The Children and the Blood (4 page)

She looked up at him, baffled.

“Jonathan said you liked to help him around the farm,” he explained with a shrug. “And he mentioned how you needed a pocket knife. I know it’s not the most practical one in the world, but I thought you might like it anyway.”

“I love it,” she said, starting to grin.

Relief spread over his features. “Good. I just wasn’t sure if–”

Ashley dropped the knife to the cushions and jumped up, throwing her arms around him. Taken back, he hesitated and then returned the hug.

“I’m sorry I have to go, honey,” he said.

She nodded into his shoulder. Patrick squeezed her tighter.

A moment went by, and then she straightened and returned to the window seat.

He smiled. “Get some sleep, okay?”

Ashley chuckled, hearing her own words to Lily repeated back. “I will,” she promised.

He rose and patted her shoulder. “I’ll see you in the morning.” Crossing the room, he paused by the door and then glanced back. “I love you, kiddo.”

“Love you too, Dad.”

Nodding again, he hesitated another moment, and then let the door shut behind him as he left the room.

Ashley’s gaze returned to the knife. Picking it up carefully, she turned it over in her hand, watching the mother-of-pearl shimmer in the light. A smile crossed her face as she flicked it closed and then slid it into her pocket. Practical wasn’t everything, but she wasn’t sure she’d ever risk damaging her father’s gift by using it for anything as rough as working with Jonathan.

Her questing hand found the paperback book where she’d left it beneath the window seat pillow. With a small grin for Jonathan’s admonishments, she settled herself deeper into the cushions, flipped to her bookmark, and began to read.

Eight Hours Ago

“Dude, your parents are going to be so pissed,” Travis laughed, tossing his empty beer can deep into the junkyard. “I mean…
damn
. You know if the tow truck brought it back to the house yet?”

Cole didn’t answer. His friend’s amusement was starting to grate on him. Travis could laugh. Travis still had a truck. He hadn’t smashed his only means of transportation into a tree in an attempt to impress the head cheerleader by challenging her quarterback boyfriend to a race.

Travis wouldn’t be the laughingstock of the school tomorrow.

Leaning back on the hood of his custom-painted truck, the other boy grinned at the stars. “Classic.”

Taking a breath, Cole shoved up from the hood and hopped to the ground, wincing as his muscles protested the motion.

“You’re leaving?” Travis called.

“Might as well get it over with,” Cole replied tiredly. “See you when they let me out in a year.”

“Or ten,” Travis agreed, popping open another beer.

“Right,” Cole muttered as he slid through the gap in the junkyard fence and stepped onto the street.

Stoplights glared painfully as he crossed the empty intersection and started toward home. His head still ached from the accident, but it wasn’t anything a few aspirin couldn’t stop. The shouts he knew were coming, on the other hand, promised to go on for quite some time.

The neighborhoods grew in affluence as he walked, like an architectural timeline brought to life. Old homes in formerly coveted zip codes gave way to crisp new developments with only shreds of personality in their design, and then even those surrendered to eccentric residential monstrosities advertising money with every line.

He kept going. The houses fell behind him and the sidewalks disappeared. In the distance, small orbs of light perched ten feet off the ground, affixed to a concrete wall with fashionably twisted iron spikes and petite security cameras on top. A metal gate brought the road to an irrefutable halt, and roadside signs warned the unwary that access was restricted to residents only. To one side of the gate, the blue-green bubble of the guard station held one of the interchangeable rent-a-cops idly watching a basketball game. The man barely glanced up as Cole swiped his pass card and then slipped through the pedestrian access set into the wall.

Flawless lawns in keeping with the homeowner’s association’s specifications fronted the equally flawless homes on either side of the street, and identical lampposts glowed in each yard. Tiredly, he continued down the road, avoiding the grass. He didn’t need to give anyone else cause to yell at him tonight.

Too soon, the gray house was in front of him, its neutral shutters and roof rendering it indistinguishable from every other home on the street. A rigidly straight sidewalk led from the curb to the door, and not even a brightly colored flower threatened to differentiate the yard from its neighbors.

