Breathe Page 31

  Sondra moved to Chace, lifted a hand, curled it around his bicep and squeezed while peering into his eyes, her ear dipped to her shoulder, her eyes warm and worried.

  Faye ran into the room both carrying his coat and yanking her hair out of the collar of hers.

  She came to a rocking halt, offered his coat to him and whispered, “Let’s go, honey.”

  He nodded, took his coat, turned to Sondra and said quietly, “Dinner was great, sorry to cut it short.”

  She gave his bicep another squeeze before she let him go and whispered, “Drive safe. Call us if there’s news. I’ll see you in a while.”

  He nodded again, shrugged on his coat while Faye gave her mother a hug. Then he took her hand, guided her to the stairs and held her hand tight when it seemed she was trying to fight against sprinting to the car.

  They got in, got on the road and Silas’s Wrangler headlights were in his rearview mirror when he took her hand, linked their fingers and pressed them to his thigh.

  “It’ll be okay,” he whispered.

  “Okay, Chace.”

  “He’ll be all right.”

  “Okay, honey.”

  His fingers gave hers a squeeze.

  Hers squeezed back.

  Then he let her go and reached for his phone.

  After he called the Station and confirmed his orders, Chace broke the speed limit on the way to the hospital.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Sweet

  “Sweet.”

  Deck spoke so quietly, Chace could barely hear him over the crunching snow.

  Chace didn’t process the word because his mind was consumed.

  It was consumed with the fact that they’d been walking through the dark wood at the bottom of the eastern hills that flanked town and they’d been doing it for ten minutes. The last five, they’d steadily been moving uphill.

  Since leaving Sioux Street, the eastern most street that edged the town, they’d had nothing but trees, rock, snow and bitter cold.

  It wasn’t fun for him, a fit man in his thirties. The idea of Malachi making this trek to get what he might need from town filled him with unrest. Or more than he already had. He knew the kid was hiding but finding his spot in the middle of nowhere filled with snow, cold and wild animals, some of which were dangerous, took it to a different level.

  Chace’s mind was also consumed with what he left at the hospital.

  When Chace, Faye and Silas arrived, they were working on Malachi with urgency and they weren’t allowed to see him.

  He flashed his badge and asked for reports when they had them and this got them a visit from an ER nurse five minutes later. She’d made the visit to garner information about Malachi, such as possible allergies to medicines and why he was in the state he was. Unfortunately, they couldn’t tell her jack about medicines but at least they were able to fill in some of the blanks about the state he was in.

  Before she left, she’d explained they were concerned about malnutrition, dehydration and infection, not in that order. They’d lucked out and found a vein and were pumping him with fluids and antibiotics, warming him up and cleaning his wounds to assess the extent of damage.

  By the time Chace left with Deck to meet the officers at the shed, have a look at it and its surroundings himself, Sondra had arrived and a doctor had come to make his report.

  Malachi’s humerus was broken. It had already begun to knit so they’d had to put him under, rebreak it and set it. They’d also lucked out that Deck’s unpracticed eye saw nothing but mess. Malachi had apparently cleaned his wounds as best he could with what they were guessing from what they could smell on his sweater, the shampoo Faye had given him. He also had antibiotic ointment on the worst of them, Faye’s Neosporin. It was good he’d cleaned his wounds and used the ointment but treatment had been delayed, infection was still a concern so they were pushing strong IV antibiotics.

  He was in the critical care unit because they still had some concerns that infection had set in and they reported they had minor worries that he might lose his fucking leg and his fucking hands.

  The hospital had a policy that only family members could attend patients in critical care and therefore, at first, they were denied a visit. Chace explained the circumstances including the fact that it was jacked, but Faye was the closest thing the kid had to family and the only person who they knew who had spoken directly to him in weeks. The doctor relented instantly knowing, even if nurture came from someone he hardly knew, nurture was nurture.

  Chace and Faye were let in to see him and at first sight of his small body with tubes stuck in him, his hands wrapped, his face bruised and still swollen, his arm in a sling, the covers taller around his dressed leg, Chace thought Faye would fall apart. Many people would, men or women. Fuck, Chace had to suck in breath to hold it together.

