Your Son Is Alive Read online

  Your Son Is Alive

  James Scott Bell

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 91

  Chapter 92

  Chapter 93

  Chapter 94

  Chapter 95

  Chapter 96

  Chapter 97

  Chapter 98

  Chapter 99

  Chapter 100

  Chapter 101

  Chapter 102

  Chapter 103

  Chapter 104

  Chapter 105

  Chapter 106

  Chapter 107

  Chapter 108

  Chapter 109

  Chapter 110

  Chapter 111

  Chapter 112

  Author’s Note

  More Thrillers by James Scott Bell

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2018 by James Scott Bell

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  1

  Your son is alive.

  A scrawl in red crayon. Messy block lettering, across a piece of 8 x 10 white bond that had been tri-folded and placed in a blank business envelope. The envelope had not been sealed.

  It had been slipped under Dylan Reeve’s door during the night.

  Dylan, holding the note, stumbled toward a chair, sat heavily, his bathrobe bunched up under him.

  He didn’t know how long he sat there. All he knew was he hadn’t moved, except to wipe his eyes.

  Finally, he got up, went to the kitchen where his phone was plugged in next to the coffee maker. He called Erin.

  “Dylan?”

  “Can I come over?” Dylan said.

  “Now?”

  “I need to see you.”

  “What is it?”

  “You’re the only one I can talk to.”

  Pause. “Is this about …”

  “Yeah.”

  “Aren’t you seeing Dr. Reimer?”

  “Not for a while,” Dylan said. “I––”

  “Maybe you should call him,” Erin said.

  “I got something,” Dylan said. “A note. A weird, sick note.”

  “Note?”

  “Please, can I come over?”

  Pause.

  Dylan said, “Is someone with you?”

  “No, Dylan.”

  He closed his eyes. “Just for a few minutes. I promise.”

  Pause.

  “Give me an hour,” Erin said.

  It was six-thirty. He could get to Erin’s, talk to her, and still make it to the office for his first appointment.

  Heading west on the 60 freeway in the half-dark, half-light of another urban morning, with L.A. traffic not yet at the commuter-knot level, Dylan felt as if he were driving in the rain. It was blurry looking through the windshield, even though outside it was dry and warm and the sky was clear as the stars faded against the dawn.

  Still, there was something oppressive about that dome of sky, a pressing in. Because of the note. It sat there on the passenger seat like some inanimate hitchhiker, silent.

  Dylan thought about throwing it out the window.

  No, Erin needs hear about it.

  Or maybe he just wanted her to hear about it. Share the pain again, as they had for fifteen years. The first five together, the last ten apart, yet joined forever by cords of never-ending sorrow.

  He saw the L.A. skyline then, shadowed in the distance. Soon the buildings would be filled by worker bees—lawyers, bankers, brokers, architects, realtors, wheelers and dealers.

  And not one of them could care less about what was happening to Dylan Reeve.

  That was life, as his father used to say, in the big city.

  He turned his mind toward his own work. This morning his first client would be Mrs. Helen Nussbaum. She was coming in for her monthly soft-tissue mobilization. After that––if he remembered correctly––was Carol Regent, the thirty-something LAUSD elementary school teacher who had been in a car accident a year earlier. Dylan had been adjusting her neck and spine for eight months.

  He called his receptionist at home.

  “Wow,” Paige said. “Early bird.”

  “Soon as you can, will you call Mrs. Nussbaum and Carol Regent?”

  “Re-schedule?” Paige said.

  “Please.”

  “Mrs. N’s not going to like that.”

  “Thanks for taking the heat.”

  “You can double my salary,” she said.

  “You’re worth it,” he said.

  “Everything okay?”

  “No worries,” Dylan said, and never sounded so insincere in his life.

  Erin opened the door of her North Hollywood condo.

  “Thanks for this,” Dylan said.

  “Coffee?” Erin said.

  “Please.”

  He entered and watched his ex-wife moving toward the kitchenette. Even in loose-fitting pants and untucked blouse, Erin’s figure attracted him. It always had. But even more now, lean as it was from her running habit. He felt guilty thinking about that now.

  Dylan said, “I wouldn’t have called if it wasn’t important.”

  “I know,” Erin said.

  Dylan sat in
a wingback chair and looked around the room. He hadn’t been here since April. The lamp he’d thrown across the room last year was gone.

  Erin came back with two mugs, handed him one. She sat on the sofa. Her soft, brown hair fell easily to her shoulders.

