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  The wind rattled the overhead door, making Anna nervous. She didn’t want Travis catching her with the screwdriver, so she slid it under the car’s seat, out of view but easily accessible from where she’d be lying. She spread another thick layer of burlap bags atop the folded blanket for added warmth, and in an act of defiance, took the half-bottle of beer from behind the nail keg and despite the taste, finished it. She threw it against the wall, but it didn’t explode like Travis’s thrown bottles had, though it did shatter when it hit the floor. That was good enough for her. She returned to the car, and, conscious of her left arm, clumsily slid herself into the folded blanket, between the two thick layers of burlap. She gathered her hair and tucked it into the blanket with her. Normally it was waist-length, and so platinum blonde that it practically glowed. Now it was dirty, dull, and tangled beyond hope.

  She tried not to think about Travis, and if she were lucky, Travis wouldn’t think about her. Instead, she thought about Hannah and her flying above giant fields of flowers under warm and sunny skies.

  Saturday

  March 15, 2008

  Chapter 8

  The slamming door sounded like an explosion. Anna quickly sat up, reached out reflexively, and then retracted her left arm upon feeling the bite of pain. A shape darted past the car in the darkness, and then the overhead door began rising noisily. The Arctic wind that had howled so plaintively for entry—finally unrestrained—stopped its woeful song. It entered the building and filled the car with swirling dust and a cutting cold. Anna dropped back to the floor of the car and tried to pull the bags back on top of her.

  The car’s front door opened, waking the dome light, and Travis dropped heavily into the driver’s seat. “Fuck… fuck… fuck… fuck… fuck!” he cried, a mindlessly chanted litany soaked in blind fear.

  The engine roared to life and the car raced backwards, the squeal of the tires ringing on the metal walls as they hurtled out of the building. Not stopping to close the door, Travis slammed it into gear and floored the car off the property, barely maintaining control as he hit the pavement. Wind rushed into the careering car through the opened window with hurricane ferocity, negating any warmth from the burlap bags or the blanket. Anna hunkered against the back of the driver’s seat, willing Travis to close the window and turn on the heat. He recklessly negotiated the streets of Kearney, lurching around corners and bucking over railroad tracks. He came to a jarring stop and Anna heard a heavy clack from under the seat. She reached in the narrow gap for the screwdriver, but couldn’t feel it.

  “What the fuck!” Travis roared, getting out of the car.

  Did he find the screwdriver? Anna wondered.

  Rounding the car, Travis opened the passenger’s side door. Unable to close the window, he slammed the door shut and kicked it again.

  “Fucking piece of shit!” he muttered as he got back into the car.

  They started moving again… as did the wind, pushing between the burlap layers and cutting into Anna like blades made of ice. Travis merged onto the highway and the wind increased as he accelerated. No matter how she positioned herself, the blankets, or the bags, the wind found her. Her feet, her arms, and her face were on fire from the cold. There was no relief.

  “I want to go home!” she cried, unheard in the battering wind.

  The pain was blinding by the time Travis pulled the car off the pavement. Anna knew by the distance they had driven since they left the pavement that they were back at Sandy Channel, and the horror she felt was complete.

  Were they going to stay all night, again? How long will she have to stay in this cold?

  “Jesus!” Travis said from the front seat, rubbing his hands together.

  The dome light flared, dipping Anna into transitory blindness. He had left the car running and Anna could feel momentary licks of heat teasing her where she lay, but it was too little to offer a respite. She tried rubbing her feet on the burlap to generate warmth, but the material was too rough for her cold distressed flesh. She lay her head back down and through the gap under the seat she saw the giant screwdriver laying on the floor near Travis’s feet… well out of her reach.

  She heard a lighter flicked and Anna soon smelled smoke, but it wasn’t the cat pissy smell of pot, or the unpleasant reek of cigarette. This was worse. It smelled like matches, rotten eggs, and Mom’s fingernail polish. Anna knew, somehow, that this was what made Travis a lot uglier than usual. Hideous ugly… and that terrified her more than the cold, because when Travis was hideous ugly, he was dangerous.

