Alex Read online

  "But one other car went off the road! Daddy, there's two cars!"

  Another part of the game. He was supposed to respond, Oh no! Two cars!

  "Yeah, two cars!"

  But who will help the other one?

  Alex disappeared.

  10

  He checked in to a hotel. He didn't pack a bag.

  Every time he was about to fall asleep, he was jerked awake by the memory of his son screaming. The phantom of the sound clattered in his ears as he stared toward the dark ceiling. It reminded him of the first week after Alex had come home from the hospital, when his whole life had become a dream dominated by his son's cries. He had heard them all the time then, too: whether he was awake or asleep; whether he was eating, reading, or talking; whether they were real at any given moment or imagined.

  He woke late and checked out, planning to head home, but got on 94 instead. He stopped at Best Buy again, but didn't buy anything, then got a late lunch and spent the afternoon browsing a used book store. The day dragged past, and he wondered what he was waiting for. He had to go home.

  But when he saw the front door, he turned and went back to the hotel.

  11

  He left the TV on, hoping the steady babble would help tamp down the echoes of Alex's cries and let him get some sleep. He had a steely headache, gleaming like a knife. They said that people didn't sleep well in strange beds the first night. Maybe tonight would be better.

  He still woke up every couple hours, but at least he slept. Every time he came awake he saw the clock and glanced blearily at the TV. 10:31 pm: some game show. 12:29 am: a music video. 1:47 am: infomercial.

  At 3:16, Alex was standing at the foot of the bed, naked and shivering.

  "I'll just call for you," he said.

  Vines of ice wound up the back of Ian's neck. He sat up, put a hand to his forehead, and tried not to scream.

  "I'll just call for you or Mommy," Alex reiterated. The bulge of his pre-schooler belly glistened with bathwater.

  Oh, god. Ian recognized this conversation too.

  And what else?

  "Kick and scream!" Alex said, louder.

  And bite. And kick them in the balls.

  "Yeah, and call for you and Mommy!"

  Call for anyone who can help you. Anyone. Most people are nice. They'll come running.

  But Alex had been smiling in the tub, when Ian had warned him the last time about strangers. Like it was a game to him. He was smiling the same way now.

  He didn't understand how badly people could hurt him.

  "Yeah, and I'll bite and stick my fingers in their eyes. Right, Dad?"

  And he had. The police said that the kidnapper's arms had been bitten in three places. His face had been scratched, one eye a gouged, bloody mess. The gunshot wound that eventually killed him had, they believed, come from the weapon discharging on accident as he wrestled with Ian's son.

  Alex had put up a devil's fight. He had almost gotten away. But in the end, Ian's blithe advice hadn't saved him.

  "Alex, I'm so sorry," Ian breathed. "God, I am so sorry." I should've been there.

  I should've been there.

  "I'll just call for you," Alex said again.

  He was still smiling.

  12

  Sunday.

  On the way home, Ian reached for his phone to call his wife before he remembered how their last call had ended. He waited until he got in the front door. Then he pushed her speed dial number - 1, SEND - and turned carefully away from the hall leading to his son's room as the tones trilled.

  Voicemail.

  "Sweetheart, it's me. I'm sorry I didn't call Friday night. I didn't forget, I just have a lot going on. I wanted to talk to you, but I couldn't give you my full attention, and... Look. I've been thinking about what you wanted. I want to talk to you about it. Maybe... maybe we can do something together? I don't think it would be so bad if you came with me. And I want to tell you -"

  "You have. Ten. Seconds to complete your message. Begin at the tone."

  BEEP.

  "I'm just thinking maybe you can come with me. I just want to tell you some things about why this has been..."

  He trailed off as the old anger shook its head, climbed to its feet.

  Why this had been so hard for him? Alex had been murdered. How could she not get that? Why should he have to explain to her why it was so hard that his son had been killed?

  BEEP. Click.

  He snapped the phone closed, nearly hurled it against the wall, stopped himself.

  Then, before he could think about what he was doing, he cried: "Alex! Are you here?"

