Jaxon With an X Page 7

  Oh sure, you didn’t talk to strangers. We all knew that. But you helped those in need. Like a little dog, lost and scared. And so you’d help search.

  The man would spot something. “Is that it? Over there?”

  And every boy, every one, would wander over, out of sight of others, not even aware they had been separated.

  And no one could say what would have happened if someone, say an adult, had come along right then. Probably nothing, right, because the man would keep looking and wander away, and the boy would go home, never aware how close he’d come.

  But the boys there, the ones I shared the cellar with… No one had intervened. No one prevented their fate. They searched for the lost dog until they ended up outside the van, where the man offered a Coke as a thank-you for helping.

  And every boy, every one, went to the cooler inside the van and opened it. They reached for a Coke as the van door slid closed behind them.

  And then it was too late. He was too big. Too powerful.

  And every boy, every one, found the life he had known before was now gone. A new life was beginning.

  And what a miserable thing that was.

  15

  Connor laughed as he watched Trigger romp through the fresh snow. The dog slung the white powder into the air with each twist and spin. Startled by the noise, a bird rose from a frozen tree branch, squawking in irritation as Trigger chased it across the yard. Yapping in joyous celebration, he searched for another bird to pursue. To the dog, the morning’s wintry weather was sheer magic.

  More yellow lab than anything, Trigger exuded pent-up energy every morning, but the cold, wintry air and fresh snow amped him further. He raced in circles with abandon, hopping from drift to drift, lowering his head, and bulldozing the snow with his nose. Reaching the fence, he raised his head and stood still, as if surprised to find his snout caked in the powder. He shook enthusiastically, turned with his tail wagging ferociously, and grinned in doggy delight.

  Connor scooped a mound of the powder, packed it into a snowball, and threw it high into the air. Trigger raced under its arc and waited for the descent. With expert timing honed by hours of chasing Frisbees and tennis balls, he leapt and snapped his mouth around the falling snowball, clearly surprising himself with the explosion of icy chunks. Trigger barked at the shower of debris as his object of fetch disintegrated. Laughter from his boy made him wag his tail even faster.

  With ice glistening off the fur around the frosty smile on his face, he looked back up at his human and waited for the next game. When one didn’t immediately come, he tore across the yard and leapt into the air, planting his big paws on the teenager’s chest and knocking them both sprawling into piles of snow.

  Laughing, Connor sat up as Trigger raced in circles around him. Dogs never lose their sense of wonder, he thought. Or maybe Trigger still celebrated, even five years later, having been adopted out of that crowded shelter where his previous family had abandoned him. Connor had sat on that shelter floor, laughing as the dog danced around him, understanding exactly how he felt. While his freshest wound back then was the death of Duke, the canine who had been his constant companion since he was an infant, Connor’s scars included an often-absent father, an overworked mother, and a long-missing younger brother. Boy and dog bonded instantly in their desire to heal each other.

  Trigger froze in the middle of his snow dance, stared at the front of the house, and chuffed softly, a warning that interruption to their play approached. The crunch of tires through the snow on the driveway reached Connor’s ears long after the dog had detected them. His mother should have been getting home soon from her third-shift job at the hospital, but the dog would have reacted happily to her arrival, not warily.

  The boy stood, brushed the snow off his jeans, and walked from the backyard to the front with the dog dancing around him. When he rounded the corner, he halted at the sight of the black SUV. Trigger sensed his master’s concern and leaned his body against the boy’s legs, his vigorous tail wagging slowing to a gentle swoosh.

  “Good morning, Connor.” The sheriff unfolded his tall frame from the driver’s seat and walked toward them. “Guess you’re happy to have a snow day off from school.”

  Connor shook his head and absentmindedly rubbed the whining dog’s ears. “Graduated last year. Guess you could say every day is off from school now. I’m working second shift—part-time until something permanent opens up.”

  “Out of high school already? How time flies.”

