Racing the Devil (23 page)

“Of course,” I said, suppressing a flash of anger at Josh. At fifteen, he couldn’t be expected to schedule his meltdown around my problems. “Is Randall here?”

“In the study.”

“Why don’t you write down a list of everyone you can think of who Josh might have confided in, and I’ll go talk to Randall?”

I found my brother sitting cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by stacks of old photo albums and loose photographs. Old family pictures. Disney World. Opryland. Picnics at the lake. Josh’s fourth birthday. Caitlin’s third.

Josh laughed out at me from a hundred different angles. On his first birthday, slamming his whole fist into the cake. At two, dressed as a pumpkin for Halloween. At five, learning to ride a bike. At six, with missing teeth. At seven—roller skates. At ten, posing like Babe Ruth at home plate, smile a mile wide and lighting up his face.

He’d always been the kind of kid his teachers called “a delight to have in class.” Now . . .

“He was beautiful, wasn’t he?” Randall asked, not looking up.

“Yes. He is.”

With trembling fingers, he picked up Josh’s sixth grade school picture and studied it. “I named him after our father. Now . . . Jesus, Dad would have been so ashamed.”

I hardly remembered our dad, except from photographs and the stories Mom told, but I knew enough. He was a good man. A hero.

“I don’t think he’d be ashamed,” I said. “Josh is a good kid. He’s just . . . lost himself for awhile.”

“He says he’s a faggot.”

“Randall—”

“I know, I know. You don’t like that word. Your queer friend doesn’t like that word. Did you ever stop to think that if you hadn’t kept bringing that little fairy around here, Josh might not have thought it was so cool to be gay?”

I’d been expecting this—and dreading it. I said, “It isn’t about being cool or not cool. It’s just who you are. Or aren’t. Jay knew he was different from the time he was in grade school.”

“Of course, Jay has to say that. What else could he say?” He dug the heels of his palms into his eyes. “What did we do wrong? Was I too strict? Not strict enough? I loved him so much. I loved him just so damn much.”

“I know you did.” I pushed aside a stack of albums and sat down beside him, Indian-style. “I know you do. Have you found any of his writing? Journals? Poetry?”

He gestured toward a dog-eared spiral notebook that looked like it had spent most of its life in the bottom of a teenager’s backpack.

“There. It’s all death and anger and . . . He hates me, Jared, and it’s all there in that stinking book. I don’t want you to read it.”

“He doesn’t hate you,” I said, picking up the book. “Randall?” He shrugged, and I opened the notebook.

At night, the old man
Covered in brick dust
Drinks his coffee black
Too tired to speak to
His invisible boy
.

The poetry was interspersed with beautifully rendered sketches and rambling journal entries. Reading the passages with Randall’s eyes, I could see why he read hate in every line. But with my own eyes, I read love there, and the pain and fear of a boy who knows he is not the son his father always wanted.

“This isn’t a hate letter,” I told Randall, when I had finished it all. “It’s a love poem. Listen to this: ‘My
dad is so perfect. He’s so strong. Why can’t he understand I can’t be him?’
He’s crazy about you, Randall. And he’s scared to death that when you know him, you won’t be crazy about him.”

“My son is not a homosexual.”

I splayed my fingers on my thighs. “I don’t know if he is, or if he isn’t. Neither do you. But whatever he is . . .” Randall looked up to meet my gaze. “He is what he is. He didn’t choose it, and he can’t change it.”

“You don’t know how lucky you are,” Randall said. “You’ll never go through this with Paul.”

I sucked in a sharp breath. “You don’t mean that, Randall. You know you don’t wish Josh was mentally retarded.”

“I wish to God he was,” my brother said. “I’d rather he was. I’d rather he was dead.”

From the doorway, Wendy drew in a sharp breath. Then she gave Randall a chilly stare and thrust a scrap of paper toward me. “I don’t know who his friends are,” she said, avoiding Randall’s gaze. “He doesn’t talk to us like that these days. But this is his English teacher, Elisha Casale. Josh seems to like her.” With another cool glance in Randall’s direction, she turned and left the room.

Randall lowered his head. He looked broken. “I don’t know what to do,” he said.

“I’ll tell him you love him,” I said, placing Josh’s journal carefully atop a stack of photo albums. “And then I’ll bring him home.”

I called Elisha Casale from my pickup and reached her on the first try. Her voice was deep for a woman’s, with a sultriness I didn’t usually associate with schoolteachers. In spite of my worry for Josh, I found myself wondering what she looked like.

After I’d explained the situation and asked if she could offer any insights, she said carefully, “Josh is a talented young man.”

“I saw some of his stuff today,” I said. “It was good.”

She gave a throaty laugh. “That’s an understatement, Mr. McKean. The boy is a gifted artist. And, I might add, an excellent writer, though his subject matter was a little disturbing.”

“Meaning?”

“He wrote a lot about death. And his father. I don’t know all the details, but I got the impression that things weren’t very good between Josh and his father. He used a pseudonym in his work, Joshua Nightbreed, as if he were disavowing his family name.”

“There’s been some tension lately.”

There was a pause. “I think—and I may be overstepping my bounds here—but I think Josh is . . . conflicted . . . about his sexuality.”

“He didn’t seem too conflicted yesterday when he told his father he was gay.”

“Ah.” Somehow she managed to infuse that single syllable with understanding, concern, and confirmation.

“You knew?”

“I suspected. He skirted the issue in his writing, but I thought it was fairly clear. He was angry and confused. And he was afraid of his father.”

A wave of heat crept up my neck. “He was never afraid of Randall. If he said he was, he was lying.”