  But she didn’t. She moved directly to him, ran her fingers lightly through his hair and bent right to his ear.

  “It’s Faye. Chace and I are here, Malachi. We’re here. We found you. You’re safe now,” she whispered. “You’re safe, honey. You just need to get better. We’re here and you’re safe.”

  Chace found a chair and moved it to the bed before he put his hand to the small of her back. She was still bent over Malachi running her fingers through his hair but when she felt his touch, her neck twisted and she caught his eyes.

  “Sit, baby,” he whispered.

  She nodded and sat then pulled the chair closer, stretched out an arm and wrapped her fingers around his bicep.

  Chace gave her a moment then slid the hair off her shoulder and bent close.

  “Gonna see to business.”

  Her head twisted so she could catch his eyes again and she immediately nodded without uttering a question.

  But she whispered, “Come back.”

  “I will,” he promised. “I’ll send your Mom in.”

  She nodded again and turned back to Malachi. “Chace has to go, Malachi. But he’s coming back,” she whispered.

  “Give me some room, darlin’,” Chace muttered, Faye’s head jerked to look at him then she moved back in her chair and Chace moved in, leaning over Malachi.

  He curled his fingers around his bony shoulder and bent close to his ear. “Stay strong, buddy. You’re good. You got folks lookin’ out for you now.”

  He gave him a gentle squeeze, pulled back and looked to Faye to see now, she had wet in her eyes.

  He wanted to comfort her but he sensed if he did, the hold she had would unravel.

  So he moved in to kiss her nose, pulled back half an inch, locked eyes with her and whispered, “Be back soon.”

  “Okay, Chace.”

  He shifted away, cupped her jaw in his hand, slid the pad of his thumb over her bubblegum lips then he let her go and walked away.

  He gave a brief report to Deck, Silas and Sondra, sent Sondra in and told Silas what he and Deck would be doing. They exchanged phone numbers. Then Chace followed Deck to Sioux Street and into the wood.

  Long moments after Deck muttered the first word either of them spoke during their trek, Chace asked, “What?”

  “Your woman,” Deck answered. “Sweet.”

  He was not in the mood to be given shit about Faye.

  “Deck –” he started in a warning tone.

  “No shit, Chace. Not what I meant. She’s sweet. Pretty. Great hair. Great ass. Great fuckin’ boots. This shit fuckin’ sucks, that kid, the state of him, what you’re gonna see when you get to that shed, brother, nothin’ good about it. So bad, it’s beyond bad straight to disturbing. So now, you think of what you left back at that hospital. Because, seriously, man, when we get up there, you’re gonna need good thoughts the like of your girl.”

  Chace was already preparing himself for what he’d see.

  Now he knew it was worse.

  Fuck.

  Deck wasn’t done.

  “Lined up two hundred women, told me to choose the one for you, I’d choose the one back there. Settin’ myself u
p for what I’m gonna see again, gonna hold onto the knowledge that a year ago, my boy had one serious, fuckin’ bitch sleepin’ in his bed and he was sleepin’ in his guest room. Now, when he’s done with this shit, tonight, tomorrow, until he does the smart thing and makes it legal and then until he dies, he’s got that sweet in his bed. Don’t flip out, I know it’s new between you two. I also know you are no dumb fuck. You got that kinda sweet, you’re gonna make it legal. Since I don’t have sweet to go home to, I’ll hang onto the fact that my brother, who’s always deserved it, finally does.”

  Deck and Chace had shared vows of brotherly love over Deck’s Dad’s stolen beer they consumed in Deck’s basement when they were freshmen in high school the first time they got drunk off their asses.

  Since then, through a lot of good times and bad, that love grew.

  These kinds of words from Deck were rare but they were as real as the feeling behind them. Deck detested Misty, fucking hated Chace’s father and not just recently and he knew the whole story. So they were also not surprising.

  They also gave fair warning of what he was going to see.