  She wanted her mother desperately. She wanted to be out of the cold and home with Mom and Hannah. Anna had to tell Travis to take her home. She had to demand it! She lifted herself onto the rear seat, closing her eyes to the pain in her hands, her arm, her feet… everywhere, and settled herself into the corner farthest away from Travis, who was holding a lighter to the end of a weird glass tube that he held pinched between his lips. The stink of the drug was worse here than on the floor.

  Anna shivered so badly her whole body quaked, but she garnered up her nerve and yelled at Travis, “Bring me home!”

  Travis’s eyes shifted to the rearview mirror. He was expressionless, but Anna could feel the loathing behind his gaze. “Where’s the money?” he said. His voice was as dead and impassive as his eyes and the resounding threat in them, but Anna stared defiantly back at him.

  Travis slammed the dashboard with his fist and turned on Anna. He was much scarier face to face. His eyes tiny black beads that vibrated as he tried to focus on her. Drool ran from the corner of his mouth to mingle with the grubby stubble beneath.

  “Where’s the fucking money!” Travis shrieked and reached for her. Anna raised her right arm in defense and inadvertently knocked the pipe from his hand, sending it spiraling over the front seat, to bounce off the dashboard and fall to the floor. Travis spun to retrieve the pipe and Anna took that moment to slide quickly back to the floor.

  Too concerned about the welfare of his pipe, or seduced by the high it promised, Travis ignored Anna and lit up, again filling the car with its acrid haze, despite the open window.

  Anna was trying to return to the place inside her where pain, cold, and reality receded, when she heard the low rumble of an approaching engine.

  Someone’s coming!

  Anna tried to lift herself from the floor, but the car bounded forward and sped off in the opposite direction of the approaching vehicle. They bounced back onto the pavement of the highway, the cold wind invading the car, and Anna was once more feeling the pressure in her bladder. The reality of it all happening again was too much. Anna stood up and pushed against the back of Travis’s head with all her might.

  “I want my mother!” she yelled and pushed again. “I want Hannah!”

  The car pitched violently and pulled to the side of the road.

  “I want to go home!”

  Travis jumped out of the car and yanked open the rear door. Anna pulled away from him, but he leaned in, grabbed a handful of her hair, and yanked her brutally from the car. Still clutching the blanket, Anna fell to the pavement, landing hard on her knees.

  “You want to go home?” Still seizing her hair, he tugged her to her feet. “Then GO fucking home, you bitch! Go!” Travis bellowed and kicked Anna brutally in the bottom. The toe of his work boot slammed directly into her coccyx, bringing Anna back to her knees. Shrieking at the pain, Anna tried to crawl away from him, stumbling on the blanket she still held.

  “Go! Your home’s right across that field!” Travis raged. “Your mother’s there waiting for you!”

  Right across that field? Was it true? Anna got to her feet, no longer noticing the cold—only the pain. She recognized where they were—near the overpass where the highways crisscrossed—and her house was right across Mr. Benton’s field! She could even see the lights from the houses on their street.

  Travis slammed her on the back. The pain was so intense and coming from so many directions that Anna’s only coherent thoughts were to m
ove away from him and towards home. When Anna’s bare feet hit the ice-glazed dirt of Benton’s farm, she wasn’t even aware of Travis driving away.

  PART 2

  Wednesday

  June 23, 2010

  Chapter 9

  Riverside, Massachusetts

  The thirty or so minutes of granular grayness that connected nighttime to dawn were often ominous and sometimes disastrous. Obscured by shadows, objects hid and created false imagery, often forcing bad judgment. Back at the shop, many tales made the rounds about drivers backing their trucks into buildings, taking out plate glass windows, snagging power lines, and even occasionally running down a jogger or pedestrian. These happenings frequently occurred during the blurred moments when night transformed into dawn and darkness gave way to light. Despite all of that, Isaac Rawls found the cold grayness of pre-dawn mystical, sadly beautiful, and even a little spooky.

