Chapter Seventeen #3
“You’re very talented.” I pause. “And thank you for sharing them with me.” He smiles, and I swallow. “Why are you sharing them with me, Eddie?”
Eddie cocks his head to one side. He starts to rock again. “It’s a secret.” His voice is a childlike whisper. I hand him a bolt. Go slow.
“Can you drive, Eddie?”
He shakes his head no. Another bolt.
“Do you still ride your bike?”
A nod yes.
“Do you know where I’m staying in town?”
Another nod, another bolt. So Eddie could’ve ridden his bike to Shadow Bluff to leave the last doll on the porch, but whoever left the license plate was driving a truck.
“Do you know about something else left for me? A license plate maybe?”
He stops rocking. “It’s a secret,” he repeats.
“Do you know where the license plate came from?” I say.
It happens so quickly I almost miss it, but I’m studying him, looking for it.
And there it is. His eyes dart to the far window.
He backs away from me, and I walk over to the window and look out.
Across the dry, dead grass, several yards away, is the discarded play equipment and the shed I saw when I pulled in.
And behind that, jutting from the ground in the wooded area surrounding their land, is a single white cross.
Maybe for a pet, maybe a memorial for where Emily was found. I shiver.
Something creaks behind me, and I turn. Eddie sits on the small bed, the frame groaning under his weight. He shakes his head. “She don’t want to be alone,” he says in a soft mumble.
“It’s okay. I can help you, Eddie. I’m a doctor.”
His body sways. “No help.”
I study the metal dolls on the bed beside him, and an idea comes to me.
Like the ones propped in the kitchen at Shadow Bluff, they remind me of a little family.
And I’ve used dolls before in therapy with children who won’t speak about their abuse.
It’s safer, less threatening. Play therapy is also very revealing.
Children can only play things they know.
“Eddie.” I glance at the dolls. “Would you like to play something? Maybe we could play house and family.” I point to each individual doll. “One could be a boy. One could be the mother. One could be the brother.”
Eddie shakes his head and doubles over. I think he’s sobbing again until I see his hand fishing under the bed for something. I back up a step.
“Eddie?”
He falls to all fours on the floor and reaches deep under the bed, struggling to get to the darkest part. I bend over and watch. He drags a shoebox out and leans over and smells it. A deep, long inhale.
“What’s that?” My pulse quickens.
“A gift.”
I hand him another metal scrap. “Who gave it to you?”
“Brother.” That’s worth two bolts.
He opens the box, and I lean closer to see what’s inside. Eddie jerks his head up, slams the lid on, and shoves it back under the bed. He starts to moan and rock.
“Eddie?” I bend down next to him, and he strikes out so quickly I can’t avoid his hand.
His open palm smacks the side of my face and knocks me to the ground.
I’m used to patients slapping and lashing out when they get stressed or overstimulated, but they are children with small hands.
Eddie is a very grown man, and his slap is something I’ve not experienced before.
My cheek radiates pain, and I rub my jaw as I stand.
Eddie lumbers toward the bedroom door. “Hide.”
“Hide?”
He shoves me out of the way with a straight arm, blocking the exit and looking into the hall, then back at me. “You hide.”
“Me?”
“He won’t like you here.”
“Who?”
“Brother.”
The front door slams shut. A man’s voice carries to the back bedroom. “Looks like we got ourselves a visitor.”
I know that voice. The inflection. Doyle is home.
I hear an exchange of voices in the front room. Eddie looks at me, terrified. “Hide,” he says again. He leaps toward me, and the floorboards shake. He grabs my arms and tries to shove me behind the door. His fleshy paws dig into my shoulders.
“Eddie, stop!” I yell, trying to pull from his grip.
“Hide. Hide. Hide.”
“No! Stop it.” I manage to twist from his grip as Doyle knocks on the doorframe.
“Hello? Anyone home?” he says with a wicked grin.
Eddie freezes. I rub my arm as I work to steady my breathing.
“What we got here?” Doyle says, his eyes traveling from his brother to me, then to the tote where my hand is now once again on my gun.
“I was just leaving,” I say.
“What’re y’all talking about in here?” He stays in the doorway. He shoots a sideways glance at his brother.
“Emily,” Eddie says.
Doyle turns his attention back to me. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“I said I was leaving.” I try to move past him, but he blocks me again. “Doyle, let me leave,” I say slowly. My heart rate is pounding as I think of him on the porch with that knife, as I watch him staring at me like I’m prey. I grip my gun tighter.
“What you got in there?” he asks, looking at my tote.
“You don’t want to find out,” I say.
I see his Adam’s apple move as he swallows. He opens his mouth to say something, closes it, works his jaw back and forth. Whatever he was about to say, he keeps to himself. Instead, he moves only enough to let me by, and when I sweep past him, his hot whisper fills my ear. “Be careful.”
I cross the filthy living room. Mrs. Arceneaux is on the front porch, still smoking. The sun is high and the humidity smothering.
Mrs. Arceneaux says, “Find what you were looking for?”
I don’t answer. I make it to my car and fling open the door when the reed of a woman by the front door yells, “If you see Emily, tell her it’s time to come home. You hear?”
I slam my SUV into gear and pull away from the Arceneaux house. Doyle, Eddie, and Mrs. Arceneaux stand by the door, and I watch them in my rearview mirror until they’re nothing but ghosts.