Counterfeit Son Read online

  Counterfeit Son

  Elaine Marie Alphin

  HOUGHTON MIFFLIN HARCOURT

  Boston New York

  Copyright © 2000 by Elaine Marie Alphin

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Graphia, an

  imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

  Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Harcourt

  Books, an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  Publishing Company, 2000.

  Requests for permission to make copies of any part of

  the work should be mailed to the following address:

  Permissions Department, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing

  Company, 6277 Sea Harbor Drive, Orlando, Florida 32887-6777.

  Graphia and the Graphia logo are registered trademarks of

  Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

  www.hmhbooks.com

  Text set in Janson MT

  The Library of Congress cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:

  Alphin, Elaine Marie.

  Counterfeit son/by Elaine Marie Alphin.

  p. cm.

  Summary: When serial killer Hank Miller is

  killed in a shoot-out with police, his abused son, Cameron,

  adopts the identity of one of his father’s victims in order to

  find a better life.

  [1. Mistaken identity—Fiction. 2. Child abuse—Fiction.

  3. Serial killers—Fiction. 4. Murder—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.A4625Co 2000

  [Fic]—dc21 00-8168

  ISBN 978-0-15-202645-5 PA ISBN 978-0-547-25853-9

  Printed in the United States of America

  VB 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  This is a work of fiction. All the names, characters, and events portrayed

  in this book are the product of the authors imagination. Any resemblance

  to any event or actual person, living or dead, is unintended.

  For Art,

  who has a rare staying power

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1 Return from the Dead

  Chapter 2 Positive I.D.

  Chapter 3 Pet Names

  Chapter 4 Tears

  Chapter 5 Homecoming

  Chapter 6 Neil’s Special Night

  Chapter 7 Sibling Rivalry

  Chapter 8 Shadow of the Past

  Chapter 9 Cougar

  Chapter 10 The Broken Rule

  Chapter 11 Punishment

  Chapter 12 The Stalker

  Chapter 13 Vote of No Confidence

  Chapter 14 Threats

  Chapter 15 Another One of the Boys

  Chapter 16 Missing

  Chapter 17 Payback

  Chapter 18 Not Neil Lacey

  Chapter 19 The Last Body

  Prologue

  He chose the Lacey family at first because of the sailboats. For as long as he could remember he’d dreamed of sailing. He imagined it would feel like flying, the wind rushing past his face and the waves scudding like clouds beneath him. And he thought he would feel safe—no people around, just him and the boat and the open water.

  He knew about the sailboats because he’d seen them in the newspaper photographs. He had read everything about the boys, all the clipped articles on yellowing newsprint, all the magazine features on slick paper so limp it had lost its gloss. Reading about someone else’s life was almost as good as dreaming about sailing.

  He couldn’t remember exactly when he had discovered the file cabinet in the corner of the small cellar storage room. Pop always locked him in the cellar while it happened. He hated the cellar—he hated the blows and the cries from upstairs, muffled only slightly by the locked door and the flooring, and he hated the smell. Pop kept spreading quicklime and fresh earth over the dirt floor, but the smell never went away completely You could hardly smell anything upstairs, but when he was shut down in the cellar the thick, sickly sweet odor got inside his nose and he couldn’t get rid of it. If he breathed through his mouth, he tasted it—a heavy taste like a rabbit a dog had torn apart and left half-buried in rotting leaves.

  He remembered that he had been trying to blot out the smell when he first stumbled onto the file cabinet. If he closed himself in that little side room, the odor wasn’t as bad. He had shut the door and pulled a dangling chain, and a single lightbulb flicked on overhead. There were cardboard boxes piled in the room, sodden from the damp, and he had seen the gleam of metal halfhidden behind them. The file cabinet was up on two-by-fours, and if he slipped around the shadowy side of the boxes he could open the drawers easily. The clippings were inside.

  He wasn’t the greatest reader. He couldn’t remember much about starting school, but he knew he’d been kept back. One of the boys had tried to help him with his reading once, and he’d gotten better, but he didn’t like to think about that. That boy was in the cellar now, with the others, and he didn’t have to think about him anymore. He could think about sailing instead.

  In school his classmates were always younger, and the teachers never bothered about him. He stayed quiet and kept to himself and didn’t learn much, but Pop said that didn’t matter. What mattered was not getting noticed. Other kids were problems and took all the teachers’ attention. Grown-ups didn’t waste any efforts on a kid who kept his mouth shut and stayed out of trouble and passed, even with Cs. So when he first looked through the files he had trouble reading the articles. He recognized some of the pictures, though, from the boys he remembered, and he started with the articles in those files, sounding out the letters until the words made sense.

  His reading improved, and over the years he read every article in the file cabinet. Some he read over and over. He knew each boy’s family as if it were his own, and he chose the Laceys because of the sailboats. He also chose them because the boy’s looks and age were close to his own, and because they had moved into their house only six months before their son disappeared. That would help explain his not knowing his way around.

  And he also chose the Laceys, in the end, because of their money.

