Prodigal

Chapter 28

28

“I always thought Danny was the troublemaker,” JJ said.

“I guess I figured it was time I did my share,” Adam said.

She and Adam were getting a lot of stares, and she was sure she’d be getting an earful from her colleagues her next shift. So, I hear you brought in a naked guy and then walked him out AMA. Yeah, good times.

Fortunately, she didn’t know the woman behind the wheel, not well. Even Against Medical Advice, after all the signatures and we’re-not-responsible-when-you-die speeches, the hospital still pushed you out in a wheelchair. Providing transport to the door was not a bad idea, at least for Adam today. He’d moved slower than molasses back in his room, putting on a long-sleeved T-shirt and scrub bottoms she’d filched for him from a friend. Fake sheepskin slippers from the gift shop were the best she could do for footwear.

“Reminds me of the last time I saw you naked,” JJ said in a low voice as the exit doors slid open.

Adam put a hand over his face before she helped him out of the wheelchair and over to a bench in the pick-up area.

“Well, you didn’t just think I’d let the naked thing go,” JJ said.

“I guess not. You do know that was a very cold shower.”

“I do, and I know we’ll be lucky if you don’t get pneumonia.” JJ sat next to him on the concrete bench and removed his chain from her pocket, where she’d put it for safekeeping.

“Here,” she said, hooking it around his neck.

“Thank you,” Adam whispered, and tucked the key safely beneath his borrowed shirt.

“You wore that the last time I saw you naked, too. That’s when you were afraid you had leeches on your pee-pee.”

Adam’s mouth dropped open in horror. “Oh my God.”

JJ nodded with an evil grin. “Uh-huh. Forgot about that one, didn’t you? That glorified puddle out in the woods—”

“It was hot! And Danny said it was a swimming hole.”

“Ha!” JJ laughed. “Told you he was the troublemaker. The only thing swimming in that patch of muddy water was leeches, waiting for dumb little boys.”

“You didn’t get in the water.”

JJ raised an eyebrow. “Of course not. I wasn’t a dumb little boy.” She paused, looking out at the warm sky, at the mountains beyond the parking lot. The rolling slopes were mostly grayish-brown with bare trees, but there were occasional patches of red and orange color. “Even at the tender age of—what, seven or eight?—I’d figured out there was a little something different about being a girl, that maybe I didn’t need to be sharing.”

She laughed again. “Not that you two cared! Danny came splashing out, screaming, with a tiny leech on his arm, and you right on his heels. Next thing I know, you’re both taking off your clothes, flinging them this way and that.”

Adam covered his face while JJ giggled and flailed her arms.

“Two little boys, dancing around with your hands over your little boy parts, shrieking. It was a sight to behold.” JJ sighed and wiped a tear from her eye before she lost control entirely. “Sorry. I needed that.”

Adam dropped his hands from his face, and she saw they’d been covering a smile. “You didn’t laugh then.”

“Didn’t I?” she asked, trying to pretend like she didn’t remember.

Apparently Adam had never gotten a chance to shave, what with the almost dying in the shower, and his face was still shadowed with scruff and a growing bruise. And other things, even darker things, around the eyes. But there was still so much of the boy she’d known there. Danny may have gotten them into trouble, but Adam’s grin had gotten them out of just as much. Just a touch of the imp, topped off with his you-know-you-can’t-stay-mad-at-me magic.

“You told us to put our underwear on,” Adam said, “and you checked the backs of our legs for leeches. But you didn’t laugh then. You waited until the next day, when we could all laugh together.”

“Well, I couldn’t have you walking back to my house naked. Dad really would’ve tanned your asses, then.” JJ tried to savor the moment, watching a pair of cardinals foraging in a patch of grass, until squawking blue jays swooped in and ran them off. Assholes. She didn’t have many moments like this, when things were set in motion, and she couldn’t do a damn thing except wait. She didn’t think she’d have many more for a while, either.

“So you believe me? About Rachel?” Adam asked.

“Believe is a strong word,” JJ said. “It sounds too much like religion to me. Let’s just say, when a little girl’s life is at stake, I can’t see the harm in helping you follow through.”

As soon as the jays were done, the cardinals swooped back in, and JJ relaxed again. So much so, a thought popped into her head, unbidden.

Yes, I believe him.

JJ barely had time to be surprised by it before a car entered the parking lot and headed in their direction. She stood with a sigh. “There’s our ride.”

Adam squinted. “Dorothy Nicholson?”

