“Because I’m not stupid. The second they’re out that door, I’m as good as dead.”
“No.” Clay gave his word. “I’ll see to it. My objective is to see that you get whatever it is that you need without anyone getting hurt. What do you need, Carl? Let me help you.” Keep it conversational, between you and Carl. If he’s talking, he’s not killing his family.
The little boy cried out again, tears giving way to sobs. “What I need,” Carl hissed through his teeth. “Is some goddamn quiet! Shut him up, Liz!”
Be quiet, Bradley, Clay silently pleaded with the child. Any threat to his father’s control at this point could have devastating consequences. Empathize, Clay reminded himself. Reassure.
“Carl, I know it must be difficult to concentrate with Bradley crying. Why don’t you send him out here? You can do that, because you’re in control.”
“Damn right I am! Liz, I told you to shut him up!”
From there it went downhill at a breakneck pace. Carl dropped the phone, and turned his gun on his family. Before Clay could even signal the sharpshooters, that little boy was dead.
His terrified voice still echoed in Clay’s head. He wondered if he’d ever again be able to sleep without hearing him… singing?
Shooting up like a marionette on a string, Clay blinked his eyes at the dark-haired child sitting on the edge of his bed. He moved a bright yellow cement mixer back and forth as he sang in a charmingly off-key voice.
“Sally the camel has tree stumps, Sally the camel has tree stumps, so ride Sally ride. Boom, boom, boom.”
For a moment, Clay thought he’d taken a high dive into shallow waters, but as dream faded into reality he found himself grinning. Max’s off base lyrics were hysterical. He eyed his surprise visitor with a great deal of humor.
“You go riding tree stumps and you’re bound to get splinters in your butt,” he advised.
Max turned around to face Clay, covering his giggle behind a small hand. “You said butt,” he pointed out with glee.
Well shit, Clay thought, scrubbing a hand through his mussed hair. What was the politically correct terminology these days? Bottom? Derriere? Hiney? “I meant to say ‘in your behind’.” He didn’t want the kid to go rat him out to his mother.
“That’s okay,” Max said diplomatically, in that completely superior manner only the very young can pull off. “I know what a butt is. I know lots of things that Mommy doesn’t like me to say. I hear ‘em from Cousin Declan and Cousin Rogan. They’re teaching me how to cuss.”
“Are they now?”
“Uh-huh.” Max pushed his cement mixer up Clay’s leg and made the accompanying noises. His black hair was tousled, his face rosy from sleep. By the gray cast to the light diminishing the shadows in the room, Clay could only guess that it was just before dawn.
Max, apparently, was an early riser.
“They said that the boys at the big school next year will think I’m a sissy if I call my butt a bum-bum and my penis a doohickey,” the little boy explained. “Mommy has funny names for things, but that’s just ‘cause she’s a girl. Girls are kind of prissy ‘bout stuff, Cousin Rogan says.”
Clay wondered if Tate had any idea what her cousins were doing to her son. But Max’s next comment pretty much answered that. “Cousin Rogan says that it’s just a secret between us boys, and that I should never cuss in front of Mommy ‘cause it wouldn’t be ‘spectful. I don’t know what that means,” he admitted philosophically, “but I think it means that it might make Mommy mad.” He gave Clay a quick once over before returning his attention to his truck. “I figured it’s okay to tell you, ‘cause you have a penis.”
In a bid to keep from cracking up, Clay bit his bottom lip, reopening his cut. Then he added to Max’s education – or maybe corruption – by uttering a curse.
Max’s eyes, so like his mama’s, went wide with fledgling admiration. “Cousin Rogan said that word would make Mommy real mad if I ever repeated it. He said it the other day when he dropped a full bottle of whiskey on his pinkie toe.”
Wiping fresh blood from his tender flesh, Clay nodded his head in commiseration. “I can understand why he did that.”
“Did you cuss when the bad man hurt you in the face?” Max wanted to know.
“How did you know a bad man hurt me?” Clay wondered, hoping to turn the conversation away from its current uneasy course. He was floundering in a sea of anatomically correct names for body parts and inappropriate curse words.
“I woke up last night ‘cause I had to pee, and I heard you and Mommy talking. That’s how I knew you were sleeping in this room.”
Clay had to admit to his own fledgling admiration, as well as a sincere and heartfelt concern for Tate’s sanity when this kid hit fifteen. He was already showing signs of being both clever and sneaky – cute in a precocious five year old. Terrifying in a teenager.
“So your mom doesn’t know you’re in here?” he surmised.
Max shook his head. “I’m not s’ posed to bother the guests. But you didn’t lock your door,” he said almost accusingly, just beginning to understand the benefits of reassigning blame. “So I wanted to come in and show you that I’ve been practicin’.”
“Practicing what?” Clay asked warily. Lord knows what else Tate’s cousins had taught him.
“Givin’ five.” Max huffed out an exasperated breath. “You said I needed to practice it with Mommy.”
Something in Clay’s gut twisted a little at the child’s words. “I guess I did say that, didn’t I?” Then he held his hand out and waited for Max to slap him.
“Ouch, you got me,” Clay said when the small palm smacked against
