by Dana Mason
“Bennett caught her before she hit the floor, she couldn’t have hit her head.”
A hand cupped her face. “Sunshine, can you open your eyes?”
She tried to turn toward his voice but her body felt so heavy she wasn’t sure if her efforts were working.
“She’s moving. Back up and give her some room.” Mark’s commanding voice overshadowed the others.
Soft, warm lips touch her face near her ear. “Ali, sweet, can you open your eyes?” Johnny whispered after kissing her cheek.
Ali shifted, turning into his chest to hide her face. Reality drifting into her consciousness…a reality she didn’t what to face. She wanted to hide in Johnny’s chest until the world around her disappeared, until everyone around her forgot she existed and forgot she was the mother of a lost boy—of a dead boy.
Chapter Twenty
Ali squirmed and tried lifting her hand, but it dropped back to her lap with a thud. Seconds later an animal-like, gut-wrenching, snarling scream broke from her lips.
The room filled with sympathetic gasps then a ringing of voices called her name. Johnny felt the scream straight to his gut, like a sucker punch he never saw coming. When everyone started talking at once, he stood and carried her up the stairs to her bedroom. She didn’t need an audience for this. She needed some peace and a moment to breathe.
She trembled violently as he carried her up the stairs, and the more she trembled, the more frightened he became. What if he lost them both? Ali and Micah.
When her hands gripped his shirt, he felt a hint of relief. She was coming around slowly. “Ali, sweet, it’s okay. I’m here and your sister’s here. Can you open your eyes?”
He gently lowered himself onto her bed and leaned his face against hers. “Alison, please open your eyes. Let me see you.” When she took a deep shuddering breath, so did he. He looked up into Melissa’s red rimmed eyes, not sure what to do next.
When Ali inhaled again he said, “That’s good. Take another deep breath.”
“Should we take her to the hospital?”
“With all those reporters out there trying to get a story, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Johnny said as he stroked her hair and rocked her. “She’s hardy eaten anything. I made her a plate last night, but she only took a couple of bites.”
“Have you eaten? You look almost as bad as she does.”
“I’ll eat when she eats,” he whispered.
“Did you hear that, Ali? He won’t eat until you do. You better come out of this and eat before he starves,” Melissa said.
Ali jerked when Melissa said her name.
Johnny squeezed her softly. “Ali, can you open your eyes now?” He propped her up a little better and gently brushed her face with his hand. “Some of her color is coming back.—Sweetheart, please open your eyes.”
She blinked rapidly, as if trying to focus.
“Hey…there you are. Welcome back, baby,” Johnny said when she made eye contact. “How are you feeling?”
Melissa stepped up, placing a wet cloth over Ali’s forehead. “Hey, Sissy.”
“What happened,” Ali croaked out.
Johnny’s eyes squinted. “You passed out. Do you remember anything?”
She shook her head trying to focus on Melissa again.
Melissa ran a hand through Ali’s hair and gave her a tight smile. “You scared the hell out of everyone. I’m going to run downstairs and tell them you’re awake so they’ll stop pacing holes in your floor.”
Ali turned back to Johnny.
“Hey,” he said sweetly.
“Are you okay?” Ali asked.
Johnny shook his head and gripped her to his chest. “No, I’m not okay.” He tried to catch his breath. “You scared the daylights out of me.” It was all he could do not to sob.
“Hey,” she slurred. “I’m okay.” She lifted her hand and rested it on his bowed head. “Johnny,” she said in a surprisingly clear voice.
He pulled back to look at her, trying to see her through his tears
“Is my Micah dead?”
He frowned and said, “I don’t know, sweetheart.”
When her sobs slowed, Johnny said, “I’ll let you up but go slow, you might be dizzy, okay?”
“I’m sorry I scared you,” she said leaning up into a sitting position.
“Don’t apologize, but take care of yourself. Eat, please.”
“The thought of eating turns my stomach.”
“Believe it or not, it turns my stomach too, but we still have to stay strong. I promise to try…if you promise to try.” He reached out for her when she tried to stand. “Just go slow, your body needs another minute to recover.”
Ali inched off the bed slowly, her mind settling on the baby’s body they’d found.
“You okay now?” he asked looking up at her.
“Weak, like I’ve been beaten up. You didn’t knock me around while I was out of it did you?” She tried to smile, but she just couldn’t follow through. “I’m sorry. Thank you for taking care of me. I’ll hold it together so I can be here for you too.” She pulled his worried face to her stomach as he wrapped his arms around her waist.
She stroked his hair with trembling hands and took several deep breaths. “Do you think…” She tried to put some conviction behind what she wanted to ask. “Would I feel it if Micah were dead? Would I know…would I feel it in my soul?”
Johnny shook his head and shrugged. “I didn’t feel anything when my parents died. Once they told me, I felt empty and kind of…shocked, but I didn’t sense it beforehand.” Johnny pulled his head back and looked up into her eyes.
Ali cupped his wet face in her hands. “I love you.”
He cleared his throat and whispered a harsh, “I love you too.”
