Follow the Evidence (A Mac Everett Mystery Book 2) (10 page)

“I don’t know how this will play,”
I said. “It’s the boy I want to see so if you can smooth things over with the
father, that would be a big help.”

“You want me to flirt with him?”

“No, just be nice.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Randi
laughed.

We went to the door like partners.
It felt good. I knocked on the door and gave Randi a hopeful look. A dark shape
approached the door, visible through the frosted glass. The door opened,
revealing a frumpy house frau.

“I’m Mac Everett, and this is Randi
Massey,” I said. “We’re looking for the Lewis home.”

“I’m Caroline Lewis,” she said.

The woman was tall, maybe five ten,
and a bit plump. Her stretch jeans were tight, but not painted on and her tee
shirt was long and loose.

“I spoke to your husband this
morning. We’d like to talk to your son.”

“My husband’s not here and he
didn’t tell me anyone called. He’s at work so you can just leave. My son has
nothing to say,” she snapped. She crossed her arms in front of her and shifted
in the doorway, daring me to enter.

“There’s a chance your son saw
something that could help us.”

“I don’t care. You’re not talking
to my son,” she retorted.

“Mrs. Lewis, I’m investigating the
disappearance of some young people. You have your family back. These people,
well, their children are still missing. I’m sorry, this is uncomfortable for
you, but we have to try.”

The intensity of her gaze would
have put another man off, but I saw the sincerity in her eyes. She wanted to
help, but she was worried about her son.

“Let us try to talk with your boy,”
Randi suggested. “If he doesn’t want to see us, we’ll leave. You have our word.”

Randi looked like an angel and I
gave Caroline Lewis my most sincere smile.

“Come in,” she demurred. “I’ll get
Danny. If he doesn’t want to talk to you, that’s the end of it. Wait here,” then
she disappeared down a hall. Randi and I stepped into the living room. It
wasn’t the Ritz lobby, but it was a bright comfortable room. The furniture and
the carpet showed some wear, but the place was clean.

A few minutes later Caroline Lewis
returned with a boy in tow. The kid was about what I’d expected for an eight
year old. He was slim, about sixty pounds and a tick over four feet tall. His
sandy brown hair was tussled and he wore a worried look along with a pair of
baggy shorts and a South Park tee shirt. He had that glowing tan I remembered
from growing up on the south side of Orlando. Being outside, riding my bike,
fishing, and playing in the yard, I was burnt as a berry from one summer to the
next. This kid looked the same way.

The boy slipped behind his mother
as they entered the living room.

“My name’s Mac. I’m a private
investigator,” I said as I went down on one knee and offered my hand.

Danny checked me out from the
safety of his mother’s shadow.

“This is my friend, Randi Massey.”

“Hi Danny,” Randi said as she sat
down on the floor. “Can I call you Danny or do you prefer Dan?”

She gave me a look and I sat on the
floor too.

“I like Danny,” he said in a clear
voice as he clung to his mother’s leg.

“I’d like to find out a little bit
about you if that’s OK,” Randi said.

We hadn’t talked about how I’d do
the interview. Randi was taking over, but it was clear she knew what she was
doing.

Danny plopped down on the floor
within arm’s reach of Randi. Caroline Lewis perched on the edge of the couch
watching us like a hawk.

“Is he really a PI?” he asked. He
was talking to Randi but looking at me. “I watch Rockford on TV. He’s cool.”

I was amazed how fast Randi built a
rapport with the kid.

“Rockford is cool,” she replied.
“I’m surprised you watch an old show like that. I’m helping my friend Mac. He’s
the PI. I bet he can tell you some great stories,” she said as she gave me
another look. I smiled and nodded like a dummy. She was on a roll.

“How old are you, Danny?”

“Eight.”

“Eight, I thought you were older.
Are you sure you’re only eight?”

The boy nodded as he broke out into
a gapped toothed grin.

“When’s your birthday?”

“September twelfth,” he said with a
little lisp.

“So, you just had a birthday, huh?
What did you get?”

“I got school clothes,” he replied,
and scrunched up his face.

“Is that good?”

“I guess.” The dejection in his
voice nearly made me smile, but I quelled the urge.

