Drawn Into Darkness(92)

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“You know us?” Quinn blurted, staring at the boy standing in the doorway of the blue shack, the victimized boy he had given hardly a thought in his desperation to find Mom.

“You know us?” Forrest echoed, sounding just as much taken aback.

“I know your mom.” His voice had a pleasant huskiness, a burr.

He spoke quietly, but Quinn nearly shouted at him. “Where is she?”

“Isn’t she right over there?” In the semidarkness, the boy gestured toward the pink shack. “Her house?”

“No!” Quinn could not help stepping forward as if in threat.

The boy reached inside the doorway for the switch to turn on the back porch light. Sixty watts, maybe, but to Quinn it seemed too bright; it showed too much, reminding him that this kid had been through a lot. Quinn saw his pale, bruised face, his wide eyes, his bitten lip, his childish mouth trembling—no, not just his mouth; he shook all over. He had been brave enough to turn on the light, but he quaked and swayed, clinging to the doorway’s frame for support.

Quinn exclaimed, “We won’t hurt you!”

He felt his brother shove past him, hurrying forward. “He’s falling over.” Forrest caught the kid by his shoulders and eased him to a seat on the slab of pavement outside the back door. He knelt beside him. “Are you going to faint? Head down between your knees.”

The kid resisted. “I’ll be all right when I eat.” With one faltering hand he fumbled at the loaf of bread he had dropped.

Quinn stepped in, opening the bread bag and handing the boy a slice. Cheap soft white bread, about as much good as giving the kid a cube of sugar. Quinn found the salami and cheese, sat down on the ground with his long legs crossed, and started to put together a sandwich for the boy. “What’s your name?”

“Justin,” he said with his mouth full.

“Justin. Okay, Justin, take a breath and tell us how you know our mom.”

He waited with strained patience while the boy swallowed bread and took more than one breath. Finally Justin said, “I lived here with my uncle Steve. Um, Stoat.”

Quinn noted the past tense but said nothing.

“And?” Forrest coaxed.

“And Miss Lee Anna came over on Sunday.” Quinn saw the boy’s eyes dart as if looking for a place to hide from things he didn’t want to say. “Unc—um, Stoat knocked her out and put her on a bed with handcuffs.”

This would have been hard for Quinn to follow if he had not already seen that bed. God. That awful bed. Blood on the bare mattress, blood on the handcuffs. Mom’s.

Quinn bit his lip to remain silent, but Forrest cried out, “Why?”

With raw pain in his voice Justin said, “Because of me.” He ducked his head, hiding his face.

Quinn shoved the sandwich into his hands and said softly to his brother, “Forrie, don’t interrupt. Let him tell it his way.” He watched Justin eat and waited until the boy’s head came back up before he asked, “Then what happened?”

Justin swallowed, then swallowed again, then said, “Tuesday it rained. So Tuesday night, he took her out to the swamp to kill her. And me, I figured, because—anyway, I snuck a baseball bat into the truck and when we got there I—I—I don’t know why I didn’t just kill him then and there. Anyway, I hit him on the head, and me and Lee, I mean your mother, we went into the river. . . .”

Unfathomable emotions rattled the boy’s voice like a cage. As if he couldn’t stand to listen, Forrest said, “Justin, take your time. Are you saying you saved Mom’s life?”

Again, Justin gulped twice before answering. “I thought so. We ran off into the swamp and we about starved until last night—no, night before last—we found a shack with some food. Then it took me until tonight to get back here for more food and fresh clothes and some shoes because my feet are a mess.” He stiffened as if remembering danger temporarily forgotten, and his husky voice grew tight. “I need to get away. If Stoat finds me here, I’m dead.”

Quinn said, “We won’t let anybody hurt you, Justin,” surprised to realize how much he meant it. This soft-spoken, scared, gutsy, messed-up kid had walked right into his heart when he wasn’t looking, high-top Chucks and all. Quinn had a pretty good idea that Justin had invaded Mom’s heart similarly. And that Mom had somehow found out he was being sexually abused and had gotten herself in trouble trying to save him. According to Justin, they had both escaped from Stoat. But there was too much the boy wasn’t saying. Where was Mom now?

Forrest surely had the same question, but he broached it indirectly. “Justin, when was the last time you saw Mom?”