“Yeah,” she said, but there was a wistful quality to her voice. She set the boy down and watched him run a few feet. I took a step to follow, but Bonnie just watched. He found a stick and settled himself into a patch of red dirt to dig. “This one’s my nephew.”
Another loose piece of the puzzle. Nephew? Or cover story? “Oh, yeah? You seem like such a natural.”
Bonnie peered at me as though she thought she was being made fun of. “Well. I have one of my own, too. I just don’t—”
Don’t know where he is.
But then the downcast image of Steve Ransey came to me. Of course. If Aidan was really her nephew—
“Custody is a bitch sometimes,” I said.
Bonnie folded her arms across her chest. Her hands fists. “Such a crock. I was a mess but I can raise a kid. And who gets custody? Does this make sense to you? My mother. She raised me so damn well I had my kid taken away and who do they give him to?”
I shook my head, which was beginning to spin off my shoulders. This was really Steve’s mom. But why steal Aidan? And to get away with it this long? Wouldn’t the Ransey family tree have been shaken pretty hard as part of the investigation? I hated to doubt the sheriff again, but here it was: Aidan Ransey sat with dusty legs two feet from his own aunt. But maybe Bonnie wasn’t the mastermind. I glanced uneasily at the house.
“I mean, I’m great with kids now,” Bonnie said. “Don’t worry. I was messed up when I was young. The place I come from—well, it’s not all pine trees and fudge shops there, let me tell you.”
She was talking about Parks, I realized. But maybe Bonnie had a point. No place was only pine trees and fudge shops. Even this place.
Bonnie sniffed. “So when?”
I’d been looking over the house and had lost the thread of our conversation. “What? Oh.” The job. “Next week or so?”
“What’s your kid’s name?”
“Uh,” I said, and Bonnie narrowed her eyes. “Josh.” It was the only name that came to mind the way the truth would. “If you have some paper, maybe we could work out the details.” I nodded toward the house. “How much I could pay you, how many hours.”
I waited for the deal to fall through, for the woman to balk at letting a stranger inside the house.
Bonnie gazed out at the lake, twisting her mouth. “Yeah. Cool.” She went to Aidan, propped him up, dusted off the seat of his pants. He began to howl and wave his stick at her face. She held him away from herself, forcing the stick out of his hand even as he began to scream. “Time to go inside, mister. None of that.” Her tone was singsongy, ready-made for the audition. She led me up the steps, letting Aidan dangle over her shoulder. Aidan stopped crying and regarded me.
Bonnie held the door for me with her foot. “Welcome to the crazy house.”
I stopped in the doorway. Inside, the house seemed normal if a little run-down and messy. “What’s so crazy about it?”
Aidan, kicking for freedom, was let down. He stomped away, tramping toys as he went. Bonnie watched him disappear down a dark hallway and then turned back to me, her eyes flicking toward the open door at my back. “Long story.”
Chapter Thirty-seven
I glanced over my shoulder. No one was there, but the trees had begun a seductive wave in the rising wind.
“I love a long story if it’s got crazy in it.”
Bonnie was sweeping a pile of papers and empty plates off the table.
I said, “You can leave that. I know about messes, believe me.”
The woman moved the detritus in her hands to the kitchen counter behind her. The rooms were all wide and open. The disaster continued into the kitchen, where the sink was heaped with dirty dishes, and into the living area, where a lumpy couch held two cushions’ worth of laundry to fold.
I sat at the end of the table cleared for me, casting about, while Bonnie’s back was turned, for anything interesting on the table. “So how long have you been coming up here?”
The woman sighed.
“You called me nosey,” I said, forcing myself into joviality. I hated the woman I was pretending to be. The Booster Club mom. “You didn’t realize how right you were.”
Bonnie’s fake smile was weak. “Family’s had the place for a long time. Like, forever. I don’t come up much now.”
“Weather’s turning. If you’re getting a job, though—you’re not going home soon?”
The smile faltered. “Do you want some coffee or something?”
“Glass of water?”
As soon as Bonnie turned toward the kitchen, my eyes raked the table. Newspapers, shopping bags, flyers from the local grocery chain, a fast-food job application. I heard a clink in the kitchen and looked up. Bonnie was choosing a glass from the overloaded sink. She flicked on the tap and ran the glass under water. I took a quick look around the room. Nothing seemed out of place, really, for a lake house in which a child was staying the summer. Except there were no swimsuits or beach towels hanging off the backs of the chairs, no sandy footprints on the linoleum. The house felt empty, even with the three of us there.
Bonnie crossed the room with the glass dripping in her hand. “I’m going to go check on Mikey. Just a sec.”
As soon as she’d gone, I turned back to the table. The newspapers were local, the headlines mundane. The bags held hot dog buns and insect repellent. There was nothing of interest until I lifted the edge of the job application and saw a scrap of handwriting on pink paper. My pulse quickened.
I slipped the paper out and into my palm just as a door down the hallway opened and Bonnie reappeared. I moved my hand to my lap and left the scrap of paper there on my crossed leg under the table. “He’s OK?”
“He’s the youngest kid I’ve ever met who puts himself to bed.”
This seemed remarkably sad, but the mask had to be put back on. “Oh? You’ve really trained that one. Your son must be so well-behaved.”
Bonnie snorted. She sat across the table, the hump of the stuff in front of her hiding all but her shoulders and head. “I don’t hear much, that’s part of the deal. But I doubt it.”
The deal? “Why not?”
“Rotten role models. Who’s he going to take after? Me? His damn father? His no-good uncle? My kid didn’t have a chance. But if we’re all bad for him, why not me?”
I took a drink of water and tasted dish soap.
Bonnie dug under the papers in front of her, shuffling so roughly that the newspaper on top slid off the other side of the table. I reached for it. “Leave it,” Bonnie said.
The newspaper on the floor was a copy of the Parks County Spectator.
My stomach dropped. The boy really was Aidan. This woman really was a kidnapper. She reached over the mess and offered a pen and notepad. “See if this works,” she said.