by Jaycee Clark
Taking a deep breath, Ryan said, “I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to remember any of it. But I have to. I have to tell you, and the other.” Before she gets here.
Wiggling, he scooted back into the deep couch. His feet stuck out because his knees no longer hit the edge of the couch. Pulling his knees up, he wrapped his arms around them.
Neither of his parents said a word. Parents. They were his parents.
“I’ve always wanted a family. A mom and a dad.”
His words squeezed Taylor’s heart. She looked over his head to Gavin, who questioned with his eyes. She smiled at him and nodded.
“Ryan,” he said. “You have a family now. Taylor is a wonderful mom, and I hope I’ll be half as good a dad.”
Ryan shrugged. “I’ve never had a dad.”
Gavin reached up and scratched his chin. “Well, I’ve never had a son, so I guess we’re starting on even ground.”
“Yeah,” her son answered.
Taylor smoothed his hair down again. When she’d heard him yell, heard the stumble, she’d been terrified he’d broken his neck on the stairs. She still didn’t know who’d left the kitchen first, her or Gavin, not that it mattered. They’d both raced down the hall to see Ryan curled up near the bottom of the steps. He hadn’t fallen, thank God, but she still didn’t know what had happened.
Gavin cleared his throat, but before he could say anything, Taylor butted in. “Ryan, Gavin and I are worried about you. Please talk to us. We can help.”
A long silence passed. Finally, very quietly, he whispered, “They killed a cop.”
“What?” both she and Gavin asked at the same time.
Ryan sighed, then squirming, he explained. “You know in Austin, when she ran off with me?”
Like Taylor would ever forget those terror-filled days. “Yes,” she answered, swallowing past the knot in her throat.
“Well, we were in some apartment. I don’t know where. I kept trying to get away, to call the cops or you. So that night they locked me in my room.”
They?
“I heard them leave. It was cold and I had to go to the bathroom. I just couldn’t figure out how to get out of the room. I finally remembered a movie I saw where someone took the door off the hinges. It took forever, and I had to climb on top of this chest of drawers to get to the top hinge, but I finally got the door off just before they got home.”
Her poor, smart little boy.
“I was coming back out of the bathroom and wanted a bite of something. That’s when I heard their voices. He was yelling at her for not being sharp enough and that she was just as much to blame as him. Nina was burning a rock on some foil.”
His nose scrunched up. “I hate that smell, like cleaners or something. That’s how she’d get high sometimes. Then, she started screaming she wasn’t going down for killing a cop. She hadn’t iced him. Yeah, that’s what she said, ‘iced.’” His small shoulders shrugged. “Anyway, they got in this argument, something about drugs and a bust and a cop they killed.”
Good God. Her son’s voice sounded distant, as though relating a scene from a movie.
But then it wavered. “I figured I wasn’t supposed to hear this story, so I tried to turn to go back down the hall but they saw me.” He took in deep breath. “Johnny came flying at me. He was hitting me and kicking me. That’s how my arm got broke. Then he picked me up.” Ryan’s hand rubbed at his throat. “But I couldn’t breathe. His hands just kept squeezing. I’ll never forget his eyes. They were like sharp green glass, but all red too. I know they were both tripping. I just wanted to get back to you,” he said, turning to look at Taylor. His eyes darted away.
But what she’d seen in them. Oh, baby. Taylor laid her cheek on top of his head. “I was looking for you. I didn’t eat or sleep. I just wanted to find you. I couldn’t stand you being gone and knowing you were with her. I’m sorry, so sorry, Ryan.”
Tears pricked her eyes, but she swallowed them back.
“She actually stopped him,” he whispered. “Nina told him to stop, begged him to let me go. And he did, finally. That’s the only time I’d ever been thankful to her. But it didn’t last long. She picked me up and hit me, but I was already trying to jerk away. That’s when I fell through the window, or maybe she pushed me. I guess someone had called the cops because the last thing I heard was the sirens.”
“Christ,” Gavin muttered. His hand was fisted on the back of the couch. Taylor left one arm around Ryan and with the other reached up and rubbed Gavin’s shoulder. Their eyes locked.