  Recalling the cautionary tales from his workplace, he carefully maneuvered his truck into the dreary alleyway between Madam Curry’s Indian restaurant and Riverside Furniture. Taking it slowly, he cleared his outer lift arms by mere inches. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d nipped the corner of the furniture shop with his garbage truck, and judging by the building’s rounded and chipped red bricks, it had been problematic to many a truck driver before him. He squared his lift arms to the dumpster, engaged the brake, and shook his head in bemused wonder at the garbage bags piled around and in front of it. They made Isaac think of bodies at wartime, unfortunate soldiers around a foxhole.

  Isaac actually liked his job. Contrary to what seemed the common assessment, being a waste management worker—or trash jockey, as Isaac bluntly labeled himself—was not a terrible gig. The pay was decent enough, especially for someone lacking a degree. It put plenty of food on the table and played a large role in pushing his two kids through college, an opportunity he’d never had.

  Behind the wheel, Isaac dealt with few people. He wasn’t anti-social—quite the opposite—but people tended to avoid anyone who wore the uniform it seemed, as if proximity to it might lower their social distinction… degradation by association. He felt eyes on him when he went into stores or restaurants, and believed that many classified him as unrefined, or as a subordinate. At those times, he would remind himself that it was the stereotype they shunned, not the person. Isaac appreciated the shelter of the truck’s cabin when in uniform. The only inconsiderate types he had to tolerate were the occasional impatient driver with a stick up his ass, vagrants (furred or fleshed), and those who were too lazy or entitled to lift the dumpster cover and they threw their garbage on the ground. Sure, dumpsters were dirty and gross, but that’s why God invented soap, right? Many jockeys just lifted and dropped the dumpster, leaving the bags and boxes lying around for the patrons to eventually clear, or for scavengers to shred and toss about. Isaac never left a mess—he figured doing it would make him just as bad as those who littered—and he didn’t mind picking the messes up if they weren’t too bad.

  Isaac climbed out of the truck, his knees and hips snapping in protest like old, dry twigs. His jumping-from-the-truck days were far behind him now. Slipping on his work gloves, he pulled a baseball bat from behind the driver’s seat. The Louisville Slugger was an asset of his job and a necessity. People disposed of countless treasures daily, a veritable gold mine that he had quarried well over the years. He carried the bat because critters—both the two-legged and four-legged varieties—were often a concern in his business. He frequently came across dogs, cats, rats, and skunks, digging and poking around dumpsters. They typically spooked as soon as the truck made its appearance, but there were the more stubborn ones, like raccoons, opossums, and humans, that would stick around and challenge you. Willingly contending with them was foolish, especially those with babies or rabies.

  Employing the bat, Isaac nudged the left side slider open, gave the dumpster a good whack, and readied himself. No cats or rats jumped out, which was reassuring. He jabbed the bat between the rear of the dumpster and the wall of the Indian restaurant and discovered something wedged in there. From his side of the bat, it felt too soft to be metal, wood, or stone. Animals usually escape out the opposite side, or came forward to challenge you. What concerned Isaac was that nothing happened. Whatever was behind there was a mystery. It could be anything from a bag of clothing, a vagabond too drunk to acknowledge him, or the thing all truck drivers dreaded—a lifeless body.

  What kind of body? That was the question.

  Dead animals weren’t uncommon, the majority of them were pets discarded by owners who lived nowhere near the dumpster and didn’t want to pony up the cost of proper disposal. Worst of all were dead humans, deposited there by foul play, misfortune, or just sheer stupidity. Fortunately, Isaac had never come across one of those, though some of his coworkers had. He hoped that that wouldn’t change today.

  Isaac retrieved a flashlight from the truck and returned. He aimed the light beam behind the dumpster and what he saw sent a bolt of dread down his spine clear to his heels.

  A little girl!

  “Oh, my God, please be alive,” Isaac said, but the child did not respond or even acknowledge his presence. “Oh crap, this ain’t good.”

  The girl was hunkered down with her curved back to him. She should have moved when he poked her with the bat, but instead she stayed motionless.