“You know, I have a nephew about
your age,” Randi said. “He got a Wheel Bright for his bike on his birthday. He
loved it. He put those LED lights all over his bike. Could I bring you one of
those if it’s OK with your mom and dad?”

“Sure,” he said as he nodded.

Randi looked at Caroline Lewis who
cracked the slightest smile then said, “You don’t have to do that.”

“I know,” Randi acknowledge, “but
I’d like to do something for Danny. He had quite an experience.”

“So you’re in, what, the third
grade?” Randi asked.

The boy nodded again.

“Do you like school?”

“Sometimes,” he replied. “I like
science and math, but language arts, not so much.”

“Did your mom tell you why we came
here today?” I asked.

He shook his head.

“Danny, these folks want to talk to
you…about that day,” Caroline explained.

“No, I don’t want to talk about
it,” he said as he jumped to his feet. He crawled into his mother’s lap. Her
scowl told me we had one more shot.

“Danny,” I said. “I met the Coast
Guard guys who pulled you and your dad out of the water. They couldn’t stop
talking about how brave you were.”

“I wasn’t brave. I was crying. I
was scared.”

“Yeah, but they said even though
you were scared, you did everything right and you saved your dad’s life. Did
you get to meet them afterward?”

“We’ve been meaning to call,”
Caroline interjected.

“I know the base commander. If you
want to meet those guys I know I can help arrange it,” I offered. “I talked to
two of them yesterday.”

“You did! Did you talk to Marty?”

“I did and he made me promise to
let him know how you were doing,” I replied.

It was only a white lie, but I was
sure I could set up a meeting.

“Do I have to tell you about what
happened to go see those cool guys?”

He had cut to the chase like an
adult and caught me in my manipulation. This was one sharp kid.

“No Danny, you don’t have to talk
to us if you don’t want to. I’ll do all I can to arrange that reunion for you,”
I replied. I was ashamed of myself, but decided to give it one more shot. “Can
I tell you why I want to ask you about your experience?”

Danny nodded.

“There was a sailboat near you in
the storm.”

“Yeah, so,” he replied.

“Did you see it?”

“Uh-huh,” Danny said.

Peering out from under a shock of
sandy hair his brown eyes held a brand of fear I’d seldom seen.

“There were some people on that
sailboat. They are missing and their families want to know what happened to
them.”

“It took them,” he said.

His matter of fact tone surprised
me, but I wondered how to press him for more. Randi came to my rescue.

“Did you see the people on the
sailboat, Danny?”

He shook his head.

“Did you see where they went?”

“They didn’t go anywhere. It took
them.”

“What took them?” I asked.

He turned, burying his face in his
mother’s chest.

“That’s enough,” Caroline Lewis
said.

“Danny,” Randi coaxed, “the thing
that took those people, did it try to take you too?”

He shook his head again and said,
“It didn’t see me.”

“What did you see, Danny,” Randi
asked.

“I don’t want to remember,” he
said, his voice shaking.

“You saw the people on the
sailboat?” I asked.

He looked directly at me and I saw
his confused thoughts.

“No sir, I didn’t see them, but I
heard voices,” he said.

“Can you can help me find those
people?” I said.

“I want to, but I don’t know how,”
he said.

He slipped out of his mother’s lap
and knelt down next to her. Flushed faced, his lower lip trembled.

“I don’t know what you saw, but it
can’t hurt you now. Can you be brave again?” I asked.

Danny looked at his mom, who
nodded.

“Go ahead, Danny. If you can help,
you should,” she said. Turning to me she said, “The psychologist said he’ll
work through things in his own way. Maybe this can help him.”

The boy’s eyes darted toward me for
a moment and then back to Randi. She put her arm around him and said in a low
voice, “He’s right you know. You’re safe now.”

He locked eyes with me and somehow
we connected. He began in a slow deliberate way.

“I was on the radio. The Coast
Guard had just answered. Dad said he saw another boat. I was going to tell the
man on the radio, but our boat turned over. The waves were humongous.” Danny
dropped his voice to whisper and said, “Dad wasn’t moving and he was bleeding.
I was so scared.”

“That’s okay, Danny,” I said.
“You’re doing fine.”