Taylor was taken aback by the look in his, but comforted too. Cold and sharp as a sapphire, his eyes glowed with rage. A muscle bunched in his jaw. Beneath the charm of humor lurked a warrior.
Taylor looked back at her son. Tears no longer fell from his eyes, but his hands were clasped together so tightly, the knuckles were white.
“How long have you remembered this?” Taylor asked him softly.
He shrugged. “Bits and pieces for a while, but it all came rushing back tonight on the stairs after . . .”
After?
“After what?” Gavin asked, his voice tight.
Ryan shook his head.
Taylor decided on a different track, something that no one had apparently known until now. “Ryan, you said ‘they’ were arguing, and he—Johnny—hurt you. Who do you mean? Do you remember?”
He closed those sky-blue eyes and thought. Shaking his head he said, “I don’t know. Johnny Haines, Harris, Hayes—something like that, I think.”
Johnny “H” with sharp green eyes. “Was he tall?”
Ryan gave her the duh look. “I’m nine. Everyone’s tall.”
Taylor found her first smile.
There had never been mention of another person. Another person who had tried to kill her son. Almost choked the life out of him. Taylor clamped down on the fear that speared through her, swallowed past the tightness. Instead, she concentrated on what he told them, the new information. “And they were arguing about killing a cop. Do you remember anything about the argument?”
His freckled forehead wrinkled in thought. “Something about a deal at a bar. I don’t know where.”
Taylor was impressed with what he did remember. It was months and months ago. “I’m sorry, sweetie. So sorry, I wish I could have spared you all that. I wish I could take it all away and make it better.”
Ryan leaned his head over onto her shoulder.
“She’s coming for me, Mama.”
Mama. Taylor’s heart flipped, she was going to cry after all.
“What?” she asked him. He called her Mama.
“She’s coming.”
“Who?” Gavin asked, giving her shoulder a squeeze this time. There was a softening around his mouth. He knew. He’d noticed.
Though Taylor felt like crying and laughing and hugging Ryan to her, she figured the bigger deal she made out of it, the more likely he would get embarrassed, and she wanted him to call her mama. Mama.
“Nina.”
The name jerked her attention back to the conversation. “What?”
Ryan took another deep breath, then another. His fingers drummed on his thigh. Gavin reached a hand out and laid it on top of one of Ryan’s.
“You’ve come this far. Don’t you want to get the rest out as well?”
Ryan nodded. Looking to Gavin, he asked, “Do you remember the other day in the car when I knew Taylor was crying?”
What were they talking about? Taylor looked to Gavin, whose attention was trained on her son—their son, she corrected. Gavin’s brows pulled down before he nodded.
“You never asked how I knew,” Ryan said.
No, he hadn’t, but he’d sure as hell wanted to. Gavin ran his tongue around his teeth. “Nope, I figured you would tell me when you were ready. Though, God knows, I wanted to ask a million times.”
Ryan ducked his head down. “Sometimes—sometimes I see things, or just know things.”
Gavin cut his eyes to Ta
ylor, who shook her head and shrugged. He could see the strain in her eyes, the pain and confusion.
“What do you mean, Ryan?” he asked this bright amazing boy. God, the things that had come out of his young mouth. Things no nine-year-old should know about. Rage fired through his blood. Gavin wanted to hit something, but he kept his voice steady and calm.
No wonder the kid never opened up to anyone. It was amazing he was as well adjusted as he was.
Finally, Ryan whispered, “I just see things, in my mind. Kinda like a movie or something, or like when you read a book and you get the picture in your mind. Ya know?”
“Okay, you see pictures in your mind. What kind of pictures?”
Ryan’s breathing started coming faster, quicker, his little chest beating out with the hurried intakes of air.
“Hey. Ryan. Deep breaths,” Gavin reminded.
“You’re safe here,” Taylor told him. “We won’t let anything happen to you.”
Ryan’s fisted hands thumped on his thighs, but he took several deep breaths.
“Is it about what happened?” Taylor asked him. “In Austin?”
