Running Scared

  He charged steadily uphill, his lungs ablaze as the tenements gave way to nice houses and shops and wrought-iron fences. Christmas lights flashed by his eyes and an overwhelming sense of déjà vu washed over him. Somewhere not too far away he heard the melodic strains of a Christmas song.

  “…a beautiful sight, we’re happy tonight, walkin’ in a winter wonderland…”

  He swallowed back his fear. This was another repeat of his dream, and the footsteps behind him weren’t imagined. Someone very real and evil was chasing him!

  Forcing his feet to keep going, his heart pounding furiously, he heard his pursuer and cast a glance behind him. In the thin lamplight and through the shadows, a man was following, running at breakneck speed, catching him.

  No! No! No! Don’t stop, keep running!

  “In the meadow we can build a snowman…”

  Heavy breathing, thudding footsteps, his name called into the night. “Jon! Stop!”

  Jon lunged as a huge hand dropped down and clamped over his shoulder.

  “Shh. It’s me!” Daegan said.

  Jon nearly crumpled in relief. He wasn’t going to be shot! Turning, he saw Daegan’s face in the watery glow of a streetlamp.

  “What’re you doing here?”

  “I came looking for you.”

  Daegen…my father.

  Jon backed up. “You lied to me,” he accused him, still walking backward, his breath fogging in the night.

  “I thought I had to. I was wrong.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “I know and I can’t make you. But I’m your father and—”

  “No!” Jon said, anger spewing from him. “My father wouldn’t have left me, my father would have stuck around while I was growing up, my father is a great guy who…who—”

  “Never knew he had a son until a couple of months ago, who couldn’t believe it but, once he met you, found out he loves you. He never realized a child could make such a difference in his pathetic life.”

  The words echoed through the night and resonated in Jon’s battered heart. Daegan was his father! His damned father! Biting his lip, he silently told himself he wasn’t going to cry, even though Daegan might walk out and leave him again.

  “And it’s not just because you’re his son,” Daegan was saying with a sad smile curving his lips, “but because he cares about you, likes to be around you, gets a kick just hanging out with you.”

  “Then why did you leave?” Jon demanded, challenging this man he’d once admired. Daegan looked sincere, but Jon didn’t want to trust him. After all, the guy was pretty good at disappearing acts.

  “I thought I had to. I thought it would be best if you never knew. I thought your mom and you could go on with your lives and never have to deal with what you’re dealing with now.”

  “The Sullivan family,” Jon sneered.

  “That’s right.” Daegan shook his head and frustration etched his features. “Unfortunately we’ve got to face them, force them to end this, convince your grandfather that he has no claim to you.”

  “He doesn’t.”

  Daegan’s smile slashed white. “Okay, so let’s go tell him.”

  “I don’t want to see him.”

  “You have to, Jon. To end this. Besides, your mother’s going out of her mind with worry. She was with me a minute ago and then I sprinted ahead when I saw you…”

  Jon looked over his shoulder and spied Kate, breathing hard, jogging toward them. Tears were running down her face, and when she reached him, she threw her arms around her son and clung to him.

  “Jon, oh, baby, Jon, Jon,” she said over and over again.

  “Ma—”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah.” He swallowed hard. He was not going to cry.

  “I mean it, Jon,” she said, blinking hard. “Oh, God, I was so scared. I knew you were with that horrible man and then we heard the gunshot and…I’m just glad you’re not hurt.” She buried her face in his neck and sighed with relief.

  “I’m really okay,” he assured her.

  Stepping back from him, his mom swiped at the tears on her cheeks with her gloved hands. “I’m so glad. I was so worried.”

  “You two…” Jon pointed from his mother to Daegan. “You came here together?”

  Kate gasped at the sight of his bruised, chafed wrist. “Oh, baby…your arms. You need to see a doctor!”

  “No!” Jon yanked his hand back. Right now he needed answers. “I’ll be fine, Mom. Did you come here together?”

  Daegan glanced at Kate, then back to Jon. “Not exactly. But we both came here to find you.”

  “Because I’m your son,” Jon said, squarely facing Daegan.

