A SECRET CHORD
Chapter Thirteen
Arizona, 1985
Adam had never run right out of school before. Nobody saw him leave and when he found himself beyond the gate, he stopped in astonishment, frightened by his own daring. The air was still and everything was silent. All the children were inside. There was no one else in the world right now but him.
He leaned against the wall, panting sharply. At any moment, he expected Mrs Roberts to come steaming after him – hoped for it, almost, so that this strange ordeal could have a familiar ending – but time rolled on and there was no sign of her angry face.
Creeping round the corner, Adam found a shadowy spot and crouched down in the dust to consider his options, which were limited. He could hear cars passing on the road, oblivious to his presence. Tears welled up in his eyes but he brushed them away with grimy fingers. "Baby," he muttered.
The obvious thing to do, of course, was stand up and walk right back to his classroom. Maybe, if he was really lucky, they wouldn't even know that he had been outside. Adam tried to imagine how it would be but the picture in his mind was so vivid that his breath stopped altogether and he clutched at his chest in a panic until it returned.
"I'll never go back," he said fiercely, hating his teacher at that moment because she had driven him out.
Home, then? It was a long way to walk but Momma would be there and, suddenly, Adam longed to feel her arms around him. He hugged himself and rocked in the shadows, picturing her beautiful smile and dreaming of her voice. "Oh, honey," she crooned, with her fingers twisting through his hair. "It's okay…"
But it wasn't okay. It was bad; really bad, and Momma wasn't the only person at home today.
Slowly, Adam rose to his feet and turned to stare at the road ahead. He pushed his father's face right out of his mind and a curious feeling of peace settled over him, trickling down to his toes like an ice-cold shower.
Mister Thomas.
His new friend had said that he could come back any time. The house was cool and quiet. No one could touch him there because his new friend wouldn't let them. "I'll go to Mister Thomas," Adam said, and his breathing was steady.
High in the sky, the sun peered down with interest as he set off on his journey. It was almost fun, playing hide and seek with passers-by. Each time he heard footsteps or an engine in the distance, he would slip out of sight behind a fence or a parked car. No one saw him – or, if they did, no one cared enough to wonder about a young boy on his own in the middle of the day. Most people, he guessed, were inside anyway, eating their lunch or getting it ready – and that thought made his stomach growl with hunger.
"Thomas will feed me," he told himself with child-like certainty.
The buildings were thinning by now and the road was empty. Adam paused to dig out a stone that had bounced into his shoe. Overhead, the sun was no longer friendly but an angry face that burned him with its glare. The sidewalk was so hot that he began to fear his soles would stick to it if he stood in one place for too long.
As he struggled with the laces of his sneaker, Adam heard a car pull up nearby, with a squealing of brakes that made his heart flutter. He didn't need to turn and look when the door slammed shut. He knew who had found him. The dream was over before it had really begun, and the nightmare was coming to claim him instead.
Black and faceless with the sun behind him, Charles Ross strode towards his son.
-x0x-
New York City, 2005
There was a key on the outside of Treasure Matthews' bedroom door. Mac tried to keep his features straight when he saw it, but he could feel a slow fire kindling in his gut. Judge Matthews followed his gaze and her eyes tightened. "Do you have children, Detective?"
A lazy defence for a woman whose stern reputation preceded her into every courtroom. When Mac shook his head, she folded her arms like a barrier between them, clearly convinced that she was going to win this opening round. "Then I hope you don't intend to make false accusations about my own parenting techniques. Treasure is a teenage girl, which means she's not to be trusted – as this incident has clearly shown. My method was working, or so I thought until this morning when I found the door wide open."
The judge used her daughter's fanciful name as though it were an obscenity. Not your choice, Mac surmised. "How do you suppose she managed it?"
"Isn't that for you and your team to work out, Detective Taylor? After all, I do believe that's why the city continues to pay your salary…"
"It's an old trick," Kaile Maka put in hastily. She held up a stiff piece of paper and a sturdy wire. "One I used myself as a kid. Pretty sure I found it in a book somewhere. Of course, it only works if there's a gap beneath the door. Lock me in," she offered, with a cool edge to her voice that said she, too, was unimpressed by the judge's attitude towards her missing daughter. Stepping forwards, Mac complied. As he shut the bedroom door and turned the key with a very deliberate movement, his eyes never left Judge Matthews' face. Yet the woman was skilled in the art of concealment and her feelings – if they existed at all – were fiercely guarded and invisible.
Between the polished wooden tiles and the bottom of the door was a wide gap. Bending down and looking closely, Mac suspected that it could have been created by Treasure herself. There were scuff marks from some kind of tool and the base of the door was uneven. Clever kid, he thought and, for a moment, he could almost feel her presence as a living thing, still there with them; stubborn and unyielding like her mother, but warm too, and full of youthful passion.
With a scrape and a jiggle, the piece of paper slid through the gap until half of it was on Mac's side. Behind him, the judge snorted. "Parlour tricks," she said. "Pathetic."
"Effective," Mac corrected her, rising to his feet. He could hear Kaile working away at the key on the other side until suddenly, with a satisfying thunk, it dropped from the lock and landed on the paper. The hidden detective retrieved her prize and, before Mac could blink, she was standing in front of them both, a prisoner no longer.
"Ta-daa," she breathed, with a wink for Mac's eyes only. "Turns out, Treasure could get out of her room whenever she wanted to – which makes me wonder if this was the only time she did it. What do you think, Your Honour?"
Judge Matthews' only response was to turn on her heel and march away down the corridor. Her back was rigid and her head was high.
