Bone Deep (4 page)

Tom swallowed and washed the cookies down with a huge gulp of lemonade. “Yes.”

“Look, if we’re going to get anywhere, I need more than yes and no answers from you. Please tell me why this man is after you. What does he want from you?”

There was a pause before Tom spoke, “I’m part of his show. He made me for it.”

Sarah had a sudden vision of Frankenstein’s monster in that Boris Karloff movie and she shivered. She gestured to T
om’s arm. “Did he do all those
?”

Tom stretched out his forearm across the table and flexed it, making the angel
’s wings move
. “Yes. Starting with this.” He presented his shoulder to her, pointing to a faded red heart with ‘Mom’ emblazoned in script across it. “When my mother died.”

Sarah
frowned
. “How old were you?”

“Eight.”

She swallowed, horrified. “And how old are you now?”

“I don’t know.”

She couldn’t fathom it. How could someone not know his own age? It would mean years drifting by timeless and unmeasured, not counted out by birthday celebrations, Christmases or any of the special events that humans used to create a semblance of order in their lives. “Were you kept a prisoner then?”

He ran his hand up and down the side of the empty lemonade glass. “Not at first. There was nowhere else to go. But later
,
when I was older, I wanted to leave so he locked me in my room between shows.”

“Did he beat you?”

“No.” He held up his hands, indicating his body
,
and g
ave
a small smile--the first she’d seen on his face. “It would spoil the art.”

Sarah
’s
heart
ached
. Reed may not have beaten this man, but he
’d clearly
half-starved him, cut him off from human companionship and poked him with needles on a regular basis. There were many ways to torture a person.

“When I saw you at the sideshow, you weren’t restrained. Why didn’t you simply leave during a show? Walk away some night?”

Tom looked at her with his penetrating eyes. “Where would I go? Where else would I fit in?”

“But you did
leave
. Last night. What finally gave you the courage?”

“
You. You came,
just like in my dream.”

His words chilled her and
warmed
her at the same time.
H
is husky voice
tickled
her spine like a trailing finger and she shivered.

C
hoosing to ignore his explanation
, s
he drew a deep breath
. “Look, it’s been a long morning. I’ll draw you a bath, find some of my husband’s old clothes you can
wear
, then I need to hang my laundry
out to dry
.
Please
lie down in the spare bedroom and take a rest
after you’ve cleaned up
.”

He nodded.

Sarah
led him upstairs and started the bath water running then showed him to John’s childhood room. The Cassidys had never changed the room and when John and Sarah moved
here
, it had been straight into the master bedroom. They
’
d planned to
make
the room a nursery, but the need had never arisen.

The dresser was cluttered with baseball trophies and ship models. Pennants and nautical art decorated the walls. The room was a mix of John as a young boy and as a sports-minded teenager. After his death Sarah had intended to
clean out the room
, donate his old toys, models
and
clothes to some charity. But every time she walked in here and imagined him sitting at his desk at age twelve, cowlick waving as he carefully painted one of his
models
, she couldn’t
bear to go
through his
possessions
.

She got
clothes
from the dresser,
critically
eyeing the
trousers
and then Tom. “John wore these before he went into the service and gained weight. They might fit you.”

Tom stood in the center of the room turning in a slow circle, studying everything. He walked over to the bookcase and touched the spines of some of the books.

“You can look through those if you want. Maybe you’ll find something interesting
to read
.”

Sarah ushered him
toward
the bathroom
down the hall
. She gave him the pile of clothes,
a
towel, washcloth and John’s old shaving kit. “I guess that’s everything you’ll need.
L
eave your dirty clothes on the floor
and I’ll take them to the laundry room
.”

Before she
’d
finished speaking Tom was already taking off his shirt.

She
closed the door behind her
, then stood in the hallway listening to the rustling clothes and the splash of water as he
stepped
into the bath. She pictured him totally nude but not, his skin
hidden
by the designs. She wondered whether tattoos covered
every inch of him, even the private parts,
and what those parts looked like. Her imaginings aroused a
n ache in her own privates
. She shook her head and forced herself
to walk
away from the door.

After hanging sheets on the line, she stood in the
sunshine
and gazed across the yard, listening to the snap of the sheets in the breeze
. Suddenly the enormity of what she was undertaking hit her. She had a stranger in her house this very moment using her bathroom, wearing her husband’s old cloth
ing
and sleeping in his childhood bed. He was strange looking, strange acting, and being pursued by a very strange and frightening man.