  1. Return from the Dead

  “What?” The officer ran a hand through his uncombed hair and bent down across the high counter in the Buckeye police station lobby. “Say that again.”

  Cameron Miller swallowed and forced himself not to back away. If he couldn’t make himself go through with it now, he might as well give the whole thing up.

  “I’m Neil Lacey,” he whispered. “I got away. I need help.”

  People rushed past the policeman, phones rang, and from the look of his rumpled uniform and his bristling jowls, the officer staring at him must have been up for a couple of nights straight. This was the only police station in Buckeye, and Cameron thought they’d probably been taking the heat on Hank Miller’s shooting.

  “Kid says he’s Neil Lacey,” he heard the officer at the counter tell another officer. Cameron swallowed again and made himself look steadily at the two of them. It wasn’t easy, after years of ducking his head so no one could look him in the eye.

  “But—” The second officer pressed his lips together and didn’t finish.

  “I know.” The rumpled officer looked perplexed. “What do we do with him?”

  The second officer shrugged. “I’ll take him into B. You call Simmons.” He beckoned. “Come on, uh, Neil.”

  Cameron followed the officer down the hall, his knees weak and trembling. Don’t tell the cops anything, Pop had told him the time police officers came to question them about Cougar. If you do, they’ll see just how bad you are. They’ll take you away and lock you up, and you’ll find out what punishment really is. He’d known he was bad, so he’d done what Pop said. He’d ac
ted the part, like he did at school, and the cops had gone away. So had Cougar.

  Now, after trying so hard to obey Pop’s rules for as long as he could remember, Cameron had broken this rule, blown it to bits, and he was terrified of the consequences. But what other choice did he have?

  The officer led him into a room with a metal table and four folding chairs. “Sit down, uh, Neil. Look, can I get you anything? A Coke, maybe? Or a sandwich?”

  Cameron wondered what he should do. What would ring true? “Could I have a Coke, please?” he asked. Then, on an impulse, he added, “When can my parents get here? I really want my dad.”

  The officer twisted his gold wedding ring. “I don’t know—I’m sure they’ll be here soon. I’ll get you that Coke.” And he fled the room.

  The walls were blank except for a chalky gray-green coating of paint. The room didn’t have any windows, just like the cellar storage room. There weren’t any boxes or file cabinets, but Cameron didn’t need to look in the files. He had learned everything they could teach him.

  He looked at the door. It was probably locked, but he was used to being locked into rooms, and this one was okay. There was plenty of light, and it smelled of a mixture of fresh pine cleaner and stale cigarette smoke—safe smells. And, in spite of the fear, he didn’t hurt as much as he usually did. His left arm and side still ached from the last beating, but the worst of the pain had worn off. Pop had been excited about looking for a boy again, after so long, and had left him in the house alone for a few nights before … before the shooting. Cameron felt a strange ache in his chest, and he wished he could run home and find Pop waiting for him. He’d confess what he’d done and take his punishment gladly, if only Pop could still be there to look after him. Now he had to look after himself, and he didn’t know if he was strong enough.

  Cameron laid both hands flat on the tabletop and stared straight ahead. He’d had plenty of practice in shutting out his surroundings and his fears. In his mind, he sailed across deep blue water shimmering with flecks of gold. The wind blew fresh against his cheeks, spattering his eyelashes with a fine spray.

  The door banged open and he jumped. There were three men now: the officer, who placed a can of Coke on the table, and two men in suits.

  “Here’s your Coke, son,” the officer said. “This is Detective Simmons and Special Investigator Colbert.”

  Cameron stared at the two men and wrapped his hands around the cold can. “Are my parents coming?” he asked.

  The men looked at each other. “In a little while,” Detective Simmons said, sitting down facing him. “Now, Neil—why don’t you tell us what happened? You told Officer Norton you got away. How did you do that?”

  He placed a small black tape recorder on the table.

  Cameron licked his lips and eyed the tape recorder, listening to its soft hum. “He put me down in the cellar—” he started.

  “He—who?” the detective asked quickly.

  “Hank Miller. He always put me down in the cellar.” The words came, painful but convincing, because they were the truth. “He’d lock the cellar door until it was over.” Cameron swallowed some of his Coke and stared at the recorder. Knowing what to say was easy—saying the words aloud was hard. They’ll know, he heard Pop’s voice. They’ll know how bad you are. His stomach cramped from the cold drink.

  He made himself go on. “He hadn’t had anybody in a while, so I hadn’t been down there in a long time. But then he brought home Josh.” He saw the two men in suits look quickly at each other.

  “That night, he locked me in the cellar. I tried to warn Josh.” Cameron felt tears sting his eyes, surprising himself. “I told him to do what”—he caught himself before he said Pop. Neil wouldn’t think of Hank Miller as Pop. He went on, hoping they hadn’t noticed—“Hank said, but he didn’t listen. None of them listened.” He gripped the can tightly to stop the words. He didn’t want to talk about the other boys.

  “When Hank was finished he unlocked the door. He was real nervous, though, and angry. He made me help him dig another hole in the cellar floor—it’s all packed dirt down there, hard to dig deep, but just dirt.”