  Connor’s heart pounded, and his palms sweated despite the cold air. When his little brother disappeared, the sheriff—then a detective for the department—had been a regular fixture at the house. At first, he’d seemed to be an ally, leading the pack of police officers searching for Jaxon. But as the hunt stretched into days and seemed to be increasingly focused on their absent father, things grew tense. Connor knew his father couldn’t have harmed either of them, at least not on purpose, even if he did lots of stupid things. His mother had protested the same, though less enthusiastically and with some hints of doubt.

  When Harold Lathan had been found and arrested, things got worse. David Newman was sure he had his man and only needed to break him. Officially, he told the media “no comment,” but the same reporters said over and over that “unnamed sources inside the investigation” expected Harold to confess and lead them to Jaxon’s body. And when that never happened, he was still charged and convicted under a litany of other charges, with numerous allusions to the heinous crime. It was bad enough to have had a father who couldn’t be relied on to show up when he was supposed to. But after the trial, the man had been totally absent, doing his time in a state prison down east.

  With the case all but closed, the sheriff had few reasons to visit. The rare times he did stop by were tense, since he was never very welcome in the Lathan house. Heather doubted Harold’s involvement. Connor knew it wasn’t true.

  When they did see the sheriff’s car pull in their driveway, they both braced themselves for the worst news possible—the discovery of a body. By the time months had become years, their resistance morphed into a reluctant acceptance of the loss. Ultimately, they began to secretly wish, though they never discussed it aloud, that his younger brother’s body would be found so they could stop wondering. Closure seemed merciful as the years passed. No matter how much they hoped the doubts would end, though, each official visit started with a jolt of fear—that day could be the day.

  Connor bristled at the sheriff’s presence. The man had never found his brother and had tagged his father as a murderer. He hadn’t come out for a social call, so he needed to end the stall tactics and move along. “Mom’s still at work. Do you have news I need to tell her?”

  “Sorry, it’s hard for me not to think of you as the little kid I first met. I guess you’re all grown up now.”

  “Sheriff, I grew up that day. Now tell me whatever you’ve got to say.”

  The sheriff glanced again down the road and sighed, his breath forming a big cloud. He returned his look to Connor and nodded. “We think we found Jaxon.”

  Connor’s breath caught as he heard the words they had been expecting for nearly a decade. “When? Where?”

  “Last night, along I-40 in the gorge.”

  Connor looked down at the dog to hide the tears in his eyes. Trigger looked back at him, tail swishing slowly in the snow. “Last night? How would you know it was him? Doesn’t it take time to get DNA results back once you found his…”

  David stepped forward and rested his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “We didn’t find his body. We found him. Alive.”

  Connor shook off the sheriff’s hand and stepped back. Confusion swept over him as he let the words soak in. Trigger whined and licked his hand. His voice cracked as he struggled to speak. “Alive?”

  “Yes, alive. He’s pretty banged up but able to answer some questions. He told us his name, told us about the day he went missing.”

  “You’ve seen him?”


  “More than seen him. I’ve talked to him. I wanted to make sure I did that myself before I came out here and raised your hopes. He’s sitting in a bed at Millerton Community Hospital with your mom.”

  Connor’s hand gripped the dog’s neck to balance himself. The world felt like it was tipping. “Mom’s with him?”

  “Yes. Talking to him. Catching up.”

  “He’s really alive?” Connor dropped to his knees and buried his face in Trigger’s fur. The dog wriggled in delight under his arms. “How’s it possible? Where’s he been?”

  He listened as the sheriff explained about the search, the treatment at the hospital, the questions he had answered so far. “We don’t have all the details yet. Wherever he was wasn’t good, but he survived it.”

  Connor sniffled and tried to focus on the sheriff through teary eyes. For years, he had been prepared to hear his brother was dead, a confirmation of something he always suspected. And he tried praying late at night—alone, without raising his mother’s own hopes—that maybe, just maybe, Jaxon might come home alive. But he struggled to accept that his prayers had been answered. “So he’s really okay?”

