stranger’s.
Twice Fallon paused to listen. Faintly he could hear Casey’s frantic voice shouting again, somewhere back near where the Jeep and BMW were. The second time he stopped, he thought he heard a scrabbling sound off to his left. He jabbed the light in that direction, followed it before changing direction again. Not Kevin. A night creature of some kind.
It might have taken a long time to find the boy, if he’d been able to find him at all, if it hadn’t been for a panic reaction when Fallon passed close to where he was hiding. The six-cell’s white shaft roved past just above his head, flushed him and set him running again down the next row. Fallon veered over there, heard him but didn’t see him at first in the thick darkness. Then the light picked him out-running blind, looking back over his shoulder.
The ground here had an obstacle: a long date-picker’s ladder, wide at the bottom and almost pointed at the top, had been propped sideways against one of the palm trunks. Kevin didn’t see it in time to avoid it. There was a clatter, a yowl of pain, and the boy sprawled headlong.
Fallon was there in five seconds. By then, Kevin was trying to crawl behind one of the palms. He’d hurt himself in the collision with the ladder: dragging and clutching at his left leg, the small face grimacing with pain. He quit crawling when the flash beam pinned him, squinted up into the glare with eyes that gleamed black with fear.
“Leave me alone!” Thin, gasping. “Leave me alone!”
Fallon moved the light out of his face, dropped to one knee beside him. “It’s all right, Timmy. I’m not-”
“My name’s not Timmy!”
He drew back, realizing what he’d said. Timmy. Jesus, what was the matter with him? It must have been that first clear look at the boy, the strained white face and terrified stare, the lank, light-colored hair plastered wetly to his forehead… for just an instant it had been like seeing his son alive again.
“I’m sorry, Kevin. I’m sorry.”
The boy cringed away from him, his chest heaving, his breath wheezing and rattling asthmatically.
“It’s all right, you don’t have to be afraid. I’m not going to hurt you. Lie still, take shallow breaths-”
Kevin sat up instead, tried to propel himself backward with both hands. Fallon stopped him by catching hold of the waistband of his Levi’s.
“No, lie still,” he said again, and this time the boy obeyed him. “That’s it. Shallow breaths now. You have your inhaler?”
“… Pocket.”
Pants pocket. Fallon felt the outline of it, fished it out, watched as Kevin sucked in three deep inhalations. The boy’s eyes were still saucer-wide. “Who are you?” he said when the asthma medicine had opened up the breathing passages in his lungs. “I don’t know you.”
“My name’s Rick. I’m a friend of your mom’s-”
“No! I won’t go back there, I won’t!”
“Easy, easy. Where’d you hurt yourself?”
“… My ankle. I twisted it.”
“Let me see how bad.”
Fallon screwed the six-cell into the sand. When he ran his fingers gently over the injured ankle, the boy whimpered and cringed again but didn’t try to pull away. Nothing broken. Just a strain.
Fallon said, “Let’s get you up,” and put his hands under Kevin’s arms and lifted him without much struggle. It was like lifting a child-sized manikin- the kid couldn’t have weighed more than forty pounds. Stick-thin and malnourished. Court Spicer’s doing, the son of a bitch.
Casey was still calling her son’s name. It sounded as though she was on the access lane, not far away.
“Don’t make me go back there with her,” the boy said. “I hate her.”
“She’s your mother, Kevin.”
“But
Fallon held him gently for a few seconds, to calm him, before he said, “When I set you down, stand on your good leg and lean against me. There… that’s it. Can you walk?”
He couldn’t. His injured leg buckled when he tried to put weight on it. Fallon said, “I’ll have to carry you,” and swung him up again, into the crook of his left arm, then reached down for the six-cell.
The flash beam, and Casey’s voice calling his name now alternately with Kevin’s, showed him the way to the lane. The boy clung to him, the asthma inhaler clenched tight in his hand. He was breathing more easily now, but his small body had a corded feel and was racked with small tremors.
“Kevin, why were you running away?”
“I couldn’t stay there anymore. Not with
“Vernon Young? Did he do something to you?”
“No. No.”
“Then what happened to make you run?”
No answer, just a shuddery inhalation.
Casey’s light was visible as they neared the lane. When they came out, she was only twenty yards away. She saw them and broke into an unsteady run.
“Kevin! Oh my God, is he hurt?”
“Turned his ankle.”
She tried to take the boy into her arms. Kevin went taut as a bowstring when she touched him. He said, “No!” and pressed his face against Fallon’s chest.
He could smell the sweat on her. Something else, too: gin fumes. He put the light on her face. Wet, ghost-pale; the hazel eyes were as wide and seemed as dark as Kevin’s had in the grove. Half drunk, he thought. And still terrified.
He pushed past her, went up the road in long, hard strides. Casey hurried after him, ran up alongside and tried to touch her son again. Kevin cringed and stiffened again. Fallon turned him away from her.
When they neared the Jeep, she said, “Put him in Vernon’s car, the front seat-”
“No! Don’t put me in there,
“Please, Rick. Then give me back the keys.”
Fallon said, “No. Not yet.”
“Give me the keys. Move your Jeep so we can leave.”
“And go where?”
“A doctor, the ER in Indio…”
“He doesn’t need emergency treatment. And you’re not going anywhere except the ranch house.”
Kevin whimpered. “I don’t want to go back there, I don’t want to see him again.”
“You won’t have to see him, honey,” she said. Then, to Fallon, “He’s mine, I know what’s best for him-”
“The hell you do.”
She said with sudden fury, “Goddamn you, let me have him!” and tried to pull Kevin out of Fallon’s grasp. The boy growled at her like a whipped ani- mal. Fallon shoved her out of the way, went around to the Jeep’s passenger side, got the door opened and eased Kevin down on the seat. At first Casey clawed at him from behind, her nails once raking the side of his neck. But as soon as he shut the boy inside, she quit fighting and backed off. When he turned to shine the six-cell on her again, she was standing with her arms down at her sides, breathing in ragged little gasps. All at once, for a reason he couldn’t fathom, the anger and the fear seemed to have gone out of her. Her face had a blank look, like a slate that had been wiped clean.
Fallon said, “You wanted the keys? All right, here they are.” He pressed them into her sweaty hand. “Turn the car around and drive to the house. I’ll follow you.”
She just stood there, staring at him.
“Go on. Don’t give me any more argument.”
It was as if he’d pushed a button or thrown a switch to activate a mechanical device. She pivoted, slow, and walked to the BMW and closed herself inside. The engine throbbed into life. He waited until she backed up and was starting to turn before he slid into the Jeep.
The lane ran straight through the date groves for a tenth of a mile, then jogged left and widened out into a broad clearing. The ranch buildings were just beyond, packing and storage sheds first, all of them dark, the ranch house some distance beyond. The house showed lights inside and out, enough illumination for Fallon to tell that it was a rectangular, tile-roofed adobe with ornate iron balconies at the second-floor corners and outside staircases
