The House That Jack Built Read online

  “I can’t believe it,” Carrie said. “After so many years of not knowing. Of constantly staring at every little boy you see in the street or at the beach or in Wal-Mart. Even later, I kept looking for him everywhere. In crowds. He would have been thirty-seven this year, and just the other day, I stopped myself from staring at this man in his mid-thirties, just because I wondered if it could be him, or what he might look…in case…well, in case he wasn’t dead. You keep hoping. That’s what hurts the most. I guess I had accepted the fact that he was gone, but there is a part of you that wonders. What if he isn’t dead? What if he is out there somewhere…alive? But, I guess…I guess we know for sure now.”

  “There is something else,” I said. “We do believe he was alive for a couple of years after he disappeared. The body we found matching your son’s DNA was older. Maybe up to seven years older.”

  I could have sworn I heard Carrie Kingston’s heart stop. Her eyes widened, and she kept staring at me. Then, she burst into tears, and Jim couldn’t hold his back anymore either.

  “You mean to tell us he was still alive? You mean to tell us we could have found him if we had just looked harder?” he said, his voice trembling with a mixture of furor and unbearable terror.

  “There was nothing you could have done differently, Mr. Kingston,” Beth said. “Everyone did all they could.”

  Carrie Kingston was no longer listening to the conversation. She kept shaking her head in disbelief.

  “No…No,” she said over and over again, her voice breaking. “I knew he was alive. I knew it all this time. I kept looking for him, but you told us it was over. You people told us to let it go. To move on. That the guy who had hurt our son was in prison. That the case was closed and we should leave it alone. I kept telling everyone it wasn’t over, that my boy was somewhere, alive, but they wouldn’t listen. It was unlikely that he was alive still, they said. Vernon Johnson had killed him and there was a witness. But, there’s no body, I kept saying. But still they wouldn’t listen. And all this time…all this time, I could have been looking for him. You could have been looking for him. We could have found him. I know we could have.” She clenched her fist in desperation. “Seven years, you say? I can’t believe it!”

  Jim looked at Carrie. I could tell the many years of wondering had taken its toll on their marriage. There was no affection to trace between the two of them. They were simply two people living together in mourning.

  “So…so what happens now? Will Vernon Johnson go back to jail?” he asked.

  “We don’t know,” I said. “We’re reopening the case.”

  “How?” Carrie asked.

  “Excuse me?” I asked.

  “How? How did he die?”

  I cleared my throat. “Well, since the body has been in the ground for a very long time, it’s hard to determine the cause of death just yet.”

  Beth and I exchanged looks and both got up from our chairs. It was time for us to go. We had done what we came for. As painful as it was, we had to leave them to their sorrow.

  “Again, I am so sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Kingston, for your loss,” I said and shook their hands. “We’ll be in touch.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  May 2015

  We drove back in silence. I had an awful taste in my mouth. I couldn’t get Carrie Kingston’s voice out of my head.

  All this time…all this time, I could have been looking for him. You could have been looking for him. We could have found him. I know we could have.

  The realization was devastating. To think that the little boy had been somewhere in the area for up to seven years. For seven years, he had been so close they could almost have run into him. But, where had he been? Had he run away and hid somewhere? Or had someone taken him? According to the report, the screen to the window had been taken off. It was put back on so loosely it had fallen off as soon as someone touched it when the police were called. So, there had to have been someone. But who? And where had he kept him all those years? And why?

  “A case like that makes you think, huh?” Beth finally said, when we hit the bridges and drove towards the barrier islands where we both lived. It had gotten dark and the lights from the boats on the Intracoastal looked like fireflies in the water.

  “Sure does,” I said. “Especially when you have kids of your own. How are you holding up, by the way?”

  “If you mean am I drinking again, then no.”

  “Good. I don’t mean to pry, but I know that going through hard times can set you back,” I said, and thought about Shannon and her falling off the wagon recently. Luckily, the pregnancy had changed all that. I knew that as soon as it was about more than just her own life, she would never do it.

  I stopped at the red light.

  “But I won’t lie to you, Ryder,” Beth said. “I have been tempted more than once while being at home all alone waiting to get better. It feels good to be back. Drove me nuts to have to just sit there and rest all the time. Ugh.”

  I chuckled. It wasn’t often Beth ever shared something about herself with me. I liked it. Usually, she kept people at a distance. Usually, that meant people had a lot they weren’t too proud of to share. But we all had that. We had all done things we weren’t happy about. That was life, right?

  I completely understood what she was saying. I liked to stay busy too. Staying at home with nothing to do but rest would drive me nuts. I had thought about it since Shannon suggested I stopped working. She had enough money to provide for the both of us, she said. But that wasn’t my thing. What would I do?

  Build a house, yes, but once that was done, then what? No. I needed this job and the force just as much as it needed me. It was my second home. But the truth was, at moments like these, when driving back from having given news like this to already suffering people, kicking them when they were already down, in moments like that I did consider leaving the force. Maybe I should just do what my dad had done, retire before I hit fifty and follow my dream. But what was my dream?

  I had no clue.

