Those feelings came from his work alone.
After setting his keys on the counter, he tilted his head to one side, listening.
The air was still. No hint of movement. No sound from the downstairs bedroom.
The boy would be hungry.
Spratt set about making dinner—a spinach and pear salad with a light vinaigrette, honey-and Dijon-seared salmon and roasted broccoli and turnips. He poured himself a glass of Riesling, and poured his guest some iced tea.
He would be thirsty, too. It’d been hours, unfortunately. Tidwell hadn’t been able to stop by for his afternoon visit; some problem with his daughter at the dentist’s.
Spratt hoped the boy hadn’t pissed himself again. He grimaced at the idea and prepared the tray, using glass plate covers so the food wouldn’t get cold. He carried the tray downstairs, where he set it on the small wooden armoire he’d moved to this spot for this very purpose. After unlocking the padlock, he pushed the door open carefully.
After the first altercation, he’d learned to be careful. The boy wasn’t prone to fits of panic, but when he did lose emotional control, he was a formidable animal. That struggle had ended with both of them the worse for wear, and while there’d been no sign of hostility since, Spratt wasn’t a stupid man.
But he needn’t have bothered. The closet was closed and locked, the little silver key on its hook beside the jamb. He opened the door and immediately stepped back, prepared for violence, but the boy was as he’d been left—sitting nude on the sheepskin pillow, hands cuffed above his head to the D ring set in the wall.
Ghost blinked in the sharp, sudden light pouring over Spratt’s shoulder from the bedroom.
He was breathtaking. The boy brought to mind the 1665 painting Girl with a Pearl Earring, by the Dutch painter Vermeer. They didn’t look much alike in shape or form, but it wasn’t his youth or his looks, not the pale, perfect skin or the golden hair or the pale green eyes, like tender shoots of new grass, that sparked the comparison. No, what Ghost and the girl in the painting shared was a heartbreaking, wounded innocence, an awareness of their own vulnerability.
“I’m sorry for the delay,” Spratt said. “Tidwell had a family issue arise and I couldn’t get away. How are you?”
“I’m fine, thank you. Can I use the bathroom?”
“May I,” Spratt corrected.
“May I?” There was no trace of sulking or sarcasm. Only a soft, perhaps sad, resignation. Spratt pursed his lips in defense of it.
“Of course. Wash up while you’re in there.”
“All right.”
Spratt unlocked the cuffs around the boy’s wrists, alert for any kicking, but Ghost waited until Spratt stepped back before climbing to his feet and vanishing into the bathroom. While the water ran and the toilet flushed, Spratt moved the dinner tray into the bedroom and set it on the floor.
Ghost emerged pink-cheeked and scrubbed, the ends of his shoulder-length hair dark with wetness from where it probably trailed into the sink while he’d washed his face. He wore his nudity with disinterest, a reminder of his oblique outlook on society and appropriate behavior, and while Spratt thought they might be on the verge of Ghost earning back some clothing, Spratt had already decided the garments would be of his own choosing. He didn’t approve of Ghost’s wardrobe, all too-tight shirts and torn jeans, everything fitted in such a way as to advertise the boy’s old profession.
“Come eat,” Spratt said, and Ghost sat on the floor before the tray.
After several bites, he said, “It’s very good. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
It’d been some time ago now that they’d first met. Ghost had been fifteen, and it was pure happenchance that Spratt had been in the passenger seat of a patrol unit driving by as the drama unfolded. Spratt infrequently picked up shifts with his patrolmen and patrolwomen, less often with his detectives. He liked to keep his hand in, and besides, a strong presence from command did wonders for both morale and the precision of police work in his stations.
Unfortunately, even in policing, you found those callow individuals who were attracted to power and the abuse of it. That sort tended to behave better when they knew they were being watched. Spratt had keen eyes for that sort of thing.
He’d been on an impromptu ride-along when he saw the pale boy knocked clear off his feet by the attentions of a rough, far larger man in a black leather jacket. Spratt and his companion for the day had flashed their lights and stopped, and one brief struggle later, the rough man was in the back of the squad car, cursing in a mixture of Russian and English. The pale boy watched with a cautious, uncanny gaze, his shoulders set, his chin lifting in small degrees as Spratt approached. Spratt was windblown and out of breath, his lip bleeding from a lucky punch.
The boy trembled with fear.
“Are you all right?” Spratt asked, displeased by the bright red mark on the boy’s cheekbone. “Shall I call an ambulance? Is there someone who can take care of you?”
For a heartbeat the boy’s expression narrowed, as if he thought perhaps he was being made fun of, and then he dropped the act, his face tilting toward the ground. He meant to hide his expression, Spratt suspected, because it’d gone heavy and far too old for one so young.
The man was spitting foul language about the boy through the window, calling him words that should never be repeated in polite company, let alone directed at a child. The boy flinched from the vileness in that voice, and Spratt, without thinking, rested a light hand on his shoulder. He expected the boy’s second flinch, but what surprised him was the way the boy took a shy, almost secretive step closer, like
