Hide & Seek - James Patterson [8]
And then—there was Will.
CHAPTER 5
San Diego, California, July 1967
Will Shepherd, age six, was dreaming of Indians. Fierce and remorseless, they came at him in waves, their horses neighing and rearing, their arrows as long as spears, pointed at his heart. He loved the excitement, loved the movie in his head, loved the danger.
He heard a splash!
It didn't make any sense. Will opened his eyes, shut them almost immediately, then drifted back to sleep.
Cowboys and Indians again.
No splashes. Not in his movie anyway.
Will woke again at quarter to eight, dressed quietly so as not to disturb his still-sleeping brother, Palmer, and hurried down through the quiet house.
In the kitchen he fetched an armful of Welch's grape jelly, peanut butter, milk, and half a loaf of bread. Breakfast for one. Who needed a mother? Who needed anybody?
Will saw his face and uncombed blond hair looking back at him from the side of the shiny toaster. He had to admit it, he thought. He missed his mother a lot. He missed her terribly. He missed her making peanut butter and jellies.
He knew that she had gone to live in Los Angeles. He didn't have to suffer through the terrible fights she had with his father anymore, but at this moment he would have preferred the fights to the silence. Sometimes he and Palmer missed their mom so bad it made them cry at the stupidest times. But usually he hated her. Usually, but not today.
The splash in the swimming pool?
Suddenly Will remembered. He collected his dish and glass and put them in the sink, then ran out the screen door into sweet, dappled sunshine and the call of sparrows.
He came tearing around the corner of the blue-trimmed white clapboard house, and ran to the edge of the pool. He stopped so suddenly he nearly fell over his own sneakered feet.
And he screamed and screamed, screamed so shrilly he woke his little brother, whose face appeared at the window above him.
Will screamed so bitterly that neighbors came rushing to his rescue. They held him, and tried to shield him from what he had already seen, and would never forget.
What the six-year-old boy saw floating on the shimmering water of the pool was his father in his red-plaid bathrobe and beige trousers. On one foot was a yellow slipper; the other foam slipper was drifting as free as a lily pad.
His father's eyes were open, and staring right at him. Your fault, they seemed to tell him. Bad boy. This is your fault, Will.
You know what you did!
You know what you did!
At 5:52 A.M. Anthony Shepherd had purposefully walked outside his house and drowned himself in the family pool.
And whatever part of Will Shepherd that was worth saving seemed to drown with his father.
A few days after their father's suicide, Will and Palmer spent their final California afternoon choosing from among all of their clothes and toys. Just enough to fill two suitcases each. No more than that.
Their mother had refused to take them to live with her. Nobody told Will or Palmer why. The stupid cunt, Will thought, using bad words his father had used when he fought with her. The brothers had spent the days after the suicide with their nanny, who would not take them either, and now they were told they were going to England to people who would. They were to begin a new life with their aunts, Eleanor and Vannie, whom they had never met, but who had made the two-suitcase rule.
In loud, chaotic, swarming Los Angeles International Airport, the two look-alike blond boys sat stone-faced and bewildered, awaiting their flight with Dr. Engles, one of their father's few friends. Dr. Engles was telling them about London, and the stupid Queen and the stupid changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, just like in the poems his mother had read Will before she went away. But Will barely heard what stupid Dr. Engles was saying. He was remembering his father floating in the pool, staring up at him from some dead place.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Will did hear, “we are now ready to board Pan American flight four-eleven to New York and London.”
Dr. Engles held out a hand