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Dan sat in the passenger seat reading files while Maria drove the company car—a Jaguar F-Pace SVR that Mr. K provided for their business use. She preferred to drive and he’d gotten used to it—but he would be happier if she weren’t constantly distracted by the black band on her right wrist.
“Fitbit chastising you?”
“I’m way behind on my steps for this week.”
“It’s Tuesday.”
“And I’m already behind.”
“If you’d rather, you can get out and walk.”
“It’s twelve more miles to the foster home.”
“That would put you ahead. For at least a few days.”
“Dan, I feel you do not support my desire to remain fit.”
“Is it that you want to be fit, or that you want to fit into your skintight designer jeans?”
She smiled a little. “Well...both. Is that a problem for you?”
He shrugged. “If you’re going to pay for those overpriced Gucci jeans, you might as well get the maximum benefit.”
“My sentiments exactly.”
“So—no freakshake after the interview?”
“Now you’re being cruel.”
“I hate to see you controlled by wearable electronics.”
“Don’t be so judgy. I saw you looking at your phone a few minutes ago.”
“Because Garrett sent me more research. Some of it is startling. I had no idea kids disappeared as frequently as they do. Did you know over 25,000 children were reported missing last year? According to the Center for Missing and Exploited Children.”
“How many of those turned out to be runaways?”
“Most.” He pulled out his phone to refresh his memory. “About sixty percent. Most of the rest were abducted by relatives. About 3000 have been found, though only sixteen of those were abducted by non-family relatives.”
“But that’s what happened to Ossie Coleman?”
“Apparently. No other relatives have disappeared.”
“I ran away from home once.” Another small smile played on Maria’s lips. “My dad wouldn’t let me stay up to watch some nonsense on Nickelodeon. So I said I was leaving. I was six at the time.”
“Did he try to stop you?”
“No, he helped me pack.”
“Ouch.”
“He knew I wouldn’t go far. I walked around the block twice till I cooled off, then I came home. He didn’t even look up. ‘Maria Morales,’ he said. ‘It’s your night to do the dishes.’ And that was it.”
“Sounds like he handled it perfectly.”
“I loved my daddy.” She suddenly started, as if catching herself. “Oh—I’m sorry.”
“Because you loved your dad?”
“Because—I know how you lost yours.”
He shook his head. “Old news.”
“Sounds like it might be coming back to the surface.”
“Just a coincidence, probably.”
She hung a sharp right. “Must’ve been a hard thing to deal with. Like at school. Everybody knowing your dad...”
“Is in the big house? Yeah, not a walk in the park. Especially since I knew he was innocent.” He paused. “But nobody else did.”
She parked the Jag on the street. “That must’ve been hell for a young boy.”
His face remained phlegmatic. “You know what Nietzsche said. That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”
“Nietzsche had syphilis, mental illness, pneumonia, and died at age fifty-five.”
He stepped out of the car. “So I guess that didn’t make him stronger...”
* * *
Joan and Marjorie Reynolds had been taking in short-term foster kids for more than a decade. The stipend was puny, so Dan knew they could only do it out of a genuine love for children. The authorities weren’t sure what to do in this case, since Ossie Coleman would be eighteen and technically an adult, but since they had no other ideas, they put him here until his identity could be legally determined.
Ossie was in a room he shared with another boy, but the roomie wasn’t home, so they had a little privacy. He looked thin but healthy. Light African-American complexion. Curly hair. Blinked a lot. His clothes were pure Walmart—standard jeans and a solid blue t-shirt. He seemed open and eager to please.
He introduced himself and Maria and asked if the boy wanted them to represent him in the declaratory judgment suit. He did. Mr. K had already sent the paperwork, so there were no surprises.
“I really appreciate you guys helping me out with this,” Ossie said. “That guardian tried to explain it all to me, but I didn’t follow it much.”
“Understandable,” Dan said, smiling. “I don’t always understand everything judges say, and I went to law school. Would you mind telling us your story? I know you’ve already told the police, probably several times, and we can get copies of those reports. But I’d like to hear it from you.”
“Sure.” Ossie sat on the edge of his bed. “What do you want to know?”
“I hear you’re having memory problems?”
“Yeah. Major league. I remember my mom—barely. But everything between then and now is mostly gone. I get flashes, images—but not much else. I don’t know why. When the cops found me, I didn’t know where I was or how I got there. I knew my name and that was about it. They say my memory might come back in time, but so far—nothing.”
There were many possible reasons for memory loss, of course. Everyone’s memories of early years tend to be spotty and unreliable. A blow to the head could cause memory loss—and when he was found, he was treated for a serious head injury. Or stress could do it. Alcohol abuse. Malnutrition. Emotional duress. And he couldn’t rule out the possibility of neurological damage, given how little they knew about him. “Let’s start at the beginning. Are you Ossie Coleman?”