  “Put Duke in the house and get in my car. I’ll take you down to see for yourself. He’s been through a lot and is going to need a lot of time and help, but yeah, he seems like he’s doing okay.”

  Connor looked down at the dog. “Trigger.”

  “Huh?”

  “Duke died years ago. This is Trigger.”

  The sheriff looked perplexed and then shrugged. “Okay. Sorry. Put Trigger up, then.”

  An airplane buzzed through the sky as Connor struggled with the news. As much as he wanted it to be true, he couldn’t wrap his head around it. But he did as he was told.

  16

  After dropping Connor off at the hospital, David drove to Shawn’s Trailer Court, a ragtag collection of faded single-wide trailers wedged tightly onto tiny lots. He inched his SUV through the muddy ruts of the road circling the park. Overturned children’s tricycles, rusted cars on blocks, and old dogs on chains dotted the landscape. A heavy woman in a ragged pink robe stood on a set of wooden steps, puffing away on her morning cigarette.

  When David had notified Heather and Connor of Jaxon’s return, neither of them pointed out the disconnect between the boy being alive and David’s theory of Harold’s involvement in the crime. Harold, however, would go straight there, at least if he really hadn’t had anything to do with it.

  Then again, Jaxon’s reappearance didn’t prove Harold wasn’t involved, David reminded himself. It only proved that the theory of the eventual discovery of a hidden body wasn’t going to come true.

  As he shifted his SUV into park, the trailer door in front of him ripped open. Dressed in work boots, blue jeans, and a sweatshirt, Harold Lathan leaned against the frame, crossed his arms, and did his best go-to-hell look. “What are you doing here?”

  David stepped out into the sunshine and faced the man. “I have some news for you. Can I come in for a minute?”

  Without budging from the doorway, Harold growled, “Whatever you think I did, I was at work all night. Fifty people can tell you that. So go to hell and let me sleep.”

  “I’m not here to accuse you of anything.”

  “Well, that would be a new approach for you, Sheriff.”

  David looked around at the neighboring trailers—he could almost touch the closest ones. The woman in the pink robe watched as she lit another cigarette, clearly having decided to stay outside in the cold for the show. He didn’t want to have the conversation in front of her, knowing full well it would feed the small-town rumor mill, but he didn’t have much choice. He turned back to the figure in the doorway. “We found Jaxon last night.”

  Harold sucked in his breath. A startled look covered his face. He uncrossed his arms, and his features softened. “Have you told Heather yet?”

  “Yes, caught her coming off her shift. And I went to the house and told Connor. Took him to the hospital to be with her.”

  Harold blinked, absorbing the words. “Hospital? She took the news that hard? They sedate her or something?”

  David studied the man. He had been so convinced Harold had caused his youngest boy’s disappearance, even if by accident. On the way over, he kept thinking he must have been involved on purpose—maybe even sold the boy for drug debts or something like that. But the confusion on the man’s face said he was as startled by the boy’s reappearance as the rest of them. “She’s with Jaxon. He’s alive. If you’ll let me in, I’ll tell you what I know.”

  Harold stood still in the doorway with a blank look on his face before waving the sheriff inside. He drifted back into the shadows of the trailer as the woman in pink snuffed out her cigarette in disappointment. David stepped up onto the concrete blocks that served as a front porch and then inside. The threadbare curtains let the morning light seep in. On the counter in front of a small microwave, steam curled from a bowl of instant oatmeal. A half-empty cup of coffee sat beside it.

  Harold pointed to a ratty couch in front of the TV and leaned against the kitchen counter. The sheriff removed his hat, settled onto the couch, and related all that had happened overnight. Once the story was complete, he fell silent and waited.

  Harold’s hand shook, the coffee sloshing in the cup. He wasn’t just unnerved by the news, David thought—that was an alkie’s shake. Despite the early hour, the man craved a drink. A beer, whiskey, anything. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed, a clicking sound evident in the room. “What’s he saying?”

