Page 16 of Leave No Trace
‘Brown.’
His eyes narrowed and then a ghost of a smile played over his face. ‘That’s ten points.’
The Grinch had been teaching him Scrabble.
‘Only if you don’t land on a bonus tile.’ I kept my hands loose in my lap. ‘And you should really start stacking your words. Do you know what “oe” is?’
He shook his head.
‘The Scrabble dictionary calls it a westerly wind. You have no chance without oe.’
He grinned, but the smile died as soon as he looked at my hair again. ‘Was it ever long?’
‘Yes.’
He drew back, as if long, brown hair frightened him. As I stared at his head, trying to figure out what was churning inside, he reached out again and picked up one of my hands, turning it over and tracing the lines of purple veins like a map he’d finally gotten permission to inspect. I let him, remaining silent until he began pressing on the pad of my thumb and watching the skin turn white before the blood flooded back into the tissue.
‘We talked last week about your father.’
No reaction, except an increase of pressure on my thumb.
‘You said no one could help you and that’s why you disap-
peared.’
Again, nothing. His head stayed stubbornly down.
‘Lucas.’ I tugged on my trapped hand. ‘What did you need help for?’
The pressure on my thumb was almost bruising now. He squeezed bone and tendon together as the red rushed in and out underneath the skin.
‘You don’t know?’ he asked my hand.
I wrenched it out of his grip, pulling him forward so he had to catch himself before landing in my lap, his face inches from mine. His pupils were almost completely dilated, his breath unsteady.
‘I wouldn’t ask you if I did.’
He drew back and began inching away, but I followed, not allowing him the avoidance. As we edged over the beds of needles, his back started to tremble.
‘I don’t know what to believe. It could be a trap. Look at you.’ He shoved a handful of dead needles in my direction. ‘I thought you were her and that’s why they sent you. To trick me into talking. But she’s not you because you’re fine. You’re right here and you’re fine and she wasn’t. She wasn’t fine.’
He backed up all the way to the base of a pine, pressing himself against the trunk and burying his head in his arms. I crept underneath the sharp branches, heart pounding.
‘Who, Lucas? Who are you talking about?’
He raised his head. ‘Santa’s bag. She was draped over his shoulder, all wrapped up like a bag of toys.’
‘Who?’
Lucas stared into the branches with unfocused eyes and a tremor rocked him back and forth before he swallowed and said in a plain, low voice.
‘The body.’
I saw it in a flash, a woman’s lifeless form thrown over a shoulder, her long brown hair swinging toward the ground. Obstruction of justice and an escape from the world, to a place where justice didn’t exist.
‘Lucas, tell me about her. Did you know who she was?’ I grabbed his arm and the contact yanked him from his memories and sent him reeling back, hitting his head against the pine.
‘I don’t know where she is.’
