The Escape Artist (17 page)

“Maybe I should wait until next week,
after
Tyler’s birthday, just in case they’re back by then.”

Grace put her arm around his waist and gave him a squeeze that meant
I love you, but when are you going to face reality?

He sighed and looked toward the dairy section. “Can’t get any dairy stuff, since I’m not going straight home.”

“Right, so why don’t you get in line and I’ll pick up my milk and yogurt and meet you there?”

“All right.” He walked toward the front of the store, but took a detour at the bakery to pick up a couple of big chocolate chip cookies. Grace would never have to know.

All the checkout lines were long. He pushed his cart to the shortest he could find and looked at his watch. It was already ten after one.

He’d called the hospital the day before to see if they might know of a child who’d enjoy the rocking horse. The social worker at the hospital told him about a little boy, a cancer patient, who was about to celebrate his second birthday. He was an outpatient, coming to the hospital regularly for chemotherapy treatments. He lived with his mother, who was single and on welfare, and the social worker was certain he would receive little, if anything, for his birthday. “And he’s a little doll,” she added.

But the clincher came when Linc asked the boy’s name.

“Tyler Jones,” the social worker replied, and Linc knew then that the little boy was meant to have the rocking horse.

Still, what if Tyler was home by next week?

Grace suddenly appeared behind him in the line. “Even if Tyler’s home by his birthday,” she said, reading his mind, “you’ll still be doing a wonderful thing for this other little kid.”

“I know,” he said. He turned in the line to face his friend. “I threw in something to acknowledge Tyler’s birthday when I recorded the show on Wednesday. Just in case Susanna’s still listening.” How would he ever know? Would he go on for the rest of his life, playing a song for her here and there, never knowing if she heard him or not?

No one was telling him what was going on. It was clear they didn’t trust him. He’d called Jim a few times, trying to glean some information from him, but Jim was evasive and Linc knew they’d decided not to let him in on anything. It was only from listening to the news and reading the paper that he knew the FBI was now involved in the case. And if the FBI was involved, they must have evidence that Susanna had crossed state lines. He was torn. He didn’t want her found, for her sake. He did want her found for his own. He’d considered trying to find her himself, but gave up quickly on that idea. If the FBI couldn’t find her, he doubted he had much of a chance. Besides, what was the point? It was clear that she had deliberately cut him off with the rest of her past.

He found himself paying careful attention to his mail and his faxes, in case she risked writing to him. He doubted she would, though. She was serious about this. She had obviously planned it for a while. Susanna had come to grips with leaving him even though he seemed unable to accept it himself.

He dropped Grace off at the house she shared with Valerie, then followed the directions the social worker had given him to Tyler Jones’s neighborhood. He was running late, but at least he had not completely copped out.

At one forty-five, he pulled into the parking lot of what had to be the sorriest apartment complex in the sorriest neighborhood in Boulder. The apartment buildings were nothing more than depressing brick rectangles dotted with small windows, some of them broken, some boarded up with plywood. Children played on the sparse lawn or ran on the sidewalks.

Linc checked the address. He got out of the car, opened the rear door and removed the blanket covering the horse. He folded the blanket and set it on the seat, then lifted the wooden horse into his arms. He felt some guilt as he carried it past the other children. They looked at the horse with curiosity and longing, their eyes wide, and Linc knew it was only serendipity that little Tyler Jones would be the lucky recipient.

He had to climb two flights of stairs with the horse and was winded by the time he reached number 301. There was a handmade cutout of a grinning pumpkin on the peeling brown paint of the door, and it made him smile.

A young woman answered his knock. She was wearing jeans and a red sweater. Her blond hair was damp.

“I’m Linc Sebastian,” he said. “Did the social worker from the hospital tell you I’d be coming?”

“Yes.” The woman stepped aside to let him in. “I’m Sandy, Tyler’s mother. I couldn’t believe it when Lonnie—the social worker—called. This is so nice of you.”

He set the horse down on the living room floor. “Well, I was really pleased she could suggest someone who might like a brand new rocking horse.”

“Oh, it’s beautiful,” the woman said. “Tyler’s going to be crazy about it. I’ll go and get him.” She started to leave the room, then suddenly stopped and turned around. “Can I get you something to drink first?” she asked.