“I want to go talk to Brian and Agent Peters.”
When she swayed, he gripped her tighter. “Are you dizzy?”
She nodded and brought her hand to her forehead and leaned over trying to get her bearings. “I’ll help you get down there, just go slow,” he said.
When they entered the dining room everyone looked up at her with pity on their faces.
“Hi,” she said looking from person to person.
Almost all of them said, “Hi,” in sequence with each other.
Johnny helped her sit down in one of the high backed chairs then sat next to her.
She waited until Agent Peters was off the phone before voicing her questions. When he hung up, Ali said, “Do you have any news yet? Anything on the body that was found?”
“No, we’ve sent over a picture, we’re waiting for the coroner to confirm or deny.”
“Do you think it may be Micah?”
“I can’t speculate, Ali. I would love to be able to tell you for sure that it’s not him, but we can’t be sure and I won’t give you false hope.”
“Brian?” Ali said in a tearful voice. “Can you speculate? Do you know anything…an educated guess? Anything?”
The cloudiness in Brian’s eyes made her stomach turn flips. He was scared too, he couldn’t hide it as well as he thought. “Some of my guys got a look at the boy and they don’t think it’s Micah—but, before you get your hopes up, none of them have seen Micah in the flesh so they can’t be positive.”
“The coroner will compare Micah’s weight and height and any birth marks with the information you gave us and the information from his pediatrician,” Peters said. “We’ll know for sure in a few hours. If there’s any question someone will have to go identify the body.”
Ali fought the despair that was slowly enveloping her. She stood and walked to the window, wrapping her arms around her shoulders and wishing with everything she had to hold Micah within her embrace again. When Carl approached, she stared at him, lackin
g the energy she needed to step away from him. “Honey, it’s not him. Let’s just focus on—“
Johnny moved to block Ali. “Back off, Hayes!”
“I’m just trying to…talk to her. She’s upset. I can’t watch and not comfort her.”
“I’ll comfort her—you don’t touch her.”
“Alison, I didn’t mean for any of this…” He shook his head and Ali thought he might actually shed a tear. “I’m sorry you’re hurting. Hurting you was never my intention.”
Ali looked up at him, holding on to the indifference—no, the hatred she needed to feel for him. “But, Carl, I’m not the only person you’ve hurt.”
Carl nodded jerkily and turned, walking out the sliding glass door and at the same time, Ali turned and looked back up at Johnny. “What the hell was that?”
Johnny shrugged and squeezed her shoulders, then lifted his hand and brushed it against her cheek. “Why don’t you go splash some cold water on your face and lay down.” He glanced over at Melissa and Julie for back up. “You’ve had a rough day and I don’t want you to overdo it.”
Melissa cupped her hand around Ali’s elbow. “We’ll go up with you, Al. You should get some rest, you need to recoup after what happened today. They’ll come get us if they hear anything else.”
“But…” her chin quivered involuntarily. A deep seeded weepiness pushing her to surrender even when she just wanted to know what was happening to her son. “I want to be here when they find out about…”
“We’ll let you know right away,” Brian said. “Babe, let Jules and Lis take you upstairs to get some rest or you’re going to force us to take you to the ER. You look like you’re about ready to collapse again.”
Ali nodded, defeated and too drained to argue.
Johnny stayed behind, he wanted to keep an eye on Carl. Why was he apologizing for Ali being hurt? He couldn’t be referring to the divorce. Why apologize here…and now?
Johnny, Mark, and Brian stared as Carl paced the patio. Then Mark narrowed his eyes and stepped out. Brian and Johnny both strolled over to the open window to listen to the conversation, with their eyes locked on each other’s.
“What’s your game, Carl?” Mark asked.
From what he could see through the window, Carl looked as if he was trying to pull off confused, but Johnny wasn’t buying it.
“What are you playing at—why are you here?”Mark ticked the questions off, pointing at Carl. “Why are you acting concerned all of the sudden? You haven’t been around in months and now you come here worried about Micah.”
“I’m worried about her!” Carl snarled. “Contrary to popular belief I do love her.”
“Really?” Mark’s voice rose. “Is that why you tried touching another woman while Ali was in labor with your child?”
“You don’t know shit about me, Mark, so don’t act like you do,” Carl said dropping down into a patio chair. “I didn’t want to be a father. I’m forty-six years old. I didn’t want to start over with a baby. I love Jamie. Having him here was great, he was self-sufficient and a good kid…but I never wanted a baby.”
“Then why did you marry her?”
“I love her—believe it or not! I told her from the beginning I didn’t want kids. I never lied about that. Ask her why she got pregnant regardless of my feelings—she assumed I would change my mind when she told me about the baby.”
“That doesn’t excuse what you did,” Mark said.
“What I did—I never wanted to hurt her. If I didn’t do something drastic to make her hate me, it would never be over. She kept trying to make it work, kept coming back for me. She was scared to death of another failed marriage. She’d be married to me for the rest of her life and be completely miserable just to save face.”
