Blake Crouch: Birds of Prey

Then years.

They didn’t find Winston and Ben.

They didn’t find Katie.

And a dark cloud came down upon the House of Kite.

The One That Stayed

Gary, Indiana, 1983

“Don’t leave,” Alex Kork said, tugging on her brother’s shoulder.

The cramped bedroom was warm, and the August heat brought a funky smell. The only light came from the bedside lamp, which was shadeless, its thirty-watt bulb making the siblings look jaundiced.

The battered, thrift-store suitcase on the bed was half-filled with meager possessions, all belonging to Charles.

A pair of jeans with a hole in the knee.

A striped necktie, ten years old and twice as wide as the fashion of the day.

Black leather dress shoes, another Good Will purchase, half a size too small.

A lonely, bent toothbrush.

Tube socks, gray from repeated washings.

Half a box of salt.

Rubber gloves.

Duct tape.

A straight razor.

A soldering iron.

A cheese grater.

Needle nose pliers.

Alex eyed the pliers and felt herself shiver, remembering the first time she and Charles had used them.

Uncertain times. Good times.

Charles smiled. His hair was a bit longer than the current trends, and the faint mustache on his teenaged upper lip reminded her of Father.

“There’s a whole wide world out there, Alex. I wanna see it. Don’t you?”

Alex did. More than anything. But she wasn’t ready yet. Charles was comfortable with himself. Unlike Father, whose every waking moment was wracked by worry and guilt, Charles owned his identity. Proudly. Unabashedly.

“I’m scared,” Alex said.

“Of what? We’re the ones people need to be scared of.”

Alex didn’t want to tell him the truth. That the thing that scared her most was herself. Of what she was capable of. This shithole town was like a cage. Small. Defined. Everyone knew everyone else. Easy to get into trouble, so Alex and Charles had to restrain themselves.

There would be no such restraint Out There.

It was an exciting thought. A sexy one. To be able to unleash their appetites on complete strangers. People who wouldn’t be missed. Who wouldn’t leave trails for the cops back to their front door.

“You want to be a mole your whole life, Alex?” Charles said. “Like Father? Or do you want to be a lion?”

They called Father a “mole” because he hid from people. Constantly caught in worry and doubt. Always self-loathing. Burying his shame and his nose in the dirt. Yes, he killed. But he spent so much time planning, and then later hating himself. He was a slave to his own urges. They owned him, when Charles insisted it should be the other way around.

In contrast, lions killed their prey out in the open, stalking and slaughtering with pride and freedom. They occupied the top of the food chain, and knew it.

“I want to be a lion, Charles. But I’m not ready yet.”

Charles stared at her, hard.

After a few seconds of silence, he nodded. “When you’re ready, look me up.”

Alex felt an urge to throw her arms around him, to kiss him, to beg him not to go. But instead she reached into the suitcase and grabbed the pliers. The tool gave her strength.

“Remember how Mother screamed when you used those on her?” Charles said.

Alex nodded. Her breath quickened, and her throat went dry. She brought the tips to her nose, but only smelled the faint traces of rubbing alcohol used to clean them. Unable to stop herself, she touched the tip of her tongue to the metal.

Cool and tangy.

“Keep ‘em,” he said.

Now Alex did hug him. So tight he grunted.

“Easy, Sis. You’re gonna break a goddamn rib.”

Alex eased off, but kept holding her brother’s hands.

“What if you get caught?” Alex said. She knew she was talking like Father, but the fear was real.

Charles smiled. “The cops will never catch me. Like that kiddie book. I’m the Gingerbread Man.”

He winked at her, then closed his suitcase and walked out of the room.

Alex fought down her sadness, but she couldn’t control her anger.

Storming through their ramshackle house, weaving through the stacks of garbage piled everywhere, she reached Father’s bedroom and threw open the door.

Father was sitting on his bed, naked, the sheets under him dotted with blood. He had a pin cushion in one hand. In the other, he held a needle, which he was sticking into his pale, flabby inner thigh.

“He’s gone,” Alex said.

Father stared at her, his eyes glassy, tears glistening in his stubble.

“I’m a sinner, Alex,” he said, voice quavering.

“Yes you are. You’re a very bad man, and you should be punished.”

Without being told, he assumed the position, getting on his knees, making a temple of his hands in some obscene parody of prayer. His back was a patchwork of old scars and new scabs.

Alex went to the cabinet, looked at all the implements, and chose a leather riding crop.

“I’m a murderer, Lord,” Father moaned. “Help me atone for my sins.”

Alex didn’t believe in God. Though part of her still feared Father, and the things he’d done to her and others, he was weak.

Their kind shouldn’t be weak. They shouldn’t be afraid or ashamed.

Their kind should rule.

But what, exactly, was their kind?

Alex had once heard a term in a movie that fit, that neatly described what she and Charles and Father were.

Serial killers.

Charles had embraced it. Father shunned it.

Alex wasn’t sure which way she’d go. But she was sure of one thing.

Hurting others was the best high in the world.

Father trembled.

Alex raised the riding crop.

The first slap of leather across flesh was exciting.

The fiftieth slap…ecstasy.

A Night at the Dinner Table

North Carolina Outer Banks, 1984

Christmas Eve.

Luther Kite watches as his mother, Maxine, carries the last casserole dish of candied yams up the staircase to the third floor cupola of the ancient house. The long table is candlelit, moonlit. Through the west wall of windows, a thin moon lacquers the sound into glossy black. Through the east wall of windows, the Atlantic gleams beyond the tangle of live oaks and yaupon. The tourists gone, the island silently twinkling, the evening is cold and glorious and more star-ridden than any night in the last three years.

Maxine sets the yams down on the tablecloth beside a platter of steaming crab cakes. Then she takes a seat at the end of the table, opposite her husband, and releases a contented sigh. “Mrs. Claus” is spelled out in rhinestones across the front of her bright red sweater.

Dressed up as Santa Claus, Rufus Kite occupies the head of the table.

At Rufus’s right sits Luther, who also wears a Santa hat, but isn’t happy about it.

“Beautiful,” Rufus says, addressing his wife, “I think I speak for everyone when I say this looks absolutely scrumptious.”

It’s a dream, Luther thinks.

But it can’t be.

Because it’s real.

Luther stares down the length of the table and sees…

Katie.

My sister.

His father called it the miracle.

Luther still remembers the flutter in his stomach when Rufus brought her home.

“We found her, son! We found her!”

Seven years older. Seven years lost.

But healthy.

And now…safe.

Fifteen and safe and finally home.

“I’d like to propose a toast,” Rufus says, raising a wineglass filled with sweet tea. “To my little girl. What it feels like to have you home again…” His eyes shimmer with tears. “…I am…at a loss to express.”

Tears are running down Katie’s cheeks, too.

They pass around the side dishes.