Imaginary Friend (ARC) Read online

  But the experience left her shaken. After all, to think sin is to commit sin. That’s what Mrs. Radcliffe taught in CCD. So, what would have happened if she had died before she could have gone to confession and cleansed herself? She knew the answer, and it terrified her.

  So, she had to figure out an early warning system. Something that would make her know that what she had done was so sinful that God would send her to Hell. For weeks, she couldn’t think of it. And then, when she started driving by herself, she passed a deer on the road, and it came to her.

  Hit a deer.

  “God,” she said, “if I am going to Hell, make me hit a deer with my car.”

  She knew it sounded crazy, but the agreement instantly took away her fear. She promised to never speak of it to anyone. Not her mother. Not Mrs. Radcliffe. Not Father Tom. Not even Doug. This was a private understanding between her and her Maker.

  “God, if I hit a deer, I will know that I have sinned against You so terribly that You have given up on me. This will give me time to make it up to You. I am sorry that I enjoyed him touching my sweater (he never touched my breast!). I am so sorry.”

  11:57 p.m.

  Over and over she said it. So much so that it became background noise. Like the baseball games her dad played on the radio in his study while he built his model ships or her mother’s vacuum keeping their rugs spotless. Whenever she saw a deer on the side of the road, she would slow down and pray it would stay where it was.

  11:58 p.m.

  She turned off the highway and headed onto McLaughlin Run Road. The moon was dull and dark. She kept her eyes wide open. There were a lot of deer nearby. Especially after Mr. Collins started to cut down part of the Mission Street Woods for his new housing development. So, she had to be extra careful.

  11:59 p.m.

  Her heart raced, and her belly tightened. She was two minutes from home. If she didn’t speed, she would be late. But if she did speed, a deer might dart in front of her car. The only other choice was to run that last stop sign at the crest of the hill. She could see deer fifty yards away there. The woods were far off the street. So, she could blow off the stop sign and still be okay.

  12 midnight

  This was it. She had to choose. Blow off the stop sign and be on time or follow the rules and be late and be punished.

  “God, please tell me what to do,” she said in her most humble and earnest voice.

  The feeling hit her at once.

  She tapped the brakes.

  And made a full and complete stop.

  If she hadn’t done that, she wouldn’t have looked over the hill. And she wouldn’t have seen the little boy coming out of the woods. Covered in dirt and malnourished. The little face that was on the missing posters all over town. If she had blown off the stop sign, she would have not seen him at all.

  And she would have absolutely killed him with her car.

  Chapter 8

  Christopher?” a voice spoke. “Christopher?”

  The boy was cold. There was a blanket on top of him. Hospital-thin and scratchy.

  “Christopher? Can you hear us?” the voice continued.

  The little boy opened his eyes. But his eyes hurt like leaving a movie in the afternoon. He squinted around the room and saw shapes of grown people. There was a doctor. He couldn’t see his face, but his stethoscope felt like ice on his chest.

  “His color is returning,” the doctor said. “Can you hear me, Christopher?”

  The little boy squinted and found his mother. All hazy with light. He felt her smooth warm hand on his forehead. Like the times he got sick.

  “I’m here, honey,” his mother said, her voice breaking a little.

  Christopher tried to speak, but the words got caught in his dry throat. Every swallow was sandpaper.

  “Honey, if you can hear us, wiggle your toe,” his mother said.

  Christopher didn’t know if he wiggled it or not. He couldn’t feel his toes much. He was still very cold. But he guessed it worked.

  “Excellent,” the doctor said. “Can you move your hands?”

  He did. They felt a little numb. Like a funny bone all over.

  “Christopher,” another man’s voice said. “Can you speak?”

  Christopher squinted up and saw the sheriff. He remembered him from the day in the park when his mother got the job at Shady Pines. The sheriff was a strong man. As tall as the tetherball pole at school.

  “Can you speak?” the sheriff repeated.

  Christopher’s throat was so dry. He remembered when he had strep throat and the medicine tasted like a weird cherry. He took a swallow and tried to force out a word. But it hurt his throat too much.

  Christopher shook his head, no.

  “That’s fine, son,” the sheriff said. “But I need to ask you a few questions. So, just nod your head yes or no, all right?”

  Christopher nodded yes.

  “Very good. You were found on the north end of the Mission Street Woods. Did someone take you there?”

  All of the grown-ups were pins and needles. Waiting for his answer. Christopher searched his mind for a memory, but there was nothing but empty space. He couldn’t remember anything. Still, he didn’t think anyone took him to the woods. He would have remembered something like that. After a moment, he shook his head. No. And he could feel breath return to the room.

  “Did you get lost, then?” the sheriff asked.

  Christopher thought really hard like when he was practicing reading. If no one took him, then he must have gotten lost. That made sense.

  He nodded. Yes, he got lost.

  The doctor traded his cold stethoscope for rough, fleshy hands. He checked Christopher’s limbs and joints, then put blood pressure Velcro over his skinny arm. Christopher got scared that he would have to pee in a cup later. He always felt so ashamed when he had to do that.

  “In the woods…did anyone hurt you?” the sheriff continued.

