Page 21 of Leave No Trace
‘What about your mom?’ he asked after an awkward pause.
I shrugged, dousing some cotton balls in iodine. ‘She didn’t stick around. Take off your slipper and put your foot on the
table.’
He did, letting me examine it. There were two shallow scrapes from Jasper’s incisors with some abrasions on either side. I swabbed the worst of it, ignoring his hiss of pain. The longer I wiped the blood off and applied bandages, the more surreal the situation became. Lucas Blackthorn was sitting at my kitchen table like he’d just dropped by to hang out. I should have called Congdon the minute I saw him. Or I should’ve let Jasper hold him while I phoned the police. As if it knew what I was thinking, my cell phone bleeped to tell me I had another message from Dr Mehta and it finally occurred to me why she’d been calling.
‘There’s probably a manhunt out for you now.’
‘Why?’
‘You tend to attack people, haven’t you noticed?’
‘So does your dog. Why isn’t he chased down and locked up?’
Raising an eyebrow, I swung a hand toward the living room where Jasper could clearly be heard scratching at the kennel door.
Lucas smiled with chagrin. ‘Are you going to turn me in?’
‘Any minute now.’ I stuffed the bloody slipper back on his foot, trying not to think about why I was postponing the inevitable. He’d assaulted the couple who’d found him robbing the outfitter store; he’d choked, fought, and shoved me; and his file at Congdon clearly labeled him dangerous. But he was also injured and there was something different about him in the dull light of my kitchen, the way he was still inspecting the house even now, drinking in the details of the spice rack and coffeepot with an intrusiveness that was almost endearing, a boy who’d never learned manners, who’d never been told not to stare.
‘How’s your shoulder?’
He ran a hand over the coat. ‘It aches a little. Not bad.’
So, the pain meds were still working. He hadn’t been loose long.
‘Did you strangle anyone to get out this time?’
‘Didn’t need to.’ His face split into an unexpected grin and he began chatting freely. ‘I pretended to be sleeping until they took my handcuffs off to change my clothes. When they left to get something, I slipped out the window, took a jacket from an unlocked truck, and headed toward the lake. From there it was easy to find your house.’
I grabbed an ice pack from the freezer, remembering how I’d showed him my street on the map of Duluth. It was a mistake real psychiatrists wouldn’t make, giving personal information to their patients.
As I came back to sit at the table Lucas described the people he’d seen roaming the streets: the homeless, the packs of college kids, the drunken tourists, and the older couples bundled in their peacoats for a dinner on the town. I waited for him to finish, then casually asked if anyone had noticedhim. As far as I knew, he was totally unaware of his fame or the controversy his reappearance had created. He said he’d stuck to the shadows, no one had spoken to him. I nodded, glancing into the darkness outside the window.
‘Why?’ The question slipped out before I could find a more professional frame for it. ‘Why are you here?’
His gaze lingered on me. Slowly he drew my hand across the table, taking the ice pack from me and setting it down.
‘A couple reasons. The first is that I missed talking to you, too.’
Too?I pulled back in surprise as it registered. ‘You were awake?’
‘Sort of. I was surfacing when you were there and by the time I woke up, you’d left.’
‘I would have come back tomorrow.’
He shrugged. ‘That wasn’t soon enough.’
The way he said it made heat flood my cheeks and, embarrassed, I ducked my head and started to remove my boot, but he lifted my foot onto his lap.
‘What are you doing?’
‘You fixed my foot. I’ll fix yours.’ He pulled off the boot and sock to reveal the swollen, wrapped ankle. ‘I saw you limping when you got out of the car. What happened?’
‘Gymnastics injury.’ I nodded to the ice pack, which he applied to the swelling,
His hands closed around my calf and beneath my foot I could feel his whole body tightening. He seemed to be searching for something in me, a sign, and I didn’t know what to do besides return his turbulent stare and wait.