  13

  He did some chores, trying to clear his head. Took out the kitchen garbage; made a dent in the pile of nasty dishes in the sink. His hands finally stopped shaking as he hit the GO button on the dishwasher.

  They hadn't been shaking because he was still mad. Or frustrated, or whatever he was. They'd been shaking because he had called for his dead son, and he was afraid he was losing his mind.

  He undressed and turned on the shower. The steaming rivulets on the curtain reminded him of Alex in the bathtub. He turned it back off and put on a bathrobe.

  The house was empty, heavy with silence. He thought about dinner, but had no appetite. He reached for the remote, but the noise of the TV would have made the silence worse, not better. He knew this because of all the other nights.

  Finally he went to his computer downstairs. Stale habit forced him to open Facebook, where he stared blankly at a page full of people who had moved on. He had stopped posting after Alex died. What would he say? "Ian Colmes identified Alex's dead body today :( Gonna miss him."

  No one had commented on his absence, except for Derek and a couple friends from raiding. Most of his Facebook friend list consisted of old classmates from high school and college. He had been part of the smart group, the ones with sharp minds and a keen eye to the future, the ones who were supposed to change the world. They were living in Singapore and Germany now, had degrees in astrophysics and philosophy. He was working in tech support.

  He closed the window and clicked on the folder on his desktop labeled Alex.

  There were a lot of pictures there, files with names like BigGrin.jpg, FloppyBaby.jpg, or ChldrnsMuseum.jpg, but between these, like thistles in a garden, were Word documents and saved html pages.

  MissingChild.doc.

  PoliceReport.pdf.

  PossblLead.htm.

  The worst of these was news_article.htm. He opened it and saw Alex smiling, his piercing blue eyes dulled by their translation into cyberspace. The caption read:

  BODY IN SHAKOPEE IS MISSING HOPKINS BOY

  They'd found him in a ditch just off the road, not far from O'Dowd Lake. He had been shot in the face at point-blank range. At the morgue, Ian had dared to hope it wasn't Alex, at first. The body's face was unrecognizable. But Alex had a mole low on his left side, just above his groin, and it had stood out against the pallid flesh of the corpse like an accusation.

  Ian scrolled down to a grainy photo of a white man with wild, grey hair and a clinging scrub of beard. He was wearing a jean jacket. This caption said:

  Leroy Eston, Colmes' alleged kidnapper

  Mr. Eston had been discovered a few miles away when his rusting van had sidled casually off the road and into a pine tree. When the cops got there they found him with his guts spilling between his hands and onto the brake pedal. He died of blood loss before the ambulance showed up.

  The official report theorized that Mr. Eston was taking Alex down to the lakeshore to kill him, intending to bury the body or hide it in the woods, but that the boy had somehow gotten loose. They had fought. Alex was obviously no match for his captor, but he may have had the advantage of surprise. In the struggle, Mr. Eston's weapon had discharged into his own stomach. Finally, Eston had shot Alex in the face, killing him instantly, and apparently returned to his van.

  Ian closed the document. He didn't know why he was reading it. It was st
upid; a waste of time.

  He opened MissingChild.doc.

  The same picture of Alex, this one slightly less dulled. Alex Colmes, 5, missing in Hopkins.

  He had been at Rita's house. She was their daycare lady. Ian had gone over there the next day and demanded to know what happened, where Alex was. He had made her show him through the basement and the shed in the backyard. He had refused to leave until she called the police. Alina had apologized for his behavior.

  In the next file he saw Alina, Alex, and himself at Lake Superior. Alex had thought it was the ocean.

  Ian stared at that one for a long time.

  14

  In the elevator the next morning, his watch read 8:09. When the doors opened, the clock on the wall said 8:12.

  Sheila was wearing a brilliant yellow sweater that hugged her breasts and showed off her cleavage. She didn't say anything to him, but she looked at the clock, shook her head, and rolled her eyes. He imagined kicking her chair over.

  The callers were idiots, as always. Their computers wouldn't turn off, or they wouldn't turn on. They had moved their taskbars and were too stupid to find them again. Every one of them believed their machine was out to get them.

