Buried (A Bone Secrets Novel 03) (31 page)

It was best if he just kept his mouth shut and kept his eyes down. Everyone was safer that way. And it worked. There were a few moments when he thought he was about to blow it, but nothing ever came of it.

Jamie became his little sister. Her parents became his parents, and he grew to love them. He missed his real parents, but from what he could see in the newspapers, they were getting on with their lives. Cecilia still ran her hospital, and the senator still ran politics. And they had Michael. At least they hadn’t lost all their children.

He’d followed Michael for years. Once the Internet blossomed, he read every article under Michael’s byline. The Internet had been his savior, allowing him to keep an eye of sorts on the people he cared about. Cecilia and the senator were often in the news.

When Brian was born, Chris had wanted to tell everyone. But he couldn’t. Jamie and his parents would have wanted to see the boy. He’d have to return home, exposing himself to anyone and everyone. He never knew if the Ghostman was simply waiting for him to make an appearance. The Ghostman might have decided that it was time to eliminate the final witness. And what if the Ghostman saw he had a son?

He couldn’t let his son get onto the Ghostman’s radar.

He knew what the Ghostman did to boys. He relived it most nights.

The nightmares were less frequent now. Although they’d escalated since the bodies of the children were found. He doubted he’d had more than four hours of sleep any night since the children had been found. The nightmares were made up of old scenes and new. The new scenes were the worst because he wasn’t the boy in the Ghostman’s grip; the boy was Brian.

Eight months ago, he’d read about a ten-year-old boy who’d been attacked in a fast-food restroom. It was a single restroom where the main door locks. The father had tried to beat the door down when he heard his son screaming inside. A manager had to
unlock the door. The boy went to the hospital, needing surgery for his stab wounds. The attacker had been a sexual predator, released early from prison for previous sexual crimes.

Chris had thrown up. And never let his son enter a public bathroom without a look-see first.

The attacked boy’s physical wounds would heal; the emotional wounds would last forever.

How was he going to make Michael understand?

Michael glanced at him as he talked on his cell phone. Over and over. Chris was doing the same. Studying the face, the bone structure, the hair, the mannerisms. The way his brother tipped his head, and his gaze darted about.
Exactly like Brian does.

He went over to his truck, the driver’s door still opened. Brian had scooted over behind the steering wheel and was solemnly watching the two men.

“Who’s that?”

“That’s Michael.”

Brian tipped his head, studying the reporter. “Do you know him?”

Chris took a deep breath. “I do. But I haven’t seen him in a long time. Michael is my brother.”

Brian’s gaze darted to his father’s, eyes searching. “I thought you only had a sister.”

Why did I ever lie to my son?

Chris took both of Brian’s hands and squeezed them, holding that serious gaze. “I should’ve told you I had a brother, too.”

“Is he angry?”

Chris nodded. “He is. There were some things I didn’t tell him. Like I didn’t tell you. It wasn’t the right thing for me to do, and now he’s angry at me. He’s not mad at you.”

“Did he know about me?”

Chris closed his eyes. The plaintive tone in Brian’s voice ripped at his heart. He’d been so wrong to keep Brian from his family. “No. You’re a surprise. A good surprise. And as soon as he’s done being mad at me, he’ll be thrilled that he has a nephew.”

“He’s my uncle.” Brian tried out the word, and looked at Michael over Chris’s shoulder. “I think he’s done being mad.”

Chris gripped Brian’s upper arms and helped him jump down out of the truck. He took the boy’s hand and turned to face Michael. Michael had finished his call and was brushing at his eyes. The anger had vanished from his demeanor; his shoulders slumped.

Chris raised his chin. “This is Brian. Your nephew.”

A slow smile crossed Michael’s face as he looked at the boy. “Hey, Brian. How’s it goin’? Did you know you look just like your dad did when he was your age?”

Brian shook his head. “Nice to meet you, Uncle Michael,” he said in his best-manners voice that Chris had taught him.

Michael froze, and his jaw dropped the slightest bit. “Aw, darn it,” he whispered as fresh tears spilled from his eyes. He reached out and roughly pulled Chris to him in a bear hug. After a few brotherly slaps on Chris’s back, he reached out and ruffled Brian’s hair.

Chris wiped at the wetness on his own face.

Michael sat on the wooden steps to Chuck’s bed-and-breakfast, waiting for Sheriff Spencer, his mind still spinning over the events of the last thirty minutes. He was ready to jump out of his skin with worry for Jamie. Spencer had told him to stay put until
he got there, so he was. Didn’t mean he had to like it. His brain was running wild with images of Jamie in the hands of a killer. Daniel…Chris sat beside him, and Brian was trying a balancing act on the low rail around the deck. Michael was trying to wrap his head around calling his brother Chris.

“Brian’s only heard me called Chris. I’ve called myself Chris in my head for almost twenty years.”

“Mom and Dad might struggle with that a bit,” Michael replied. Chris paled a bit at the thought of their parents and asked Michael to hold off on notifying them just yet.

Right now they had a much bigger issue. “We need to find Jamie.” Michael rubbed at the back of his neck. “Where would he take her?”

Chris shook his head. “I don’t know. I’d hoped the Ghostman was dead, but—”

“What’s his real name?”

Chris shrugged with one shoulder, and the familiar movement triggered a dagger of pain in Michael’s memory.
How many times in the past had he seen Daniel make that move? Chris, not Daniel.

“I don’t know. He made us call him ‘sir.’ When he wasn’t around, we called him the Ghost or Ghostman.”

