Catch Me (Detective D.D. Warren, #6)(104)

She’d looked at Jesse as she said these words. He didn’t argue, just nodded. She’d sighed a little, her frowny forehead momentarily clearing. One burden off her shoulder, a million more to go.

Jesse thought he understood his role now. He’d been bad. And you couldn’t go back in time, you couldn’t rewind, undo what had been done. He could only try to fix it, to balance being a bad boy with being a good boy, like in order to eat Twinkies, he had to drink a glass of milk. Good behavior to offset the bad behavior.

Last night, the police lady had said they needed his help. He was a witness. And they needed him to be brave, to tell them everything that had happened. No need to be embarrassed, nothing was his fault. He just needed to talk.

Jesse had done his best. Except he was very embarrassed. He was embarrassed by the stranger danger boy who’d so easily lured Jesse out of the library when Jesse knew better. He was embarrassed by the stranger danger boy exposing his privates. And he was even more embarrassed by the slinky, dark-haired demon girl, who’d appeared with her gun and her too blue eyes, and the way she’d smiled right at him, which just hadn’t been right.

The boy was evil and the woman was evil and Jesse was embarrassed by all of that, but mostly by the fact that he’d been very, very scared and so he’d closed his eyes. For most of it. For all of it. For every second of it that popped into his head.

Once he’d left the library, he didn’t want to know what had happened next. He wanted it gone, if not rewound, then erased. A series of video frames burned from his memory. Then he wouldn’t wake up screaming anymore. Then his mother wouldn’t look over at him and wince.

He’d resume going back to school, and they’d have their little routine again, Jenny and Jesse against the world.

That’s what he wanted. More than anything. Him and his mother, all well again. Jenny and Jesse against the world.

“Mommy.” He rolled over, stared at her sleeping form.

She didn’t move.

He placed his hand on her shoulder. “Mommy.”

“Mmmhmm?” came a soft answer, but she still didn’t move.

He touched her long brown hair, spilled on the pillow. Kind of like the demon’s, he thought, but his mother was nothing like her. For one thing, his mommy was real, and that girl with the gun had clearly been a monster.

Jesse sighed softly. He hated to wake his mother. But he understood what he needed to do. He’d been a bad boy. No rewind. Now he would be a good boy. Fix the trouble, be the glass of milk.

“Mommy, wake up.”

His mother sighed, rolled over onto her back. Her eyelids flickered. She yawned, peered up at the ceiling.

He could tell the moment she woke up, really truly woke up, because her face, so soft and relaxed, immediately froze. Her eyes shuttered up, her brow furrowed. She turned to him.

“Are you okay, honey?” she asked immediately, and even her voice was tense.

“I love you, Mommy.”

“I love you, too, sweetie.” She took his hand. “Bad dream?”

“No. I don’t want to eat Twinkies today.”

“Okay.”

“We should go outside. Get fresh air.”

“Okay, Jesse.”

“I’ll eat oatmeal for breakfast. No sugar. Plain, like you do.”

“Jesse—”

“I love you, Mommy.”

“I love you, too. We’re going to get through this, Jesse. It’s going to be okay.”

He started crying then. He didn’t know why. He hadn’t meant to. But she held out her arms, and he curled up against her chest, just like he’d done as a little kid, and she patted the top of his head and he cried harder because she was his mommy and he loved her and he just wanted it to be Jenny and Jesse against the world. He loved it when it was Jenny and Jesse against the world.

Eventually, they got up. She made him breakfast, he set the table. They both had oatmeal, slow-cooked stove-top because his mother for once had the time. He loaded up his first spoonful of the paste-like concoction, screwed his eyes shut, and bravely swallowed. Immediately, he heard a high tinkling sound.

His mother, laughing. His mother, nearly keeling over at the tiny wooden table, giggling uncontrollably at the horrified look on his face.

Which made him laugh, so he ate another bite, and she ate her oatmeal, and it wasn’t really so bad, unsugared and gooey and all. He might even eat it again. Maybe.

After breakfast, they bundled up and walked to the park. It was very cold, barely ten degrees, his mother said. But the sun was out, bouncing off the snow and back up to a sky, so blue it hurt his eyes.

That’s when it came to him, on the swings, soaring up to that blue, blue sky.

He was so excited, he let go and almost pitched forward at the tip of the arc. At the last second, he grabbed the chains again, lowering his feet to drag against the ground. Then, once he’d slowed himself enough, he vaulted off the black swing and raced toward his mother.

“I remember, I remember, I remember. I know something for the detective people. You have to call the detective people.”

“Okay, okay. What is it, Jesse, what is it?”

“Her eyes, her blue, blue demon eyes. I know why she looked like a monster!”

“Why, honey?”

“They’re not real, Mommy. I’ve seen them before. In Halloween catalogues. They make contacts. Like vampire eyes or zombie eyes, but also cat eyes. Blue cat eyes. That’s what she wore. That woman wasn’t really a demon. She’s just some girl all dressed up in disguise!”