  “I came because I care about you,” Daegan said. “But yes, I’m your father.”

  “Did you know about this?” Jon pressed his mother. “That he’s my father?”

  She shook her head. “Not until after you disappeared.” She pressed one gloved fist to her eye. “I’m so sorry about the way this happened, Jon. I had no idea, no idea anyone would ever come after you.”

  “How could you?” Jon shrugged, then pointed back down the boulevard, toward the decrepit motel. “But the scary part is those guys aren’t the worst of it. I’ve got this crazy relative, her name is Alicia, and she’s ready to pay a million bucks to get me killed. VanHorn will probably go to jail, but that psycho Alicia is still going to be out there, plotting to bump me off.”

  “Don’t worry about Alicia,” Daegan said. “Believe me, I know how to handle her. I’ll take care of her. I say we settle up with Robert, and then we’ll take you home.”

  “To Oregon?” Jon asked and saw his mother catch her breath.

  “If that’s where you want to go.”

  Jon rolled his eyes. “I never thought I’d miss that place,” he admitted, his hands buried deep in his pockets as they dashed through the neighborhood. A band of carolers sang at a doorstep.

  “God rest ye merry gentlemen, let nothing you dismay…”

  They reached a busy street with stores aglow in Christmas lights and shoppers wandering beneath the streetlamps. Daegan hailed a cab and soon they were in the warm interior, speeding through the city.

  So Daegan was his father. Jon glanced at the man who’d sired him. Decent enough looking as far as cowboys went, he imagined. Jesus, he could barely believe it. He had a father, a real father, and the guy was Daegan damned O’Rourke. Now, Todd Neider couldn’t say Jon didn’t know his old man. But then he had the feeling that Daegan wasn’t sticking around. Not that he could see into his mind, not now at any rate, but because Jon couldn’t believe that anything would ever work out.

  “Tell me what happened,” Daegan said, and Jon, glancing nervously at the cabby, hesitated.

  “Believe me, he’s heard it all,” Daegan added.

  So Jon told them. From the moment Todd Neider yelled at him in the hallway and dunked his head in the urinal, until he ended up in the crappy motel room, scared spitless.

  “Dear God,” his mother said, twisting her fingers. “If I’d known…oh, dear God.”

  By the time the cab slowed, they’d swapped stories and Daegan had frowned when he looked at Jon’s wrists and shoulder. The taxi rolled to a stop on a quiet street with houses facing a manicured park.

  “This is it,” Daegan said as he handed the driver a bill and helped Kate from the car. “Come on, Jon, it’s now or never.”

  This phony with her fancy fingernails, fake red hair, and bloodshot eyes was his mother? No way. Jon stared at Bibi Sullivan Porter as if she were some kind of attraction in a freak show.

  “Way to go, Daegan,” Bibi said. She was seated in a peach-colored chair in the parlor, smoking a cigarette. “Has anyone ever told you you’re a lousy private detective?”

  “She hired you?” Kate whispered, eyeing the woman as if she were a Jezebel. “She was going to pay you to find Jon, to return him, to ruin our lives?” She turned tortured eyes on him.

  D
aegan scowled. “Not exactly. I think she wanted me to kidnap him to Canada.”

  Bibi shrugged, as if it didn’t matter.

  Jon hated her. She’d abandoned him, given him away, and she was so different from Kate. There was a part of him that wanted to know more about her, about this whole circus of a family, but he didn’t dare ask.

  Sitting in the chair, legs crossed as if she was bored, she looked like a rich bitch. How could Daegan have ever slept with…? Sick at the thought, he tried to be practical and supposed he should be thankful that she’d given him up and started the first of a long chain of lies; otherwise he would never have known his mother, Kate. Still, it was easier to hate her, better if he didn’t try and understand why she’d rejected him, safer if he didn’t realize she was only a few years older than he was now when she’d found out she was pregnant with her cousin’s child. He ground his back teeth together and swore under his breath that he’d never call her anything the least bit maternal—not birth mother, not natural mother, not biological mother—and he hoped that he’d never have to see her again, never have to deal with emotions he didn’t even know existed before he’d laid eyes on her.