“There’s got to be something you remember—”

“I remember everything,” Chris said forcefully as he leaned toward Michael, gazes locked. “I’ve relived every memory a thousand times, searching for something to zero in on this guy. Something to identify him so I could sneak in his house and murder him in his bed. If he was dead, then I could get my real family back. I’ve had this goal since I was thirteen. Do you know what it’s like to want the same thing year after year?
I wanted him dead and all you guys safe.
I have worried about you, Jamie, your parents, and Brian
every day
of my life.” Chris looked away,
across the street. “But he’s a fucking ghost, impossible to pin down. And he turned me into one, too.

“I feel like I don’t exist. I live a made-up life and pretend everything is hunky-dory so my son won’t see my stress and worry.”

“Brian has to see it. He has to pick up on it. Maybe it’s subconscious, but Brian is aware on some level that your life isn’t right.” Michael watched Chris’s gaze sweep the landscape, noting every rock and tree. The man was on high alert. How did he keep it up 24/7?

Michael was struggling with a similar level of mental stress. With Jamie out of sight and his hands currently tied, he had the energy to run a marathon boiling under the surface. He struggled to focus on his brother.

“He asks sometimes about other kids to play with. There’re hardly any kids in town, and I homeschool him. Juan’s dog…” Chris rubbed at his face. “Juan’s dog was probably his best friend.
Shit.
Do you know what happened to the dog?”

Michael shook his head. “I didn’t see a dog around.”

“Juan lets him wander. Not the smartest thing to do…sometimes he’s gone for a day or two. I’ll check for him later.”

“How come…” Michael looked Chris up and down for the millionth time. “How’d they not see that you weren’t Chris?”

“They? My parents?”

“Yeah. I can plainly see Daniel in you now. I don’t see Daniel the kid…but I can see that you’re Daniel as an adult.”

Chris shook his head. “I was a mess when I came back. I looked like I’d survived a concentration camp. My face and skull had been beat to hell. I think they saw what they wanted to see. Our hair and eye color were close. I said I was Chris, and they accepted it.

“Do you remember the story a few years ago about the two teenage girls? I think they were in a car accident. One died and the other was severely injured and in a coma for a week or two. Anyway, they misidentified the one who’d died. When the other girl came out of the coma, it wasn’t her parents pacing her hospital room. It was the dead girl’s. Parents see what they want to see. I was in a hospital for months, my head covered in bandages, multiple surgeries on my face. My parents were simply thankful I was alive.”

“I’ve got to tell our parents. We can’t put it off any longer. They’ve been living in hell for two decades.”

Chris shook his head. “Not yet. We don’t have the time to give them the attention this kind of news will take. Another day or two won’t matter. We’ve got to find Jamie and take care of the Ghostman. Then we can tell them together.”

Michael looked at his watch for the millionth time.
Jamie was getting farther away every minute, and he was sitting here on his ass.
“Damn it! Spencer is taking forever. He said he was done at the Buells’.”

“Buells’?” Chris’s focus jerked back to Michael. “What happened at the Buells’?”

Michael brought him up to date.

“They think it’s my gun? I have one like that back at the house…or I had one.
Fuck!
”

Chris pushed off the stairs and paced to the end of the walkway and back, lips silently swearing. Brian abruptly stopped his balancing practice long enough to watch his father. Michael glanced at Brian, gave him a wink, and after a pause, the boy resumed concentrating on his foot placement.

Brian knows more than Chris realizes. He watches out for his father probably as much as his father watches out for him. Not healthy.

“No one can live like something’s gonna jump out of the bushes every minute,” Michael said.

Chris stopped pacing and planted himself in front of Michael. “Then I have to eliminate the threat.”

“Eliminate the Ghostman. That’s already on my to-do list. And every cop in the state of Oregon. I think you’ve got some support going on.”

Chris took a deep breath. “Why our family? Why did the Ghost want to destroy our family? He never talked about…Jamie’s family the way he did ours. It was like he had a mission to mess us up.” He glanced at Brian, but the boy had found a bug on the far side of the wraparound porch to poke at.

“What are you saying?” Michael said slowly.
Was the kidnapping aimed to hurt The Senator?

Frustration crossed Chris’s face. “He never threatened the other kids’ families. Just mine. And I always felt like his focus was on me…I mean…like the other kids were there accidentally.”

“The kidnapping was because of you? To get at The Senator? Or Mom?”

Chris scowled. “But he never said that. I inferred it, I think. The real Chris and I talked about it over and over. Why was the focus on me?”

Michael’s stomach coiled. “Fuck. You didn’t say what happened to Jamie’s brother,” he whispered. “It’s not good, is it?”

Chris shut his eyes. “No. It’s not.”

“Come on, Chris! Move it!” Daniel begged. “We can’t stop now.”

Chris looked like he couldn’t take another step. Daniel had been almost carrying him for several hours. He’d hooked Chris’s arm about his neck and simply dragged. They hadn’t seen water since they’d left the hellhole. And that was yesterday morning. Daniel looked up, trying to judge the time, but he couldn’t see the sun. The forest was too dense.

They would never find a way out of the woods.

Daniel didn’t care. He’d rather die in the woods than spend another minute with the Ghostman. The boys had made an agreement. Death was preferable to the life they’d been living, and they would do it together. It’d been Chris who’d figured out how to keep the bunker lid from fully latching when the Ghostman left. They’d tried for years to get it open. Blocking the latch had taken coordinated timing and distraction during a visit. One boy to distract and the other to slip the small piece of wood into the latch’s socket. From the Ghost’s perspective, the lid had fully locked as he left.