cradled against her hip. Two small boys pressed forward to see what the fuss was about.
“Tom, what’s going on?”
“It’s okay, honey, just keep the kids in the house.”
“How is this your house?” Gibson said. “What happened to the old house?”
The man stiffened. “Who are you?”
“I used to live here. What happened to the old house?”
The man turned back to his wife. “Shut the door. Call the police.”
“What’s going on?” she asked, voice rising.
“Get the gun from upstairs. Don’t open the door.”
The wife paled but didn’t move, frozen between doing what she’d been asked and going to her husband’s defense.
“What happened to the house that was here?” Gibson asked again.
“It burned down,” the man said.
Gibson fumbled with the gate’s latch, trying to get in. This was some kind of a trick. “What are you talking about?”
“The house burned down,” the man said again and put both hands on the gate to hold it shut.
Gibson felt an emergency-room dread, the kind that comes from trying to guess what kind of news a doctor brings based upon her body language. “What do you mean, it burned down?”
“Stop. Please just stop. You’re scaring my kids.”
Gibson looked up at the boys’ faces, saw their fear. He let go of the fence and stepped back, hands up. “I’m sorry. Can you just tell me what happened? Was anyone hurt?”
“I don’t know. We only moved in a few months ago.”
“Who did you buy from?”
“Through a broker. Look, there’s obviously nothing here for you. My wife is on the phone with the police. You should just leave.”
Gibson took one last look at the imposter that stood where his dream home had once been. He backed away from the gate and lurched away down the street. At a storm drain, he knelt and vomited. He squeezed his eyes shut and willed himself back into his cell, but when he opened them, he was still on Mulberry Court. He prayed for it not to be real. But what if it was? And what if they’d been home? Oh God, what if they’d been home? Numb and lost and with nowhere to go, Gibson walked in an aimless, straight line, hoping to find the passage back into his cell.
“I warned you not to go back there,” Duke said.
“You knew?”
“I didn’t think you could handle it. I’m trying to protect you from yourself.”
“Take me back. Please,” Gibson said. “I can’t be here anymore.”
A police cruiser passed him and stopped at the curb twenty feet up the block. A uniformed officer, barrel-chested in his body armor, stepped out. The owners of 53 Mulberry Court hadn’t been bluffing.
“Evening, sir. Can I have a word with you?” The officer’s voice was light and friendly.
Gibson didn’t break stride. He was all talked out for one day. The cop could shoot him for all Gibson cared, but he wasn’t stopping for anyone. He had to get back to his cell. The passage had to be nearby.
“Sir. I just need a few minutes. Can you stop for me, please?”
When Gibson still didn’t, the officer stepped onto the sidewalk blocking his way. A second cruiser turned the corner and approached from the other direction. An old, atrophied part of Gibson’s brain warned him that this could only go badly for him. He didn’t listen and changed directions to evade the officer, who moved sideways to stay in front of him. The cop raised a hand, palm out.
“Sir. Stop walking, okay. Right there.” The man had asked nicely twice, but now his voice hardened.
Ahead, Gibson saw a break in the fence beside the sidewalk. The secret passage to the place where his old house hadn’t burned down and Nicole and Ellie were safe and happy. Gibson dropped his duffel bag, took a quick step to his left, and tried to stiff-arm his way past the officer. A little head start so he could make a break for it. If he reached the passage, they wouldn’t be able to follow. But putting a hand on the officer took the situation from tense to downright unfriendly.
The officer took hold of Gibson’s wrist and, turning, drove his forearm into Gibson’s triceps just above the elbow. The leverage on the joint forced Gibson to the ground. Gibson kicked out at the man, desperate to get free. His foot connected with the officer’s knee. The cop grunted and let go for a moment. The second cruiser screeched to a halt and bounced up onto the curb, blocking the way. Another officer leapt out. Gibson scrabbled down the sidewalk on all fours until the first officer Tased him. A knee drove into his back, and the officers wrestled handcuffs onto him, then flopped him on his back.
Duke winked down at his son. “You pick the damnedest times to stand on principle.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Gibson spent the night at the police station. He’d managed twelve uninterrupted hours of freedom before finding his way back into a cell. Apparently, he had struck an officer, but Gibson remembered little of the encounter. He recalled something about a police cruiser and a struggle but only flashes after that. He attributed the gaps in his memory to the Taser burn on his back. The wound was bruised and raw, and he passed a fitful night, dreams of fire and pain chasing him from sleep anytime he closed his eyes. Ellie screamed for him from her bedroom window.
“Is this real?” he asked his father, who loomed over him each time he woke.
“Does it matter?”
“What kind of an answer is that? Just tell me that Ellie is all right.”
“Why would I bother? It’s not like you listen to anything else I say.”
In the morning, a taciturn officer moved Gibson to an interview room and left him handcuffed to a table. Gibson asked the officer about Ellie and Nicole, but, as with the night before, he received no answer. For his family’s sake, he had desperately wanted this all to be another of his elaborate delusions, but deep down he knew it was real.
Hours passed before anyone came to talk to him. He stewed at the injustice of it, layer upon layer of anger stacking up like dry cordwood waiting for a spark. He felt on the verge of a child’s tantrum until Bear asked him to read to her. She, too, felt devastated about the fire, and he could see that he was being selfish. They read quietly until she calmed down. Eventually, the door opened. Gibson paused midsentence and handed the book back to Bear. A plainclothes detective carrying a file sat across from him. The man had smug, confident eyes and combed his short blond hair forward in a Caesar that he smoothed compulsively with the flat of one hand. He introduced himself as Jim Bachmann.
“How are you this morning?” the detective asked as though meeting Gibson for a round of golf.
“Don’t lose your cool,” Bear said, getting up to leave the room.