Whatever Dr. Marshall had given him for pain kept it under the surface. He knew it was there, knew it would come back, but he was too numb—body, mind, spirit—to care.

The guard had eyes like marbles, hard and cold. The driver said nothing. He was the only prisoner. He’d learn later his father’s insistence and influence helped speed his transport, alone and at such a late hour.

“Looks like you got your ass kicked, didn’t you? That’s what you get for going at your mother, your baby sister.”

Zane didn’t respond—what was the point? He kept his head down.

And later, like so many things later, he’d learned the guard’s marble eyes and the disgust in his voice were due, at least in part, to the fact that Dr. Graham Bigelow had performed surgery on the guard’s son after a car accident.

He couldn’t find his fear, couldn’t even dig down through the numb for worry.

Until the misery music of the tires changed to a kind of threatening grumble. And he heard the sound of the gate clanging shut behind the van.

Panic bloomed in his belly, spread its tendrils into his chest. And rocks tumbled over it, sharp and heavy. He felt tears stinging the back of his eyes, and some instinct, some atavistic animal inside him warned that if they fell, if even one escaped, it would doom him.

“Welcome home, asshole.”

The guard had to help him out of the van. If he felt any pity for the trembling boy with a splinted arm and ankle boot, he didn’t show it.

He went through a steel door, a metal detector. He had to stand against a wall, bright lights in his eyes, his weight on his uninjured foot. He gave his name, his birth date, his address.

They took him to a room, took his clothes. He couldn’t undress himself with his arm splinted, so suffered the humiliation of being stripped down, the unspeakable humiliation of the strip search.

They gave him clothes. Orange shirt, orange pants, orange clogs—or one clog because of the boot. They had to dress him.

They took him to a room—they called it a pod. It wasn’t a cell like he’d imagined; it didn’t have bars. It had a cot, a toilet, a sink. No window.

“You get up when we tell you. You make your bed, and wait till we take you in for breakfast. You eat what we give you. Since you got your ass kicked, you’ll get a check at the infirmary before you talk to the head shrink, who’s going to ask you about your fucking feelings. You do what you’re told when you’re told. Give me any shit, you’ll pay for it.”

Marble Eyes stepped to the door. “Your father’s a great man. You’re nothing.”

He went out. The door locked with a click that boomed in Zane’s ears.

And the lights went out.

He took one limping step, feeling for a wall, ramming his shin against the side of the cot. He crawled onto it as the trembles turned to shudders, as his breathing devolved into a kind of mewling.

He tried to curl up, just to hold on to himself, but he couldn’t manage it. He wanted to sleep, just sleep, just sleep, but the pain broke through the surface.

He let the tears come now. No one to see, no one to care. The sobs racked him, hurt his chest, his belly, his throat. But when he’d exhausted them, the panic went with them.

He lay, body throbbing, spirit dead.

Hours before, just hours before, he’d kissed the girl. He’d looked at the stars and danced under colored lights.

Now, his life was over.

The dark, the solitude became comfort. He clung to them because he began to fear what his life would become once that door unlocked again.

CHAPTER SIX

 

Lee ran on two hours’ sleep and black coffee. He’d made his case to his lieutenant, to the DA, to child services, and to the judge who’d signed Zane Bigelow’s arrest warrant.

Now in Lakeview, he sat in Chief Tom Bost’s office, a man he knew, and up until now had respected.

“This isn’t your case, it’s not Asheville’s case, it’s not CID’s case. It’s my case.”

“It was.” Lee spoke mildly, for now. “Now it’s not. You shoved that boy through the system, Tom. You cut corners and bent the rules and shoved him through when he was hurt. You called in favors, pulled strings to get him slapped into Buncombe.”

Red flags flew on Bost’s cheeks.

“That boy put his mother, his sister, his father in the damn hospital. I did my job, and don’t you come into my town and say different.”

“I’m saying different.”

“It’s going to cost you, Lee. Graham and Eliza are half out of their minds about Britt. I don’t know what the hell got into Emily Walker—I thought she had more sense. But she’s going to face child abduction charges. And when Graham gets done, you’ll lose your badge for being part of it.”

Lee set a copy of the first entry of Zane’s notebook on Tom’s desk. “Read that. Zane wrote that—you can see the date. Read it.”

“Every minute you hold that girl from her parents makes it worse.”

But he snatched up the copy. “This is bullshit, Lee. That boy’s sick.”

“His parents are. I contacted the resort where they went on December twenty-sixth of that year. I talked to their butler, the housekeeper, the manager. You know what they all said, Tom, every one of them? They said Zane had a tumble off his bike, broke his nose, hurt himself. He came in that way. He had to stay in his room—they were ordered by Graham Bigelow not to disturb him.

“What did he tell you back then, Tom?”

“It’s a mistake. Zane had a fall on the slopes.”

“They told Emily and the grandparents Zane had the flu that Christmas. They wouldn’t let anyone see him—germs, Bigelow said. I’ve got their statements, too.”

Disgust in the motion, he pulled papers out of the file he held, tossed them on Bost’s desk. “I’ve got Britt’s statement.” He tossed another. “Everything that boy wrote there is God’s truth.

“You didn’t begin to do your goddamn job on this.”

“Don’t tell me about my job,” Bost hurled back. “I know Graham and Eliza.”

“Do you, Tom?”

Chin jutted, Bost jabbed a finger at Lee. “You’re trying to tell me Graham beats his wife, his kids, and they all lie to cover it? That not once until last night have we gotten a nine-one-one from that house?”

“That’s right. Zane started writing it down that day, the day you’ve got there. And he kept writing it. The punches, the slaps, the fear, the threats. And the mother, she went along. I had her thirteen-year-old girl tell me how after her father knocked her mother around, they’d have sex. And he’d buy his wife something special. I had that kid look me in the eye and tell me she thinks her mom liked it.”

“Britt’s been traumatized. She—”

“Damn fucking right she has.” Mild was done. “Look back, for Christ’s sake. The kid calls for help, and when you get there, he’s put her out so you can’t talk to her. Zane’s lying at the bottom of the steps, broken arm, concussion, torn ligaments. But you don’t listen.”

“The two adults gave the same story. Two people I know.”

“I’ll give you that. But you don’t take a statement from the boy? You don’t question the father demanding his son’s arrest, how he pushed it through? How you helped push it through? How he wouldn’t even give the kid a night in the hospital? Didn’t arrange for a child advocate, a lawyer, nothing. Just lock him up? He said it was probably drugs, but the kid’s clean. Did you bother reading the tox results?”