It Wasn't Always Like This (12 page)

He turned those eyes on Emma, then down to little Simon.

“How old are you, son?” he asked as they climbed the stairs, stooping to pat Simon on the head.

Emma tensed. It was a harmless tap. But she kept her eyes on that gnarled hand, the hand that balled into a f ist and shook with righteous lies at the revivals every Sunday.

“He’s four,” Emma said through pursed lips. “He’s small for his age. His birthday is in March.” Which would make him almost f ive. Simon did not look almost f ive.

Simon smiled his baby smile. “Four,” he repeated.

Glen Walters ruff led Simon’s dark hair, f ine as silk, wavy like Emma’s, then curled his hand around her brother’s skull. Emma yanked Simon away.

“Candy,” her brother said and started to cry.

“I
know
,” Glen Walters said softly, eyes tight on Emma’s. “You think I don’t, but I do. You can trust me, dear. Just tell me the truth.” His voice was gentle, but his eyes burned with something not gentle at all.

“Let’s go,” Emma said to Simon. She dragged Simon back to the road. He was crying harder now.

“You shouldn’t promise him something and then take it away,” Glen Walters called after her. “Come back, and I’ll buy the boy some candy.”

“Leave us alone!” Emma shouted over Simon’s shrieking. She picked him up and broke into a run.

“I can’t leave you alone, Emma,” Glen Walters said. “It’s too late for that.” His tone was polite, so different than his f iery fury at revival—but hearing him say her name like that was more terrifying than if he had shouted.

•

TWO DAYS LATER,
Emma stood watching as Charlie tended to the hawks, tying jesses on their legs, f itting some with hoods, making sure everything was sturdy and proper. His hands moved steadily from task to task. When Charlie did something, he did it well.

“I wish we were them,” she said. “Then we could f ly away from here, and nothing could catch us.”

“Em,” Charlie began, then stopped. He straightened.

Glen Walters was strolling up to the aviary entrance. His dark suit—the one he always wore, even in this primeval heat—clung to his tall and lanky frame. He was sweating, but he had an easy saunter, as though he were a tourist or just an ordinary man out for an afternoon’s walk. Except for his blue eyes. They were blazing.

“This is private property,” Charlie said. He positioned himself in front of Emma. “Is there something you need?”

“Just paying a social call,” Walters said. He removed a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his brow. “Those are beautiful birds you have here.”

“Yes, they are,” Charlie said.

His voice was tight but f irm, his posture straight and composed, and Emma could feel his muscles coiling.

She forced herself to be brave like Charlie. She said, “Bird shows are every afternoon on weekdays and Saturday.”

Walters smiled. “Good to know,” he said. “Though I wouldn’t count on
every
afternoon.”

Only when Walters had turned and walked slowly out of sight did Emma realize she was clutching Charlie’s hand tight enough that all their f ingers had gone white.

•

AFTER THAT, THINGS
happened very fast, the way things do when the world is falling apart. The Church of Light organized a boycott on the Alligator Farm and Museum. And the people went along with them. Even the tourists—all those obscenely wealthy folks from the northeast who didn’t believe in anything but money—stopped coming. Rumors spread that the alligators were poorly housed and dangerous.
A THREAT TO THE COMMUNITY
, read one newspaper editorial.

Then the museum was vandalized. At f irst just eggs thrown, like boys might do on All Hallows’ Eve. Then rocks through the windows. Shattered glass. Then worse. The birds let loose from the aviary. Charlie’s favorite goshawk, the very same one who’d landed on Charlie’s arm that day Emma knew he was her love, was found dead.

They reported it all to the police, of course. But nothing was done. The town was watching. Fingers were pointing. Tongues were wagging. And through it all, Emma could see that no one in St. Augustine really knew what to do with a bona f ide miracle except label it as an abomination. Nothing ruined the exclusive promise of eternal life, Emma learned, like f inding out someone could get it and still remain in the here and now. Especially if you
weren’t
that someone.

