Page 11 of Code Violation

The open mini fridge suggested it was kids, maybe looking for alcohol and something easy to carry away and sell, but they’d left the computer. Maybe they didn’t know that the equipment the bins held was worth a great deal of money. Maybe it had been deemed too hard to carry? He hoped they’d been disappointed by what they’d found.

Tomorrow he’d talk to the police and, he reminded himself, to Rufus about the newspapers. Nero wanted to read any original news reports that had never been scanned and put online. He also still planned on trying to speak with Amy Blass, the mother of one of the girls who disappeared.

After cleaning up the best he could, Nero tossed the clothing into a pile and changed the sheets before crawling back under the covers.

Sleep didn’t come easily.

SIX

Forrest – Thursday Morning

Huddled deep in the prickly brambles, Forrest squeezed his eyes shut, trying to make himself as invisible as possible. Whoever—or whatever—was out there, he didn’t want to see it. Or it to see him. He wrapped his arms tighter around Lani’s little body. She was shaking so hard. They were both shaking.

The only reason he wanted to hear it was so he knew where it was. So they could run if they had to.

Thankfully, his sister was quiet for once. She’d only just started speaking in full sentences, and some days Forrest wished she would go back to the babbling and pointing. But right now she must have sensed something was very wrong. The same way Forrest did.

He’d been playing outside, building a house for the fairies that lived in the trees. Not that Forrest had ever seen a real castle, but he’d read about them and it seemed to him that fairies might like a castle just for them, one made of bark, moss, twigs, and other things he found in the woods.

Dina, their mother, told them that the forest was full of fairies and he and Lani needed to be nice to them because they were magical. “If you do something bad, the fairies will take you in the middle of the night, and we’ll never see you again.” Her lips curved into a cold smile that Forrest had learned not to trust.

Maybe building them the castle would keep both Forrest and Lani safe from the fairies. Dina’d tried to scare him with Native American stories about Raven, Coyote, and Beaver, too. But those stories didn’t scare Forrest, not that he told Dina. He liked how clever they were at outwitting their enemies.

There was more than one voice out in the dark tonight, he thought. Forrest couldn’t tell who was talking. Was their mother out there too? Where had Papa gone? Why had Papa made Forrest come to this spot with Lani? Why had Papa told him to keep Lani quiet, to stay until someone came for him?

Then the screaming started and it wouldn’t stop. He needed it to stop. In desperation, he put his hands over his ears. Lani wrapped her thin arms around his neck, pressing against him. Forrest was going to be strong for Lani. Whatever was out there would have to come through him first.

Forrest was just about to shatter into a million pieces when the screams abruptly stopped. It seemed like hours passed, although Forrest had no idea of the time. Even when the sun began to rise, he stayed because Papa had told him to. Then, somewhere off in the distance, he heard the sound of footsteps. They were coming closer.

Forrest bolted upright, the blanket slipping down and pooling around his waist. That had been the worst dream in a while.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” he whispered into the early-morning gloom of his bedroom. He glanced around, noting the antique dresser that had been his grandfather’s, the closed closet doors, the cheap lamp on his bedside table. They were all where they belonged, reassuring him that he was a forty-three-year-old man, not the seven-year-old who lurked in his dreams. Nightmares.

It’s fine, he told himself, just a dream. Go back to sleep.

For years, the dreams had been less and less frequent, less disturbing. But ever since Nick and Martin had discovered more fucking bones up on the mountainside in January, the dreams had returned with a vengeance.

He always woke up when the screaming ceased— for which he was thankful. After all the time that had passed, he was still never certain who was doing the screaming. Him? Dina? Lani? Witt? Or had it been someone else, someone Forrest hadn’t known about? The shrill sound echoed in his memory, chased him across the decades.

Terrified him.

Maybe it had been his father screaming, he didn’t know. But he also didn’t remember Witt Cooper much at all. Witt was a shadow to Forrest, a ghost. His father had almost always been away, outside, working on something. Forrest couldn’t even be sure when the last time was that he’d seen Witt.

And he’d tried his best to remember.

Forrest’s next memory was of waking up in a warm, sunlit, unfamiliar room, curled up under heavy blankets with his sister. A man who sounded like Papa sat near the bed reading a story aloud. When Forrest finally risked opening his eyes, the man, who also looked a lot like Papa, had explained that he was their grandfather and they would be living with him from now on. When Forrest asked him if Papa would come too, Grandpa had shaken his head, sadly saying, “I don’t think so, son.”

What Forrest knew about his father came from his grandfather’s stories, the ones he told Forrest and Lani about Witt as a boy, as well as the few photographs that had been saved over the years. If Forrest had been unsure whether Witt was actually his father, the photos proved it beyond a doubt. Both he and Lani took after him and their grandfather.

Rolling on to his side, he pounded a fist into the down pillow to make it more comfortable, more sleep-able. But it was too little too late; he was fully awake and there was nothing to do but get his ass out of bed.

“Motherfucker.”

The only time Forrest was a morning person was if he stayed up all night. He flopped back down, wondering if maybe just this one time he’d be able to fall back asleep. Minutes later, watery daylight slipped through the gap in the bedroom curtains and crept across his face, directly into his eyes.

“Give me a break. Fucking sunshine now?”

Why couldn’t he ease into consciousness, have a nice espresso waiting for him on his bedside table, and just start the day? Instead of feeling like he’d gone nine rounds with a boxing champion in his sleep.

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