  They walked in silence for a few more minutes before men’s voices could be heard and the beams of high powered flashlights like the ones Deck and Chace were using to light the way could be seen.

  “Keaton and Decker,” Chace called to inform them of who was approaching.

  They got a “Yo,” and a “Hey,” back from two of the four uniforms on duty, Dave and Terry. Both were new recruits. Dave, a three-year veteran who moved to Carnal from Idaho to be closer to his nearly new wife’s family in Gnaw Bone seeing as she was pregnant and had three sisters and thus they had four built-in babysitters, including her Mom. And Terry, a fresh recruit out of the Academy, hailing from Fort Collins.

  Deck and Chace met them in the snow outside a dilapidated shed about the size of a big bathroom. The men huddled, kept their lights low in their hands, aimed up but away from faces, lighting the conversation.

  “Didn’t pull in lights, Chace, ‘cause it’d be a pain in the ass to haul ‘em up here but also because we might wreck tracks if we did,” Dave informed him and Chace nodded.

  “Got in a good look around, though,” Terry added. “Did the best we could not to disturb anything. Not that there was much to disturb.”

  This was not good.

  Chace nodded anyway.

  Avoiding the shed for now, he asked, “What’d you find?”

  “Not hard to find the trap,” Dave told him and went on to explain, “seein’ as the blood trail led from it to him.” He dipped his head toward the shed.

  “Two hundred yards, I figure,” Terry shared quietly, careful with this knowledge because of what it said and Chace braced so his body wouldn’t jerk.

  Two hundred yards. Two fucking football fields. A long way to go with a broken arm, two mangled hands and a fucked up leg.

  A long way to go.

  Jesus Christ.

  “Able to walk the first fifty.” Dave’s voice was also quiet. It got quieter when he continued, “Had to drag himself the rest of the way.”

  Chace closed his eyes and dropped his head.

  He shouldn’t have let it go the way it did. He should have tracked him or set Deck on him sooner. He shouldn’t have given in and gone slow. He should have pushed it.

  He didn’t.

  Jesus Christ.

  “Trap’s old,” Terry carried on, Chace opened his eyes and looked at him. “Probably set years ago and forgotten. Rusted. Snowed over. The kid couldn’t have seen it even if he was movin’ in daylight. Pure bad luck he happened on it.”

  Malachi seemed to have a lot of bad luck.

  But this bit of it was on Chace.

  “He’s big on invisibility, Chace,” Dave put in. “Couldn’t find a lot of tracks and, we get lights or come back in daylight, we’ll know more but seems like he covered them. We went a fair ways, large perimeter, got some animal tracks, only thing we got is a few leadin’ toward the trap he probably hadn’t yet covered and was in no state to mess with and the tracks leadin’ from the trap to the shed. Lots of disturbed snow around the trap.”

  “Found some drops look like blood,” Terry stated. “Leadin’ to the trap comin’ from the hill, northeast.”

  “He was beaten before he hit that trap,” Deck muttered.

  “Yeah?” Dave asked.

  “Leg was fucked up by the trap but his arm was broken and his face was a mess. Trap didn’t do that,” Deck told them.

  This got nods.

  But Chace was thinking of a kid who had been beaten, his arm broken but still had the presence of mind to cover his tracks in the snow.

  Who the fuck was beating him, who was he hiding from and why?

  These questions were strangely exclusive at the same time inclusive. Somehow, whoever got hold of him got the chance to do it.

  But they didn’t know about this place. He kept this a secret.

  So how did he keep getting beaten?

  Terry looked to Chace. “You want lights brought up?”

  Chace looked at his watch then his gaze went to Terry. “Not tonight. Tomorrow morning, we’ll come back up, get a better look around in the daylight, follow that blood, see if we can get anywhere with that.”

  Dave and Terry nodded.

  Chace reluctantly turned to the shed.

  “Bad shit, man,” Dave murmured. “Popped Terry’s cherry, steppin’ into that.”

  Terrific.

  “Won’t sleep tonight,” Terry mumbled, glancing at the shed then back at Chace. “How old was he?”