  I drove Beth back to her house and dropped her off. “Take it easy, partner,” I said and meant every word. Beth needed to rest.

  I drove back up A1A and stopped at my parents’ motel to pick up the twins. Emily had texted me that she was at home. Angela and Shannon were visiting her sister Kristi for dinner.

  The light was still lit on the deck overlooking the beach. I walked up there, thinking my parents were probably sitting outside talking the day through over a beer like they usually did before bedtime. As I came closer, I spotted my mother, but she wasn’t sitting with my dad. She was with another man. Someone I didn’t know personally, but had only seen in the newspaper. I stopped before they saw me and decided to walk inside the bar instead, where I found my dad behind the counter. He was closing up the bar while looking out at the two of them on the deck outside.

  “What’s going on, Dad?” I asked.

  He drew in a deep breath and looked at me. “An old friend of your mom’s showed up today.”

  I stared at him, startled. “Old friend? Vernon Johnson is my mother’s old friend?”

  “Not just friend,” my dad said and looked into my eyes with a tender yet slightly fearful look. “I never told you this, but your mother once fell in love with someone else. You were six years old when it happened. She was very young when she had you and still was when she met him. That was why we left Cocoa Beach and moved to Ft. Lauderdale back then. Your mother decided to stay with me for your sake, but she loved him. They were deeply in love when he was arrested for having killed that kid. Your mother never got over him.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  May 2015

  Noah Kinley opened his eyes. At least he thought he had, but it was still as dark as if his eyes were still closed. He blinked a few times. No, they were open. He felt rested, but had a strange unease in his body. He didn’t feel like waking up yet. He wanted to sleep more. Maybe it was still night?

  He felt hungry. He felt so thirsty, his thro
at dry as sand. Noah coughed. His body felt almost numb. He blinked his eyes again and again, but the darkness wouldn’t go away. Usually, he could see at least something from the light coming from the window, but there was nothing.

  Had he gone blind? There was a kid on Noah’s old street who was blind. She walked with a stick and had eyes that had rolled back in her head. She was weird and looked scary, Noah thought.

  Oh, my God. Am I like her now? Have my eyes rolled back in my head too? Am I going to walk using a stick to find my way too? Oh, God, please, please don’t let me be blind.

  Noah sobbed and touched his eyes. As he did, his hand slid across something. Noah reached up with both of his hands and felt it. It was like a roof or something, but very close to his face. He tried to lift his head, but it hit the roof with a thud and he put his head back down again. Then he felt around him to the sides and realized it was everywhere. It was surrounding him everywhere. He could hardly move.

  What was this?

  “Mom? Mooom? MOOOOOM??!” Noah finally screamed while slamming the palms of his hands on the roof. And now he couldn’t stop screaming.

  He banged on the sides and on the bottom and on the roof. He was scared to death. What had happened? Where was his new blue room? Where was his soft bed with the steering wheel? Where were his pillow and Ely the Evil Elephant?

  Where are my mom and dad?

  Noah screamed again and cried for hours, then he felt tired and weak and floated out of consciousness for a little while before he woke up again, only to realize nothing had changed. He could still open his eyes, but it felt no different than when he kept them closed. The darkness was still everywhere, enclosing him completely.

  “Mooom? Where are you? I’m scared.”

  Noah was crying again. He felt so confused. Then he remembered something. He remembered having fought zombies in his room. He remembered the nice man who came to play with him with the sword. It was all very foggy. He had played with the nice man; they had been fighting with their swords, then he drank a soda that the man had given him. Noah’s had tasted strange and afterwards he had felt sleepy. So incredibly sleepy all of a sudden. He had told the man he needed to take a nap before they could continue the game. He had smiled and tucked him in the bed. He had even caressed his hair till he fell asleep, just like Mommy used to do. He had been so nice to Noah.

  But where was the man now? And where was Noah? Was this darkness ever going to end?

  Noah banged his fists at the roof again. “MOOOOMMY! HELP! MOMMY. MOMMY! HEEELP!”

  He cried and screamed desperately till he wore himself out, then had to stop. Noah felt so weak. So hungry and thirsty. And he had to pee. He had to pee really bad.

  Chapter Nineteen

  May 2015

  Shannon leaned over and kissed Jack on the lips. He had been awake most of the night, worrying about the case he was working on. She knew him well enough by now to know what the groaning and constant tossing were all about. He had told her he had visited the parents of the boy whose body they had found just the night before, and after hearing the details, Shannon completely understood why it bothered him so much.

  “Let me make you some breakfast,” she said and looked deep into his eyes.

  His eyes went from worried to relaxed. “Just some coffee would be great,” he said and kissed her nose.

  Shannon got up and walked into the kitchen. All the kids were still sleeping. In a few minutes, they would be all over the place, looking for shoes and backpacks and fighting. Shannon had learned to enjoy those small moments in the morning before hell broke loose.

  From the kitchen, Shannon could hear Jack pull the curtain like he always did first thing in the morning. To check out the waves. It had been very windy lately and a storm system was in the Atlantic, they said on the radio. It was still very far away from Florida. They didn’t know yet if it would turn into a hurricane and maybe make landfall. It worried Shannon, but not Jack. He told her it was very rare they made landfall and they hadn’t had one since 2005.

