“Do you know someone named Adam?” Bruce asked.
The blonde boy sat cross-legged on the motel bed and stared. Bruce wasn’t entirely sure whether the boy understood him. His pupils were about the size of the little dots scattered across the bedspread. (Bruce told himself the dots were part of the design.)
“Do you mean like the son of God?” the boy asked, pale brow wrinkled.
Good to know they still get to them early here. “No, not a Bible person. I mean a real person.”
The kid tilted his head, a parody of a confused child. “Is he a boy in my class?”
“No, I mean someone like—” he caught himself. He’d almost said someone like me. “I mean, someone like your dad. An adult.”
“What’s he look like?” the boy asked.
Once again, he’d almost slipped and said a little bit like me. Except with darker hair and that damn dimple. Of course, Bruce was still wearing the Batman mask so the kid couldn’t see him. He grinned behind it. “Never mind.”
There was no reason to think the boy would know Adam, since he’d been away for his entire life. But he wondered if not knowing Adam would make a difference. Perhaps he should have tried for the girl again—JJ Tulley’s daughter—as had been his original intention. But now that he’d gone and taken the neighbor kid, it seemed unlikely JJ would lower her guard enough for her own child to be vulnerable. Still, it would’ve been nice.
But again, did it really matter if Adam knew the kid? After all, there was no reason to think Adam had known the neighbor girl, and Adam had found her just fine. Or so he’d heard. It was time for another experiment.
“We’re going to play a little game,” Bruce said. “Close your eyes.” The boy did. “Now I want you to pretend like you have a friend named Adam, an imaginary friend. And you want him to come see you, so you say his name.”
“Okay,” the boy said, and called out, “Aaa…dam!”
Bruce almost laughed behind his mask. The boy sounded like he was yelling for his pet, and he liked the idea of Adam as a pet. Preferably his. “No, just say his name in your head.”
The boy opened his eyes. “But then how’s he supposed to hear me?”
He’d wanted the child coherent, but there was such a thing as too coherent. “Just do it.”
“But why—”
He was on his knees and in the boy’s face in one motion. “Because I fucking said so,” he growled.
The boy’s lower lip began to tremble. Bruce didn’t want him to be scared, because that would make him harder to handle. But did the boy need to be scared for this to work? If you didn’t have something to be scared about, you could just pick up the telephone; you wouldn’t need some kind of mind-bending trick. Bruce didn’t know the answer. “Don’t forget to close your eyes,” he said.
He watched the boy until the child began drowsily tipping over. “It’s okay,” Bruce said. “You can lay down now.”
He waited even longer, until he was sure the child was asleep. Then he leaned over and whispered in the boy’s ear, “Adam? Can you hear me? Adam, I’m right here waiting for you. If you want to save this child, too, you have to come find me.”