Prodigal

Chapter 23

23

JJ had just gotten out of the shower when she heard Trooper bark—only once. She threw on a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt and saw Adam hiking slowly up her driveway. She and Trooper walked down and met him partway.

“Luther dropped me. I thought the walk might do me good. You know, stretching stuff out,” Adam panted. “I was wrong.”

His color was not good, an unholy mixture of pallor and flush. “You’re a dumbass,” JJ said.

“Yeah, I’m getting that a lot today,” Adam said, reaching down to give Trooper’s ears a scratch.

“Was Luther going to see Dorothy? They haven’t heard anything, have they?”

“No. He said he was headed up the road a little ways to rendezvous with some of the searchers. Speaking of which, I’m pretty sure he searched the back of my car.” Adam told her about trying to get his car from the ditch and how solicitous Luther was at the end.

“Did you lock it when you left?” JJ asked.

Adam tilted his head in a gesture that, from a recently beaten man trying to walk uphill, was meant to pass for a shrug. “Doesn’t matter. There’s nothing incriminating in it. I haven’t even smoked pot since I was fifteen.”

JJ stopped. Luther might not find anything, but would he place something incriminating in Adam’s car? She shook her head. Now she was just being paranoid. What kind of incriminating, and why?

Adam was waiting a few steps ahead, staring at her. “What?” he asked.

She told him what Dorothy had shared about Rachel’s possible paternity.

Adam shook his head. “That sonuvabitch.”

JJ was a little surprised; Iris had thoroughly instilled her aversion to cursing in Adam. “Which one?” she asked.

“Les! I mean, Luther should have reported it, but—”

“Damn right, Luther should have reported it! He should’ve arrested the asshole, brother or not.” JJ knew it wasn’t fair to take her frustration out on Adam, but she couldn’t help it. She felt like anger was spilling out of her pores.

“Okay,” Adam said, raising his hands as high as his waist. “You’re right.” They resumed their hike up the driveway, but this time Adam stopped, his voice incredulous. “Wait a minute—you think Leslie might be daddy?”

“What?” JJ snapped. “You’re the one that’s hung up on the daddy thing! I’m trying to make it make sense. I’m trying to help you not be crazy.” JJ poked him in the chest with a finger, and Adam staggered back a step and nearly fell.

His gaze dropped to the ground, the blue irises barely visible beneath his heavy lashes. JJ recognized this expression from when they were kids. He’d been so damned sensitive, she’d always felt like she’d kicked a puppy when she yelled at him. She still did. Trooper moved over to sit next to Adam’s heel. It felt like even the dog was giving her stink eye.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I just—I know it’s been less than twenty-four hours, but I feel like we’re running out of time, that Rachel is running out of time.”

“I know,” he mumbled. She watched him brace himself for the pain as he took a deep breath before meeting her eyes. “Don’t worry—we’ll find her.”

She nodded. They would find her. They had to. Because Adam was the key.

As soon as she stepped inside, JJ checked the kitchen clock. How could it only be ten-thirty? She was glad more time hadn’t passed, but she was also strangely overwhelmed by it.

“I’ve been thinking,” Adam said, shuffling as far as the living room and dropping in the closest armchair.

JJ was so grateful for any glimmer of direction, she could have kissed him, but her face remained calm. “And?”

“After Danny died, we spent a lot of time in these woods.”

“A helluva lot of time,” JJ agreed.

Initially, the adults had watched them like hawks. But most people get complacent eventually, even after tragedy, and soon Adam and JJ were sneaking off to the woods looking for Danny. They weren’t methodical by any means, but they were relentless and creative, getting rides to places that were too far to walk in an evening or a weekend day. The two spent their summers together searching, even after Iris sent Adam away, and summer days were long. Few spots in Beecham County escaped their scrutiny.

“I know it’s been years,” Adam said, “and a lot of things have changed, but maybe if we went down to the Command Center and took a look at what they have—the maps and aerial surveillance and what-not—we could see something they’ve missed. Do you think Grant would let us take a peek?”

JJ’s brows raised. “I’m sure if we wander around with bottles of water, looking exhausted and doing our best imitation of volunteers, we can fly under the radar.”

Adam smiled, and for just a moment, all was right with the world. Like when they were kids. They’d taken turns then, too, being positive.

But right now, JJ still thought Adam looked like s**t.

“Tell you what,” JJ said. “Why don’t you take a quick shower while I make a few phone calls? Then we can head into town, be there within half an hour.”

She grabbed a clean towel from the linen shelf in the hall and, rummaging in the cabinet beneath the sink, she even found the electric razor she’d given her ex-husband for Christmas one year. “Mint condition. I doubt if the asshole even turned it on.”

Adam turned the device in his hand until he found the switch that made it buzz. “His loss,” he said. “Thanks, JJ. You don’t know how much I need a shower right now.”

“Yes, I do,” she said, wrinkling her nose. Adam wrinkled his nose right back at her, and JJ smiled. “I’ll be in the living room. Yell if you need anything else.”

JJ sat on the couch and gazed out at the sun beating down on the little patch of side yard, at browning grass and mountain laurel shrubs that stayed green, while she gathered her thoughts. The only thing JJ wanted more than to have her daughter Evie next to her was for her child to be safe. The best way to ensure that was to make the call JJ had been dreading—to her mother, who lived more than an hour from Cold Springs.

The two women had never been close, and JJ had chosen to stay with her father when her parents divorced. This marked the genesis of her mother’s oft-repeated lament, What kind of girl doesn’t want to be with her mother? Still, problematic as their own relationship had been, the woman was devoted to her granddaughter. She agreed to pick up Evie from her sleepover and keep her for a few days. “I’ll make sure she has a good time, but don’t worry—I won’t let her out of my sight,” she’d said, without once implying that JJ would have neglected her own child.

JJ then followed up with Melanie’s mother, letting her know about the change in plans. Wary of the kill-the-messenger syndrome, Melanie’s mom had insisted on bringing Evie to the phone. Evie loved her grandmother, but she was not happy that she wasn’t going home. A combination of threats and cajoling by JJ ultimately brought the two stubborn females to a truce, but it was a hard-fought battle.

Evie could skip school for a few days with no ill effects, but JJ didn’t have that luxury. She wasn’t scheduled to work until Monday, but she was on-call for Sunday. It tended to be a slow day at the hospital, but she called and switched with another nurse to make certain she’d be free tomorrow, come what may.

JJ set aside the heavy, landline phone that had resided in her house almost as long as she had with an equally heavy sigh. It’d been years since Marcus left, and she didn’t know what the appropriate length of time was for an adult male shower. She didn’t want to rush Adam, but she’d thought he would have been done by now.

The shower was still on, that much she could hear from outside the bathroom door. She gave a timid tap-tap-tap. “Adam, do you need anything? Adam?”

Perhaps he couldn’t hear her.

JJ cracked the door an inch or two and directed her voice through the gap. “Adam, it’s me. Time’s ticking, buddy. Do you need anything?”

No answer.

“Adam?”

JJ slowly opened the door the rest of the way. The bathroom mirror was fogged over, but the air was clear. After such a long shower, she’d have expected steam to roll out of the bathroom. “Adam, are you okay?”

Evie had picked their shower curtain—a bunch of ducks holding umbrellas on a white background. There was no silhouette, and no hint of movement, behind the plastic.

“Adam, you better not be f*****g with me,” she said, emphasizing the word to get her voice to stop shaking. “I’m opening the curtain now.”

Adam was lying facedown in the bottom of the tub, head tilted to one side. Water streamed in channels past his gaping mouth.