"And it was - what'd you say, Ed?
Six years ago?
Guy's probably not even there any more, anyway."
"Maybe."
Ian licked his lips.
"A hundred bucks," he said.
Curtis' grin froze on his face.
"
What?
" he said, incredulous.
"A hundred bucks," Ian repeated.
"Come on, what do you care?
You said yourself the guy was a jackoff."
The grin melted away.
"What, does he owe you money or something?"
Curtis tossed the folder on the desk and crossed his arms over his bulging gut.
"Get out of here, pal."
Ian's fingers twitched.
He looked Curtis in the eyes and saw Justin: smug, defiant, challenging.
Fuck that.
Ian snatched the folder.
Curtis saw him going for it - his eyes widened and he started to reach out - but Ian was too quick.
He pelted for the open door.
"Hey!" Curtis screeched.
"
Hey!
"
Ian tore across the parking lot, hurled himself into his car, and turned the engine.
"Get back here!"
Ian peeled into the street, his blood screaming in his veins.
He drove without a plan, eyes glued to the rearview mirror, just trying to put as much distance behind him as possible.
He kept expecting to see Curtis coming after him in some beat-up old F-150, or the lights of police cars cresting the hill.
Neither happened, and finally, he slowed his racing mind enough to think it through.
Curtis wasn't chasing him.
As far as Curtis was concerned, Ian was just some nutty old friend or enemy of Kelly's, trying to find the guy.
He wouldn't call the cops - and even if he did, they wouldn't give a damn.
A six-year-old, most likely out-of-date job application had been stolen.
So what?
It didn't matter; wasn't that exactly why Ian had been so pissed at Curtis lording it up in the first place?
A sign ahead said,
Southside
Park
.
He pulled into the lot, his breathing finally calming, and took out the application.
It was an old generic thing, dark blue with white printing and light blue fields, pocked with grease smears.
Timothy S. Kelton.
Date of birth: August 17th, 1967.
A phone number in the 952 area code.
An address in Lonsdale.
A signature smudged beyond recognition.
No cell phone number, no e-mail address, no picture.
Compared to what Ian had had to go on before, it was an absolute treasure trove.
He thumbed the phone number into his cell, then imagined Kelly seeing
Ian Colmes
pop up on his caller I.D.
Part of him wanted that.
He
wanted
Kelly to see his name, to know that Ian was coming for him.
He wanted him nervous, even panicked.
The thought of Kelly's blood running cold when the name popped up made Ian feel like a predator.
Or an angel of justice.
But he didn't want Kelly running.
So he went into town instead, hunted for nearly half an hour to find a payphone, and called from there.
"Hello?"
A little girl's voice.
Ian felt his heart sink.
"Hi, I'm looking for Tim Kelton.
Is he there?"
"
Hello?
" the girl repeated.
She couldn't have been older than four.
"Who is it, sweetheart?" a woman said in the background.
"Give it here."
"He's looking for his kitchen," the girl said.
Ian heard the scuffle of a phone being reclaimed.
"Hello?" the woman said.
"Hi, hello, I'm looking for a Tim Kelton?" Ian said.
"Does he live there by any chance?"
"You have the wrong number."
"Ah - my information is a few years old, sorry about that - can you at least tell me, did he maybe used to live there?"
Pause.
"Is this number in Lonsdale?"
"This number is a cell phone.
I've had it for two years, and no, I've never heard of him.
You have the wrong number."
Shit.
"All right," Ian said.
"Thanks anyw -" he started, and she hung up.
He considered going home.
It was already after two in the afternoon, he hadn't had anything to eat all day, and he could use the time to sit down at his computer and plan his next move: look up the address, run Tim Kelton through the old amateur internet research routine.
But he felt
close,
for the first time, and he wouldn't be able to get home and back to Lonsdale before dark.
So he went into the gas station, got directions ("You can take 19 right in"), and hit the road.
The drive was about twenty minutes.
When he got into town he stopped and bought a map book, but it still took him another twenty minutes of driving around before he found the place.
He parked across the street and took a minute to look at it.
The house was a 50's cream-colored rambler.
In the front yard, a big willow sagged and a plethora of weeds broke the snow cover.
A sidewalk ran past in the front.
The other houses had been shoveled out; this one hadn't, and the driveway was likewise unshoveled, though a pair of beaten tracks indicated that at least someone was still using it.
All the shades were drawn.
"Is this it?" Ian said.
He glanced around the empty car, but Alex wasn't there, and the cat wasn't talking.
Ian's hand started shaking again as he reached for the glove box latch, but he got the compartment open and pulled out the .22.
