Part 10 (1/2)
Mason nodded. ”Agreed. Obviously this guy isn't a g.a.n.g.b.a.n.ger, but the people who work with them are our tattoo experts. They'll know where to turn next. It's our best lead so far.”
”Why would someone leave something so incriminating as pictures in that place?” Jamie asked. ”You said you haven't found fingerprints anywhere, but you found photos? That doesn't sound like the same person. This”-Jamie paused, eyebrows narrowing-”crook...murderer...isn't being consistent if they're not leaving fingerprints but are leaving pictures.”
”Agreed,” Lusco said. ”We might be dealing with more than one person.”
”Someone else had to take the pictures,” Brody added.
”One of the other kids could have been behind the camera.” As Mason spoke, he saw Brody imperceptibly flinch. ”Not willingly, of course,” he added.
Jamie's face flushed. ”I've seen a lot of child abuse in my position. I do what I do because I want to help kids better their lives. Nothing makes me sicker than a defenseless kid.” She met Mason's gaze straight on. ”My brother was horribly abused, and I've sat back, thinking I was letting him heal and doing the right thing by not pus.h.i.+ng for answers. It was how my parents handled him, and I continued it. Now I think it's time for him to actively help. The man who attacked me could still be hurting kids. I don't care if my brother claims he remembers nothing, I'm gonna drag him to every therapist and hypnotist in the country until he gives you something to help find who killed those children, before this person hurts more.”
She turned to Brody. ”I'm ready to go with you to find Chris.”
It was evening by the time Jamie and Michael drove into the outskirts of the dry, beige town of Demming, Oregon. The trip east had taken six hours, and Michael drove the entire stretch. Jamie had offered to take a s.h.i.+ft, but he'd turned her down.
”I get antsy if I'm sitting in the pa.s.senger seat. Driving helps me focus.”
Their conversation had been minimal. If Michael wasn't on the phone with an editor or co-worker, his music was blasting through the SUV. His taste was eclectic, ranging from traditional rap to the most heart-stirring cla.s.sical she'd ever heard. She'd relaxed and simply let him drive, taking the time to study his profile and the world outside.
The scenery changed as they moved east. Dryer, browner, flatter. Once they'd left the Portland metropolitan area and pa.s.sed through the Cascade Mountain Range, it was as if they'd entered a different state. More pickup trucks, longer stretches between towns, and less greenery. The fir trees were few and far between, while the cowboy hats grew in number. Gun racks started to appear in the back windows of the pickup trucks. b.u.mper stickers told politicians to keep their change to themselves and keep their laws off their guns.
They were now on the red side of the blue-voting state. By the square mile, the east side of the state was nearly twice as big as the west, but much lower in population and income. Oregon was a state divided in half by the Cascade Mountains, economics, and politics.
Jamie suddenly craved a handcrafted iced cappuccino and knew she wasn't going to find one. The self-service machines at 7-Eleven didn't count.
”The sheriff is expecting us, right?” she asked.
”Yes, but I didn't tell him exactly when we'd get in. We'll stop at his office in Demming, see if he's available to talk a bit. He wants to give me better directions out to your brother's. I guess it's hard to find. Also cautioned me to not sneak up on anyone. People in these remote areas have a tendency to shoot first, ask questions later.”
”Chris wouldn't do that.”
Michael raised a brow at her. ”He's hiding from something. That's the only reason for a man to live like he does and not introduce his son to his sister.”
Jamie looked out her window. The words stung deep. ”He doesn't like to be around people. After he recovered...he avoided everyone. He has burn scars on his face.”
”I've known plenty of people with disfigurations who operate just fine.”
Jamie was silent for a few moments. ”What were you doing that day?”
Michael didn't ask what day she meant.
She saw him swallow hard and then run a hand across his forehead. He kept his gaze forward on the road.
”I'd stayed home sick from school. I knew there was a field trip to the state capitol building scheduled that day, and to me nothing was more boring.” He snorted. ”Daniel was pumped. He had a freaky fascination with politics.”
”Your father was a US senator at the time, right?”
”Yes, the junior senator. He'd just started his second term.”
”Your father liked Daniel's interest?”
”He was thrilled. He had Daniel's political future mapped out.”
”That's insane. What kind of pressure does that put on a kid?”