  “Honestly,” he said, “I didn’t know who else to call.”

  “You said a note?”

  Dylan handed it to her.

  Erin unfolded it, read it. Looked up. Her face was tight. “Who would do this?”

  “No idea,” Dylan said.

  “I mean, why?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Do you think …”

  Dylan shook his head. “If it was true, why do it this way? After so long?”

  “Didn’t we used to talk about hope?”

  “I had to give up hope ten years ago. The hope was killing me.”

  Dylan saw Erin’s nod, the sadness in it, but the acknowledgement of the truth. Ten years ago he’d seen that same expression when he announced the marriage was over. It wasn’t a shock to her. They both had known it to be so.

  “I’m sorry,” Dylan said. “Maybe I shouldn’t have put this on you.”

  “No,” Erin said. “I mean, yes, you should.” Erin looked at the ceiling. “But if somebody took the trouble—”

  “Not like this. An anonymous note? It’s somebody who wants to hurt me. Us.”

  “But who? You don’t have enemies”

  “No?”

  “Maybe some cracked spines,” Erin said.

  That almost made Dylan smile. Erin still had her sense of humor. That had always been one of her best qualities. That she could bring it out now was a gift.

  Erin wasn’t smiling. “It comes back in waves,” she said.

  Dylan nodded. “How’ve you been doing?”

  “Not bad,” Erin said.

  “Can I tell you something?”

  “Of course.”

  “You look really good.”

  “For an old chick.”

  “Haven’t you heard? Fifty is the new thirty.”

  “Tell that to my knees.”

  “Maybe you should give them some time off.”

  “Not a chance,” Erin said.

  She was a dedicated marathoner now. It didn’t take a psychiatrist to figure out why. Erin started training a year after Kyle was taken. She ran her first marathon a month after the divorce. Dylan envied her dedication.

  “Whoever did this,” Dylan said, “is sick. I guess I just really needed you to know. So I didn’t have to be alone with it.”

  Erin’s eyes were warm with understanding.

  “Thank you for letting me come over,” Dylan said.

  “You were there for me, too. Lots of times.”

  “Seems like forever ago.”

  Erin said, “One day at a time.”

  “Today won’t be easy,” Dylan said.

  “If life was easy,” Erin said, “it wouldn’t be life.”

  Dylan skipped the freeway and took Cahuenga over to Hollywood Boulevard, turned left, and kept on surface streets all the way into downtown.

  His office was in one of those classic L.A. buildings from the thirties that had been preserved and restored. Eleven stories on West Olympic Boulevard, a couple of blocks from Staples Center. Unlike so many urban centers, where demolition and destruction preceded renovation, L.A.’s glorious infrastructure was largely intact. You could see it just walking down around a few blocks. Boutique hotels and luxury condos on Broadway, inside buildings Raymond Chandler could have passed. There were upscale bars, like the Edison, housed in the basement of the old Edison Electric company, with the turbine steam generators and utility tunnels preserved. Clothing stores and theaters and sidewalk dining. It was all the right combination of old and new, something Dylan always loved about his adopted home town.

  But it was also a city of transience and desperation, of brokenness and lost dreams. That’s what Dylan had felt most for the last fifteen years. There had been no reclamation project for his heart.

  Paige was at her post at the reception desk as Dylan walked in. Loyal Paige. Single mom, had been with Dylan for seven years.

  “Any trouble?” Dylan asked.

  “You mean Mrs. N?”

  Dylan nodded.

  “Let’s put it this way,” Paige said. “You will get an earful tomorrow when she comes in. At two-thirty, by the way.”

  “Terrific.”

  “Carol is fine, will reschedule.”

  “Great. The morning clear then?”

  “There was one phone-in request, if you can fit him in.”

  “No.”

  “It’s Jaquez Rollins,” Paige said.

  “Of course.”

  Three hours later, seven-feet of lean, athletic prowess walked into Dylan’s office and said, “Hey hey, Miracle Man!”

  Jaquez Rollins was the starting power forward for the Los Angeles Lakers. He’d come to Dylan a year ago with compressed vertebrae that the team doctor said might require vertebroplasty. But Jaquez didn’t want any “cement” injected into his body. And found Dylan via referral from a bench-warming shooting guard named Max Stevenson.

  The timing was perfect, as Dylan had developed a new technique for nonsurgical spinal decompression. Jaquez told him to go for it. His words, in fact, were, “Take it to the hoop.” The results, Jaquez kept saying ever after, were a miracle.

