Bloodline(60)

“Seems like it could be a nice area,” I say. “If it was kept up better.”

Kris throws a cursory glance around the landscape. Most every house here looks abandoned; black licks at the windows of many, suggesting they’ve had a fire; and the block is oddly quiet. It’s a ghost town on the edge of Lilydale.

“If you say so.”

I’m watching him. “Any of this look familiar?”

He glances around again. “Nah.”

“This church used to be where Paulie’s house was.”

His expression doesn’t change, but his hands grip the steering wheel tighter. “I don’t remember it.”

I feel sad. It’s not that I expected him to recognize his childhood neighborhood, but . . . he doesn’t seem to know anything about Lilydale or the life that Paulie lived here, hasn’t since I’ve met him. Regina told me to trust my gut, and it’s telling me that Kris is not Paulie.

Because Deck is.





CHAPTER 44

I immediately dismiss the ridiculous idea. Ronald and Barbara couldn’t possibly have suddenly introduced a new child, not with the attention Paulie’s disappearance got. The whole town would have had to be in on something like that. Of course, Deck being Paulie would explain why they wanted my baby in Lilydale so bad. If Virginia Aandeg was raped, Deck’s irrefutable resemblance to his father means she was raped by Ronald Schmidt, not Sad Stanley.

And my baby—Deck’s baby—would be blood evidence of this crime.

I start laughing.

“What is it?” Kris asked.

I become very aware that I’m in a car with a stranger, on the edge of town, and I haven’t told anybody where I’ve gone. Maybe I should be watched at all times. The laughter doubles until I can’t breathe and tears are streaming out of my eyes. Kris watches my hysteria grow, but he lets it happen, driving steadily until I’m wrung dry.

“I’m sorry,” I say, wiping my face. The emptiness feels good.

“No problemo,” he says.

I don’t think Deck is Paulie, not really, but I no longer think Kris is the real Paulie Aandeg, either. He knows nothing about Paulie’s life, nothing that you couldn’t find in the paper other than the smallpox scar, and for all I know, that detail was included in an article in a different newspaper. I want to ask him why he’s impersonating the abducted child, but instead I say, “That’s okay that you don’t remember that house.” I paraphrase what he told me when we first met at Tuck’s Cafe. “I heard that a big shock can wipe out memory.”

I rub my hands across my face and through my hair, still not used to the short length. I’m exhausted. “Please, just take me home.”

He turns the car around. We say little on the drive, exchange cursory goodbyes after he pulls up to my house. Once inside, I swallow a Valium and lie down with Slow Henry. I might have slept the afternoon away if Deck hadn’t appeared, shaking me gently.

“Joan! Wake up.”

It takes a while to dig my way out of the dream. It had featured a boy in a sailor suit, leading me to a river. I’m disoriented, unsure where I am at first.

I focus on Deck. “What is it?”

His expression is twisted, an ugly mix of scared and something I can’t identify. “Another boy’s been taken.”

My hand flies to my mouth. “Who?”

“A boy from church.”

I repeat the question, even though, with gruesome certainty, I know the answer. “Who?”

“You wouldn’t know him. Angel Gomez. He’s not even in kindergarten yet. He was playing outside his house with his brother. His brother went inside for a glass of water, and when he came out, Angel was gone. The whole town is joining together to look for him.”

I leap to my feet as well as I can, my expanding belly throwing off my balance.

That’s Angel, Miss Colivan is saying. A boy shouldn’t be that pretty. He’ll get snatched right up.

“You shouldn’t go,” Deck says, his hands on my shoulders to hold me back.

“I’m going,” I say, quivering. “I want to help.”

As I grab my cardigan, I realize what the second emotion on Deck’s face was: naked anticipation.





CHAPTER 45

Hundreds turn out to search the woods behind the Gomez house. I’m grouped with the Mill Street regulars. They have guns. I don’t know why.

I can’t shake the sensation that I’m part of an elaborate stage production.

The Fathers are leading the search. Ronald is barking orders. We’re all given a section to scour, holding hands so there’s no possibility a child could slip through. The foliage is thick, the jungle undergrowth making it difficult to forge through some areas. I struggle to keep my balance, my lower center of gravity throwing me off.

There is a thrum of excitement flowing through the Mill Street Fathers and Mothers—I don’t know how else to explain it. They’re out looking for this missing boy, which is the right thing to do.

But their mood feels oddly celebratory.

Me, I can’t shake the feeling that Angel could be my own child. Lost. Alone and crying for his mother. Mildred is holding my hand on one side, Dorothy on the other, as we’ve been instructed to do. Their embrace feels sticky. I don’t want them touching me but can’t think of how to say that, how to live with releasing their hands and possibly walking past Angel without knowing it.