David Bell - The Hiding Place

He let out a long breath. “I want to hear what happened to you,” he said. “And I have to tell you something. I just want to talk to you.”

So Janet followed along.

While they walked through the darkened streets, past homes that looked more comfortable with their porch lights burning and their kids tucked safely away in bed, Janet told Michael about the events of the day. She gave him a condensed version of Ashleigh’s adventure to the apartment complex-leaving out the details of the assault. When she told Michael that the man had a court summons with the name Justin Manning on it, Michael continued to walk by her side, but he kept his face turned away. He hadn’t said anything the whole time, hadn’t so much as grunted or acknowledged that Janet was even speaking. She didn’t know what to think or how to read his response, so when he continued to walk in silence for minutes after she stopped speaking, she said, “Well, what do you think of all this?”

He still took his time answering. They continued walking at a slow, easy pace until Michael abruptly stopped and turned to face her.

“I think it’s all bullshit, Janet.”

She stared at his face. They stood in the wash of a streetlight near the edge of the subdivision. Michael’s jaw was set hard, his eyes cold. He’d shown a similar response to the mention of the man on the porch when they spoke in the coffee shop, but he seemed even angrier and more agitated hearing about the man using Justin’s name. He still didn’t speak, and Janet got the sense he wasn’t ready to say anything else. But she wanted to hear from him. She’d sought him out for the sole purpose of sharing the news with him and seeing his reaction.

“Isn’t this good news, Michael?” she said. “Doesn’t this give us hope? I thought you’d be thrilled.”

“I’m not.”

“Can you tell me why?”

He took a step closer to her and reached out with both hands. He placed them on her upper arms, a gentle, affectionate gesture. “I don’t want to see you get hurt, Janet. In any way.”

“You mean because this guy might be dangerous?”

“That may very well be,” he said. “Some guy shows up spinning a tale about knowing the truth about the crime. But he won’t tell you the truth about it? Or he won’t go to the police?”

“Maybe he can’t. Maybe he’s not ready yet. Michael, I saw this man up close. I talked to him on campus. He seemed…disturbed in some way.”

“You see?”

“I don’t mean he’s dangerous.” Janet fumbled for the right words, but she knew that “disturbed” captured it best. And she also knew she wasn’t being completely honest with Michael. She didn’t know that the man was harmless. When she heard that voice calling her name outside the house in the dark, and she thought it was the man from the porch…she did feel afraid. But if he wanted to hurt her, why go to such elaborate lengths to talk to her? Why not just do what he wanted to do? Something else was at play. “I mean, Michael, that he’s been through something. He has something wrong with him in terms of how he interacts with people. Maybe he’s been homeless or abused.” She reached up to where his hands rested on her shoulders and took his hands in hers. “Oh, Michael, what if it is him? What if it’s really Justin? What if the whole last twenty-five years has been some kind of insane nightmare?”

“It hasn’t,” he said, his voice flat. “The last twenty-five years did happen. Your mother died, and my parents split up. And we…we lived with it all that time.” He let go of her hands. “Whatever this man is up to won’t change that, don’t you see?”

Janet did see. She understood that the years and their toll wouldn’t be erased. But she wasn’t going to dwell on what had been lost. She couldn’t bear it. Like those photos that her father threw away-they were gone. She could let them go as long as she could also look forward to something more.

And here it was-the something more. Her brother might be alive. He might be alive and living right there in Dove Point. All they had to do was find him and talk to him. Whatever she needed to do to bring him back into the family, she would do. No questions asked.

“Michael,” she said. “I don’t know what your life has been like over the last decade or so, but surely this could help, couldn’t it? We could start to put some things back together.”

Michael turned away again. He looked into the distance and then Janet looked around as well. While they were walking and talking, she hadn’t been paying attention to where they were heading. She had followed Michael’s lead and concentrated on giving him a version of the day’s events. So when she looked around and followed the line of his gaze, what she saw surprised her.

They weren’t just on the edge of the subdivision.

They were across the street from the park. Michael reached out to her again, took her hand, and said, “Come on, this is what I wanted to show you.”

When Stynes reached the apartment complex, the first thing he saw was two uniformed cops leading a sweaty middle-aged man out of the manager’s office in handcuffs. The light was draining out of the day, but even in the glow from the parking lot lights, Stynes saw the man’s pasty skin, the clammy sheen of sweat across his forehead. They stuffed the guy into the back of a cruiser but left the door open when they saw Stynes approaching.

“This is our guy?” he asked the officers.

“Indeed,” one of them said. “Nicholas Reeves. Age thirty-eight. He says he’s managed this complex for the last three years.”

Stynes leaned into the car, positioning his face about a foot from Reeves. “So you like touching little girls, Nick?”

The man started crying right away. He squished his eyes shut and ducked his head and his body shook while he cried. Stynes noticed that Reeves’s lip looked a little puffy and red, the result of being kicked in the face by Ashleigh Manning. Stynes thought the girl was nuts for doing what she did, but he had to admire her cojones. And he kind of liked seeing a guy like Reeves take a good shot to the face.

“Do you think this is going to make me feel sorry for you, Nick?” Stynes asked. “This crying bullshit.”

The man still couldn’t bring himself to speak, but he managed to shake his head. In truth, Stynes did feel a little sorry for the guy. He might be a creep and a pervert, but he still possessed a vulnerable humanity that Stynes couldn’t ignore. And if he thought his life sucked while sitting handcuffed in the back of a small-town police cruiser, wait until he got a load of prison as a pasty, doughy child molester.

“She was only fifteen, you know that?” Stynes said. “Fifteen. My socks are older than that.”

“I’m sorry,” Reeves said.

“What’s that?”

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry? Yes, you are. But sorry doesn’t feed the bulldog, does it?”

The man continued to weep, but his sobs were more quiet.

“Let me guess. I bet your apartment is full of porn and underwear you swiped from your tenants’ apartments when they weren’t home.”

“Don’t tell my mother,” Reeves said. “Can we just not tell my mother?”

“Does she read the newspaper? Because it will be in there under the heading ‘Felony Sexual Assault.’ ”

The man’s head jerked up. “Felony?”

“What do you think? You touch a little girl and we give you a break?”

“I just wanted to hug her,” he said. “Just…feel her.”

“You’re not supposed to do that with kids.”

“I don’t mean that way.” Reeves took a deep breath. He tried to suck some of the snot on his face back into his nose. “I mean I just wanted some companionship.”