The boy looked back at him quizzically. “Of course I am. That’s my name. Always has been.”
“Do you know what happened to your mother?”
“No, sorry. Must’ve blocked that out. If I ever knew.”
“Where did you go after you were separated from your mother?”
“Or to put it differently,” Maria said, “where have you been the last fourteen years?”
“Someplace remote. Lots of trees. Woods. No neighbors. No television. No phone.”
“What woods? This is beach country. Are you talking about the Everglades? Something like that?”
“I’m not sure. Tall trees. Lots of green. I’m sorry—I don’t know where it was. I never left, till the very end. We lived in a cabin.”
“Why do you call it a cabin?” Dan asked. “Was it made of logs?”
“No. Wood and stone, I think. But it was out by itself.”
“Describe the cabin.”
Ossie thought for a moment. “It was just a place. It had a wood porch. A rocking chair. You could sit out there and watch the sun set.”
So it faced west. “Go on.”
“It had a number carved on that big thing hanging over the front door.”
“A gable?”
“I dunno. I guess so.”
“What number?”
“1-9-8-0.”
A street address number? The year it was built? “What color?”
“Kind of a dark brown. Except for a yellow triangle on the gable. Bright yellow.”
A brown cabin in the woods with a spot of bright yellow paint? “You told the police about a guy named Joe.”
“Yeah. He lived with me. Fed me. Taught me to read and stuff. He had a phone, but he didn’t let me anywhere near it.”
“An adult?”
“Yeah. Way old. Older than you even.”
Practically decrepit. “You called him Joe?”
“Yeah. I dunno if that was his real name or not. He had big bushy hair. Spots of gray. Lots of tattoos, all up and down his arms.”
“Describe the tattoos.”
“Jeez, I dunno. I never really thought about it. There was some kind of flower on his right arm, just above the bicep. Lots of ivy or green stuff streaming down from it. A heart. And letters—but not normal letters. I think maybe they were Russian or something. They looked weird.”
“Like the Cyrillic alphabet?”
“I...don’t know what that means.”
“Doesn’t matter. What else?”
“He had tattoos on his legs, too. I saw them when he wore shorts. Never really thought about what they were.”
“Was he strong?”
“Very. Pumped iron. Had a lot of barbells in his bedroom. Big muscles. Kinda scary.”
“You look pretty strong yourself.”
“He let me use them sometimes. When he was in a good mood.”
“How did Joe support himself?”
“Uh...sorry?”
“How did he pay the bills?”
“I dunno. I don’t think he had many bills.”
“He must’ve fed you.”
“Yeah. We always had food. Mostly frozen meat and Cheerios.”
“You had a refrigerator?”
“Yeah.”
“So you must’ve had electricity.”
“He had a generator thing behind the cabin.”
“And you were in this place for fourteen years?”
“I guess. I didn’t know much about time. I didn’t have any way to keep track of it.”
“Any other visitors?”
“No.”
“You seem well spoken.” That was an understatement. He wouldn’t expect someone raised in isolation to sound like an urban street kid. But this boy, despite his past, had the vocabulary of a college student. “Did you...go to school?”
“No. Joe taught me. From books. We had lots of books in the cabin and he made me study. Punished me if I didn’t. Said he didn’t want me to grow up sounding like ghetto trash. I didn’t even really know what a ghetto was, but I knew he wanted me to read and talk proper English.”
Sounded like a nightmare. Isolated, home-schooled, and punished by his abductor. And he had barely begun to scratch the surface of the horrors that might have taken place in this cabin. “Was Joe...nice to you?”
Another shrug. “He fed me. Played checkers with me sometimes. Or poker with matchsticks. Cut my finger once chopping wood and he took care of it.”
“But did he ever...” He swallowed. This was beyond hard. “Did he hurt you?”
“He made me work. Do chores.”
“Did he...take advantage of you?”
Ossie thought for a moment. “He would go away for a long time. Leave the cabin. Said he was going for supplies. And he had a room in the back that he kept locked all the time. Sometimes I heard weird noises when he was back there.”
“Human noises?”
“Maybe. Sometimes.”
“Did you ask him about it?”
“Yeah. He said I heard the radio.”
“But you haven’t answered my question about—”
“You know, when it’s all you’ve ever known, you just get used to everything. It might seem weird to someone else, but when it’s what you do, what you always do, day after day for years, it just seems normal.”
“That doesn’t mean it is normal,” Maria said, leaning toward Ossie a bit.
“It’s over now. And there’s some stuff I’d rather not talk about. You know what I mean?”
His jaw clenched tightly together. Yes, he certainly did understand what the boy meant. He understood all too well.