  Words—how could they show these men in their pressed suits what it was like to stand on the shovel, using your weight to make it bite deep, then pull back on it with all your strength to lever the dirt out, all the while panting with the effort and choking on that smell?

  He didn’t try. “It was morning by the time we finished, and I asked him if I should go to school. He said yes, he didn’t want to attract any notice by messing up the routine. He was real big on routine. But I thought I’d get in trouble because I was so tired, and anyway, it was the last week of school so I didn’t think the teacher would tell him I’d cut. So I left like I was going to school, but then I went in the woods behind the house and I hid there to go to sleep.”

  The special investigator hadn’t said anything yet, but Detective Simmons nodded. Cameron thought the cops were probably almost as familiar with that patch of eastern Tennessee woods as he was. When they’d closed in on the house, some of the officers had come through the trees.

  “I woke up when I heard people moving in the woods,” he went on. “I got my book bag and stayed out of sight, and I heard them come up to the house. I heard talking and then shouting. I don’t know what happened next, but then I heard gunfire and more shouts.” He knew what had happened, all right, but he didn’t think Neil would have cared enough about Hank Miller to figure it out. Pop must have fought back, Cameron thought. He knew Pop had a gun, though he’d never shot any of the boys, of course. He must have shot at the police, and they shot back.

  Cameron turned the can around in his hands and stared at the shiny red metal. Then the distorted reflection of his face in the slick redness made him feel sick, and he put it down. “So I ran away.”

  “Why did you run?” the detective asked him.

  Cameron shrugged. “I was scared. I was afraid Hank was in trouble because of Josh, or the others. I was afraid I’d get in trouble, too.”

  The two men glanced at each other again. “What did you do then?”

  “I hid out that night. Then, in the morning, I went back to see if things were okay. But there were cops all over the place, and those yellow streamer things circling the house. I didn’t know what to do, so I listened for a while.” He swallowed, remembering how his brief surge of relief had quickly been replaced by fear, and by a loneliness so intense it had shocked him. “That’s when I heard Hank was dead.”

  “So you came here,” Detective Simmons said, leaning back in his chair.

  Cameron shook his head. “Not right away. I was scared. I thought about it for a while first. I mean—I’m fourteen. I thought maybe I could get home to Freeport on my own, but I was afraid to try.”

  The detective stared hard at him, his eyes narrowed. He doesn’t think much of me, Cameron realized, flushing helplessly. He thinks I’m a major wimp. Well, I guess I am.

  After a few moments Detective Simmons nodded, and the rumpled officer brought in another man, a young officer in a crisp uniform. This man looked like he’d gotten some sleep, not like the others. He must not have been in on the raid.

  “Do you recognize this man?” the detective asked.

  Cameron stared harder at the officer. He did look familiar. … Then Cameron started. “I—yes, I do.”

  “When did you see him before?”

  “He—he came to the house,” he stuttered, remembering the young officer and his questions about Cougar, who had once been Pop’s friend. Cameron felt as though he were going to throw up the Coke he’d drunk. “He asked me questions.”

  “Why didn’t you tell the officer who you were then?” the detective asked, his voice hard. “Why did you say you were Hank Miller’s son, Cameron?”

  “He—Hank always said to say that—he told everybody I was his son—he said not to say anything to the cops—he told me they’d lock me up and punish me—he said he’d kill me—”


  “Why did he keep you alive?” Detective Simmons demanded. “He killed over twenty boys—why were you special?”

  “Ease up,” Investigator Colbert said, but no one paid any attention to him.

  “Because I did what he said,” Cameron whispered. He wanted to tell them he’d bought the right to stay alive, bought it with nights of white-hot pain and days of aspirin-choked silence. He’d paid the price because he’d dreamed that someday Pop would finally tell him he was good, and the nightmare would stop. But he couldn’t say that to these men. They’d see how bad he was and know he was lying, and he’d never get his chance to sail free.

  The angry face swam in front of his eyes. “Are you Cameron Miller?” Detective Simmons asked.

  Cameron pushed his chair back from the table and stood up unsteadily. The room spun around him.

  “I’m Neil Lacey,” he said, through lips that felt numb and swollen, as though Pop’s fist had smashed his mouth. He slid into blackness as the table edge slipped away from his fingers and the floor rushed up to meet him.

  2. Positive I.D.

  In the dream, he lay on a hard bed in a darkened room. You’ve been bad, the man told him. Now be good, and everything will be all right. The man lay down beside him and drew a single sheet over the two of them. Don’t cry, the man said. Don’t make a sound.

  He lay on his side and felt the man pressing close to his back, strangely comforting but also threatening. He willed himself not to shudder as the man reached one arm around to hold him and turn him face down on the mattress.

  Don’t cry, the man repeated, his voice low and his breath coming in hot jabs against his ear. Don’t struggle. Be good. And he lay still, wide-eyed in the dark, the wrinkled sheet dry beneath his face, his teeth clenched, and he let the man do what he wanted.