  David cocked his head. That was a weird question, not the first thought he expected to hear from a concerned father who had just learned his missing son had been found. Why would he be worried about what the boy said unless he’d been involved? “Nothing yet. But he will. He’ll tell us exactly what happened that morning.”

  “Good. I hope you catch the son of a bitch who took my son.” Harold picked up his coffee cup, hand still trembling, and slurped. “So where’s he been?”

  David held onto his suspicions. “He hasn’t said… yet.”

  Harold set the mug on the counter and looked out the window. “Can I see him?”

  Another thick pause filled the room until the sheriff slowly nodded. “That’s up to Heather, of course.”

  “I just want to see my son, Sheriff.”

  “We’ll have a deputy on the door all the time even if Heather says you can see him. Until we know what happened and who took him. You understand that?”

  David watched Harold clench his hands into fists, his forearms rippling the tattoos under his pushed-up sleeves. The man’s lips moved as though he was counting off his anger. When he spoke, his voice was controlled and clipped. “I know you don’t believe me. Never have. But I didn’t have a damn thing to do with Jaxon’s disappearance. And I want as much as anyone to see that whoever took him gets caught and punished. I’d love to find him myself before you do, so I can deliver the punishment personally. Then I’ll gladly let you arrest me for something I actually did do.”

  Harold gripped the counter and leaned forward, his head down and eyes hidden. David listened to him sucking in deep breaths and blowing them out slowly. Once calmed, the man looked back up. “I’m good with a deputy on the door keeping him safe. Just make sure he’s keeping his eyes open for anyone, not just me.”

  “We’ll be watching. Closely. Trust me on that one.” The sheriff leaned back on the sofa. When he resumed talking, his voice was lower and calmer. “Come to the hospital. I’ll convince Heather to let you see him as long as somebody else is in the room.”

  Harold grunted and looked out the window at the snow melting off the branches. “Fine. I can live with that. All I want is for that boy to be safe.”

  The sheriff stood and dusted off his hat. “I’ll give you a ride.”

  “With you?” Harold snorted and reached behind him for his own car keys. “No thanks. I prefer fresh air.”

  17

  On his return to the
hospital, David stopped by Abe’s Market for a fresh biscuit and a cup of the best coffee in town, heaps better than the lukewarm, watery-brown liquid the hospital served in its cafeteria. The primary draw of Abe’s, however, was a healthy dose of local gossip, courtesy of the regulars swapping tall tales at the Liars’ Table.

  Abe’s son, Danny, had taken over running the market, freeing the older man to hold court at the table with the rest of the retired men. They were all members of the volunteer fire department, though they had long since left the smoke eating and dangerous rescues to the younger men in town. They kept scanners running to stay up to date on what little action Miller County saw, mostly accidents out on the interstate as tourists and truckers misjudged the sharp, winding curves of the interstate.

  Abe called out, “Sheriff, figured you’d be too busy to come in here, what with all the excitement out on the highway last night.”

  David paid Danny for his order then sauntered over to the table. “Yep, a few wrecks on a snowy night. Y’all know how that goes.”

  Abe exchanged sly smiles with the men around the table. David understood as well as they did that part of the game was them drawing the details out of him. “True, true, but I meant the boy you found.”

  “Oh yeah, that too.”

  “Heard his name was Jaxon. ‘With an x’ is how the deputy said it.” Abe gestured toward the scanner propped up on the table.

  “Yep, so the boy said.”

  “Quite a coincidence, considering that missing Lathan kid all those years ago.”

  “Yep.”

  “So is it him?”

  “We’re looking at all possibilities, just like we always do. But of course we would tell the family before we made anything like that public.”

  Abe sipped his coffee, his eyes focused on the sheriff through the steam. “If it was that boy, makes you wonder what really happened way back then. You know, with his father and all.”