Now all Creese had to do was tell the police exactly how Barnum had murdered his friend. Had it been a push, a throw?
The cuts, the bruises, the broken bones, and the burns were all obvious signs they’d been tortured. Creese was stitched back together now, and his body would heal. Fear took longer. Barnum was not a rapist, and both sets of parents had been thankful for that, but he was a sadist, and the pain he inflicted meant Creese also suffered from touch aversion. He’d hugged his dog before his parents, but one day that changed, and today, the circle now included his sister again.
“Jere?”
“Sorry, just thinkin’ about you.”
He nodded.
I cleared my throat. “You know, once you talk to the police and your statement goes on record, your folks and Kurt’s folks can read the transcript. They’ll know what happened even if you don’t tell them yourself.”
“No, I know but…reading it is different than hearing it, and I won’t have to see their faces or listen to Mr. Adams yell at me again.”
“You’re right”—I nodded—“I agree.”
He exhaled sharply. “That’s what I thought.”
“Well, good, then. Detective Turner seems nice.”
“And…strong.”
I was with him on that. Detective Faith Turner carried herself in a way that made me never want to cross her. She made direct eye contact, had an air of confidence about her, and most importantly, with kids she always sat down, like she had all the time in the world for them, never perching, never standing; she folded her hands and waited. It went a long way toward letting them know she truly cared.
She was new to the case, and the press had made a big deal of her being the only Black detective on the Barrett Crossing police force, having taken over from Detective Isaac Patterson, who could not handle the pressure of hunting for a serial-killing child abductor who had gained national media attention. She had been the one, along with the FBI, to figure out it was Barnum, tied him to the kidnappings and murders in 2019, and to put the cuffs on the man. She was the one who had held Creese’s hand until the EMTs arrived, and she was the one who rode with him to the hospital. She had been the first to tell him he couldn’t have done anything against a man with a knife and a gun. It wasn’t surprising that he would turn back to her now, and trust her with his memories of the horror. She’d seen it, after all, and carried the same images in her head.
“Jere?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you think you could sit in there with me when I talk to her?”
“If your folks say it’s okay, I absolutely will.”
He took a shaky breath. “Could you go ask now so I’ll know?”
“I would, but they’re probably sitting out on the benches by the office. If I go, that leaves you in here alone for a few minutes.” He might not want to talk, but being alone would send him into a panic that included cold sweats and hyperventilating. Only in his bedroom, which now had bars on the windows, where a lamp was always on, and where Riley slept every night, could he be by himself.
He’d asked for a deadbolt on the door too, at one point, that he could lock from the inside, but his parents were afraid he’d hurt himself—or worse—even though they never voiced that fear to him. That was, in fact, how he ended up with Riley.
“How about getting him a therapy dog?” I’d suggested. “Like, a big dog that would make him feel safe and, you know, is geared to his needs. Someone to talk to and be his buddy.”
When they had brought it up to him, he’d agreed, but only as long as the dog they got was big and strong and basically invincible. It was a tall order. He liked golden retrievers and beagles, and he loved pit bulls, but he didn’t want anything, any dog, that he could imagine getting hurt, and every pit bull he’d ever come across, like his grandmother’s three, were sweet and trusting. He couldn’t lose anything else.
“You know,” I told him as we walked together around the woods near his house, “any dog you have could conceivably be hurt.”
“I know, but there are certain dogs people don’t even try to mess with in the first place.”
“That’s valid.”
When he turned, I’d gotten a rare smile.
His parents found two Dobermans, brother and sister, Riley and Rhett, each trained as service dogs, and adopted them both. Riley, the female, took to Creese immediately, and sleeping on one side of his bed every night suited her just fine. His parents had both been overwhelmed when they’d checked on him that first night and found him sleeping peacefully rather than passed out from sheer exhaustion. He’d always refused to be medicated, he could never be vulnerable again, but now, with Riley there, he didn’t need to be hypervigilant. He could wear his AirPods again and drown out the noise around him, because his dog was there. He’d seen her go from lying on the floor, splayed out, looking dead to the world, to rolling to her feet, head down, teeth bared, snarling like a hellhound, in seconds. It was extremely comforting for a seventeen-year-old boy who’d been abducted and assaulted.