"Something I said?" Kaile's smile was unrepentant. Mac knew that he should be shocked at her attitude but he could not bring himself to reprimand her. Waving her arm, she ushered him in. "After you, Detective Taylor? I think the air's a little warmer in there. You look chilled to the bone."
And he was, though not from any drop in temperature. At first, Mac had secretly questioned Kaile's theory that this case was linked to Ruth Eggar's disappearance. Now he felt it, just as she had done – and as he stepped into the bedroom, he felt a lurch in his gut that banished every last shred of doubt.
The room was almost clinically bare, with nothing homely in it apart from a bed, a desk and chair, a bookshelf, a closet and a bedside table. There were no pictures on the walls and no stuffed animals on the bed. None of the usual teenage clutter was in evidence, and there was not even a rug on the hard wood floor. Above the desk, however, was a pinboard that claimed Mac's attention and there, tucked in between a study timetable and a chart of chemical elements, was a drawing, no doubt penned by Treasure herself.
The Pied Piper.
This was Treasure's own interpretation, heavily influenced by the Manga style that so many young people seemed to favour, yet the intelligence behind his expression was clear as his pale eyes stared out from the paper, challenging Mac to find him.
Mac stared at the cunning little sketch and, all of a sudden, he found himself wishing that he had paused for just one moment to learn exactly what it was that Adam Ross wanted to tell him, right before he rushed out of the lab.
-x0x-
Down in the lobby, Don Flack was experiencing a far more emotional response from his witness than the judge had displayed in front of Mac and Kaile. Oliver Raines had been in the security business for over thirty years and he took his job very seriously indeed. The disappearance of Treasure Matthews was like a physical blow to him and Flack could see the deep hurt in his eyes as he mopped his brow with a sharply-pressed handkerchief.
"She never went through the front door," he insisted, with such vehemence that Flack couldn't help wondering which of the two of them he was trying to convince. "And I never left my post. I swear it, Detective – on my life, I do. That girl's a friend o' mine, and that mother of hers – well, I don't mind telling you right now, she scares the bejesus outta me. I wouldn't ever want to get on her wrong side, believe you me!"
"Oh, I believe you," Flack said with feeling. He had encountered Judge Matthews before, several times, and he wasn't a fan. "So then, if what you're telling me is true, I see only two options. Number one: Treasure has a secret identity and she's really the Invisible Girl – unlikely – or, number two, there's another way out of this building and she used it. Any thoughts?"
Oliver screwed up his face so tightly that Flack began to fear his eyes, like the girl, would disappear entirely. "Fire escape, maybe? Or the service entrance – Oakland used to be a big old house, you know, back in the day, and some of the classic features were left in when they redesigned it as an apartment block. Dumb waiter, bell system – it's all for show, but the door is a real door."
"Locked?"
"Oh yes." Oliver seemed quite affronted by the question but Flack was persistent.
"You sure?"
"I… yes!" The man began to waver, letting doubt creep in and taint his certainty. "That is, I checked it a couple of days ago… It's so old, you see, and no one ever uses it… Oh, God. Did I screw up?" He wrung his hands together and his shoulders drooped, turning him into an old man before Flack's one good eye.
"Mr Raines, get a grip. No one here is accusing you, okay? We just want to know what you know. After all, it was you who called us."
"I did," the man said, with pitiful eagerness. "I saw her outside, and I knew. That mother of hers would never let her out so late – never let her out at all, as a matter of fact. Poor girl was a virtual prisoner in her own home…"
"Mr Raines." Flack spoke firmly, but with compassion. He had no doubt that Oliver Raines was a good friend to the missing teenager, just as he had claimed. "Gimme the facts. What exactly did you see?"
Oliver nodded. "You're right. You're right; I'm sorry. What use am I if I can't even make a report? I used to be a soldier; you know that? Served my country and did her proud, I like to think…"
"Mr Raines," Flack repeated softly, catching his eye.
The old doorman faltered and stared at him, falling into silence for a moment. When he spoke again, his voice was quite different; steady and full of conviction. Flack listened, jotting down notes in his book.
"It was two in the morning. I know, 'cause I always check the cameras on the hour, regular as clockwork. Like I told that lady detective, there was a car outside, parked halfway in the shadows so I couldn't see its plate. Next thing I knew, there was Treasure, coming out of nowhere. She walked up to the driver's side window and peered through. Felt like I was seeing things till another car drove by and the light caught her face. It was Treasure alright, clear as anything; I'd swear to that in court. She seemed pretty serious, too, like she wasn't sure about something. One moment, she turned back – and the way the camera caught her, she could have been staring at me. I froze, Detective. Hand to God, I couldn't move a muscle. Next moment, she was in the car and gone, just like that." He shrugged, but Flack could see the stiffness in his action, and hear the guilt behind his words. I wasn't quick enough. I should have known. I should have stopped her…
"Can I get a copy of the footage?" he said, breaking the spell. Oliver's eyes snapped back into focus. Finally, here was something he could be proud of.
"Already done. That lady detective – she asked me too. When she saw that car drive away… Well, I won't repeat her first words, but that's when I heard her call you. There's another kid gone missing?"
"I'm sorry," Flack said, making a mental note to speak with Kaile about her lapse. Gossip and rumours… they could spread like wildfire and cause untold damage in a case like this. "I can't discuss any details with you; I'm sure you understand that. But I'm grateful for your help, Mr Raines. And look – this isn't your fault, okay? You've done nothing wrong."
"Good of you to say so, Detective Flack," the poor man sighed. "I'll have to try and remember that when the judge comes down here to fire me…"
-x0x-
A/N: Thanks to all those who continue to review this story – your comments make my day and also reassure me that the plot is working so far! Next chapter – back to the lab… and, of course, more from poor Little Adam.