Ignoring the walkway, he circled to the back door, hoping Robert and Melissa wouldn’t spot him. As he passed the garage, he caught a glimpse through the window of his truck draped by a tarp and safely concealed from the sight of any passerby.

He rolled his eyes. Motion-sensitive security lights flared to life as he came near the back door, making him wince. Shielding his eyes, he climbed the steps and then reached for the silver handle.

The door whipped open.

“Where have you been?” Melissa demanded. Her gaze swept the drive, searching for the prying eyes of the eternally curious neighbors. “Get in here.”

Without waiting for him to respond, she grabbed his arm, trying to drag him through the door. Shrugging her off, he eyed her askance as he continued inside. Scanning the yard again, she scowled and then firmly shut the door.

“Give me that,” she snapped, turning to snatch the gate pass from his pocket. “How dare you run off without telling me?”

Fuming, she busied herself with burying the card in a drawer.

Ignoring the display, he walked through the pristine kitchen, his reflection following him as he passed the gleaming metal appliances. In the living room, Robert was sullenly polishing the chrome coffee table, while behind him the muted television scrolled images of the latest crime spree in a distant city. A carefully organized bucket of cleaning supplies sat near the man’s knee, and around the rest of the room, every nondescript pillow and decoration had been ruthlessly straightened.

“What’s going on?” Cole asked.

“Your uncle Edmund is coming over,” Melissa said, pushing past him and then snatching the polishing rag from Robert’s hand. Wordlessly, the man glared at her back before heading to the kitchen for another cloth.

“You called
Vaughn
?” Cole asked, incredulous despite belatedly feeling that he should have anticipated this. As one of the cadre of therapists paid to keep Cole in Melissa Smith’s idea of perfection, ‘uncle’ Edmund Vaughn had become a recurrent visitor over the years – summoned every time she felt her adopted son needed a bit of tweaking. The sight of the truck would have sent her to DEFCON One. He was surprised the man wasn’t installed in the living room already.

“What did you expect?” she snapped as Robert returned and silently began cleaning the console table by the stairway. “The school called about your little adventure today. They took care of the police, you’ll be happy to know. It won’t go on your record. But we couldn’t exactly let something like that go unaddressed, could we? Now go upstairs and get changed. He’ll be here any minute.”

She attacked the chrome table with a vengeance, and from across the room, he could hear the polishing cloth squeak as it waged war on the microscopic tarnish.

He shoved his annoyance down, knowing any display of emotion would only provoke later retribution. Jaw muscles jumping, he headed for the stairs, ignoring Robert as he passed.

Robert’s hand shot out, snagging Cole’s arm. The man’s nose twitched and fury rose in his eyes. “Have you been drinking again?” he growled quietly.

Cole jerked his arm, trying to break the other man’s grip. Robert’s fingers tightened painfully.

“Is that what happened today?” Robert asked. “You were
drunk
? Do you have
any
idea the trouble you could cause if–”

Seething, the man cut off, his gaze snapping to Melissa. Caught up in exorcising the demons of dirt and dust, the woman was momentarily ignoring them. Robert hesitated, and in his eyes, Cole could see the man weighing the factors. Melissa’s hysteria. Uncle Edmund’s bill. His own desire to return to the relative safety of his study and his firearm memorabilia as soon as possible.

With a small shove, Robert released Cole’s arm. “We’ll discuss this later,” he muttered.

Trying not to scoff, Cole continued up the stairs. Behind him, Melissa snapped at Robert, who instantly retaliated by flipping the television audio back on. A heated argument ensued, unintelligible beneath the sound of a reporter telling of yet another apartment fire dozens of miles away.

As he reached the second floor, he sighed, grateful for even this limited distance from the couple. To his left, Melissa’s door was closed, though a few steps farther down the hall, the light in Robert’s room had been left on. Neither of them had slept in the same bedroom since the year after they adopted Cole, a fact which was guarded fanatically from anyone outside their four walls.

Ignoring the basket of laundry left by his room, Cole shut the door behind him and rested his head against the surface, willing the throbbing in his temples to stop. Cracking one eye open, he glanced at the dresser, and then snatched the bottle of aspirin off it gratefully. Gulping two pills down, he crossed to his bed and lay back on the rumpled covers.