  “He is nine, maybe ten,” Chace replied.

  “Is, right, is,” Terry mumbled again, this time quickly then he asked, “He good?”

  “No,” Chace answered.

  “Right,” Terry muttered.

  Chace studied Terry a moment and decided not to tell him there’d be other sleepless nights. Memories of this and new memories. Traffic accidents. Domestic disturbances. Child abuse. Suicide. Overdoses. Small town didn’t mean small crime. Even with a clean Department. He stayed the course, made it his career, he’d have enough to haunt his sleep for the rest of his life.

  Unless he found a good woman to sleep beside him.

  On that thought, Chace turned to the shed to create the next ghost that would haunt his, a ghost only the likes of Faye Goodknight could beat away.

  He felt Deck move with him and they both trained their flashlights on the door. Rickety, planks warped. Lots of space in between and not only on the door. There was a wind, snow, it’d rush through and settle inside.

  It wasn’t much but for a desperate kid, it was better than nothing.

  The door hung drunkenly and it was a miracle it held. The shed wasn’t built in this decade or the last. It was, like the trap, unused and long-forgotten. A great hiding place in the summer. A desperate one in the winter.

  He carefully pulled open the door, stepped inside and held his body tight as he swung the flashlight around and tried not to breathe in.

  “Remember, kid was here awhile, man,” Deck whispered behind him.

  The smell eloquently stated that. So did the state of the sleeping bag. Malachi had been unable to move so a week’s worth of bodily mess was visible to the eye and reeking in the small space. The sleeping bag had been zipped open and thrown wide to get him out so the inside was visible and stained with not a small amount of excrement, urine and copious amounts of dried blood.

  Chace moved the flashlight around the area and his eyes followed the beam. Malachi had set up his sleeping area against one side of the shed. Under the sleeping bag were some thin, torn pieces of fabric. They looked heavy, they were definitely discarded. Likely from someone’s trash. These were under his sleeping bag which meant, until Chace and Faye gave him that bag, they were all he had. Chace couldn’t even make out if they were blankets or rags. What they were were definitely not enough to shield him from the cold.

  At the top of this mess, a small,
round cushion, definitely a castoff, stuffing coming out, soiled, dirty.

  His pillow.

  By the pillow, a bag of bread torn open as if by fumbling hands, blood on the plastic, blood stark on the scattered white of pieces of bred. Eight bottles of water, empty. Six energy drink bottles, empty. The shampoo bottle sitting on its side, blood on it, top not on, shampoo leaking out. The tube of Neosporin, no cap, squeezed dry. Two apple cores. An empty bag of baby carrots with blood smears. Four banana peels, not peeled off, ripped open, teeth marks visible on the inside skins now brown. He’d gnawed the meat out. The bottle of ibuprofen, blood on its sides, unopened. Possibly too difficult to get the cap off with torn up hands and a broken arm but the pain was bad enough, he’d tried. A milk jug opened and on its side, milk still in it, its sour smell mingling with the foul odor. The flashlight Faye got him was amongst this mess, on its side, the light pointed toward the sleeping area, no beam coming from it now.

  He moved his light across the back wall and felt his gut get tight.

  Six milk crates, plastic, probably stolen from behind the grocery store. Three upended and against the dirt and snow at the floor of the shed. Three sitting on top holding their precious contents away from the dirt and wet. One held the carefully packed remnants of food and drink Chace and Faye had given him. One held his sparse collection of clothing, folded precisely, organized carefully. One held the other bits and pieces, the stacks of paper plates and bowls, his camp cutlery, bottle of vitamins, toothpaste, toothbrush, the packs of batteries Chace bought him to go with his flashlight.

  Last, closest to the sleeping area, was a little table that was obviously a castoff Malachi had collected, probably, from the state of it, resting against trash bins at a curb.

  His nightstand.

  On top of it, his books and comic books. Carefully, almost reverently arranged and Chace knew if he approached and looked closely, they’d be methodically organized.

  His prize possessions, close at hand for when he lay in that bag and read.

  His prize possessions, close at hand just because they were prized.