Part 10 (2/2)

He turned to face the guy, who didn't look strange or scary, just utterly normal and kind of bland.

”What's it to you?” Terry asked, and felt he sounded too wimpy.

2.

More than an hour later, when Terry awoke, the first thing he did was cough.

Something about his vision was off. He couldn't quite see. Things were blurry, and he tried to reach up to wipe his eyes clean, but his hands were tied behind his back.

He tugged at them, but they wouldn't budge.

He didn't remember a whole h.e.l.l of a lot since the man had been talking to him, talking about his mother, talking about some emergency, and talking to the point where something within Terry had felt a little tired and too confused to understand everything.

His breath returned to him, hot.

It was plastic of some kind over his face.

Tied around his neck-a cord pressed at his throat.

He tried to make out the shadowy figure that stood before him, but the light was too dim, and his own breathing had caused a fog within the plastic.

Soon, the air around his face got warmer, and when he inhaled as deeply as he could, the plastic sucked up against his mouth.

He tried kicking out, but his legs were tied to the chair.

Then, it was as if his lungs burned as he used every ounce of his energy to inhale what little air was left to him.

As he went, as he felt himself sink into unconsciousness, someone-a man's hands?-grabbed his left arm and held it as if trying to pull him back from the brink of death.

He sucked in as much air as he could, and kept inhaling, inhaling, inhaling, inhaling.

Chapter Nine.

1.

Julie arranged a little memorial service in May, just for close family and a few friends.

2.

They had no body to bury-it had officially been stolen, according to McGuane, and they suspected the killer himself had some access to the morgue that they'd been trying to pinpoint.

Julie felt for the children's sake, at least, there needed to be a service. She got Father Joe from Mel's church, St. Andrew's, to run through a liturgy just because Mel insisted on something religious, and Hut's parents had made it for the weekend, and her mother had brought her boyfriend, and even two of Livy's teachers had shown up.

Hut's mother and father flew in, and when Julie had a moment alone with Joanne Hutchinson, she asked her about Hut being an orphan 'til he was in his mid-teens.

”Steve wanted a son badly,” she said. ”I can't tell you what it was like for us. We had tried to have children for years. And then when our son died. Our first boy. Before Jeff.” She called him ”Jeff,” not the nickname, ”Hut,” that Julie had only known him by. Even hearing the word, ”Jeff,” sounded like a different person. She could imagine him as a sweet kid. Helpful. Generous. ”Well,” Joanne said, ”when the opportunity to take him in-Steve had been working with Big Brothers, and then got a call from a friend about some group home for kids who had been orphans all their lives...well, something got in us. It was like a gift from G.o.d, we thought. Steve loved working with teenage boys. He loved teaching them, and guiding them. He's a man's man, I guess, and he loves camping out and woodworking, and getting out with a football. Well, when he heard about Jeff's situation-about having lived as an orphan his entire life-he insisted we adopt him. Steve was raised in foster care. He knew the routine. When they met, they bonded immediately. You couldn't keep them apart.” As she said this, Julie felt that Joanne Hutchinson was leaving something out. But it wasn't the time or place to ask. Yet, Julie got the distinct sense that Joanne had something more to say about Jeff.

Before they left on Sunday, Julie managed to get a few minutes with Joanne alone, while her husband was showering in their hotel room.

”I'm sorry to even bring this up,” Julie said. ”But there's so much about Hut I didn't know.”

”He was quiet about his life, wasn't he?” Joanne said.

”I know this is a strange thing to bring up now, but when you adopted him, did you know much about where he'd been?”

”Somewhat. He had been in a group home for a year or so at that point,” and then the tone of her voice changed-as if Joanne had guessed what this was about. ”You mean the fire.”

”Fire?”

”He never told you,” she said.

”No.” But even as she said this, Julie remembered his nightmares. He didn't have them often, but he had woken up more than once, early on, in the middle of the night, soaking the sheets with sweat. All he would tell her was that he had dreamed of something that happened when he was a boy, but he had never let her beyond that wall.

”I can't say I'm surprised. It must have been awful. He had been trapped in a building when a fire broke out-that another student had set-perhaps a year before we adopted him. He got out in time, but some of his cla.s.smates died. He wasn't burned, but had to spend time in the hospital for smoke inhalation.”

”His asthma,” Julie said.

”Yes, that and those night fears he had.”

The mention of ”night fears,” reminded her of Hut, waking up in the middle of the night as if he were a Viet Nam vet experiencing post-traumatic stress syndrome. He'd nearly leap out of bed, and not be sure where he was. But it had only happened once or twice.

”Was it some kind of government program he was in, as a boy? Some special school that tested him?”

”I'm not really sure. He got a good education, though. He was smart as a whip, and was a lot smarter than either of us,” Joanne said. ”Sometimes, well, sometimes it was like he knew what I was thinking. He was perceptive. My goodness, he probably told you more than he ever told us. He never talked about those years. We loved him so much, Julie. More than was probably healthy for Steve. When our son turned away from us...well, it's all in the past. None of it really matters, does it? He was our son, we loved him. Please, let's not lose touch.”

Julie hesitated asking the next question, but felt she had to, even though it seemed a betrayal of trust with Hut. ”Can I ask you something that might be painful?”

”Go ahead.”

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