  Just after 10, he got an email from Justin. He braced himself, expecting a summons to his boss's cube for his daily reprimand, but he was surprised. The email said, Is this something you might be interested in? It had a link to a job opening for a Senior position on another team.

  The money was good: at least two dollars an hour more than he was making. More, maybe, if he could shine in the interview. And since it was on another team, he wouldn't have to deal with Sheila or Justin anymore.

  He hit Reply and typed out, Could be. Thanks for the heads up.

  It would be nice to tell Alina he was finally moving up a bit at work. Making some extra money. Those things had nothing to do with why she had left him, but more money always helped make things easier. It would also be a way to show her he was looking forward, moving on...

  He blinked. That was why Justin had sent him the posting. He wanted to get Ian off his team, turn him into someone else's problem. Maybe he'd even grease the process a bit, just to move him out.

  So what? Let him. It's only good for me.

  But it still pissed him off.

  15

  Alina called at lunch. "They have a meeting on Wednesday nights. It's a group grief counseling session. You wouldn't be alone, or even just with me. It would be us, a counselor, and two other couples. What do you think?"

  He thought it was bullshit. Nothing any counselor could say would make Alex return, or make Ian stop wishing he would. The very idea that someone would try to convince him to get over it made him grit his teeth.

  But he missed Alina. God, he missed her. So he said, "Sounds good."

  "How does this coming Wednesday look?"

  "Well, you know, I have that business trip to Rome, but I can wrap it up early and take my private jet back. I should make it." He'd meant it as a joke, but it came out too sharp. "What about dinner first?"

  Silence. "Alina?"

  "I don't think that's a good idea. Let's just meet there." Let's keep it business. You can see me again if you perform the way I want you to at the session.

  "Okay. Do you want to email me the address and stuff?"

  "Sure." She fell quiet again. Their conversations were fraught with these pits of silence now. You could stumble into one at any time, without warning, and just fall, and fall -

  "Ian, are you serious about this?"

  "What? What do you mean?"

  "I feel like you're just doing this to make me happy."

  No shit. What was he supposed to say? No, as you know, I am ready to move on. It's like we never even had a kid. Let's pretend that. It'll be easier. See, I've totally come around! He didn't know how to respond, and he didn't want to stammer - so there was another pit, yawning beneath him just when he thought he was getting his footing.

  She said, "It's just not going to work if you don't give it a chance."

  "I know. I'll give it a chance. Yes, I'm taking it seriously. I promise." As his lips moved, he remembered how, when he'd first fallen in love with her, he'd promised never to lie. He felt like a jackass.

  But lies were the only thing that would make her happy. She didn't want to know what he really thought. She didn't want to know that he still saw Alex, playing with cars -

  Shake it off. "Hey. Guess what."

  She sighed. "What."

  "Justin sent me a posting for a Senior position. I guess he thinks I should go for it. It would be at least two bucks more an hour."

  "Wow. Really?" She actually sounded pleased. He hadn't heard her sound that way in a long time.

  "Yeah."

  "Are you gonna apply for it?"

  I don't know. Part of me doesn't want to give him what he wants. A year ago, he could've told her that. He could've told her anything.

  "Yeah, probably."

  "Well, good luck. I hope it goes well for you." Not, Let me know how it goes, or That would really help us out.

  He felt like he was standing on a cliff's edge, with the wind pushing at his back. "Thanks."

  16

  He came home late. Alina had already put Alex to bed, but he wanted to say good night.

  Alex's door was ajar. Just an inch or so, because if it was open too far, he would use the light to play; but if it was closed, he would scream bloody murder. Ian eased it open, then picked his way over the floor, littered with cars and Legos like a minefield.

  His son was lying with his face to the wall. Ian kissed his temple, smiling gently. "Hey, guy."

  Alex's eyelids fluttered, but didn't open.

  "Daddy's home. He loves you."

  Normally he would stop there, creep back out and leave his son to rest, but sometimes he had to say more. Sometimes it felt urgent.

