My hands were still in fists and my anger swelled. But I didn’t know where to direct it. This man before me? Brooks? Buster?
For his part, Colter didn’t seem to care. He craned his neck, looking behind me.
“Where’s the girl? Did you bring her? We had a deal.”
“She’s in the car.”
“And she didn’t run out here?” Colter lowered his eyes to mine. “Did you lock her in there? You see, that’s the problem. You’re holding her back from what she wants.”
“Where would you go with her?” I asked. “What do you think is going to happen here?”
But Colter didn’t answer. Once again, his eyes looked behind me, back toward the road and the car where Caitlin was waiting.
I turned, expecting to see Caitlin coming, but then I saw what Colter saw.
Headlights, coming down the road. Another car approaching mine.
“What did you do?” he asked.
“They’re probably just turning around,” I said. But the car stopped right behind mine.
“Is that a cop? Did you screw me?” He started moving back into the dark.
Someone climbed out of the car and looked toward us. I recognized the figure before he said anything. I had run into him out in the cemetery before.
“It’s my brother,” I said. “It’s Buster.”
Chapter Fifty-five
I walked over to the cars and approached Buster, leaving Colter behind in the dark. “What are you doing here?” I asked.
“Looking for you. I drove all over town looking. I figured you might end up here eventually.”
“You’re not needed-or wanted. Leave me alone.”
“Where is she? Where’s Caitlin?” He looked into the car, squinting in the dark. “Tom? What did you do? Did you hand her off to him already?”
“She’s in there, okay?”
Caitlin must have heard our voices. She leaned closer to the glass, allowing us to see her. But she didn’t make a move to come out.
Buster looked horrified. “Tom, just get in the car and take her home.”
“She’s my leverage. She’s safe in the car because I can’t have her running off before I get what I need.”
“That’s cold, Tom. Cold. Jesus-referring to your daughter as leverage.”
“Did you call the police like you called Abby?”
“We’re family, Tom. All of us. We protect each other. I did what I thought was right.”
“Family. Why did you do it, Buster? Why? You gave her away, like a piece of meat. Why? You went to that house. She was there. She heard your voice.”
He made a hurried shushing gesture by bringing his finger to his lips. He pointed at the car.
“I don’t care,” I said.
“Come on,” he said. “Over here.”
“No.”
“I want to explain.”
We stepped away from the cars, far enough so Caitlin couldn’t hear us.
“What did the police tell you?” Buster asked.
“Enough. That you owed a guy money for drugs. And he knew Colter. So-”
“I didn’t
“Colter?”
“Brooks. He was all over me. I was scared. I thought I might just leave town, never come back.”
“You should have.”
He looked hurt, but he went on. “I talked about Caitlin. I talked about her all the time. She’s my niece. You have to understand-I felt like she was more than that. Like she was mine. My kid.” He threw his hands up a little. A hopeless shrug. “I’m never going to have any of my own. You can feel that way about a niece or nephew. Even if they’re not your own, you can feel like they belong to you in some way. There’s a bond there that goes beyond blood or family or who gave birth to who. Right?”
“I’ll have to take your word for that one.”
“Like me and you, Tom. Am I your brother or your half brother? Does it matter what it’s called? Look-okay, so you wanted me to admit that my old man used to get after us and beat us, and I wouldn’t before. I was a dick, I know. Well, I’ll admit it now, right here. He used to beat us and terrorize us when he drank. And he used to come down on you most of all, probably because you weren’t really his kid. You see-I said it, Tom. I said it. You were right about my dad and all of that.”
“Thank you.”
“It’s the truth. But something else is the truth, too. I used to protect you, Tom. I used to put my body over yours. I tried to get in between you and him. I know you remember that, too. See, that’s what I’m talking about. There’s a bond there, one that can’t be broken by some circumstances.”
“Go on,” I said. “What about Colter and Brooks?”
“When she disappeared, I thought of those guys. Maybe I had talked about her too much around them.”
“So you knew Colter?”
“I knew of him at the time. He didn’t know me. I thought of going to the police, but what did I know? Really? That I knew a guy who might know a guy who might have taken my niece?”
“You tell them anything you know.”
“Like you told them about me after last night? I know they came to you asking about me. Did you cover for me? Did you protect me?”
“I shouldn’t have.”
“Did you tell them about the girl we saw here in the cemetery? That little girl.”
“Why didn’t you say anything about this?”
“I had a record. They busted me for being naked by a school. And the drugs. What were they going to do with me?” He shrugged again and walked in a small circle.
I looked over to the cemetery and saw Colter’s figure in the dark. Listening. Waiting.
Buster came back to me and stood even closer. “I decided to check it out myself. I asked Brooks about it, if he knew about Colter and the little girls. He said Colter was a creep and a pervert, but he didn’t think he had anyone in the house. He’d been in there a few times. He hadn’t seen anything, or so he said.”
“Caitlin says she heard your voice in Colter’s house.”
Buster shook his head. “No, no. Never. I didn’t know where he lived. Brooks put me off. He said he dealt with unpleasant people, but he didn’t know anything about Caitlin. Tom, if I had gone there, if I had been in that house, I would have turned it upside down. I wouldn’t have left without Caitlin. Never.”
His words rang true to me. Despite Colter’s story, I believed my brother. I believed him.
“Why didn’t you tell the police I’m meeting Colter here tonight? You could have stopped all of this.”
“The cops are looking for me now because of what Brooks’s girlfriend told them. I can’t make contact with them. They want to lock me up. And I wanted to come find you. And help you. After last night, with the fight and everything, I wanted to be the one to help you see this from a different angle. You’re not seeing it clearly yet, okay? But you still can. You can just get back in the car and drive her home. That’s all you have to do.”
“It’s that easy?”
“It really is.”
“What about the rest of our lives?”
“I don’t know. .”