The little head shook between them. “No, not really. Sometimes I just know when things are going to happen, or when they are happening. Not always. They’re not always right, don’t always make any sense. But sometimes I ‘see’ something and then it’ll happen.”
Ryan looked quickly from his mother back to him. His clear blue eyes were almost wild with panic. “It’s true. I swear it. I’m not making it up. I’m not crazy.”
“Of course you’re not crazy, sweetie,” Taylor said. “We don’t think you are.”
“I know you’re telling us the truth, Ryan. We don’t expect anything else,” Gavin told him.
“You believe me?” his young voice wavered. “I’m not making this up. Like in the hospital the day you two met. I knew before Taylor came home that she’d met a black-haired, blue-eyed doctor would come out and tell her the Gibbons girl didn’t make it. And that day in the car. And lots of other times, too.”
Gavin had no idea what to believe. But his great-grandmother believed in the Little People and that no sane person walked over a faerie ring. She was a devout Catholic. His mother believed in simply always knowing what the right thing was to do, and Jesslyn believed in the power of dreams.
Taylor laid her hand on Ryan’s head. “It’s okay, honey. I don’t think you’re making this up.”
But Ryan’s eyes were still locked on Gavin.
“What did you see that upset you so much?” Gavin asked him.
The boy took a deep shuddering breath. “It’s not real. It can’t be real,” he whispered brokenly. Tears filled his eyes. “I saw her in a bus wreck so I didn’t think anything of it, just a fluke, ya know?”
Actually, Gavin had no idea. Bus wreck?
“Who, Ryan?” Taylor asked.
“Nina. I saw her in a bus, with all these people around her.”
Taylor was obviously as lost as he was, but they would get to the bottom of what was terrifying this child.
“Okay. Why did that scare you?” Gavin asked him.
“No, not that. That didn’t scare me.” Hurried now, Ryan tried to explain. But upset, his explanation was scattered at best. “I saw her at school that way, sitting in math class. The teacher thought I was sick so she sent me to the nurse. Sometimes when I see things, bad things, my head hurts.”
Gavin looked hard at Ryan. “Does your head hurt now?”
Ryan shook his. “No, not really so much anymore. Not like it did. That’s why I sat down on the stairs. It was like this white-hot pain shooting through it. It’s never been like that before.”
Gavin wondered at that. Was the boy psychic? And what of the pain? As a doctor he was concerned, as a father, he was worried.
“Does it just hurt your head?”
Ryan’s hand waved him off. “I don’t care about my head. It’s what I saw. Last night, before you came in, I was getting ready for bed. I saw her again in a car on a highway. I don’t know where, but she was out.” Ryan turned back to Taylor. “Can she be out? Would we know? Would anyone have called us?” His questions all but tripped over each other.
“Calm down, honey,” Taylor said.
Huffing out a breath, Ryan all but leapt off the couch to stand in front of them. “You don’t believe me.” Hurt echoed his words, as his small hands fisted at his sides. “She’s out! She is. I’m not lying. I saw her. And she . . . And she . . . She . . .”
Again his breathing quickened. Gavin leaned up out of the couch and put his hands on Ryan’s shoulders. Ryan’s freckles stood out on his pale face. Pain, confusion and desperation warred in his eyes as he looked from Gavin to Taylor.
Gavin just looked at him.
“Deep breaths. I know.” And Ryan closed his eyes.
“I didn’t say I didn’t believe you, Ryan,” Taylor tried.
“Isn’t there someone you can call?”
“Yes,” both he and Taylor answered.
“Then call them. She’s out, Mama. She’s out and she’s coming here. Tonight, she . . . Tonight she . . .” Big tears rolled down those pale cheeks to drip off his chin.
Gavin couldn’t stand any more. He pulled Ryan into his arms. “Shhhh. It’s okay, champ. It’s okay.”
“No.” Ryan pulled out of his arms. “She killed them. She—she shot them. In—in their bed. Blood was everywhere.”
What was this? He looked to Taylor, who was worrying her lower lip, her brow furrowed in concern and worry.
“Who?”
Ryan’s chin trembled. He opened his mouth. “It wasn’t real. Tell me it wasn’t real.”
