Page 17 of That's Not My Name

I give Wayne a small wave.

“I’ll see you in a minute, kiddo.”

It sounds like a promise.

We climb into the front seat of the police cruiser, and the first thing Bowman does is crank up the heat. The warmth feels good on my face.

“Don’t worry about all this,” he says, gesturing to the precinct and the van. “We’re just covering our bases. He had to fill out a preliminary report. I ran his license and registration. He has no warrants or arrests. I’ll check out the paperwork at the house, but it’s not easy to fake a birth certificate. I won’t leave if anything seems off. I promise.”

Of all the people who could have found me, I’m glad it was someone as nice as him. “Thank you for helping me.”

He gives me a deep nod. “Are you ready to go?”

I click my seatbelt and grip the shoulder strap. They keep asking me if I’m ready. Can anybody be ready for this kind of day? I feel like I’m test driving my own father.

I nod, and Bowman pulls out of the parking space.

We turn onto the deserted main street, the headlights of the cruiser illuminating the back of Wayne’s van ahead of us. We take a right near the little motel by the edge of town and follow Wayne up the mountain, winding along half a dozen roads that all look like the one I woke upon. Wayne drives carefully, signaling for all his turns, never driving faster than the speed limit, and I don’t know if that’s because he’s being followed by a cop or if he’s always this cautious.

About fifteen minutes of bumpy roads later, Wayne turns down a short driveway and parks in front of a log cabin. We pull in behind him, and I lean forward.

A set of stairs leads up to a porch on the front of the house. Two big windows with drawn curtains sit on either side of the door, but I can’t see much else. The van blocks half the cruiser’s headlights, and when it’s dark on this mountain, it’sdark. I can’t even see the edge of the driveway.

It’s creepy.

Bowman reaches for his door. “Wait here while I check out the house, okay? I’ll lock the doors. Just in case.”

I send a panicked glance at the darkness waiting outside the window and wring the seatbelt strap in my hands. “In case of what?”

Wayne had my school ID and all those pictures in his phone. He had enough proof to get us this far. What does Bowman think is going to happen in there?

“It’s procedure,” he says, and I wonder if he saw the panic on my face. “Your safety is my concern.”

In reality I’m sitting in a police cruiser, but in my mind, tree branches reach out for me with menacing fingers. The grip on my seatbelt tightens, and I look him straight in the eye. “Please don’t leave me in the dark. I don’t want to be alone.”

He holds my gaze for a beat, glances up at the house, and sighs. “Fine, but you stay right beside me.”

I nod and we climb out, but I’m more on edge than I was a minute ago. Wayne rounds the front of the van as we come up beside it. Amotion light over the door flickers on, illuminating us and the driveway. The darkness pushes back to the tree line and hovers there like a living thing.

“Welcome home,” he says with a smile.

I try to smile back, but “home” looks pretty ominous at three in the morning.

He heads up the steps, unlocks the front door, and disappears inside. I wait for Officer Bowman to go in first, but I’m right on his heels. Wayne circles the living room turning on lights, and the place is ablaze in a few seconds. I relax a bit.

He catches my eye from the kitchen. “Figured you wouldn’t be in the mood for shadows tonight.”

I give him a grateful smile and hang by the door while Officer Bowman pokes around. The main room is open and small, with a living room near the door and a kitchen in the back. Everything is yellow, from the plaid couches to the afghan flung over the back of it, but it smells nice. Like caramel or something sweet. It’s way less creepy inside than out.

A woodstove fills the corner to my left, sitting on a little raised brick platform that also supports a firewood holder and one of those racks with a fire poker and little shovel.

Four doors sit in the wall to my right. Three are open. The first looks like a bedroom, with a sheetless queen-size mattress on a log frame. The second is a bathroom. I can’t see well enough into the third, and the last one is closed with a latch on the outside.

“What’s that?” Bowman asks, knocking against the locked door.

“Basement,” Wayne says. “The key is downstairs, but we can get in through the door out back if you want to take a look.”

“I’ll check it out before I leave,” Bowman says, continuing his sweep.

---