  Even through the dirt, her bedraggled hair was a long and knotted chaos that was so strikingly blonde that Isaac thought she might be albino. He wondered if maybe she had died in that position. If she was breathing, it was impossible to tell from her thin, bowed back.

  Isaac moved to the other side of the dumpster, bent beside it, and aimed the light beam towards her. She was shoeless, with filthy hands and feet. In her left hand, she clutched a half-eaten candy bar. She wore only a heavily stained, oversized white tee-shirt with a truncated view of Elmo peeking over her shirt-draped knees. It wasn’t exactly cold out, but it was cool for a June morning, and it had rained for the majority of the night.

  She had either green or hazel eyes that stared vacantly ahead as if she were trying to gaze at some distant point beyond the restaurant’s wall. He refocused the light beam more directly to her eyes. A shiver and a profound feeling of sadness ran through him. He had often heard of haunted eyes, but had never really understood the expression until now. There was no mistaking them.

  “Hi? Can you hear me?” Isaac asked, still getting no response.

  What had happened to this child? Any scenario he imagined was not a good one, and a deep anger blossomed within him at whoever had caused this.

  Isaac moved the light slightly and saw that her irises had dilated.

  She’s alive!

  He wedged his shoulder between the dumpster and the wall and pushed with all his strength, widening the gap. As the child tumbled forward, he reached down and stopped her fall. Amazed and distressed by how light she was, he lifted her. She did not resist, but allowed Isaac to wrap her in his arms and settle her head on his shoulder as he had experienced with his own children so many years before.

  “Hang on, honey, we’re going to get you some help,” Isaac promised.

  As he pulled his cell phone out and called 911, he tried to recall the first aid classes he had taken when his children were young. The girl was in shock, which was clear by her stare and shallow breathing. Isaac finished the call and put away his phone.

  Moving his face closer to hers, he felt the chill in her skin. Isaac opened his jacket, lifted the child, and wrapped her in it, pressing her snug against his chest, hoping to lend his warmth. It felt as if he were holding a bag of ice.

  Holding her firmly, Isaac climbed into the heated cab on the passenger side of his truck and waited for the police. As the child warmed, her body began trembling. He held her even tighter, not concerned that her filthy hair pressed against his face. Her hair, though soiled and smelling of old dirt, also had a vague underlying fragrant scent that was sweet … floral.

 
Whose child is this?

  Isaac invoked an endless string of circumstances. Had someone imprisoned her and she escaped? Did someone leave her for dead near the dumpster? Was she the child of an addict who was lying dead somewhere? He thought of his daughter, Diana, who was now thirty-two. What if this had been her? How could people let this happen to their children… to anyone’s children?

  When the Riverside police and ambulance services arrived a few minutes later, Isaac was in tears, distraught by the condition of the child and the depravity of those responsible. He held the dirty, ashen-skinned child protectively, reluctant to release her to the EMTs until they covered her with the warm blanket he’d demanded. He watched them secure her onto a gurney, the straps looking so huge and obscene across her tiny form, he feared they would hurt her.

  “Be careful,” he said. An EMT turned a considerate eye to him and Isaac could see that the girl was in good hands for now. They lifted her into the ambulance, and when the doors swung shut, Isaac had an almost overpowering urge to follow them and make sure she was safe.

  Sitting in a cruiser, Isaac recounted the events of the morning with the police officer. They had little information to offer each other about the girl, there were no recent Amber Alerts, and a quick look in the database had turned up nothing. By the time they were done, Isaac was two hours behind on his rounds, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care. All he could think about was the tragic little hazel-eyed girl.

  Thursday

  June 24, 2010

  Chapter 10

  Debbie Gillan had been immediately intrigued by the case of the extraordinary little girl, and was pleased when her boss, Marjorie Faulkner, appointed the case to her. Having a tendency to undermine herself, Debbie wondered if the decision rested more on the child’s admission to Riverside Hospital than on her particular merits, since the hospital was convenient to her home. Debbie avoided most hospitals whenever possible, but especially Riverside since the incident with Henry the vagrant during the Ricky Lourdes case two years before. She blamed that evening for triggering the recurring visions she’d been enduring since.