Feral by Brian Knight Page A

of disgust and shame.   Suddenly he was the child hiding under his covers again, shaking in fear of the face in the closet, the voice that seemed to whisper to him from every shadow and unseen place in his room.   He was the little boy who dreaded each coming morning almost as much as each approaching night, because his father would come to wake him and see that he had wet the bed again.
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    C harles knew it couldn’t possibly be her, no way in hell.   Cold, dead trails didn’t suddenly burst into flames for no reason, and dead girls—yes, he believed she was dead—didn’t walk.   Cases this difficult never came to this easy a conclusion, and coincidences this big simply did not happen outside the warped minds of conspiracy theorists.   It had to be someone else, a young relative or friend of the family.
    Still, although the latest picture he’d seen of her was taken six years ago, it looked like Charity.
    If it was her it would explain a few troubling things to Charles, like the killers abandonment of tradition where the Shannon Pitcher’s family was concerned, but it opened up another line of more troubling questions.
    Who are you, Shannon Pitcher ? he wondered.   Who are you and how much traveling do you do ?
    If Shannon, or maybe her brother, was their killer, and the girl was Gordon’s missing daughter, why had they kept her around?   This went back farther than Gordon’s ex-wife and daughter, at least fifteen years by his estimation, maybe more.   With the hundreds of missing children, why had they kept Charity?
    Maybe it was another girl, their latest victim.   Maybe it was a young relative or family friend.
    Charles just didn’t know.
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    G ordon showered and changed again, throwing his soiled pants and shirt in the dumpster behind the motel.   He called the lobby, made a red-faced request for fresh bed linen, and was grateful when the night manager didn’t comment on the bundle of urine-scented sheets he took away.   Gordon changed the bed himself, flipping the mattress first, and finished just before Charles came back.
    â€œYou up for a drive, old friend?”   Gordon didn’t like the look on the PI’s face or the strained quality in his voice.
    â€œSure,” he said, but uncertainly.   Suddenly he didn’t want to know what Charles might have learned while he was away.   “What’s happened?”
    â€œWe need to talk.”

Chapter 12
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    T he afternoon was eventless.   Shannon and Jared took turns napping on the couch while Charity sat between them, zoned out on movie matinees and commercials.
    When the doorbell rang at seven o’clock Jared answered it, his gun tucked into the front of his pants and hidden by his shirttail.   Shannon and Charity hid in the hallway.
    â€œDon’t worry,” Charity said, giving Shannon’s hand a comforting squeeze.   “It’s not him.   He only comes when it’s dark.”
    It turned out to be the pizza delivery guy—large pepperoni, extra cheese, and an order of bread sticks.
    The sun set at a quarter to nine; Charity watched it through the kitchen’s sliding glass door while she ate.   Shannon and Jared pretended not to notice how her enthusiasm for food diminished steadily as she tracked the sun down the western sky, or how her face transformed in the sunset’s violet glow, becoming a glowing mirror of their own fears for the night to come.   By the time full dark had arrived the fiery, bold girl they had gotten to know during the day was gone.
    The half eaten slice of pizza, which had grown cold in her hand as she watched the sun vanish, dropped on the table with a splat.   Her hand, still in place above the overturned slice, elbow planted firmly on the tabletop, trembled.   She groaned, a deep resigned sound, and she seemed almost to shrink into herself.
    â€œLights,” Shannon said, and