“What?” Mark sneered. “Are you telling me you planned that, you purposely used Sarah to get out of your marriage? You mother fucker!”
Brian pulled the door open and stepped outside and Johnny knew it was to break up the impending fight.
“I’m sorry,” Carl said bowing his head.
“Don’t even try to play the martyr here. What did you think that would do to Sarah? Did it ever occur to you that she had already been through enough? You son of a bitch!”
“Whoa, what’s going on?” Brian asked moving between them as Mark started pacing.
“I wasn’t thinking about Sarah. I needed an out, Ali was having a baby. I told you—I got desperate and freaked out. It wasn’t planned, I just did it without thinking.”
“You’re the most selfish bastard I’ve ever met in my fucking life, you fucking scumbag,” Mark shouted. “And you did this to Ali, hurt her—the woman you just insisted you love!”
“If I didn’t do something unforgivable, she never would’ve ended it. Seemed better than staying in a bad—resentful marriage.” He scrubbed his face with his hands. “I thought it would be better for her too.”
“Oh—well how fucking kind of you to save her. How fucking nice of you to end your marriage that way, especially when you could’ve just left.”
“Have you done something else drastic?” Brian asked Carl. “Have you done something to Micah?”
“I never wanted the boy hurt.” He stood and walked passed Brian and Mark. Stepping back inside the house through the open door.
Johnny leaned against the kitchen counter, arms crossed over his chest. When Carl passed him, he said, “You had better not be involved with Micah’s kidnapping.” Carl ignored him and kept walking.
Mark stormed through the door a few seconds later. “I need to see my wife. I’ll be back later.”
Johnny stepped outside where Brian paced the backyard. “What doin’?”
Brian shook his head and kept pacing.
“So, I figure Carl got some creeps to kidnap Micah to get him out of the way,” Johnny blurted out.
Brian stopped pacing and looked at Johnny intensely.
“He either wanted to get Micah out of the way…or he wanted to get out of paying child support, maybe he even stands to profit from the sale of his own son…something like that. He did something, Brian.”
Brian nodded and went back to pacing. “Why would he want to get Micah out of the way—besides money?” Brian said it as if he were talking to himself.
“You heard him! He’s still in love with Ali, but he doesn’t want kids. Maybe he thought if Micah were gone he could get her back.” Johnny stepped in Brian’s path, wanting his undivided attention. “The only way Carl would know for sure that Micah is out of the picture would be if he made sure of it himself.”
“He emphasized he didn’t want ‘the boy hurt’ so either he assumes Micah is out of the way for good or he changed his mind about the baby,” Brian said.
“Did you get anything from the Chinese place?” Johnny asked.
“They have a camera mounted above the cash register, but the picture was worse than what we got from the original parking lot surveillance. Mark has Shane working to enhance the video from the Eastside Plaza’s surveillance. We got her getting into a car, the footage is better than what we got the first time so we’ll have a better shot of her, but we’re also trying to get a license plate number from the car.”
“Anything else you haven’t shared?”
Brian bowed his head. “Fuck, man, I’m not keeping you in the dark on purpose. You get that, right?”
“Yeah, I get it,” Johnny said. “I don’t like it, but I get it.”
“Shane finished up with the original footage. We got an enhancement of the driver in the silver car who plowed into you. Peters just released it to the press. Hopefully we can get some leads off it.”
“That’s good news. Two faces are better than one.”
“Exactly,” Brian said smiling. “People want him found, Bennett. I know being cooped
up in this house means you don’t get a lot of insight into what’s going on, but trust me when I tell you, the public support for this is strong.”
“Micah deserves nothing less.”
“Once we start circulating the pics from the surveillance, these fuckers won’t be able to hide.” Brian rubbed his hands together and said, “And once we got ‘em then we can find out how Hayes is connected to this thing.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Johnny thanked Melissa and Julie for their help then said his goodbyes. Once they were gone, he went up to check on Ali. He found her lying on the floor in Micah’s bedroom clutching the small blue fuzzy blanket again.
He tiptoed in and eased himself down on the floor next to her. “How are you holding up, sweetheart?”
“I’m not,” she whispered.
“Do you want me to leave you alone?”
She sat silent for a moment then said, “You don’t have to stay.”
How could he make her understand how much he didn’t want to be away from her? All he wanted was to hold her, feel her warmth against him and keep her safe within his arms. “Can I lay with you?” He reached out and stroked her hair down her back.
“Don’t feel obligated to be here. I’ll understand if you want to get out of this house and away from me.”
Johnny lay down behind her and wrapped his arms around her, trying to close the distance growing between them. “I don’t ever want to be away from you, please don’t talk like that.”
Lying on the floor with her, and with each passing hour, Johnny felt that space between them grow larger and the air around them grow colder. He’d been hopeful before, but as the minutes passed, he became more and more despondent and so did Ali.
As if sensing the distance too, Ali turned to him and cried into his chest, clutching the blanket like a lifeline. Johnny smelled the sweet scent of Micah on the blanket and it nearly stole his breath. His stomach tightened and it took all his focus not to throw it across the room.