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I scoffed. “Sure I am. They obviously had access to all kinds of drugs.”
Joe’s skin reddened, and his lips drew into a snarl I knew well. This was mad Joe. Hothead Joe. And I didn’t blame him one bit.
“Your father drugged us?”
“We’ll never know for sure, but what other explanation is there? We didn’t remember for a long, long time, and even now the memories are fuzzy. But I have vivid memories of when I was younger than nine.”
I couldn’t say any more. I wasn’t sure why the thought of my father drugging us was so foreign to me. Hell, drugging us was the least of his crimes.
“Rohypnol,” Joe said, “can cause retrograde amnesia. Melanie told me.”
“Exactly. Once this happened, my father had to effectively erase our memories. I can’t think of any way to do that other than drugs.”
“Fucking bastard,” Joe said. Then, “Sorry, man.”
“Are you kidding me? I wish there were a worse word for him. I wish I could pry every atom of his DNA out of me.”
How true. I’d spent countless hours in the shower, scalding myself with hot water in a useless attempt to scrub and burn all of Tom Simpson out of my genes. Ridiculous, I knew.
I did it anyway.
“I suppose it’s still only conjecture,” Joe said.
“It’s the most likely explanation. He told us it never happened. We were nine, not three. We weren’t going to disbelieve something we’d seen with our own eyes.”
“The kid was dead, though,” Joe said. “I remember that much.”
The image of Justin’s limp, naked body cut into my mind. Had he been dead? Could he have been revived? His skin was…was…
“Damn!”
“What?” Joe asked.
“I can’t remember what his skin looked like. Was it still pink? Or was it gray and pasty? Do you remember, Joe?”
“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
“Yeah. Maybe. What if he wasn’t dead?”
“Impossible. I mean… Where did he go, then? He never came back to school. His family must have left Snow Creek.”
“If we knew his last name, we’d have a better chance of figuring this all out.”
“Not if his name was Justin Smith or Jones.”
“I guess it’s up to the Spider now,” I said.
“Do you really think Justin didn’t die?” Joe asked.
I shook my head. “It’s not likely, but we have to consider all angles, no matter how improbable they seem. Ted Morse knows about this forgotten blip on the radar of our lives, and he found out somehow.”
“Yeah, but if— Oh, shit.”
“What?”
Joe placed his hat back on his head. “Wendy, Mathias, Wade, and your father are all out of the picture now. That means if they were holding something over Justin’s or someone else’s head, it’s no longer in effect.”
“And Morse got to them.”