  Christopher shook his head. No. The doctor hit the button and the blood pressure machine made a grinding noise, strangling his arm. When it was done, the doctor took the Velcro off with a r-r-r-ip and jotted down some notes. He heard the pen.

  Swish swish swish.

  “Did you hear the cars? Is that how you found your way out of the woods?”

  Christopher looked at the doctor’s notepad. He began to get an uneasy feeling. A pressure in his head. A dull little headache that usually went away when his mom gave him the aspirin that tasted like orange chalk. But this one was different somehow. Like he had enough headache for the both of them.

  “In the woods…did you hear the cars? Is that how you found your way out of the woods?”

  Christopher snapped out of it. He shook his head. No.

  “So, you found the way out on your own?”

  Christopher shook his head. No. The room got silent.

  “You didn’t find the way out? Did someone help you out of the woods?”

  Christopher nodded. Yes.

  “Who helped you, Christopher?” the sheriff asked.

  He gave Christopher a pad of paper and a pencil to write down the name. Christopher took a hard swallow. He whispered. Barely audible.

  “The nice man.”

  Chapter 9

  Dr. Karen Shelton: Where did you see the nice man, Christopher?

  Christopher: Down the trail from the clearing. He was far away.

  Dr. Karen Shelton: When you saw him…what happened then?

  Christopher: I screamed for help.

  Dr. Karen Shelton: Did he hear you?

  Christopher: Nuh-uh. He just kept walking.

  Dr. Karen Shelton: And you followed him?

  Christopher: Yes.

  Dr. Karen Shelton: You said before you thought it was daylight?

  Christopher: Yes. He was walking out of the woods. And the light was bright. So, I thought it was the day.

  Dr. Karen Shelton: But it turned out to be the headlights of Mary Katherine’s car.

  Christophe
r: Yes.

  Dr. Karen Shelton: And what happened to the nice man once you left the woods?

  Christopher: I don’t know. He must have run away.

  The sheriff pressed STOP on the tape and stared at the Mission Street Woods. He had been parked outside of it most of the afternoon. Watching through the windshield. Listening to the recording. Over and over. He actually didn’t know what he was listening for anymore. Something else. Something he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

  He had worked a double already. He didn’t know if the budget could stand any more overtime from him or his men (and two women). Especially considering there wasn’t money in the budget to replace the old tape system. But it didn’t matter. They had to find this “nice man.”

  That is, of course, if he existed.

  The sheriff had his suspicions. It didn’t take a lot to imagine being a seven-year-old boy, dehydrated, hungry, scared. Needing someone to hold you and convincing yourself that tree branches looked like arms.

  But he had to be sure that there wasn’t a nice man.

  Not to thank this Good Samaritan.

  But to see if he took Christopher in the first place.

  Dr. Karen Shelton: What did the nice man look like, Christopher?

  Christopher: I don’t know. I never saw his face.

  Dr. Karen Shelton: Do you remember anything about him?

  Christopher: He had white hair. Like a cloud.

  The sheriff had seen it enough in his old job. In the worst neighborhoods in the Hill District. He had seen bad things done to children. He saw them lie to protect the guilty out of fear. Or even worse…loyalty. But the doctor said that Christopher looked to be in good health. Nothing happened to the boy that left any physical marks.

  But the sheriff had seen from experience that not all wounds leave marks.

  Dr. Karen Shelton: Can you think of anything else?

  Christopher: He walked with a limp. Like his leg was broken.

  The sheriff stopped the tape and looked at the sketch artist’s rendition. Dr. Shelton tried every trick in the book, but Christopher could never remember seeing the nice man’s face. The rest of his description was consistent. Tall. Walked with a limp. And white hair.

  Like a cloud.

  The sheriff took a swallow from his old Dunkin’ Donuts cup and let the cold bitter coffee slosh in his teeth. He studied the sketch for another minute. Something was wrong. He knew it in his guts.

  The sheriff opened the door.

  He got out.

  And walked into the Mission Street Woods.

  He didn’t know the woods very well. He wasn’t from around here. After that last case in the Hill District, he put in for a transfer. He chose Mill Grove for the quiet. And other than a small-time meth lab run by a couple of science fair judges, he got what he wanted. No crimes but underaged drinking and the occasional naked teenager in the back of Daddy’s leased sports car. No guns. No killing. No gangs.

  It was heaven.

  A heaven that barely lasted a year. That’s when he got the call that a boy named Christopher Reese had gone missing, and the mother wanted to speak to the sheriff right away. So, he got himself out of bed and threw stale coffee into the microwave. He added three pinches of salt to cut the bitterness and drank it all the way to the station. When he arrived, he was fully prepared to take the mother’s statement, mobilize his department, and offer her a trained, uniformed shoulder to cry on.

  But there were no tears with Christopher’s mother.

  She was fully prepared with a recent photo. A list of friends. Activities. And his normal daily routine. When the sheriff asked if there was anyone who would wish the mother or child harm, she mentioned one name. An ex-boyfriend named Jerry Davis back in Michigan.