“Stuff was sliding around and the
water was getting deeper. I grabbed onto my dad and a wave washed us away. We
were connected by a rope but he…I held onto my dad and the boat as long as I
could.”

“You did great Danny. You saved
your father’s life.” Randi said.

“When the boat rolled over I
couldn’t hold on to both the boat and my dad and we drifted away.”

“Did you see the other boat, the
sailboat?” I coaxed.

“Not at first. The waves were too
high. Our boat was between the sailboat and us. I heard people so I tried to
swim toward the voices. Our boat was upside down but it stayed afloat.”

“What happened next, Danny?” I
asked.

He looked at me. I saw no guile,
only fear.

“You won’t believe me,” he said and
dropped his head.

“Danny, I’m going to tell you a
secret,” I whispered, “I only tell my closest friends.”

Danny’s eyes got big and he leaned
toward me.

“You ever heard that the expression
eyes are a window to the soul?”

He shook his head watching me
intently.

“It means if you look into a
person's eyes you can tell who they are on the inside,” I said.

“Can you read people’s minds?”
Danny asked.

“Sometimes I can tell what a person
is thinking.”

“Whoa, that’s weird,” Danny said.

“Yeah, it is kind of weird. There’s
more,” I replied. “I can tell when someone is telling the truth.”

Randi was looking at me like I had
two heads and Caroline Lewis looked like she wanted to lop them both off.

“So if you tell me something and
it’s the truth, I’ll know it.”

“And you told me your secret,” he
said. “Gee, thanks.”

“OK, that’s enough,” Caroline said.
She had jumped to her feet. “You people…:

“I saw these weird lights. There
were these lights coming from behind the sailboat,” Danny blurted out.

His mother’s eyes flew open with
surprise and she slowly took her seat.

“Weird lights?” I asked. “How were
they weird?”

“They were red and green,” he
replied. “There was a white one too and it moved around. You believe me?”

The boy’s body language, even the
movement of his eyes, said he believed what he was saying. But what did he see?

“Yeah, Danny I believe every word.
What else, son,” I cajoled.

“It was…it can’t have been real,
but I saw it.”

“What did you see Danny?”

“It was a dragon.”

He buried his head in Randi’s
shoulder and began to sob.

“Danny, you’re okay. It’s safe
here,” Randi assured the little boy.

I exchanged a glance with Mrs.
Lewis. Tears ran down her face as she watched her son. She was hurting for her
boy.

“Danny,” she said. I was afraid she
was going to put a stop to our questioning, but what she said floored me. “Why
don’t you show Mr. Everett your drawings?”

Danny looked up, and said, “You
said not to show anyone but Dr. Kiser.”

“Dr. Kiser is his psychologist,” Caroline
said. Looking at her son she said, “I think it’s OK now.”

Danny got up, wiped his nose on his
arm, and ran down the hall.

“He’s been drawing these awful
images. He hasn’t wanted to talk about them. I hope showing them to you will
get him to open up. The nightmares…” She sniffed a couple times then
straightened up and continued. “Maybe he can get it out of his system. The
guilt is eating up my husband. That’s why he couldn’t stay to talk to you. He
did tell me you called. I’m sorry. We don’t know what to do.”

“I hope talking about it will help
him,” I said. “I know it’s helping me.”

Caroline Lewis composed herself as
her son burst into the room. Danny clutched several pieces of paper close to
his chest. He sat on the floor between Randi and me then said, “You can really
tell when a person is lying?”

“Most of the time,” I said nodding.

“How did you…”

“How did I learn to do it? When I
was a little older than you I had high fevers, convulsions, and was in a coma
for a couple weeks.”

“What’s a coma,” Danny asked.

“It’s like being asleep only you
can’t wake up. My mother sat with me every day, just like your mom would for
you. She prayed for me; read to me, talked to me, she treated me as if nothing
was wrong. The doctors think while I was asleep my brain repaired itself.”

“And when you woke up you could
read minds?” Danny asked.

“It’s more like reading a person,”
I responded, “but yes that’s how it happened.”

“So if I’m telling you the truth
you’ll know it?” Danny asked.

“Yep, sure will,” I replied, “and I
have no doubt you’re telling the truth.”