  “It might get windy for a few days, but after that it’ll pass. Don’t worry.”

  Shannon tried hard not to. She had enough to worry about as it was. She was trying to get used to the chaos of being a big family and trying to get past the constant all-day sickness from the pregnancy, while battling the anxiety of possibly going to jail. It was a lot to take at once.

  Jack crept up behind her and put his arm around her. He kissed her neck. Shannon closed her eyes.

  “So, no surfing today either?” she asked.

  “No. Not with that wind. It’s nasty out there. Big waves in the back, but it’s not worth the effort to try and paddle out. It’s all blowing out. But with a little luck, we might get some awesome conditions on the backside of this system. Once it passes us out in the Atlantic, the wind will shift to off-shore and that’s when the surf is perfect.”

  Shannon nodded and handed Jack the coffee. She had heard him talk about off-shore winds being perfect for surfing before. She felt like such a novice when it came to the ocean. She didn’t understand why today wasn’t a perfect day for surfing when the wind was blowing forcefully onshore and creating all these waves, but according to Jack, wind was a bad thing when it came to wave-surfing. She still didn’t fully get it. But she did enjoy surfing with him and had come to the point where she could catch a wave on her own. But now with the pregnancy and all, she wasn’t going to be surfing for a long time. She couldn’t risk it. She didn’t dare to, even though both Jack and the doctor said it was perfectly safe.

  There was a noise coming from behind them and they turned to look at Angela, who had come into the kitchen. Shannon smiled and kissed her.

  “Good morning, sleepyhead. You want some breakfast?”

  She sat down at the table with a sleepy nod. Soon after, Abigail and Austin stormed inside and fought about sitting next to Angela.

  “Hey, I wanted to sit there,” Abigail whined, when Austin grabbed the chair.

  “Sit on the other side of Angela,” Jack said and poured cereal into bowls.

  “No,” Abigail said and crossed her arms in front of her chest. “Austin took my chair.”

  Jack sighed and looked at her. Then he told Austin to move away. Shannon felt a sting in her heart. She wanted to speak up and tell him Austin hadn’t done anything wrong and that it was unfair, but bit her tongue. It wasn’t her battle.

  Austin refused to move.

  “But, Daaad. I was here first.”

  “No, I wanted to sit there,” Abigail claimed victoriously.

  Abigail could be quite the handful, and Shannon couldn’t help thinking that Jack maybe let her get away with too much. She never said anything, since she didn’t want to hurt him. Neither of them ever commented on the other’s education of their children. It seemed to work for now. But she wondered how it was going to work out once they started living in the same house. Right now, they lived in separate condos and Shannon and Angela could go downstairs and be on their own every now and then, even though they did hang out at Jack’s place most of the time. But what was it going to be like when they were together like this every day? Shannon and Angela were used to it just being them. Shannon wasn’t used to all these children and all their conflicts. Would she be able to never say anything? Would it be expected of her to help raise his children as well? Or was she supposed to just stay out of that, even though it affected her life as well. Standing in the kitchen and watching Jack try to solve this little problem, Shannon suddenly wondered how on earth they were going to do this and with a baby on top of it?

  Shannon was staring helplessly at the many half-eaten bowls of cereal and screaming children when Jack’s phone suddenly rang and he picked it up. He left the room, and Shannon had no idea how to manage the two arguing children.

  “You’re mean,” Austin said to Abigail.

  “No, I am not!”

  “Yes, you are!”

  “Am not!”

  “You are. You’re
a meanie.”

  “Daaad. Austin called me a meanie!”

  Shannon stared at the two of them for what felt like ages with no idea what to do or how to handle them. Finally, Jack returned with the phone in his hand. Shannon drew in a breath of relief. He was back, now he could take care of the two, while she focused on her baby girl, who just like her mother had no idea what to say or do. They simply weren’t used to these kinds of conflicts. Shannon smiled when she saw Jack, but then her smile froze. He looked at her seriously.

  “It was Ron. I’ve gotta hurry to the office. Something has come up. Could you please make sure the kids get to the bus on time? Thanks!”

  Before she could open her mouth and argue, he had run into the bedroom, put on his uniform, and left, blowing a quick kiss to all of them.

  Austin and Abigail had stopped fighting and were eating now, but just for a few minutes before Abigail poked her elbow into Austin’s side and Austin wailed, “Abigail hit me!”

  “No, I didn’t. You were just sitting too close to me. If you had picked the chair over there, then maybe this wouldn’t have happened.”

  “I was here first! Shannon?”

  Shannon stared at the three children. She had never had more than one child at a time. This was certainly different. She forced a smile and avoided getting in the middle of their discussion.

  “Finish up your food and get ready for the bus. It leaves in ten minutes.”

  “Yeah, hurry up, doofus,” Abigail said to Austin.

  “Abigail called me doofus.”

  “Because you are a doofus, doofus.”

  Only ten more minutes, Shannon. Only ten.