Page 12 of The Perfect Hosts

Finally, his throat opened, allowing a thin thread of air into his lungs. He breathed it in greedily in long raspy breaths. Someone had tried to run him over. Someone had tried to kill him. Where was Juneau? She would never have handed over the keys to someone else, at least not willingly.

He tried to hold still, tried to quiet the jagged wheezing of his breath, hoping that the dark and long grass kept him well hidden. Seconds passed, then minutes. The air was still, the crickets and kissing bugs had grown quiet. Even the nightjars had stopped churring. The driver couldn’t have been his sister, but maybe she was with a friend, a boyfriend. Maybe they were playing a stupid game of chicken, thinking they were being funny, and had accidently hit him. But Juneau wouldn’tleave him all alone in the dark, hurt, would she? As annoying as he was, she never stayed angry at him for long.

The pain in Jamie’s hip had dulled to a throbbing ache. If he could just sit up, maybe he could scoot his way out of the ditch, then use a fence post to pull himself to a standing position and wait for help. He knew this was wishful thinking. The gravel road was only used by locals, and that was typically during the day. He could be here all night, but surely his mother would get worried and come looking for him. Jamie took a deep breath and eased himself onto his elbows, wincing in pain with each shift in position. From his vantage, he still couldn’t see the road, only the lattice of the dried grasses in front of him.

The sound of rustling grass came from somewhere behind him. An animal, maybe, curious about what had landed in its backyard. But then the sound took on a rhythmic quality. A softcrunch,crunch, then silence.Crunch,crunch, pause. Footsteps. Someone was wading their way through the ditch toward him.

“Juneau?” Jamie called out hopefully, his voice trembling. No response. “Juneau!” he said more loudly. Whoever was coming his way was not his sister. She would have answered him, and the steps were too heavy.Crunch,crunch,crunch,crunch, pause.

Fear sent a surge of adrenaline through him, and Jamie was able to flip over onto his stomach. The pain a white-hot poker stab to his hip, it didn’t stop him from army-crawling away from the noise. He inched forward, his right leg dragging heavily behind. Though the night was cool, sweat slid down his face, stinging his eyes. Or were those tears? Jamie didn’t know. His arms trembled with exertion, his skin tearing where it snagged on rough stems and brambles. He was getting nowhere and didn’t have the strength to keep trying anyway.Crunch,crunch,crunch,crunch,crunch,crunch, pause. Then nothing. Only his heavy breathing, intermingled with someone else’s.

Jamie didn’t want to look up. He didn’t want to see whohad done this to him, to see what was going to happen next, but he couldn’t help himself. The shadow that loomed over him was preternaturally large with broad shoulders that rose and fell with each breath. A wet, musty odor rolled off the dark figure. Jamie wanted to say something, tell him he didn’t have to hurt him, that Jamie wouldn’t tell anyone, that he could keep a secret. He didn’t get the chance. The shape raised one tree trunk of a leg and swung it back as if preparing to kick a soccer ball or a football.

At the last second, Jamie ducked his head in hopes that his attacker would miss, would lose his footing, giving him a chance to get away. The impact was dead-on, though, striking Jamie in the cheek. Jamie used his arms to cover his head, but the blows kept coming, unrelenting in finding flesh and bone until the pain had no beginning, no end, and that was all that remained. His throat filled with a thick coppery liquid, and Jamie thought he would choke on his own blood.

Hours later, he woke to a gentle shake of his shoulder and a voice. “Oh my God. Hey, buddy, hey,” it said. “You okay?” It was a young man, his voice scared and uncertain. Jamie tried to open his eyes, but the sky was too bright, and sleep kept dragging him back into blissful unconsciousness. Every inch of his body hurt, but the electric pain in his mouth was the worst. He used his tongue to feel around and found the jagged edges of his broken right molars.

The sound of an approaching car filled Jamie with a panic, and he cried out. The cool morning air sent shock waves of pain into the space where his teeth used to be. The driver was coming back. He was going to finish what he’d started.

“Weston,” a far-off voice said, a woman this time. “Good game last night. You’ll get them next time.” And then there was a change in her tone. “Everything okay here?”

