Andrew Kaufman: The Lion, the Lamb, the Hunted: A Psychological Thriller

Then one day, a glimmer of hope.

She came running into the living room, shrieking with excitement. “You won’t believe it! You just won’t!” she said, clutching a handful of pamphlets against her chest, her face lighting up with delight. “The raffle! The one at church for the vacation! In the Cayman Islands! I won!”

“No way!” I bolted from my chair, leaving my book behind. “Really?”

“Really!” She tossed the pamphlets onto the coffee table, threw her arms around me, lifting me straight up in the air. “We’re going to the Cayman Islands! Can you believe it?”

I couldn’t believe she was hugging me so hard.

She grabbed one of the pamphlets and held it out in front of her, admiring the photos, practically out of breath from all her excitement. “I just never imagined I could... and with so many people entering and all…I just…this is the dream of a lifetime! We’re going to the Cayman Islands! Seven nights, all expenses paid! It’s so exciting!”

It was beyond exciting. It was wonderful.

“We’ll be staying at a resort,” she said, and spread a brochure open to show me the photos. “Four swimming pools! Four ! And the food, oh, the food! Buffets every night! She let out a deep sigh of satisfaction. “It’ll be the perfect family vacation. Just the two of us!”

The two of us. Family.

“Now, we have several choices when we can go,” she said, her voice now taking on a practical tone. “What do you think? Next month? It’ll be December. We’ll be there during Christmas and come back with gorgeous suntans. How great would it be to have a suntan over the holidays! They’ll be so jealous! They’ll just be seething! I love it!”

“That would be great! Let’s do it, Mom!”

Suddenly she froze, staring at me oddly, lowering her brows. A peculiar smile slid across her face, and then she began laughing.

I laughed a little, too. “What?”

She was still laughing, catching her breath. “Oh, that’s so funny.”

“What is?”

“You are, silly! What gave you the idea you were going?”

“But you said…that it was the perfect family vacation, just the two of us…and…”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” Giggling now, “I wasn’t talking about you. I was talking about your uncle Warren and me. Why in the world would I take you?”

Chapter Seven

I woke the next morning clawing at my covers, sweat dripping down my face, heart pounding like a hammer inside my chest.

The dream again. The boy in the woods.

The nightstand clock said 9:02 a.m. Next to it was my notebook. I found comfort seeing it there, knowing I might need it.

I have a problem that I keep secret from the world. I make lists, the same word repeated over and over. I’ve been doing it for as long as I could write. On average, they take up about a page, but they can be longer than that. Much longer. I once wrote havoc more than sixteen hundred times. Filled about thirty pages. I was having a bad day.

I don’t know why I do it, but I usually feel better after…at least for a while. It’s kind of like having an itch—when the urge hits, I’ve got to scratch or it’ll drive me crazy until I do. Well, actually, it’s like a mosquito bite: the more I scratch, the more I have to keep scratching. That’s why I need to be careful; otherwise, it can become, well…obsessive.

Of course, I haven’t missed the irony: a writer trapped by his own words. Sounds like a cruel joke. It’s like I’m straddling two parallel worlds, one I love and another I hate. I work like hell to hide it, but it keeps popping up at the most inopportune times. And I detest that I do it; I’m embarrassed as hell that I can’t stop. But I’ve got to do it, have trouble functioning if I don’t.

So I do.

That’s not to say I always hide it well. There have been close calls. I’ve accidentally left my lists out for someone to find—Samantha being one of them—but I’ve developed strategies, have learned to shift into damage control when that happens. I tell people it’s something I do to deal with writer’s block, and that seems to end all speculation. After all, a neurotic writer isn’t too far a stretch.

9:03 a.m. Time to stop obsessing about the dream and my lists and get moving. I jumped in the shower, shaved, then dragged a comb through my hair. I was halfway down the steps, when I heard the phone ringing.

“Not feeling the love, Sully,” I said.

“And a good morning to you, too, Mr. Sunshine.”

“Sorry. Rough night.”

“I’ve got two NAKs for you. Both around 1976, but nothing from Stover, and no females.”

I grabbed a pen and an envelope to write on. “Give it to me.”

“A forty-six-year-old male from Lester, Missouri by the name of Neil Adam Kershaw. Found strangled in his car outside a hog farm in the wee hours. You can do a search and get all the info.”

I wrote it down. “What else?”

“A three-year-old boy from Corvine, Texas by the name of Nathan Allan Kingsley. Went missing from home. Never found.”

I was already reaching across the counter for my laptop. “Thanks, Sully. Call you later.”

“That’s all I get?”

“Thanks Sully. You’re the best. Call you later.”

I heard a groan before he hung up.

I logged in on Infoquest, started searching for Lester, Missouri, Neil Adam Kershaw, strangled. Several articles came up. I clicked on the first, dated August 6, 1976, from the Lester Star Tribune.

Authorities Identify Man Found Strangled Outside Hog Farm

By Reggie Adamson

The county coroner has released the name of a man found dead in his car on Tuesday. Authorities say forty-six-year-old Neil Adam Kershaw was strangled. His body was found inside his vehicle parked in front of Sampson’s Hog Farm in the two-hundred block of Dunbar Lane around three a.m.

Authorities have no suspect but are asking for any information that could lead to an arrest.

And it looked like they got some. Apparently, Kershaw was quite the lady’s man. Had a wife, plus a girlfriend on the side. Unfortunately, the girlfriend had a husband, and he was none too thrilled when he found out they’d been carrying on. He killed her, then went after Kershaw. Authorities were able to link both crimes and make an arrest.

Case closed.

Next, on to Nathan Allan Kingsley. Infoquest brought me a story dated October 10, 1977, from the Observer in Corvine, Texas.

Arrest Made in Case of Murdered Toddler

By Frank D’Alessandro

Corvine authorities took 23-year-old Ronald Lee Lucas into custody last night, charging him with the kidnapping and murder of three-year-old Nathan Allan Kingsley. Detectives say they discovered evidence in Lucas’s apartment linking him to the crime, which occurred more than a year ago. An anonymous tip led them to the suspect.

Nathan Kingsley disappeared from his home in June of last year, leaving parents Jean and Dennis Kingsley devastated and officials bewildered. Mrs. Kingsley had just returned home from the grocery store with Nathan when she stepped outside to check the mail. When she returned to the house moments later, the boy was gone.

Lucas is being held without bail in the county jail pending arraignment.

I narrowed my focus on the photo and felt my gut tighten. The boy was wearing a necklace— the necklace . I was pretty sure of it.

I pulled up a few more articles. Authorities believed Lucas buried the body in the desert. As large an area as that was, chances were slim they’d ever find it.

Stop worrying. Everything is taken care of. Trust me, that’s one body they’ll never find.