Melissa’s voice echoed from the front room, rising in angry incoherence over the sound of the television before fading again. Cole groaned, dragging the pillow from beneath his head and then smothering his face in attempt to block her out.

Perfection was one of the woman’s two religions, the other being what he dubbed ‘neighborly fear’. As lottery winners the year before they adopted him, the couple had moved up in the world with lightning speed, a fact which left Robert initially thrilled, and took Melissa’s already rampant insecurities to a whole new level. Ill-equipped for her sudden wealth and petrified those of equal riches might think her low class, the woman committed herself to creating an identity safe from ridicule by the old money she both worshipped and feared.

A neighborhood sheltered from undesirable influence was required, complete with a modestly elaborate home and well-maintained yard. Two midsize sedans of understated elegance came next, and then a pristine wardrobe of expensively muted clothes.

Exterior factors addressed, the necessity of a picture-perfect marriage became priority. Unable to have their own children and with her image of domestic perfection in jeopardy, Melissa demanded they adopt. Growing steadily more cowed by the day, Robert agreed, and ten-year-old Cole entered their world. He met her standard, which Cole suspected was the sole factor in his selection. His brown hair matched her own. In other respects, his build and features were similar to those of Robert. Without being told, no one would suspect Cole wasn’t their son – a fact he was certain had been her motivation all along.

The perfect school was next, and the private institution they found couldn’t have been more ideal. Accustomed to handling the needs of the influential and the affluent, Brighton Modisett Prep School made common practice of keeping from public and legal notice any indiscretions which might later affect their students’ potentially lucrative political or business careers. Blatant mention of Cole’s adopted status was duly eschewed in their records, and thus – short of occasional correction – Melissa’s world was complete.

Maintenance came in the form of counselors. In ordinary conversation, Melissa and Robert referred to them as Cole’s ‘uncles’, and sometimes even paid the men extra to arrive by night. No cost was too great to keep the neighbors from suspecting the Smiths’ world possessed any flaws. Edmund Vaughn was the youngest member of the army of psychological alteration Melissa commanded and, with his obsequious manner and tone, he had continuously retained his position as Cole’s most hated therapist of all.

The drone of the television disappeared, and the thud of footsteps on the stairs made him pull the pillow away from his face. His bedroom door opened, and Melissa poked her head inside, taking in the situation with a glance.

“What are you–” she hissed. “I told you to get changed!”

Incredulity at his disobedience in her eyes, she slipped into the room and closed the door. Making a beeline to his closet, she began sorting through his clothes frantically, and then yanked a shirt from the chaos.

“Here,” she snapped, tossing it at him.

Cole caught it, eyeing the hideously striped polo shirt. “This is stupid,” he said flatly. “Vaughn won’t care if I’m–”

“Get changed!” Her voice broke as she shrieked.

He pulled off his sweatshirt and changed into the polo. From his dresser, she tugged out a pair of clean khakis and threw those at him as well.

Cole paused, his brow furrowing as he looked between her and the pants. “Um…”

Rolling her eyes in infuriated impatience, she slipped out the door.

Pants changed, he left the room to find her pacing the confines of the hall. As his door opened, she spun and ran her eyes over him quickly. Apparently satisfied, she grabbed his hand, half-dragging him down the hallway and then the stairs. At the last turn of the staircase, she paused, dropping his hand to straighten her hair. Taking a deep breath, she pasted on a cheery smile and trotted down to the first floor.

“Here we are,” she announced brightly to Robert and the other occupant of the room. Standing by the pale sofa, the counselor seemed to blend with the furniture around him. Dressed in khakis and a beige button-down, with a slightly darker brown sports coat on top, the man appeared in every way unremarkable. His hair matched his jacket, and his eyes too. When he smiled, his flaccid lips revealed teeth only a shade lighter than his clothes.

Crossing gracefully to her husband’s side, Melissa simpered a little as Robert slid an arm around her waist. “Well, have a seat everybody,” she continued, smiling at Vaughn and then turning the expression on Cole with the addition of sugary daggers in her eyes. “Can I get anyone a drink?”