  “I just wanted to find my boy,” Daegan said. “I wasn’t running anywhere.”

  “Well, come over here,” Bibi said, motioning to Jon. She was frowning slightly, wrinkles showing near her mouth and over her eyes. “Yep, you look like a Sullivan.”

  “Indeed he does,” the small man standing near the staircase said. “Indeed he does.” Judging by the way the old goat acted like he owned the place, Jon guessed that this was his grandfather, Robert Sullivan.

  Daegan intervened. “You’ve heard the news—that the story’s gonna be in all the papers, that the police were called, and that Collin’s in the hospital, shot by VanHorn?”

  “Yes, I know.” Robert’s voice was clipped, his eyes filled with distrust. “But I’d still like to meet my grandson.”

  Kate stepped firmly between Jon and the elderly man. “He’s not your—”

  “Come, come. Let’s see you, boy.”

  Jon didn’t like being called a boy by anyone, but he whispered to Kate, “It’s all right, Ma. I can handle this.” Jaw so tight it ached, he walked up to the old man and stared down at him.

  “Big. Strapping. Do you do well in school?”

  “Christ,” Bibi said, drawing on her cigarette.

  “I hate school.”

  Bibi laughed. “Takes after his father.”

  Robert wasn’t amused. “Oh, no, no, no.” He wagged a finger at Jon’s nose. “A boy’s lessons are the building blocks of life. They store knowledge and create character.”

  Jon zoned out and looked at Kate. He couldn’t believe this old geezer was for real. Eli McIntyre with his moonshine and whittling knife had been more of a grandfather to him than this guy could ever hope to be.

  “Sir?” the butler inquired, softly rapping on the door. “There’s a call for Mr. O’Rourke.”

  Daegan left the room and Jon felt suddenly adrift in a sea of people he despised, people who all had plans for him, one way or the other. Except for Kate. She was standing next to him, looking as nervous as he felt.

  The old man started asking him questions—stupid things like whether he played lacrosse, and what were his scores on the SATs. Near as he could tell, he wasn’t coming up with the right answers because the guy’s smile, so bright when Jon had entered the room, began to fade.

  Daegan returned to lean insolently against the corner of a bookcase. “Okay, so let’s figure out where we are. I just talked to a detective friend of mine. The important thing is that Jon is leaving with Kate and the adoption papers are going to be reworked so that there are no complications, that the adoption is legal here in Massachusetts and any damned state in the union.”

  “Wait a minute, the boy might want to stay with us and—”

  Jon shook his head. “The ‘boy’ wants to go home,” he said. “I didn’t want to come here in the first place and I can’t wait to leave.”

  Daegan seemed satisfied. “That’s pretty explicit, I’d say.”

  “It doesn’t matter to me,” Bibi said, squashing out her smoke and sighing loudly. “Kyle’s already having second thoughts.” She stood and walked up to Jon. “I didn’t mean to foul up your life, okay? I wanted you to be happy and…and I wasn’t cut out to be a mother.”

  A muscle bulged in Jon’s jaw and he glared at the woman who bore him, who gave him life, then gave him up. “I didn’t ask for an explanation.”

  “No, you didn’t, did you? Hell, I can’t get anything right.” Tears stood in her blue eyes and she forced a smile at Kate. “You’ve got yourself a good boy there. Take care of him.”

  “I will,” Kate promised, surprised at the grudging respect she felt for this woman.

  “Good.” Bibi dusted her hands on the front of her skirt. A tear slid from her eye as she cast one final look at her son. “You be good,” she said. “If I hear you’re messing up, I’ll swoop down on you like a screaming bat from hell. Believe me, that’s not a pretty sight.”

  “Jon,” Robert said. “You must reconsider. I could do so much for you.”

  “Leave him alone,” Kate said, placing a supportive hand on Jon’s shoulder.

  But Jon wasn’t afraid to face Robert now. “It’s not going to happen,” Jon said. “Look, you paid some loser to kidnap me. Like I’m going to give up my life and the people who care about me because you’ve got money?” Jon shot a look at Bibi Sullivan, and for a moment, he actually felt sorry for her, a grown woman still under her father’s thumb, stuck in an unhappy world.

