Chapter 29
“Are you sure you don’t want to come downstairs and hang out with the rest of us?”
Matt stared at Elijah. The boy had come home from school, then run up to the room he shared with Eva Rae’s son Alex. He was now sitting at his computer that Matt had just bought for him to make him feel better about the move. Matt knew he missed his grandmother, and he was angry about having to live with Eva Rae and her children. He had hoped the expensive computer would help.
So far, it hadn’t. So far, it had only made him stay in his room longer, and Matt had soon regretted buying it for him. Elijah didn’t even take off his headset or turn his head to look at Matt.
Matt closed the door with a deep exhale, then walked down the stairs where all of Eva Rae’s three children were gathered eating snacks, fighting over who was supposed to feed the bunnies and who had played with them last, while Eva Rae’s mother was in the kitchen, cooking tonight’s dinner. Matt stood at the foot of the stairs, observing them all, then wondered what he was even doing there.
He didn’t feel at home at all here, and Eva Rae wasn’t home again.
“Where did she go this time?” her mother, Elizabeth, asked when Matt went in there and grabbed a beer from the fridge. It had been a calm day at the station, yet he felt exhausted. Maybe it was all that worrying about Eva Rae and what she was up to now. Was she with that Liam character?
He shrugged and took the cap off. “She didn’t say. She just left a message on my voicemail and said she was so sorry, but she had to go. She hoped she’d be back before the weekend. She told me she’d explain everything to me later but that it was very urgent.”
Her mother wrinkled her forehead. “She did the same to me. Told me she had to go for a couple of days, then asked me to take care of the children while she was gone, then she gave me the whole I am so sorry you know I am, and I wouldn’t do this to you if it weren’t important speech, and then she hung up before I could protest. She’s got some nerve, that daughter of mine.”
Matt shrugged again. “I guess it must be important. She’s working on some case. She hasn’t told me the details of it, but I’m sure she will later.”
Elizabeth tilted her head. “Poor you. She’s not exactly making things smooth for you, is she? The way she’s always rushing off to something. You have, after all, just moved in, and she barely takes any time to be with you.”
Matt sipped his beer then nodded. “My guess is she needs it.”
“How so?”
“I think she has a strong need to save people. It feels more urgent than ever in her. Maybe because she couldn’t save Chad.”
Elizabeth sent him a smile while blending cauliflower and carrots. Once she stopped the blender, she gave him another look.
“You know, you could just tell him that he has to do it.”
“Now, what are we talking about?”
She looked toward the ceiling. “Elijah. You’re his dad. He’s nine years old. You can give him orders, you know. It’s your right and actually your duty to tell him what to do. It just might be what he needs.”
“But he doesn’t want to come down here,” Matt said. “He just wants to play on that computer up there.”
“Because no one tells him otherwise. You can’t keep asking him for permission to be his father, Matt. You gotta just own up to it. Yes, he’ll be upset with you, but isn’t that better than being ignored? Plus, he’ll get over it eventually. He’ll make your life miserable for a little while, but then again, he’s already doing that, so what do you have to lose? My guess is that he wants a family just as much as you do. He just doesn’t know how to tell you. He’s waiting for you to make a move. It might not be pleasant to have to do it, but it can hardly get worse from here, am I right?”
Matt drank from his beer again while Elizabeth put beets into the blender and turned it back on. While staring at her, pondering about what she had just told him and whether she could be right or not, he finished his beer. He put the empty bottle down and hurried upstairs, taking two steps at a time. He opened the door to Elijah’s room without knocking, then walked straight to the boy and pulled off his headset. Elijah let out a whining sound, then turned to face Matt.
“Hey! I was using those.”
Matt’s eyes grew wide. That was the most the boy had spoken to him in all the time they had lived together. And he was actually looking at him, not ignoring him.
It was a start.
“That’s right,” Matt said. “You were using them. Now, you’re not. Now, you’re coming downstairs with me and hanging out with the rest of us. We can play cards or a board game if you want to, but no more computer or iPad. From now on, you have one hour of screen time each day after school. The rest, you spend downstairs with the rest of us.”
Before the boy could answer or even protest, Matt walked to the wall and pulled out the plug.
“But…?” Elijah tried.
Matt shook his head. “Nope. I’m your dad, and I’m telling you to get downstairs now.”
Elijah’s eyes flickered back and forth, and there was obviously some struggle going on inside of him.
“That’s not fair,” he yelled, then stood to his feet and walked through the door. “You can’t do this to me. You have no right.”
“Oh, I have every right. Just you watch me.”
Matt stood for a few seconds and stared at the cord in his hand, heart beating rapidly in his chest. Elizabeth had been right, much to his surprise. He wasn’t winning any popularity contests due to this, and Elijah hated him more than ever, but he realized he hadn’t felt this good in a very long time.
“I’m sorry to have to bother you both at a time like this,” I said.
I looked at Peter James’s parents as they sat in front of me. We had come to them in their house outside of New Orleans in a small charming neighborhood called Elmwood. The house was a typical Victorian-style house with wrought-iron balconies and stained glass in the doorways and windows. It was beautiful on the outside, but inside, the air was thick with grief, and it saddened me deeply. Their son had been dead for more than a year, but time in here had stood still. It was December, and yet they had put no decorations up for Christmas.
“I’m just not sure how we can be of help?” His dad, Greg James, said.
His mother, Viviane, couldn’t hold back her tears.
“I really don’t like ripping up these old wounds,” she said.
“We understand,” Liam said. “But as we told you, it happened to my boy too. And we believe someone is doing this, is causing these episodes to happen.”
“But…why?” Viviane asked. “Why would anyone do something like this?”
I swallowed and shook my head. “We don’t know that yet. We have no motive so far for these attacks. But we do know that he’s not going to stop anytime soon. We came here straight from a meeting with another young boy whom we believe might be his next victim, had we not warned him.”
“Oh, dear God,” Viviane said and cupped her mouth.
“At least you could warn him,” Greg said. “You said he lived around here?”