“What did you see, Ryan?” Taylor asked him gently.
“She was in a house. Our old house in Texas. I recognized the hallway.” He started to tremble. “She wanted to know where we were. Nina thought the woman was you so she—she just—she just shot her. She just shot her and she didn’t even care that it wasn’t. But he was yelling at her, and then she shot him too. Nina just shot them. Then she ran.”
He looked to Taylor, who sat without color.
“Charles? Rhonda?” she asked.
A jerky nod answered her question. Ryan was still trembling and crying. “She’s coming. She’s coming.”
Chapter 16
Nina Fisher was out. Taylor called Lieutenant Morris, since he was the only cop here she knew, and he called Gatesville.
Damn it.
She’d asked him to check out Charles too, but as yet, they’d heard nothing back.
It was nearly midnight, but Taylor was not remotely tired. She felt wired, jittery and frazzled. Gavin carried Ryan up the stairs and they both tucked him in, despite his murmurs and mumbles.
Poor Ryan. He finally fell asleep, having completely worn himself out. Both she and Gavin had sat with him until he fell asleep. Gavin told them faerie stories, about the Little People.
When Ryan finally fell asleep, she heard Gavin whisper something as he touched Ryan’s cheek. This I’ll defend. What did that mean?
Taylor leaned over and brushed the hair back off his forehead. She had no idea what to think of everything she’d heard that evening. Gavin’s hand on her shoulder pulled her gently back towards the door. She saw Ryan had already set his violin on its stand in the corner by his chair and music stand. The posters of faraway places and peoples should have calmed her. This was her home, her and Ryan’s, but his words worked on her nerves so that everything seemed like an illusion of peace and security. A fragile shell that could easily be ripped away by the hand of a revengeful junkie. Nina shadowed a danger over their lives.
With one last look at her son, she pulled the door almost closed, but left it cracked. Just in case.
In the hallway, Gavin turned her around and pulled her to him. They just held on. Simply held, as though both needed to make certain the other was there and safe.
She felt the weight of his kiss on her head.
“Come on,�
�� he whispered, pulling her with him.
Their footsteps echoed softly on the stairs as they descended hand in hand.
“What did he mean about the car and me crying?” she finally asked him.
Gavin let go of her hand and paced the length of the room and back. His hand ran through his hair. “We were coming here to pick you up and in the middle of a sentence he starts breathing hard and goes stark pale. Tori and Mom were talking to him and he never heard them. His eyes got this faraway look in them. Then, out of the blue he whispered your name. All he said, after he looked around and seemed to realize where he was, was that you were crying; that he was making you cry.” Gavin’s mouth turned rueful. “Charles. Kid hit that one right on.”
Taylor shook her head. “I had no idea. He never mentioned anything.” Of course, he’d been so adamant that they believe him. Perhaps his silence stemmed from fear. What else was new? Ryan and fear were practically brothers, born of the same abusive woman.
Gavin walked over and sat down on the couch beside her. “It’ll be okay,” he promised, pulling her to him. “No matter what we learn or hear. It’s going to be fine. I swear to you.”
He couldn’t promise her anything of the sort if Nina was out. But she didn’t say that. Instead, she laid her hand on his chest and her head on his shoulder.
“Well, we have more to discuss with Petropolis than we thought tomorrow, don’t we?”
“Hmmm . . .”
His hand covered hers and squeezed before his fingers slowly traced patterns on her inner wrist. Even with the gentle touch, she saw anger still fired his eyes, reminding her of the center of a flame. A muscle bunched in his jaw.
“Gavin?” she asked him.
His eyes cut to her, quickly and sharply. Where was her humorous charmer?
“Are you okay?”
“Fine.”
“You don’t sound fine. Do you want to talk about it?”
“No.”
Taylor pursed her lips, then drew them back between her teeth. “It’s hard, isn’t it?” she whispered.
Gavin didn’t answer her, but kept caressing the back of her hand and arm.
“Do you deal with this sort of thing day in and day out? I mean, I guess I always knew you did, and what with Amy Gibbons I knew. But my God. How can people be so . . .” He bit off the end on an oath.