“I didn’t mean physically afraid,” she said. “I meant, he was afraid of his father’s disapproval.”

All right. That I could understand. “Mrs. Casale—”

“Miss.”

“Miss Casale.”
Miss
Casale. “Why didn’t you tell Josh’s parents he was this disturbed?”

“Disturbed?” I imagined her frown, the little furrow between the eyebrows. Auburn hair, I thought. Blue eyes. “I wouldn’t say he was disturbed. In turmoil, perhaps.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Disturbed implies permanence. Turmoil ends. To answer your question, I didn’t contact his parents because he would have seen it as a betrayal. Whatever trust he had in me would be lost, and he would have lost one source of adult support and guidance. My students write what they write, Mr. McKean, because they know it’s safe to write it.”

“Do you have any idea where Josh might have gone? Who he might be with?”

“I know some of his friends. And I have some of his journals here at school. Why don’t you give me your number? I’ll look through them and give you a call as soon as I find anything.”

I thanked her for her time and hung up, annoyed and disgusted with myself for being aroused. It was just a voice on the telephone, for Christ’s sake.

I dropped the phone into the cupholder on my console and thought about everything I needed to do. Hunt for Heather. Research the men in Amy’s life—Hartwell, Carrington, and Avery. Run background checks on all of the above plus Valerie’s boyfriend—ex-boyfriend, if the afternoon I’d spent in her bed was any indication. I ran out of fingers before I ran out of things to do. If I was racing the devil, it looked like the devil was winning.

Instead, I grabbed a cheeseburger and fries from McDonald’s and scoured the city. I stopped in the most popular bars looking for Heather, and I hit the coffee shops and cybercafés looking for Josh. It was like trying to find two specific needles in a stack of needles. They could be anywhere.

Anywhere, apparently, except where I was.

At one
A.M.
, I drove down to Elliston Place, where groups of mostly young people stood in clumps or milled about, dressed in leather, lace, and pseudo-medieval finery.

I showed Josh’s picture around and then, for the sake of thoroughness, described Heather as well. For my trouble, I got a series of blank looks, and a lecture on the Goth’s love of beauty and darkness. One young man with an engaging, impish grin laughed and said it was all a big joke, a chance to leave reality and visit in a comic book. Another, with a smoldering anger that seemed more incubus than imp, told me Josh was being taken care of by his “true family,” and that I should go back to the suburbs and mind my own business.

About an hour before dawn, when the street was all but empty, I did.

A
T SIX A.M., I PULLED
into the driveway of ValeSong Stables. Since the red Chevy was parked by the barn and there was a light on in the kitchen window, I dialed Valerie’s number and asked if I could come in.

“Just in the neighborhood and thought you’d stop by?” Her voice was rich with sleep and a heat that made me glad I’d come.

“Something like that.”

“It’s kind of early.”

“I’ll help you with the horses.”

“Deal.”

Breakfast was good.

Dessert was better.

Afterward, I kissed her again and rolled out of bed. Started for the master bathroom.

“Use the one down the hall.” She gestured toward the open bedroom door. “I need to use this one.”

I grinned. Lifted an eyebrow. “We could share.”

“Not if we want to get anything done today.”

The first door I tried was a spare bedroom. The second was locked, and the third was the charm. I washed up and went to muck stalls while Valerie fed her horses.

When I turned Dakota out into his paddock, he nuzzled my hand before trotting out into the sunlight. I left him with a flake of hay and went to muck out his stall. He was something of a neat-nick, choosing one corner of the stall to relieve himself in. Some horses are like that. Others seem to think life is a challenge to see how much of their stalls they can cover with manure.

I wasn’t really looking for a horse, but it was another point in his favor.

When I’d scooped out the soiled bedding and added a layer of clean straw, I bent to even out the bedding beneath the feed bucket. Something small and dark caught my eye, and I reached in to retrieve it. It was wedged between two boards, but I pushed hard on one to widen the crack and it came free. I held it up to the light, a spiny seed pod with shriveled brown skin that still held a tinge of green.

I carried it into the feed room, where Valerie was measuring out sweet feed and vitamins.

“You got a problem,” I said, holding out the pod.

She looked up. “What’s that?”

“Milkweed. I found it in Dakota’s stall.”

“Milkweed?” She frowned. “Let me see.”

I handed it to her. “Looks like maybe you got a bad batch of hay. Could be what caused his colic. You have a problem with any of the other horses?”

She shook her head, eyeing the pod as if it were some new and disgusting kind of insect. “A couple of the mares were a little off their feed for a few days. Nothing like what Dakota went through.” She made a face. “I’ve never had a problem with toxic plants before.”

“Happens sometimes. You want me to get rid of what you have and bring you a new load?”

“I finished up those bales about a week ago.” She dropped the pod into the trashcan. “What I’m using now should be all right.”

“Better safe than sorry.”

“You’re probably right.”

We spent most of the morning hauling away her old bales and replacing them with new ones from my own supplier. A spot check of the new bales showed no sign of the contamination.

Then she thanked me in an inimitable way, and I drove home to take care of my own horses and catch a few hours of shut-eye before taking on the world again. I’d just peeled out of my jeans and T-shirt when my cell phone rang. I checked the number: Elisha Casale.

“I think I might have found something,” she said. “Give me a little time to check it out, and I’ll touch base with you as soon as I know for sure.”

“Why don’t you give me what you have, and I’ll check it out myself.”

“You remember what I said about keeping their trust?” she said.

“I remember.”

“I’ll call you when I know something.”