The Stolen - Jason Pinter [36]
He'd attached it to the chain when she was in the shower.
When she asked what it was for, he said it was because she
had the keys to his heart. At first she laughed. It was a pretty
cheesy gesture, something out of a bad romantic comedy, but
that night they made love, and as Henry lay there, naked,
staring at her, she knew that he'd meant it.
It would have been easy to throw the heart away.
Looking at it now, she was glad she'd kept it.
She buttoned the purse and looked up to see Henry
walking down the gated path. He stopped briefly beside
the dog run to make faces at a small shih tzu that was trying
to leap at him with its tiny legs. Henry was making bugeyed faces at the dog, and Amanda couldn't help but smile.
He looked up, looking for her, saw her, and Amanda saw
his cheeks flush red. He quickened his pace and walked
over to her bench, sat down next to her. A foot separated
them. It felt like a mile and a millimeter at the same time.
"Hey," she said, offering a purposefully bland greeting.
"Hey, Amanda." He half leaned in, unsure of whether
to offer a hug, a kiss or nothing. She felt a brief flash of
electricity when he did it, felt slightly disappointed when
he pulled back, but glad at the same time. "What's up?"
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Jason Pinter
He looked good. Better that she'd hoped in some ways.
Perhaps if he'd showed up thirty pounds heavier, with an
unflattering beard and gut paunch, it'd be easier to move
on. Yes, his eyes were bleary and red, probably from latenight deadlines, but it was still Henry. She'd gotten used
to those eyes, his near-constant state of exhaustion. And
despite that, every night she missed falling asleep next to
him, Amanda remembered how proud it used to make her
to see his name headline a terrific story. She looked at his
shock of brown hair, an inch or so too long, and couldn't
help but smile.
"You need a haircut," she said.
"Really?" He ran his hand through his hair. Amanda remembered doing that for him. "You think?"
"Yeah, you could use a trip to Supercuts."
"So," he said tentatively, "what's up?"
"I don't know. Work. Life. What's usually up," she
replied. He nodded. She wanted to say you called me, but
that was combative. "You know you called me." Screw it,
she had to say it. Henry nodded, chewed on his thumbnail
for a moment.
"Just want to start by saying I'm sorry about what
happened. You know, between us. I didn't..."
"Stop," she said, her face growing warm, slight anger
bubbling up. "You said your apologies a long time ago. If
I wanted to hear them again, I've got a good memory and
a lot of sad songs on my iPod."
"That's not why I called you," Henry said. "I just... You
know, I don't really know how to start it."
"Why do you need to in the first place?" she asked. Her
heart was beating fast, frustration building. She'd begun
to wish she'd stayed at the office, hung up the phone, let
everything heal the way maybe it was meant to. Seeing
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him was maddening and invigorating at the same time.
And she wasn't ready to open back up.
"I need your help," Henry said. "It's not for me. It's
for a kid."
"A kid?" she asked, surprised.
"Daniel Linwood, have you heard about him?"
"Of course. My office is handling the paperwork. You
know, I never realized bringing someone back from the
dead was as easy as filling out a bunch of paperwork. Scary
to think there's enough precedent that we have the forms
on file. I'm actually thinking I might do the same thing
with my aunt Rose, freak the hell out of Lawrence and
Harriet. That'd make a pretty neat headline. 'Girl brings
dead, smelly aunt back to life, scares the hell out of her
adoptive parents.'"
"It's been a while since I wrote obituaries," Henry said.
"But I bet it's like riding a bike."
"Think of it as an anti-obituary."
"Now, those I don't have a lot of experience with."
"So Daniel Linwood. The boy who came back after five
years. I saw your story in the paper. What do you need to
know about him?"
"Well, long story short, there's a lot about his disappearance and reappearance