In February, shortly before Emma’s birthday, Art O’Neill leaned forward at the dinner table—his face pale, his voice f illed with emotion—and told his family that it would be time to leave soon.

“We need to get away from here. We need to make a plan. They’ll never leave us alone.”

Emma had already known that, even though it would be another few days before she witnessed Baby Simon guzzle that bottle of benzene, left on the table by their father after stripping the paint on an outside museum wall defaced by vandals with awful, damning words.

A FEW WEEKS
later, Art O’Neill retained a lawyer—a fellow named Abner Dunn—who kept an off ice in a brownstone in Brooklyn. Together, they set up a trust for each of the O’Neill children. They were not hugely wealthy, but there was enough family money that had been kept aside for emergencies. Emma, his oldest, was named executor. She was the only one who knew. In the end, it wouldn’t matter. She was the only one who survived.

“Something’s bound to happen, Em,”
Art O’Neill told his oldest daughter. “I know I told your mother that it would all go away. But I . . .”
Her father rested his hands f irmly on her shoulders. His voice quavered, but only for a moment.
“If it does,”
he went on, his gaze f irm on hers,
“promise me you’ll contact Mr. Dunn.”

At the time, Emma told herself he was wrong. That if she had Charlie, nothing bad could get to her. Not really. But she looked at her father and promised.

She had learned many things since her f irst seventeenth birthday three years ago. And one of them was this: Anything could happen. And sometimes it did.

Chapter Ten

Dallas, Texas

Present

Three days after Emma’s visit with Melanie Creighton at Dallas Fellowship—December 31, to be exact—the weather shifted again. Low gray clouds blanketed the sky. The air smelled like rain. It was almost twilight, not long to the new year. In the empty lot across the street, someone set off Black Cats, their sharp, repetitive pops f illing the air.

Emma’s tiny apartment was spotless: counters scrubbed, cabinets tidied, f loors immaculate. Even the windows were freshly washed. She’d gone so far as to run the
CLEAN
cycle on the coffee maker. She had sorted every drawer, straightened the sparse items on the shelves in her closet, and wiped a soft cloth gently over the gold pocket watch that hung next to her bed.

Her mother would have been delighted at Emma’s efforts. Her father wouldn’t have noticed. But old traditions, well, what few had stuck with her stuck hard.

You start the new year with a clean house. Then good luck will come your way.

A hundred years ago, Emma had thought her mother a fool. Now, she saw her mother’s fastidiousness as an act of pride, a f ist punching through the empty uncertainty of everything. Not that Emma believed in her mother’s superstitious motive, in the good luck a clean-up would bring. The very opposite type of luck arrived at the O’Neill’s doorstep. But the act itself had merit. It was tradition. It was control, or it tried to be.

Then again, Emma knew better than to try to control anything at all.

It would be getting dark soon. Emma sipped coffee on her tiny balcony, thinking about Kingsley Lloyd. So far, Pete’s search had turned up nothing, but he had some other sources to mine. Apparently he knew “a guy” who worked Vice up in Santa Fe and could dig up Unabomber types—kooks and criminals who made it their life’s work to stay off the grid. Her eyes wandered to her cell phone. She picked it up and called Pete.

“Got anything yet?” she asked.

“Nope. Em, he’s probably dead. Why does this matter now?”

She bit her lip. “I didn’t think it mattered. That he was alive, I mean. I didn’t believe he was, not when I f irst met you. But then—”

“I get it,” Pete said.

Emma made a face, glad he couldn’t see. Luckily, neither of them was a fan of the video call. The whole point of the phone was not having to talk face-to-face, another belief she and Pete had in common. No doubt he’d made plenty of faces on his end, too.

“Okay,” she said. “I
knew
he was probably alive. But it didn’t seem important.”

Pete grunted. He did this when he believed whoever he was dealing with was not, perhaps, the brightest button in the box.