The safety was on.
He shoved it in his waistband and covered the bulge with his coat.
Then he crunched through the snow to the front door, his rapid breath rolling in front of him.
The bell was busted, so he knocked.
Thunderous barking greeted this intrusion.
The door shuddered; Ian heard claws scratching at the other side.
He imagined a massive pit bull, with a head like a battering ram, and fought the urge to rest his hand on the gun.
A muffled, "All right, all right," came from within the house.
"Jesus Christ, it's just the door."
A lock clicked, deadbolts rolled back, and the door opened to reveal a grizzled, mangy man in a bathrobe and ratty slippers, with one hand on the knob and the other clutching the collar of a straining black lab.
"Yeah?" he grunted.
The breeze died; the world held its breath.
That's him.
Ian's hand twitched toward the gun, stopped.
He grabbed Alex.
"Timothy?" Ian said as his head buzzed.
"Who wants to know?"
Don't fuck with me, Kelly.
But he spat out something he'd heard on MPR.
"Census.
Are you Timothy Kelton?"
"He ain't lived here for years."
The dog strained against the man's fist, wheezing, its face contorted with a snarl.
"Where is he?"
"Fuck if I know.
He used to rent here, but his mom died and he got her place.
Still owes me almost two grand."
"Do you know where his mom lived?"
"No idea."
The man peered at him.
"Ain't the census over with?"
Ian let out a shuddering breath, at once relieved and despairing, every nerve in his body jangling.
"Thanks," he said, and went back to his car.
The drive home took nearly an hour, the sun sagging low on his left.
He went through a Burger King and got some food - his first meal of the day - but barely tasted it.
He kept looking in the back seat, hoping to see his son.
He hadn't found Kelton today, but he had learned the man existed.
It was a huge victory, a revelation, and yet he felt completely empty.
He hadn't seen Alex since witnessing the boy's kidnapping on the way to work, and he was growing certain that the cryptic farewell they had shared that morning had been final.
As he opened the front door he caught himself holding his breath, hoping to hear the boy cry his name or come bounding around the corner, grinning hugely, but the living room was silent.
He went into Alex's room, but it, too, was empty.
For the millionth time, he tried to flip the switch, but the light it was connected to was dead as ever.
It suddenly occurred to him that there had never been a more succinct analogy for what had become of his life: standing in an empty room, impotently flipping a light switch, knowing that he was trying to interact with a thing that was dead but doing it anyway, over and over again, always mildly surprised when it didn't react.
Even if he found Kelton now, his son was gone.
Alex would never know the peace he had come seeking.
He sank to his knees in his son's darkening room, and wept.
He wept because he didn't understand Alex's request sooner.
He wept because he had locked the boy in his room, because he had screamed at him and berated him, because he hadn't spent enough time just
listening
to him while he had been back.
He wept because he missed him.
God, he missed him.
That's all any of this has ever been about, of course: how badly you miss him.
And everything that's happened has been in your head.
You know that.
There is no afterlife; there are no spirits.
You saw what you needed to see, because it gave you a chance to tell him how sorry you were, and an opportunity to believe there was still something you could do.
Tim Kelton had been an old friend of Eston's.
Eston might have even called him "Kelly" in front of other people, just like Ian had seen in his hallucination.
But Ed hadn't been sure of that, and the two hadn't been seen together for six years or more.
No one else Eston had worked with had ever seen him with a friend of any kind.
It was something for you to pursue, to feel like you could make a difference. That's all.
And it's done now.
He remembered the kidnapping: how Kelly had scooped Alex up from the street after knocking him out with some kind of chloroform.
That was in your
head,
Ian.
That didn't really happen.
He remembered Alex staring past Eston in the basement, and Eston saying,
"Don't look at her.
Look at me."
Her.
You see?
Your hallucinations don't even match up with reality.
You were looking for a
woman
when you set out this morning, remember?
He winced, put his hands to his face and pinched his eyes shut.
"Alex,"
he whispered.
"Tell me what to do."
But the boy didn't answer.
He was gone.
You aren't going to kill a man based on your hallucinations.
All you know about him is that he used to hang out with the man who killed your son.
That's not enough.
Is it?
A cold, firm clarity settled into Ian's mind at this thought.
Maybe it was.
When Alex had been kidnapped, Ian had stayed at home despite the urge to hunt for his son, waiting for a ransom call that had never come.
When the investigation's resources had been diverted to searching for Jarrid Kalen's daughter, he'd listened to his wife and his mother and everyone else who assured him that the police were still searching just as hard as they were before, instead of trusting his instinct and taking matters - somehow - into his own hands.