  The sheriff only needed one click of the mouse to see that Jerry was a potential suspect. It was a petty sheet. But there was enough violence. Bar fights. An ex-wife with some bruises. He hit Christopher’s mother after he got drunk. He passed out. She left him that night. The sheriff respected her for not waiting to verify his promise to “never do it again.” Most women he knew didn’t make that call until it was too late.

  “Do you think Jerry could have taken Christopher, Mrs. Reese?”

  “No. I covered our tracks. He’ll never find us.”

  But the sheriff wanted to make sure. He used the landline with the blocked caller ID. He spoke to Jerry’s foreman, who told him Jerry was at the plant all week. And if he didn’t believe him, there was security video to back it up. The foreman asked what this was all about, but the sheriff figured he better not give Jerry a trail to find Christopher or his mother. So, he lied and said he was calling from California. Then, he thanked the man and hung up.

  After Jerry Davis was cleared, the sheriff did his due diligence. He questioned teachers and classmates while his deputies combed all of the security footage and traffic cameras in a ten -mile radius. But there was no trace of the boy. No signs of abduction. Not even a footprint left by the rain.

  The only fact he was able to establish was that Christopher had been outside waiting to be picked up from school. Christopher’s mother said the rain was terrible. There was no visibility. Fender benders everywhere. She said it almost felt like the weather was trying to keep her from getting to her son.

  Dr. Karen Shelton: Why did you leave school, Christopher?

  Christopher: I don’t know.

  Dr. Karen Shelton: But you knew your mother was coming to pick you up. So, why did you leave school?

  Christopher: I can’t remember.

  Dr. Karen Shelton: Try.

  Christopher: My head hurts.

  By the end of the sixth day, the sheriff had this ache in his gut that someone in a car had simply grabbed the boy. He would keep searching, of course, but with no new leads, clues, or potential suspects, the case was threatening to go cold. And the last thing he wanted to do was give bad news to a good woman.

  So, when word came in that Mary Katherine MacNeil found Christopher on the north side of the Mission Street Woods, no one in the sheriff’s department could believe it. How the hell did a seven-year-old wander all the way from Mill Grove Elementary School to the other side of those massive woods without being seen? The sheriff was too much of a city mouse to understand just how big 1,225 acres really was, but suffice it to say the woods made South Hills Village Mall seem like a hot dog cart by comparison. The locals joked the woods were like New York’s Central Park (if Central Park were big). It seemed impossible. But somehow, that’s what happened.

  It was a miracle.

  When the sheriff rushed to the hospital to question the boy, he saw Mary Katherine MacNeil with her parents in the reception area. She was crying.

  “Dad, I swear to God I was going to be home early when I saw the little boy. I would never drive after midnight! Don’t take my license! Please!”

  The sheriff’s aunt who’d raised him after his mother passed had been something of a Bible thumper herself. So, he took a little pity on the girl and approached with a big smile and a bigger handshake.

  “Mr. and Mrs. MacNeil, I’m Sheriff Thompson. I can’t imagine how proud of your daughter you must be.”

  Then, he looked at his clipboard to make the next part feel very official.

  “My men told me Mary Katherine called the sheriff’s department at five minutes to midnight. Lucky it happened then. It was right before shift change. So, next parking ticket, you just bring it to my office, and I’ll tear it up personally. Your girl is a hero. The town is in your debt.”

  The sheriff didn’t know if it was the clipboard. The handshake. Or the free parking ticket, which always felt like more than the $35 it actually was. But it did the trick. The mother beamed with pride, and the father patted his daughter’s shoulder like the son he would have preferred. Mary Katherine looked down instead of relieved, which instantly told the sheriff that the girl was lying about being early. But after saving a little boy, she deserved to keep her license.
/>   “Thank you, Mary Katherine,” he said, then added a little something to ease the girl’s guilt. “You did a real good thing, God knows that.”

  Once he left the MacNeil family, the sheriff walked down the hall to check in on Christopher and his mother. When he looked at her holding her sleeping boy, he had the strangest thought. In the split second before his job kicked in, he realized that he had never seen anyone love more than that woman loved that little boy. He wondered what it would be like to be held like that instead of chastised by an aunt about what a burden he was. He wondered what it would feel like to be loved. Even a little bit. By her.

  Dr. Karen Shelton: What made you walk into the woods, Christopher?

  Christopher: I don’t know.

  Dr. Karen Shelton: Do you remember anything about those six days?

  Christopher: No.

  The sheriff walked under a canopy of branches on his way to the clearing. The thick trees blocked out the light. Even in the daytime, he needed his flashlight. His feet snapped the twigs like wishbones at his mother’s Thanksgiving table. God rest her soul.

  snap.

  The sheriff turned around and saw a deer watch him from a distance. For a moment, the sheriff didn’t move. He just watched this peaceful creature study him. The sheriff took a step, and the deer ran in the other direction. The sheriff smiled and kept walking.

  Finally, he reached the clearing.

  The sheriff looked up and saw the beautiful autumn sun. He slowly walked the scene, looking for any evidence of Christopher’s story. But there were no twigs snapped or broken. There were no footprints except for Christopher’s.