  “We’re not simply about money,” Robert said, his furry eyebrows rising. “We have high standards, a family code.”

  “Would that involve killing off family heirs?” Jon said. “Because your niece Alicia was making big plans to do me in.”

  Robert shifted uncomfortably and Bibi’s jaw dropped. “That bitch!” she said as her pack of cigarettes fell from her fingers.

  “Don’t worry about Alicia,” Robert said. “She has no power.”

  “Not after the police get wind of her plans,” Daegan said, heading toward the wide double door. “Alicia might be keeping her father company in the big house, which is where Frank is headed. My source told me Frank is at the police station now. It looks like he’s going to be charged with Stuart’s murder.”

  “Frank?” Robert’s throat worked, his eyes narrowing to slits. “Whatever for? You’re the one who killed my boy, O’Rourke. We all knew that.”

  Silent wrath glinted in Daegan’s eyes. “Collin confessed today, in front of a handful of witnesses. Apparently he was there, he saw it all, and the guilt has weighed on him for years. Frank did it, Robert. Your brother murdered your only son.”

  “I don’t believe you!” Robert railed.

  Jon was relieved to feel his mother’s pressure on his shoulder, guiding him out of the room. They were out in the foyer when Daegan answered, “Fine, old man. Live with your lies.” Just let the old guy sit and rot in his mansion, Jon thought as the butler swung open the big walnut door for them. It would feel great to say good-bye to these crazies.

  And then, he was stepping out into the snow, flanked by Kate and Daegan, his mother and his father. It had been a shitty week, but Jon knew things were going to get better. He’d escaped, he’d found his father, and he was going home. It didn’t get much better than that.

  Trying to respect Jon’s desires not to be babied, Kate was content to let him wash his swollen wrists at Laura’s house, then douse them with disinfectant. Only when Jon was asleep in Laura’s guest room did Daegan take Kate’s hand and lead her outside, down the stairs, and onto the street. The night was alive with lights and traffic and people hurrying down the street. Despite the mood, Kate pulled up the collar of her jacket and tried to get warm. She felt a loneliness burrowing deep in her soul.

  “I don’t know whether I should curse you or thank you,” she said, pulling he
r hand from his.

  “Thank me. That sounds better,” he joked, but she couldn’t scare up a smile.

  “Okay, I will. Thanks for finding Jon and bringing him back to me. I…I appreciate it, but I can’t forget that you were the reason he was in danger, that you lied to us both, that you used us, that you were going to accept money for—”

  “That wouldn’t have happened.”

  “But you didn’t tell me why you were in town, you let me believe that you cared about me, about Jon…” she said, hating the words that tumbled out of her mouth, wishing she could alter the course of the future.

  “I did. I do. I always will.”

  She touched the side of his face with her chilled fingers and he held them there, against his skin. “I wish I could believe you,” she said.

  “So it wouldn’t matter to you if I told you not only was I sorry, but that I wanted to change things.”

  The night seemed to grow still. There was a lull in the traffic, and somewhere, not too far away, church bells pealed, resounding through the darkness. “How?” she asked, hardly moving, listening over the sound of her pounding heart.

  “I think I’d like to start over. With you. With Jon.”

  “With a clean slate?”

  “For the most part,” he said, his gaze drifting to her lips.

  She trembled, but not from the cold. Oh, Lord, how she wanted to believe him, how she needed to trust him. Tears filled her throat, but she refused to cry, refused to be weak. Yes, she loved him, but he, the liar, the man with the secret past and hidden life, could never be trusted. And who could say how long he’d stay? A drifter by nature, a man who had run from his past for fifteen years.

  “No family in Montana? No wife and child?” she taunted.

  “There never was either.” He kissed her fingers.

  “And all those brothers up in Canada?”

  “Nah, they don’t exist.” Another kiss.

  “What about the cousins in Boston?” she asked, drawing her hand away.

  “They’re a part of my life long over. The only person I care about here is my mother and she won’t see me. Still has her priorities all screwed up and pledges her allegiance to Frank Sullivan, the god of adultery.”