  "Daddy will always come home. You never need to worry about that. I'm always gonna come home and keep you safe."

  He made this promise because his own dad hadn't; he made it because nothing in the world mattered as much as the little boy in that bed. He made it because he didn't want Alex to worry.

  From behind him, Alina cleared her throat. He glanced back at her, smiling, and saw her glare.

  "What?" he asked.

  "What the hell are you doing?" she said. He had never seen her so irritated.

  "What do you mean?"

  "Would you just get out of there?"

  "I was just saying good night." He turned to give his son another kiss, but the boy's face had been blasted open.

  "Alex?" Blood was splattered across his son's temple, over his blankets, up along the wall. A glistening hole gaped where his nose had been. "Oh my god. Alina!"

  But when Ian turned back, it was Leroy Eston in the doorway. His gouged eye burned in the depths of his silhouette.

  "Where were you?" he said.

  17

  It snowed on Wednesday, and when he saw her waiting on the sidewalk for him, the flakes were collecting in her hair. She looked beautiful.

  She let him give her a quick peck on the lips. They were warm, and tasted like peppermint. When he pulled away, she gave him a tight smile. "Thanks for coming."

  "I'd do anything for you," he said, and meant it. Mostly. Then he remembered that he wasn't supposed to be here for her. Her smile flickered away, but it was too late to take the words back.

  The setup was simple: metal folding chairs, arranged in a circle in the school gym. A pretty, black woman greeted them as they came in.

  "Ian Colmes?" she said, "and Alina?"

  Alina nodded and exchanged big, warm, fake smiles with her. Ian couldn't muster one.

  "I'm Shauna. Have a seat anywhere. We're just about to begin."

  Ian took off his coat and slung it over the back of a chair as he glanced at the other couples. One was heavyset, a white man and woman who weren't morbidly obese but could get there with little effort. The other was a thin asian
couple. He didn't recognize either of them.

  "Welcome," Shauna said warmly once everyone was settled. "My name is Shauna Douglas, I'm a licensed therapist at the Associate Grief Center in Saint Paul. I've been working with grieving parents for more than fifteen years now." She nodded encouragingly, and grinned a challenge at him. "I live in Pine Springs, so this is a bit of a haul" - she chuckled -"but we've been hosting sessions here at the junior high for several years, and I think we've helped a lot of people." Her head bobbed vigorously at no one in particular. Ian felt his neck trying to nod in response, and forced it to be still.

  "Let's just start by going around the circle and introducing ourselves. I started" - another overwrought grin - "so you can go next and we'll just go around." She nodded at the asian couple like an overzealous teacher trying to coax a child into the pool.

  "Okay," the woman said without a trace of an accent. "I'm Rachel, Nguyen, and this is my husband Harvey."

  Harvey nodded at them; Ian nodded back.

  "Should we... say who we lost?" Rachel asked.

  "If you'd like to," Shauna said. "Whatever you're comfortable with. We'll all be sharing later."

  "Okay, well..." She glanced at her husband. "It was our daughter, Lana." The words tumbled out, rushed but steady. "She was sixteen and had just gotten her license and was hit by a drunk driver."

  A round of condolences followed; then it was the fat man's turn. He took off his hat and his pate shined with sweat. "I'm George Benson, and this here's Mary Ellen. Our son Evan's been missing for three years now. They can't find him. It don't seem like he's coming back." He pinched his lips and looked at his wife, who grabbed his hand. He nodded tightly. "I mean, we don't know, you know? But it don't seem like he's coming back."

  "I'm so sorry for your loss," Shauna said, then looked at Ian and Alina.

  Ian cleared his throat. "We, ah -" He looked at Alina. "Did you want - ?" She shook her head.

  "I'm Ian Colmes, and this is my wife Alina. Our son, Alex..."

  He didn't want to say the words. It wasn't that he didn't want to admit Alex was dead; he could do that. But Alex had been special, divine. He didn't deserve to have his memory desecrated by a fucking round robin of lost children, like just another corpse getting rolled into a pit of rotting bodies.