Buried (Bone Secrets, #3)(29)

The scenery changed as they moved east. Dryer, browner, flatter. Once they’d left the Portland metropolitan area and passed through the Cascade Mountain Range, it was as if they’d entered a different state. More pickup trucks, longer stretches between towns, and less greenery. The fir trees were few and far between, while the cowboy hats grew in number. Gun racks started to appear in the back windows of the pickup trucks. Bumper stickers told politicians to keep their change to themselves and keep their laws off their guns.

They were now on the red side of the blue-voting state. By the square mile, the east side of the state was nearly twice as big as the west, but much lower in population and income. Oregon was a state divided in half by the Cascade Mountains, economics, and politics.

Jamie suddenly craved a handcrafted iced cappuccino and knew she wasn’t going to find one. The self-service machines at 7-Eleven didn’t count.

“The sheriff is expecting us, right?” she asked.

“Yes, but I didn’t tell him exactly when we’d get in. We’ll stop at his office in Demming, see if he’s available to talk a bit. He wants to give me better directions out to your brother’s. I guess it’s hard to find. Also cautioned me to not sneak up on anyone. People in these remote areas have a tendency to shoot first, ask questions later.”

“Chris wouldn’t do that.”

Michael raised a brow at her. “He’s hiding from something. That’s the only reason for a man to live like he does and not introduce his son to his sister.”

Jamie looked out her window. The words stung deep. “He doesn’t like to be around people. After he recovered…he avoided everyone. He has burn scars on his face.”

“I’ve known plenty of people with disfigurations who operate just fine.”

Jamie was silent for a few moments. “What were you doing that day?”

Michael didn’t ask what day she meant.

She saw him swallow hard and then run a hand across his forehead. He kept his gaze forward on the road.

“I’d stayed home sick from school. I knew there was a field trip to the state capitol building scheduled that day, and to me nothing was more boring.” He snorted. “Daniel was pumped. He had a freaky fascination with politics.”

“Your father was a US senator at the time, right?”

“Yes, the junior senator. He’d just started his second term.”

“Your father liked Daniel’s interest?”

“He was thrilled. He had Daniel’s political future mapped out.”

“That’s insane. What kind of pressure does that put on a kid?”

Michael laughed. “The Senator and Daniel used to talk about it for hours. Where he could go to law school, where was the best school for undergrad—”

“And you? What were your plans?”

“I had no plans.” His voice went flat.

A small stab of sorrow touched Jamie’s heart. She’d seen too many kids in her school ignored by their parents. “That didn’t mean he had no reason to love you.”

Michael twisted up one side of his mouth. “I know my parents loved me. It just didn’t feel like they liked me. I wasn’t the type of kid they’d planned to have. I wasn’t interested in school. I just wanted to skateboard and ski. I used to pay high school kids to take me along when they skipped school and went skiing. I got caught over and over, but I didn’t care.”

“How’d your parents know you went skiing?”

“You know what raccoon eyes are?”

Jamie laughed. “You didn’t know to use sunscreen when skiing?”

“Naw, sunscreen was for wimps.”

Was he trying to avoid her original question by distracting her? “So were you really sick that day?”

He shook his head. “Not at all.”

“When did you find out?”

“Phone calls started coming in. Daniel wasn’t home from school, the bus never returned to the school, no one could locate the bus driver. The Senator was in Washington DC and immediately flew home. My mother didn’t go back to the hospital for three days. I’d never seen them so panicked.”

“Of course they were. Their son was missing. They would have reacted the same way if you’d never come back from skiing.”

The wry look on Michael’s face said he doubted her words.

She sat straighter in the SUV’s seat. “You think they would have simply brushed it off if you vanished? That’s ridiculous. No parent reacts like that!”



Michael tried to control the expression on his face. The absolute indignation on Jamie’s was killing him. His parents had never been the same after Daniel disappeared. Before DD—long ago Michael had divided up his life into Before DD and After DD—he’d simply thought his parents connected better with Daniel, as if they understood the chemical wiring in Daniel’s brain versus the ricocheting impulses that bounced through Michael’s.

At many points in a child’s life, one wonders what it’d be like to be an only child. Michael had experienced that daydream often, assuming all his parents’ focus would be on him…as an adult he’d often thanked God that hadn’t happened. He and his parents would have gone nuts if they’d tried to shape Michael into their own image. Looking back, he’d been grateful that Daniel had meshed so well with them and kept the focus off himself. Once Daniel was gone, the focus never shifted. It’d stayed on Daniel. And Michael had spread his wings. And spread. Usually to the point of risking his neck.