Counterfeit Son (17 page)

"Yes, twenty-one of them did. The one that didn't match was a young boy, probably six or seven."

"No." Cameron shook his head. The man wanted his son back, he could understand that. But Cameron couldn't go on living somebody else's life. He had to make him see the truth. "He was short, the file said Neil was short. A short eight-year-old might look six, but—"

"It doesn't matter about his height," Neil's father said evenly. "That's not how forensics determines age from bones. That body wasn't Neil. For a start, the dental records don't match, even remotely. That boy had cavities Neil never had."

Cameron looked at him, confused.

"You're Neil."

He shook his head. "I'm Hank Miller's son. He told me I was his son. I'm Cameron."

"He lied. The last body is Cameron Miller."

Detective Simmons said, "Neil, the lab found clear evidence that the boy was related to Miller." He paused, then went on, "Miller beat the boy so hard that his bones had been broken and mended and broken again."

Cameron felt a shudder deep inside his chest, remembering his own broken bones, and how Pop had backed off the times he'd realized how badly he'd hurt him. Even being careful, Pop had broken bones sometimes, and blamed Cameron for it even as he set them.

He forced himself to keep motionless. He could hear the screams of the other boys still ringing in his ears, nearly drowning out the detective's voice. Of course, Pop hadn't had to be careful of them.

"Forensics could tell from the body that this boy had been battered from babyhood," Simmons was saying. "Then Miller killed him. But enough people knew that Cameron existed that he needed to find someone to take his place."

Neil's father took a deep breath. "Do you want to know what I think happened? How I'd explain this to a jury? I think Miller probably killed his son by accident, while he was beating him, but it made him realize that he liked the killing even more than the beating, so he began looking for boys. He took you. I think he intended to kill you, except that you were too good a survivor. So he decided that you should become his son and stop any questions about Cameron's disappearance. But he liked the killing, too, so he took other boys and killed them. Does that ring true?"

Cameron swallowed. "He said I was the only boy he'd ever found who knew what was good for him, and how to keep quiet…" He could barely hear his own voice repeating Pop's words.

"Listen to yourself," Neil's father urged. "'The only boy he'd ever
found.
You weren't his son. You're Neil. You're
my
son. And I think you chose us because you knew, deep down, that you were Neil, even though you weren't ready to remember it yet."

Cameron held the jacket around his shoulders, his fingers rubbing the light summer wool, straining to understand what hadn't rung true about that talk on punishment and love. He looked at Neil's father, and saw instead a hazy memory of a different man, wearing jeans and a black windbreaker, towering darkly above him. He remembered how his own fingers and palm, and even his wrist, had disappeared into the man's grasp when he gave him his hand and let the man lead him to the car. That man had been Pop.

"He said he had to punish me for misbehaving," Cameron said slowly, "for going off alone." There were so many times he had been punished that they blurred into a single memory, like a needle locked into a scratch on one of the old vinyl country music records Pop listened to. But one punishment had been different, hadn't it? There was one time, so far in the past that he wasn't completely sure if he'd lived it or dreamed it.

"He said I'd been bad." He had always been bad, but that time was worse. And it was what Pop had said that time that had made him try so hard afterward, not the beatings. "He said—if I was good, maybe I could go home. So I was good. I did what he said, and I kept quiet."

Go home?
What was he saying? He'd been home. That couldn't have been the hope that had made him hang on. Cameron shook his head violently. "Hank Miller was my pop—I only
wanted
him not to be. I only wanted tosail…"

The man in shirtsleeves, not the huge man-shape in his memory, said, "Think about the sailing. You used sailing to escape because Neil loved sailing and got away from everything when he sailed." He smiled, his eyes oddly bright. "You think that little refresher course taught you how to sail my boat today? No beginner could have done that. That was memory, Neil's memory, from when I used to take him sailing."

Cameron turned away from the urgency, staring at the grass instead of at Neil's father. He remembered Pop bending over him just as urgently, shaking his head at him. Cameron remembered suddenly how hard it had been not to cry that time, although he'd thought he had already learned never to cry. "He said my parents didn't want me back, because I'd been too bad." Cameron's voice sounded rusty in his own ears. "He said I had to be punished, because of what I'd done. Until I could learn to be good, they never wanted to see me again."