“I don’t know. It looks like he’s hurt really bad,” the young man said.

Jamie heard the same crunch of dry grass beneath feet that he’d heard the night before.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” the woman said. “He’s just a baby,” she said. “Is he still alive?”

“I think so,” the youth said. “But he’s really hurt.”

I am, Jamie wanted to say.I am alive.He wanted them to call for help, call the police, find his sister.

A shadow moved in front of the sun, and Jamie felt warm fingers press against the inside of his wrist. “He’s got a good, strong pulse,” the woman said. “I’m going to drive to the gas station up the road and call the police and for an ambulance. You okay to stay here with him, Weston?” she asked.

Jamie ran the name through his mind.Weston.The only one with anything close to that name was Wes Drake, an older kid. A senior whose family owned most of the land in the county.

“Yes, ma’am,” Wes said. But he didn’t sound okay. He sounded scared.

Maybe I could still die, Jamie thought. Tears filled his eyes, then spilled down his cheeks, the salty liquid setting the deep cuts in his face afire.

“Oh man,” Wes said. “Don’t cry, it’s going to be okay. Mrs. O’Brien is going to get help. She’s a teacher at the high school. I think your sister has her for English. That’s her car down the road, right?”

How did Wes Drake know Juneau? No one knew them, especially the rich kids who lived in Woodson County their entire lives. Jamie thought of the car barreling toward him, then the hulking figure standing over him before a large foot stomped down on his face. Where was Juneau? What had happened to her? Icy panic flooded his chest, and Jamie tried to sit up, but the pain kept him pinned in place. “Juneau,” he tried to say, but it came out as a garbled “Uno.”

“Hold still, hold still,” Wes urged, but Jamie couldn’t. Ifsomeone had tried to kill him, then what had happened to Juneau? Did that mean she was dead or lying in a ditch bleeding too?

“Uno, Uno,” he cried out again. Fuck, Jamie thought, he sounded like he’d just won a kid’s stupid card game.

“J. J., stop!” Wes ordered. “Hold still. You’re going to make it worse.”

Jamie knew this was true, could feel the pain migrating throughout his body, but couldn’t stop screaming his sister’s name. Wes pressed his hands against Jamie’s shoulders, trying to keep him flat, and Jamie felt the other boy’s fingers momentarily disappear into the shredded flesh below his collarbone, then touch bone. Wes withdrew his fingers as if electrocuted, and then they were both screaming. It wasn’t until later, after Jamie was out of the hospital and emerging from the painkiller fog that he’d been in for weeks that he remembered Wes Drake calling him by name. Jamie was surprised and, if he was being honest, a little bit pleased to know that big-shot football star, Wes Drake, knew who he was.

Now Jamie kicks at the hard-packed dirt at the edge of the road. Over twenty-five years have passed. Why has he come back here? Jamie wonders. To stare at the spot where he nearly died and his sister disappeared? Seasons have come and gone, and the wind, rain, and snow have pounded this earth but revealed nothing. In all these years there have been no reliable sightings of Juneau. Not a scrap of clothing, not the silver ring she wore on her right thumb, no collection of bones or teeth.

Go home, Jamie, Juneau’s voice scrapes across his skin. And this time, he’s going to listen to his sister. Once he wraps up this case, he’s leaving Nightjar and going home to his wife.

Jamie pulls back onto the road, and the navigation system directs him along a winding road that eventually straightens. Fifteen minutes later two pinpricks of light appear. As he comes closer, he sees that they originate from the headlightsof a cruiser. The deputy inside is sipping coffee, making sure no one disturbs the scene. Jamie parks and steps from his car. The air is still heavy with the scent of smoke and wet wood. The barn is nothing but a sodden pile of lumber. Jamie hopes there is still some evidence beneath the rubble, but that will have to wait until sunrise. He likes to step into the debris field, amid the wreckage, and get an up close and personal perspective of the scene. He calls out to the deputy, who also steps from his car with his hand on his sidearm.

“Supervisory Special Agent Jamie Saldano,” Jamie says, lifting his badge from the loop around his neck. He squints against the glare of the flashlight that the deputy centers on his face.