JJ turned to offer him an arm—which he refused—and watched Adam rise painfully to his feet. What the hell was she thinking? He had no business being anywhere except in a bed. And yet, she also knew he was going right where he belonged.

“Iris didn’t answer her phone. And when I called Dorothy to ask if she’d check on Trooper, she offered to pick us up,” JJ said. Technically, Dorothy had said she needed to get away from the house for a little while, then offered to pick JJ up. “It’s okay. Dorothy hits like a girl. I can take her, easy.”

Adam laughed unexpectedly, only to groan. “You sure you didn’t break any of my ribs?”

“That’s what they tell me.”

A brown, four-door boat of a car came to a stop next to them. Dorothy leaned across the passenger seat, trying to make sense of the two people standing there.

“Just get in the back seat and let me do the talking,” JJ said.

It took Adam a couple of tries to get the back door open. JJ wanted to help him, but sensed that would only make things worse. Instead, she casually climbed in the front, as if she were just hitching a ride to the store. “Thanks, Dorothy.”

Dorothy gripped the steering wheel tightly. “You didn’t mention I’d be picking up your friend back there.”

Adam slumped lower in the back and kept his mouth shut.

“You’re headed to the Command Center, aren’t you?” JJ asked.

“Yes.”

“Good. So are we,” JJ said, and left it at that.

It wasn’t far back into Cold Springs proper, and JJ hoped they’d make it the rest of the way in uncomfortable silence. But Dorothy had come up with a sideways approach. “What’s Grant think about that?” she asked. “About him coming in?”

JJ stared at Dorothy until the woman behind the wheel met her eyes, albeit briefly. “He thinks we should do anything and everything we can to get your daughter back.”

Dorothy’s eyes sought out Adam in her rearview mirror. “You look like shit.”

JJ leaned to watch Adam in her own side mirror. He didn’t speak.

“Looks like maybe Otto wasn’t the only one that put a hurting on you,” Dorothy said. “That’s a gift, pissing people off that fast.”

JJ almost smiled. Dorothy had a point. Except, of course, she didn’t; it only looked that way. Poor Adam.

Dorothy twisted her hands forward and back on the wheel, as if she were throttling a motorcycle. “Why’d you think Otto did something to my daughter?”

Just keep your mouth shut, JJ thought. Nothing Adam could say would make it any better.

They were nearly at the first stop sign on the edge of town when Dorothy suddenly slammed on the brakes. The car lurched—even at a sedate thirty-five miles per hour, it was jarring—and Adam grunted in the back as the seat belt pulled tight across his chest. An SUV behind them laid on its horn, and Dorothy flipped the driver the bird. A man in a T-shirt and dirty work pants came rolling out.

“What the f—” He broke off when he recognized Dorothy in the driver’s seat as he walked up alongside the closed window. “Dorothy, you all right?” he asked, voice muffled through the glass.

She’d undone her seat belt and turned in her seat to face Adam. She yelled through the glass without moving, “Fine, Carl. Just go around.”

JJ raised a hand in acknowledgment, and the man shrugged before returning to his car and slowly pulling around them.

Once his car had passed, Dorothy demanded, “Tell me why you did what you did. Tell me why, or I swear I’ll blow your goddamned heart out.”

The woman was holding a revolver in her hand, pointing it at Adam.

“Jesus, Dorothy—put the gun down!” JJ should have known not to underestimate her; as a mother, she might have done the same thing in the circumstances.

Dorothy held the gun in her right hand and rested it on the back of the seat, so her body acted as a buffer between JJ and the firearm. Adam looked at Dorothy. His eyes held a mixture of kindness and resignation that made JJ want to scream at the stupid woman—again—that if she wanted them to find her daughter, to put the gun down and drive the goddamned car already.

“I had a dream about your daughter early this morning,” Adam said.

Dorothy’s lip started to tremble, and her left, bracing hand drifted away from the gun. “Was she okay?”

“Yes.”

But Adam was lying, and they all knew it. A flash of desperate anger crossed Dorothy’s face, and she gripped the gun in both hands again, tightly.

“She was scared,” Adam admitted. “But she was okay.”

Tears streamed down Dorothy’s face. “Was Otto in the dream?”

“I don’t know,” Adam said. “I thought so at first, but now I’m not sure. And obviously if he came straight home from work yesterday…”

JJ remained still while Dorothy stared at Adam. At this range, was there any chance she’d miss?

Dorothy swiveled in her seat so abruptly that JJ flinched, afraid the gun would discharge. Then the woman shoved the revolver somewhere on her side of the car, brushed the tears from her face, and put the car in drive.

They rode the rest of the way in silence.