  Dylan couldn’t help but smile now. The Lakers’ leading scorer was a kick, a party, always happy, and scandal free. Jaquez Rollins didn’t go to clubs. He preferred the company of his wife and two children, watching Disney movies or playing games. He did lots of volunteer work in the community.

  And he kept up a string of funny stories as Dylan began to rub his back. Dylan tried to absorb them, as if they were an analgesic for the soul. It helped a little. But Dylan only acknowledged each tale with a monosyllable or the occasional, “Uh-huh.”

  After twenty minutes, Jaquez sat up and said, “Everything okay, MM?”

  “Why?” Dylan said.

  “You don’t seem your usual self.”

  “I’m probably more my old self than you know.”

  “Talk to me, MM. Maybe I can help.”

  Dylan knew that Jaquez had carried a 4.0 at the University of Kentucky—though he declared for the NBA draft after his sophomore year—and that he was a psych major. Some of the sports writers called him Head Doctor J.

  “I appreciate it, Jaquez.”

  “We got time. How much time we got?”

  “Seriously?”

  “Fifteen minutes at least. It’s my time, right?”

  It was, and Dylan realized he had not spoken about his son to another man—or woman, for that matter—since he’d stopped going to counseling.

  “I don’t want you to take this on,” Dylan said.

  “Pass me the ball, man.”

  “Do you know about my son?” Dylan said.

  “Somebody told me you lost him,” Jaquez said.

  Dylan nodded.

  “How old was he?” Jaquez said.

  “Five,” Dylan said.

  “How’d he die, you don’t mind my asking?”

  “He didn’t,” Dylan said. “He was taken.”

  2

  Saturday. The park. Fifteen years ago.

  Tee-ball opening day.

  Kyle Reeve sitting on the bench for the Cubs.

  Dylan watching, hoping Kyle would get a hit the first time he came up. It would be nice for him to get a hit and remember to run to first base. He wanted his boy to feel the thrill that comes from your first hit and hearing your teammates cheer and give you a Way to go.

  Not the dreaded Stupid, you’re supposed to run fast!

  And then out in right field––the weakest defensive player always got stuck in right field. Would Kyle be able to get his glove on the ball? Would he remember to throw it to the second baseman?

  They’d been practicing in the front yard for a week, Dylan teaching his son the right throwin
g motion. “Like you’re reaching for the corner of the doorway. Back and through. That’s it …” as the ball went this way or that. But yesterday, Friday, Kyle got three straight grounders from Dylan (who threw them, not batted them, it was easier to control that way) and two of the three throws had been straight.

  Now it was game time. And Dylan was moving around on the hard bleachers so much that Erin said, “Stop. You’re making my coffee nervous.”

  “I’m fine,” Dylan said.

  She smiled then, the knowing smile, the I-can-read-you-like-a-recipe smile. She said, “Need a juice box?” Erin was the refreshments mom for the first game, had the blue vinyl ice chest at her feet.

  “You have a beer in there?” Dylan said.

  “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

  “I’ll take two.”

  Instead he got a kiss on the cheek from his wife, who said, “Relax, hon. He’s going to be fine. He hasn’t started taking this as seriously as you.”

  “Am I one of those dads?”

  “You’re a great dad. A superstar. And remember what you told him? When he wasn’t sure he wanted to play tee-ball?”

  “What did I say?”

  “You told him it was going to be fun. It was all about fun. He was going to love having fun.”

  “Did I really say fun that many times?”

  Erin smiled, nodded.

  “What I meant to say,” Dylan said, “was you better practice every day so you can get a full ride to UCLA.”

  Erin punched him in the shoulder.

  A cheer went up in the stands. Dylan looked out at the field and saw Richard Fusali running toward first base. The ball he’d smacked rolled through the legs of the left fielder.

  It was going to be at least a double.

  The Cubs bench was on its feet, jumping up and down. Even Kyle.

  He was into it!

  The wonderful bonding of team sports.

  All would be well. Yes, even fun.

  Dylan thought that, felt that.

  The feeling lasted fourteen minutes.

  Richard Fusali never made it home. The Cardinals, the other team, came up to bat. They were packed with talent, and showed it, scoring four runs.

  The next big lesson for Kyle, Dylan mused, was going to be on how to deal with getting pounded by an opponent.

  In the top of the third, with the Cubs at bat and behind 6-0, Dylan started his serious squirming. They were getting to the bottom of the order, the Cubs were, and since all the kids got to bat, Kyle would be coming up if enough kids got hits in front of him.