The Quiet Child
The Quiet Child
by John Burley
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GENRE: Thriller
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From the
award-winning author of The Absence of Mercy, comes a gripping and darkly
psychological novel about family, suspicion, and the price we are willing to pay
to protect those we love the most.
It’s the summer of
1954, and the residents of Cottonwood, California, are dying. At the center of
it all is six-year-old Danny McCray, a strange and silent child the townspeople
regard with fear and superstition, and who appears to bring illness and ruin to
those around him. Even his own mother is plagued by a disease that is slowly
consuming her.
Sheriff Jim Kent,
increasingly aware of the whispers and rumors surrounding the boy, has watched
the people of his town suffer—and he worries someone might take drastic action
to protect their loved ones. Then a stranger arrives, and Danny and his
ten-year-old brother, Sean, go missing. In the search that follows, everyone is
a suspect, and the consequences of finding the two brothers may be worse than
not finding them at all.
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Instead, Michael closed the door, waited for Sean to walk
around the rear of the vehicle and join him on the driver’s side. Behind them,
along Gas Point Road, the traffic was light. A battered Ford pickup backfired
once as it drove past, heading toward the highway, its brake lights winking as
it approached the access ramp. On the opposite side of the street, a man in a
tan jacket hustled across the empty pavement in its wake.
“Pick out a flavor,” Michael said as they headed inside.
“How about two?” Sean asked, hopeful.
“Two then,” he replied, “but make one of them strawberry for
your mother. And get some coffee and sugar while you’re back there.” His right
hand went to the breast pocket of his shirt, fingers retrieving his pack of
Camels, tapping one out, placing it in the corner of his mouth. “Evening,
Stan.”
“Michael,” Stan Eddleworth greeted him from behind the
counter and stubbed out his own cigarette in the ashtray on the shelf to his
left. The man turned, placed his thick hands on the glass in front of him. At
sixty-two, Stan had hair that was more silver than gray, the metallic sheen
enhanced by his styling pomade and the pale, granite blue eyes that seemed to
observe the world through a light haze of smoke. The market’s proprietor leaned
forward, his posture canted to the right, his good leg supporting most of his
weight. He’d lost the other one during the First World War, a casualty of
infection from his time in the trenches. What was left of it merged with a wood
and leather prosthesis just south of the knee. If the leg bothered him, as
Michael imagined it must, Stan never mentioned it. And despite the black wooden
stool behind the counter, he always seemed to stand, keeping vigil, a remnant
perhaps of the duties he’d been relieved of long ago.
“How’s Kate?” Stan asked, glancing toward the back of the
store where Sean had gone to fetch the ice cream.
“Doing well, thanks,” Michael said, snapping his lighter
closed and returning it to his pocket. He inhaled deeply, tilted his head
upward slightly as he blew out a thin train of smoke. He turned to study the
rack of newspapers, picked up a copy of the Chronicle—Eisenhower signs communist
control act the headline read—and placed it on the counter. “Shame we need a
law,” he commented, tapping the paper.
Stan nodded. “Hoover says it’ll just force subversives
deeper into hiding—make the FBI’s job more difficult.”
“Right. But now Senator Watkins and his committee are taking
a hard look at McCarthy. Ike must be happy about that.”
Sean emerged from the aisle with two cartons of ice cream in
hand, the coffee and sugar balanced on top. He set them down on the counter and
walked over to the rack of comics in the shop’s entryway. A dying glimmer of
sunlight spilled through the door’s window, illuminating the back of the boy’s
head, a hint of scalp visible beneath the dusky blond crew cut, the tan neck
bent slightly to study the illustrated covers.
“Is he back in school yet?” Stan asked, and Michael returned
his attention to the man in front of him.
“Supposed to start up again tomorrow. Me too,” he added,
thinking of the roster of students he’d been assigned at Anderson Union High
this year, how the first few weeks were always a struggle against the inertia
that had set in over two months of summer vacation. “It’ll be fifth grade for
Sean. Seems hard to believe.”
And Danny? Stan could’ve asked, but didn’t. And that was how
it was with Michael’s younger son, as if the boy’s silence gave people the
right to ignore him, to pretend he didn’t exist. He was a ghost, a quiet child
the townspeople referred to only in whispers.
“That’ll be a dollar
eighty-two,” Stan said from behind the register. Michael blinked, and looked up
at the store owner. Stan smiled back at him blandly. The two cartons of ice
cream, coffee, sugar, and a newspaper sat waiting in a brown paper bag. In the
parking lot outside, a car ignition turned over irritably a few times before springing
to life.
The cogs of the Ferris wheel turned, lifted them into the
night. Kiss her before it’s too late, Michael thought to himself. Hold on to
this girl in the pale blue dress and the thrum of her heartbeat against your
ribs. Let her know that she’s yours.
He dug into his back pocket for his wallet, retrieved it,
and pulled out two singles. “Sean, do you want a comic?” he asked, turning
toward the shop’s entrance.
The last syllable of his sentence ended as a click in the
back of his throat. From the parking lot outside, he could hear tires on
gravel—not slowing to a stop, but speeding up, spinning slightly as the driver
gunned the engine.
“Sean?” Michael called, taking a step toward the door and
the abandoned rack of comics, his tongue suddenly dry and gritty.
“Think he went outside,” Stan commented, his voice sounding
alien and distorted in the small confines of the store.
John Burley
is the award-winning author of The Absence of Mercy, honored with the National
Black Ribbon Award, and The Forgetting Place. He attended medical school in
Chicago and completed his emergency medicine residency at University of
Maryland Medical Center and Shock Trauma in Baltimore. He continues to serve as
an emergency medicine physician in Northern California.
Website: http://john-burley.com/index.php
Amazon Author
Page: https://www.amazon.com/John-Burley/e/B00E5V4BSM
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/John.Burley/
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