How long could she hide Tom and look after him? It was an impossible situation.
But what else could she do? Turn him over to the local sheriff to deal with? She could imagine the level of sensitivity to his plight Tom would receive.

She picked up
the
empty laundry basket and returned to the house.
Listening
up the stairs,
she
heard no noise and assumed he was taking a nap as she
’
d suggested.

The rest of the afternoon
Sarah
worked through her list of chores, but she was constantly aware of
the stranger’s
presence in her home.

At almost seven o’clock, Sarah pushed a tray of biscuits in the oven and gave the stew bubbling on the stove a last stir. She glanced at the clock. Tom hadn’t stirred all afternoon. She didn’t know if he was still asleep or if he thought he must wait in the room until she came to get him. Knowing his odd circumstances, it might be the latter.

She went upstairs and knocked lightly at the door.

“Yes?” His muffled voice came from inside.

“
May
I ... come in?”

“Yes.”

She
opened
the door to find him sitting on the floor surrounded by books. A child’s illustrated
volume of
fairytale
s
lay open on his lap. He looked up at her, almost smiling. His hand spread over the colored illustration. “I know this.”

She
bent
to look. It was a scene from The Little Mermaid. The mermaid was attempting to walk on her new legs with feet that felt as if they were stepping on broken glass. “Oh, I hate this story. It’s so sad. She dies at the end and the prince never knew she was the one who saved his life.”

He looked back down at the page, his fingertips caressing it. “My mother told me this story. I didn’t know there were pictures.”

She sat beside him. “You didn’t have books growing up?”

He shook his head
and
closed the book. He began to straighten the
strewn
books into
piles
. Sarah helped.

“Can you read?”
she asked.

“Some words.”

“Maybe after we have dinner, I can read some of the
se
other stories for you.”

“Yes.” He looked up at her and this time th
ere was no doubt he was smiling, m
aybe not with his mouth, but definitely with his s
hining
eyes.

“Come on. Let’s eat.” She
rose
and
offered a
hand
to
pull him to his feet. She grasped
the
hand with the orange and yellow sun flaring across the back and it was as if she
’d
touched
the real sun
. Her skin
sizzled
as it slid against his. The moment he was
on his feet
, she quickly pulled
free
. His maleness and his body heat
overwhelmed
her. It was too potent.
He
was too potent. She backed away.

Tom’s
almost-
smile
disappeared
.
His brow furrowed
and his fingers curled around where her
s
had been.

R
egaining her composure
,
Sarah cleared her throat
and
led the way downstairs.

Tom
sat
at the table
and she dished him up a bowl of beef stew. This time, when he bent his face almost to
the
bowl and started to shovel the food into his mouth she said softly, “Tom.”

He
glanced
up.

“You can slow down. There’s no hurry and there’s plenty to eat.”

He looked from his half empty bowl to her almost full one
and
sat up straight, dipping his spoon and taking a careful bite. Sarah felt bad for saying anything, but if he was embarrassed he didn’t show it.

After they
’
d eaten dinner and
tidied
the kitchen, they settled in the living room.

Sarah turned on the radio to listen to the news and President Truman’s address but after a few minutes
tuned in
a station that played local bands and singers hoping to be the next Jo Stafford. She looked at Tom
sitting
in the armchair
across from hers
, the one that used to be John’s.

She and her husband had
only lived as newlyweds for four months before the war began and he
went to serve, b
ut in tha
t time she had many memories of
him in that chair. Tom looked foreign and completely
wrong
there
, and
wearing
John’s old clothes.

He stood and walked to the mantle to examine the photographs.
He touched
the gilt frame of their wedding photo.
“Your husband
?
”

“Yes, that’s John. He made i
t through almost four years of
war
and
was wounded
just before the end.
He died in a hospital overseas.
”

Tom
moved on to another photograph. “These are his parents?”

“
Yes
. He’s the little boy in the picture
, and t
hat photo on the left is my parents. They live in
Chicago
.”

She joined him
at the fireplace,
pointing to one picture after another. “That’s my sister and me when we were thirteen and fifteen. These are my grandparents, my husband’s grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins.”

She watched his face as he
studied
all of the photos. She
longed
to reach out and trace the blue swirl that followed his cheekbone.
He blinked and the long, full brush of his eyelashes swept against that cheek. Beautiful.

He turned to her and
she nearly
back
ed
away from the heat he radiated and those vibrant eyes piercing
through
her. “Family.”