“No thanks.”

“Okay. I’ll be right back.”

She disappeared down a short hallway, and Linc stood in the center of the tiny living room. Tyler’s mother had obviously tried to brighten the place with colorful pillows on the sofa and scarves draped over the lampshades, but the room was dark and dismal despite her efforts. He wondered if Susanna and Tyler were living like this.

The woman was gone a few minutes, and when she returned she was carrying a little boy with mocha-colored skin, huge dark eyes, and no hair. He looked like a frail little famine survivor. Linc had to work to mask his shock.

“This is Tyler,” the woman said.

The little boy stared blankly at Linc, but then he spotted the horse and his face came to life. He struggled to get down from his mother’s arms. She set him on the floor, and he ran to the horse with a yelp of delight.

“Would you like to ride him, Tyler?” Linc asked. It felt good to say the name Tyler out loud again.

Tyler looked at him with his big dark eyes and nodded. Linc lifted him up and set him carefully in the saddle. He knelt down to hold the little boy steady as the horse rocked back and forth.

“Does he talk?” he asked the mother.

She shook her head. “He was starting to, but when he got sick and had to go to the hospital so much, he just stopped.”

Linc smiled at the pure joy in the toddler’s face. He’d buy a hundred of these horses if that’s all it took to put such pleasure on a sick child’s face. Tyler giggled, and Linc could feel the sound in the delicate network of ribs and spine beneath his hand where it rested on the little boy’s back.

“How is he doing?” Linc asked past the lump in his throat.

“He’s almost done with the chemo,” his mother said. “Then we wait and see. But I think he’s doing real good, myself.”

“What do you think, Ty?” Linc asked. “How do you like this horse?”

Tyler didn’t look at him, but he leaned over and pressed his cheek against the horse’s yarn mane in an obvious gesture of affection. Linc was touched.

“Do you have kids?” Sandy asked.

“No. But—” Linc sat back on his heels, one hand still on Tyler’s back. He wasn’t certain why, but he knew he was going to tell her. “Actually, I bought this horse for my girlfriend’s son, whose name is also Tyler.”

“Really?” Sandy frowned. “Then why—”

“She lost custody of Tyler to her ex-husband and his wife, and she didn’t want to give him up, so she took off with him.”

“Took off? You mean you don’t know where she is?”

“That’s right. And right now, I’m pretty angry with her about it.”

“No, don’t be,” Sandy said quickly. She sat down on the arm of the old, moth-eaten sofa and leaned toward him. “I would have done exactly the same thing if I was in her shoes. If anybody tried to take my Tyler from me—” She shook her head. “Well, I’d be outta here so fast your head would spin.”

“Without saying good-bye to people who love you?”

“And if she’d said good-bye to you, what would you have done?”

“Tried to stop her from going,” he admitted.

“Right.” She smiled. “You can’t hold it against her for picking her son over you. It doesn’t mean she doesn’t care about you. It’s just something that happens with mothers. She carried him. She gave birth to him. I bet you she would give up her own life in a heartbeat for that boy, wouldn’t she?”

He nodded. He’d heard Susanna say as much.

“So, even though she’s probably lonely without you, she’s got her boy with her. Believe me, right now that’s all she’s thinking about.” Sandy had tears in her eyes, but she blinked hard, then suddenly changed the topic. “I’m never going to get him off that thing, you know,” she said, smiling at her son.

“It makes me happy to see how much he likes it.” Linc stood up, one hand ready to latch onto Tyler’s shoulder, but the little boy seemed to be balancing well without his help. “I sure hope he gets better quickly,” he said.

“Mmm.” Sandy looked at her son. “Me too.”

Linc glanced at his watch without really noticing the time. “Well, I guess I should go now.” He walked slowly toward the door, one eye still on Tyler.

Sandy followed him. “Thanks so much, Mr. Sebastian,” she said as she opened the door for him.

Linc leaned over to lightly buss her cheek. “You’re welcome,” ‘ he said. “And I appreciated your words of wisdom. I think I needed to hear them.”

He walked down the dark stairway and out into the sunshine. The children eyed him as he passed, probably wondering which apartment now possessed the beautiful horse he’d been carrying earlier. They had no way of knowing that he’d taken away far more from that apartment than anything he’d left behind.