“Forever,” Emma began, lapsing pointlessly into their familiar joke. “It’s—”

“Yeah, I know. It’s a long time,” he f inished for her. “But you’re a PI, for God’s sake, Em. I mean, you should
think
of yourself as one. You know better.”

“I do
now
,” she said. Which, for the most part, was true. “Bye, Pete. Happy New Year.”

“You, too, Em. I’ll spare you the New Year’s jokes.”

She picked up her coffee again, clutching it with both hands. She wasn’t even sure why she was so hung up on Kingsley Lloyd now of all times, and here in Dallas, of all places. All she had to do was stand still. The bad stuff had a way of f inding you, particularly if you kept putting yourself out there so you could f ind the boy you lost. Not that this was her fault, and not that Charlie himself hadn’t been an ass in those last moments. But love interfered with “knowing better.”

Screw Pete. At times like these, even given her expertise, she’d hardly call herself a “PI.” She felt as phony as the credentials that had secured her license. A confused hundred-and-seventeen-year-old kid was more like it. She sensed that Pete knew better, too.

Her thoughts swirled gloomily. More Black Cats popping in the distance, another year was about to begin, and memories of Charlie Ryan creeping up: his wild brown hair, his capable hands, his ability to stay so very still. That was his magic, even before either of them had realized . . .

On the street below her she noticed a cop car cruising.

No siren, no f lashing light, no reason for alarm. Still, it caught her eye.

Then another car appeared, careening around the corner. Her pulse quickened. She set her coffee down hard, liquid sloshing, drops scalding her hand. It was Hugo’s ancient cherry-red Jetta—the ’92 model, all boxy square lines and these funny round headlights that looked like hipster glasses. No one could forget Hugo Alvarez’s car. Especially not Emma. She’d owned the same model car the year it had been brand new.

It screeched to a stop just out of her line of vision.

Coral Ballard’s house.

Thoughts of Charlie faded.

Emma walked swiftly back inside, grabbing her keys and shoving her feet into her shoes, trying to stay calm but failing miserably. So she gave up calm and ran. She swiped to dial Coral’s number on her phone as she raced down the stairs, not bothering with the elevator. No answer. Not even Coral’s voice mail. Just ring after ring . . .

Emma shoved the phone into her pocket.

Hugo was standing outside Coral’s house, agitated, his gaze focused on a wiry female cop in uniform. She wasn’t much older than Hugo, her dark hair in a tight ponytail.

“Hugo!” Emma called, and he turned.

In that moment, he looked very young to her. He’d added a blond streak down the middle of his goatee and his oversized navy hoodie and baggy pants looked less like a fashion statement than an ineffective attempt to hide a thin frame. There were also intricate black-Sharpied faces drawn on his raggedy black-and-white Vans, for reasons she could only guess. In short, an adolescent boy, not yet a man. But Emma knew Coral saw these things differently than she did. Coral saw the boy she loved.

“Have you seen Coral?” Hugo asked her, his voice thick with panic. “Her mom called because she didn’t come home. She thought Coral was with me, but I haven’t seen her all day. I f igured she was getting ready for New Year’s Eve or . . . I don’t know. She’s not answering her cell.”

Emma shook her head.
It could be nothing
, she told herself.
Coral just lost track of time. That happens.

Hugo was in motion now, pushing past the cop, or trying. She grabbed him by the collar.

“Hey, easy,” the cop warned.

“I’m Coral’s boyfriend,” he snapped. “Has something happened?”

The cop glanced at Emma. Something had.

MISSING. RUNAWAY. KIDNAPPED.
No one was sure.

First the cop hustled Hugo into the backseat of her patrol car for a little one-on-one. Emma hung back, hands in her pockets to keep them from shaking. Five minutes later, the cop shoved Hugo back out and screeched off, leaving him to pace back and forth on the sidewalk. He was a wreck—rambling, almost incoherent.