"No!"

Cameron dimly heard a woman's voice, as though from a long way away, but he was locked in his memory, and he could still feel the pressure of Pop's arms around him, dangerous and reassuring at the same time. The words came slowly, as if he were drugged. "He said, even though I'd been so bad, I could stay with him and be his son. He said he'd teach me how to be good, because he loved me, even though it would be very hard to teach me because I was so bad. He said Neil didn't exist anymore, and there was only Cameron."

He stared at the grass in silence for a few moments, sensing the truth in his buried memory of Pop's words. This was the nagging thought he'd been chasing about punishment. He looked up into a different father's face. "When he beat me, he said you wanted me to be punished because I'd run away. But then you said you wouldn't punish me like that."

"He lied," his father said, his voice thick.

He looked at the sunlight sparkling on the little waves in the lake, and felt the light begin to dance in his heart. The beatings hadn't meant love. This man's firmness and quiet faith in him meant love. Hank Miller hadn't beaten him because he loved him. He'd beaten him because he loved the beatings. He'd beaten him to beat Neil out of him. The punishment had never been to help him be good enough to be forgiven so he could go home at last. He'd found his own way home.

"I was looking for a door," he said finally, remembering his inexplicable certainty that there should be a door nearby. It was as though the silent, frozen places inside him were splintering apart and memories were melting into his consciousness. "I knew there should be a fire extinguisher inside that compartment."

"Yes," his father said.

"But you thought he was lying," the woman cried, her voice trembling helplessly like the voices of the boys. "You wouldn't even allow the DNA test."

"Mrs. Lacey," Detective Simmons interrupted, "even though your husband wouldn't permit the test—" He cleared his throat. "We had samples from the hospital tests, and we obtained samples from Mr. Lacey's physician, and I—well, I ran the DNA test anyway. I trusted my instincts—they've always been right." He looked down. "Until now, anyway."

His father looked up sharply. "You law enforcement officers think you can just bend the law any way you choose because of your
instincts
! I should have you brought up on charges for violating our civil rights—" Then he broke off, and sighed. "But I suppose this time it's best to just let it pass. I already know the results."

Detective Simmons nodded, looking relieved.

Cameron—no, Neil stared up at the two men. After all his fear of the toeprints and the dental charts, the evidence had been on his side all along. "I've changed," he said finally. "I'm not like the Neil he took."

His father nodded again. "You're yourself. We all change as we grow."

He looked up and saw his mother, tears running down her cheeks. Suddenly he heard again that voice reading him the Goldilocks picture book, and the story about John Paul Jones from
Ships at Sea
—it had been a woman's voice, not a boy's. His mother's voice.
She
was the one who had read him Jones's ringing cry, "I have not yet begun to fight!" and given him the courage to stand up to Cougar—the real mother he hadn't been able to remember because Hank had said she didn't want him back until he could learn to be good.

He wanted to tell her, to thank her, to feel her hug him as she hugged Stevie, as she had hugged him only—yesterday? But she was looking at him as if he had turned into a stranger. He blinked back his own tears. Maybe happy endings didn't exist, after all.

He stood up stiffly, pulling his father's jacket around him, and looked at Cougar standing beside the detective. He turned to his father. "Cougar's father … hurt him like Hank hurt me," he said in a low voice. "I'm a lot like him, I think."

Beyond his father, he could see Diana, hands on her hips and head cocked to one side, smiling at him. She'd told him to be careful even when she suspected he wasn't her brother. And there was Stevie, looking up at him admiringly. He looked away, embarrassed.

"I don't know what kind of person I am," he made himself tell his father, making sure the man knew the worst. "I let all those boys die so I could save myself. I'm afraid of growing up like—him."

The man had said he could trust him from the beginning, and he smiled now, clear hazel eyes reflecting his own. "You won't," he said. "I promise you. You couldn't have saved those boys, but you saved Stevie. You're nothing like that man. You're my son."

The promise was more than he had hoped for, more than he deserved. He looked back at his mother. She had read that story about John Paul Jones to him over and over, each time he'd asked. If she could give him the courage he'd needed to save Stevie, then surely her love would be strong enough to forgive him in time.

I'm Neil,
he told himself, and felt the tentative beginnings of hope uncoil to fill the emptiness in his chest.