Michael laughed. ”The Senator and Daniel used to talk about it for hours. Where he could go to law school, where was the best school for undergrad-”
”And you? What were your plans?”
”I had no plans.” His voice went flat.
A small stab of sorrow touched Jamie's heart. She'd seen too many kids in her school ignored by their parents. ”That didn't mean he had no reason to love you.”
Michael twisted up one side of his mouth. ”I know my parents loved me. It just didn't feel like they liked me. I wasn't the type of kid they'd planned to have. I wasn't interested in school. I just wanted to skateboard and ski. I used to pay high school kids to take me along when they skipped school and went skiing. I got caught over and over, but I didn't care.”
”How'd your parents know you went skiing?”
”You know what racc.o.o.n eyes are?”
Jamie laughed. ”You didn't know to use sunscreen when skiing?”
”Naw, sunscreen was for wimps.”
Was he trying to avoid her original question by distracting her? ”So were you really sick that day?”
He shook his head. ”Not at all.”
”When did you find out?”
”Phone calls started coming in. Daniel wasn't home from school, the bus never returned to the school, no one could locate the bus driver. The Senator was in Was.h.i.+ngton DC and immediately flew home. My mother didn't go back to the hospital for three days. I'd never seen them so panicked.”
”Of course they were. Their son was missing. They would have reacted the same way if you'd never come back from skiing.”
The wry look on Michael's face said he doubted her words.
She sat straighter in the SUV's seat. ”You think they would have simply brushed it off if you vanished? That's ridiculous. No parent reacts like that!”
Michael tried to control the expression on his face. The absolute indignation on Jamie's was killing him. His parents had never been the same after Daniel disappeared. Before DD-long ago Michael had divided up his life into Before DD and After DD-he'd simply thought his parents connected better with Daniel, as if they understood the chemical wiring in Daniel's brain versus the ricocheting impulses that bounced through Michael's.
At many points in a child's life, one wonders what it'd be like to be an only child. Michael had experienced that daydream often, a.s.suming all his parents' focus would be on him...as an adult he'd often thanked G.o.d that hadn't happened. He and his parents would have gone nuts if they'd tried to shape Michael into their own image. Looking back, he'd been grateful that Daniel had meshed so well with them and kept the focus off himself. Once Daniel was gone, the focus never s.h.i.+fted. It'd stayed on Daniel. And Michael had spread his wings. And spread. Usually to the point of risking his neck.
Mountain climbing, check. Run with the bulls in Spain, check. Crab boat trapping in the Bering Sea, check. Infiltrate a Los Angeles biker gang for an expose on crime, check. That one had nearly cost him his life. He still had the knife scars on his gut and an intense dislike of the harsh tequila that they'd all drunk by the gallon. No margaritas for him, thank you.
”I know my parents cared,” he said. It felt like an over-spoken line in a play. Lifeless and meaningless. Deep down, he knew they'd cared, but for some twisted reason, they couldn't show it. A therapist had once theorized that they were afraid of the pain of losing another child, so they tried to keep their distance, protecting themselves if something happened to Michael. And perhaps that was why he thrived on risk. Trying to coax a reaction out of his parents.
Michael had stared at the therapist, pulled three hundred dollars out of his wallet, slapped it on the table, walked out, and never returned. Why pay money for what he already knew? What he wanted was someone to fix it. Fix them. Fix him. Give him the family he'd never had, the one that lived in movies and books. It existed; he just had to find it.
Lacey Campbell was the closest thing he had to family. She was the little sister who mothered him when he needed it, sent him to get a haircut, and stocked his fridge when it only held beer and three-day-old pizza. They'd tried romance, but it'd failed. Miserably. Friends.h.i.+p worked best. For a long time, he'd pretended the friends.h.i.+p was fine with him, believing that if he stuck close and waited, it'd evolve into more and it'd be right the second time around. That dream had crashed and burned with the presence of her fiance. He'd wanted to murder the man at first, but now...he accepted it.
Michael stopped his vehicle in front of a squat brick building in the small town, a large sheriff sign over the door. The town was quiet, one main drag through a row of storefronts, a couple of people moving from store to store. A few empty storefronts echoed the recession that'd stomped on the nation in the last few years. He killed the engine and rolled down his window, surprised that it wasn't as hot as he'd expected for the dry town in the middle of summer. The elevation must keep it a bit cooler. Jamie lowered her window, too.