KIM SAT WITH CODY
on the floor of the porch, helping him play with his garage sale blocks, taking them apart, putting them back together again. The weather was clear and warm, the sky a perfect blue that reminded her of Colorado, and classical music poured through Ellen’s open window.

In two days it would be Cody’s—Tyler’s—birthday, but she wouldn’t dare celebrate on that day. She’d decided that Cody Stratton’s birthday would be nearly a week later. She had not thought through the ramifications of changing Tyler into Cody, not the way she’d considered her own change in identity. What would she do when she needed to produce a birth certificate for her son? As far as the world knew, Cody Stratton had never been born.

The front door opened behind her, and Lucy stepped onto the porch, a mug in her hand. She was wearing dark palazzo pants, a white sweater, and a necklace made of huge green beads.

“What a beautiful day!” She sat down on the glider and took a sip from her mug. “I love this street. It’s so pretty and quiet. And you can
feel
the presence of the water even if you can’t really see it.”

“I love it, too,” Kim said. The street was not pretty, exactly, but it was interesting with its old homes and red brick sidewalks.

“It feels so good to be settled in finally,” Lucy said.

Kim was mildly curious about her neighbor, but hesitant to ask questions lest she receive questions in return. But she had to say
something
.

“Ellen said you’re a writer?” she prompted.

“Yes,” Lucy said. “I write magazine articles, mostly. Mainly on parenting issues. I’m dabbling in the health world right now, though. Alternative health care, that sort of thing. I was tickled to discover that Ellen is a massage therapist. I think I’m going to do a big article on massage. I can take a couple of different angles with it—you know, the sensual, splashy approach for Cosmo, the therapeutic benefits for Prevention. I try to get a few different articles out of every piece of research.”

“It sounds like fun,” Kim said sincerely. She envied Lucy’s enthusiasm for her work.

Cody crawled over to Lucy and pulled himself up by hanging on to her knees.

“Hi sweetheart,” she greeted the little boy. Then to Kim, “Does he walk yet?”

“Almost.”

“Oh, yes.” Lucy watched him balance next to her legs. “He’s almost there, isn’t he?” She lifted Cody onto her lap and let him play with her necklace. “This is one easy baby you have,” she said.

“Yes. I’m very lucky.”

“Don’t you just hate it when people say a baby’s a ‘good baby?’” Lucy smoothed Cody’s fly-away blond hair. “I hate hearing that word ‘good’ applied to little children, as though they could be anything but. A ‘bad’ baby isn’t being bad. He just has something that’s bothering him, poor thing. I hate that.”

“People do it all the time, though.” Kim remembered the nurses at the hospital referring to Cody as a “good baby” because he didn’t cry when they poked him with needles. She’d wanted him to scream his outrage at the world.

“That would probably be a good topic for one of your articles,” she suggested. She was liking Lucy a bit more this morning.

“Oh, I’ve written that one a thousand times.”

Kim watched Lucy bend over to pick up a couple of Cody’s blocks. She held them out to the little boy, weaning him away from her necklace.

“Do you have children of your own?” Kim asked.

“Five. And eight grandchildren.”

“Wow. Do they all live around here?”

“Well, I raised all my kids here in Annapolis, but only a couple of them still live here. Two are in California. One’s in Florida.”

“Do you happen to know of a good pediatrician close by?” she asked. It was nearly time for Cody to have his inoculations and a checkup. He’d also need to have an echocardiogram sometime in the next few months, but she’d deal with that later.

“Oh, sure,” Lucy said. “I used to take my kids to Dr. Sweeney over in West Annapolis. His son’s taken over his practice, and he’s supposed to be just as good.”

“Thanks.” She stared out at the street, committing the doctor’s name to memory and wondering how she would be able to give him the information in the medical records. It was essential that he know Cody’s medical history, yet every sheet in those records had the name Tyler Miller printed on it, not to mention the names of the doctors who had treated him and the names of the hospitals where he’d been a patient. She had a sudden disconcerting thought. Could doctors around the country have been alerted to look for a year-old male child who’d had surgery for coarctation of the aorta?