Along Came Trouble(93)

They weren’t his father’s blue eyes at all. They were Henry’s. Not Richard’s to sell. Henry’s.

And then, without realizing she’d crossed the drive, she had Henry in her arms. She’d plucked him so abruptly from the sand that it streamed off him, filtering into her sandals, and he went stiff and shoved against her with both hands as she pressed her face against his cheek. “Ma put you down,” he said. “Henry is working.”

But she couldn’t. She knew she was overreacting—Henry had been in candid shots before, and a picture now and again wouldn’t bring the world to an end—but still she couldn’t stop herself from burying her face in his hair and breathing in the little-boy smell of him, that sweet combination of baby shampoo and cheddar bunnies and dirt.

The camera whirred and clicked quietly, recording her reunion with her son.

The photographs weren’t the issue. It was the violation. Richard’s violation—but here was the vulture he’d hired, sticking his camera in her face and saying, “Smile.” Until the edges of her field of vision turned scarlet, she’d had no idea the expression “seeing red” was anything more than a figure of speech. It was real, probably the result of the blood pounding in her ears.

“Caleb?” she said, mildly surprised by how not-insane she sounded. “Could you please take Henry inside?” But Caleb wasn’t next to her, where she’d expected him to be. He was still over by the car, conferring with the other agent.

“I’ll do it.”

Maureen’s voice. Maureen was here, it seemed. Ellen hadn’t noticed. She hadn’t looked at anyone or anything but Henry and Richard and the camera and the rodent-faced prick who was holding it.

“Henry doesn’t want to go inside,” her son said as Maureen took him from her. Her hands were reluctant to let go of his dirty little jean-clad butt. “Henry stay here wif Mama.”

As he receded toward the house, his cries rose in pitch and lost intelligibility, until he was crying “No! Noooooo!” and Ellen felt like she’d been knifed in the chest.

He’ll be okay. Maureen will show him a movie and give him a cookie, and he’ll be just fine.

Ellen had other things to worry about. Richard. But before Richard, Weasel Face.

She advanced on the photographer. This man—this scrawny man with his digital SLR and his knees stained from crawling over the damp grass in pursuit of pictures of her son—he was all of her nightmares rolled into one. He was the dream she’d had about losing Henry at the mall and the one where Henry had been in a bus that sailed off the edge of a cliff. He was the stranger with candy and the cleric who liked little boys. He was the driver on his cell phone who hit her kid on a crosswalk because he wasn’t paying enough attention to the road.

He was a threat to her baby, and she was going to kill him.

“You sick, twisted, heartless shithead,” she said, stalking him until he was backpedaling down the driveway.

His mouth opened and closed, but if words were coming out, she couldn’t hear them over all the whooshing blood in her ears.

“You pinch-faced, gutless, slinking weasel of a man. How could you do it?” She poked him in the throat, and he made an outraged choking noise. “He’s a baby,” she said. “He’s just a baby.” She shoved his shoulder, and it felt good, so she raised her hand to do it again, but then the guy defended himself and gave her a shove in return.

That was when Caleb got between them, holding her back with his forearm as he pushed the photographer back so hard, he lost his balance and went down hard on his ass.

He said oof, just like in a comic book. She hadn’t known life could be so much like the comics. People said oof when you knocked them down. She wondered what they said when you kicked them.

Caleb didn’t let her find out. He wrapped his arms around her and held her, and it was only then that she realized she was crying, and that she had been for some time.

“Sean, get the camera.”

Caleb’s agent, a tough-looking blond guy, put his foot on the photographer’s wrist and held it down as he pulled the camera out of his grasp.

“Give me the card,” Caleb told him.

It was only a tiny piece of blue plastic. Caleb tucked it into the front pocket of her shorts with a murmured, “Keep this.” Then he dropped the camera on the ground.

“Oops.” He leaned over to pick it up. There was no trace of humor in his voice, and the brittle crack of his foot connecting with the camera housing was no mistake. “Damn. Clumsy today.”